Cath Staincliffe - Bleed Like Me

‘Okay,’ Gill said slowly.

Janet had the glass in her hand, something to hold on to. She took a swallow of wine. ‘I’m not well.’ Her throat tightened on hearing it aloud. ‘I’m sorry. They said there was a risk, after the surgery, that I’d get adhesions. Which means operating again.’

‘Oh, God,’ Gill said.

‘And I might have to go on the sick, long term. Or even retire.’

Gill looked shocked. ‘Janet. Does it hurt? When did you find out?’

‘I’ve not seen the GP yet but I will as soon as I can. But I looked it up; it’s all there. I can’t control my temperature, I get fever, headaches and nausea, bloating – that’s a main symptom. My digestion’s gone to pot, which is making me irritable… oh, I don’t know. I’ve been such a bitch at home. I’m so pissed off.’

Gill didn’t say anything for a moment but there was an odd look in her eyes, as though she was weighing something up. She had a drink, then said, ‘The fever – it comes on suddenly?’

‘Yes.’

‘You sweat at night?’

‘Buckets,’ Janet said.

‘What about your periods?’

‘Irregular. Well, non-existent at the moment,’ Janet said.

‘You daft cow,’ Gill said.

‘What?’ Gill was laughing at her when she was potentially facing the end of her life as a detective, about to be pensioned off, sick. ‘It’s not funny,’ she said angrily, feeling the heat bloom through her again and the irritation prick like thorns. ‘Christ, Gill, I expected a bit of bloody sympathy.’

‘It’s the menopause, you daft bat,’ Gill said.

‘What?’

Gill held up a hand. ‘Hot flushes, night sweats,’ ticking off a finger with each symptom, ‘bloating, headaches, mood swings.’

Janet was stunned.

‘Classic,’ Gill said. ‘You’re going through the change. It’s a bloody nightmare but a few years and you should be fine.’

‘Years!’

‘It varies,’ Gill allowed. She lifted her glass. ‘I’d still check with your GP to be on the safe side, but if I’m wrong you can sue me.’

Not adhesions? No surgery? No enforced retirement? Janet covered her eyes, embarrassed and hugely relieved, close to tears.

‘You’ll have to do better than that to pull a long-term sickie on me,’ Gill said.

‘So… you?’

‘Got off lightly so far. Can see the light. Now… I hear the flooding is probably the worst. You might want to invest in rubber sheets. And then there’s the depression, of course.’

‘Spare me,’ Janet said, feeling giddy now. A reprieve. A big, fat, bloody wonderful reprieve.

The vacuum cleaner wasn’t picking up properly. Rachel did her best but there were still feathers stuck fast to the carpet when she was done. She half expected the people from the other flat to complain, but when else was she going to get a chance to hoover? Six a.m. wouldn’t be any better. It was going on for eleven and she couldn’t settle. She tried channel-hopping then switched the TV off and got a book she’d been reading, an American true crime tome about the development of forensics, but she couldn’t concentrate on that either.

‘Fuck it!’ she said aloud, and decided she had to get out. It took exactly twenty minutes for her to shower, throw on some slap, get dressed. The taxi took another five minutes and she was at the bar before midnight, ordering a vodka tonic. It was busier than she had expected and the people who’d been there longer were partying now, some of them rowdy. It was a club that the police knew and used, so it was unlikely that anything much would kick off bar a fist fight between two coppers shagging the same woman. Or man. There was always a lot of shagging around in the police service, whether because of being thrown together in sometimes dangerous situations, or being in one big gang, or something to do with the effect of wearing uniforms, Rachel had no idea. She wasn’t here looking for an affair, not even a one-night stand, but a bit of attention, a bit of company, a bit of a laugh would hit the spot.

His name was Graham or Greg and he worked in IT, he said. Which could mean anything. She was about to get her second drink and he’d come to the bar, just behind her, making eye contact in the mirror and then asking if she was on her own and could he buy her a drink. He was Welsh, from Cardiff, and a few times she had to ask him to repeat himself so she could work out what he was saying. He was attractive in a sort of baby-faced way, with puppy-dog eyes and tousled hair. Rachel told him she worked in personnel. No need to confuse matters with her real identity. He was in Manchester for a conference at Manchester Central. It was hard to hear him above the music and when he suggested a dance she was happy to oblige. The drinks kept coming, the tunes kept playing. Rachel let the noise fill her head, let the dancing loosen her limbs and make her breathless, ignoring the ache in her battered muscles.

Graham or Greg leant in close and asked if she’d like to get some air. Not particularly, she thought, but a fag’d be good. She nodded and they set off for the exit, and he caught her arm and gestured. Her coat, she was forgetting her coat.

Her ears were ringing and the air was cold but dry outside. ‘I’m only just round the corner,’ he said, ‘if you fancy?’

Rachel began to laugh, which made lighting her cigarette very difficult.

‘Here.’ He took her lighter from her, used it and handed it back. ‘What’s happened there?’ he said. ‘Your hands?’

‘Skating,’ Rachel said. On thin ice.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘What d’you reckon then?’ he said.

‘All right,’ she said.

The street was cobbled, which made walking particularly challenging, but he took her arm and they made it to his hotel without her breaking her neck.

He kissed her in the lift, his breath coming quickly, groaning when they reached his floor and he had to stop.

His room was at the front, looking out over the city centre. Rachel had a sudden, sickening flashback to Nick’s flat, not far from here, and her at the window gazing out at the lights, him nuzzling her neck and begging her to come back to bed.

Rachel swung round and almost fell over. ‘Whoops!’

‘Steady, man, you’d better sit down,’ Greg or Graham said.

‘You got a minibar?’ Rachel said.

‘Sure. What’s your poison?’

‘Brandy,’ she told him. She sat on the edge of the bed, pulled off her shoes. Watched him fix the drinks. He brought hers over. Took off his shoes and jacket. Joined her on the bed. Kissed her again, one hand going round her back, the other stroking her breast. Rachel felt a rush of excitement, imagined him on her, inside her. She felt for his crotch, felt him hard.

She pulled back. ‘One minute.’ She went to the bathroom and emptied her bladder. Looked in the mirror, grinning to herself, and feeling dizzy, wanton. Savouring the sensation.

‘All right, kid?’ Her father, in the mirror, grinning back, happy-drunk, a rollie in one hand, can in the other.

‘Fuck off!’ she said, the room tilting.

‘You okay in there?’ called What’s-his-face.

Rachel closed her eyes but that made her feel worse. ‘You will not fucking ruin this,’ she told her father. ‘You ruined everything else, well you can fuck off back to the mortuary.’ She ran cold water over her hands, pressed them to her cheeks. Went back out.

‘You were swearing,’ Taffy said.

‘Stubbed my toe,’ Rachel said. And then it came over her, like a wave, sadness as if someone had snapped the lights off, stopped the music. Filling her mouth and throat, her belly. Even as he held his hand out to her, his shirt open, belt gone.

I can’t, she thought, I can’t. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t- I’ve got to go.’