Cath Staincliffe - Ruthless

‘My daughter,’ Janet said, ‘she’s taken the same drug. Would it be possible to have someone check her out?’

‘Any symptoms at the moment?’

‘Just dizzy,’ Elise said, ‘and I’ve got a headache.’

‘Fill this in with your details.’ She passed them a form.

Janet helped Elise complete the form and Janet returned it, then she got Elise a drink of water from the fountain and stepped outside to call Vivien. It was tempting to wait for more news, better news, but Janet knew that they would be absolutely desperate for every morsel of information. It would be cowardly not to ring her now and tell her.

Vivien must have had the phone in her hand, she answered immediately. ‘Janet?’

‘We’re at the hospital,’ Janet said. ‘Olivia is in resuscitation.’

‘Oh God.’

‘We haven’t seen her yet, but she’s young, she’s strong.’

‘Yes,’ Vivien said.

Janet felt her eyes prick. She sniffed. ‘I’ll ring you as soon as we know anything else.’

‘Thank you.’

Elise kept nodding off, reminding Janet of when she was a little girl and would fall asleep at the dinner table or in the shopping trolley. Elise complained she was hot but when Janet felt her she was clammy. She made her drink more water, wondering whether they should ask again about seeing a doctor.

Janet rang Ade, speaking with a calmness that belied her true state. Telling him the minimum – not that there was much more to tell.

‘Good God, shall I come down?’ he said.

‘No, stay with Taisie. I’ll ring you when we know what’s happening.’

‘What the hell was she doing taking drugs?’ he said. ‘She’s fifteen.’

‘Not now,’ Janet said.

‘Do you need me to do anything?’

‘No, thanks, we’ll see you later.’

Elise’s name was called and Janet went with her. The triage nurse took her pulse, blood pressure and temperature and listened to her heart. She made a note of the circumstances.

‘Your pulse is quite high and your temperature too but I don’t think we need to give you anything at the moment. Something like this, we’ve no idea what’s in it so we don’t have any antidotes and we don’t know if other drugs will create an adverse reaction. So, plenty of fluids and don’t go to sleep. You are staying here?’

‘Yes,’ Janet answered.

‘If there’s any sudden change, let someone know,’ the nurse said.

Janet sat with Elise, bone weary, stomach fizzing with acid. New casualties arrived, those with minor ailments waited. Some stepped outside for a cigarette, ignoring all the signs forbidding smoking anywhere near the building. Janet fleetingly wished she smoked, something to break the tension of waiting, a salve for the stress.

Dark-haired and fine-featured, Olivia was Elise’s firm friend, had been for years. She was a gymnast, would challenge Taisie, the sportier of Janet’s girls, to cartwheel competitions on the rare occasions when Elise let Taisie tag along with them.

An ambulance pulled in and there was a rush of activity. She heard someone say RTA. A road traffic accident. Someone else’s world suddenly brought to a halt by a twist of fate.

This time last year, near enough, Janet had been waiting for news of her mother, who was undergoing emergency surgery. But it had all turned out OK, Dorothy was fit and well again now.

It was another hour before someone came to Janet, asked her to come through to a room along the corridor. Elise grasped her hand, stayed close.

A middle-aged, softly spoken man with shiny brown eyes the exact shade of Maltesers greeted them, and invited them to sit.

‘When Olivia arrived at the hospital she was suffering from serious heart failure. We attempted to revive her using emergency procedures, but I am afraid there were complications.’

Elise yelped, letting go of Janet and covering her face with her hands. Janet pulled her close, held her with one arm around her back and one hand stroking her hair.

‘I am very, very sorry but…’

Janet had said the words herself, dozens of times, so sorry, so very sorry to tell you, to tell you, dead, died, your wife, sister, friend, son, mother, brother, daughter, so sorry . In living rooms and kitchens and hallways and workplaces.

Janet’s vision blackened and she felt a fist of shock clutch at her own heart as he said, ‘… I have to tell you that Olivia died as a result of the problems with her heart. There was nothing else we could do.’

Elise began to sob, her face pressed into Janet’s chest, the vibrations travelling through Janet’s body.

‘Her parents?’ Janet said, almost a whisper.

‘They will be informed as soon as they arrive. I am sorry,’ the doctor repeated, ‘please take as long as you like in here. I will put a sign on the door so you will not be disturbed.’

Janet closed her eyes. She heard the clunk of the door as he closed it. She felt the heat of Elise’s tears, the way her body trembled, listened to her cries, raw, guttural sounds that tore at Janet’s heart.

It was a loss of innocence for Elise, Janet knew. One of those moments when the world slips and everything you understand, all you are, changes. Leaving you older, wiser, tainted, and less open, less trusting. The enormity of what had happened kept hitting Janet afresh. She was no stranger to sudden death, it was the staple of her work, but the fact of Olivia dead, so young, such a random thing, the thought of Elise’s future unravelling without her best friend, of that absence going on and on for ever, seemed unreal and ridiculous.

‘Can we go home?’ Elise looked at her, face stark with misery, hair tangled, salt traces on her cheeks where her tears had dried.

‘We need to stay here, see Vivien and Ken.’

‘I don’t want to,’ she said shrilly, frightened. ‘I don’t want to see them.’

‘I know, but we can’t just run away,’ Janet said.

We have to wait. No matter how tired and stressed they were, they had to wait to see Vivien and Ken. To be there, bear witness.

They stayed in the little room. Janet went for drinks, coffee for herself and hot chocolate for Elise. They sat and drank them in shell-shocked silence.

When Elise began to cry again, quietly and shielding her eyes, Janet went and sat next to her and let her cry. Eventually Elise’s breathing altered, became slow and shallow and Janet felt the tension in her body ease. She slumped into her mother. The nurse had said to keep her awake but that was hours ago now and Janet didn’t believe she was going to choke on her own vomit sitting upright next to her.

Janet’s phone rang, horribly loud in the boxy room, and Elise stirred. Janet checked the display – Vivien – and let it ring until her voicemail kicked in. What else could she do? Answer and lie about how Olivia was? Answer and tell Vivien and Ken that their daughter was dead? Not the sort of news you gave over the phone to someone who was driving in a desperate hurry. She set her phone to vibrate only. Didn’t listen to the voicemail.

There was a knock at the door. ‘Sorry, cleaning,’ the man, an African, said. He used a mop to wipe the floor. Then went on his way.

Some time later another knock and the doctor was back with Vivien and Ken. Janet saw that they had already been told, Vivien, white-faced, a look of utter devastation on her face, Ken, pale and trembling.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Janet said, standing to embrace Vivien. ‘I am so, so sorry.’

‘Olivia,’ Vivien was in shock, ‘Olivia,’ repeating her daughter’s name over and over again as if she’d call her back.

Alison answered the door to Rachel. ‘You all right?’

‘Fine, brought your bag back.’ Rachel twirled the clutch bag this way and that. Not her style but she’d needed it for the wedding and Alison had asked her a few times since if she could return it. ‘Have you lost it?’ she’d said the last time, getting suspicious. ‘No, I just keep forgetting,’ Rachel had told her. Now Rachel moved her head and winced, feeling the bruises Neil Perry had inflicted on her.