Mine To Lose (10 page)

I was sitting in my office filling Pam in on the events that took place over the weekend. For some reason, I held back the incident in the restaurant. As a mother of two adult children herself, I didn’t want her looking at Jordan in a bad light. I didn’t mind telling her about the day to day moans and gripes I had with him as she shared the same with me about her husband, Stanley. But there was something different about how he had acted that night. If I weren’t trying my hardest to keep looking at our marriage through rose tinted glasses, red flags would have been raised. I knew the signs, but I suppose I just didn’t want to see them. A tap on the door put a momentary halt to our conversation.

‘Carol’s brother’s here,’ Martin said, poking his head in.

Pam closed the file on her desk and rose to her feet. ‘I’ll make myself scarce. You can see him in here.’

‘Thanks, Pam.’

‘I’ll bring him through,’ Martin said.

Once alone, I straightened my desk and pulled out a chair for Carol’s brother to sit on. It was only then I realised I didn’t even know his name.

The door opened, and Martin entered first followed by a tall, slender man. A lump lodged itself in my throat. He was the spitting image of Carol, only the male version. Blond hair, sculptured features and kind eyes. He must have noticed my reaction because as he held out his hand to shake mine, he said, ‘Carol and I are … were twins,’ he quickly corrected himself.

He lowered his eyes to the ground but not before I saw the tears welling in them.

‘Thanks, Martin,’ I said, indicating for him to leave. I didn’t want the poor man to feel as if he had an audience at what must have been a very emotional time for him.

‘Please sit down …’

‘Carl,’ he filled in for me.

He sat down, and I followed suit. After a few seconds of silence, he spoke, his voice tight with emotion. ‘Carol spoke highly of you. She said you helped her a lot.’

I frowned. ‘I thought ...’

‘No, she didn’t tell me what was happening to her. Not in person anyway.’ His hand moved to his pocket, and he withdrew a phone with a pink case. I immediately recognised it as Carol’s. I had to blink away the tears that threatened to fall as I remembered the circumstances in which I’d last held it.

‘It’s all in here. She left a video stating everything that … that…’ He dropped his head.

‘I’m sorry,’ was all I could say. ‘I really am Carl. But I can’t talk to you about Carol’s case. I wish I could, but I can’t.’

Carl cleared his throat. ‘No, I know. I didn’t come here to get confirmation. I have all the evidence I need. I came here to ask your advice before I went ahead with something.’

‘Absolutely anything,’ I said reassuringly. ‘Whatever you need.’ I was prepared to hear him talk about maybe starting a cause in Carol’s name, and if that was the case, I’d be more than willing to help. I’d even volunteer in my spare time to bring attention to her plight.

‘Have you seen the local paper today?’

‘No,’ I said, wondering if there had been a piece on Carol.

He reached down into his bag and searched through it before placing the folded paper in front of me. I absent-mindedly picked up it up and opened it. It took a few seconds for me to realise what I was reading. I shook my head a few times to clear my vision. I couldn’t believe what was on the front page.
MP for Oxford, James Wicker supports domestic violence online services.

Is this some kind of sick joke?
I felt as if my world had been turned upside down, and I was now living in the twilight zone. There he stood, tall and proud with a look of concern on his face as he was pictured with Theresa Mills. I was so angry, the paper shook in my hands.
That son of a bitch!

I barely heard Carl speaking to me due to the sound of blood pounding in my ears. ‘I want to make that bastard pay for what he did to my sister!’

‘Oh, my God,’ I muttered as I threw the paper on the table as if it had scorched me.

‘Not even he could help her.’ There was no malice in his voice, just weariness. The same weariness that had been in Carol’s when we first met.

‘I just don’t understand why she didn’t tell me what was happening to her. I’m her brother. I could have protected her.’ The tears flowed freely down his face now. ‘Somebody must have known that he was abusing her …’

I braced myself. I wasn’t going to lie to him. ‘Yes, Carol was let down by the system. I tried, but my hands were tied.’

‘I wasn’t blaming you,’ he said quickly, wiping his tears with the back of his hands. ‘There’s only one person to blame, and that’s the animal who was responsible for Carol killing herself.’

‘Carl,’ I began tentatively. ‘What is it you intend to do?’

’I remained silent while he told me his plan of action.  The weariness had been replaced with anger. ‘There’s an open discussion on domestic violence at midday. James is going to be presenting it. At that precise time, I’m going to email every news outlet in the country with …’ he winced as if the words caused him actual physical pain, ‘… the images and video on this phone. At the moment, my wife and several friends are preparing posts to send to social media accounts to all our followers.’

‘Where do I come into this?’

‘Before I do this, I wanted to make sure that if it comes out that Carol was coming here, it isn’t going to be a hindrance to this organisation.’

‘Even if it was, Carl, we can handle it.’

‘Good!’ Carl slapped his lap with his hand. ‘I’m going to make him pay. I swear if it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make him pay.’

‘I’m glad. I don’t believe in angels, Carl, but you’re the closest damn thing I can think of.

At dinner, Jordan and I watched the six o’clock news. I was on tenterhooks as I watched the timeline of the day’s drama unfold. James looked like a deer caught in the lights of an oncoming car as Carl’s message began to seep through to the media who were at the discussion. I smiled when I watched the room break into mayhem as his cruelty and abuse slowly came to light. By the end of the segment, I was on cloud nine. The man had been exposed, and he was finished. There were already calls for his resignation. It wouldn’t be long before the man wouldn’t be able to walk down the street without hiding his face in shame. I knew this story was going to dominate the news for a while to come yet, and I gave a silent salute to Carol before we sat down to eat at the table.

At last, Carol had justice. If no one believed her when she was alive, they most certainly believed her now. I could finally put Carol’s memory to rest.

‘Everyone’s always complaining about technology and social media,’ Jordan said, before trying the seafood dish I’d bought from the Leamington Street deli. ‘But look what it enables people to do. Twenty years ago, he would have gotten away with it.’

He’d already finished his, and he grabbed a handful of tempura battered squid from my plate.

‘Hey!’ I smiled, poking at his hand with my fork. Jordan laughed through his stuffed mouth and rubbed his hands together. The oiliness of the deep fried rings made his hands shiny and messy. ‘Get a cloth for that, Mr Winston. Please. This misbehaviour is unacceptable.’

He stood up. ‘I’ll show you misbehaviour when we go to bed tonight.’

‘Ha!’ I exclaimed, digging into the mussels first, washing it down with some red wine.

‘Just make sure you wear that negligee I bought you in Paris. It should have a health warning on it considering the effect it has on me,’ Jordan said as he wiped his hands with the cloth.

‘If that’s the case, maybe you’ll buy me a wardrobe full of them,’ I said as Jordan poured us more wine.

‘I can’t wait much longer. Hurry and finish your dinner, woman,’ he ordered, pointing his finger at me. ‘You’re gonna need your strength in a few minutes. I’ve eaten loads of oysters, so be warned.’

‘Why should I be scared?’

‘They make me hard, blossom,’ he threatened in one of his bad guy character voices.

‘Well, then far be it from me to stifle your endeavours.’ I winked. ‘What’s this?’ I had an unidentified hard object on my fork and lifted it up to Jordan for examination.

‘Wipe off the sauce,’ he announced triumphantly.

‘It looks ...’ I rose a brow as I used my napkin to clean the object. When I saw what it was, I almost fell off my chair. ‘Oh, my God, Jordan. You didn’t!’

‘I most certainly did.’

In my hand, I held a beautiful Tiffany ring. White gold with 16 diamonds. I knew it cost a small fortune. I leapt out of my seat and threw my arms around his neck. Before I had a chance to draw his face down to meet mine, Jordan’s ringtone broke into the moment, and he pulled away to answer it. With his back turned, I admired my ring as I slid it on my finger. I listened to Jordan on his phone as he left the room and walked down the hall. He was in a heated argument with someone, keeping his voice low as he snapped at the caller.

He came back into the kitchen minutes later as I was clearing the table.

‘Who was riling you up like that on the phone? I thought you were going to pop an artery,’ I asked as he wrapped his arms around my waist.

‘Leslie.’

‘Who’s Leslie?’ I asked. ‘It wasn’t one of the usual names Jordan mentioned when talking about work.

‘The new script supervisor Alan hired,’ Jordan groaned. ‘Christ, what a pain in the arse! Almost everything I write is somehow not in keeping with the standards all of a sudden. I refuse to re-write these next four scenes until I have heard it from Jack Denton himself.’

‘The director?’ I guessed.

‘Correct. I work for him, not for Leslie. So tonight I just made it clear that the script hasn’t been altered yet pending Jack’s go-ahead, see?’ he filled me in.

‘Absolutely right, I would say. Imagine if you re-write what wasn’t incorrect in the first place. All that bloody work for nothing,’ I said.

‘Precisely so,’ Jordan replied. ‘And what’s more, I am very happy with the lines just as they are right now, so they can all fuck off.’

‘That’s my boy,’ I encouraged him. Jordan hardly ever barked about work, so I reckoned that perhaps he sometimes kept stress in the studio to himself to spare me. I kissed his arm where it crossed my chest and supported my head. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you too, baby,’ Jordan whispered, cupping my breast and kissing. ‘That’s why it makes me so sad to have to leave you.’

My shoulders sunk. ‘You’re going into work?’

’Fraid so”

Great!
Now I’m going to have to wait a little bit longer
to find out if the myth about libido and oysters was true after all
.

Pity.

The green digits on my clock said it was 2.19 a.m. when I reached for my lamp switch. Jordan was lying on his side, facing away from me when I got the light on. My head was spinning, and I felt as if someone was pushing a heavy rock against my diaphragm. I sat up, taking a minute to listen to the rain against the window before panicking about the horrible churning in my stomach.

My hands were sweating, and I had awful tremors. Trying everything in my power not to admit that I was utterly nauseous, I steadied my breathing to relax, hoping it would subside now that I was sitting up. No matter how calmly I breathed, my heart slammed in rapid palpitations inside my chest.

‘Oh, God no,’ I moaned softly when I realised that my centre of gravity did not change the state of my innards. One thing everyone knew about me was how I detested vomiting. As if it wasn’t enough that I previously hurled like a fire hose all over this very carpet, I now had to avoid the horrible business from repeating itself. Slowly, I rose to my feet, feeling as if my belly carried a ton of bubbling hot puke just waiting to spew forth from my throat.

Stewing in my belly, the seafood mixed and bubbled higher and higher upward by the second, so I made a run for the toilet. This time, I made it fast enough to close the door behind me and sank to my knees over the brim of the toilet seat, waiting for the inevitable. Thankfully, the hard rain would disguise my regurgitation so that Jordan would not have to play witness to my stomach contents again.

As the obligatory burping started, I dreaded what was to come. Deep in my throat, I could still taste the red wine where it mingled with the smoky trout and prawns and muscles.

‘Oh God,’ I lamented just before the mass of hot vomit ripped through my body and forced me to relive the same terrible experience of a few weeks ago. My clammy skin was sore and cold as I shivered, throwing up until I felt like my throat was going to tear.

A knock at the door exacerbated the experience. Jordan had heard me.

‘Baby, are you alright?’ I heard his muffled voice from the other side of the door. In between spurts, I managed to call out to him, ‘Please don’t come in! Go away!’

‘I want to help you,’ he argued, but I shouted through my burning throat that I was okay. Finally, he let me be and waited patiently for me to finish vomiting and brushing my teeth before he tried again. Looking like a homeless madman in his half-awake state, Jordan stood on the other side of the door when I came out.

‘Jesus Christ, Katie!’ he exclaimed. ‘You look awful! Come on, get into bed. You look like you’re going to collapse!’

He was spot on with that remark. My head felt like a lead coffer full of granite while my ears hissed. Before me was a white noise tunnel, making Jordan’s voice sound like a hollow robot’s, and my knees buckled under me. Weakened from purging, I could hardly keep my head up as I walked with Jordan supporting me.

‘I feel like I am going to faint again, Jordan,’ I slurred. It was the previous nightmare all over again, only with a different cause this time. ‘I think I have food poisoning from that seafood and ... th-that wine w-w-we h—’ I forced through the impending oblivion, but I just felt him lay me on the bed before my thick eyelids covered my bloodshot eyes. I was still nauseous when I passed out.

When I came to, I wanted to die. The nausea was so bad that my throat felt like a turkey neck contracting dangerously. I felt like someone had cut open my stomach and dumped boulders inside. Inadvertently, I just moaned. Like a zombie, I just uttered long, dragged out groans that somehow alleviated my nausea only until I ran out of breath.

‘I’m taking you to the hospital.’ I heard Jordan’s voice through the clatter of the showers on the roof and window glass. I shook my head wearily, unable to even lift my hand.

‘Come, on,’ he urged softly, taking me by the upper arms.

‘No! No, please Jordan, jusss ... just let m-me sleep it ... off,’ I muttered, exhausted and cold. ‘I just want to sleep. Please.’

‘Listen, Katie, if this is food poisoning, you could die and I can’t lose you, for Christ’s sake! This time, you might not make it out, do you understand? Now come on!’ Jordan thundered, more to keep me conscious than to reprimand me. I felt him pull my heavy frame off the bed and onto my feet.

‘I’m going to puke!’ I managed to growl. Like a flash, he had me at the toilet bowl where I purged more until I started sobbing. He wiped my mouth and pulled my hair back when I was done while I cried profusely in his embrace.

‘Do I have permission now? Huh?’ he pressed. I could hear that he was trying not to lose his temper with me, even though he must have been exhausted too by now. ‘Katie? Katie! Can we go now? You’re going to the hospital. End of story,’ he said abruptly.

‘Okay, okay,’ I forced to appease him. I felt a faint kiss on my forehead, and then he swept me up in his arms and carried me through the quiet apartment while the thunder seemed to clap miles away in another world outside my confusion.

I remember vaguely how the engine hummed as we drove through the wet darkness, and I fought the temptation to think of the seafood I’d eaten.
Had it been out of date?
The very idea of it made my stomach pull taut, so I tried to think of Carol, Paris, Pam and her boots, and at one point, I even conjured an image of Martha.

Suddenly, through my daze, I was blinded by the piercing white lights of the hospital sign overhead when Jordan pulled the car up to the Emergency entrance. The car shook under me as he lunged from his seat to come round and collect me. I heard him shouting for the staff to help him, and inside me, I wondered what my fate would deal me this time.

Those instances where one becomes too weak to even fight the natural instinct to wipe drool or mucus away to avoid embarrassment were the worst. And I think I endured one of those instances just as they placed me on a gurney to rush me down the short corridor. My body convulsed, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to warn the nurses before the force of the seizure thrust me onto my side.

All I heard were the yelps and gasps of onlookers and staff as more hot liquid spurted over my numb lips onto the clean white gurney and the polished floor. I was mortified, but I was left to the devices of my body’s defence mechanisms, incapacitated by the onslaught. Jordan’s voice was somewhere in the distance as they wheeled me into yet another white room with yet more polished floors and unsuspecting nursing staff.

‘Food poisoning!’ I heard someone shout near me, hurting my ears with his sharp voice while my narrowed eyes avoided the terrible brightness. ‘Over here! Quick!’

I heard Jordan talking to the sister, but I had no idea where they were anymore. I just closed my eyes and heard sporadic words like ‘seafood’, ‘meningitis treatment’, ‘previously admitted’ and ‘dehydration’ as I passed out again.