Mine To Lose (8 page)

‘It looks like Jordan’s finally realised that being home is better than being tied to his mother’s apron,’ I said quietly.

‘About time,’ Pam said from the other side of the laptop screen. ‘Nothing like hot sex to keep your man happy!’ she added with a naughty pulling up of the nose and a squeal to accompany it.

‘Yes, you rubbed off on me, you scoundrel!’ I chastised.

‘Rubbing is always a good thing, I say,’ she replied, pulling out a liquorice whip and shoving it into the corner of her mouth.

We were Skyping since she had gone to Newcastle for a conference. I told Pam everything that had gone on between Jordan and me. All she wanted to hear about was the endless sex we were having. Pam was one of those friends who were incapable of shock or offence. Her face would not even twitch in disgust at the mention of the most explicit or filthy things.

‘So when are you going back to work?’ she asked through her incessant chewing.

‘Next week, Monday. When will you be back?’ I asked in return.

‘Not until Wednesday. Got an appointment Tuesday. Oh, my God, Katie, sorry to change the subject, but the food this hotel serves is amazing.

She began to tell me about the international dishes she’d tasted the night before when I started feeling very queasy. All of a sudden, like the advent of a freak storm, my skull was on fire.

‘Ow!’ I yelped unintentionally.

‘What’s wrong?’ Pam frowned in instant alarm. ‘Katie? Katie?’

‘Um, I have to go. NOW!’ I shrieked, but no sooner had I spoken when a powerful surge of bile forced itself through my mouth.

‘Oh Jesus, Katie!’ she screeched in panic. ‘Are you okay?’

I wanted to tell her that it was okay, but I fell to my knees and vomited profusely. My head throbbed, and my skin ached under the forceful convulsions and excruciating pain in my abdomen.

‘Katie!’ she kept screaming. I assumed she wanted to keep me awake should I pass out, but I raised my hand above the edge of the bed where my laptop was and showed her a thumbs-up with one hand.

‘Are you sure?’ she asked in a shaking voice.

I gestured with the tips of my index finger and thumb together, three other fingers aloft that I was fine.

‘Oh my God, I’m going to call an ambulance,’ she said frantically. I gave her another thumbs-up while all I wanted to do was shut the lid of the laptop to end the call. It was rather embarrassing to have someone listening to me puking my guts out via satellite.

‘Just keep making a noise so I can hear you.’

All I could manage was a loud grunt as I crawled to the bathroom on all fours, still spewing now and then, hoping to be well enough to clean up this mess before Jordan got home. I could hear Pam giving the emergency operator my details, telling them to get the police to force the door in if I didn’t open it. I managed to make it as far as the bathroom entrance, then my cheek slammed against the tiled floor.

‘Hold still, Katie. I just need two more seconds,’ Dr Pane requested in her plain voice, which cut through my sensitive ears like razors. I pinched my eyes shut, realising that I didn’t make it to the toilet before fainting, and that Jordan must have had to clean up my vomit. How humiliating! I opened my mouth to speak, wanting to ask her where my husband was, but she hushed me even as my arid lips separated.

‘Rest. No need to talk now. Alright?’ she informed me as gently as her stern demeanour allowed her. I nodded obediently, listening to all the hollow voices and sounds somewhere around me in the tin can that housed my brain.

‘Thank God I was properly dressed when it happened. Thank God I had to get dressed to Skype Pam. Oh shit! I still have to let Pam kn ...
was all I could think as oblivion kissed me again.

And I was gone.

When I came back to the land of the living – well, the infirmly living anyway – things were much quieter. The lights were low, and I was right back in the ward I had previously escaped from with a light warning and much hope. I was even too weak to sigh in misery, but I had to correct my posture. The bed was hard and cold on top of my body being misaligned from being pinned down under the strap hold of unnecessarily tight sheets over me, and I wrestled in anguish to loosen the linen.

From her peripheral, the sister on duty noticed me and immediately came to help.

‘Careful,’ she cautioned, ‘or you’ll rip out your IV.’

‘What time is it?’ I whispered.

She looked at her watch and answered, ‘It’s just past 5 a.m. Just rest. Doctor will see you just before breakfast.’

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘What happened? What’s wrong with me?’

She shook her head. ‘Dr Pane will have a word with you when she comes on her rounds,’ she explained sympathetically.

‘Can you at least tell me if it is serious?’ I asked. She looked uncomfortable, but not entirely sullen either.

‘Dr Pane will give you all the details later, alright?’

There wasn’t much I could do other than let it be for the moment. After all, the nurse had told me as much as she was able, and it wasn’t as if I could even lift my head, let alone get up and walk out.

‘Thank you.’ I nodded and laid my head back on the pillow, looking up at the slow carousel of the ceiling. Like that of our offices, the ceiling consisted of that familiar uniform ceiling board that featured those ornate cracks that gave it a crude texture on sight. My ears hissed, and my head felt thick. Faintly, I could feel the devilish scratch of a debilitating headache confined in the pen of painkillers that filled my skull like candy floss.

I looked up at the twirling ceiling hovering over my undulating bed and picked one specific fissure to follow, mesmerising myself to sleep. The base of my skull was burning and tight, as it used to feel after a night of headbanging when I was younger. My eyelids grew heavy as I tried to ignore the pulsing pain in my skin from the fever I had contracted again. The place smelled like ammonia and crisp bedding, floor polish and old flowers. My throat pulled taut as I gagged from the mixture of odours, but mercifully my heavy head sank into the pillow, and my bed consumed me.

***

Barely a heartbeat later, it seemed, I woke again in the bustling of the morning rounds. My first thought was where my husband was. I had not seen him at all since before I Skyped Pam. It distressed me something awful that he wasn’t present, even though I knew it wasn’t visiting hours yet. Finally, Dr Pane came around the corner and entered my room. I dreaded the imminent third degree I was due, but she smiled instead.

‘How are you feeling, Katie?’ she asked. There was no sign of reprimand, and that was something for which I was only too grateful. After my ordeal and the soreness that apparently attacked me full force in retribution for the night’s peace, I could not deal with emotional discord either.

‘I feel like I’ve been in a tumble dryer,’ I admitted. She hardly looked surprised at my description.

‘Yes, that sounds about accurate,’ she sighed. With weathered, but dainty hands she opened my chart and made some notes in silence.

‘Dr Pane, I did nothing wrong,’ I started to explain. ‘I stayed indoors as you ordered, I swear.’

‘I know,’ she interrupted. Then she locked eyes with me, and I felt a jolt of nervous tension shoot through me. I was in trouble. Evenly, she said, ‘You stayed indoors.’

‘I did.’

‘You kept warm.’

‘Yes, Doctor. I did everyth ...’

‘Including getting drunk, so your husband tells me,’ she stated firmly.

I quickly took inventory of all the things she had said and what I did subsequently. My memory took me through everything she told me and how to take my medicine. Day by day, I ran through my recollection until one memory hit me like a ton of bricks. Now her statement made sense. ‘Drunk,’ I said slowly. ‘Oh, my God, I did not even think about the medication and the drinking ...’ I relayed to myself while she waited for my full positives to function. ‘Doctor, I felt completely fine that night I drank. I thought I was well enough ...’

Again, she did not have the patience to suffer my lack of common sense and cut in, ‘Well, you were lucky it wasn’t worse.’

‘To be fair, you didn’t tell me not to drink,’ I attempted a solid argument because she hadn’t told me not to drink.

‘I also didn’t tell you not to stick your finger in a wall plug, yet you refrained from that,’ Dr Pane retorted. ‘Come now. It is pure logic, as you should know, that you shouldn’t consume alcohol while on medication. Better yet, while still recovering from a weak immune system, why on earth would you think to further impair your health like that?’

I had to acknowledge the absolute recklessness of my actions.

‘I don’t know what to s—’ I murmured.

‘Of course you don’t. There is no logical reason for what you did, Katie. Unless you were deliberately trying to kill yourself?’ She presented me with another scenario I didn’t even consider before. ‘Katie, I care very much about you, as I do all my patients. If there is something wrong, please talk to me.’

I suddenly knew what it felt like to be on the other side of the desk in my line of work. How often did I ask perfectly polite people that very question on suspicion of their actions.

I shook my head, ‘No. I would never attempt suicide. I love my life. I swear. I don’t know why I was so stupid!’

Dr Pane just stared at me, waiting for me to say more. I recognized the method. It was the same technique Pam used to wring out that dishcloth. But I had no other explanation than a pure lapse of reason, absolute idiocy.

‘Your kidney infection has flared up again. That is what caused the symptoms you have been feeling,’ she declared.

I nodded. ‘Really?’

‘I’m afraid so. You need you to start looking after yourself until you’re given a clean bill of health from me, right?’ she appealed to me.

‘Absolutely, Doctor,’ I replied, and I meant it. ‘Will I be going home soon?’

‘Yes,’ she answered while she scribbled a prescription or two in my chart for the nurse to dispense. ‘I’m going to give you another course of antibiotics to take home with you.’ Dr Pane cocked her head to the side. Her eyes were kind again, sparkling with compassion.

She clamped the lid of the chart down and slipped it under her arm.

‘After you have completed that second course of antibiotics, I will examine you one last time and only ...
only
... if I clear you then, are you to continue as before. Do I have your cooperation?’ She smiled.

‘It’s a deal.’ I smiled back, but in truth, I wanted to collapse in a heap of tears. Apart from being back in the hospital, I was in terrible pain all over.

Thanks to Pam doubling as Florence Nightingale and Jordan’s well-intended chastisements on my regard for my health, within a week I was doing great. In fact, I’d never felt better. Jordan was obviously elated that I was home so much. He brought me flowers almost every day, accompanied by little chores and praises, more than usual. I felt so important, not even giving Martha much thought, which had to be a first. I could tell Jordan was shaken by my second hospital visit, and it only seemed to make him appreciate and love me more.

When Martin rang me on Friday morning, my first thought was that he was going to advise me not to return on Monday, but to take another week off. When I heard what he had to say I was nearly floored.

‘Carol’s brother wants to see me?’

‘Yes,’ he replied.

‘But why? How does he even know who I am?’

‘I have no idea, he just said it was urgent. He sounded very upset, though.’

Shit
, I thought to myself. Had he somehow managed to find out the truth about Carol, or had James, by some miracle told him what a bastard he was to his sister.  I doubted it. He was too much of a coward. 

‘Did he say when he wanted to meet?’

‘Around ten on Monday. Did I do the right thing saying yes? Because if you don’t ...’

‘It’s absolutely fine, Martin. I wouldn’t have turned him down.’

‘Good! So how are you feeling?’

‘Crazy.’

Martin chuckled, something he did not do often. ‘It is strange, isn’t it? We always think that our routines are mundane until we deviate. I know this from experience. We don’t realise just how important our work routine is to our lives; that stability and kinship with colleagues.

‘You’re right,’ I agreed. It was true. I always wished I had more time to spend at home, but now I was going crazy with the monotony. At least at work there were different cases and people every day, different scenarios and challenges. At least at work I had a purpose, where at home I was just Jordan’s wife, ruler of the nest. I knew that would sound bad if I said it out loud, but I was just aware that I was worth more than this.

***

On Saturday morning, I awoke to the feeling of kisses. Before I even opened my eyes, I felt a myriad of kisses, falling like snowflakes on my face, neck and chest. As soon as I felt one kiss release, the next would touch my skin on a completely different area with warmth. It made me giggle.

‘Jordan?’ I whispered in the quiet darkness of 5.30 a.m. ‘What are you up to?’

‘Nothing. Just scouting,’ he answered. He knew I liked morning sex, and I made sure he didn’t forget it.

By 7.00 a.m. he’d jumped in the shower, and I was trying to clean the kitchen as fast as I could. At the very last minute, Jordan had informed me he had a surprise for me, and I had half an hour to be ready.

‘Hurry, woman!’ he shouted from the bedroom as he dressed. ‘I thought you liked surprises.’

‘Yes, yes, I do. Like flowers and chocolates. You can’t just spring things on me without warning and then expect me to have prepared for it,’ I shouted back as I wiped down the worktops.

‘That’s why it is called a surprise!’ he retorted.

‘Not when I’ve got a million things to do, it’s not. That’s called inconvenient,’ I whipped back.

‘Oh, stop being pedantic!’ he said, appearing in the doorway. ‘You’re going to love it, and you’re going to be sorry you were so obstinate about cleaning up first.

Throwing the cloth in the sink, I mumbled inaudibly, ‘I swear to God if your mother comes around poking her nose in here and sees the state of the place, your head is going to roll.’

He gave me a stern look. ‘I heard that?’

His phone rang suddenly from the windowsill. As I was nearest, I moved towards it.

‘I’ll get it!’

Jordan came storming behind, ‘No, no! I’ll get it. You go and get ready. It’ll be work!’

‘Oh, Jesus, on a Saturday!’ I moaned loudly while Jordan took the call.

‘Hello?’

He mouthed for me to hurry and left the room as he talked. ‘Oh, hey! Yes, I know I was supposed to ...’ His voice grew vague and reverberated between the bare walls of the hallway until I could hear his muffled voice in the living room.

‘You get dressed,’ I mimicked Jordan, opening my side of the wardrobe. Having no idea what this new surprise was, I had no idea what to wear. In the end, deciding to go casual, I picked a pair of skinny jeans and a black leather jacket.

For footwear, I chose low, thick heel ankle boots that looked like the illegitimate child of Doc Martens and Prada. I was ready. Jordan could surprise me with anything now.

He came in looking less enthusiastic and tossed his phone carelessly on the bed. Without a word, he put his jacket on. I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t notice my ensemble, but instead, I asked, ‘Problems?’

‘Just ... uh ... what does it matter?’ he frowned without looking at me.

‘It doesn’t. I was just asking because your mood is visibly diminished by that phone call. Do you have to go into work? Aren’t we going out anymore?’ I asked.

I tried to sound neutral to please him, but Jordan just shook his head.

‘No! No, we are going.’ He sprayed a squirt of aftershave on his chin. ‘We are definitely going.’

He smiled a little. Reminded of what he had planned, it seemed to lift his spirits again.

‘Jordan, we aren’t going skydiving again, are we?’

‘Oh no. Not this time. Not again.’ He laughed.

I was relieved. He looked like his old self again. He always looked miserable when his workplace called him when he was at home, especially on a weekend. Even though he didn’t strictly keep normal hours, weekends, and bank holidays – they meant nothing to the entertainment industry.

His phone rang again, but this time, I snatched it off him and switched it off.

‘You know, it’s not a crime to not be at work’s beck and call. You are actually allowed to have a life?’

‘I was going to turn it off when we reached our destination. I didn’t want it to get wet,’ he replied.

‘Jordan, why would your phone get wet?’ I asked.

He crossed the room and took me in his arms and kissed me. ‘I never said that did I?’ he replied, pulling me along out of the bedroom.

‘You said you don’t want your phone to get wet, meaning ...’

‘There is a
possibility
of getting wet, but it’s not guaranteed, so lighten up. You’re going to love it,’ he comforted me. ‘By the way, nice boots.’