THIRTEEN
Jayne left the hospital that morning after a relatively sleepless night in the uncomfortable sterility of the accident and emergency department. Even after spending less than twenty four hours in the hospital, the smell of cleaning fluids seemed to be permanently ingrained on the inside of her nostrils, so that even the fresh air outside smelled like toilet cleaner. Hardly the ideal start to the morning she had in mind.
Jayne called a taxi and waited outside the doors of the hospital for it to arrive. Hands in her pockets, she could feel the slip of paper on which Jess had scribbled down the details of her appointment with the doctor today. She didn’t need to read it again; she knew she would have to be in the room with that smiley, overly kind doctor in just over an hour. She tried to force a smile. The morning was just getting better and better.
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A couple of months ago, Jess decided she wanted to wallpaper the chimneybreast in the lounge, and Elliot, wanting to show his fabled skills at DIY, had offered to do the job. In the end, he just screwed up the majority of the paper into balls and threw them at Daniel, who had spent most of the afternoon laughing at Elliot’s inability to decorate in a straight line. Elliot gave up on the job and started a three-day strop, refusing to speak to Daniel apart from to ask him where he’d hidden the battenburg cake.
As a result, Jayne wasn’t exactly overjoyed when she walked in to see the waste paper bin emptied over the floor of the lounge. Daniel was sat on his own on the sofa, watching a programme about antiques on the television. He didn’t really look as if he was very interested. His eyes were barely blinking, and he didn’t so much as raise his dark eyebrows when a woman’s bookends were valued at ten thousand pounds. He looked miserable. Jayne got a strong feeling of déjà vu.
“Christ,” she said, sitting down on the other end of the sofa. “Elliot didn’t get his pasting brush out again, did he?”
Daniel turned to face her, and he tried his hardest to force a laugh. The attempt was pitiful. It sounded more like he was trying to blow his nose without a tissue. Jayne knew something was wrong.
“Are you going to get rid of your mess?”
“I’ll do it later.”
Jayne nodded slowly. Daniel was normally very tidy; he was the sort of person that hated it when the toothbrushes weren’t put in the right glass or when the saucepans were stacked in the wrong order. If Daniel was in the state of mind to pay any sort of attention to his surroundings, the scattered paper would be eating him up from the inside until he’d tidied it up. Instead, he just looked a bit bored, or possibly thoughtful. Jayne couldn’t quite tell. She was just about to ask him what was wrong when Daniel asked his own question.
“Can I borrow your phone?”
That wasn’t really the meaningful question Jayne was expecting. It didn’t really give her the chance to get her teeth into a meaty answer.
“What’s wrong with yours?”
“It’s out of battery”.
Jayne could see the screen of Daniel’s phone lit up in his hand. Daniel wasn’t a good liar, especially not when put on the spot so suddenly.
“No, it’s not. What’s wrong with yours?”
Daniel looked gutted to have his genius plan foiled. He turned his body and faced Jayne.
“Elliot won’t answer his phone because he knows it’s me. If I use yours, he might pick up.”
God, Daniel and Elliot had fallen out again. Jayne knew the paper on the floor had to be a sign. She made a mental note to hide the bin in her room to avoid further accidents. To be honest, she didn’t want to get involved, particularly when she had an appointment in less than an hour, but Jayne felt it was her duty to find out more.
“Why isn’t he answering your calls?”
“We had a bit of an argument.”
“I guessed that bit. What was it about this time?”
“I can’t really tell you,” Daniel explained, rubbing his eyes. “Lets just say I’ve proved myself to be a horrible friend”.
“Did you steal his aftershave?”
Daniel gave Jayne a scolding look. He really didn’t look in the mood for Jayne’s sense of humour.
“I brushed him off when he wanted to talk to me, and it turned out to be pretty important”.
“How important?”
“I can’t say. Elliot would never forgive me”.
Jayne was happy to live with that. Daniel was much better at keeping secrets than he was at telling lies, so Jayne knew she was unlikely to get to the bottom of Elliot’s problem, even if she’d wanted to. More importantly, she had enough of her own thoughts in her head without adding those of Daniel and Elliot. This time, she decided the easy way would probably be the best in the long run.
“I’m going out in a second, so you can borrow it while I’m out. Just don’t phone my Nan, unless you fancy discussing her lettuces for an hour”.
With that, Jayne waved goodbye to Daniel and left him to stew in his own misery, while she walked the all too short walk to the doctor’s surgery.
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Jayne didn’t even like cars. Yet she still found herself in the waiting room reading about the Porsche 911 GT2 as if she knew the difference between a carburettor and a crankshaft. The truth was, anything was better than sitting staring at the clock on the woodchip walls and imagining the conversations she was likely to have when the big hand hit twelve.
What was the doctor going to say, other than that Jayne had to start eating normally and stop falling down stairs? There wasn’t much more to it. Part of her wondered if the appointment was really necessary; she didn’t need a trained professional to tell her that she would collapse if she didn’t eat anything. That much was obvious.
The hand hit eleven. Maybe the doctor would be too busy to see her today. The waiting room was quite full of people, most of whom had arrived after Jayne, and they’d probably thank her if she walked up to the reception desk and told them that she didn’t need her appointment anymore. There were plenty of people near her that obviously needed it more than she did. A woman with a nasty rash covering the side of her face sat opposite her, applying some sort of cream to her face so often that Jayne thought the pharmacy’s entire supply would be exhausted if she wasn’t seen by the doctor pretty soon. That woman would be more than keen to take her place.
Jayne put the magazine back on the table. She was getting carried away. She’d promised Jess that she would see the doctor, and she didn’t like the idea of having to go home and make up a story of what had happened. She’d have to create a realistic, completely believable story if she didn’t want Jess to see through her lies, and she wasn’t sure if she could manage it. Besides, maybe she needed the doctor’s help. Maybe recovery wasn’t just a case of going home and sitting round the table eating Elliot’s spaghetti bolognaise. Maybe it wouldn’t be that easy. Jess would start to notice if she didn’t start to recover, if she didn’t put on some weight and start eating normally.
The big hand of the clock moved further from the eleven and ever closer to the twelve. A patient left the doctor’s room, and Jayne was relieved when the next name called out wasn’t hers. Yet her name would be called sometime. She might be next, or it might take another half hour for the doctor to get round to her, but either way, her name would be called.
Jayne was brought out of her thoughts as the man sitting next to her rummaged in the pockets of his trousers, before noisily opening a small, white tube. He leaned over the table and held the tube out to Jayne.
“Would you like a mint?”
Why was it that, as soon as Jayne developed an eating disorder, every man and his dog starting offering her sweets? It could have been a sign. Was this meant to be the start of her recovery? Could something as simple as a mint put her back on the right track? It was worth a try.
“Might as well,” she said, taking the mint and smiling at the man. “Thanks”.
See, she didn’t need the doctor after all. She could beat this thing by herself. Obviously, Jess wouldn’t be so keen on the idea, so she’d have to tell a few little lies just to make things easier, but she was sure she could manage it. She didn’t need to waste the doctor’s time anymore.
The hand finally met the twelve. Jayne stood up from her seat, popped the mint into her mouth, and left the doctor’s surgery behind as she headed back to the flat.
