Tales From a Hen Weekend (19 page)

‘Sean
knows
about this?’

‘I’ll kill him. He should have talked to me.’

‘No. I told him to keep it to himself.’

‘Well, I hope he’s going to talk some sense into your thick, stupid, head.’

‘Yes. I hope he is, too. He’s just as mad at me as you are.’ He suddenly gripped my hands, across the table. ‘Emily, I’m
trying
not to hurt Katie!’

‘You haven’t got a clue, have you, Matt? You’re telling me you’re in love with two women, but you don’t understand the first thing about women – how we think, how we feel. Katie could have forgiven you a one-night stand. Maybe even an affair. Sex doesn’t mean anything – it’s just bodies, at the end of the day. But she’ll never forgive you for
loving
someone else. Not even if you never touch this other woman as long as you live. So take my advice. Go to Prague with Sean, if you must. Cry on his shoulder. Do your male bonding bit. And then come home, marry Katie, change jobs and don’t ever,
ever
tell her about Claire. If you do, she will
never
forgive you.’

I got up, shakily, grabbed my bag and started to walk away, turning back only once to add, over my shoulder: ‘And neither will I.’

I may be drunk, but I’m not stupid.

Emily’s just told me half of a story, and I want to know the other half. The half she’s swallowed back and kept to herself. The half I can see in her eyes, burning in her brain, hurting inside her because she wants to tell me but she won’t.

‘So
why
was he feeling so mixed up?
Why
did he need
time and space
? For God’s sake, Emily – you’re talking in riddles.’

‘So was he! I had no idea what was up with him. That’s why I didn’t say anything to you. I didn’t see the point in worrying you.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘Don’t say that to me.’

‘I’ll say it again: you’re lying. You’re keeping something from me, something he told you. What is it?’

‘Nothing. Just what I said – that he was feeling mixed up, and he knew he’d been upsetting you, and he was sorry.’

‘No he wasn’t. If he was sorry, why didn’t he say so? How come he can tell you stuff that he can’t tell me?’

I can’t believe this. Emily, of all people. She’s supposed to be my friend. I trusted her more than anyone – and now it turns out she’s been sneaking around, behind my back, talking to Matt and not even mentioning it to me.

‘Because I asked him, I suppose, Katie,’ she says, sounding aggrieved. What’s
she
got to be aggrieved about? ‘I bothered to ask him what was wrong with him.’

‘Oh – and I suppose you think I didn’t?’

‘No. You were probably too busy being upset about the stupid stag party.’

‘You
agreed
with me! You agreed that he was in the wrong – being inconsiderate – spending too much…’

‘I agreed with you, yes. I just didn’t think it was the end of the fucking world.’

She turns away from me and picks up her hairbrush, starting to brush her hair in the mirror with hard, hard brush strokes as if making her hair shine is going to make anything better.

‘You cow!’ I grab the brush out of her hand and try to hit her with it, but she gets hold of my wrist and swings me away from her.

‘Katie! Calm down!’

‘Calm down? How can you say that? This is my
hen
weekend, Emily – do you realise that?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘I’ve had my sister telling me she’s having an affair! I’ve had my mum telling me my dad cheated on her! I’ve got to leave my job because Helen’s in love with Greg and Greg’s in love with me …’

‘
What
?’

‘Yes, yes – it’s like a fucking love triangle at Bookshelf – and now,
now
, Emily, as if I really need anything else to go wrong…’

‘Nothing’s gone wrong, Katie. I’m just telling you I agreed with you about the bloody stag party. I agreed with you – OK? That was why I went to talk to Matt.’

‘You had no
right
!’ I swing at her again with the brush, nearly losing my balance.

This time she strikes back, shoving me against the sinks.

‘You’re drunk,’ she says, breathing hard. ‘Let’s drop it. Let’s talk about it tomorrow.’

‘No!’ I push her away from me. ‘Let’s talk about it now, Emily. Tell me what else he said.’

‘
Nothing
else.’

‘
Liar!
’ I push her again ‘Tell me! What are you hiding from me?’

‘Nothing, Katie! Calm down!’

‘If you don’t tell me, Emily, I’ll think the worst.’

I’m crying now. I know I’m being ridiculous, and hysterical, but I’ve had enough. You see? I’ve had just about enough, this weekend. I’m supposed to be having a nice time, and all I’m getting is one shock after another. Are they all conspiring to ruin everything for me? As if everything isn’t bad enough already.
It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.

‘There’s no
worst
to think,’ says Emily, quietly, slowly, as if she’s talking to a child or an invalid. ‘This is all going to seem really, really silly in the morning, Katie.’

It’s her, isn’t it
.

For a minute, she looks totally gobsmacked. For a minute, I think maybe I was wrong. She wouldn’t do that. She’s my friend, for God’s sake.

‘You’re mad!’ she says then, bursting out laughing.

How is this funny? My life’s falling apart, and she’s
laughing?

‘Bitch!’ I shout, slapping her face.

Even as I do it, even as my hand makes contact with her face, I’m shocked at myself. Reeling with shock. I didn’t mean it. I just wanted to stop her laughing.

‘Bitch yourself!’ she yells, slapping me back.

Ouch. That
fucking
hurt.

We’re both screaming. There’s blood on her face. I don’t know if it’s hers or mine. The door into the toilets is opening – someone’s coming in. The red mist in front of my eyes begins to clear a little and I can’t believe what we’re doing.

‘Get
off
!’ I shout, giving one last desperate shove. She catapults away from me, overbalancing, skidding on the wet floor. She reaches behind, making a grab for the hand towel dispenser, the tampon machine, anything to stop her falling. Instead, her flailing right arm makes contact with someone’s face.

It’s so sudden, Jude doesn’t see it coming. Balancing on her good foot, holding onto the sinks with one hand, she’s just hobbled in through the door when Emily’s fist lands squarely on her nose. As her head jerks back, Emily topples over, knocking Jude flying. There’s a radiator next to the row of sinks. As Jude’s head hits it, it makes a sound like a gong, and then suddenly everything’s gone very, very quiet.

‘Jesus Christ,’ whispers Emily, struggling to her feet as I rush to kneel by Jude’s side. ‘Have we both gone
mad?
’

I can’t answer.

I’m too busy praying.

There’s always a lot of blood from a scalp wound. I didn’t know that before, but I do now.

I know a lot of things now:

The amount of blood isn’t necessarily as serious as it looks;

You can lose consciousness for just a few seconds and still suffer concussion;

For those few seconds, you can be so frightened you’ve killed one of your best friends, you can sober up instantly;

And too much alcohol can make you behave like the worst kind of out-of-control teenage thug roaming the streets looking for trouble, when you’re actually, despite appearances to the contrary, a thirty-one year old respectable woman from a decent law-abiding family.

I’m so ashamed, I’m never going to drink again.

‘They all say that, love!’ says Patrick, our ambulance man, cheerfully. ‘Sure nearly every accident we get called out to at the weekends is because of someone drinking too much. Everyone’s always going to stop drinking after someone gets hurt, aren’t they, so? If they all stopped when they say they’re going to, sure it’s strange altogether that we’re still being called out at all, at all.’

There’s some Irish logic in there somewhere, but I’m too upset to work it out.

‘Cheer up, love. Your friend’ll be grand,’ says his mate.

Emergency medical technicians, they call themselves over here – not paramedics, apparently. I think they’re kind of first-aiders anyway but they certainly seem to know what they’re doing.

‘They’ll just want to keep an eye on her for twenty-four hours, so they will. She could have a bit of mild concussion, but she seems to be well orientated so far.’

Jude’s lying in the ambulance and I’m sitting on the other side. They’re just about to drive us to the hospital.

‘I feel a bit strange,’ she says, touching the wound on her head delicately. It’s been cleaned up now and the bleeding seems to have stopped. ‘But could that maybe be the paracetamol?’

‘Paracetamol can’t hurt you, Jude,’ I start, wondering if the knock on the head
has
made her lose the plot after all. ‘You’ve been taking them all day, haven’t you, for your ankle.’

‘But that was why I came to find you, in the Ladies, Katie. I can’t remember how many I’ve taken. With the drink, and all, I’ve… lost track, if you know what I mean. Have you still got the packet?’

I’d put her packet of tablets in my bag for her, as she was carrying one of those little purses with no room for anything in them. The ambulance guys are suddenly looking at me with a degree of concern. I fumble in my bag.

‘No. Can’t find them. Are you sure you gave them back to me after the last two you took?’

‘No,’ says Jude, shaking her head. ‘No, I’m not sure, to be honest with you, Katie. In that case, I think… I think I might have taken the whole packet.’

The driver leaps into his seat and pulls away so fast, the ambulance shakes from side to side and I have to hang on to stop myself sliding off the seat. The lights and sirens are going, and Patrick’s firing questions at me about how long, how often, how much paracetamol Jude
might
have taken.

‘I think I’m OK, though,’ she says weakly, looking at me anxiously.

‘We’ll let the doctors decide that, so we will, Judith,’ says Patrick very seriously.

‘Oh God! Oh, Jude, I’m
so sorry,
’ I start all over again.

We’ve been through this already, before the ambulance arrived. I did a lot of crying, and a lot of apologising, to Emily and to Jude. I told them both I didn’t deserve to be their friend. That they should never talk to me again. That I loved them both. I think I told Jude I’d kill myself if she died. Like that was going to make her feel better.

‘It’s not your fault, Katie, if I took too many tablets,’ she says, reasonably. ‘Sure I was drinking too much myself. We all were. I think maybe we should all give it up after this.’

Patrick doesn’t even make a joke about it this time.

That’s what worries me.

The A & E Department at The Mater Hospital in Dublin doesn’t look a lot different from any of the ones I’ve been to on the odd occasion at home in Essex. The waiting room’s full; people are standing, leaning against walls, because all the chairs are taken. A drunk, sitting on the floor in front of the toilet door, is singing
It’s A Long Way to Tipperary
in a strange, warbling voice, and crying at the same time. Two nurses are trying to prevent another drunk from taking his trousers off. A teenage girl is being held up by her two bleary-eyed friends as she sways and vomits onto the floor.

I’m never, ever, drinking again. I mean it.

I’m running beside Patrick as he wheels Jude straight through all this mayhem to a treatment room where a doctor barges in, seemingly fresh from another patient, as if he was expecting us.

‘Judith. Hi. I’m Dr East,’ says this rather gorgeous guy with a faint American accent. ‘Now, can you tell me…’

‘She fell!’ I gabble before Jude can open her mouth.

I know about these things, you see. I watch
ER
and
Casualty
. One false word to these doctors, and they call the police in. Emily and I will be banged up for assault.

‘Because of her ankle! She sprained it, you see, so she was unsteady. She was limping – and she fell, and hit her head.’