Anna takes a deep breath. She does not like what she is about to say, but James needs to hear it. He needs to walk away from Bella and find someone else, someone capable of loving her dorky, awesome friend the way he deserves. “That was after I’d seen her give some random guy a blow job.”
James reels back. He opens his mouth to breathe in and out. Little puffs of breath. His eyes close and Anna knows he is fighting not to cry. She extends her hand and wraps it around his on the table. “I’m sorry, but you need to know. Bella is Bella. I’m not sure fidelity is in her nature.”
The sounds of the café surround them as they sit together. The hiss of the frother, the clatter of cups, and the scrape of chairs provide a distraction for Anna against the pain she has inflicted. She knows she has broken James’s heart, that he had been smitten with the gorgeous, glamourous siren who whispered words he had longed to hear. The warmth of the room mingles with the damp brought in by the customers. It closes around their shoulders, holds them together. Anna’s words were delivered with the cool, clinical efficiency she has long practised. But she thinks for a minute how she would feel if she were told Tolly had received a blow job after she had left. And even though there had been no understanding between them, nothing to tie them together, she would be floored.
So she sits there with James, ignoring her urgent need for the toilet until he stirs. He stands, his face flushed red as if embarrassed. “Um. Thank you,” he says, but his eyes are unfocussed, and Anna is not sure what he is thanking her for. Meeting him? Telling the truth? Or destroying his hope?
Then he pulls on his coat and disappears out of the door, his shoulders hunched as much for his life as for the weather. Anna sits longer, pulling bits off her brownie and slowly eatingthem. She has no way of knowing whether she has done the right thing. But in life, as in the emergency room, sometimes you make the best call you can, and then you have to stand back and watch as it plays out. When she can no longer ignore her bladder, she goes in search of the restroom.
She is back home, a couple of filled rolls from the café and a bowl of tinned soup assembled for her dinner when her phone rings. It’s Bella. She considers ignoring it or switching her phone off, but maybe this is the final act for them all to move on. She answers.
“What have you done?” Bella shouts. Anna listens for any sound of anguish, of regret in Bella’s words, but she finds only anger. Bella could be shouting at Anna for ruining her favourite jeans.
Anna contemplates acting dumb but goes with, “I take it James has called.”
“What did you say to him?” Bella demands. “One moment I thought I’d got him back – John was a lot more helpful than you. Then he meets up with you and suddenly it’s all over.”
Anna chooses not to answer any of Bella’s questions. “Honestly, Bella? James is not the man for you. You know he’s not. And he’s not a toy.”
“This is the worst day of my life,” Bella declares, in full drama mode.
“The worst day of my life was the day I lost eight patients in a single shift!” Anna snaps.
But Bella ignores her. “You want him for yourself? Is that it? I told him that’s your plan!”
Anna laughs. She can’t help it. The thought of her trying to hook James when all she wants is to forget about love and lovers for the next few years is ludicrous. Then she sobers. What if James believes Bella’s claims? If their easy friendship disappears and her work life becomes awkward?
“Look, Bella,” she says. “I sincerely believe that there is someone better for you than James.” There are plenty of narcissists in medicine. Any of them would be an excellent match for her friend. “You are extremely beautiful. Find someone who cares more about that than the other stuff. James cares about the other stuff. He wants monogamy, a home, a wife, a mass of children.”
“Amassof children?”
“I think his family are Irish Catholics. He’s probably expecting six. Four, minimum.”
She hears Bella’s intake of breath, can almost feel the thoughts ticking. Bella is even less maternal than Anna. Anna at least thinks babies are sweet, even if not for her. Bella thinks they are horrendous puking and pooing machines.
“We never talked about kids,” she says.
Anna is not surprised. It’s not the subject you tend to bring up a week into a relationship unless your biological clock is running down and you are desperate.
“Why did you want him, anyway? He’ssonot your type.”
“It’s alright for you. You’re in London. I’m stuck in that shitty city up North. James was my ticket out of there.” Frustration coats Bella’s words.
Anna is relieved. She hasn’t harmed Bella’s heart. “Maybe, try Australia?” she suggests. She can hear a male voice in the background, crying Bella’s name. It’s vaguely familiar, although it’s American. “Where are you?” she asks.
“LA,” Bella answers. Anna hears a muffled, “My friend Anna from Tolly’s party,” as if Bella is doing a bad job of covering the microphone. Then Bella’s voice returns clearly. “Randy is here. I think you know him. He says ‘hi’. Look, I’ve got to go.”
Bella disconnects the call and Anna sincerely hopes she never hears from Bella again.
Anna taps the phone against her palm, pondering what she can she do to refute Bella’s allegation to James. She plays the scene in her head.I just wanted to tell you, James, I don’t fancy you in the least. Oof. How to make things uncomfortable, with its overtones of “you’re just too unattractive for me”. This is one of the times, Anna thinks, to go full-on British. Stoic reserve is the way to go. Hopefully, neither of them will raise the subject.
She eats her dinner alone, checking the patient operating lists for the morning. There’s a routine ablation and a complex aneurysm on her list, so she does a deep dive to be prepared for all eventualities. She’s aiming for an early night; she is on shift in the morning and still has a sleep deficit to make up. But before she shuts down her laptop, she searches for Tolly’s name. She cleared all the alerts she had put up for him the day before, promising herself not to make a habit of it. She has to let him go and the fastest way to forget is to keep him out of sight. In the years after he dumped Eleanor, she managed to avoid Tolly Hyde quite well. She is confident of achieving that state of ignorance again.
But tonight, before she plunges back into her daily life, she wants to take a moment to bid him farewell. She rolls her eyes at herself. Such maudlin traits are atypical for her. Still, she looks at the latest entertainment news, searching for snaps of Tolly. There is nothing more recent than Saturday night’s party. The ones she has already seen of his arrival and a few selfies posted by other celebrities. Who needs the paparazzi when celebrities are so keen to pap themselves?
She closes her eyes for a moment. She pictures him as he was just before he kissed her – the sheen of the streetlight on his dark hair, the depth of the darkness of his eyes, the bristle framing his jaw. She breathes, once, twice, remembering. Then she opens her eyes, closes all her open windows, and drops the lid of her laptop.
She and Tolly are done. There is nothing to regret.
