Heather opens her drinks cabinet, which is crammed with various bottles of spirits.
‘Erm. Most things. Gin? Rum? Scotch? Tequila?’
‘A scotch, please. Yes. Scotch.’
Heather concentrates on pouring two measures of scotch into two glasses when a slimy sensation on her neck makes her jump. It’s as though a slug has fallen from a tree and found a new home to latch on to. She lifts her hand reflexively to swat it off.
‘Oh. Sorry. You don’t like that.’
It’s not a slug. It’s Gerry. Planting what Heather can only assume he thinks is an erotically charged kiss on her neck. It’s automatic. Heather can’t help it. She lifts her hand and wipes the slobber away with her fingers. Their eyes meet.
‘Sorry,’ she says.
A welcome interruption breaks the silence that descends. The house phone. Heather hasn’t used the house phone in over three years. She couldn’t have said for sure that it was still connected.
‘Hello?’
‘Oh My God. Oh My God. You’re there. You’re there.’ The voice on the other end of the line is fever-pitched, hysterical.
‘You’ve not been answering. I’ve tried your mobile like hundreds of times and you’ve … You’ve—’
‘Who is this?’
Heather keeps her voice sharp to cut through the hysteria.
‘Brianna. It’s Georgia. Her drink’s got spiked, and she’s gone all—’
Heather’s heart freezes in her chest.
‘Where is she?’ Heather rasps.
She can hear the wail of an ambulance on the other end of the line.
‘They’re taking her to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee.’
Heather forces the words through her rapidly closing throat. ‘I’ll be right there. Tell her. I’ll be right there.’
***
The journey to hospital is the most tortuous of Heather’s life. Gerry drives.
‘There’s no way you’re getting behind the wheel in this state,’ he’d said to her. And, of course, he’d been right.
Heather’s hands shake so vigorously and are so soaked in anxious sweat she wonders if she’d even be able to grasp the steering wheel. She opens her phone and takes it off silent. Thirty-seven missed calls. Twelve WhatsApps. Seventeen messages. Six voice notes. All from Brianna. Each one more panicked than the last.
‘Shit. Shit. Shit. Heather. I don’t know what to doooooo,’ she says in the last message, her voice a shrill vibrato of panic.
Georgia’s phone, when she tries it now, rings continuously. Brianna’s goes straight to voicemail. Every mile of tarmac covered in the 66-mile journey to Dundee causes Heather’s heart rate to accelerate. She feels Gerry’s hand on her knee as they cross the Forth Road Bridge. He’s driving at exactly the speed limit. An excruciating 40 miles an hour.
‘Take deep breaths, Heather. Slow them down,’ he instructs.
Heather does her best to comply. She’ll be no use to Georgia if she has a full-on meltdown before they even get to the hospital.
If they ever get there.
‘Can’t you go faster, Gerry?’ she says through clenched jaws.
They make it across the bridge then Gerry, thankfully, puts his foot down.
