Page 62 of The Work Husband

‘The Uber’s… what?’ I stammered. ‘Called me? Where are we going?’

He looked at me like I was talking another language – or like I was a foreigner who didn’t understand the one he was talking. ‘To the intensive care baby unit, of course. Where Molly and Artoo are. I just came home to get some clothes and toiletries and stuff for her.’

‘Intensive care?’ Horror filled the pit of my stomach and rushed into my throat so I thought I might be sick. How had I not known? Why hadn’t I tried harder to get in touch with Molly or tried calling Ben instead? What kind of friend was I? ‘What happened? I didn’t know. I just came to visit. I tried calling, but Molly⁠—’

Before I could finish speaking, Ben bundled me, the bag and himself into the back seat of the taxi, and said, ‘Hospital, quick as you can, please, mate.’

My fingers fumbled with the seat belt as the car pulled out into a slow-moving stream of traffic.

‘Arthur’s got meningitis,’ Ben said. ‘He started with a temperature yesterday. We gave him Calpol, but it wasn’t touching it. He was screaming and screaming, and then he stopped screaming, and that was when we got really worried.’

‘Oh my God.’ A shiver ran up my arms. There didn’t seem to be any words adequate for what was happening. ‘Is he… I mean, he’ll be all right, won’t he? If he’s in hospital?’

‘He’s in hospital because they don’t know whether he’s going to be all right,’ Ben said grimly, and I saw how hard he was fighting to keep it together. ‘It’s the bacterial kind, which is more serious. One in ten babies that get it… well, they die.’

‘Arthur won’t die.’ I tried to imbue the words with as much certainty as I could. Arthur couldn’t die. It was unthinkable – that the worst thing that could ever happen to parents might happen to Molly and Ben. ‘They’ve caught it early, right? They’re treating it.’

‘He’s on IV antibiotics, fluids and oxygen.’ The stream of words seemed to come out of Ben’s mouth like he didn’t want to say them but at the same time couldn’t stop. ‘He went all floppy, and he had this rash. We pressed a glass on it like you’re supposed to, and then we realised it was serious. I know everyone says you shouldn’t google, but I’m glad we did. We took him to A&E last night, and they transferred him to Great Ormond Street in an ambulance.’

Great Ormond Street. I knew nothing about babies, but even I knew that was the hospital where children with the gravest, most life-threatening conditions were treated.

Ben was texting and talking at the same time. I hoped what he was telling Molly was reassuring because what he was saying to me was the opposite. What he was telling me felt like the end of everything.

‘It’s fucking bad, Georgia,’ he said. ‘Even if… even if he makes it, he could be blind, or deaf, or have epilepsy. I had no idea. Like, yesterday morning he was okay, just a bit cranky. Molly thought he might be teething, so I went to work. Then she called me and said he wouldn’t stop screaming, and he was so hot.’

I put a hand on his knee. ‘It’s okay, Ben. It’s going to be okay. He’s in the best possible place.’

I tried to sound calm and composed, but I didn’t feel it, and I knew my words weren’t making a blind bit of difference to Ben. His eyes were dark with fear in his pale, stubble-shadowed face.

‘He’s got to be okay,’ he said. ‘Otherwise, me and Moll… I don’t think we could carry on.’

He paused for breath and then tears began to run down his face.

‘If Artoo dies, I feel like we’ll die too.’

THIRTY-ONE

The taxi crept on through the congested streets. Ben didn’t say much more – he was mostly looking at his phone, tapping intermittently as he presumably exchanged messages with Molly. I hoped that he was assuring her we were on our way, and hoped even more fervently that she was passing on at least slightly encouraging updates from the doctors who were treating Arthur.

I’d texted Molly myself and told her I was in the cab with Ben, but I said nothing about why I’d turned up at their home in the first place. The crisis in Sam’s and my relationship was trivial in contrast to what she and Ben were going through.

What must it feel like, I wondered, to have that kind of bond with another person – to be so united in unconditional love for the tiny life you’d created together that you felt that if it ended, your lives would be over too? It must be terrifying, but wonderful too.

If Arthur pulled through – and surely he must because the alternative was unthinkable – Molly and Ben would never forget this. The trauma of almost losing their son would surely bring them even closer to each other and to their baby, strengthening the ties that held together their little unit of three.

And for Arthur, what would it be like growing up with parents who loved you and each other so completely? Perhaps there had been a time, when I was Arthur’s age and maybe a while after that, when my mum and dad had felt that way about each other and about me. But I’d been too little to remember it. From as early as I’d been able to speak, I could remember being used as a conduit between my parents when they weren’t speaking to each other.

Georgia, tell your father dinner’s on the table.

We’d better be on best behaviour, Georgia – your mother’s in one of her moods again.

Or, even more frequently, Go to bed, Georgia. Your parents are talking. Which meant that they were about to launch into one of their frightening rows, which I’d spend hiding under the covers, waiting for the shouting to stop and bracing myself for the shattering crash as one of them threw something on the floor or at the wall.

Their separation should have come as a relief to me. By twelve, I was already aware that they’d only stayed together as long as they had because of me. After that, although I was to be shunted between two homes, at least those homes would be more peaceful, I’d thought.

But Mum and Dad had lacked whatever skills it takes for divorced people to co-parent successfully. Their animosity towards each other didn’t end with their marriage; if anything, it intensified. And now the most effective weapon they had to wound each other with was me.

If she found out that Dad had started seeing someone, Mum would plan a solo holiday so I’d have to go and stay with him, cramping his style with his new girlfriend. If Mum took up a new hobby, Dad would immediately shift his contact time with me so he was no longer available on the evenings she wanted to be off doing Pilates or life drawing or whatever the latest craze was – understandably, none of them lasted much longer than Dad’s girlfriends did.