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When Liv sat down to eat her lunch, the pain in her hip had travelled, not just down her leg as she’d suspected, but right up and into her back. She took two more painkillers with her coffee and determined that she would not be a complete ninny and complain, but rather, she would just get on with it and hope it would run its course before the end of the day. She imagined there would be a fair bit of bruising, but hey – it wasn’t as if anyone was going to be seeing her in her underwear any time soon, right?
She pulled out her phone to call Pete just before she was due back on shift. She imagined he’d either be shooting the breeze in his apartment or maybe at work, tidying up any loose ends before the year was over.
‘Hi.’ The voice on the other end purred when it was answered. Anya.
Without thinking, Liv put the phone down immediately, crashing it against the table as if it had burned her badly. What on earth was Anya doing answering Pete’s phone?
What indeed? Of course, Liv wasn’t entirely stupid. Pete might have come over to her flat yesterday while she was at work and filled her fridge and left a new lock for the front door but he’d been gathering up all Anya’s belongings too. How stupid was she? She’d assumed he was tidying them up so they could put both Eddie and Anya out of their lives, pack them up in black plastic bags and haul them to the workshop and they could all live happily ever after – isn’t that what she really thought? But she had been completely wrong. Stupid, stupid Liv. She cursed her own stupidity now. Of course Pete had come over to take all of Anya’s stuff back to his own apartment. That was why he’d folded everything up so meticulously. He wasn’t packing her stuff up so he could dump it somewhere else; he was packing her up because she was moving back in with him. God, how had she managed to worm her way back in with him?
Then another thought occurred to Liv. What about Eddie and Anya? What had changed? Had the gloss gone off their relationship once the cold reality of having to find somewhere to live had set in? Eddie would have surely laid it all out for Anya. They couldn’t stay together in Liv’s flat, so her only option was to move back in with Pete. Had she gone round there while Liv was at work and wheedled and cajoled him into taking her back?
Suddenly, here in the glaring light of the staff kitchen with the hum and clatter of the ward behind her, Liv felt a dark cloud descend on her like she’d never known before. It was the last day of the year, a day when she should have been making a plan for a much better year ahead, and she felt nothing but completely distraught.
She wanted only to curl up into a small foetal ball and… what? Die? ‘God forgive me,’ she said. She’d seen what too many families had to go through when someone came into A&E and had decided that the only way out was the finality of death. She couldn’t do that to the people she loved and anyway, she knew, deep down, this would pass. This had to pass. Even if it felt as if things would never be right with her again, as if she’d somehow missed taking a vital step in some badly signposted direction to her future happiness, she had to keep on going.
But, oh God. She closed her eyes, scrunched them down as tightly as they could go and tried hard to imagine what her sister would say to her. She would tell her everything would be fine, she just had to hang in there. And somehow it felt as if Rachel was very near.
She shook herself out; of course that was utter nonsense. She was completely alone here in this busy, crowded city and maybe more than she’d ever been before, because it felt as if even Pete had left her side.
She checked her watch, rubbed the tears from her eyes. The pain down her right side didn’t seem to make any difference to her anymore. It was time to get back on shift. She needed to wash away this feeling of misery that had engulfed her. She picked up her phone, switched it off for now. No-one would be ringing her and that just added another layer to her misery that she didn’t need reminding about every time someone else’s phone pinged with a message of New Year wishes. At midnight she’d ring her parents and Maya, wish them a happy New Near and try her best to convince them that she was fine.
She managed to get through the remainder of her shift on automatic pilot. She tended to her patients, talked to her colleagues and followed the instructions of the doctors on call, but inside, she knew, in some strange unfathomable way, something was changing. She was empty, like a walking urn, just going through the motions to get to the end of her shift. She could feel herself, as if from afar, plugging in the hours, minutes; every second, hollowing out its echo in her misery.
Finally, Francine sent her home. It was still New Year’s Eve. She hoped she might just about make the last bus. But of course, making a bus or walking the four miles home made little difference to Liv at that point. She’d wearily put back on her warm clothes for the journey, make her way back out of the hospital, hardly noticing colleagues who wished her a happy New Year. It was all just background noise. The world had become a blur that didn’t penetrate enough on her blunted spirit to make any impact whatsoever.
*
A&E was completely mental for most of the day. They were, as Liv had predicted, short-staffed, but at least, when it came to the end of her shift, it seemed they had a full house for the night duty.
‘Go on, with you,’ Francine had said and even she was leaving bang on time. They walked together out through the main hospital foyer. ‘We won’t be sorry to see the end of that year,’ she said as they made their way out into the crisp night.
‘Ah, it wasn’t all bad,’ Liv surprised herself by saying. After all, she’d managed to lose a terrible boyfriend, and maybe she was falling in love with the man who’d saved her life – quite a tally since the first day of Christmas. She couldn’t help but feel optimistic, as if something really special was just around the corner, like taking a deep breath before life slipped into where it was always meant to be.
‘It’s good to see you smiling again, anyway,’ Francine said and leant in to embrace Liv before they set off in opposite directions. ‘Next year can only get better, eh?’
‘Absolutely,’ Liv agreed and she felt that surge of hopefulness rise up even more potently in her.
‘Hey, Liv.’ She turned around to see Pete padding along the grass verge. ‘I decided to collect you anyway.’ He smiled at her and she thought her heart would burst with happiness. For a moment, she stood, not sure if any words would come. How strange, to feel this relief, just knowing that he wasn’t ringing in the New Year with Anya. She wanted to ask him where Anya was. What had happened and of course, why was he here, but she was just too happy to see him to let any of those questions dull this perfect moment.
‘Hey, you,’ she said grabbing him before he toppled over as he hopped onto the icy path in front of her. ‘I thought you’d be far too busy making things up with Anya tonight?’
‘Why on earth would you think that? I’ve only just managed to get her out of the apartment. Actually, I think that’s all sorted. I’ve loaned her a down payment on a new flat. She’ll be renting over the café and she’s going to talk to the bank about taking over the lease on the business.’ He looked relieved.
‘How did you manage all that?’ And she could almost imagine him, sitting there, hammering things out and cajoling Anya, keeping everything upbeat, while beneath she knew he was a man who’d always known what he wanted and he’d negotiated deals with much higher stakes than just the cost of a deposit on a flat for two.
‘Oh, I knew Anya always liked up-front money and since she and Eddie hadn’t anywhere to stay, my offer was probably the only one they were going to get.’ He smiled then.
‘What?’
‘Well, I think the gloss might be wearing off for both of them already. He’s been getting on her nerves and she rolls her eyes every time he mentions his mother. He’s completely unaware, of course.’
‘You know what they say, love goes out the door when poverty comes in the window.’ Anya and Eddie would both feel the pinch of having to stand on their own two feet financially from here on in. Funny, she should have taken some pleasure in knowing that they were stuck with each other now, but instead, she just felt mad at Anya for tricking her into believing that Pete had taken her back. It had made her completely miserable every time she thought about it during the day.
‘Well, maybe it’ll work out for them. God knows they deserve each other.’ He was holding on to her arm now and Liv wasn’t sure if it was to keep her safe or keep himself upright. ‘Come on, I managed to get parking quite close.’ He flicked the fob on his keys and she spotted his car lit up just a couple of metres away.
‘Wow, it looks like the universe is certainly looking after you with the best parking spots tonight.’ She was making fun of him, but it was true: he deserved all the luck in the world, just for being the sort of guy he was.
‘No, actually, I’ve been here a while. I didn’t want to miss you,’ he said opening the door for her gallantly. ‘If you hadn’t come out soon, I planned to text you, just to let you know I would be here waiting for you.’ He sat into the driver’s seat.
