The hold music kicks in and she’s told she’s third in the …
‘Glendon Hill GP surgery.’
‘Uh, yes, sorry, hi,’ she says, caught unawares by how quickly position three in the queue became one. ‘My name is Anika Lapo – someone left me a message about a blood—’
‘Can I take your date of birth, please?’ the receptionist says in a manner that suggests she is used to cutting people off from giving her a full medical breakdown.
‘Sorry, yes.’ Anika glances around again. ‘July the fourth, 1992.’ She’s been allowing her workmates to labour under the impression she’s still in her thriving mid-twenties, not days away from the big 3-0.
‘Ah, yes, OK. Bear with me just a moment.’ An instrumental of one of Anika’s most hated songs by the Lighthouse Family starts up, so she’s already in a bad mood when the GP picks up a couple of minutes later.
‘Miss Lapo?’
Fighting the urge to ‘Ms’ at him, Anika says, ‘Yes, hi?’
‘Hi there. This is Dr Ogden. Um, yes … So, you went to the Trent Gardens clinic over the weekend, is that right?’
‘Yes.’Get on with it!Her heart is starting to quicken.Jesus, what’s Len given me?
‘Good, right, yes.’ All three words sound like redundant habit. ‘So, the blood test shows some unusually low white blood cells and some other markers here are a bit of a concern …’
Anika’s throat blasts into scorched dryness. ‘What does … ?’ She coughs, not necessarily wanting to ask what that actually might mean. ‘Right,’ she opts for saying instead, leaving the door open for him to say something else redundant and routine. Desperate for it.
Instead, she hears the doctor draw a hesitant breath. ‘Yes. It’s quite urgent. I think you ought to get yourself down to an A&E, because they’ll be able to—’
‘A&E?’ she interrupts loudly. The smokers turn to look at her as they stub out their cigarettes. She lowers her voice. ‘Like, now?You’re saying I should go to the hospital right now?’
The doctor clears his throat. ‘Yes, I think it’s best if they run some more bloods and give you a check over, because these results from the weekend are definitely out of the normal ranges …’ It’s only now she notices a soft Yorkshire lilt to the doctor’s voice and a note of genuine concern. Panic tries to surge but is dragged back by an ever-present pull of restraint and resignation. The sensations mingle awkwardly in Anika’s chest. She doesn’t say anything and he continues. ‘It’s just best if you go to A&E because they can process things much quicker and they’d be better placed to check you out there.’
Anika starts to calculate what level of awkward it might be to tell her line manager that she needs to head off to A&E instead of heading to her desk.Emergency.It sounds surreal, even inside her head. Another nervous swoop loops around her stomach, followed by the tight clench she’s been feeling for a couple of weeks now. ‘Right,’ she says into her handset at last. ‘I’ll, um … Yeah, OK.’
‘OK, Miss Lapo?’ he asks, with an uptick that suggests he’s largely washing his hands of this now – not unkindly but out of necessity.
‘Yep. Thanks.’ Gratitude isn’t contained in the word. She ends the call in a haze.
‘Everything all right?’ It’s Tara, one of the PR ‘girls’ from her floor, as she breezes past Anika.
I don’t think so.‘Um, yeah.’ Anika feels sweat prickling on her forehead as the truth of her isolation takes hold.
‘Coming up?’
‘I …’Don’t have to tell you anything.‘Sorry, um … I have a bit of a thing.’ She hears the abstract, meaningless nature of her words. ‘I have to go.’ Internally, she berates herself for apologising. What have they been talking about at the ‘What Working Women Want’ meet-ups?Stop saying sorry, girls!Asmall smile of sarcastic amusement tickles Anika’s lips.
Tara’s expression turns puzzled as she pauses by the rotating doors into the building. ‘Do you need me to let someone know you’re—?’
‘Nah, it’s all good,’ Anika says, then quickly adjusts her speech. ‘I mean, no. It’s fine. I’ll call in. Thanks.’ She takes a few steps away and opens the map app on her phone.
Where the fuck is the nearest A&E?
Chapter Two
Anika had jumped on the train from Victoria to Denmark Hill and headed straight to the A&E at King’s College. It’s the hospital where she was born, and nearish to her flat, so she reasoned that the journey there was swift enough forurgent. The word whirrs around and around in her brain. It at least provided all the explanation necessary for her line manager. When Anika called Kate Friern, the situation must have sounded sufficiently intense that her boss just quickly assured Anika she should ‘go and take care of things’.
Anika still doesn’t actually know what the issue is. Nurses have drained her blood into numerous glass phials, and there have been lots of repetitive questions from different medical personnel about how she’sfeelingand if she has anypainwhile they eye her closely. They made her recline while they prodded her abdomen behind a papery green curtain. Then there was a change of scenery while Anika was sent for a scan. So far everyone’s been chipper yet cagey, but the fact that she’s not been dismissed to go home is what’s really giving Anika pause. She’s the last of the patients who were in the A&E holding area that afternoon. Even the drunk who wandered around in a hospital gown due to soiling his own clothes has snuck away with a mate and a vodka bottle.
Grudgingly, Anika pockets her phone as the display informs her she has eighteen per cent battery left, even on low power mode. She rummages through her handbag for her book, despite having finally finished it thirty minutes ago. At the bottom of herbulging leather backpack, her fingers close around the spine of something else – her old five-year diary. She retrieves it, careful not to jostle the needle port that was sunk into the vein of her right arm four hours ago.
Studying the diary’s smooth blue surface, she presses her fingers into its padded cover. More than even a place to offload or vent her early-teenage feelings, this diary was somewhere to record the fact that she lived each day. That she was here on earth. It’s something she still thinks about to this day.But what if my days are …
