Cherry gasped. ‘What?’

  ‘She’s been here before. I was at home on my own and she called round saying she’d come to see Dad.’

  ‘Urgh.’ Cherry looked disgusted. ‘And you ended up having to cover for him? That’s so gross! Does your mum know?’ Her mouth fell open. ‘Do you think she came round tonight to confront your dad or something and now it’s all come out?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I think maybe you better go.’

  She nodded understandingly. ‘Yeah, of course I will. I’m so sorry, babe. This is really shit. Call me if you need me, or if you want to come and stay at mine if it all kicks off?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She kissed me and hurried away. I didn’t feel bad for lying. Until I’d had a chance to work out exactly what Alex thought she was playing at, I’d say whatever I needed to if it meant protecting everyone from her increasingly malicious games.

  * * *

  I went off to find Mum and Dad who were in the cinema room, sat in front of the huge blank screen, talking calmly. Mum wasn’t crying, and they both looked up when I walked in.

  ‘Dad, can I ask you something, but promise not to get angry?’ I said. ‘That woman who was just here came round to the house when I was at home before the holidays. She said you’d told her to meet you here to talk about this Botox job.’

  Dad frowned in confusion. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘You’re not having an affair with her, are you?’

  I expected him to go nuts, and it was actually Mum who exclaimed: ‘Jonathan!’

  But Dad just looked at me, like he was considering something. ‘No, son, I’m not. I never make mistakes when it comes to your mother.’ He reached out and took Mum’s hand, and I felt almost sick with relief to realise that he was telling the truth. I wondered why I’d let Alex make me doubt it.

  I nodded and turned to walk out.

  ‘Jonny?’

  I looked back.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Dad said. ‘There’s nothing you want to tell us?’

  I hesitated. ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Dad looked at me coolly. ‘Just something doesn’t feel right to me. I can’t put my finger on it. I might be way off the mark, it’s been a long day.’

  ‘You could tell us though, if something was bothering you.’ Mum looked at me, concerned.

  ‘Did she say anything else to you, that doctor, the day you say she came here to ask about a job?’ Dad said.

  I tried to push the image of us on the stairs from my mind. It made me feel dirty, and not in a good way. I didn’t want to discuss that with my parents, of all people, even though events had taken a turn that was downright scaring me. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m going to go and email my essay now if that’s all right?’

  ‘Oh that’s good, love!’ Mum brightened. ‘Well done for getting that finished.’ She smiled encouragingly, and I felt like an A-grade shit. She did not deserve this. Any of it.

  Upstairs, I lay on my bed and wondered what the hell I should do. Alex had lost the plot and she needed to understand that this had become completely unacceptable. Coming into my house when I wasn’t here, for fuck’s sake?

  I also knew, however, that that was exactly what she wanted: me to come running to her. She would be waiting for my reaction, craving it. I felt panicked and trapped, it was beyond claustrophobic, but she had also crossed a line by involving by my family and Cherry. I wasn’t going to let her contaminate them and invade those parts of my life too.

  Enough was enough.

  13

  Dr David Harper

  Sometimes a patient will come into your room and say something so unutterably ridiculous that it’s quite hard not to jump to your feet, point at the door and bark crossly: ‘get out of my room now and stop wasting my time, you bloody idiot.’

  I’m thinking, for example, of the woman who complained to me that she was pregnant, despite using the vaginal ring I’d prescribed her. ‘OK, some medicines can interact with it and reduce its effectiveness,’ I’d said sympathetically. ‘When did you put the last ring in?’

  She looked at me blankly. ‘What do you mean? Put it in where? I’m wearing it now.’

  Then she lifted up her sleeve. She was wearing it round her wrist like a bracelet.

  I felt much the same sense of incredulity when Day reached the middle part of his allegation. All of a sudden his account turned into sex at Alex’s house, sex at his house on the stairs (no one actually has sex on the stairs in real life. I mean, honestly), sex at a hotel in Ibiza, sex with his girlfriend, sex, sex, sex – all with Day in the starring role. I didn’t react, just listened gravely to this verbal dribble of a wet dream, taking notes and nodding as if I was taking him seriously.

  And right up until the shag on the stairs, I had been. I had been seriously worried at first that Alex had made a heinous error of judgement; I even found myself wondering at one point if she had stolen Day’s iPhone from outside the surgery, worried that it might still contain evidence of their first illicit messages, but as the whole tone of his complaint began to change, it simply stopped ringing true. I didn’t recognise the Alex I know. He painted her by turns hard and demanding, then in the next breath, vulnerable and obsessive. As I listened carefully to his earnest account of how he’d had to firmly tell her it was over in Ibiza – which she’d accepted, even gamely offering him one last roll in the sack for old time’s sake, because he was just that damn irresistible – I felt an overwhelming urge to sit back, cross my arms and raise an eyebrow. He was, I realised, projecting his own personality traits on to his imagined Alex, re-writing the story so that he got to reject her, rather than vice-versa – which was all well and good, but the only problem was Alex actually existed in real life, was a thoroughly decent person and didn’t deserve to be sacrificed at the altar of Jonathan Day’s narcissism.

  He also carefully mentioned two more specific dates: 15 July and 7 August, both of which he would have known could be verified, and it occurred to me while he waited for me to write them both down, that if a highly intelligent individual were busily constructing a story such as this he would know how important dates tallying were. He would not – as I had casually assumed earlier – wing it. He would know that such specifics would lend weight to his account. He might possibly ring a surgery to check if said doctor was at work that day. Which he might also do if he were stalking said attractive doctor too, of course. I played with my pen thoughtfully. Not such a silly boy after all.

  Ultimately, however, what gave me the gravest cause for concern in his whole account, and really caught my attention, was that Day junior – by his own admission – decided for reasons best known to himself to bring his tale of lovesick woe to our morning surgery. I found it quite hard to remind myself at that point to stay objective and not pass comment. I listened, but I also remembered how severely compromised we were that morning while the systems were down, all doing our level best to provide safe and effective care to patients in need – and doing, if I may say, a damn good job. Day gained access to Alex’s room and once he was finally alone with her, he threatened her. She must have been terrified.

  GPs act as the gatekeepers to the rest of the services within the NHS and with that comes great privilege, but make no mistake, genuine risk. As a doctor, you simply never know if the next person in through the door will be the person with mental health issues so severe they are about to suddenly attack you for simply saying the wrong thing.

  Yes, Alex made a mistake when paralytic in Ibiza, which is regrettable and, in my opinion, totally out of character, but it does not justify Jonathan Day’s response. He harassed and intimidated a dedicated doctor, for whom I have great personal respect, at her place of work. I really do find that completely unforgivable, no matter how Day attempts to excuse it.

  14

  Jonathan Day

  I drove to the surgery straight after class, in my first free period. Luckily Cherry was in History – I didn’t need any complications or questions. When I arrived at the doctors, though, it was chaos. There were several people giving the receptionists proper grief. Confused, I went and sat down for a moment while I tried to work out what was happening.

  ‘Excuse me, mate,’ I said to the bloke sitting next to me, who was busily texting someone. ‘Do you know what’s going on?’

  ‘They’ve got computer problems, everything’s running really late and they don’t know what the hell is going on.’ He nodded tersely at the receptionists. ‘I’ve been here nearly three quarters of an hour already, missed two lectures and I’ve still not been seen.’ He went back to his screen.

  I fell silent. This didn’t look promising.

  The bloke jiggled his leg, looked at the clock on the wall and said under his breath: ‘In fact, fuck it.’ He scrunched up a piece of paper he was holding into a ball, dropped it on the floor and walked out in disgust.

  I watched him go, picked it up and unfolded it. It was some sort of form he’d filled out. The woman at the desk was still arguing with another patient, but just as I was deciding how best to play this, some double doors opened and another woman appeared saying loudly: ‘Shahid Khan for Dr Inglis, Room 10.’

  I waited, but no one got up.

  She looked around and repeated: ‘Shahid Khan?’

  I looked down at the name on the form I was holding and realised she was calling the bloke next to me who’d given up and gone. All I had to do was get in a room with Alex. I didn’t need long for what I’d come to do.

  I stood up. ‘Sorry, that’s me. I was miles away.’

  She didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Room 10,’ she repeated, and disappeared.

  I made my way up the corridor and knocked on the almost closed door. The déjà vu wasn’t even funny. It was exactly like the very first time, three months ago.

  ‘Come in,’ Alex said cheerily.

  She glanced up as I walked in and, satisfyingly, looked horrified. She jumped to her feet quickly as I closed the door behind me.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Not nice when someone turns up unannounced, is it?’ I said. ‘Although obviously you will have been hoping I’d come running after last night’s little stunt, so this can’t be that much of a surprise?’

  She didn’t say anything, just glanced at the door, but I was stood between it and her.

  ‘How did you get in here? I’ve got a patient waiting.’

  ‘Shahid Khan? Yeah, that’s me.’ I waved my scrunched-up paper.

  ‘You gave a fake identity?’ That unnerved her, I could tell. She looked genuinely frightened. ‘Jonathan, you shouldn’t have come here. If anyone sees you—’

  ‘I had a row with Cherry after you left yesterday.’ I spoke over her and watched carefully for a reaction to my lie – but she didn’t say anything; she was busily recomposing herself again, becoming blank. ‘Even my dad knew something was up.’

  I waited, but she was back under control and just looked at me, impassively.

  ‘Is that what you wanted? All of this to come out in the open? What were you playing at, worming your way into my house yesterday?’ I took a step closer to her. ‘Getting your friends to recommend you to my parents, then upsetting my mother and shoving my girlfriend around? Who do you think you are, Alex?’ I hadn’t realised quite how angry I was until that moment. ‘We agreed we were over. “Have you got rid of him?” were your friend’s exact words, I think?’

  ‘Wait, Jonathan.’ She held up a defensive hand. ‘I had absolutely no idea you lived there. Your mother requested a home visit for medical attention.’

  It took a moment for her words to sink in – I hesitated, completely confused. ‘What are you talking about? Of course you knew I lived there!’

  ‘Jonathan, I want to make it absolutely clear that my friend recommended me to your parents without my knowledge.’ She spoke slowly and deliberately. ‘I didn’t come to see you yesterday. I’m your doctor at the practice you’re registered at. There are very strict rules about that sort of thing.’

  ‘Right, because that’s bothered you up until now, the way it bothered you in your hotel room in Ibiza, in fact?’ I looked at her incredulously. ‘The LAST time we were going to do it, remember? Go out on a high? Ibiza 2017?’

  ‘But I didn’t know then. We were just two strangers.’

  Then it dropped, and I saw what she was doing. How psycho could one person be? I had to close my eyes for a moment while I made a huge effort not to lose my cool. ‘Alex, that’s just not true, is it? I know you got off on that whole idea of us being strangers in Ibiza, but this isn’t funny any more. You’ve just called me Jonathan for a start, you know exactly who I am. I’ve got a phone back at my house full of messages from you. Stop playing games.’

  ‘A phone full of messages?’ She looked completely confused. ‘I realised that was your name when I saw it on your mother’s notes this morning. Jonathan, have I seen you before? Here, I mean, as a patient?’

  I stared at her in disbelief and nearly yelled with frustration. ‘Alex, you need to stop this. You came to my fucking house! Have you no concept of how messed up that is?’

  ‘Jonathan, when we met at the club, did you think I knew who you were?’

  ‘This is not going to work,’ I warned her, somehow keeping calm. ‘I see what you’re trying to do, but I KNOW I have not imagined this whole thing. You’re playing a very sick game. Of course you knew who I was.’

  ‘But I didn’t. You do understand that, don’t you? I didn’t know who you were. I don’t know what you mean, you’ve got a phone full of messages? I think it would be best if you left now, actually.’

  I laughed when she said that. I couldn’t help it. ‘You want me to leave?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I really am very sorry, Jonathan, that you thought my coming to your house was some sort of signal, but please don’t feel embarrassed. I can see it was an honest mistake.’

  I stared at her, scrunched my fake form back up and put it in my pocket. ‘OK, whatever. If this is how you want to make yourself feel better about the fact that it’s over between us, I can live with that. Pretend whatever the hell you want. But you are NOT to come to my house again. You stay away from me, and my family, and my girlfriend, from now on. This is my official last warning to you.’ I stepped right up into her face and whispered, ‘or I will make you wish you really had never met me.’

  My hands started tingling. I was so angry with her, the strength of it surprised me. I realised how easy it would be to just reach out and put my hands round her neck. I wanted to do it so much, I felt frightened and had to quickly spin around and bang out of the room – before I did something I’d regret even more than laying a finger on her in the first place.

  * * *

  The rage burst out of me when I got back in the car, however, and I actually did shout. I couldn’t believe what she’d just had the nerve to do; stand there and barefaced act like I was having some kind of mental flip out, when she had been the one to creep into my house within touching reach of my parents.

  I leant my head back on the headrest for a moment, exhausted by the adrenaline surge I’d experienced back in her room. I just wanted it all to go away. If only I’d not put that bloody message on her windscreen.

  I drove back to school for lunchtime to find everyone messing around in the Year 12 & 13 common room.

  ‘Hey!’ Cherry was delighted to see me. ‘Where have you been?’ Her face clouded over with concern. ‘Everything all right at home?’

  I flopped down onto one of the sofas, and she got on alongside me. I didn’t know what to say and sat there for a moment trying to formulate the jumble of thoughts in my head, when suddenly a football smacked me on the side of the face out of nowhere. Everyone laughed, and I know it was just the lads pissing about, they didn’t mean anything by it, but it tipped me over the edge.

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’ I roared, jumping up and booting it as hard as I could back at Rik, who was holding his hands up in apology. He ducked but it hit the pillar anyway and crashed down onto one of the tables, knocking over several cans of Coke and decimating two of the girls’ lunches. ‘Could you just all FUCK OFF!’ I shouted.

  A silence fell as everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me. The only sound was the cheap school radio in the corner tinnily playing that sodding James Hype track, ‘More Than Friends’.

  I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the lyrics and the sudden wave of panic I was experiencing, but when I opened them again, everyone was still looking at me uncertainly, even Cherry – her mouth had fallen open in disbelief. My heart started thumping with embarrassment and anger. I grabbed my bag and banged out of the room, shoving past the Year 8 kids running down the corridor towards me, and out through the main door to the car park.

  I heard my iPhone start ringing in my bag the second I’d slung it on the back seat, but I ignored it and drove off so fast I did an accidental wheel spin as I turned to drive down the hill. All of the younger boys playing out the front cheered, but their reaction barely registered with me. On autopilot I drove out of the town and along the back roads to the bunny run, turning right suddenly in front of an oncoming Lexus that blasted the horn angrily. I didn’t even care. I drove too fast along the windy road, almost losing it on a bend. I was lucky that nothing was coming in the opposite direction. I pulled off into the closed farm shop car park again. There were actually a couple of cars there, just two people eating lunch in the front seats of a Peugeot and one older bloke letting a dog out of the back of a Volvo. I bounced over the potholes and stopped in front of the five-bar gate – staring at it. In the cold light of day, I couldn’t believe it was so exposed. Anyone could have pulled up and seen us. A hot wave of humiliation and shame washed over me and, to my surprise, I realised I had tears in my eyes. She had used me – and she’d known it. She’d told me herself what we’d done was wrong: she was sorry, and I should stay away from her.

 

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