The Things We Do to Our Friends(85)

Samuel looked to me. “You were there,” he said unsteadily. “You saw it all. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” I said.

We waited to see who would lead.

“We need to call her parents,” he said.

“We need to do no such thing,” Ava replied. “The doctors will do that, or the police if they come. Just calm down and wait. Actually, Imogen, Samuel, why don’t you leave? I’ll stay in touch—I promise.”

Eventually, she was able to persuade them that it was fine to go.

We sat there in the hospital, sat so stiffly on those awful plastic hospital seats. I realized it was nearly morning. I wished I could take one of my pills and go back to my flat, pull up the covers over my head and sleep until everything ended.

The consultant came out and looked at us kindly. I’d always thought we must have seemed so unusual-looking, so impressive, but we probably just looked like two drunk, tired students.

“Could I have a word?” She took Ava through to a consulting room.

Ava was only in there for about ten minutes, then she returned and sat down next to me. She was still, and I could barely even hear her breathing, then she turned to me, eyes bloodshot like a hound. I noticed the blush of her pajama top that she hadn’t bothered to change out of, so you could see it poking from underneath her coat.

Looking straight at me, she might have said something about what had happened. The two of us were in our own bubble in the hospital waiting room. She could have said something, surely, but she chose to stay silent, and all I could think of was how much she might have revealed in private with the consultant about what had actually happened.

I wanted to shake her and say, What are you doing? Why aren’t you screaming at me, telling the world what I did?

“What did they say?” I asked.

“You need to give me a minute,” she replied. It was more than a minute. We sat together and she didn’t speak at all.





72


And then the police arrived, and I was shocked even though of course the police were bound to show up. There were two of them. One was in uniform—a man who looked barely older than us—and then a woman who seemed more senior, but didn’t speak.

“Hi, girls,” the male officer said slowly, as if we might have trouble understanding. “I’m sure you’re very upset about your friend, but we need to talk to you about what happened last night.”

Last night. It was already last night.

“We’re going to take you over to the police station, which is close by, and then we’ll bring you back here.”

“Do I have to go?” My voice sounded weak. I looked at Ava for guidance.

“We’ve been up for a long time,” she said to the man, and I wondered how he might perceive her, this girl who spoke to him like a complete equal and who didn’t see him as an authority figure at all. The police officer nodded but took little notice.

“It’s important we speak to you now while everything’s still fresh. I know you’ve spoken to the doctors already, so you’re aware of the seriousness of the situation—you’re aware your friend might not make it.”

I wasn’t aware. I looked to Ava again, but she was impossible to reach. There was a blankness to her that scared me.

He gestured to us again. “Come on, both of you.” He steered us through the brightly lit corridor; at first it looked like he was going to put one hand on my back, then he seemed to think better of it, and he walked behind us, escorting us out of the hospital and into a police car that sat waiting at the entrance. A few people skulked around the doors. There was a mix of hospital staff and patients smoking, and they stared, then looked away, surely imagining what we’d done.

We sat in silence in the back of the police car and looked out of the window. I had hoped it would take longer, but the station was close by.

At the police station, Ava went in first, and she gave me a quick smile before standing up—the first time she’d interacted with me since the hospital.

I sat in the corridor, forcing myself to read the posters stuck up on the wall to take my mind off what was about to happen.

A woman brought me a weak cup of tea, a gesture that seemed to signify that it was officially morning, as shortly after I started to drink, light began to flood in through the window.

Ava emerged. She was as calm as ever. She sat down, but she didn’t look at me.

I was certain she would have told them. I waited for the inevitable, and the police officer popped his head around the door and beckoned me forward.

“Right, you can come in now. Clare, is it?”

The end had come. I went in; he and his colleague sat across from me.

“Take a seat,” he said.

They introduced themselves.

“I think I should get a solicitor?” I said. I didn’t know if I was even allowed one. When I thought back to Périgueux, so much of what had happened had been obscured from me. I was protected from it all because we’d been so young. You won’t understand. Just leave it to the grown-ups. But I was alone now and asking for a solicitor seemed like the right thing to do.

“You’re within your rights to have access to a solicitor,” he said. “This is just a chat, though. You’re not being charged with anything. We just want to understand what happened last night.” He checked his watch; he was a lot more confident than he’d been in the hospital.