‘After a fashion. He’d cut his arm breaking in,’ she shook her head, ‘ten stitches.’
‘Was Sammy-’
‘No, he was out.’
‘What are you doing here? You should be-’
‘Pot, kettle?’ Gill tipped her head on one side. ‘Where else would I be? Not sitting at his bedside wiping his sweaty brow. I hate him,’ she said, ‘I bloody hate him.’
‘I don’t blame you,’ Janet said.
The door swung open and Rachel came in, paused as she saw Janet and Gill. Janet made eyes at her, tipped her head. On your way. Rachel withdrew.
‘You mustn’t tell anyone. Not Rachel, no one. Promise?’ Gill said.
‘I won’t.’
‘Lee and Kevin have already seen him drunk as a skunk on the office floor.’
‘Here? When?’ Janet said.
‘Saturday.’
Janet remembered the smell in the office, how she’d thought someone was drinking on the job.
‘He thinks he’s invincible. Captain Thunderpants. Like there’s no problem, no consequences. I tried to tell him – the job, there’s a limit to what people will accept. I went to see him Sunday evening. Told him to sort himself out, to get into rehab, join AA, anything. I thought maybe I’d got through. Obviously not,’ she said, shaking her head.
‘Where is he now?’
‘At home. He’s finally agreed to a stint in rehab. Well – it was that or see a photo of him, pissed and covered in his own chunder posted online.’
Janet looked sceptical.
‘OK,’ Gill said, ‘no, I wouldn’t but I did take one and showed him so he couldn’t do that whole denial thing.’ She screwed her hands into fists, groaned. ‘I’m sorry, kid, you’ve enough shit to deal with-’
Janet cut her off. ‘Doesn’t work like that.’ All the times Gill had held her hand, passed the tissues, watched her back. After Joshua died was the first time but many others since then and she’d done the same for Gill, when Dave walked out forcing Gill to leave the job she loved best to be closer to home, when Sammy moved in with his dad, when Chris finished with Gill.
‘How is Elise?’ Gill said.
‘She’s devastated. And she’s fifteen so of course she can’t believe it ever gets any better, gets easier. She has to find out for herself, experience it. It hurts – watching.’
‘Families,’ Gill said.
‘What would we do without them?’ Janet said.
‘She’ll be all right, she’s a bright girl and she’s got you and Adrian.’
‘Ade blames me,’ Janet said.
‘What?’
‘We had a humdinger last night, except the girls were in bed so it was all whispered.’
‘Blames you how?’ Gill said.
‘Because I said we should let them go to the party, because I said we should trust them, because Elise told him that she didn’t want to buy anything illegal in case she did get caught and then I might lose my job.’