In fact, everything’s fantastic.’ He released the squirming waiter, said, ‘Bon appetit,’ to Lucy and Chris and staggered across the restaurant to Kirsty, who looked more embarrassed than he’d ever seen her, her cheeks flushed pink.
‘Come on,’ she said sharply, pulling him out into the fresh air. She turned to look at him. ‘What did you say to them?’
‘I was just telling them that everything’s fantastic.’ He kissed her. ‘Everything’s fucking fantastic.’
Fourteen
Kirsty knelt by the toilet and threw up, one painful spasm followed by another. Finally, when she was certain she wasn’t going to be sick any more, she pushed herself upright and pushed the handle to flush the remains of last night’s curry away. She splashed cold water on her face and rinsed her mouth. Morning sickness already?
While she was cleaning her teeth, Jamie came rushing into the room, wearing nothing but his underwear. He threw himself onto the carpet by the toilet and vomited, making a terrible straining sound. When he had finished, he sat with his back against the bath. He was pale and clammy, strands of hair stuck to his forehead. His stomach hurt. He groaned.
‘I feel like death warmed up. I don’t think I can go into work.’ He took several deep breaths. ‘God, I’m hardly ever ill after drinking. I guess it must be because I mixed champagne and beer.’
Kirsty crouched beside him. ‘I was sick too.’
‘Were you? When?’
‘Just now, before you came in and made throwing up seem like such a drama. I’m quiet when I throw up.’
‘But you weren’t drinking.’
‘I know. And it seems a bit unlikely that my morning sickness would start the same morning you’re sick. Unless you’re going to be one of those blokes who has a phantom pregnancy. Please, Jamie, don’t be one of those blokes.’
Jamie stood up and spat into the sink. He took a swig of mouthwash and swirled a mouthful of neon blue liquid around his tongue and teeth before gargling briefly and spitting the mouthwash out. That was a little better.
‘Do you think it was the food?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘We both had different main courses, but I suppose they could have shared some of the same ingredients. I wonder if Lucy and Chris are ill as well.’
‘Why don’t you go down and ask them?’
‘Very funny.’
‘After last night, I’m sure they’d be more delighted to see you than ever.’
Jamie groaned again, this time from the blurred memory of his behaviour. ‘Was I really awful?’
‘You were very embarrassing. Especially when you put your arm around the waiter’s shoulder and called him mate.’
‘Oh God. We can’t ever go back there again.’
‘I don’t know if we’d want to if they’ve given us food poisoning.’
‘Surely it’s not really food poisoning.’ He felt a rumble in his bowels and stopped talking. ‘Oh shit, you’d better leave the room. Kirsty, I mean it.’
She left the room and Jamie pulled his boxer shorts down and sat on the toilet. It hurt. As he wiped himself, he heard the phone ring, then Kirsty’s voice after she picked it up. She sounded shocked, and he heard her come to the bathroom door and open it just as he flushed the toilet.
‘Who was that?’ Jamie asked. More than anything else in the world right now, he wanted to go back to bed. Go back to bed and sleep all day.
Kirsty stared at him. ‘It’s about Paul,’ she said.
They drove to the hospital as fast as they could, Jamie racking his brain for shortcuts, accelerating towards amber traffic lights, guiltily ignoring zebra crossings. The traffic was dense and the streets were full of pedestrians enjoying the bright autumn sunshine, soaking up a final dose of rays before winter darkened the skies. Jamie turned the radio on then quickly turned it off again. The chatter of the DJ was too much. The cars up ahead were too slow. At times like this, he wished he could fly.
‘Take it easy,’ Kirsty warned as he swung a hard left. ‘I still feel like I’m going to be sick at any moment.’
He had forgotten the sickness himself, had rid his body of whatever it was that had upset it. And since he had heard about Paul he couldn’t think about anything else. His thoughts would return to it later, but for now he only had one thing on his mind: getting to the hospital; getting to Paul.
‘That was Paul’s dad,’ Kirsty had said, standing in the doorway of the bathroom. ‘We’ve got to get to the hospital.’
Jamie’s stomach had filled with