Chapter 39

CHAPTER 39

She sends the husband back, and gets someone who is celebrating his own birthday.

"Did you forget ? " he says. "Did you forget my birthday?"

She sighs. "No, calm down. It was meant to be a surprise. Go and look in the attic."

The next husband seems fine, but he heads out to the supermarket and gets back and says, "Did you know Toby and Maryam are moving?"

"What?"

"There's a big ‘To Rent' sign out the front."

"Yeah," Toby says when she goes downstairs to ask him what's going on, "I told you about this, didn't I? The landlord thinks he can get an extra four hundred a month if he puts a bed in the living room."

That can't be right. "So, what, you're leaving?"

"Yeah," he says, matter-of-fact. "I mean, we're looking for something in the area, for Maryam's job."

Time is moving on without her. There's so little that's the same between one life and another: having Toby and Maryam downstairs is one of the only things that's made it home. They're her proof that two imperfect people can like each other and be happy and even stay happy.

"It's not for a couple of months," Toby says. "Good of him to give us so much notice, I guess."

She reloads the world, searches Zillow. Their flat's listed for rent here too and, yes, it's described as a three-bed with no living room. Whoever took the photos has placed two chairs in the hallway, as if to suggest that perhaps this could be its own bijou hang-out space: with a tiny kitchen and up to two chairs in an awkwardly shaped hall, who needs a sofa?

Another world: the same again. Another. Another.

"The new neighbours might be great too," says a temporary husband. "And you can't blame the owner—if someone's willing to pay an extra four hundred, why wouldn't you take it? If I was him I'd buy us out and build over the garden. You could definitely fit an extra couple of flats on the block."

She sends him away, and the next one, and the next. One time the To Rent sign has vanished and she feels hope; but it turns out that the husband likes to pull down estate agent signs and leave them in dumpsters, which she appreciates in principle but it isn't going to solve her problem in practice.

It's okay, she tells herself, Toby and Maryam will end up over the road or down the hill. Maryam's a doctor, she must make decent money. They'll find somewhere. And besides, it's not for a couple of months. All Lauren needs to do is find a permanent husband by then; after that maybe their move won't be so overwhelming.

She's still theoretically assessing newcomers by her old Post-it criteria, although they're not always reliable; she's supposed to be looking for someone with an interesting hobby, for example, but once a bee-keeper turns up and she decides that bee-keeping doesn't count, because her instinct says No, not him . What she really needs, she thinks, is to find someone she likes enough that she sees the best in him, and then the criteria will fall into place.

The next husband she does like. They head out to see his friends the evening he arrives, and she warms to him over the course of the night and the next day and then, unexpectedly, a week. Before she knows it she's met more of his friends, they've gone to the theatre, he comes home from work stressed a couple of times and she worries about him, wants him to feel better.

His name is Adamm, with two "m"s. He is confident and outgoing in public, and at home he is a little nervous and stressed, and this is both of her types in one, the bold and the delicate, the contrast between them that only she gets to see. And she keeps him for the anniversary that he doesn't know is an anniversary, but by luck their actual wedding anniversary is two days later, and they go out for dinner, and he toasts their marriage, and in her head she toasts the attic.

She is therefore deeply affronted when he confesses that he has been suspended from his work pending a small handful of investigations into misconduct, which he explains is someone getting the wrong end of the stick and which will all be cleared up soon . She is not going to wait to find out. She sends him back, yells, "Good riddance!" after him.

"What?" the next husband says, climbing down.

○○

The next three husbands she sends back as soon as she sees anything wrong at all, once before he's even off the ladder: she gave Adamm three weeks, she gave him the anniversary , and she is outraged by his breach of her trust.Excessive moustache? No. Her own bank account is overdrawn? No.

Look, I'm glad you're happy but everyone is terrible , she messages to Bohai while someone clatters in the attic above her.

She is waiting for the dot-dot-dot of a reply when the next husband starts down the ladder, and slips.

It happens before she can register it: the foot, the leg, the husband is coming but he's coming too fast, all at once, half freefall, half a slide down the steep angle of the ladder, and he lands and he yells, loud.

She stares.

He hauls himself up: a little bit, but not far, then slips back to the ground. He's gasping, grabbing at the rungs.

Okay. Ambulance? She did a first-aid course once but that was in another world, she's probably not even qualified here. Danger, Response, Airways, Breathing—there's no danger, and he's responsive. She doesn't remember what happens if your patient isn't unconscious.

"Are you okay?" she tries.

"Fuck," he breathes, "shit, okay, maybe," and another jagged breath, and pulls himself to standing, using the ladder, one rung at a time, a grunt. He lets go tentatively. "Okay," he says. "Maybe. Yes." He takes hold of the rung again and looks at his feet and wriggles his toes.

"Okay," she says. "Good."

"Except," and he looks down, and she notices the dark stain across his trousers: he's pissed himself. That doesn't seem like a great sign.

"Maybe the shock?" she says.

"Maybe?" he says.

If she could get him back in the attic he'd be fine, but it's probably not the time to suggest climbing ladders. "I'll see if Maryam's in. Should you…sit down?"

"I might," the husband says, and starts lowering himself again.

Maryam is at home and comes right up, Toby with her. She squats on the ground next to the husband and tells him to take deep breaths, in and out. She asks if it's okay to touch him and takes his hand. This is what she's good at, of course. Toby looks on helplessly. "I'll make tea," he says.

"Try not to move too much," Maryam is saying, "we need to figure out if anything's broken, okay? So we know if there's anything we need to fix up. So—yep, that's right, try to stay still."

Toby emerges from the kitchen with a cup of tea in one hand and a spoon in the other. He holds the cup out. Neither Maryam nor the husband notice. "Okay, breathe in," Maryam's saying. Eventually Lauren steps around them and takes the mug. "Thanks," she says.

"Thanks," Toby says in return.

"Yeah, okay," Maryam says, "let's get an ambulance just so they can check things out." Then, raising her voice, "Could you call, please, Toby. Put it on speaker."

He holds the teaspoon haplessly; Lauren takes that too, and he pulls out his phone and calls.

"Hi," Maryam says once they get through, "for context, I'm a doctor and I'm here with my friend who's had an accident. He's an adult male who slipped and fell from an attic and there's been loss of bladder control." Lauren looks back at the dark stain on his jeans. "He's in a lot of pain, I think there's a chance of a fracture." She says some words Lauren doesn't catch, acronyms and details, communicating this is what's wrong but also and I know what I'm talking about, do as I say . "Yes, I'm keeping him still. No, the flat is on the first floor, the stairs are steep and narrow."

If someone had asked whether Maryam was a good doctor, Lauren thinks, she would have said: yeah, sure. But she hadn't imagined the efficiency, the focus, her attention narrowed in so tightly, the mustering of those around her to help.

The ambulance comes fast, maybe hurried by Maryam's knows-what-she's-doing tone, and the husband is stretchered downstairs. Lauren follows. "Are you his partner?" the ambulance guy asks Maryam (he is more handsome than the husband, Lauren thinks, but to be fair, it's hard to be handsome when you're either (a) falling or (b) lying twisted in pain at the bottom of a ladder).

"No," Maryam says, "I'm the neighbour, but—Lauren, do you want to go in the ambulance? Or do you want me to go and I'll see you at the hospital?"

"Yeah," Lauren says. "That one."

"He's doing a great job," Maryam says to her, calm, reassuring. She looks over at the husband, lying in the back of the ambulance. Yes. Good.

"Hey," Toby says as the ambulance pulls away, "I'll book an Uber."

"Yeah. I might head up for a minute and drink that cup of tea first? I think I need a moment."

The tea is lukewarm, but she sips it anyway. The ladder to the attic is pulled partway out of position, twisted in the sliders that lower and raise it.

What a mess.

"Should I make a new one?" Toby says.

"What?"

He gestures at the cup of tea.

"No," she says, "I'll just drink this one."

Toby is restless, anxious. "Sit down," he says, "you've had a shock. Maryam'll make sure they look after him." He needs soothing so he's trying to soothe her.

"Yeah." She tries to figure out how worried she is. She is certainly shaken , she is certainly surprised . Is she anxious? Is she worried about the husband?

She takes a sip of tea. She should go to the hospital. Instead, she looks into the living room. It's yellow, the ceiling as well as the walls. There's a big L-shaped sofa that barely fits in the room. An inflatable cactus almost as big as her vanished Buddy, lit up from the inside, as if this didn't already feel strange enough. She is wearing slippers, dirty from going outside. She steps out of them, still standing, and feels the shaggy rug under her feet. She should put socks on, right?

Toby is waiting anxiously.

"Could you look for a thermos, in the kitchen? Maybe in a cupboard," she says, and she hands him the tea; she has no idea if they have a thermos but it'll keep him busy for a few minutes. She finds socks in the bedroom, and a bed that, like the sofa, is too large for its space, piled high with pillows. Shoes on the shoe rack on the landing.

The husband's wallet. A phone charger. A book that's lying open in the living room. "I can only find this insulated jug," Toby says, holding it aloft.

"That'll do," she says, and starts looking for trousers. "And yeah, call a car." She finds a Tesco Bag For Life. Trousers and underwear, and a shirt, he'll want a complete change, won't he?

"It'll be here in four minutes. Are you sure you don't want me to make a new cup?" Toby says when she comes into the kitchen. He's got a funnel out, and has emptied her mug into the jug. "It's pretty cold."

"Yeah," barely listening. A toothbrush? But the eternal question: which one is his?

She should have stuck with the guy who liked to grab ankles.