Caller: About an hour now, but it’s dead gross. I’m not too bad, but Angie’s actually, literally, green.
Call Handler: Our advice is to stay hydrated and get plenty of rest and the symptoms should pass. Do you or Angie have a fever?
Caller: I don’t know. Sorry, Ange – do you mind if I touch your fore— I know. I know. Just your forehead, babe. [Vomit sounds] It is disgusting, but … [Laughter] This is a pretty intense way to get to know one another, am I right? Happy Valentine’s Day to the single girls! [Weak laughter followed by retching noises] I totally promise an alcohol-only girls’ night out after this. [Giggling and coughing]
Call Handler: Jools, if you and Angie can do your best to stay hydrated that would really help. Take paracetamol if either of you are in discomfort.
Caller: That’s it? There’s no, like, magic pill or anything we can take to make it stop?
Call Handler: No, I’m afraid not. Umm … let’s see … they do advise avoiding fruit juice or fizzy drinks as they can make symptoms worse.
Caller: Blimey. Yeah, okay. Sorry, just leaving the bathroom for a second, babes. Ohmigawd. Worse? I just gave her a Coke. Ang! Put the Coke down. Bums. I’d feel like such a wanker if it got worse. Do you think she’ll move out? I mean – she’s just moved in and now sploosh! Food poisoning. Mind you, she might lose a couple. I might lose a couple! Everyone loves losing weight even if it’s utterly foul, am I right?
Call Handler: Oh, I’m not sure we can say. Sorry. I’m sure it’ll work out. If you or Angie have any new symptoms or either of your conditions get worse, changes or you have any other concerns do call us back.
Caller: Okay. Absolutely. She’s bloody brilliant, you know. [Crying noises] I’ve only known her for one night, but it’s so good to have someone here. Someone who understands.
Call Handler: That is important, Jools. Call us right back if you need to because, umm … we’re here, too. For you. For both of you.
Caller: Okay. Cool. Happy Valentine’s Day.
Call Handler: Oh! Is it?
Caller: Yup. That’s why we got so ruddy pissed last night. I mean – it was the prawns, not the booze.
Call Handler: Yes, well, I’m sorry.
Caller: What are you sorry for? It was me who made the bleedin’ things, wasn’t it?
Call Handler: Nothing, I – Happy Valentine’s Day. Thank you for calling NHS 111.
Chapter Seven
Raven rubbed her hands together and gave her feet a little stomp. The wind seemed to whistle straight through the bus stop. What did it matter, though? Unless she came up with a plan quick smart, she was going to be riding in the back of Uncle Ravi’s Jaguar on the way to her first day as his intern in a few days’ time.
Her parents had well and truly upped the ante on crafty parental tricks.
One week. One more week until she had to either find a way to pay for her entire higher education or become a slave at Uncle Ravi’s law firm.
Ugh.
Birmingham.
Double yuck.
Sharing a room with her cousin, Aneesha.
Triple vom.
It’d be like living in someone else’s Instagram feed and if there was one thing Raven was sure of – she wanted ZERO social media in her life. Zilch. Nada. Nul.
A swish of movement caught her eye.
Dylan. The lad from the other day.
He glanced at her as he settled against the leaning seat, but was thumbing a message on his phone at such a rate of knots, it must’ve blurred the rest of the world out of existence, which, of course, totally proved her point that social media overrode absolutely everything and was to be held in complete and utter contempt.
When she’d deleted all of her apps she thought it would be completely curative. Life without having to account for her every waking second to a world that may or may not be watching. #WakeUpFace! #BFFsDoingItRight #LivingTheDream
Instead it ramped up the FOMO to high anxiety levels.
All of those things happening ‘out there’ that she wouldn’t know about. Was it better to know the enemy or pretend they didn’t exist?
‘Had your results?’ Dylan asked as if they’d been mid-conversation.
She shot him a look. They’d all had their results. Months ago. Last year actually. In August. She’d been offered three places. ULAW (Birmingham Campus. Too close to Uncle Ravi’s office). LSE (Next to her sister’s office and three stops away from her and her neat freak husband’s flat which had a box room with her name on it). And Oxford, where her brother was a paediatric surgeon. Obvs. All within a stone’s throw of one Chakrabarti or another. They were everywhere. Her family. All lying in wait for her to fulfil her destiny as a law lord’s. She’d never known belief could feel so suffocating.
‘That your briefcase?’ Dylan pointed at the retro Pan-Am flight bag perched on Raven’s knees. She’d bought it off of eBay in an ironic attempt to show she was the mistress of her own destiny. ‘Do you work in a bowling alley?’ He laughed at his own genius, but in a nice kind of way instead of the judgey way loads of teenagers laughed. At you. Never with.
‘No.’ She pulled it in closer. She kept her purse, her eye liner and the ridiculous bright yellow polo shirt she was forced to wear at the call centre in it. The staff were colour coded. Like robots. Street light yellow for the call handlers (read: not flattering). An eye-catching red for the clinicians (a bit better but still not black). Dealer’s choice for management.
Dylan stuffed his hands in his pockets then pulled out the linings. ‘I don’t need a thing to work at the palace of pleasure!’
Raven gave him an ooo-kay look. Weirdo. Weren’t teenaged boys meant to be mute with discomfort or totes ignoring fat, awkward girls like her? He looked like the sort who would totally blank her
