11 February 2017
We move into our forever home the weekend before Valentine’s Day.
Liv and I have mocked this kind of house for years: an adorable terrace in the quiet neighbourhood of Poet’s Corner. It has Victorian features, a sunny garden and three bedrooms – one for us, one for Leo, and one that will make a perfect nursery.
‘All we need is a Labradoodle and our lives will be complete,’ Liv says as we collapse onto the giant beanbag that’s serving as a sofa till the bespoke velvet one she’s ordered arrives from Italy.
A Labradoodle – and a baby: the thing we don’t mention, the elephant in our new double-aspect living room.
When she fell in love with this house in September – and I fell into line – maybe we secretly thought that conception would follow, because we’ve made a space for a baby. I’m still working on the BBC2 wellbeing show, and a decluttering expert I chatted to insisted that the things you really want only come when you make room for them.
Yet here we are, two collapsed housing chains and five months later, and the duckling wallpaper in the nursery the previous occupants chose makes me queasy. Instead of baby stuff, the room is full of the boxes we don’t yet have a home for.
Why isn’t this happening?
There’s a bottle of sparkling grape juice in the fridge and I get up to grab it. Liv went teetotal as part of an organic, raw regime designed to promote conception. But when the holistic stuff failed, we went down the medical route too. Our joint infertility is unexplained. The next step is IVF, not because there’s any scientific reason why lab technicians should succeed where we’ve failed, but because our consultant says it often works.
The cork pops gently, which is good because Leo has only just fallen asleep after spending hours getting his new room exactly how he wants it: installing the Darth Vader mood light, lining up his many pairs of trainers in the right order.
‘Cheers. Here’s to us,’ I say, filling her glass and mine.
‘Here’s to me and you, at number twenty-two.’
After we’ve toasted, she picks up the local events calendar the previous family left for us. Month by month, it details the community activities our new neighbourhood is famous for. With a big red pen, she begins to circle the things we’re going to go to: street parties and park barbies and the annual Paddle Round the Pier in July. Might she be expecting by then?
We’ve talked about the other ways we’re going to make room for a final member of our family. Work–life balance is going to be our motto, though that doesn’t quite match the mortgage we’ve had to take out on this place – or the fact Liv has accepted a series director contract for a second season of the fire-service documentary she won a BAFTA for.
She hands me the calendar and I realize we’re never going to have a free weekend ever again.
‘This is where things are going to happen for us, Joel. You wait and see. This is the beginning of the rest of our lives.’
I hope the Fates are listening, because my Liv is not a woman to be ignored. I kiss her and she responds passionately, and we make mad, teenager-style love on the Farrow & Ball painted floorboards.
Let’s start as we mean to go on . . .
The pain comes from nowhere.
So immediate and sharp that I yell, closing my eyes to block out everything else. It feels as though there’s a knife sticking into my chest.
We’re on the beach, watching surfers and paddle boarders and swimmers dressed as Vikings race around the old pier.
It’s a beautiful day to die.
‘Liv! I’m falling . . .’
Her arms hold me up and I open my eyes as she leads me towards a bench. Gravity makes me drop down heavily; she’s not strong enough to stop it.
The pain is still there.
A shock from my defib?
No. That feeling is unmistakable and brutal, but it’s always over in an instant. This horrible stabbing pain seems to be getting worse.
Instinctively I try to breathe more shallowly, and the agony lessens slightly. Leo is staring at me, and the terror in his eyes is unbearable.
‘Leo. It’s OK. Hold my hand.’
He takes it and I am aware of how warm his skin is compared to mine. I can feel sweat breaking out all over my body, and even though I am fighting it, my eyes are closing as I hear Liv shouting down her mobile:
‘Ambulance. I need an ambulance for my partner, we’re at the Paddle Round the Pier. I think he’s having a cardiac arrest . . .’
I can’t count this as one of my deaths because even though it’s life-threatening, my heart hasn’t stopped.
‘All right, so it seems that one of your ICD leads has perforated the muscles of your heart and that needs fixing now before it does more damage.’
‘Perforation? How did that happen out of nowhere?’ Liv is in terrier mode, as though this is something the poor junior doctor is personally responsible for.
‘Liv, we can work that all out later, OK?’ My voice sounds weak, though I try to smile for Leo’s sake. My parents are on their way back from seeing friends in London to pick him up, but I know the longer he has to see me like this, the worse it’ll be for both of us.
I beckon him forward. His Fred Flintstone costume is the only thing capable of making me smile right now. ‘Leo, mate, it’s going to be all right. Just a bit of wiring bent the wrong way, right, doctor?’
The doctor nods uncertainly. ‘It’s a bit more serious than that—’
I give him a warning look. Take the hint. ‘Leo, could you and Liv go and find the hospital shop and get me a chocolate bar for later?’
‘A Lion bar!’
‘Yes, one for each of us. And one for the doctor, too. Give me a quick kiss first, though.’
As he leans in, I want to pull him onto the trolley with me, to hold him till the last moment when they put the mask over my face. But I’m not that selfish.
‘Love you, Lion.’
‘Love you too, Dad.’
Liv leans in to kiss me too. ‘Trust you to spoil our first Saturday off in weeks. Trouble-maker.’
I’d like to think she says it fondly. But if I’m honest, there’s the tiniest edge to her voice.
She takes my son’s hand and they disappear, back to the normal world beyond the curtain.
‘We’ll get you down to theatre pronto. You get the VIP treatment: we can’t be seen to kill off one of the stars of Hospital Live.’
Kill me off? It’s meant as a joke but the words bounce around my head as I try to stay completely still, fearing even too deep a breath might cause the wires to stab me right the way into my heart.
Apart from the kit tracking my pulse and respiration and God knows what else, I am alone for the first time in hours. Alone with my memories of this place: waking up from my coma, being readmitted after all my suicide missions. Watching Zoë die.
Fear is normal. I get that. But I’m more afraid tonight than I’ve been since I first got sick, and the only person I can imagine taking the fear away is Kerry Smith.
She might even be in this building, on duty, right now. If she is, she’ll be busy saving someone else’s life, so instead, I try to summon up the Kerry I knew when I was first sick, that girl who sneaked me out of the ward and bought me chips. The only other person on the planet who gets our joke about the jerks.
If only we could be back there again, in 2000 with all those years ahead. I would do it all differently . . .
Stop this maudlin bollocks right now, Joel Greenaway.
You have Leo and Liv, who remind you daily what you have to live for. They are enough.
I will come through this surgery and when I wake up, I will make sure I never forget how lucky I am.