Chapter Five

Lucien

Action Man completed the task with twice my efficiency, and I was more than happy to conserve my energy and watch him. Granted, it was a pleasing spectacle; I’m beginning to see the point of all those rippling muscles. He’s a rather big boy, at least two or three inches taller than me, not to mention significantly wider. Observing him at work, my slumbering cock had stirred without any manual assistance for the first time in months. And when he reached over his head to strip off his hoodie, he presented me with a wonderful flash of several inches of taut, olive-skinned six-pack, as if a Diet Coke advert was being filmed right in front of me. And if the good people at Lynx can so confidently declare that ‘nothing beats an astronaut’, then they clearly haven’t witnessed Dr Jay Sorrentino chopping wood in a very snug-fitting grey T-shirt.

In his haste to leave, he’d left the pale-blue hoodie behind, and I bring the soft material to my nose, inhaling Fahrenheit combined with the delicious, unmistakeable aroma of fresh boy. Dr Jay Sorrentino is a bit of a puzzle, and he wasn’t forthcoming with clues how to solve him tonight. I take the hoodie into the house and intermittently sniff it for the rest of the evening.

*

Every third week, I’m the consultant in charge of the ICU—the intensive care unit. Nearly all intensive care units are led by anaesthetists. Most members of the public have no idea what happens in an ICU, and they are the lucky ones because it means they’ve never had people they love admitted to one. Basically, an ICU is the specialist ward to which the sickest patients in the hospital are admitted after every other avenue of conventional hospital treatment has failed. Intensivists are not that interested in what disease the patient suffers from, or what sequence of events brought them to such a sorry state. For us, it’s about seeing each patient as an amalgamation of organ failures—heart, liver, kidneys, lungs, brain—that need support until the illness is cured. So, if the illness has caused the lungs to stop working, we give an anaesthetic and support the patient on a breathing machine for days, weeks, or even months. If the heart is knackered, we give drugs to buff up the blood pressure, while the cardiologists figure out the best treatment. We dialyse kidneys. We deliver intravenous feed. And so on. We don’t admit all desperately ill patients, just the salvageable ones, and unlike other healthcare systems, our wonderful NHS doesn’t discriminate according to an individual’s wealth. If treatment will ultimately prove futile, we don’t treat, no matter how deep the patient’s pockets. And if a patient is homeless on the streets, care will be equal to that of an earl. Like me.

Is it stressful playing God? Does it sap one’s humanity? How to cope with all that death? Common questions with simple answers. Most doctors qualify at around the age of twenty-three, and as anybody in their thirties, forties, and fifties will tell you, that’s desperately young. But youth is probably a good thing because young doctors become accustomed to bad things happening to older people, generally before they become that older person themselves and start panicking. Fortunately, young deaths are few and far between as they always hit hard, no matter how old and cynical the doctor.

We all have a private list of patients we can never forget. Mine is depressingly short, but if I grieved for every patient who died, I’d never get out of bed in the morning. None of the patients on my list would make an episode of a TV medical drama. There are no heroes on this list, neither the patients nor the doctors attending them. Still, they regularly drift into my thoughts in the small hours.

My first ever night on call as a junior doctor was in a sleepy hospital in Suffolk, and I attended my first-ever cardiac arrest. A stout old woman by the name of Nellie Blood, who’d probably already been dead for a couple of hours before the night staff checked on her. Never have I come across such a wonderful Dickensian moniker before or after. As much as I remember poor old Nellie Blood, I remember the anonymous, desperate, and emaciated old woman in the bed next to her, slumped in a pool of urine, gasping for breath after sixty years of smoking fifty fags a day. She died the next night. With irreparably damaged lungs like hers, admission to ICU would have been futile.

After that job, I worked on a neonatal ICU. Most of the babies were dreadfully premature. To my callous young eyes, they resembled hairless pink rats. We were only permitted to touch them with gloved hands through the holes in the transparent plastic walls of the incubator. Occasionally, we had babies who had been born after a normal nine months pregnancy but required surgery shortly afterwards—heart surgery or bowel surgery. Those babies were podgy lumps of gorgeousness. Perfect on the outside, yet all twisted guts on the inside. At night, if they were well enough, we would take them out of their cots and feed and cuddle them under the watchful eye of the nurse in charge. One of them, I grew fond of; I can still recall his sweet baby smell even now. He had young, hopeless parents, barely out of their teens. Returning to work after a weekend away, I discovered an empty cot and naïvely assumed he’d gone home. It was a few hours until I found out he’d gone to the big cot in the sky.

Another death, not long afterwards: I joined the ambulance crew on a call out to a girl the same age as me, who’d set fire to herself in her car. She lived for a few hours afterwards, reduced to a crispy piece of charcoal, incredibly still breathing in and out—there wasn’t anything we could do for her. I could smell her for days afterwards. Even my parents noticed that I struggled with that one.

More recent times, at the start of my consultant career: A sick schoolkid with sepsis, diagnosed too late, silently dying on the end of my needle as I tried to stabilise him for transfer to the paediatric ICU. I beat myself up for months after that one. I still do from time to time in the wee small hours. Should’ve. Could’ve. Would’ve.

There are a few more on my list but thinking about them is depressing. And then there’s my dead family, of course, but I’ll never be able to talk about that.

And now we have Billy-Ray. He’ll warrant a special list all of his own, the others relegated to the second tier. When I admitted him to the ICU three months ago, I knew without a shadow of doubt he wasn’t long for this world, but we still have to try to save him first. Only nineteen, he lived with his mum and younger sisters in a shitty rental property owned by a shitty landlord who only cared about getting his money on time, not giving a fuck about tedious stuff like smoke alarms or condemned gas boilers. So, the flat burned down, mum and sisters perished, and Billy-Ray nearly died trying to get them out. Granted, he’s still alive at the moment, but I wouldn’t place any bets on him being here in a few weeks’ time. Seventy per cent burns are not generally consistent with longevity.

Billy-Ray rarely receives visitors because his close family are all dead—I can relate to that—and the sort of friends he hung around with can’t be arsed to trek over to the hospital to see him. He’s off the breathing machine now, after the third attempt, and the burns are healing as well as expected. His guts are a different story; they’re falling apart, so we can’t get any nutrition into him, and he develops one infection after another that doesn’t respond to treatment. Not unreasonably for someone in his unenviable position, he wants to die. He’s in continual pain and practically everyone he’s ever loved is dead. I can relate to that too. No amount of counselling by the well-meaning burns psychologist will ever bring them back.

The right side of Billy-Ray’s face is fairly normal, his features pale and sharp, his light-brown eye bright. He was possibly quite good-looking once, in a sly, foxy sort of way. But a shocking Jackson Pollock canvas of purple now dominates the left half of his face, like wax dripping down the side of a red candle. And his torso, back, and left leg are a patchwork of angry skin grafts. If he had been much older, he’d have died weeks ago. He will die—I’d lay my entire inheritance on it—but modern medicine is ensuring that he suffers a slow, painful decline first.

The first time I enter Billy-Ray’s room alone, after he’s been off the ventilator for a few days, he pretends I’m not there. He fixes his gaze through the window and onto the view of an untidy cemetery (great town planning, guys), pretty much as he does when we have our daily team ward round to discuss his progress, or lack of, as if he’s deaf as well as burned So I busy myself with his obs chart and calculate his fluid balance.

“You’re gay, aren’t you?” he says as I bend to measure his urine output in the catheter bag. His hoarse rasp reminds me to request the ENT surgeons to have another look at his burned vocal cords, an inevitable consequence of severe smoke inhalation.

“Yes, and so are you,” I answer bluntly, deliberately not looking at him. From the corner of my eye, I can see his fingers worrying the frayed edge of his gown.

“How do you know?” he demands, letting go of the fabric and staring at me full on.

“Because I spotted you checking me out on Thursday when I came in with the dietician.”

“Have you got a boyfriend?”

“Is it any of your business?”

He doesn’t answer, and I think that’s probably the end of the conversation. Pulling out volume three of his enormous set of notes, I begin writing.

“You’re a twat to everyone who works with you.”

I ignore him and continue writing.

“You are, you’re a twat. A pasty, miserable twat. And you’re old.”

“You know, Billy-Ray,” I say mildly, endeavouring not to laugh. “There is a big red sign on the door on the way into this hospital that advises, ‘Abuse to members of staff from patients and relatives will not be tolerated’.” I continue writing.

“Forgive me for not having read it, Doc. I was half dead at the time.” He pauses. “Twat.”

I stop writing and try to keep a straight face. “If you call me that again, I shall be forced to put you back on the ventilator. Without sedation and for a very long time.”

A raspy, choking sound emanates from the bed, and I look up in alarm. I relax as I realise what it is. Through parched, scarred vocal cords, Billy-Ray is laughing.

*

Once a year, as part of my supervisor role, I am obliged to join a jolly band of enthusiastic educationalists throughout the region and accompany my assigned junior doctor on a course. There, we flatten hierarchical barriers, and he grows up to become a well-rounded, forward-thinking consultant. Like me. The course is named Lead and Be Led, although they should just save time and retitle it Do It Dr Avery’s Way.

The venue for this ghastly meeting is a bland Hilton Hotel, naturellement, just off the M4 heading into Bristol. The programme lasts an entire dreary day, followed by an equally dreary celebratory course dinner to bring us all together as a united, happy educational family. I had no plans whatsoever to hang around for the course dinner, except that this year the whole shebang has been organised by Annabel and Emily. Not only have they informed me that if I don’t turn up they will kick me out of the office and make me share with Dr Leitner, but they have also bought my ticket and paid for my meal. And thankfully booked me a hotel room so I can at least drink my way through it.

Fortunately, the precourse preparation is brief: Jot down on a scrap of paper, in no more than two sentences, a recent achievement which makes you proud. Before you get too carried away, please note that your comments may be anonymously shared with the other delegates.

Does managing to get out of bed and attend this bloody stupid course count as an achievement? Probably not. I decide to skip the homework.

The usual suspects are here, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I recognise a few faces from Allenmouth, but there are many from other hospital training programmes I don’t. Nevertheless, they are all carved from the same mould. Casually dressed, ambitious young professionals and a smattering of jaded-looking older consultants, who somewhere along the line found themselves having to endure this new world of self-discovery navel-gazing courses and Myers-Briggs personality analysis. I’m gratified when Jay grumpily slumps down in my eyeline. He looks knackered. Clearly not his scene either. Gosh, those manly thighs sure look good in a pair of jeans. Maybe he’ll be amenable to slipping down to the bar at lunchtime. I idly wonder what he’s put down as his proudest recent achievement. Ditching his bride at the altar? Sucking a bloke’s knob for the first time? I’ll be extremely impressed if he declares that one.

The room is filling up, already uncomfortably warm. I spy Dr Leitner manspreading in the front row, with sweat circles visible under his flabby armpits. Yuck. After hanging my Tom Ford jacket neatly on the back of my chair and loosely rolling up my shirt sleeves, I glance up to catch Jay giving me a once-over. I smirk, and he looks away, a slight pink flush to his cheeks.

Introductions over with, and having helpfully alerted us to the location of the nearest fire exits and toilets, Annabel moves on to the ice-breaking preliminary section of the programme, the part where we are all supposed to suddenly develop trust and openness amongst this group of relative strangers and feel sufficiently comfortable to discuss our deepest fears. Or some such dire nonsense like that.

“So, guys,” she says brightly, her enthusiasm easily carrying around the room.

I loathe the term ‘guys’ and nearly head on out right then.

“You all hopefully filled out some ‘proudest achievement notes.’ I certainly did; I can’t expect you to do your homework if I don’t do mine!”

A few titters and I inwardly cringe. Annabel’s proudest achievement is managing to strong-arm me into sitting here today. Only seven hours of purgatory to go.

“I’m going to read a sample of them shortly. The point of this exercise is to think about everyone’s achievements as I read them out and focus on their diversity. Try to picture what success looks like to different people, yeah? Hopefully, anyway—this game has never let me down yet, guys, but there is always a first time!”

A ripple of polite laughter follows, and as Emily carries the box of papers over to Annabel, she continues earnestly rabbiting on.

“The diversity will demonstrate that not all leaders are cut from same cloth, that we are all different, from different backgrounds and cultures; we have different personalities and very differing ideas of what constitutes success.”

There’s a hell of a lot of ‘differents’ in that sentence. She pulls out the first piece of paper from the box and begins to read.

“My proudest achievement is when my wife gave birth to our gorgeous twin boys last year.”

Annabel smiles, and there is a predictable collective ‘aah’ around the room. A thin, tired-looking Indian man sitting in the row in front of me smiles proudly. Achievement by proxy there, young fellow, I feel like saying. All you did was shag her. God, it’s going to be a bloody long day.

“My biggest achievement is receiving the all-clear from breast cancer,” continues Annabel, reading from another slip of paper. There is a smattering of applause.

“My biggest achievement is persuading my parents to buy me an Aston Martin on my thirtieth birthday.”

Annabel rolls her eyes at this one, adding, “We always get one of those. I’ll have worked out who you are by the end of the morning and will be sure to give you a hard time!”

I’ve already worked out who it is—it’s the smug-looking blond idiot who was doing his best to smarm up to Dr Leitner on the way in.

“My biggest achievement is listening to my inner voice, then having the balls to act on it, even when I knew how hurtful it would be to people I loved. But it’s something I should have done a long time ago.”

Annabel raises her eyebrows thoughtfully. “Ooh, we seem to have a deep thinker amongst us,” she comments pleasantly. “Such diversity on display already, guys!”

Jay is looking down at his feet, that cute pink flush in evidence again. Dr Leitner snorts derisively. God, that man’s a twat.

“My biggest achievement is securing VIP tickets to see George Ezra play at the Isle of Wight Festival last year.”

“My biggest achievement is rescuing my brother from a hospital in Ecuador after he broke both his arms skydiving.”

And so it goes on, with my biggest achievement managing to stay awake and in my seat. Fortunately, my role in the day’s events is as a passive, supportive listener. And as Dr Sorrentino and his rather scrummy thighs appear perfectly capable of negotiating the programme on their own, equally as passively, I can be even more of a bystander than I anticipated. The last few minutes of the morning session are set aside for us to have a quick one-to-one with our individual trainees before lunch. I’m disappointed to see that Jay has disappeared as I was planning on buying him a drink. I vaguely wonder if he’s avoiding me. Thus, as minister without portfolio, I find myself surplus to requirements, and fearing I’ll be assigned to someone else or, heaven forbid, have to make small talk during the lunch break, I make a sharp exit for my room and have a quick snifter from the minifridge.

Jay reappears for the afternoon session, and a whiff of a beery smell when I stroll past him confirms my suspicions that he fucked off to the bar without me. It hasn’t escaped my notice that he seems a little short on friends himself today, which I’m guessing has something to do with the recent turmoil in his personal life. Slightly dozy after my liquid lunch, I decide his olive-skinned face with its stupidly long eyelashes and oh, so lovely mouth, is extremely handsome, and thus spend most of the afternoon daydreaming in the back row about a repeat performance of his lips round my cock. With a bit of luck, he’s booked a room for the night here too.

A few hours later, at the mediocre Italian restaurant on the ground floor of the Hilton, I find myself wedged between Annabel, who I’ve already scolded for the infernal ‘guys’, and a semi-retired colleague called Geraldine, whom I know from past experience only ever talks about her cats and her Oxford-educated nephew. I push my tepid carbonara around my plate—the closest item on the menu to macaroni cheese—wishing I was tucked up in bed wearing my favourite nightie, with a glass of Campari and the day’s Telegraph crossword for company. Sitting opposite me is Dr Leitner, his jowly face already as red as a beetroot from half a bottle of Rioja. Next to him, Jay Sorrentino looks devilishly handsome in a grey round-necked sweater. Actually, I’ll ditch the Campari and the crossword; I’ll just have him tucked into bed with me instead.

I generally tend towards a penchant for boys with physiques similar to my own, on the thin side of slender. More yin and yin, over yin and yang. Cool Loki, not muscle-bound Thor. But there is something about my Dr Sorrentino that draws me in. When I sniff his soft hoodie (granted, a bit needy and pathetic, but I’m not ready to return it yet), I imagine him wearing it while lounging on my sofa. And I’m resting my head on his broad chest, encircled by his brawny arms, and being, I don’t know, cherished maybe? And maybe he’d be watching sport on the telly, a football match or something, perhaps sipping a beer. Every now and again, he’d lean down and kiss my lips, just an absent-minded peck, or ruffle my hair. It’s not even a sexual fantasy, although his chest without the hoodie would be rather spiffy too. But as I’ve been such a dick to him, none of that’s going to be happening any time soon. Billy-Ray was right to call me a twat. I’m astonished Jay’s not put in a request to change his Ed Supervisor already.

Apart from the food being tasteless and the company tedious as hell, the evening is proving unexpectedly tolerable. Every time I look up, the heavenly Dr Jay Sorrentino is in my direct line of vision. He’s knocking back a few beers, with red wine chasers, and I can’t blame him. No doubt, Dr Leitner is boring the tits off him about the good old days of working seventy-two hours a week, and how this young lot have never had it so good. Although, aside from the attempt to drink his own body weight in beer, you’d never know how bored he is because he nods at all the right moments and laughs at the weak jokes. People are drawn to Dr Sorrentino, and it’s easy to see why. With an easy, open smile and a cheerful confidence, he charms people, a natural social animal. I used to be like that once, believe it or not, but since the accident, well…not so much.

Geraldine is giving me a blow-by-blow account of her Siamese’s latest bowel movements, and Annabel is determinedly not rescuing me. She thinks I need to socialise more and hasn’t forgiven me for pulling her up on the ‘guys’ thing. Thanks a bunch, Annabel. Zoning out of Geraldine’s ramblings, I focus on ogling Jay.

The newspapers over the last few days have been full of the death of a Russian gazillionaire, who somehow succeeded in ramming his superyacht into submerged rocks south of the island of Santorini. The whole thing sank rapidly (the yacht not the island), taking him and his poor, unfortunate harem with it. According to reports from one of the surviving crew members, this brainless oligarch insisted on taking the helm when he was pissed, showing off to the women, and none of the flunkies on board had the balls to stop him. The other side of the table are discussing it.

“Not a mode of death most of us are at risk of,” observes Annabel drily. “I stand more chance of drowning in the bath than aboard a sinking superyacht.”

“Rich people do have exclusive ways of dying,” sneers Dr Leitner. “Even in death, they have to separate themselves from the rest of the great unwashed. Just as they insist on exclusive schools so that their darling Sebastian’s and Saskia’s don’t have to mingle with everyone else’s kids. Private hospitals. Invented illnesses! Heaven forbid they die of something as common as a stroke!”

Here he goes, well balanced, with a chip on each shoulder. He’s partly doing it because he loves endlessly voicing his own opinions, but also partly because he’s spotted that I’m listening. He doesn’t know much about my background, but I never hide the fact that I’m obviously posh. Why should I? I couldn’t influence into which family I was born. But he’s just warming up; he’ll no doubt move on to sly homophobic digs next. Christ, he’s still bloody talking.

“Hah! Do you think they try to outdo one another by killing themselves on luxurious private jets, or helicopters that crash when they shouldn’t even be flying? Much more exclusive, much more interesting than a simple old heart attack. There was that multimillionaire who owned that football club a couple of years ago, remember? Fell out the sky like a stone, took a load of other people with him, slap bang outside the stadium. And then there was that one last year—some aristos with more money than sense—the whole family wiped out in a helicopter, flying low in bad weather, the bloody fools. Actually, I recall they were from this neck of the woods, weren’t they, Annabel?”

I’m vaguely aware of Annabel agreeing that she believed they were, and then Leitner chipping in with, “And no one remembers the poor pilot just doing his job in all of this, do they? Unless it’s to blame him, of course. Oh no, just poor old Lord so-and-so and his precious heir to the bloody empire. Bloody deserve it, that’s what I say. Vive la révolution!”

I knew there were solid reasons I avoided socialising. Ideally, I’d like to stand up and hit Dr Leitner really hard, pounding my fists into his fat red face, but I’m totally incapable. And I’d come up with a perfect rejoinder after I’d hit him so I could knock him down verbally too. While not prone to violence, I’m usually pretty good with my tongue. I’d humiliate him in front of everybody. But mostly, I think I just want to kill him.

Yet, for all of these grandiose, aggressive ideas, the only action of which I’m capable—and even that’s hanging in the balance—is to rise from the table without crashing to the floor. My head and guts spin wildly, and I make for the gents. Knowing I’m not going to get there in time, I veer outside, banging through the fire exit next to the kitchens only seconds before my belly spews forth an arc of hot acid and lumps of carbonara. I manage to miss my shirt, with most of it spraying over a spiky bush behind the door.

Afterwards, when I’m all emptied out, I lean against a giant rubbish bin, panting and drooling saliva, my heart hammering in my chest and my eyes streaming. Eighteen months ago it all happened, that helicopter crash, but sometimes the phone call that followed feels like only yesterday.

My own private hell turned into idle dinner party entertainment.

With my breathing less panicky but my stomach still churning, I fish out a cigarette and light it with shaky hands. My whole body is shaking or shivering, I’m not sure which. Regardless that I’m probably over the legal alcohol limit, I’d like to get in my car and disappear. But this alley behind the building is a dead end, and I’d have to walk back through the restaurant to collect my belongings from my room. I’d have to face them all with some feeble excuse. They think I’m peculiar anyway, so it wouldn’t matter too much. But then Annabel and Emily would ask if I’m okay; they’d fuss and be nice, and then…and then I might cry, and I couldn’t bear them all to witness that.

The kitchen door bangs open. I quickly turn away, shielding my face, hoping I look like a chap who’s come outside for a quick fag and taken a wrong turning. A big warm hand tentatively squeezes my shoulder.

“Dr Avery, are you okay?”

Jay’s flattened vowels, full of concern. I don’t trust myself to speak.

“Hey, Dr Avery…Lucien. What’s wrong? One minute you were there, and the next, you looked like you’d seen a ghost or something.”

That hand still rests on my shoulder. Humiliatingly, hot tears trickle down my cheeks and there’s nothing I can do to squeeze them back in. That’s the trouble when people are kind; it’s so much easier when they aren’t, when nobody knows you’re suffering. I brush at the wetness with the back of my hand, then take a shaky drag on my cigarette, willing him to go away. If I pretend he’s not there, then he’ll give up and go back inside.

“Are you ill, Lucien? Maybe the food didn’t agree with you? I chose the carbonara too. It was very stodgy.”

He’s persistent, I’ll give him that. Keeping my back to him, in the iciest voice I can muster, I say, “I’m fine, Jay. Really. Go back inside.”

He doesn’t move. “I’m not going anywhere, Lucien, not until I can see that you’re okay.” That soft, kind voice again. Patient, determined.

I laugh, but it comes out as more of a sob, to be honest. “Gosh, then I hope you’ve brought a jacket because it’s quite chilly. And if you are planning on waiting until I’m okay, then we’ll be here a while.”

“You’re trembling like a leaf. Come on, Dr Avery. I’m worried about you. At least turn around and look at me.”

When was the last time anyone declared themselves to be worried about me? I take a final drag and drop the butt onto the ground, squish it with my boot before slowly turning to face him. “There, now you see me. Satisfied? My humiliation is utterly complete.”

The next thing I know, I’m crushed against that soft grey sweater, encircled in those huge muscly arms, his face buried somewhere in my hair. A faint waft of Fahrenheit mixed with Corona lager fills my nostrils. While the tears continue to flow, he carries on holding me as I let it all out, cocooning me against that warm expanse of chest, shielding me from the world.

I’m not sure how long we stand like that. I can’t remember my last proper cuddle or hug from anyone. A year ago, at least? Or longer, maybe from my mother the very last time I ever saw her. No, it was my cousin Freddie in the immediate aftermath. This one with Jay probably only lasts a minute or so, but it’s long enough for me to pull myself together. Gosh, this is horribly embarrassing.

“Lucien?” he whispers. “Tell me what’s wrong. Let me help.”

“I can’t tell you what’s wrong,” I say against his chest, my voice weak and hoarse. “I’d like to, but I’m afraid I’m unable to formulate the words just now. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to. If you google Rossingley, the Rossingley Estate, then I daresay it will all make sense.”

From somewhere in his jeans, he produces a crumpled, clean tissue and hands it to me. Averting his gaze, he pretends to study the bins while I wipe my eyes and blow my nose.

“How do I look?” I ask him, and he peers into my face.

“Beautiful,” he replies, smiling, and I can’t help myself by smiling back. He’s a dreadful liar; my face will definitely be red and blotchy.

“Why are you so nice?” I ask.

“I’m not particularly.” He shrugs. “At least, no one else shares your opinion at the moment. Perhaps I just seem that way compared to you.”

He nudges my shoulder and clumsily, a little tipsily, in fact, puts an arm around me, pulling me close. “Whatever shit you’ve got going on, Lucien, we’re going to go back in there, pretend we’ve just been out for a fag together, and get through it. Honestly, give it a few seconds more, take a couple of deep breaths, and no one will notice anything. Come on; you can do this!”

And so we do. And it’s not that bad. Annabel throws me a curious look, but Geraldine is too busy explaining her nephew’s scholarship at Harvard to the poor junior on her right, and probably didn’t even notice I was ever missing anyway. Dr Leitner is haranguing the rushed waiter about the delay between the main course and dessert, and so I manage to sit quietly and relatively unnoticed, while all around me, people ooh and aah over synthetic chocolate puddings. A sudden firm pressure appears against my calf, and when I look up, Jay is smiling gently. It’s been a while since a pretty boy played footsie with me under the table or smiled at me so kindly. I’m assuming it’s him, of course. It could be Geraldine feeling unusually frisky, although if it is, then obviously, she’s barking up the wrong tree.

The diehards carry the party on through to the bar, and I’m astonished to find myself amongst their number. Probably because the thought of going back to that characterless hotel room and lying awake for the next few hours doesn’t appeal. Or it could be because a certain young doctor, who minutes ago had his foot curled around mine under the table, is also in the bar, sitting with a rowdy crowd of juniors. And he’s definitely giving me the eye. Quite a bloodshot eye admittedly; he’s knocking back pints of beer and Jack Daniels shots as if prohibition has been declared as of tomorrow morning. I can’t blame him; he’s had a shitty couple of weeks from the sound of things. One is permitted to drink oneself to oblivion when the world implodes. I speak from experience, recognising a fellow sufferer on a mission. Sipping my Campari and soda more sedately, I pretend to care that Annabel’s oldest boy has narrowly missed out on being selected for the under-thirteen county cricket side.

A minor commotion at the juniors’ table draws my attention a while later. A few of them are getting up to leave, Jay included, and in his state of inebriation, he’s knocked over a pint glass, spilling its amber contents all over the floor. A sense of responsibility I never knew I possessed creeps up on me. It’s time to return the favour.

“I think, Annabel, that I’m going to ensure young Dr Sorrentino safely makes it up to his room,” I murmur, gathering up my jacket.

“Wow, you are taking your supervisor duties seriously,” she drawls as we both watch Jay clumsily attempt to retrieve his phone from off the table. “It wouldn’t by chance be because he’s the finest specimen of manhood ever to grace Allenmouth Hospital, would it, Lucien darling?”

“Good gracious, no, Annabel. That would be dreadfully unprofessional of me.”

The group spot me heading towards them.

“Hey, Jay,” one of them shouts. “Watch out! The AA is coming for you! As if your life couldn’t get any more shit!”

I take a mental note of the owner of the voice and store it away for the future. The smug blond one with the Aston Martin. That little twerp is going to wish he was never born. He need not bother applying for the ICU fellowship post, that’s for sure. Or any other job within fifty miles of Allenmouth if I’ve got anything to do with it. I give him ‘the look’, and he visibly shrinks, suddenly finding the bottom of his pint glass infinitely more interesting than my face. Jay has no such qualms.

“Dr Avery!” he slurs happily. “You’re still here! Come and join me! Last time I met you in a dark bar, we…”

“Right, Jay, show’s over,” I interrupt forcefully. “Part of my educational role is to see you safely to your room, according to Annabel, and so that’s what I shall do.”

Grabbing his arm, I steer him away before anything else spills out of his mouth that he might regret. Coming out of the closet in the middle of a Hilton Hotel bar on a Thursday night, in front of random colleagues and acquaintances, is probably not what sober Jay Sorrentino was planning. There is a chorus of “oohs” and whistles as we retreat, which I ignore and to which Jay is mercifully oblivious.

It’s only when he starts walking, or rather stumbling, that I fully comprehend exactly how pissed he actually is. Manoeuvring roughly fourteen stones of solid man towards the exit is proving a challenge. I sling his arm around my shoulders, and he half walks as I half drag him into a lift.

“This is the last day of my honeymoon today,” he slurs down at me as I prop him against the lift wall and press the button to take us up. “I should be on a beach in Cancun with my f…f…female wife. Did you know that, Dr Avery?”

“Yes, Jay, I did know that,” I reply.

He giggles drunkenly. “Do you know why it’s called a honeymoon, Dr Avery?”

I shake my head, and he giggles again. “It’s because your wife is as sweet as honey, and she shows you her bum!”

I don’t know why I find this funny, but I do, although not as funny as Jay, who is sniggering uncontrollably.

“You’re very pretty, Dr Avery, has anyone ever told you that?”

“Yes, Jay, as a matter of fact, they have. But compliments are always appreciated.”

He’s looking at me strangely. “Are you still sad, Dr Avery?” he slurs. “I don’t want you to be sad.”

Gosh, am I still sad? Only every single bloody hour of every day. “Yes, Jay. But you are currently doing a very remarkable job of cheering me up.”

It’s like babysitting an oversized, naughty toddler. We leave the lift, and struggling to walk at all, he leans against the corridor wall, belches rather ungraciously, then slowly sinks down it, landing with a bump on the floor. His hysterical laughter after I bang my funny bone on the edge of the lift—his fault for leaning all that solid weight on me—has turned to sobs.

Great. This is so far out of my remit, although I can’t for the life of me fathom why I’m smiling at the ridiculousness of my situation. Needless to say, a repeat of the blow job is definitely not on the cards. I hover in front of him, praying he doesn’t fall sideways, as I’m not sure I’m strong enough to winch him up from a prone position.

“Fuck, Dr Avery. I should be in Cancun. Ellie hates me, my friends hate me, my family hate me. I’ve fucked everything up, haven’t I?”

“Come on, Jay. Let’s just get you to your room. Get some sleep. These things often seem better in the morning.”

Now, this is an oft trotted out cliché that I know for a fact is a lie. Since my family were wiped out, the desolation of early dawn can often be the worst time of day. At least at night, it’s socially acceptable to resort to booze or illicit substances to dull the pain. Jay will no doubt discover this fallacy for himself, but for the moment, he pushes himself away from the wall with a more urgent matter.

“I think I’m going to puke,” he declares, and yeah, from the colour of his face, I think the doctor has self-diagnosed correctly. I haul him up and reach for my room key.

“Quick, get in here, my room’s closest.”

As I shove him through the door, his shoulders start to heave and a torrent of brown, fizzy liquid erupts forth. Like an idiot, I reflexively try to catch it in my hands, resulting in the bulk of it finding its way down the front my Battistoni shirt as he careers into the tiny bathroom. The second fountain of vomit mostly ends up in the bathtub, thank God. I’m nearly gagging myself as the sour stench of half-digested whisky, wine, and beer pervades my nostrils. The warm, half-digested contents of his stomach begin seeping through my shirt and onto the skin of my chest. Nowhere on the educational supervisor training course was this scenario mentioned as a possibility.

While I’m still coming to terms with this rather unexpected turn of events, Jay unbuttons his fly and charmingly proceeds to urinate into the bath, a gallon of steaming piss helping to wash some of the vomit down the plughole. Goodness, I seem to have become an honorary member of the university rugby club.

“It’s that bloody carbonara, Dr Avery,” Jay chortles as he sways over the bathtub. “It made you sick too. I’m going to have a pepperoni pizza next time. Shall we have the pepperoni pizza next time, Dr Avery? Fuck that, would you like to eat my pepperoni, Dr Avery?”

“Stay there!” I command, trying to sound stern and also trying not to let him see how amused I am. “Do not, I repeat, do not step away from the bath until you’ve finished!”

After wrenching off my ruined shirt, I dump it on the bathroom floor and wash the yuckiness off my hands. The vomiting and urinating behind me seem to have finally ceased. After wiping his face with a wet towel, I manhandle Jay onto the bed and put the wastepaper bin next to him for safety. Miraculously, his gorgeous grey sweater appears to have escaped the worst of it. I pull it off him—he’s about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

“Are you undressing me, Dr Avery?” He giggles again. “That’s very forwards of you. I’m not usually this easy.”

His rather delicious chest is bare, apart from the rug of black hair blanketing it. It’s been carefully manscaped but still oozes testosterone. No sign of hairy shoulders or a hairy back, though, so that’s a blessing. I resist trailing my fingers along the grooves of his abs because that would be taking advantage of an inebriated man, and I’m so much better than that. Honestly, I really am, although my fingers do accidentally graze across his hip as I loosen his belt. Both hips actually. And pushing some of those soft black curls from out of his eyes is also very responsible of me. How the hell I’m going to get this half-naked man-mountain down the corridor to his own room, I’ve not yet worked out, especially as I don’t imagine for a moment he’ll be able to offer any assistance. I conclude he’ll have to stay here, and we’ll deal with the inevitable awkwardness in the morning.

“You’ve taken your shirt off, Dr Avery. Fuck me, Dr Avery, are those…?”

He’s vaguely pointing to my nipples. “Are we going to bed together, Dr Avery?” he slurs, gazing up at me sleepily. “I’ve never been to bed with a man before. I think I want to though; you are so fucking pretty. Do you think I’ll like going to bed with you, Dr Avery?”

“For goodness sake, Jay! I’ve removed my shirt because it is covered in your vomit! Let’s just get your shoes off, shall we?”

Shoes and socks successfully negotiated. I decide to leave his jeans undone but in place, which, again, is very responsible of me because, ideally, I’d like to take this opportunity to completely check out every inch of him. The sour stink of sick seeping into the carpet is becoming hard to ignore, let alone the whiff emanating from my own body. Leaving Jay on the bed, I return to the bathroom to retrieve a towel, and the next fifteen minutes are taken up with me scrubbing at the floor and sluicing out the bath. Finally, I step under the shower and smother any lingering traces of Jay’s vomit with the contents of every complimentary lotion on the shelf.

On my return to the bedroom, Jay is out cold in the middle of the bed, flat on his back and snoring blissfully. As I slip beneath the covers next to him, I discover that those big bulging muscles take up a lot of space. On the plus side, it’s like having a personalised electric blanket. The aircon makes the room a bit chilly, and I haven’t got much meat on my bones, so I can’t help cuddling close to him. That’s the excuse I’m sticking with anyway.

Smiling to myself at his ridiculous honeymoon joke and the memory of being wrapped in his arms against that soft grey sweater, I snuggle down. My final thought before I nod off is that I can’t recall when I last had so much fun.