BEX
After Jen had bitten him, Laurence said he didn’t want to involve the police. He did, however, go to the Whittington Hospital, up the road in Archway, where he told the A&E staff that a stray dog had attacked him. He got his stitches, a tetanus jab, and was home by 3 a.m.
I took Jen back to my flat. She was distressed, remorseful, still in a panic. I was worried that if I called a doctor there was a risk that she would be sectioned, and so I decided to look after her myself. I was certain that she wouldn’t try to hurt me. I made her comfortable in my bed, gave her a couple of sleeping pills, and told her not to think about what had happened. It would all be fine in the morning, I said, not believing my own words. I held her hand as she drifted off to sleep and whispered to myself, ‘What are we going to do with you, Jen Hunter?’
The next morning I was awoken by a howl. I ran from the sitting room to find Jen sitting up in bed, her head in her hands. Clearly, she had just remembered something of what she’d done the night before. She looked awful, with dark shadows under her eyes, her skin all swollen and puffy.
‘Tell me it was just a bad dream,’ she wailed.
‘Oh babe,’ I said, going to sit by her.
‘Fuck – what happened? I remember some things, but a lot of it’s in a haze.’
Quietly, and with as much tact and sensitivity as possible, I explained what Laurence had told me and what I had witnessed.
‘Fuck, did I really do … that?’
‘I think it was all too much for you – hearing the news about your job and then—’
‘Jesus – and I hadn’t taken any drugs,’ she joked. ‘Shit, the sad thing is, if I still had my column this would make for confessional gold.’
‘It sure would have been one hell of a column,’ I said, smiling.
She fell silent for a moment before another thought occurred to her. ‘I can’t remember – did I tell him about my job? I mean, about why … why I lost the column?’
‘No, all Laurence knows is that the newspaper let you go, but he thinks it was because of budget cuts,’ I said. ‘And I didn’t tell him anything different.’
‘Thank God for that,’ she said. ‘I’d rather be known as a cannibal than a liar.’ I could tell she was putting a brave face on things, but the comment made both of us laugh.
‘But seriously, Jen, I do think you need some help,’ I said.
‘You’re not going to send me away, though, are you?’ she said, sounding like a little girl.
‘No, you’re not going anywhere,’ I said.
‘Promise?’
‘Yes, I promise.’
I watched as the tears spilled down her cheeks. I held her tight as she thanked me for being the best friend in the world.
Over the course of the following few weeks I barely left her side. I told my boss at Camden Council that I had suffered a bereavement in the family. I also had some holiday owing. I took her to the GP, waited for her when she went in to see her therapist, stood by her to make sure she swallowed her medication, cooked her meals and made sure she got plenty of exercise – walking on the Heath was her favourite. She really cut down her drinking too, which really impressed me. She was desperate to try to see Laurence again, if only to try to explain, but I advised her against it. I did allow her to send him a card and some flowers. She was hurt when she heard nothing back from him, but I told her that it would take time for him to forgive her.
By the autumn she was showing progress. By the New Year she was like a different woman altogether. She went into February with a renewed sense of optimism and purpose. She wanted to get her life back. She moved out of my flat and into a rented room at Penelope’s. Her future looked bright. But then she got back in touch with Laurence, and witnessed that horrific incident on Parliament Hill Fields. That’s when everything changed.