Crash

Julian's been waiting for the phone call, the one that asks him to come to the hospital in the middle of the night

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Crash, Part I

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Crash, Part I

The phone call comes in the middle of the night, like he’s always known it would. He’s imagined this night over and over, lying awake in various hotels and rooms around the country; the three a.m. phone call, Mike’s voice on the line,

‘Noel’s collapsed. Noel’s in hospital. Please, Julian, get here.’

He’s played it through in his head; dressing quickly in the dark, driving through the quiet late-night / early-morning London traffic to whichever hospital he’s been directed to. Listening to the aggrieved nightshift doctor lecturing Mike on his brother’s unhealthy lifestyle, waiting for hours in a narrow, vomit-yellow corridor on a hard plastic chair, drinking too-strong coffee, waiting for the okay to drive his partner-in-crime home just as the city’s waking to another random day.

With Noel becoming increasingly popular on the London scene, it’s only a matter of time, he’s told himself.

What he hasn’t prepared for, what’s never featured in his mental film of this, is the sick feeling in his stomach and the pounding of his heart as he pulls on the first pair of jeans his fingers find on the messy floor of his room, the cold drip of panic as he thrusts his arms into the first shirt—the white crumpled one he wore to the meeting at the BBC that afternoon and dumped on the carpet the moment he walked through the door—buttoning it up so that when he reaches the last button he’s one hole out, swearing harshly as he half-runs, half-jumps down the stairs, pushes his bare feet into uncomfortable shoes and feels like he’s about to vomit as he grabs his coat and keys and leaves the house, slamming the door behind him, forgetting to set the alarm.

He only starts to actually realise how much his psyche’s role-play has been missing as he drives like batman through the not-so-empty city, swearing at anything that gets in his way, setting off two speed cameras and swearing at them as they record his number plate, mentally reckoning on how many points he already has and how he’ll probably have lost his licence by the time he reaches the hospital. In the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t matter. They can take taxis, hire Limos. Worst case, Dave can drive. Can Dave drive? It’s so unimportant it’s not even funny.

He reaches the hospital and parks at a fifteen-degree angle over two disabled spaces, ignoring at least two people telling him he can’t park there, running along the pavement and almost tripping up the steps into A&E. He’s breathing hard as he barges through the throng of so-called emergencies—the results of tonight’s varied fights and accidents for the most part—to hit the reception desk with his chest, palms coming down flat as he says, ‘Fielding—Noel Fielding’ as calmly as he’s able in a voice low enough to keep the name from circulating the room faster than Noel himself could.

‘Julian.’

The quiet voice alone pulls him around. It’s Rich, standing with Dave and Mike, huddled together in a corridor everyone is somehow being kept out of by some invisible barrier. As he approaches the first words into his head are directed at Mike—‘You called these guys first?’—and even as he’s saying them he has no idea where they’ve come from.

Mike shakes his head. ‘Rich was with me, Dave was already here.’

Huh? He glances at Dave, expecting to see a sterile dressing on his head or a cast on an extremity but there’s nothing—he looks a little pissed but that’s nothing new. Turns out Dave’s been involved in one of the bar fights that’s filled A&E. Not him personally but a friend of a friend, and Dave—for once—was the only one deemed sober enough by the attending police to go with him to the hospital to get his head stitched back up. He’s been doing some session work in the city which is his excuse for not being off his tits at this time of night. Julian glances at his watch only to find it isn’t on his wrist. He’s no idea what time it is.

‘They tried to call your mobile, ‘ Mike’s saying now, ‘Noel has an ICE entry in his phone with your number, but when you didn’t answer they found my number and called me—they said the nurse in triage recognised him.’

Patting his pockets Julian suddenly realises he’s got no idea where his mobile is. ‘Where is he? What happened? Who found him?’

‘One at once, man.’ Rich murmurs softly. Glancing at him, Julian sees he’s standing with his arms crossed over his chest, his hands up on his shoulders. It’s strange to see him so still and so quiet.

‘Who found him?’

‘We did, Rich and I.’ Mike’s got his arms wrapped around himself; he looks too young, too vulnerable, not like Mike at all. ‘We’d been out, to this party, just round the corner from Noel’s place. Didn’t realise the time—thought we’d visit. Couldn’t get the key in the lock, then we couldn’t get the door open… cos Noel’s feet were in the way.’ Julian hears a soft moan, thinks it’s come from Rich but belatedly realises it’s from his own throat. ‘Rich pushed his way in. Noel was lying there in the hall, like he’d closed the door and fallen flat on his face, lying in a pool of sick.’ There are tears in Mike’s eyes and he swipes at them with the floppy sleeve of a black silk shirt that’s too big for him and looks like it might have belonged to his brother at some time in the past.

‘Where is he?’

‘They’re getting him comfortable, ‘ Dave adds, ‘I think they’ve pumped his stomach. Julian… they think he OD’d.’

In one way he’s expecting it, in another it doesn’t seem possible. ‘No. Not Noel…. He uses a few recreational drugs but he’s not stupid, he knows his own limits. He wouldn’t… it’s not like he does coke or heroin!’

‘Doesn’t need to be class A to OD, ‘ Dave says quietly.

Julian glares at him but the sudden flash of anger is short-lived and for a moment he can’t think of a response, so he asks, ‘How’s your friend?’

Dave hesitates. ‘He’s fine—he’s been sent home. I called a taxi. He’s an id—’

‘Mr Fielding?’

Mike turns, Julian turns. They both look expectantly at the exhausted doctor coming their way with a clipboard held to his chest and dried blood on the arm of his white coat.

Julian’s the first to speak. ‘How is he?’

The doctor hesitates. ‘I should speak to Noel’s brother alone.’

‘This is Julian, Noel’s partner, ‘ Mike’s flustered, upset, like he just wants the news and whether or not the doctor’s recognised them he looks like he doesn’t have time to argue. Julian and Mike are led apart from the other two. ‘He’s going to be fine; we’ve pumped his stomach, we’ve got him on saline IV, we’ve stabilised his blood pressure and heart rate. We’ll be keeping him in overnight to monitor him.’

Julian hears the list of treatments. ‘He overdosed?’

‘Yeah, and I’ve called the police.’ Julian’s heart sinks, and he grabs Mike just as he goes for the doctor’s throat. ‘We think Noel ingested flunitrazepam, Rohypnol most likely. We’ll have to wait for the bloods to come back to be certain but I’d put money on it. I’d then go on to take an educated guess that he didn’t realise and did a tab of E. Actually it’s more likely he took the tab before the Rohypnol, because it’s fairly fast acting.’

Julian’s brain has snagged on the word ‘Rohypnol’. He’s heard of roofies, the date rape drug. He’s seen flyers in pubs warning kids about it, making them aware of it. That someone gave it to Noel seems impossible, that someone had planned… to what? His first thought is of that Stephen King novel, ‘Misery’, that Noel lent him. But he dismisses it along with other, darker ideas. ‘Noel’s okay?’

‘He will be. We’ve given him a dose of activated charcoal which should prevent any more of the drug from seeping into his system. You can see him, sit with him, he’s sleeping now but we’ll wake him in a couple of hours. The police say they’ll be here when they can be, it’s a busy night if reception’s anything to go by. If they speak to me I’ll leave out the part about the tab, my kid’s a fan of The Boosh.’ With a wry, tired smile he gives them a room number and leaves them alone.

He’s whiter than usual against the sheets. Not that Noel’s ever white, he’s colourful, always colourful. Now his lips are a pinky shade of blue and his eyes are dark, like he’s been in a fight. And at first, he looks so incredibly, incredibly still. There’s dried vomit in the ends of his black hair and Julian thinks he’d hate that he was out looking such a mess.

Mike holds Noel’s hand for a few minutes before he kisses his brother’s forehead like he’s seen in the movies and stands back to let Julian take his place by the side of the bed. A smile cracks his lips—Noel’s sleeping, head to one side, mouth open, snoring softly like he always does. If it weren’t for the white gown he’s been dressed in and the white sheets pinning him to the bed, he wouldn’t seem so pale, so still and they might be in some random, faceless hotel room or back in Noel’s flat in Camden. Anywhere but in a fucking hospital.

He covers Noel’s hand where it lies on the mattress, hesitating before he curls his fingers into the sweat-damp palm. Apart from the IV in the back of his left hand there are no wires, no monitors. Noel’s okay, he’s okay; it’s like a mantra in his mind, keeping him from losing it completely.

Mike pushes the plastic chair from the corner of the room up behind Julian’s knees and he drops into it like some mental command has been given without his knowledge. He glances up as Mike’s heading for the door.

‘You stay, ‘ he’s told. ‘He’ll want to wake up to you.’

Julian nods, thanks him, and shuffles the chair close to the bed, not letting go of Noel’s hand. Mike flicks the light off as he leaves but it only dims the brightness, the strip lights in the corridor shining through the glass in the door.

For a few minutes Julian stares at his own hand, eventually raising his head to look at Noel’s hair, at his face, at his best friend in lying in hospital because someone slipped roofies into his drink… with the intention of doing what? Had someone seriously intended to… to rape him? Julian leans in, reaches up and sweeps his palm over messy, wayward hair, unconsciously tidying it. It’s slightly damp, sweat—he thinks—after what Noel’s body has been subjected to. This has turned into a one hell of a fucking awful night.

‘Someone tried to hurt you, ‘ he murmurs softly. ‘If I find out who, Noel, I swear I’ll kill them.’

He’s going to blame himself, he decides, because he should have been out with Noel tonight. But he’s been so knackered this week with the publicity for the TV series and he just wanted a night off, a night listening to some records he nicked off his Dad last time he was up in Leeds. Up with Noel who’d surprisingly asked if he could visit too. Of course he could. His parents adored Noel. So they’d gone up for a couple of days and something about having Noel there too had made it… different. Different in a good way.

Squeezing Noel’s hand gently, Julian rests his arms on the edge of the mattress, puts his head down and closes his eyes. He won’t sleep, he tells himself, he’s too wound up, too much cold adrenaline sitting in his blood stream, his heart still hammering even if his pulse has stopped racing.

He listens to the sounds of Noel sleeping—sounds he’s so familiar with it’s easy to believe they’re both somewhere else, sometime else; stuffed into a bland hotel room in a bed not big enough to be called a double but all they can afford; sitting on the floor of Noel’s flat in Kentish Town watching Noel scribble characters from his head while he writes words to fall from their strangely shaped mouths; upside down on his own bed with his feet on the pillow and a pen in his mouth, Noel lying beside him with his head on his shoulder as they talk nonsense to one another and it slowly becomes a script. A partnership. A marriage… no, not a marriage. An affair, a wild affair. With his best friend. An affair without the sex. It doesn’t seem to matter. Nothing really matters except Noel.

Something’s gripping his hand and he pries his eyes open, wakefulness hitting him like a bucket of cold water when he chokes on the antiseptic stink and is blinded by the white of the room. Something’s still gripping his hand.

‘Ju?’

Noel’s voice is rough but it’s no less incredible to hear.

‘Hey, little man, ‘ now his own voice threatens to crack. His hand goes to Noel’s temple, thumb stroking a strand of hair before he realises what he’s doing and lowers it, letting go of Noel’s hand at the same time. Noel looks around him gingerly, fingers going to his throat, pulling the IV line with him which attracts his attention.

‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know. Mike and Rich found you in your hall. The doctor… he’s saying someone put Rohypnol into your drink.’ Noel’s eyes widen. ‘That and the tab…? You overdosed.’ Fear crawls in behind the shock. ‘You’re okay, ‘ he says quickly, ‘you’re gonna be fine. They pumped your stomach, gave you something to stop it….’ Julian shakes his head. ‘Jesus, Noel, you scared the shit of me.’

‘Sorry….’ His rough voice is shaky and immediately Julian regrets his words.

‘You didn’t do this, wasn’t your fault.’

He watches Noel run his fingers over his face. ‘Shit, Ju… roofies? Did someone…? Was I…?’

‘No.’ Does he know for certain? Surely the doctor would have said something…. ‘They found you at home.’

Exploratory fingers go to his hair and he pulls them away when he encounters the dried waste. ‘Blood?’

Julian shakes his head, nothing but sympathetic. ‘Sick.’ Noel pulls a face. ‘I’ll take you home as soon as they let you go, dump you in the bath.’

Noel drops his hand back to the mattress, grabbing Julian’s on the way down. ‘Will you stay?’

Letting Noel hold his hand like it isn’t what he’s been doing all night, Julian nods, saying, ‘Course I will.’ As if he can be anywhere else.

Bright blue eyes close against the harsh light from the corridor and Noel’s breathing evens out again. Julian wonders if he should tell someone that Noel woke up, or if he should have got him to drink some water or something. But he seems to be sleeping peacefully again so he tries to stop worrying. But he doesn’t go back to sleep. His protective streak’s kicking in with full force; he doesn’t want Noel to be alone, not for a second.

He’s no idea what time it was when Noel first woke, but it’s just gone five now, the rest of the hospital seems to be awake, not that it had really slept, and two nurses and a uniformed policeman are trying to do three things at once, all of them involving Noel, who’s grasping Julian’s hand like he’s trying to break his fingers.

They’ve asked Julian to leave twice but Noel won’t let him, throwing a hissy fit when they tried to make him leave after which they’ve decided it’s not worth it. Nothing like a grown man trying to break everything in the room from his hospital bed to persuade a nurse to bend the rules slightly.

So they’ve worked around him, checking all of Noel’s bodily functions, sticking a thermometer in his ear, taking blood, scaring Noel into silence with the syringe. After that he keeps his eyes closed and his head turned towards Julian and it hurts to see him like this. Julian threads his fingers through Noel’s and murmurs, ‘It’s okay, it’ll be over soon then I’ll take you home.’

A nurse takes the IV from the back of his hand and they’re left with the policeman. Julian’s already told him not to mention he took any drugs and Noel whole-heartedly agreed with the advice. The policeman doesn’t care about that anyway, he takes a note of Noel’s movements the previous night—starting at a bar in Camden, then meeting some people he knew and going off to a club. Had anyone bought him a drink, someone he didn’t know? No. Yes. A guy in the club had put a beer down in front of him while he’d been standing at the bar. Could he describe him? Pink T-shirt, black jeans, short black hair…. Just a guy.

Still Julian commits the description to memory as the policeman writes it in his notebook. To the man’s credit he admits there’s little chance of finding the guy, and tries to reassure them that there’s little chance he’ll try it again. Noel’s lucky, he tells them, and Julian holds back the comments he wants to make. He’s tired, exhausted, and so’s Noel. The doctor releases him, gives him some basic instructions around what not to do over the next seven days, and after Mike returns with some clean clothes from Noel’s flat, Julian takes him home.

They’ve cleaned up the mess in the hall—Julian assumes that the mess in the rest of the flat was there before last night.

Noel dumps his jacket in the lounge and heads for the bathroom, hesitating at the door. ‘Ju? Can you stay for a bit?’

‘Course.’ It hasn’t crossed his mind to leave. ‘Someone’s got to keep you out of trouble.’ It’s spoken with a mirth he doesn’t feel, and Noel doesn’t even smile. ‘Hey.’ Crossing the hall, he grabs Noel in a hug which is returned as hard as he gives it. ‘You’re okay.’

‘I’m so fucking far from okay, ‘ Noel murmurs, still holding on.

‘Just tell me what I can do.’

Noel’s arms tighten for a second, then pulls back slowly. ‘Cup of tea?’ It’s so normal it brings a smile to Julian’s face.

‘No problem.’ Or at least it wouldn’t be if Noel actually had any milk. Or tea bags. He sets the kettle boiling, shouts through the bathroom door that he’s popping to the shop, and lets himself out, taking Noel’s key with him, making damn sure he locks the door.

The nagging worry stays with him as he walks three streets to the nearest Spa, buys PG Tips, semi-skimmed milk (because it’s all they have), a couple of packs of Jaffa Cakes and some Hob Nobs, bread, eggs and cheese. When he gets back to the flat the door’s still locked, and he knows it’s just going to take a couple of days until the danger subsides in his mind. Noel’s standing in the kitchen in a long black shirt and skinny blue jeans. His hair’s been towel dried and brushed through, but other than that he’s left it. There are two mugs on the sideboard and he’s spooning sugar into one of them.

‘Thanks, Ju.’ He lifts the tea bags and milk out of the white plastic bag as Julian puts it down next to the mugs, chuckles at the sight of the biscuits and turns to switch the kettle back on. When he turns back, he reaches an arm up around Julian’s neck and kisses him. It’s not like their usual lip locks, it’s something else, something deeper, and Julian’s too surprised to even get an arm around Noel’s waist before he’s rocking back on his feet, licking his lips, unwrapping from Julian’s neck.

For a second they stare at one another over the sideboard.

‘I don’t know what that was, ‘ Noel says eventually with a smile.

Julian doesn’t know either. ‘How about I make the tea?’