there we were. Looking at each other and hating each other but not saying anything. And that’s when I started to feel afraid. I looked at Petra and suddenly I realised it wasn’t just her. Everyone I know is cold and heartless. Nobody rang me that night to see if I was okay. And you know why? Because I am a fucking cold heartless cunt too. Why would anyone ring me?
Jasper Black shrugged.
—I think you put it rather more delicately, he said. When you said I didn’t have a selfless bone in my body. But it amounts to the same thing. My life is pointless. I have the kind of friends who aren’t that curious whether or not I have been destroyed by suicide bombers. Still. There’s always cocaine.
I looked at Jasper’s face pale and sick under the striplights. Behind him in the night a million other lights flashed like cheap jewellery. I sighed. Bloody London. Jasper stood up from the chair and kneeled down by the bed. He laid his head on the covers by my knee.
—This world is all fucked up, he said.
—Yeah but we were born here so what can you do.
I couldn’t move. I just watched him lying there. We stayed like that till visiting hours were over and then Jasper went off to spend the night with Petra Sutherland.
* * *
I slept even less after that. You burned up sleep Osama when you burned up my husband and my boy so I just used to sit in the brown plastic chair looking out over London. Jasper came back a couple of times and he brought me vitamins and things from my flat. I didn’t need all those things half as much as I needed him to lay his head on my bed again but I never could seem to tell him.
One night I sat looking out. Jasper was meant to of visited that evening but he never turned up. It was full moon and the barrage balloons shone very still in the sky. It was Friday night but the streets were empty. There was a curfew on and it was just the police vans drifting up and down. They had numbers on their roofs and they were driving round in a pattern. I counted them coming round again and again but I still wasn’t sleepy. They say to count sheep when you can’t sleep Osama well I hope they work better than police vans. Where you are you probably have sheep or goats or little dead hostages to count I bet you sleep like a baby.
I lay awake and I listened to the ladies on the ward coughing and snoring and moaning for the nurse. I was so miserable that night Osama. I had no one. I looked down at the lights of London switching off one by one. I never knew there was so much light to go out. About 3 a.m. I couldn’t stand it any more. Normally I would of put the telly on to take my mind off it but there wasn’t any telly on the ward only Radio 4 so I decided to kill myself.
It isn’t easy to kill yourself in Guy’s Hospital. I suppose they make it that way on purpose I mean I probably wasn’t the first girl who’d had enough. For starters the nurses don’t leave anything sharp lying about. I wanted to cut my wrists but the nearest thing I could find to a knife was the edge of a plastic food tray. I snapped it in half and sawed away at my veins with the broken edge. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to cut your wrists with a hospital tray Osama well I wouldn’t waste your time if I were you. It’s more itchy than anything and after about 10 mins your wrists will be a bit red and sore but that’s it.
I looked around the ward for something else to try. I’m a simple girl Osama there isn’t much to me. Once I get an idea in my head I don’t think about it any more. So now I’d decided to kill myself it was making me nervous that I was still alive. I decided to poison myself and quick sharp. I crawled up the ward collecting all the other ladies’ pills and I ground them up into powder under the wheel of my IV stand. There must of been 20 pills at least in all shapes and colours. They made a nasty grey powder. I pricked a little
Jasper Black shrugged.
—I think you put it rather more delicately, he said. When you said I didn’t have a selfless bone in my body. But it amounts to the same thing. My life is pointless. I have the kind of friends who aren’t that curious whether or not I have been destroyed by suicide bombers. Still. There’s always cocaine.
I looked at Jasper’s face pale and sick under the striplights. Behind him in the night a million other lights flashed like cheap jewellery. I sighed. Bloody London. Jasper stood up from the chair and kneeled down by the bed. He laid his head on the covers by my knee.
—This world is all fucked up, he said.
—Yeah but we were born here so what can you do.
I couldn’t move. I just watched him lying there. We stayed like that till visiting hours were over and then Jasper went off to spend the night with Petra Sutherland.
* * *
I slept even less after that. You burned up sleep Osama when you burned up my husband and my boy so I just used to sit in the brown plastic chair looking out over London. Jasper came back a couple of times and he brought me vitamins and things from my flat. I didn’t need all those things half as much as I needed him to lay his head on my bed again but I never could seem to tell him.
One night I sat looking out. Jasper was meant to of visited that evening but he never turned up. It was full moon and the barrage balloons shone very still in the sky. It was Friday night but the streets were empty. There was a curfew on and it was just the police vans drifting up and down. They had numbers on their roofs and they were driving round in a pattern. I counted them coming round again and again but I still wasn’t sleepy. They say to count sheep when you can’t sleep Osama well I hope they work better than police vans. Where you are you probably have sheep or goats or little dead hostages to count I bet you sleep like a baby.
I lay awake and I listened to the ladies on the ward coughing and snoring and moaning for the nurse. I was so miserable that night Osama. I had no one. I looked down at the lights of London switching off one by one. I never knew there was so much light to go out. About 3 a.m. I couldn’t stand it any more. Normally I would of put the telly on to take my mind off it but there wasn’t any telly on the ward only Radio 4 so I decided to kill myself.
It isn’t easy to kill yourself in Guy’s Hospital. I suppose they make it that way on purpose I mean I probably wasn’t the first girl who’d had enough. For starters the nurses don’t leave anything sharp lying about. I wanted to cut my wrists but the nearest thing I could find to a knife was the edge of a plastic food tray. I snapped it in half and sawed away at my veins with the broken edge. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to cut your wrists with a hospital tray Osama well I wouldn’t waste your time if I were you. It’s more itchy than anything and after about 10 mins your wrists will be a bit red and sore but that’s it.
I looked around the ward for something else to try. I’m a simple girl Osama there isn’t much to me. Once I get an idea in my head I don’t think about it any more. So now I’d decided to kill myself it was making me nervous that I was still alive. I decided to poison myself and quick sharp. I crawled up the ward collecting all the other ladies’ pills and I ground them up into powder under the wheel of my IV stand. There must of been 20 pills at least in all shapes and colours. They made a nasty grey powder. I pricked a little
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