Scissors, Paper, Stone by Elizabeth Day Read Free Book Online

capitulated – partly because it was easier that way and partly because, in spite of herself, she found Janet’s company strangely soothing. She never had to make any conversational effort in her presence and found it easy to let Janet’s cheerful monologues wash over her, smiling and nodding her head when it was required. She was, Anne supposed, her only real friend.
    Once, but only once, Janet had stared at her across a café table and said, out of nowhere, ‘You never really listen to me, do you?’ Anne had protested unconvincingly and was mortified to see tears well up in Janet’s eyes. She couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she had lapsed into silence. After a while, the tears receded and Janet flapped her hands in front of her face. ‘Sorry. Ridiculous. Don’t know what’s wrong with me today.’ And that had been that.
    This Friday, they had been due to go to Paris for the weekend – ‘A girls’ trip,’ Janet had said when they booked their Eurostar tickets – but now it all had to be cancelled. Janet was being purposely cheery about it, as if living up to her own notions of what a ‘trooper’ she was. She had insisted on dealing with all the paperwork, in enquiring about refunds and phoning up the hotel to let them know they would no longer be requiring two single rooms with en-suite showers. And then she had told Anne all about what she’d done, seeking approval with a single-mindedness that recalled a dog gripping a stick between its teeth. Anne knew that what Janet most wanted was someone to reassure her how selfless she was, how wonderful she’d been in a crisis, to say, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you,’ and yet it was precisely because she was so needy, so oppressively grateful for any morsel of attention, that Anne found herself feeling perversely disinclined to play the game.
    She knew this was mean and she was half-horrified by her own capability for small cruelties, but she couldn’t help herself. To an extent, her friendship with Janet enabled her to vent the frustrations accumulated in the rest of her life: it was the only situation she remained entirely in control of. For some reason, that was important.
    ‘You sound tired,’ Janet was saying now on the phone. ‘Was it a terribly draining day?’
    ‘No, no,’ said Anne. ‘It was fine.’ A mini-van stopped suddenly in front of her without warning. ‘Oh, bloody hell.’
    ‘Anne? Are you all right?’
    ‘Yes. Just a van driver who doesn’t know his highway code.’
    Janet tittered on the end of the line. ‘So is there any update from the doctors?’
    ‘Much the same. They never really want to say anything in case they get sued. In any case, they’ve got to wait for the brain swelling to go down before they can be sure.’
    ‘Sure of what?’
    ‘Of whether there’s any permanent . . . well, you know, brain damage.’
    There was a self-consciously dramatic intake of breath on the other end of the line.
    ‘They said that if he’d been wearing his bicycle helmet he might have walked away unscathed. I kept telling him to wear it,’ Anne said, rather pointlessly, she thought.
    ‘Are they any closer to finding out what happened?’
    ‘No. The police say there were no witnesses, which frankly I find hard to believe, but they never care much about cyclists, do they? The doctors think his bike was clipped by a passing car and he was thrown off. He was lucky to have landed on the road. If he had fallen into the path of a moving car, then it could have quite possibly been fatal. As it is . . . well, he’s in this coma.’
    ‘Goodness, Anne. How horrific.’
    ‘I suppose it’s just something we’ll have to deal with,’ Anne said, her impatience breaking through. ‘He might wake up tomorrow and be absolutely fine.’ She found she was unable to muster the requisite good cheer that this thought should have provoked.
    ‘I think you’re being a tower of strength, I really do.’
    Anne stayed silent for a