Bella remembered going into work with the feel of the sun still on her shoulders, the bustle and hum of the pub on her skin. She told Eleanor, ‘I met Sam when I came onto shift. I liked him, straightaway. He made me laugh. Told me he’d come to Bournemouth for his stag do. He said his fiancée had just been in – delivered him a Walnut Whip and a Marvel comic. I told him, “1985 is on the phone. They want their lifestyle back.” He laughed at that, said, “That’s nothing. You should see our VHS collection.”’
There was the briefest softening of Eleanor’s features.
‘It was about two a.m. when I started to flag.’ It was almost like motion sickness, as if her blood were too hot for her body, eyes dry and stinging. ‘I was in the treatment room preparing his next dose of antibiotics. I remember setting out the tray and reconstituting the vial of co-trimoxazole. That’s what I thought I’d picked up. That’s what I could’ve sworn I’d picked up. I knew Sam was allergic to penicillin – it was on his chart and on the red band he wore on his wrist. I knew. But right next to it, there was co-amoxiclav – and that’s the one I picked up.’ Tears stung her eyes. ‘I reached for the wrong one. I didn’t double-check.’
In her hand, she had been holding the drug that would kill him. That would act like a poison to his body, that would cause his blood vessels to leak, his blood pressure to drop and send his body into shock.
‘Even when I got to his bedside, asked him his name, date of birth, whether he had any allergies, I still didn’t realise I was about to give him the wrong antibiotic. So I attached it to his drip. Signed his chart. Told him to behave, and continued with my round.’
Eleanor was completely still, knuckles white where she gripped the seat. ‘Go on.’
‘Ten minutes later, the ward alarm rang.’ She remembered the squeak of plimsolls sprinting down the corridor, the metal clang of the crash trolley as it was pushed into his bay. ‘The crash team were there in moments – getting out defibrillator pads, administering adrenalin, putting in a bigger line for liquids. A doctor asked what drugs he’d been given and I answered, “Co-trimoxazole.” As soon as I said it – I knew I must’ve got it wrong.
‘I ran to the treatment room. The tray was still there, the vial out. I saw my mistake. And fuck, oh fuck …’ Her voice splintered. Tears streamed down her face. ‘Everything was spinning – the walls, the shelves. I couldn’t breathe. I sprinted back to Sam, yelling at the doctors that I’d given him the wrong drug. That it had penicillin in! I wanted to do something, help, but he was already being rushed to intensive care.’
She’d just stood there in his empty bay, her body numb, her mind strangely blank. ‘I told the charge nurse it was my fault, and she said she’d need to write this up. Let the family know. Then she told me to go home. That’s what I did. I left.’
The streets were empty, the night warm; a few revellers were on their way home. Her thoughts were looped and fierce: the whites of Sam’s eyes, his legs bare beneath the sheet, an awful wheeze sounding from his throat.
Twenty-four hours later, the team on intensive care made the decision, alongside his family, to withdraw support. And that was it. Sam Maine, comic-book lover, Walnut Whip-eater, VHS-owner, was dead.
And it was her fault.
‘I was suspended from work,’ she told Eleanor. ‘There was a disciplinary hearing later. You’ll have seen the report. I made no excuse. NMC ruled that I could return to my job in a more junior role. But I could never go back to nursing. How could I? All it took was one momentary lapse in concentration, and someone – your Sam – died.’
Bella pushed a hand across her wet face. ‘I didn’t tell anyone outside of work what’d happened. I couldn’t. Not even Lexi. Not my family. I found a job in a jeweller’s and packaged it as a lifestyle change. Some days it felt almost possible that I could live with it, that this was a choice. But it’s always there, in me. Knowing what I did. That I killed Sam.’ She looked up at Eleanor. ‘And now, here you are.’
The sea licked at the boat.
Her heart rate flaring, Bella fought to steady her voice: ‘I think about you: Sam Maine’s fiancée. I think about you every single day. Try to imagine who you are. How your life has changed. I think about the wedding day that you never got to have. I think about your wedding dress – and wonder whether you’d already chosen it, whether you kept it, whether you get it out of your wardrobe some days and try it on.’