The Show Must Go On

Chapter Seven: We're Going to Be Friends

Chapter Seven Soundtrack: We're Going to Be Friends by The White Stripes

Thank God I am meeting Mei tonight: my best friend since I was too young to know the word, the closest thing I have to a sister, and the scariest person I know.

She lives across the city, so we've split the difference. I suggested an old pub, around the corner from Holborn station, where I once went on a catastrophic date with an aspiring lawyer. He had six favourite Supreme Court rulings, and he explained each one to me, in detail. I learned later that he dropped out of uni to become a stand-up comedian. The pub was exactly to his taste, at the time: it's split into small booths, each hidden by a wooden door or a high partition, so that to find a table requires breaking up couples or reunions with an apologetic wave. I have no luck tonight, so I perch at the bar and people watch.

Mei is late, as always, and I'm half a pint in when she arrives at the pub. Heads turn to follow her. Mei is British-Chinese, always in jeans and a baseball cap, never wears makeup, and is so gorgeous that she is regularly approached by modelling scouts. She shrugs them off. She couldn't understand why I would never double-date with her, but I have accepted what she doesn't see: standing beside her, I fade into the wallpaper.

'Ellie!' she squeals, pulling me in for an enormous hug. 'How are you?'

She looks well: better than she has in years, in fact, since she left the brutal hours of her last hospital and took some time away with her boyfriend. I was worried, for a while, that I might lose her to the greyness that coloured her cheeks. But I was also reluctant to watch her choose her boyfriend over her career. Now that she's through it, I see that she's chosen her health over her surgical ambitions, and I can tell how close she was to giving up entirely, and I'm glad to see her glowing again. It's funny, the things you can get wrong about people.

She's still waiting for an answer. The bartender has already appeared, eager to serve her, but she doesn't take her eyes off me.

'Ugh,' I groan, melodramatically, 'bad day.'

'Good story?' she asks. It's her favourite response.

'No. Just bloody Nas being... bloody Nas.'

'Huh. Nas again. I feel like I know him already.' She shoots me a speculative look.

'You'll never meet him,' I say darkly. 'You'd have to crawl into his vampire lair and I'd miss you too much.'

Her enormous smile crinkles her cheeks. 'I missed you too, Elles.'

'How's work? Or, sorry, that's insensitive.'

She laughs. 'Don't worry! You're always worrying over nothing. Work is better. Work is sane, actually, and healthy, and I'm eating again and even sleeping, if you can believe it.'

'And you don't regret it?'

'God, no. Trying to become a surgeon, under those conditions... I wouldn't have survived it. Plus I've realised I like my patients responsive.'

'Really?'

'I mean, not always, but occasionally a natter is a good thing.'

'I'll take your word for it. There's a few colleagues I wouldn't mind killing off.'

'Ugh, Nas again. I'm still so intrigued.'

'Stop. I hate him.'

She grins and, mercifully, changes the subject as the bartender brings her a lemonade. Swirling the straw, she asks, 'How's your mum?'

'Oh, you know, probably terminally ill or about to lose her house or alone in the world. She hasn't updated me today but I'm sure I'll get an earful. She asked after you, though.'