I Follow You

by Peter James

  ‘Come on, you always have an emergency something. Later isn’t a time! Later is never! Is that what you tell your patients when they ask you when their baby is due? Later?’ She shook her head. ‘No, you say June 11th or July 16th. Or, knowing you, you probably say at 3.34 p.m. precisely.’

  When he had finally left the house, he was eleven minutes behind schedule. Time he was never going to make up on an eighteen-minute journey.

  The joy of kids! All those pregnant women he would be seeing in his consulting room this afternoon. Smearing on the gel and moving the ultrasound scanner around their expectant bellies. Showing them the shadowy silhouette of the little lives inside them, on the screen.

  Watching their happy faces. Their own worlds about to change.

  Do you know what’s ahead? Months of sleepless nights. And for some of you, the end of your life as you know it. All the sacrifices you’ll both make over the years to come? Will you produce geniuses who’ll change the world for the better or ungrateful little bastards who’ll turn you into an anxious mess? The gamble of life. A good kid . . . or a waste of space? Nature, nurture; good parents, crap parents. You needed a licence to keep certain animals, but any irresponsible idiot could have kids.

  He knew he should be more positive, change his mindset. But he couldn’t help it, that was how he felt. Increasingly. Day by day. Working all hours in the hospital. Frequently on call, working weekends. He’d kept in touch with a few of his old friends from his time at boarding school. One had gone on to become an insanely rich hedge-fund manager, and was now a tanned, relaxed hedonist with his super-rich hedge-fund manager wife and retinue of white-suited acolytes. They proudly called themselves the TWATs – only working Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. What a life!

  Another old buddy seemed equally relaxed working as a sailing instructor. Marcus admired his choice to live modestly and still, at forty-five, to go on backpacking adventure holidays with his wife.

  It seemed, some days, that he envied everyone else’s life.

  Sure, he made a good living, and he loved the kudos he got for his role at the hospital, but at times he couldn’t help feeling he’d made the wrong life choices – including the wrong career. And possibly the wrong discipline within it. Sometimes he made people happy, but not this morning. His first operation was to remove the remaining fallopian tube of a thirty-nine-year-old woman who’d endured nine tough years of in vitro fertilization and whose final chance of a natural pregnancy was now gone. Her symptoms had been confirmed just over an hour and a half ago and he had little time to lose.

  Cursing for being so late, he was now driving faster than the 40 mph speed limit along Victoria Avenue, his baseball cap pulled low over his forehead against the low, dazzlingly bright sunlight in his eyes. Over to his right, the tide in St Aubin’s Bay was a long way out. Full moon. His own tide felt just as far out.

  Snapping himself out of this mood, he hit the speed-dial button on his phone to call his assistant, Eileen, to give her his ETA.

  Then he looked up and saw the red light.

  Bearing down on it at speed.

  A young woman, with Titian-red hair, in running kit, had stopped right in front of him. Staring at him in horror.

  Frozen in her tracks.

  Hands clamped over her midriff.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  He stamped the brake pedal to the floor.

  The wheels locked. The car slithered. Yawed left, then right, then left again, the tyres scrubbing and smoking.

  Oh Jesus.

  Heading straight towards her. No longer driving his car, just a helpless passenger.

  4

  Friday 7 December

  The Porsche stopped inches from Georgie. Like, inches. Another foot and it would have wiped her out.

  She stood still, staring, momentarily rooted to the spot in shock. Through the windscreen the driver, in a baseball cap pulled low and sunglasses, also looked shocked. She shook her head and opened up her arms, mouthing an exasperated, What?

  He put his window down and leaned out a fraction. Then froze as he saw her properly.

  Lynette.

  Was this Lynette, after all these years?

  No, it couldn’t be. Couldn’t. Could it?

  ‘It’s a red light,’ she said, tartly. ‘Or are you colour blind?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m—’

  She shook her head and ran on.

  Marcus sat staring after her, stunned. His mind flooded with emotions from the past.

  She was exactly how he imagined Lynette might look now – some thirty years on. Handsomely beautiful, alluring, and in great shape.

  God, how ironic if it really was Lynette and he’d run her over!

  Could it be possible that it actually was her? A million-to-one coincidence?

  Destiny?

  He’d never made any attempt to find Lynette – he’d never even known her surname. And in any case, he was well aware it had only been a teenage obsession at best. But suddenly the sight of this woman had reminded him of that summer. That girl. Those fumbling, tantalizing moments when she had touched him, that he had replayed in his mind countless times. And still occasionally did when he was making love to Claire. All that Lynette had promised. And never delivered.

  A horn blared behind him. A large white van.

  The lights were now green.

  He raised an apologetic hand and, as he drove on, shot the woman another quick glance.

  Followed by a longer one.

  Could it possibly be her?

  He felt stirring in his groin. He was aroused.

  5

  Friday 7 December

  Georgie Maclean finally got the watch restarted, although to her annoyance it had frozen again and not recorded all the details of the past two miles of her daily morning run. And, incredibly, given her current condition, just when she was sure she had smashed her previous five-mile time.

  Whatever.

  She was still shaking. Shit. That idiot in the Porsche. She patted her midriff again, where tiny life was just beginning, a few millimetres in size but growing daily.

  At forty-one, she was only too aware her biological clock was ticking away crazily fast now, like it was on speed. Which was why it felt so very good to be pregnant, after years of yearning for a baby. She’d left it late, and hadn’t even started trying until she was thirty-three, after she’d finally found Mr Right, the man she wanted to have a child with, back in London. Mike Chandler, a teacher at a tough comprehensive. She’d been working as a PE teacher back then. After years of no success, her gynaecologist discovered she had a tilted – retroverted – uterus but did not operate as he did not feel that should stop her falling pregnant. But still nothing had happened. Then Mike had been diagnosed as having a low sperm count. When that had been sorted, it was discovered she had hostile mucus.

  She recalled going to see a sweet, elderly specialist up in Hampstead, who had helped a close friend with her fertility issues. As she’d lain in his reclining chair, feet up in stirrups, while he inspected her with a vaginal speculum, tut-tutting, she’d exclaimed in anger that she couldn’t see how the hell anyone ever got pregnant. And always remembered his words, in his strong Scottish burr: ‘What you have to understand, Mrs Chandler, there is an awful lot of copulation that goes on in the world.’

  Several years of infertility treatment had followed. Her menstrual cycle logged into her laptop and phone. Making love according to a date stipulated by an ovulation kit and an app. Followed by expensive and painful attempts at IVF. It sure had been a romance-buster. Finally, they’d separated, sadly and very painfully. Mike had quickly got together with a fellow teacher, who was now pregnant by him, and Georgie had gone back to her maiden name.

  After a sudden bout of acid reflux, something that was occurring constantly at the moment, she ran down the side of the Old Station Cafe, crossed the cycle lane and turned left, following the curve of the bay towards St Helier. To her right, below on the
beach, people were walking their dogs, some of which were bounding, free of their leads, across the vast expanse of wet sand left by the retreating sea. Further over, the rock outcrop to the east of the harbour, topped by Elizabeth Castle and separated from the mainland by a causeway, was now walkable with the far-receded tide.

  To get away from the trauma of her marriage split, she’d come to Jersey for the summer at the invitation of an old girlfriend, Lucy, who she’d known since primary school. Lucy had moved to the island a while back with her sister, and Lucy herself was training to become a nutritionist. Georgie loved her passion for this and for going back to study. They’d both made a big leap to change career well into their thirties and were a huge support to each other. In fact, whenever they met up, which was often, they were normally in tears of laughter within minutes. ‘The Gigglers’, as they had been known back when they were five years old. That had stuck, and they loved and cherished it.

  Soon after Georgie’s arrival on the island she’d had a short relationship with an estate agent, which hadn’t worked out. She hadn’t been ready to return to London and had really grown to love everything about Jersey – the calmer pace of life, the rugged landscapes and the beaches, and the feeling of safety that the island community offered. She’d decided she wanted to stay. She managed to get accepted as a Jersey resident and was making a life here, building a new career as a personal trainer. She called her company Fit For Purpose.

  Although this island she now called home was small, just nine miles by five, it felt much larger. One of her clients, who had spent all her life in Jersey, had told her that it increased its land mass by one third when the tide was out. Not hard to believe, from the vast amount of beach she could see.

  There were also hundreds of miles of lanes and roads, with stunning coastal views around almost every corner. Its only town, St Helier, which she was now heading towards, with its port, network of pedestrianized streets and vast array of shops and stores, felt substantial, almost a bonsai version of an English city.

  The one oddity was St Helier’s principal landmark, an incinerator chimney, and she always wondered why, with its inhabitants so keen on preserving the island’s natural beauty, nothing had ever been done to somehow mask it. But it hadn’t spoiled her love of the place. And the one thing she loved more than anything was how safe she felt. The crime levels were so low that she felt completely secure running here, even at night, and she never bothered to lock her car.

  As she ran on towards the Esplanade, where many of the banks were sited, passing a closed ice-cream kiosk, shading her eyes against the low winter sun, she didn’t notice the Porsche which had now made a U-turn and was cruising back past her. Slowly. But not so slow that it was obvious.

  6

  Friday 7 December

  Inside his car, Marcus was unsettled. And hard.

  Lynette?

  The slender woman on his left in the pink top, bright-blue shorts and compression socks, who he’d almost run over, was now heading in the opposite direction, grim determination on her face.

  As he drove, he discreetly held up his phone and took a photograph of her. Then he did a quick mental calculation, wondering how Lynette would really look today – assuming she was still alive? Was she still beautiful like this running lady? Or was the Lynette of his dreams now fat, tattooed and living miserably with her bolshy biker husband? Her likeness was uncanny, although he knew that in reality it almost certainly wasn’t her.

  And yet?

  The clock in the round white dial above the dash said 8.42. It was running sixteen seconds fast against the dial of his wristwatch and the imprecision angered him. The watch that received, each night, a radio signal from the US atomic clock in Colorado. It was accurate, every day, to within nanoseconds.

  He was really late now, but at this moment did not care. He turned round at the first opportunity, catching one more glimpse of her from the other side of the dual carriageway, then drove on. He wanted to see her again. With a small population of around 107,000 on this island, you were constantly bumping into people you knew, or at least recognized. For sure, he would see her again.

  Finally, he pulled into an underground parking space at the rear of the tired old granite buildings of Jersey General Hospital and hurried from his car. Still thinking about the woman.

  Running.

  He’d taken up the sport at medical school and after losing a lot of weight had become a useful runner himself, often winning cross-country races at county standard. He’d always loved the buzz, the competitive high. How long had it been since he’d stopped running seriously because of a ligament injury and just did the odd jog here and there? Three years? God, no, four. He felt his stomach. I’m turning into a paunchy bastard. Just like I was once mocked for being a teenage fatty.

  Got to get back on it on a regular basis. Get a training regime set out. And maybe see her again?

  With three young kids and a demanding career, where would he find the time – or the energy? But he needed to. His lack of exercise was already taking a toll on his health. At his last check-up, his GP had prescribed him statins, telling him he was overweight, his blood pressure wasn’t great and that he was drinking too much – and he’d lied about his weekly alcohol units, which were double at least what he had told the quack. Oh, and he’d conveniently forgotten to tell him that he’d taken up smoking again. Not much, but enough for disapproval.

  He knew he wasn’t a great example to his patients, if they were to find out, as he told all of them to cut down their drinking and quit smoking.

  Maybe he could try a longer jog over the weekend, see if he could stretch it to a run? For his birthday, a few months back, Claire had bought him a sports watch, which he’d only used a handful of times. Was it a hint, he wondered, that his changed physique and his increasing belly were turning her off? Did he care?

  And hey, he knew his looks and charm were still there, even with those few extra pounds on him; some of his patients clearly fancied him – and, he thought, at least two of the staff members at the hospital – well, three actually.

  He strode towards the main entrance. Twenty-two minutes late. Normally this would have stressed him, but not now that a plan was forming in his mind.

  Start running again properly. Yes.

  And maybe he’d see the redhead sometime, out on the promenade.

  Although he did not know it, he was going to see her again. Very much sooner than he thought.

  7

  Friday 7 December

  After Georgie and the estate agent had split, she had briefly considered leaving Jersey and returning to London, but two things had happened in rapid succession. The first was that her father, her only close relative in England, died suddenly from a heart attack, aged just sixty-five. It was a massive shock to her, but equally, she was sadly aware, he’d never done any exercise in his life and was extremely unfit.

  She liked the island and, after the funeral and sorting out her father’s affairs, decided to stay. Spurred on by his death, she used her share of the small inheritance, along with her savings, to set herself up as a personal trainer, helping people – particularly those at risk from previously sedentary lifestyles – to get fit. Occasionally, she saw some of her clients at their homes, but mostly she used one of the island’s gyms. She was fond of chiding them with a saying she’d once heard: So many people sacrifice their health to gain wealth and later in life they spend their wealth trying to fix their health.

  Within a few weeks one of her new clients introduced her to Roger Richardson, a debonair, divorced, former RAF test pilot, at a party. They hit it off and Roger, who now worked as a flying instructor, had invited her out for a drink.

  Followed by dinner.

  Followed, the next day, by a flight in a little single-engine Piper he part-owned with six others. They flew over all the other islands, circled the Cherbourg Peninsula and the Plogoff nuclear power station, and landed in Dinard for lunch.

  Followed, two wee
ks later, by the best weekend of her life. Followed by countless more.

  Followed by a missed period.

  Then, last Tuesday, a home pregnancy test from a kit she had bought in a chemist showed positive! Confirmed yesterday by her doctor who, to her surprise, only used a similar kit to the one she had purchased. He’d carried out some basic health tests on her and scheduled an appointment with a midwife at his medical centre for a week on Monday.

  It was almost impossible to believe it, after all those years of treatment, but to her utter delight she’d finally become pregnant. It was even more miraculous as she’d had a brief cancer scare the year before. Even though it had turned out to be nothing to worry about, it had made her even more doubtful that she would ever have a baby.

  Now Georgie was living with Roger in a small, cosy flat, with an ocean view, in St Aubin. Lucy, who was currently single after kissing too many frogs, lived only a few roads away, and she had made many other solid friends. Roger had asked her, two days ago, to marry him, and she’d accepted. It had been a long while since she’d felt so excited about the future.

  Reaching the start of the harbour basin, she turned and began heading back home against a strong, westerly headwind. She glanced at her watch, relieved it was back up, but annoyed that it would not be recording her PB due to crashing earlier.

  8.57.

  Just time to get home, shower, grab some breakfast and then head to the gym for her morning session with the first of her clients.

  Fortuitously, one of her regular clients was Tom Vautier, the owner of the large Bel Royal Hotel in St Lawrence, which was closed for the winter from the end of September to the beginning of April. He’d kindly suggested she might like to make use of the gym, in exchange for helping to keep an eye on the hotel during those months. She wouldn’t have to do much because there was a caretaker there in the week, doing some cleaning and a bit of maintenance. But even empty, it was too much of an undertaking for just one person – and Tom was off-island quite a bit, going backwards and forwards to visit his elderly mother in Madeira, and also running his ski hotel in Méribel. Georgie could have the whole gym at her and her clients’ disposal for six months, free, no rent. It would save her a packet, and all she had to do was help the caretaker by making a quick check of all the rooms, for leaks or any other problems, every week.