by Archer, Sam
Then the phone call had come, several weeks earlier when he’d been in the playground talking to Chloe, and Rebecca had announced that she wanted sole custody, wanted Kelly to live with her and the new guy. Tom had hung up on her. She’d phoned again, and eventually they’d held a conversation of sorts, in which he made his position as clear as he could: over my dead body. Rebecca had texted him a few days ago, asking for a meeting, and he’d agreed, assuming as he’d told her earlier that she was going to bring out the legal papers.
‘You could visit,’ Rebecca said. ‘Often.’
He pictured it. The Sunday trips by car to London, the day of frenetic “fun” activities while his heart broke again and again every time he looked at his daughter. The agony of separation at the end, and the dreary slog back home, alone.
‘Forget it,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s not going to happen.’
Rebecca drew a long breath. The last time Tom remembered her doing that was just before she announced to him she was having an affair with Andrew.
‘There’s something else,’ she said.
Tom waited.
She looked him full in the face. ‘Andrew and I are moving to France,’ she said. ‘We want Kelly to come with us.’
He was silent. The news might have floored him, but instead Tom felt numbed.
‘Then that’s clinched it,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to discuss this any further.’
‘Tom, you’d –’
‘You had your chance, Rebecca, and you passed it up. I’ve been more than reasonable in letting Kelly visit you over the last year and a half, both when we lived in London and since we moved. You can’t deny that. And I’m happy for that to continue. But for her to come and live with you, for her to move abroad… no.’
‘You’d better listen to what I have to say.’
He stood up. ‘This conversation, and this visit, is over. Please leave.’
Rebecca remained seated. ‘You can’t win this.’
‘Oh, but I can. And I will.’
‘I’ll get the lawyers involved if I have to.’
‘Do your worst.’
‘The courts will always look favourably on the mother in a case like this.’
‘Not if she’s already renounced custody once before.’
This time she did stand. She took a step forward. Almost as tall as he was, around five feet ten in her heels, her gaze was level with his.
‘This could get very, very nasty, Tom.’
‘It already is.’
Her tone became soft, as close to menacing as he’d ever heard her.
‘You have no idea what I’m capable of. No idea.’
‘I’m starting to get an inkling.’ He held out an arm towards the front door. ‘Go, Rebecca. Please.’
He watched her stalk off towards the Mercedes and disappear in a squeal of tyres. She didn’t look back.
Tom closed the front door and leaned heavily against it, his eyes closed. He felt utterly drained, more so than he had after some of the thirty-hour shifts he’d done as a junior hospital doctor.
You have no idea what I’m capable of.
What had she meant by it? He supposed it was bluster, empty threats. Yes, she had a point that the courts tended to favour the mother in custody battles. But he was of excellent character, and had a steady, respectable job. And, as he’d reminded her, she had voluntarily ceded custody of Kelly to him at the time of the divorce.
Feeling light-headed and a little shaky, Tom got ready to return to work.
***
‘No bother at all,’ said Mrs McFarland, studying Jake fondly as he toyed around Chloe’s legs. The two women were seated at Mrs McFarland’s kitchen table having a cup of tea. Chloe had entered the cottage to the sounds of her son’s raucous, uninhibited laughter, and Mrs McFarland said he’d been in high spirits all afternoon.
Margaret wanted of course to know all about Chloe’s “assignment”, as she called it. Chloe said she couldn’t reveal many details, which intrigued the older woman all the more. In the end Chloe let slip that she was going to try to interview a senior member of the town council about something, and this inflamed Mrs McFarland’s curiosity to the point where Chloe, laughing, had to put her hands up and insist that she really couldn’t say any more, and that was that.
A thought seemed to occur to Margaret and she leaned across the table conspiratorially. In a low voice she said, ‘Oh. Bit of gossip. Jill Bryson phoned just before you got here to tell me she’d seen Rebecca Carlyle at the petrol station earlier.’
‘Rebecca Carlyle? Who’s that?’ But Chloe thought she knew.
‘Dr Carlyle’s ex, dear. Nobody’s seen her around town for ages. She came to pick up the little girl once, several months ago, but that was the last time. And there she was, according to Jill, getting into her car after filling up. Done up to the nines, she was, too. Though she always was a stylish girl.’
Chloe felt something gnawing at her, deep in her stomach. ‘What does she look like?’
‘She’s – why?’ Mrs McFarland’s glance was sharp and shrewd.
‘Oh, I just think I might have seen her too.’
‘Tall, very pretty. Long blonde hair. Takes care of herself. Not that you don’t, dear,’ the older woman added hastily, patting Chloe’s hand.
Chloe stared off in silence until Mrs McFarland said, ‘Well?’
‘What?’
‘Is she the one you saw earlier?’
‘Yes. Yes, I think so. Visiting Dr Carlyle.’ As she said it, Chloe felt the sensation spreading through her chest. She couldn’t identify it, exactly. She just knew it was making her struggle to breathe.
‘Ah.’ Mrs McFarland drew the syllable out knowingly. ‘Now that’s interesting. You don’t think – no.’
‘What?’
‘You don’t think… they might be getting together again?’
Chloe said nothing. But yes, that was precisely what she’d been thinking.
Mrs McFarland was off, seeming not to notice Chloe’s discomfort. ‘It would be lovely, you know. We were all so sorry to hear of the divorce, even though young Tom wasn’t living here at the time. And it would be so good for little Kelly as well, to have both parents around again. We didn’t know Rebecca well in Pemberham, but Tom brought her up from London a few times while he was courting her, and she seemed like a nice girl.’ She rubbed her hands, clearly delighted at this latest morsel of gossip she was going to be able to share with her circle. ‘So what did it look like to you? Did you see him kiss her?’
‘No, no.’ Chloe waved a hand, trying to appear nonchalant. ‘I was driving past his house and I just saw her go up to the door, that’s all.’
‘Ah.’ Mrs McFarland seemed disappointed. ‘Still, I’m sure we’ll find out more soon enough.’
I bet you will, thought Chloe wryly. But her mind was on other things.
She made small talk for another few minutes, all the while struggling to recognise the tightness in her chest for what it was. Words were Chloe’s stock-in-trade, the way she made her living, and she liked to be able to pin concepts and feelings down and define them in verbal terms. But this experience was proving hard to characterise. There was a strong physical component – a choking sensation, a rapid pulse, a tingling – but the name of the accompanying emotion was eluding her.
So what if Dr Carlyle – Tom, she really should get used to calling him, since everyone else did – was getting back together with his former wife? Wasn’t that usually considered a good thing, especially when there were children involved? Shouldn’t Chloe be happy for him? Or, more accurately, why should she care one way or the other, apart from feeling the natural benevolence a decent person would for an casual acquaintance’s good fortune?
Besides, Chloe herself might benefit if Tom and his ex reconciled. It would put an end to the speculation about her and Tom as two eligible, unattached people of a similar age, speculation which Chloe sensed was still rife in town despite her protest about it to Margaret McF
arland. Chloe wouldn’t have to worry that every casual conversation between her and Tom on the playground or in the supermarket would be misinterpreted as evidence of attraction or a growing attachment between them.
Her musings continued after she’d gathered up Jake and returned to their own cottage, and they resumed later once he was tucked up in bed after supper and Chloe was at her laptop, writing up notes from her interview that afternoon with the residents of the estate. In Chloe’s experience, when she couldn’t let go of a topic it was usually because she’d made a mistake somewhere along the line, a mistake in her reasoning. Deciding she wasn’t going to be able to concentrate on her work while she was thus preoccupied, Chloe shut her laptop and closed her eyes.
And in a moment she had it. The mistake she’d made was that she’d been dishonest. Not dishonest with anyone else, but with herself.
She knew the name of the emotion she’d been experiencing after hearing about Rebecca Carlyle’s return. Had in fact been experiencing since she’d seen this glamorous woman walking up to Tom’s door.
The emotion was called jealousy.
Chapter Five
Since Tom had started working as a fully fledged general practitioner five years earlier, he’d come to realise that there were three types of working day. There were the busy days. There were the days on which you were so run off your feet you barely had time to draw breath.
And then there were days like today.
He’d arrived at work at eight, after dropping Kelly at nursery, to find his first patient, a young woman in the late stages of her first pregnancy, pale and distressed in the waiting room and complaining of pain in her upper abdomen. With difficulty and with the assistance of her distraught husband he’d manoeuvred her into his consulting room, where he’d conducted a speedy examination. Her blood pressure was sky high at 170 over 120, and there was protein in her urine. These signs, together with the swollen, pitted appearance of her ankles, pointed to one thing. Pre-eclampsia, a condition that potentially threatened the lives of both his patient and her unborn baby.
Calmly but briskly Tom made the arrangements, asking the receptionist to call for an ambulance and phoning the consultant obstetrician at the local hospital himself, all the while keeping his eye on the patient on his examination couch in case she showed incipient signs of a seizure. He’d consoled her and her husband as best he could, staying with them until the paramedics arrived to take her away.
By the time she was off to hospital, Tom had a backlog of six patients in the waiting room. He ran an eye over their notes. Two were entirely new, so he’d need to take time to get to know them. The other four had an assortment of longstanding conditions that wouldn’t be resolvable quickly: rheumatoid arthritis, congestive heart failure, psoriasis and recurrent depression.
And then the call came in from Tom’s colleague, Dr Ben Okoro. He’d been in a minor car accident on the way to work. He was unhurt, but the man who’d hit him had jumped a red light and the police were taking statements. Ben was going be a couple of hours late. Could he, Tom, cover Ben’s patients in the mean time?
His workload suddenly doubled, Tom went into overdrive. It was an experience he’d been through before as a junior doctor, as though some sort of microchip in his head kicked in and took over, enabling him to do what would normally be humanly impossible. He worked like a machine, seeing patient after patient, spending enough time with each one that they left apparently satisfied that they’d been listened to, and not rushed out of his consulting room, yet maintaining a steady rhythm so that he gave the impression of brisk efficiency rather than a harassed doctor who was getting bogged down.
At around eleven o’clock, as Tom was ushering a limping elderly man out with a quip and a smile, he spotted Tracy the receptionist hovering outside the door. He raised his eyebrows enquiringly. She mimed a request – can I come in? – and he stepped aside for her and closed the door.
‘Just thought I’d better let you know that your ex-wife rang,’ said the receptionist.
‘What? Did she want to speak to me?’
‘No, I asked. She just wanted to know if you were at work.’ Tracy looked anxious. ‘I didn’t know who she was at first. A woman phoned and asked if Dr Carlyle was at work, and when I asked who she was, she said “Rebecca Carlyle, his former wife”.’ Tracy bit a false fingernail. ‘I hope I didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘No, no, don’t worry, Trace,’ Tom said. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’
When she’d gone, Tom picked up the next patient’s notes, his mind running over what the receptionist had just told him. Rebecca had probably wanted to talk to him but realised he was busy. Why then, though, hadn’t she rung him on his mobile and left a message for him to call her, as she normally did? And what she’d asked Tracy… not Is Dr Carlyle available? but Is he at work?
Rebecca’s words from their conversation a few days earlier came back to him.
You have no idea what I’m capable of.
Tom closed his eyes, as a chill ran through him like a spike.
He pulled out his mobile phone and speed-dialled the number of the nursery.
‘Hello, Megan?’ he said when he recognised the manager’s voice. ‘Tom Carlyle here. Is Kelly all right?’
She sounded astonished. ‘Yes, she’s fine. Why do you ask?’
‘Has anyone been there trying to pick her up?’
‘No!’ Now she sounded appalled. ‘What’s going on, Tom?’
‘I need to come and get her. Don’t allow anyone else to take her, will you?’
‘Of course not! Tom, please tell me –’
But he’d already rung off. He ran a hand through his hair, then stepped out into the waiting room. A sea of faces turned towards him. Children were crying, older patients groaning.
He couldn’t leave.
Tom held up a finger as Tracy tried to get his attention – one minute – and went back into his consulting room.
You’re a doctor, he told himself. Doctors come up with solutions.
And the idea occurred to him.
Before he had a chance to start doubting it, to come up with a thousand reasons why it was a bad idea, Tom went over to his computer. A few clicks and typed words brought up Chloe Edwards’s details.
He thumbed the number into his phone and waited.
She answered more quickly than he’d been expecting and he caught his breath.
‘Chloe? It’s Tom Carlyle here.’
‘Hello, Dr Carlyle. Tom.’ She sounded guarded.
‘Look, I’m really, really sorry to do this. I have a huge favour to ask you.’
And he let it all out, in a rush: how he needed someone to pick his daughter up from nursery but was unable to get there himself, how it needed to be someone he trusted and she was the only person he could think of. He didn’t say why Kelly needed fetching, or why the situation was so urgent; nor did he mention anything about Rebecca. All he did was assure Chloe was that Kelly was fine, and that he’d be round to Chloe’s to pick her up as soon as he could get away, which would probably be in the early afternoon.
When he’d finished he held his breath, expecting a refusal, perhaps an indignant one. After all, he and Chloe weren’t exactly close friends, and she’d be working as well and wasn’t there just to drop everything and play babysitter. But when she spoke her voice was full of concern.
‘Of course, Tom. I’ll be there right away.’
Relief flooded through Tom. ‘You’ll – ah, that’s great, Chloe. Thanks so much. I’ll let the nursery know you’re coming.’
He rang off and closed his eyes. Then he dialled the nursery’s number once more.
Megan snatched up the phone, and Tom explained that he was sending someone to fetch Kelly. He was thinking of a way to describe Chloe – he couldn’t very well say beautiful – but when he mentioned her name, Megan cut in.
‘The Chloe Edwards? The one who writes the column in the Gazette?’
‘That’s the one,’ Tom
said, thankful at having been spared.
‘Yes, of course I know who she is. I’ll be on the lookout.’ The nursery manager sounded excited, intrigued and even flattered at the same time.
Tom went back to work, trying his best to give his patients his full attention and not to let his thoughts wander into dark speculation in which Chloe got there too late and Rebecca had already spirited Kelly away. He’d been at it for a solid ninety minutes without pause, moving from patient to computer to the next patient, switching mindsets from paediatrics to respiratory medicine to gynaecology in quick succession, when a tap came at his door while he was making a few notes on the database. Ben Okoro, his partner at the practice, put his head in.
‘Tom. I owe you.’
He quickly brought Ben up to date with one or two of his older colleague’s patients whom Tom had seen and treated but didn’t know quite as well. Ben was in his early fifties, a veteran of general practice, and he absorbed and assimilated what Tom was telling him with a few rapid nods of the head. At the end he glanced at his watch.
‘It’s gone one o’clock, Tom. Get out of here.’
‘I’ll just finish off with the last patients –’
‘There aren’t any.’ Ben grinned. ‘See for yourself.’
And sure enough, when Tom went out into the waiting room he found he’d cleared the morning bookings without realising it.
He grabbed his briefcase, said to Tracey the receptionist, ‘Great work,’ as he passed the desk, and was out the door at a trot.
***
Chloe hadn’t had much experience with four-year-olds, so she wasn’t sure what to expect. But Kelly had been a delight, a cheerful, amusing little girl with an affectionate, even pastoral manner towards Jake.
They played together on the living room carpet of the cottage while Chloe half-read over the article she was composing. Kelly had greeted her like an old friend when she’d arrived at the nursery, Jake on her hip. Before Chloe could introduce herself the nursery manager pumped her hand and said, ‘Ms Edwards? It’s a pleasure to meet you.’ Her manner was somewhere between shy and awed, and when she said, ‘I love your column,’ Chloe realised in bemusement that the woman was star struck.