by Lucy Diamond
It was a local number, but not one that came up as a contact. ‘Hello?’
‘Hello, love, it’s Bill here. Bill Kerwin. I hope you don’t mind, I saved your number on my phone.’
Bill Kerwin? It took her a moment to place him – oh gosh, the husband of the woman who’d been hit by the car. ‘Bill, hello, are you okay?’ she asked in surprise. ‘How’s Miriam?’
There was a pause. A sort of gulping noise down the line. ‘She’s . . .’ he began, and then stopped. ‘She’s got to have a double below-the-knee amputation,’ he said, his voice cracking.
‘Oh, Bill. I’m so sorry. Poor Miriam.’
‘I know. She’s . . . she’s devastated.’ The pain in his voice was enough to break your heart, even a hardened old seen-it-all-before nurse like Jo.
‘That’s really tough. I’m so sorry,’ she said again. And then, even though she had a waiting room full of warty, pus-oozing patients outside and shouldn’t really be taking private calls in work-time, she found herself asking gently, ‘And how about you? I know this sort of thing is hard on the whole family. Do you have support? Do you have people around to help you?’
‘Well . . .’ His pause said it all. ‘I’m struggling a bit, to be honest with you, love. I’m . . . not doing all that well, truth be told.’
Jo guessed this was a massive understatement. She’d met men like Bill before, who relied on their wives for everything and completely fell apart when they had to cope alone. With one eye on the clock – she really had to get a move on – she hesitated before asking, ‘Can I help at all? I might be able to put you in touch with some organizations that could be useful, or you could ask the nurses at the hospital for—’
‘Well – no, I’ll be all right,’ he said although his voice lacked conviction. ‘I’d better go. I just wanted to tell someone, that’s all. I’ll be fine. I’ll be all right. It’s her who needs looking after, not me.’
‘Okay, Bill, but if you change your mind . . .’
‘I’ve got to go. Thanks anyway.’
‘Give her my best,’ she said, just as he hung up. The screen went blank on her phone and she turned down the ringtone, before stuffing it back in her bag. Poor guy. You couldn’t look after everyone; there wasn’t space in a nurse’s head to carry every single patient with you, but there was just something about Bill and his wife that had got to her. It happened sometimes. Maybe she was just going soft in her old age.
Pulling herself together, she went back to the waiting room, professional smile in place. ‘Michael Pettifer?’
Chapter Five
Tuesday night was the one evening of the week when India actually peeled herself away from the sofa and TV in order to venture out for some self-improving Pilates with Laura. They’d been going together as a result of a muffin-top-reducing New Year resolution eighteen months ago, although, if she was honest, the bit that India looked forward to most was after the class had actually finished, when they could slope off to the pub and have a drink. It was all about balance, right?
Here she was now, abdominals tight – or as tight as they would ever be, amidst the jelly of her belly, anyway – her right arm pointing up towards the ceiling before moving it out and over to the left, as guided by the calm, slow voice of Jan, the class instructor, who had the tranquil air of a woman at ease with the world. (There was no way Jan would ever sink to the depths of screaming like a harridan at children who were squabbling over whose turn it was to claim the free sticker in the cereal packet, for example.)
‘Feel the mermaid stretch,’ urged Jan in her soothing Radio 4 tones, and India found herself thinking of the mermaid Barbie, once beloved by her daughter Esme, all pointy boobs and hair, with that dead-behind-the-eyes expression. India had tried her hardest to steer her daughter towards scientific toys, great books, musical instruments – anything vaguely improving, basically – but Esme was resolute. Unicorns, Barbies, make-up and sparkles all the way. Whatever, thought India, tugging surreptitiously at her too-tight waistband in a decidedly un-sirenlike manner now. (She always felt faintly self-conscious throughout Pilates, imagining a race of Martians seeing this room full of prone, heavily breathing women in leisure gear draped in strange positions on mats, and wondering what the hell was going on.)
‘Very nice, ladies,’ said Jan. ‘Well done. Let’s go into our relaxation now, before we end the session. Lie flat on your backs and close your eyes, allowing your thoughts to float away. Be aware of your breath filling in your lungs, your chest rising and falling – that’s it, gentle and slow, the weight of your body sinking right down into the mat . . .’
I am calm and relaxed, India told herself. My breath is filling my lungs, my thoughts are floating away . . .
Oh, it was no use. Her thoughts were mutinously refusing to float anywhere, and her breath alone was not enough to hold her attention. In fact she was starting to feel guilty about her easy carefree breathing when, following Saturday’s horrific crash, poor Alice Goldsmith was still in an induced coma, Miriam Kerwin had lost both her legs, and it had been on the news earlier that Sandy MacAllister, the driver of the car, had died, never having regained consciousness. India had been between classes when she heard this, wiping down the chewed handles of the mini-shakers and squirting a scented plume of Glade around the room, the radio burbling in the background. ‘Oh no,’ she’d sighed, dropping the can of air freshener with a clatter. Sixty-two years old and hoping to retire at Christmas, according to his widow. He’d been working overtime that Saturday, as they’d just celebrated the birth of their first grandchild and he and his wife Patsy had been saving up for the little one. There was a clip of Patsy speaking, after the news was announced, saying, ‘We’re all in pieces’, her voice catching on the words. ‘He was the loveliest man. He’d do anything for anyone.’
God, it was awful, it really was. India had been obsessing over the story ever since she’d heard the headlines on the radio the day before, reading everything she could on the local news websites, particularly about Alice Goldsmith. ‘Only twenty years old, it’s so tragic, isn’t it?’ she’d sighed to Dan last night when they were getting ready for bed. ‘According to Look North, she was just home from uni for her parents’ anniversary that weekend.’ To her embarrassment, she’d found herself sniffing, like one of the kids when they were trying not to cry. ‘I can’t stop thinking about her.’
‘Come on, love,’ Dan had said, ever the practical one. He was a plumber and liked being able to fix things, including her, his wife. ‘I know it’s sad, but it was a one-in-a-million thing, and you’ve got to put it behind you now. Move on.’
‘Yes, but . . .’ Move on, he said, like it was that easy. How could she explain in a way that he would understand? She had never told him her darkest secret, and she certainly wasn’t about to start hauling it out now. Well, you see, she imagined herself saying, I’m not the person you think I am. Did I not mention what happened when I was eighteen?
She shuddered, and he patted her arm comfortingly. ‘Survivor’s guilt, that’s what they call it,’ he informed her, padding through to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He’d assigned himself the role of Comforter in their relationship, while she was permanently stuck in Worrier mode. Kids ill in the night? India’s imagination leapt straight to meningitis, septicaemia, a dash to A&E, while Dan’s first thought would be one of cynicism: that they were putting in an early bid for a day off school. When Kit had been the last in his class to read, India had immediately begun exploring the possibilities of dyslexia, learning difficulties, some crucial thing she must have done wrong during the pregnancy – while Dan had put it down to their son being ‘a lazy sod’. Even when his job was in jeopardy the year before, and India was doing her best not to panic about them falling behind on mortgage payments and terrifying herself with visions of bailiffs pounding on their door, he’d been able to assure her that ‘something would come up’. Nine times out of ten, he was right (irritatingly), and she would have fretted through sleepless nights f
or nothing.
‘It’s perfectly natural to take on that kind of guilt when you’ve witnessed an accident,’ Dan told her in his oh-so-rational way as they got into bed. ‘But what happened wasn’t your fault, was it?’
Lying there in the darkness, he’d pulled her into his arms and she lay listening to the slow, measured tick of his heart, feeling his solid comforting bulk against her. (‘He reminds me of that actor,’ her mum had said after meeting Dan for the first time all those years ago. ‘What, George Clooney?’ India had joked. ‘No, that podgy one,’ her mum had replied, rather less flatteringly. ‘I can’t think of his name, now. You know, local fella, goggly eyes, always looks confused.’ This was not exactly a description anyone wanted to hear about their beloved, but never mind.)
‘India!’
Her eyes flicked open in surprise, to see that the rest of the Pilates class were getting to their feet, stretching and rolling up their mats. Laura was standing over her, mat already tucked under one arm. ‘Wakey-wakey,’ she said, poking her in the ribs with a bare toe.
India blinked before struggling into a sitting position. Usually by the end of the cool-down she was fidgeting and ready to go, with an itch on her ankle or the pressing need for the loo. Today she hadn’t even been aware the class had finished. ‘I was miles away,’ she confessed.
‘I could tell.’ Laura waited for her to get up, then they walked over to the side of the church hall together where everyone had left their belongings.
India shoved her feet into her trainers and bent to tie the laces, her thoughts already skipping ahead to getting home: George would be back from cricket club and no doubt loftily delivering a ball-by-ball forensic analysis of the entire hour. Esme, meanwhile, had almost certainly seized the chance to sneak up to India’s dressing table and rifle through her make-up bag. And Kit would be lying like an adorable starfish, his duvet already dangling half off the bed, rosebud lips sighing out each slumbering breath. Oh, and of course the pots from dinner would still be festering unwashed in the sink, at a guess, and the shamefully high tower of ironing would be looming like a cliff-face, where she hadn’t been able to face it over the weekend . . . Compared to women like Eve, who managed to do all of this and hold down a proper job and never seemed to need anyone else’s help with emergency childcare, India sometimes felt as if she wasn’t all that good at motherhood. Or life, come to that.
‘Fancy a quick half and a bowl of chips?’ she asked hopefully.
‘Thought you’d never ask,’ Laura replied.
Eve’s final appointment of the day on Thursday afternoon was with a new client, one Lewis Mulligan. ‘Okay, so let’s start with your expenses,’ she told him, briskly opening up his file onscreen. ‘Have you brought your receipts with you?’
The man sitting across from her – scruffy, tracksuited, unshaven – raked a hand through his shaggy red hair before thrusting it into a pocket and pulling out a handful of crumpled pieces of paper. ‘Sure did,’ he said proudly, leaning down to retrieve the ones that floated off the desk like pale butterflies. She could see scribbled figures on some of them, the ink smudged where they’d become damp.
‘Right,’ said Eve, struggling to mask her disapproval. This was her very worst kind of client: disorganized and unbothered, running a small business like it was some kind of hobby. No, she always wanted to reprimand these ones. This is serious. These scraps of paper are important. You are answerable to the tax office and you need to be professional. Do you really not see that?
But of course she never said these things, because untangling other people’s untidy paperwork was merely part of an accountant’s lot. So she took a deep breath and steepled her fingers together, as he dumped a second fistful of screwed-up papers onto the first.
‘And are these in any kind of . . . order?’ she asked politely. ‘Is there a system?’
He looked blankly down at the heap of paper and then back up at her. He was in his twenties, she guessed – Scottish, affable, easy-going. ‘Nope,’ he replied, somewhat predictably.
Nope. What a surprise. ‘Okay, so why don’t we start sorting through them between us,’ she suggested. ‘We can group them together – say if you have expenses for marketing, or advertising—’
‘Nope,’ he said again, albeit with good cheer. ‘Not a penny. All word-of-mouth, that’s me.’
Impressive. Or, rather, it would have been, if the profits for his personal-trainer-cum-boot-camp-instructor-cum-mindfulness business weren’t pitifully low. ‘Okay, so expenses for travel, then, or if you’ve had to rent premises, or buy equipment . . . ?’
‘What about,’ he said, ‘if I rented a place for a wee mindfulness retreat for, like, ten people, but then eight of them wanted their money back?’
Oh dear. He was more hopeless than she’d thought. ‘Is that what happened?’ she asked.
‘Aye, because we got there and the woman who was meant to be cooking for us took ill with bronchitis, and so I had a wee bash and made my veggie chilli, but some people were a bit – you know – arsey about it and complained, and . . .’
Eve had heard enough. ‘Let’s just go through what you’ve got here, and deal with that when we come to it,’ she said firmly.
An hour or so later they had dragged their way through his accounts, an experience that Eve was in no hurry to repeat. Judging by the wan expression on Lewis’s face, he hadn’t enjoyed it much, either, seeming all too glad to make his escape.
‘Hopeless,’ sighed Eve to her colleague Allan after the door had swung shut behind her exasperating client. ‘Honestly, where do you start? Too busy being mindful to mind his bloody accounts, if you ask me. No idea whatsoever. What is wrong with these people?’
‘Er . . .’ said Allan awkwardly, and Eve turned to see that Lewis had reappeared in the office behind her, having forgotten his jacket.
‘Oh,’ she said in embarrassment. Had he heard her being so scathing? Almost certainly yes, judging by the way he held up a stiff hand before leaving once more. Now who was the unprofessional one? she thought, a rictus smile in place.
‘Whoops,’ said Allan mildly, and Eve’s face flamed hot. She never usually messed up like that. In fact, she’d once overheard some of her colleagues describe her as a robot behind her back – ‘Calculating! Calculating!’ they’d said in mean android voices, although she had tried not to care. What was so wrong with setting yourself high standards anyway? Nothing, that was what.
All the same, her high standards seemed to have faltered a little this week. On Tuesday she’d somehow muddled up two tax returns and sent them to the wrong clients, resulting in furious emails from them both and a concerned intervention from her boss, Frances.
‘Everything okay?’ Frances had asked, unable to conceal her surprise. Eve didn’t make mistakes. Ever.
‘Fine, fine,’ Eve had replied, unable to meet her eye. ‘It won’t happen again.’
She meant it too – get a grip, Eve, come on! – but then yesterday it had been her day off, and she’d completely overlooked the fact that she’d promised to go in to Sophie’s class and listen to some of the slower readers. Mrs Marlowe from the school office had rung to find out if there was some problem: ‘Only it’s not like you to let us down, Mrs Taylor!’
Gosh, that brought her up short. It had been a very long time since she’d been accused of letting anyone down. Apart from those clients whose tax returns she’d mucked up, she supposed with a swirl of guilt. What was going on with her? Why had she turned into such a flake, all of a sudden?
It was the randomness of the crash on Saturday – that was what had rattled her, she thought, swinging away from Allan’s gaze in order to save her work onscreen and tidy her desk. The fact that, despite a person’s best attempts to keep their world in order, sometimes that world refused pointblank to comply with their wishes. Lightning struck at will, storms uprooted mighty trees, earthquakes shook the ground beneath your feet. A lump could appear in your own body, a strange malfunctioning cluster of cell
s that refused to melt away, no matter how you tried to wish it gone. And a man could have a heart attack at the wheel of his car, inadvertently bringing bloodshed and trauma to a pavement just metres from Eve herself. What was the point of making lists and compiling spreadsheets, she was starting to wonder, when something like that could just happen anyway, like it or not?
She switched off her computer, pushed her chair under her desk and buttoned her navy-blue cardigan. Forgetfulness, insulting clients, weeping in department stores: were these symptoms of cancer too, or merely the onset of some dreadful mental degeneration? Maybe she should draw up a new spreadsheet to chart her imminent decline, she thought bitterly.
Allan was still eyeing her in a speculative sort of way. He was a lumbering Liverpudlian whose suits always looked a size too tight, with a deep growly voice like a bear. ‘You all right there, Eve?’ he asked, raising a bushy dark eyebrow.
God! Why did everyone keep asking her that? Eve had always had an excellent poker face, she was good at covering up her feelings, keeping her cool. When you grew up with a father like hers, who would punch the wall or throw his plate across the room for no apparent reason, you learned to put a lid on your emotions and sit tight. And yet recently it was as if everyone else could see the vulnerabilities locked away deep inside her. Is everything okay? Is there some kind of problem? Are you all right?
‘Yes, absolutely,’ she snapped, more curtly than she intended. Then she felt bad at his surprised face, because Allan had always been a kind, calm soul in the office, and she seemed to remember some grapevine rumour about his wife being seriously ill. ‘I mean – yes. Thank you,’ she added. She slung her bag over her shoulder and turned for the door. ‘See you tomorrow.’
Right, then, she said to herself once in the car, clicking her seatbelt into its slot. Now to drive home and pick up the family reins again. To snap back into normal, competent Eve mode. The lamb tagine had been in the slow-cooker all day and should be fragrant, rich and meltingly soft by now. It was a Thursday, so Grace would be late home after band practice, while Sophie needed picking up from gym club. Oh, and she must ask Grace how her history exam had gone, and remind her to get that science homework completed.