Runaway Sister

by Ann Jennings

  Samantha stood up to go across to a cubicle to change when suddenly the door opened again and Jennie’s head popped round. “By the way, there’s going to be lashings of food tonight—Georgie’s organizing it, and she’s fantastic where food is concerned.” She withdrew her head, grinning widely, and was gone.

  Samantha couldn’t help laughing aloud; that was why Jennie was inclined to overweight, she loved her food and made no secret of the fact. She toweled herself dry and changed into her off-duty clothes, well-cut grey slacks and a blue and grey chunky-knit sweater. The blue in the sweater picked up the brilliant blue of her eyes, flattering her delicate coloring. She hadn’t been planning to go to a party, it was true, but luckily the clothes she had worn in that morning to work were perfectly suitable, especially for an informal party on a barge, when the night air on the canal was inclined to get chilly. Although she knew from past experience that if Roger’s previous parties were anything to go by, the interior of the barge would be crammed to overflowing. It always amazed her that the old barge managed to remain afloat.

  When she had dried her hair she tied it back loosely in a ponytail, giving her the look of a demure seventeen-year-old, rather than the twenty-seven-year-old experienced Sister midwife she was in reality.

  In no time at all she and Jennie were squashed into John’s car, speeding away from the hospital to the old canal on the outskirts of the town. It was rather a squash because John’s car was a TR7 and only a two-seater.

  “Good job you’re not as well endowed as Jennie here,” remarked John, giving Jennie’s knee an affectionate pat, “otherwise we should have never fitted in.”

  “I shouldn’t be here at all,” said Samantha; she was beginning to feel wretched again. “You know what they say, two’s company, three’s a crowd.”

  “What a load of rubbish you do talk,” replied John. “You know perfectly well I shouldn’t have taken you if I hadn’t wanted to, so stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

  Samantha craned her head to look past Jennie at him in surprise. “You’re the second person to tell me that today,” she said. “Only you’ve been more polite about it.”

  “Oh, really?” said Jennie, curiosity in her voice. “Who was the other sensible person?”

  “Mr. High-and-Mighty Adam Shaw,” replied Samantha curtly, “and I told him to mind his own business!”

  Jennie laughed, “I can imagine that went down like a lead balloon!”

  Samantha didn’t reply. Her mind was retracing the heated exchange of words she had had with Adam Shaw; the more she thought about it, the more she thought what a colossal nerve he had. It was no business of his whatsoever, in fact when she came to think of it again, his very first remark about her rearing a family of her own had been a cheek! She wondered if he took such an inquisitive interest in everybody else’s affairs, although from his later remark about showing her what all-conquering passion was about, she couldn’t help suspecting that he was probably a male chauvinist pig who thought any woman’s problems could be put right by going to bed with a man!

  Samantha snorted to herself in disgust. Although she had been engaged to Steve for four years he had been the only man in her life. She had never been unfaithful to him, it wasn’t in her nature, and she wasn’t going to start being promiscuous now, just because she was alone. Although she knew this was a problem she would have to face, as Adam Shaw had so rightly said, nothing was private in a hospital. It was such a close, enclosed community that everyone knew everything about everyone else, particularly if they lived on the hospital site, and Samantha knew she would be fair game now for quite a few junior doctors who would think they could take over where Steve had left off. Well, she would have to scotch that idea well and truly as soon as possible. She had positively no intention of becoming romantically involved with anyone else for some time. Once bitten, twice shy, she meditated a trifle sourly.

  Perhaps Adam Shaw had been right about one thing, perhaps she had taken the easy way out with Steve. Now she would wait for that all-conquering passion, as he put it, to attract her to a man, but Samantha knew that for her it had to come hand in hand with a genuine love. The last thing she wanted was sex just for the sake of it.

  “Penny for your thoughts!” Jennie’s voice broke into her reverie.

  Samantha smiled wryly in the darkness of the car. “Oh, I was thinking I shall have to be wary of the hospital gigolos, now that I’m on my own.”

  Jennie snorted. “Send them away with a flea in their ears, then they won’t come back—that’s what I always do.”

  “You weren’t very successful with me,” came John’s laughing remark.

  “You’re not a gigolo, and never have been,” said Jennie severely, “otherwise you most certainly would have been sent off with a flea in your ear!”

  Samantha laughed. John and Jennie always bickered in a good-natured way. They were an ideally suited couple and she wondered why they had not married, as they had been going out with one another for over a year, but she had never liked to ask her friend such a personal question. She knew that if and when they made up their minds to marry, she would be one of the first to know.

  They arrived suddenly beside the canal and John parked the car underneath the overhanging trees. It was early spring, but the trees were already in quite heavy leaf, making the lane beside the canal dark and shadowy.

  “I wouldn’t fancy coming up here on my own,” remarked Jennie as they clambered out of the car. “Bit spooky around here, with all the lights from the boats on the canal—it looks like something out of a film set. I can just imagine a murder being done here.”

  “An overactive imagination, that’s what you’ve got,” replied John matter-of-factly as he locked the car doors. “Come on, you two. How you can say it’s spooky,” he said turning to Jennie, “with all that racket from Roger’s boat, I just can’t imagine.”

  Samantha agreed. “Pop music blaring out at goodness knows how many decibels isn’t exactly spooky,” she remarked.

  Roger’s boat was a blaze of lights and as Samantha had remarked, the music was turned up to an earsplitting level, but even so the sound of people laughing and talking and the clink of glasses could be heard. Samantha hoped the music wasn’t going to be that loud all the time; in her present frame of mind she knew it wouldn’t take much to give her a splitting headache.

  She lost her nerve and felt like turning and running away. It had been a ghastly mistake to come. Everyone would be jolly and laughing, and she didn’t feel in the least like being jolly and laughing, and it was going to be one hell of an effort to pretend she did. But it was too late; she was there, no way could she escape now. It was with a heavy heart that she crossed the wooden gangplank across the murky, still water of the canal and climbed down the few wooden steps into the barge.

  A cacophony of sound hit them like a physical force as they stepped into the interior of the barge. Roger saw them enter and waved cheerily at them as he came over.

  “What will you have to drink?” he shouted above the deafening noise from the hi-fi.

  “God, this is too noisy, Roger,” complained John, never one to mince his words.

  “Is it?” Roger looked surprised, his ears had obviously grown accustomed to it. “Well, go and have a word with Duncan over there, he’s in charge of the sound tonight.”

  “I certainly will,” said John, marching off purposefully in Duncan’s direction.

  “Now, girls, what will you have?” continued Roger. “There’s red or white plonk, a rather dubious punch with a hefty kick to it made by me, and the usual assortment of martinis and vermouths, etc.”

  Both Jennie and Samantha opted for white wine; they had been to Roger’s parties before and when he said the punch had a hefty kick it was usually an understatement. It meant having a hangover for about a week afterwards.

  John returned to them, a glass of lager in his hand
. He had succeeded in persuading Duncan to turn the music down a little, but not much.

  “You’d never think he intends to make ENT his specialty,” grumbled John. “You would think he’d know what damage that noise must be doing to everyone’s eardrums.”

  “He’s very young,” replied Samantha, excusing Duncan, who was an extremely likeable if a trifle overenthusiastic young man. “Young people always seem to like their music loud.”

  “What do you mean, young?” queried John indignantly. “We’re not geriatric yet, I might remind you. Although if Duncan has his way we shall all be needing hearing aids before we reach the age of thirty.”

  “Oh, John, you do exaggerate!” laughed Jennie.

  “What’s that you’re saying, m’dear?” quavered John in an old man’s voice, cupping his hand around his ear.

  “You heard,” replied Jennie, giving him an affectionate thump in the stomach.

  The barge was becoming more and more crowded by the minute as droves of people from the hospital began to arrive. Suddenly Samantha was aware of two of John’s friends whom she only knew slightly bearing down on them.

  “Congratulations, you two,” they boomed. “Best news we’ve heard this year! When is the happy day actually going to be?”

  Samantha looked at Jennie, puzzled. What were they talking about? Jennie shuffled uneasily and looked at her feet, and John for once was strangely silent.

  “What are they congratulating you two about?” asked Samantha, although in her heart she was pretty sure she already knew.

  “Oh, Samantha.” Jennie was near to tears. “I wanted to be able to tell you first. But when I came round to your flat last night to tell you, Steve had just told you that everything was off between you two, and somehow it just didn’t seem the right time to break the news to you.”

  “Oh, Jennie, John, I’m so glad for you!” Samantha flung her arms round them both and hugged them. “Of course, I can see you felt awkward last night, but you shouldn’t today. That was yesterday, today is another day. Here’s to you both.” She raised her glass in salute to them.

  John mopped his brow. “Thank goodness you know at last! Jennie was afraid it would upset you, coming right on top of your own bad luck.”

  Samantha forced a laugh; it sounded hard and brittle in her ears, but it appeared to fool everyone around her. “It’s not bad luck, it had to come sooner or later. I wish Steve every happiness, and as for me—off with the old, on with the new, as they say.”

  Jennie looked a little suspiciously at her as they all sipped their wine. This wasn’t the Samantha she knew.

  “But who will the new be?” came a deep voice from behind Samantha that she recognized in an instant. Startled, she spun round to meet the mocking gaze of Adam Shaw’s slate-grey eyes. She hadn’t expected him to be here, it was mostly junior hospital doctors, not consultants.

  “I didn’t think you’d be here,” she blurted out without thinking.

  “Why not? I was invited. I’ve known Tommy Smart for about ten years, so I think I’m entitled to come to his send-off.”

  “Oh yes…why, of course,” stammered Samantha, at a loss for words. His eyes seemed to bore right through her, she had an uncanny feeling that he could read every thought in her head, and it gave her an extremely uncomfortable feeling.

  “Do you know Jennie and John?” She rattled the words out quickly, desperate for something to say, something that would take Adam Shaw’s eyes away from her.

  It had the desired effect, for Jennie and John were duly introduced, and John and Adam began animatedly talking shop. It appeared that they had both been involved with the same patient, Adam Shaw first surgically and John, who was an anesthetist, working in Intensive Care with the patient when she had to be transferred to the Intensive Care Unit unexpectedly.

  Samantha took the opportunity to slip away. She could hear John saying as she left, “Yes, I’ve been in close touch with the hematologists and it appears she’s got some really obscure form of anemia. Her clotting time is all to pot, which would account, of course, for the excessive blood loss, but the strange thing is…” John’s voice faded and became swallowed up in the general hubbub as Samantha merged herself in with another group.

  She sipped her wine and joined in the general chatter, her eyes bright and sparkling, her smile wide—so wide, in fact, that she felt if she didn’t stop smiling soon her face would crack in two. Almost everyone at the party knew, of course, that she and Steve had broken up after so many years together, but they all studiously skated around the subject of Steve, for which Samantha was grateful.

  It was becoming excessively hot, as Samantha had feared, the long room in the barge was overcrowded, and the monotonous beat of the loud music became like a pounding sledgehammer in her head. She felt she just had to get out of the noise at least for a few moments, so she squeezed her way through the throng of people and made her way to the stern of the boat, where they had entered. Here the deck space was open to the sky and she found a spot in the shadow where she was quite alone.

  Leaning on the rail, she watched the glitter of the lights from the boat reflecting on the slowly moving canal water, occasionally illuminating a floating leaf or a scrap of paper as it floated slowly past to disappear into the darkness beyond the barge. The night air was cool but not too cold, and Samantha stood silently in the darkness, grateful for the peace and quiet.

  She heard the sound of girls’ voices giggling behind her, and turning, she could see two staff nurses she knew slightly, because she had given tutorials to them, standing in the doorway. They had obviously come to the doorway for a breath of fresh air like her; they didn’t come out onto the deck where Samantha was, but stayed leaning against the doorway.

  Suddenly she heard her own name mentioned in their conversation and realized that although she could see them, they couldn’t see her.

  “Yes, fancy that,” one said to the other, “Steve Johnson giving Samantha Roberts the old heave-ho, after all those years!”

  “A bit mean, I say,” said the other girl. “After all, she’s given him the best years of her life. It’s not going to be easy for someone as old as her to find another man.”

  “Yes,” agreed the first girl, “I feel really sorry for her. Of course she was putting a very brave face on it, but I could see it was an effort.”

  They wandered back into the crowded barge still gossiping, leaving Samantha standing dumbstruck in the darkness. Had everyone really been able to see through her determinedly bright façade? If that was the case there really didn’t seem much point in bothering, she thought grimly. She knew it had been a mistake to come, and now it had been proved to her. Impetuously she made up her mind there and then; she would leave now and make her own way home.

  Going back into the lounge, she grabbed the first person she saw who she knew was friendly with John and Jennie.

  “Do me a favor, would you?” she asked. “Tell John and Jennie not to wait for me, I’ve managed to get a lift and I’m going now. Tell Jennie I’ll see her in the morning.”

  The registrar she had grabbed looked slightly puzzled, but Samantha gave him no time to ask questions, just dumped her wineglass in the first available space she could see and made for the steps leading off the barge.

  Hastily she made her way along the dimly lit narrow little road running alongside the canal. At the far end of the road she could see the bright lights of the main road; there she would be able to catch a bus, or pick up a taxi, even. She had never walked it before, and suddenly she realized that it was much farther and much darker than she had ever imagined. Jennie’s words came back to her: “I can just imagine a murder being done here.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” muttered Samantha out loud to herself, but far from giving her reassurance, her half-whispered words seemed to echo round in the leafy darkness, and to make matters worse she reached a long patch
of darkness where one of the streetlamps wasn’t working. It was then she heard the footsteps, and she thought also there was a voice calling her to stop, but she didn’t. Blind panic overwhelmed her, Jennie’s joking remark became a frightening possibility, and she started to run.

  Her legs seemed made of lead, she was running as fast as she could, but the bright lights at the end of the canal road seemed as far away as ever. Her heart was pounding fit to burst—and now she knew it was not anything in her imagination, there really were footsteps, and they were catching up on her fast.

  Suddenly her foot slipped on the wet leaves scattered on the uneven paving stones and she went flying, landing in a heap in the gutter. The footsteps were upon her, a large shape bent over her, and Samantha hit out blindly, instinctively, in self-defense, but it was no good, the man was much too strong, her slender hands made no impression at all.

  “A damn good job I’m not Jack the Ripper,” came a deep voice she recognized as Adam Shaw’s, “you wouldn’t have stood a chance!”

  He picked her up unceremoniously out of the gutter and roughly brushed off the wet leaves that were clinging to her slacks and sweater.

  “Are you always so stupid,” he asked brusquely, “or was it for my benefit?”

  “It wasn’t for your benefit, damn you!” Samantha’s voice trembled with the unshed tears she was fighting desperately to hold back. “I thought…I thought…” Her voice faltered and petered out and she searched feverishly through her handbag for a handkerchief.

  “Is this what you’re looking for?” he asked, his voice less rough now.

  “Yes, thank you,” replied Samantha gratefully, wiping her eyes on the proffered handkerchief and blowing her nose vigorously. He stood silently watching her, and she was grateful now for the darkness; she must look a sorry sight, she knew.

  “I was going to catch a bus home,” she said lamely by way of explanation, waving vaguely towards the lights of the main road. “But I didn’t realize it was so dark and when I heard footsteps I’m afraid I panicked.”