by Jane Taylor
‘I need to take about six weeks off.’
‘Oh, are you going away?’ she asked. ‘Good, I’ve been telling you to for long enough?’
‘Not exactly… I’m going to have some work done…’
‘I’m not with you…’
I took another deep breath. ‘I’m having plastic surgery… on my face.’ Alison shot me a peculiar look, it was as if she knew I was talking, but she couldn’t make out the words. Finally she spoke.
‘You are serious aren’t you, this isn’t a joke… you mean it.’ I nodded.
‘For the love of God, why? There’s nothing wrong with your face, have you taken leave of your senses?’ I sighed, I knew this would happen.
‘Alison, I don’t expect you to understand, but this is something I have to do.’
‘No, you don’t – you’re utterly lovely and always have been – look at you,
not a line or wrinkle, great bone structure, you look years younger than me.’
‘That’s the problem.’
‘That you look younger than me?’
I laughed. ‘No…the bone structure. Look at me Ali, really look. Who do you see?’
‘You’ve lost me again.’
‘I have my mother’s bone structure… her nose, cheekbones.’
‘Now I really do think I need to call the men in the white coats. You look nothing like your mother. I still remember her, the sour-faced old bag, with her pinched lips, looking down her haughty nose at everyone… and you think you look like her? You are out of your tree, Katie.’
‘You are not understanding me, Ali. I know I’m not her double, but I do share characteristics with her, and now I’ve seen that – if I want to move on – I have to get rid of them.’
‘What are you talking about… move on?’ I sighed again; it was so hard to explain what was in my head without sounding completely irrational.
‘Right, just hear me out and don’t butt in, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘I’ve done a lot of thinking lately, about my life… what I’ve done, how I’ve behaved. I can now see that the way my mother was, has had a huge influence on the way I’ve led it.’
‘You don’t say? I could have told you that years ago, but you wouldn’t have listened. In fact I’ve often said to Mark…’
‘You said you wouldn’t interrupt.’
‘Sorry… carry on. I’m going to make a drink, but I’m still listening.’
I watched a moment as Alison flicked the switch on the kettle and got two mugs from the cupboard.
‘Tea, coffee?’
‘Tea, please.’
‘So go on… explain to me how your mother’s influence is now resulting in you wanting to mutilate your face.’
‘I don’t want to mutilate my face! Jesus, Alison, I’m not a complete lunatic…’ I ignored her raised eyebrow. ‘I just want to alter it slightly… get rid of all traces of her. I want to be free of her finally. I’ve had a consultation with the surgeon, he reckons some small implants in my cheekbones and a nose job should do the trick. I wanted him to put an implant in my chin too, but he says it would upset the balance of my face too much.’
‘Oh, does he now… well bully for him,’ said Alison, as she banged my tea down in front of me. ‘You’re not doing it, Katie.’
‘I am, and it would be nice to have your support.’
Alison snorted. ‘Yeah right… like that’s ever going to happen.’
‘You just don’t see it do you? Can’t you understand that for me to get over this… get over Robbie…’
‘Oh, I thought he might be behind this somewhere.’
‘This isn’t about Robbie… this is about me. I have spent my life not liking who I am, so how can I expect someone else to love me? I want to like myself Ali, love myself even – but right now, I’m so angry – with myself, with my mother. I know I’m never going to be with Robbie, so I need to have a fresh start, a new me, and then I can put the past behind me.’
‘Is there anything I can say to make you change your mind?’ I shook my head.
‘And then what,’ Alison said sadly, ‘if you go through with this. What happens after?’
I heaved a sigh of relief, it seemed Alison was finally accepting what I was going to do – she might not like it, but she would accept it. I began to get excited as I told her the rest of my plans.
‘I’m putting the house on the market for starters.’
‘Well, that’s the first sensible thing you’ve said so far. You’ve hidden away in that damned house far too long.’
‘Then, I’m going to buy somewhere here in Retford, big enough for the boys to have their own rooms when they come home for the holidays… then,’ I smiled. ‘Provided I can convince my partner and dearest friend to let me have some more time off – I’m going on a cruise!’
‘Come here you,’ Alison said, grabbing me for a hug. ‘Look, you know I don’t agree with the surgery thing, but if that’s what it takes to make you start living your life again, then I’ll have to swallow it.’
‘I love you, Ali.’
‘I love you too, hun.’
So there it is – you now know the reason I’m on this train – I’m off to the clinic, well actually, I’m staying in an hotel tonight and off to the clinic in the morning, my surgery is scheduled for eleven-thirty. I don’t mind admitting, I am a bit emotional at the moment. Anger, fear, sadness, they’re all there, but also a sense of excitement, I can’t wait to be the new me.
I have now arrived in Kings Cross station and once I’ve checked into the hotel I’m going to try to get some sleep. I don’t think there’s much point in carrying on right now, so I’m going to sign off until tomorrow.
Surgery Day
OK, so it’s just after ten-thirty, Mr Assad, my surgeon, has left after scrawling all over my face in blue marker pen, and a quick glance in the mirror assures me I look like the arse end of a totem pole. The nurse has just brought me some long stocking things, which she is insisting I wear. Apparently, they stop you dropping dead from a blood clot if you are unfortunate enough to be in the small minority of people who are prone to this. I’m putting them on because knowing my luck, I’d be the person who got to look great as a corpse.
Phew! I have to tell you my nerves are jangling a bit. I think I have bats in my tummy; the fluttering is far too strong to be just butterflies. Well, this is it, people. The orderlies have arrived and I’m off to theatre.
Epilogue
Right… so this is what happened next.
I was standing in the bathroom of my room in the clinic, staring at my face in the mirror when the outer door opened with such force it slammed against the wall behind it. What the hell? I peered around the bathroom door to see what had happened and there, not three feet in front of me, was Robbie. He had his back to me and was staring at my unmade bed.
‘Oh, God… no!’ The words erupted from his throat and sounded almost as if he was in pain.
The bathroom door creaked as I opened it further and Robbie swung round to face me. He had tears in his eyes.
‘Katie! Thank God.’ The next minute I was in his arms.
‘Robbie… what are you doing here?’ I managed to say after he had released his hold.
‘I’m saving you from yourself … you stupid woman.’
‘Pardon?’
Robbie grabbed my shoulders none too gently, all signs of tears and relief disappearing behind a ferocious scowl. He looked around him and I followed his gaze around the room.
‘Get your stuff, Katie, we’re leaving.’
‘I will not!’
Robbie breathed deeply and through gritted teeth, he said it again.
‘Katie, I have been up half the night, just driven for three hours, got a speeding ticket and wrestled with a security guard to get in here. We are leaving, if I have to pick you up and throw you in the car… got it?’
‘OK, OK, I’ve got it, although I’ve no idea what you think you’re doing.’
‘I’m not getting in, Robbie.’
He was standing beside the open passenger side door. ‘Yes, you are.’
‘Not until you tell me what you’re doing here.’
‘Get in the damn car, Katie.’
I got in the car.
Once I was safely in the seat, Robbie got in behind the wheel and sat staring out of the window. I waited a good thirty seconds, with my stomach doing somersaults and my heart thudding in my ears, until I couldn’t stand it any longer.
‘Right, I’m in the car, what did you want to say?’ Still he didn’t speak.
‘Robbie, will you get on with it.’ I knew I was being nasty, but I was getting annoyed. Obviously, Alison had something to do with this. I was trying not to think badly of her, but it was a low blow if she had somehow convinced Robbie to come here to talk me out of having the operation.
‘You are not having surgery, Katie.’
I stared at him. ‘I think you’ll find I have already made that decision for myself.’
Robbie rubbed his eyes with both hands and my heart dipped as I realised how tired he looked. ‘I called at your house last night at eight – I waited ‘til one, but … sorry, what did you just say?’
‘I said, I had already made that decision myself… in theatre, actually. Just after they had put the cannula in, but before they administered the anaesthetic, obviously.’
‘You mean…’
‘Yes, I should be in theatre right now.’ I couldn’t stop myself having a chuckle. ‘You should have seen their faces. I don’t think they’ve ever had a patient hop off the table and scuttle out of the theatre before.’
‘What changed your mind? Believe me, I’m grateful you did, but Alison said you were determined?’
‘It was strange really; I was on the trolley watching the overhead lights zip past as I was being pushed to theatre. It came into my head, that they could well be the last things I ever saw. Then it occurred to me just how selfish I was being. Surgery has risks and I didn’t want to leave my boys. No matter how much I want to change the person I am, they have to come first.’
‘But I don’t understand why you would want to change anything about yourself in the first place?’ I had to smile at the bewildered look on Robbie’s face.
‘Oh, Robbie, it’s a long story and I can’t face telling it right now. Anyway… you said you were at my house last night. Why? Alison knew I was leaving at five.’
‘But I didn’t.’
‘Sorry, I’m confused… didn’t Alison send you?
‘No, why would she?’ Robbie seemed confused now. ‘Alison didn’t tell me anything until I rang her at six this morning. She told me what you were going to do and why you were doing it.’
Something was wrong here… if Alison didn’t send him, then why was he here? My heart began thumping again as the hope I had successfully damped down for months traitorously raised it head. Stop it, I warned silently.
‘Robbie, why did you go to my house last night?’
‘I needed to tell you something.’
‘Something so important, that you waited five hours?
‘Yes.’
‘So… tell me now.’
‘Julie came up to see me last week.’
‘What?’
‘Just bear with me, Katie; I need to tell you this from the beginning.’
I was confused again, but I told him to carry on.
‘We talked… I mean really talked, about things in the past.’
‘I know about Amanda, Robbie.’
‘You do?’
‘Alison told me, she felt I needed to know.’ Robbie nodded in agreement.
‘Right… well I don’t need to go into it then. Julie made a lot of sense, although I think I’d already reached some conclusions on my own after seeing you kissing that...’
‘Robbie, he’s…’
‘It’s OK, Alison explained this morning. I know he’s an old friend, but seeing you with him nearly twisted my guts. I had to leave before I punched him.’ I let out the breath I’d been holding while I waited to see if Alison had mentioned that Michael was a priest. I silently thanked God, when I realised she hadn’t.
‘Hmm… so, what were these conclusions you came to?’
Robbie turned around in his seat and took both my hands in his. ‘That if I want to be with the woman I love, I have to let the past go. I’ve spent all my life avoiding relationships, Katie, too scared to get emotionally involved. What happened to Amanda… ’ For a brief moment, I could see he was visualising that time. ‘It was terrible – such a waste of a life, and I couldn’t help her – I tried for a while, but she wouldn’t listen. In the end, I gave up and she died.’ The anguish of that was etched on his face.
‘But it wasn’t your fault… you must see that. It’s very sad, but she made her own choices.’
‘I know that now, but I was young and when Amanda died it was the first time I’d experienced death. We had been close, but in the end I’d been powerless to help her.’
‘Robbie?’ My heart was flip-flopping inside my chest.
‘Yes?’
‘What you said… about the woman you love?’
‘Katie Roberts, I love you more than life itself, I think I always have, right from the moment you first walked into my kitchen.’
‘No…’
‘Yes… right from then.’ He laughed as he remembered something. ‘You scared the hell out of me you know.’
I was laughing too. ‘Moi? And just how did I do that?’
‘I knew you were dangerous.’
‘Dangerous?’
Robbie sobered, serious again. ‘Katie, back then you were so broken, so vulnerable, but you also had eyes a man could drown in. So many times I wanted you, but I knew I couldn’t be the man you needed.’
‘Is that why you backed off… after that first time?’ I could hear the hurt in my voice.
‘That was such a shit thing to do, Katie, I’m so sorry.’
‘Why did you do it?’
‘You are a beautiful woman, Katie, I assumed you had changed – been dating – when you said I was the first since your husband, I realised what we did must have been a big deal for you. I knew you wouldn’t have slept with me unless you had feelings for me. You have to understand, I was still denying my own feelings then.’
‘And now?’ I hardly dared ask the question, but I had to know.
‘Now… we are different people, Katie. Now I need to be the man you want.’
‘What about the woman, the one you were with at Mark’s party?’
‘I took her because I thought you would be with the man I saw you with. I needed someone to keep my mind off you. It didn’t work, especially when you never showed up. I was imagining all sorts. I took her home, Katie. I haven’t slept with anyone since we split up.’
‘I love you, Robbie.’ God, it felt so good to finally say that.
He kissed me then, and my heart almost burst in my chest. Was that all I had ever needed? It seemed so, because all thoughts of surgery or anything else, drifted to the wind as I held the only future I would ever need or want, in my arms. It was as if Robbie’s love had washed away the past, the hurt, the feeling that I was not worthy. Robbie Collins loved me… for the first time in my memory, I felt completely free.
‘Katie?’ Robbie said against my lips, sometime later.
‘Mmm…’
‘I would have killed that surgeon if he had touched your face. The thought of it makes me feel sick.’
‘Hush, let’s forget about that now.’
‘OK, but will you do something for me?’
‘Of course,’ I replied, snuggling closer to him.
‘Will you wipe all that pen off your face, it’s really disconcerting.’
‘Oh shit! I forgot about it. I was just about to d
o it when you burst in the room.’ I cringed, burying my face in my hands.
Robbie roared with laughter.
Three months later
I had just accepted an offer on Lilac Cottage and I was busy in Robbie’s lounge, which was also mine and the boys’ lounge now. I was placing vases of colourful flowers around the room, which had undergone a few changes since I’d been living with Robbie. The addition of a couple of rugs and colourful cushions had transformed the room. Robbie was very forgiving about my inability to live in a minimalist fashion and took all the changes in his stride.
He wandered in and put his arms around me from behind.
‘That was Julie on the phone.’
‘Oh, what did she have to say?’ I had spoken to Julie a few times in the previous months, she was happy Robbie and I had finally sorted ourselves out.
‘She wants you, me and the boys to go down there for a visit.’
‘Oh, that’s nice, did you agree?’
‘No.’
I turned in his arms to look at him. ‘Why not?’
‘I asked them all to come up here instead.’
‘Oh, even better.’
‘I told her to bring a hat.’
I frowned. ‘A hat… why?’
‘Well, to wear of course,’ Robbie grinned.
My heart began to skitter in my chest. ‘Robbie…?’
He sauntered over to the sofa and plopped himself down. ‘Yeah, I’ve been thinking it’s about time I had a piece of paper that tells the whole world how much I love you. ’
I could see him brace himself as I shot across the room and hurled myself into his lap. ‘Really? You want to marry me… are you sure?’
‘Katie, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life, so what do you say… will you have me?’
‘Yes, yes, yes!’ I laughed, kissing every part of his face I could get hold of.
A long while later, we were still cuddled on the sofa, when Robbie made a suggestion.
‘We could get married in the church in Retford, it’s nicer than the one in Beckingham. We should go see the priest.’
‘Do you mean the Catholic one?’