Not nearly enough, but if she did the odd agency shift and they were really careful, maybe they could cope.
She squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to cope, she wanted to be able to relax and enjoy life without worrying about every single penny. Every bill brought fear, and every cold snap was a juggling act between enough heating to keep warm and enough money to pay for it.
But none of it was Patrick’s fault, and she really needed to talk to him, to apologise. It didn’t take away the fact that he’d deceived her, but they’d done a beautiful job, and they must have worked so hard.
With a sigh she came out of the office with Mrs Dickinson’s discharge papers in hand and saw Patrick heading down the ward in front of her. Maybe she should speak to him now, arrange a time to talk...
She speeded up, just as he reached the door to Daniel Taylor’s room.
A voice drifted out, one of the young nurses with whom Annie had had problems in the past. ‘Here, before you go, Luce, give me a hand to turn the cabbage.’
Patrick stopped dead in his tracks and she nearly cannoned into him, her jaw hanging with shock. But he was there first, through the door and confronting them, anger pouring off him in waves.
‘I beg your pardon?’ he said coldly.
They looked up, and Chloe, the one who’d spoken, clapped her hand over her mouth and coloured furiously. The other girl went as white as a sheet.
‘Office, now,’ he said in a voice that brooked no argument, and turning on his heel, he almost walked into Annie.
‘Did you hear that?’
‘Yes—and I’ll take it from here, Patrick.’
‘I don’t think so.’
She blocked his path. ‘I do. They’re my staff. They’re my responsibility. I’ll deal with it.’
‘Well, mind that you do,’ he said ominously, staring them down.
‘Oh, don’t worry, I will,’ she vowed, and led the girls to her office, to find Patrick was still there.
‘I’ll come, too, if you don’t mind,’ he said, and left her with little choice. She shut the door and turned to them. ‘Right, would you like to explain what that was all about?’
‘It was only a joke,’ Chloe began, but Patrick leapt on her.
‘A joke? You think it’s funny? How old are you?’
‘Twenty-two.’
‘A year younger than Dan. That could be you lying in there, and you could be able to hear every—single—word,’ he said with deadly emphasis. ‘You can’t move, you can’t communicate because your brain won’t let you, but you know just what’s going on and you can do nothing about it.’
‘But you don’t know,’ Chloe argued, and he just raised a brow.
‘And you do? Let me tell you something—’
But Annie cut him off. There was no point in him getting personal, no point in him revealing his painful past to this stupid and unworthy girl. He was too good a man for Chloe to even have the right to speak to. ‘Mr Corrigan, thank you, I’ll take it from here,’ she said, and met his eyes firmly.
For a moment he wavered, and then he nodded curtly and turned on his heel, leaving them alone.
She felt the tension in the girls ease. Prematurely.
‘Right. I have to tell you, Nurse Grey, that I consider your conduct entirely inappropriate, and it’s not the first time. I’ve already had an incident reported to me that I found very worrying, and I’ll get on to that in a moment. Nurse Jones, I don’t believe I heard you make any inappropriate remarks, but consider this as a very serious warning. Now, go and get on with what you were supposed to be doing, please. Not you, Nurse Grey. I have further things to say to you.’
She waited until Lucy had left the room, then blasted Chloe with a few home truths. ‘You’re a careless, sloppy nurse, your attention to hygiene is appalling, your aseptic technique is non-existent and I was told the other day about you using your teeth to remove the cap of an IV three-way tap before connecting it to a patient’s cannula. I don’t know what you think you were doing, and I don’t really care, because this is the last straw. I had thought you just needed watching and training, but your attitude frankly stinks. You have no place in the nursing profession, in my opinion, and I have to tell you that this is going to the top. If I have to go to the Royal College to make sure that you never nurse again, I’ll do it. Now clear your locker and go. You’re suspended. You’ll be hearing from the Human Resources Directorate very shortly, I imagine, so make yourself available for interview.’
And she opened the door and waited until the shocked young woman left. Then she went back to Daniel, collecting Lucy on the way, and together they turned him. As they did so, Annie spoke gently to him, and to her astonishment his eyes flickered and he looked straight at her.
‘Mum,’ he said, and she felt a great surge of joy.
‘I’ll get her, Daniel. She’s gone for coffee. Lucy, go and find her. She’s in the canteen. And tell Mr Corrigan.’
Patrick appeared at her side, taking Daniel’s hand and speaking softly to him. ‘Well, hi, there. I’m Patrick, and you must be Daniel.’
‘Danny,’ he said, and gave a funny, lopsided grin. Then his eyes slid shut and he sighed.
‘I’ll get the neurology team,’ Annie said, and ushered Patrick out. ‘It’s their department, not yours. You’re the bone man.’
He stared at the doorway, then nodded. ‘Yes. What happened to the nurse?’
‘I suspended her. She won’t work again, but I don’t have the authority to deal with that, I’m just the ward manager.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Patrick, are you busy tonight?’
He met her eyes warily. ‘No.’
‘Can we talk?’
He nodded, his eyes searching her face for clues. ‘What time?’
‘Nine at my house?’
He nodded again. ‘Of course. And thank you.’
‘What for?’
‘Dealing with the nurse. I was about to get a little personal.’
‘I know. That’s why I kicked you out. She doesn’t deserve to hear your story. I’ll see you later.’
And she went back to her office, retrieved Susanne Dickinson’s discharge notes and went to find her.
She was sitting on the edge of her bed, her husband at her side and a wheelchair at the ready, and she greeted Annie with a smile. ‘All done?’
‘Yes—I’m so sorry for the delay, we had a bit of a hiccup. Right, here you are—drugs, letter for your doctor and so on. You’re free to go—and take care.’
‘I will. Thank you so much for all you’ve done.’ Susanne said, squeezing Annie’s hand, and she smiled and bent and kissed her cheek.
‘You’re welcome. Good luck.’
‘Thanks. I expect I’ll see you again, but hopefully not too soon.’
‘No. Hopefully not.’
She waved her goodbye, then went back to see Daniel. Alfie hailed her on the way past, beckoning her over with a crooked finger, and he clutched her hand. ‘How’s the dog?’
‘He’s fine,’ she assured him. ‘Doing really well. He’s such a good boy.’
Alfie’s face creased. ‘I’d love to see him.’
‘I’ll see what I can arrange. Maybe someone could take you down to the entrance and I can bring him there so you can see him for yourself.’
He shook his head. ‘No. Don’t unsettle him. I’ll manage. Only—I wanted to say goodbye really. I’ve decided I ought to think about going into a home.’
Annie tipped her head on one side. ‘You know, there are homes where you can take your pet,’ she said. ‘And maybe you don’t need a home so much as sheltered accommodation.’
He shook his head. ‘No, I want to be looked after. I’m getting too old for this. The thought of the winter just terrifies me, and they’re talking about discharging me. What will I do? Sit on the pavement with my broken ribs and collar-bone and wait for those little horrors to come back? But I worry about the dog.’
‘Don’t,’ she said, wondering how, with her wor
ld in turmoil, she could take on anything else, but knowing that somehow it might in a way make sense of the turmoil. ‘I’ll keep Scruff. My daughter loves him to bits, and he’s no trouble. I’ll get the social worker to come and talk to you about homes, and once you’re settled you can come to me and visit him, or I can bring him to you.’
His eyes filled. ‘You’d do that for me? I always said you were a good girl.’
‘Leave it with me, Alfie. I’ll sort it out.’
Just as soon as she’d sorted out her own life.
She was nervous.
Silly, because she’d always felt so at ease with Patrick, but she’d said so many things, and he’d done so many things to her, both good and bad, that the issue was a minefield.
She wondered how he’d be feeling. Guilty, probably, and maybe offended that she’d not been overjoyed, as he’d expected. She decided if he brought her anything—wine, flowers, chocolates—that he wouldn’t have taken it sufficiently seriously, but when she opened the door, he was standing there with his hands rammed in his coat pockets and a brooding, watchful look on his face.
‘Can I come in?’
‘Of course you can come in.’
‘There’s no of course about it,’ he said gravely. ‘I obviously misread our relationship and overstepped the boundaries, and I don’t want to do it again.’
She opened the door wider. ‘Patrick, come in,’ she said, her heart heavy with sadness that they’d come to this. She led him into the sitting room and waved at the sofa. He took his coat off and folded it and put it carefully on the floor at his feet, then perched on the edge of the sofa cushion, knees apart, hands interlocked between them, his head bowed.
She curled up in the chair, the dog leaning against her knees, and wondered where to begin.
‘Can I start?’ he said, lifting his head.
Gladly, she thought, because she had no idea what to say to him. So she nodded, and he sighed and began.
‘I just want to apologise. I didn’t really see it from your point of view, I just thought it was one of the boxes you had to tick to move on with your life, and if I could tick it for you, then it would be one less thing for you to do. And I kept thinking about you making do in there when everything was here all ready to make it work. I asked Sally’s advice, and she seemed to think it was a good idea and got the others on board. I was a bit dubious about involving them, I didn’t like to ask them, but they wanted to help. I got the impression you haven’t let anybody help you, and they all saw this as a chance to show you how much they thought of you, how much they all admire your courage. I couldn’t deny them the chance to do that. And anyway, I needed the help. So that’s why there were so many of us, but we didn’t—I mean, we didn’t abuse the privilege, or go anywhere really except just the kitchen and dining room, and of course the loo. Sally made a lot of tea.’
‘She said.’
He looked up, as if he was surprised that she was there in a way, as if he’d felt he was talking to himself. ‘So it wasn’t like some big party.’
‘I didn’t think it was,’ she said, wondering where this was leading. ‘And, anyway, I don’t really care about the house.’
His head jerked up again. ‘Really? I thought that was the problem, that we’d been in your house—like burglars, touching your things.’
She shook her head. ‘Not really. Seeing just how awful it is maybe, but it was the deception, Patrick. That was what hurt. The fact that you didn’t tell me. That you all plotted it and didn’t tell me.’
His mouth twisted into a smile. ‘It would have ruined the surprise,’ he said softly. ‘That was the whole idea. If I’d told you, you would have said no.’
‘So, knowing that, you went behind my back. You couldn’t respect my reasons for not wanting you to do it.’
He scrubbed his hands through his hair and sat back, staring at her and sighing. ‘I don’t understand your reasons. Apart from pride, and I can understand that.’
She shook her head. ‘No. Not pride. More a fear of losing control.’ She swallowed, chewed her lip, twisted her hands together. ‘When Colin and I were married, he handled everything. All the bills, all the household stuff, all the decisions about where we were to live and how, where we went on holiday—even when we started a family. I wasn’t ready. I was only twenty-two, but he wanted a child, he said, and so we had her. And then he died and I realised that so many of his decisions were flawed and had been based on something that had been going on that I hadn’t known about. And I felt so insecure. It was ages before I stopped panicking when the doorbell rang in case it was someone coming to tell me something else I didn’t know about our lives. So that’s why I overreacted. Loss of control.’
He sighed again. ‘I’m sorry. I had no idea he’d been so controlling. I didn’t mean to do that—to know what was best for you. I thought you’d decided it was what you wanted, it was just a case of achieving it.’
‘And you have,’ she told him sadly. ‘It’s wonderful—just what I’d hoped for, and so much easier. I cooked supper for Katie earlier, and it was just amazing. A sink, for goodness’ sake! A plughole instead of a funnel shoved in a waste pipe. Worktop. My lovely cooker that I saved for. It’s wonderful.’
‘But?’
She shrugged. ‘Katie’s miserable. Not with you, or me, really, but with the idea of leaving, and for ages the kitchen and leaving have been linked together. That’s why she was so upset.’
He hesitated. ‘I have an idea. It’s just a suggestion, and I’m pretty sure you’ll turn it down, but.. .if the only reason you’re moving is because you can’t afford the mortgage, you could shift it onto me.’
She didn’t understand. She stared at him in confusion, and he went on, ‘I know you’re angry and disappointed in me at the moment, and there’s nothing I can do about that except apologise, but I love you, Annie—both of you—and I can’t bear to see you both unhappy. If I move in with you, take over the mortgage payments, share the load, then you could stay here without worrying, and Katie could relax and be safe, and—well, it’s just an idea.’
She still didn’t understand. Not why, at least. She understood why it wouldn’t work, though. ‘Patrick, I can’t,’ she told him, fighting against the huge temptation to put everything on his shoulders. God knows they were big enough, but she couldn’t do it. ‘I just can’t allow us to become so dependent on you, so vulnerable. I mean, I know things have been going well between us until now, but when it all goes wrong, what then? When our affair’s over and you move out?’
He stared at her, his face puzzled. ‘What makes you think I’m talking about an affair?’ he said, sounding stunned.
‘Well—what are you talking about?’ she asked, every bit as stunned. ‘Are you asking me to marry you or something?’
He gave a fractured cough of laughter and met her eyes. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about that bit of it, but I’m certainly talking about for ever. I’m talking about living here with you and Katie as a unit, a family, and then when the time’s right, adding to our family. Moving then maybe, when Katie’s more settled and if we can find somewhere she likes. Otherwise maybe we can build an extension. I don’t mind. Where we live isn’t important to me, it’s being together. So if that’s asking you to marry me, then I suppose I am. And before you start suggesting a divorce, I have to tell you it’s not in my vocabulary. I understand commitment, Annie. I don’t offer it lightly.’
He stood up. ‘I’ll go now. Give you time to think about it—’
‘No!’ Annie got to her feet, her heart pounding, and reached out her hand. ‘No, don’t go. I’m so sorry. I’ve been awful to you, and you’ve been so gracious about it, and I must have really hurt you, and I can’t bear to think I did that when you’ve worked so hard to make things right for me... ’
‘Don’t say yes because I did your kitchen,’ he said, and there was an edge to his voice that she recognised. An edge of pride, of self-containment, of self-defence. They wer
en’t so different after all. She went up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, her heart full.
‘I’m not. I’m saying yes because I love you, because I thought everything had gone wrong and I didn’t know who you really were, but I did, I’d just allowed the past to cloud my judgement. And I’m so sorry, and I don’t deserve you, but if you’ll have me—have us—then I’d love to marry you.’
‘Really?’
She laughed a little awkwardly. ‘Really. Please.’
Patrick let out his breath in a ragged sigh and gathered her gently but very firmly against his broad, solid chest. ‘Are you sure?’ he murmured, and she nodded.
‘Absolutely.’
‘And Katie? How will she feel?’
‘Katie adores you. You’re all she can talk about. She’ll be ecstatic—and not just because she doesn’t have to move.’
‘In which case, can we start as we mean to go on and go to bed? Because if I don’t get to hold you very, very soon, I’m going to fall apart, because I thought I’d lost you...’
His voice cracked, and she clicked her tongue and looked up and cupped his cheek in her hand. ‘No way. You’re stuck with me, for better, for worse, for ever. Starting right now,’ she said.
He twisted a lock of her hair around his finger and smiled down at her. ‘About our wedding. I don’t know how you feel about it, but I really don’t want a big church wedding. I’ve had that—and if you’ve got your heart set on it, then of course we’ll do that, but I’d really rather not rake up the memories. It wasn’t a great start—fabulous day, but it didn’t bring us any luck and I’d rather just do something utterly different. Something that’s more about us.’
‘Something with our friends.’
‘That would be nice.’ He gave a rueful chuckle. ‘Although I don’t really have any. I lost them all while Ellie was alive. They weren’t going to sit and wait for me, they thought I was mad. There’s only one person, an old college friend, Oz. He lives in New Zealand, but he’d come if he could. And my family, but no other friends.’
A Wife and Child to Cherish (Audley Memorial Hospital) Page 16