Do Me No Harm

by Julie Corbin

  ‘Water’s fine.’

  He opens the door and shouts out, ‘Tea and a glass of water, Jenny!’ He waits for her reply which is out of my earshot. ‘Cheers, love.’ On his way back to the seat he says, ‘I hear you went to see Tess Williamson yesterday.’

  ‘It was for her mother. She’d requested a home visit.’

  ‘And did you speak to Tess?’

  ‘Briefly. I’m sorry, I meant to tell you, but with Lauren going missing it slipped my mind.’

  His face is impassive. ‘How do you know Kirsty’s not meeting you at ten?’

  ‘She slept in my garden hut overnight.’ I’ve decided that the best way forward is to be economical with the truth, telling O’Reilly almost everything except the lunch details. I begin by recounting my dilemma when I found her in the garden – should I shout for help or should I tackle her? ‘I didn’t feel confident with either and didn’t have the chance to use my mobile, so I felt the best thing was to let her talk. And we did. And then we came to an agreement.’

  He sighs. ‘Tell me you’ve not gone soft on her again?’

  ‘Not exactly, but I have agreed to a compromise.’

  ‘And that would be?’

  ‘I’m going to speak to the journalist at the Edinburgh Courier. She can write the truth about me. Redress the balance a bit. Let readers see that I’m not so perfect.’

  ‘“Let readers see that I’m not so perfect.”’ He repeats my words very deliberately and then scratches his chin. ‘And this will make Kirsty happy, will it?’

  The door pushes open and Jenny bustles in. ‘Tea and some water.’

  ‘Thank you, Jenny,’ O’Reilly says.

  I lurch for the glass of water and take small sips, each one temporarily easing the parched ache inside my mouth.

  ‘What interests me,’ O’Reilly says, ‘is why you won’t help us convict the person who almost killed your son?’

  ‘In her mind, she has a genuine grievance.’

  ‘And in your mind?’

  ‘In my mind . . . well . . . I think she does have a point.’

  ‘So she’s just going to get away with it? Almost killing your son, causing damage inside your home. Those events are justified, are they?’

  ‘Not exactly, but they are understandable.’

  ‘Intimidation is fine in your book, is it?’

  ‘Of course not. But there is a certain justice in the public seeing me as I am.’

  ‘Warts and all?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘From hero to zero in one fell swoop?’ He gives me a challenging look. ‘You’ll go from Dr Somers, shining example to the rest of us, to Dr Somers with a skeleton bursting out of her closet.’ He drums his fingers on the desk. It’s a jagged sound and it makes my teeth vibrate. ‘I expect the centre will lose some of its charity funding when your name is splashed across the front pages of the Edinburgh Courier.’

  ‘I just have to hope that doesn’t happen.’ This worries me and I can’t help but show it. ‘I don’t want the centre to suffer for my mistakes, but I do have to stand up and take responsibility for what I’ve done. I don’t think there’s a time limit on that.’

  ‘Olivia?’

  ‘Yes?’ His eyes are calculating but kind and I feel a hairline crack in my resolve.

  ‘Why not just tell me the truth?’

  ‘I’m not lying.’

  Our eyes fix and hold but I don’t give in; I grip my hands together under the table, hard enough for it to hurt.

  ‘Well . . .’ His sigh is regretful. ‘In that case, I’ll have to write a report and there’ll be a decision made as to whether or not you’ll be charged for wasting police time.’

  I baulk at this, drop my head and blink furiously. ‘I . . .’ It hadn’t occurred to me that this might happen. ‘In your opinion, am I likely to be charged?’

  ‘Put it this way. We are pursuing a girl who spiked your son’s drink and had him admitted to hospital in a coma. You, quite rightly, reported this as a crime. We speak almost every day for two weeks. You’re keen to ensure the police service are doing all they can to find the culprit and then she comes, uninvited, into your home and causes criminal damage. This sends you off on your own investigation which you share with me only when pushed.’ He takes a mouthful of tea. ‘It’s a matter of the law that we pursue Kirsty Stewart and I also would have thought that for you and your family it’s important she’s brought to justice. But strangely enough, one minute you’re on side and the next you’re not. Yesterday, you tell me you’ll help us bring her in. Today you tell me you’re sorting it out yourself.’ He gives a hearty, not altogether amused, laugh. ‘In my opinion, you’ve definitely been wasting police time. Will you be prosecuted?’ He shakes his head. ‘That’s not my decision.’

  I can’t look at his face so I stare instead at what’s on the table: a mug, a glass and his arms. His shirtsleeves are rolled up to his elbows; his forearms are tanned and warm looking. There’s a white mark on his left wrist where his watch should be. ‘Have you been out in the sun?’

  ‘I have an allotment.’

  ‘I didn’t see you as a gardener.’ It makes me wish I could have got to know him better. There’s something comforting about a man who spends time on the land. Perhaps I feel this way because my father was, and Declan is, a farmer. I don’t know. But what I do know is that O’Reilly is a better man than my half-baked truths are allowing him to be and it makes me feel ashamed. I briefly consider telling him about my lunch appointment and the fact that Kirsty will be there but I know he’ll want to arrest Kirsty and bring her in. And then what? Allegations of drug taking, none of which O’Reilly will believe at first, but if Phil gets wind of it, and has a word in O’Reilly’s ear, will he be swayed? He knows I haven’t always been straight with him. He knows I kept my suspicions about the Sandy Stewart connection to myself and, he’s right, I only give him information when I have to.

  ‘Well! I have things to do.’ He’s clearly had enough. ‘You know your way out.’ He stands up and walks away from me, not bothering to look back.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  ‘For what?’ he shouts, and keeps on walking.

  I head outside into the sunshine and into my car, my heart heavy with shame and disappointment. There’s no way for me to make it right with everyone, especially not O’Reilly, and I just have to live with it, put what needs to be first, first and get this day over with.

  When I arrive home, I chase Robbie out of bed and have breakfast with him. He’s not much of a morning person and most of his replies are monosyllabic, but his company is precious to me and I enjoy just being with him. As soon as he heads off to school, I get ready for my lunch date. It’s not for over an hour yet but I want to try to disguise the injury to my face. The swelling is receding, the cut is healing and the bruising is a plum/raspberry stain that I manage to conceal with some heavy-duty foundation. Then I apply some eye make-up and lipstick, change into a summer dress and use curling tongs to style my hair. I arrive at the restaurant exactly on time and find that Carys is already there. She’s in her mid-forties, with short, black, well-groomed hair and an easy smile. She always dresses in single-coloured shift dresses and a matching cardigan. Today, her dress is a flamingo pink and the cardigan a fuchsia colour with delicate lace edging. She’s good company and has interviewed me twice before. Both times we ended up kicking back our heels and discussing everything from our upbringings to our job satisfaction. She has a son with autism and we spend the first few minutes talking about how he’s doing before she says, ‘The table’s set for three?’

  ‘Yes.’ I look around the busy restaurant to see whether I can locate Kirsty. ‘I have a young girl spending time with me – a week in the life of a doctor, kind of thing.’ My eye catches a flash of movement by the front door. ‘Ah, here she is!’ I stand up to wave and Kirsty comes towards us, her head down. ‘Emily, this is Carys Blakemore, a journalist with the Edinburgh Courier. Carys, this is Emily Jones, a would-be medical
student.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Emily.’ Carys shakes her hand and Kirsty gives her a shy smile then takes the remaining seat. She hasn’t changed her clothes since I saw her this morning and her navy blue hoodie is out of place with all the summer colours around us.

  ‘Let’s order first, shall we?’ I say. ‘And then we can get down to business.’

  The restaurant is Italian and the food has mass appeal. I order bruschetta as a starter and a main of tuna steak and green beans. Carys orders similar dishes to mine while Kirsty, who’s staring at the menu with undisguised hunger, orders a pasta starter and the largest pizza they have with three extra toppings.

  ‘Oh to be young again!’ Carys says, smiling at Kirsty. ‘Gone are the days when I could get away with eating so many carbs.’

  ‘My mum says I have hollow legs.’ Kirsty looks at me. ‘Takes a lot to fill me up.’

  It’s something she’s heard me say about Robbie and I wonder whether she’s trying to goad me or just letting me know that she has her tentacles out, reaching into my life, reminding me that she can hurt me.

  ‘I can’t wait to hear what you have to tell me,’ Carys says, placing her digital recorder on the table. ‘Is it okay for me to record it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She switches it on and I begin by saying, ‘I want to be more upfront about who I am. The previous articles you’ve written about me have been about the successful side of me, and I thought it was time to reveal another side.’ I take a drink of water and lean my elbows on the table. ‘One of the principles of the Hippocratic oath is that doctors should first do no harm. Unfortunately, early on in my career, I did do harm. I mixed up two very different drugs and they were given to a pregnant woman.’

  Carys draws in her breath, her interest piqued.

  ‘I went into medicine to save lives and I was very unlucky that the mistake I made ended up costing a young woman her life.’

  We talk for some time as Carys’s nose for a good story leads her to ask all the right questions: the particulars of the case, how it happened, what I felt, and the professional repercussions of my actions. Our starters are eaten and cleared and we’re almost finished our main course when she says. ‘So this woman was terminally ill?’

  ‘She was. But I denied her a few extra months. She would have seen her baby born and perhaps her husband would have coped better. Who knows?’ I place my knife and fork together on the plate. ‘It’s all what-ifs-and-maybes but—’

  ‘And she might have been cured,’ Kirsty interrupts. She’s said very little throughout the meal, keeping her attention on her food, only looking at me when I say something personal about her mother.

  ‘Well, that’s extremely unlikely.’

  ‘How can you be sure? It’s like chaos theory. Every action, however small, produces another action that throws off the trajectory. And this wasn’t a small action.’ She bites into the last of her pizza. ‘You might have thrown the whole course of medical science off balance.’

  ‘That’s a bit dramatic!’ Carys says, clearly surprised that Kirsty has seen to challenge me like this.

  ‘Perhaps you have a point, Emily,’ I say. ‘But the truth is we’ll never know. And part of being human is accepting that there are things that you can’t conceivably know about or change.’

  She throws me a malevolent look, gets up and marches off towards the loo.

  ‘She’s a strange one!’ Carys says, laughing into her napkin. ‘One of the reasons I avoid these youth opportunity schemes is that you never know quite what you’re going to get. I hope you’re going to make her pay for her own meal?’

  ‘She’s all right really.’ I smile. ‘I’ll just go and make sure she’s okay. Something I said might have touched a nerve.’

  I weave through the tables, the restaurant buzzing with happy diners and tempting plates of food and find Kirsty in the loo, staring at herself in the mirror. ‘I’ve done what you asked,’ I say. ‘Now will you please give me the prescriptions?’

  ‘That journalist’s a bitch,’ she cries out. ‘She enjoyed hearing about how sick my mother was. My mother died and—’ She stops, her head falling forward until the crown rests against the mirror. ‘My mother was a real person.’

  ‘Kirsty, that’s what journalists are like. They love a good story, especially if it involves downfall of any sort. The public are often far more comfortable reading about failure than they are about success and this is a story about my failure. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’

  ‘I hate her. I hate people.’ She rummages around in her bag and pulls out the two prescriptions. ‘I hate everyone.’

  She passes the prescriptions to me and I tear them in half and then in half again and again until the pieces are tiny and I’m able to flush them down the loo. When I’m finished Kirsty is still standing in the same place but now her body is shaking, tears dripping from her cheeks into the sink in front of her.

  ‘Kirsty.’ I place a hand on her shoulder and she jumps as if stung.

  ‘Fuck off !’ she shouts. ‘I hate you! I fucking hate you!’ She lurches past me and I watch her charge through the restaurant and out on to the pavement where she quickly merges into the crowd.

  ‘Emily’s had to leave,’ I say, rejoining Carys at the table. ‘Period pains.’

  ‘Is that what she calls it?’ Carys says drily. ‘I saw her running out the door just now. She looked like she was being chased by the grim reaper.’

  There’s no reply to that and, once more, in spite of all the trouble she’s caused, I feel an ache of sympathy for Kirsty.

  ‘You know, Liv, I’m willing to call the whole thing off,’ Carys says. ‘We can delete the tape and it will be like it never happened.’

  ‘The story needs to be told,’ I say. ‘Publish it as it is.’

  ‘If you’re absolutely sure?’

  ‘I am.’

  We finish up with some coffee and chat about family and work, then I pay the bill and we say our goodbyes. Carys heads back to her office and I check my phone before setting off home. I read a much earlier text from Leila telling me she’s heard I’m not at work and she’s at her house with Jasmine and do I want to pop in?

  I buy a couple of things to keep Jasmine busy then drive to Leila’s, glad to know the time has come for me to get my friend back. Leila answers the door immediately because she’s in the porch with Jasmine and they’re both sliding their feet into flat summer shoes.

  ‘I’ve brought something for the invalid,’ I say, passing a magazine and some sweets to Jasmine.

  ‘Thank you!’ She reaches forward and kisses me on the cheek and then glues her eyes to the front cover of the magazine. ‘I didn’t have any pocket money left to buy this and I really wanted it!’

  Leila kisses my other cheek and says, ‘Lovely to see you, Liv. Is your face okay? You don’t usually wear so much make-up.’

  ‘You’re not going out, are you?’

  ‘We’re on our way back to the hospital.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘When I texted you earlier all was well, but now the cast is slipping.’ She turns to her daughter. ‘Jasmine, show Aunty Liv.’

  I feel the crush of my own disappointment – circumstances are definitely conspiring against me – and try not to show it. Jasmine’s attention is still with the magazine but she obligingly holds out her injured arm. The cast runs from halfway up her fingers to an inch below her elbow and I see at once that it’s twisting around on her arm far too easily. ‘The swelling must have gone down quicker than they thought,’ I say to Leila.

  ‘I’ve been on the phone to them and they said to come in straight away and have it recast.’

  ‘Poor you,’ I say to Jasmine. ‘You have been through the wars.’

  ‘Dad says the pin inside my wrist will set off the metal detector when we go through airports,’ she tells me, briefly looking up from her reading.

  ‘Honestly, it’s all such a bore,’ Leila says, pushing Jasmine ahead of her and locking the front d
oor behind them. ‘You know this is the fourth bone she’s broken in as many years? They’ll be sending social services after us next.’

  ‘Well at least it happened at school this time.’

  ‘I know. Why does she have to be the only girl who can’t climb a wall without falling off?’ She gives her daughter an affectionate hug. ‘In the car, love. How are things with you, Liv?’ She’s walking away as she asks me.

  ‘Complicated.’ There’s no point in launching into the whole sorry tale. All I want is for someone to put their arms round me, someone I know and love, and my thoughts circle and land on Declan. ‘Leila, will you do me a favour? Could Robbie and Benson come and stay with you for the weekend? Lauren’s with Phil and I’d love to see my brother. I could easily fly over to Galway for the weekend.’

  ‘Of course! They’re more than welcome. But you’ll be going to Ireland for your mother’s hip operation in a few weeks, won’t you?’

  ‘I want to see Declan sooner than that. I need a bit of time out. Change of perspective. What with all that’s been going on . . .’

  ‘I understand.’ She aims a swift kiss at my cheek. ‘Archie’s doing the school run. I’ll let him know to collect Robbie too.’ She climbs into the car. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been such a rubbish friend lately. I’m not forgetting that we need to catch up.’ She starts the engine. ‘Save all the details and we’ll have a real heart-to-heart on Monday.’ She begins reversing and calls through the open window. ‘Okay?’

  ‘Yes.’ I wave her away. ‘I look forward to it.’

  Ireland’s west coast is like the edge of the world. Peaty soil is covered with green grass and grazing sheep. Jagged, rocky cliffs slice into farmland, beyond which white-topped Atlantic waves batter the sandy shore. I feel the pull of the childhood familiar – the smell of grass, the heat of farm animals, the taste of fresh, damp air on the back of my throat. I think about my brother and his family, good people who love me and will throw open their doors without judgement or question.

  I book an evening flight to Galway City and spend the rest of the afternoon packing and sorting the house. I text both children to let them know what I’m doing: Robbie wishes me a good time, Lauren doesn’t reply. I try not to feel disappointed and set off to the airport with music playing and my windows open. When I’ve parked my car, I make my way to check-in and then through to the departure lounge where I buy a gin and tonic and drink it slowly, staring out on to the tarmac where the taxiing planes weave a space around each other. When my flight’s called I join the queue of boarders and collapse into an aisle seat. The plane takes off, exhaustion breaks over me and I fall into forty minutes of dreamless sleep.