by Fanny Blake
‘Where have you been?’
She had never seen David look so fierce. He was in the kitchen, hunched over, slicing a piece of bread.
‘I had to stay late. I wanted to see a patient who was operated on this afternoon, and I had some notes to finish up. How was dinner?’ The lies came easily.
‘Cancelled at the last minute. Their MD’s flight back from Frankfurt was delayed. When I heard, I’d thought we might go out instead and talk. We’ve barely spoken properly since we got home.’ He put the knife down. ‘So I’m doing beans on toast instead.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ She pulled out a chair and sat at the table, leafing through the day’s post. ‘That would have been great.’ Although conversation between them seemed to be harder with every day that passed.
‘But we couldn’t because you were … Where were you again?’ He was frowning, thunderous, staring down at her.
‘At work.’
‘Why do you do this?’ He shook his head, as he turned to put the bread in the toaster.
‘What?’ That visit to Rick would cost her everything. She should have known better.
‘Lie.’ He rubbed his head and sighed. ‘I phoned the ward at six-thirty.’
Her pulse was racing. That was half an hour after her day ended.
‘They paged you until someone told me you had gone home. But you weren’t here. I know that because … I was. Which begs the question, Where were you?’ He held up his hand. ‘Don’t answer that. I’ve got a pretty good idea.’
‘It was late night shopping so I—’
He hit the table with his hand. ‘I don’t want to hear any more. You were with Rick again, weren’t you?’ He closed his eyes as if he couldn’t bear the sight of her. ‘Just tell me.’
She nodded.
‘Say it! Tell me the truth. After I came to Mallorca and after everything we said then, did you go to see him again? I can’t believe you’d do that.’
She had to defend herself in the face of his incredulity. She had to make him understand. ‘Yes! Yes I went to see him. But only because I had to tell him face to face that it was over. I thought it was cowardly and unfair not to’
‘That text wasn’t enough for you? You just couldn’t resist.’
She couldn’t bear his disdain and disappointment.
‘Did you have sex?’
She couldn’t look at him. ‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry? I didn’t hear you.’
‘YES!’ she shouted. ‘Is that better? Yes, we had sex. Where are you going?’
‘Out!’ He was already at the kitchen door. ‘I can’t go on like this. I need to think.’
‘But your supper …’
‘What? My beans on toast?! You have them. I expect you’ve worked up quite an appetite.’
After the front door slammed, Jane sat for a while, head in her hands. What could she do? She had just thrown away everything that mattered to her. And for what? She thought back to Rick, and the way he had stood in the hall when she was leaving.
‘You were right,’ he said. ‘That was the last time.’
She looked at him puzzled as he helped her into her coat. ‘Meaning?’
‘When I got your text, I began to think about us, about where we were going. You were right. It’s been fun but it’s time for something new.’
Light dawned straight away. ‘Whose tights were those in the bedroom?’ She had picked them up, mistaking them for her own.
He shrugged. ‘Just someone I met recently. You’re not an exclusive arrangement. You know that and I don’t want any difficulties.’
She hadn’t anticipated this turn of the tables at all. Because of her desire to treat him fairly, she had jeopardised everything. Not quite everything, she reminded herself. Not yet. The tribunal was being held that week.
How would Paul react if she and David split up? He loved his dad and was fiercely protective of him. She couldn’t bear the thought that the negative feelings he already held for her would be compounded. David had given her a chance and, despite her best intentions, she had blown it.
She had to talk to someone otherwise she would never be able to unscramble the thoughts racing round her head. She ran through a mental rolodex of her friends. She had always compartmentalised them, never wanting anyone to know everything about her life. Kate was the only person she had told about Rick, the only person who might listen. As her old school friend, Kate had remained at a remove from her work colleagues, so anything she told her was safe, but she hadn’t returned the couple of calls Jane had made to her since they had arrived back home. For the first time, Jane wondered if that might be deliberate. They hadn’t parted on the best of terms but Kate knew what she was like and would understand her reasons.
Kate’s phone went straight to voicemail again. Jane ended the call without leaving a message.
She tried David next, but got his voicemail too. Where would he have gone? The pub? Was he wandering the streets? Visiting a friend? But who? What he said made sense. They needed to do some straight-talking, something that she found so difficult. In medicine, there was nowhere to hide. She had learned that the hard way when she’d had to give patients bad news. She had hoped experiencing that had brought her a degree of self-knowledge, but when it came to her personal life she still took refuge in pretence. Going to Mallorca had pointed that up. How ashamed she had been made to feel over her past behaviour, although she had done her best to hide it.
She had to explain to David that she recognised her own failings and that her affair with Rick really was over. She began talking to his voicemail. ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ she said. ‘Please come home. You know I find it hard to talk, but I know you want to and we must. Perhaps we should see a counsellor …’ She could hardly believe she was suggesting it. ‘So we’ll have a neutral space and someone who’ll mediate. Going to see Rick was a stupid mistake. I thought I was doing the right thing by telling him in person, but you’re the one I should be talking to. I understand that now. I do want to try to put things right – if you’ll let me. One last chance.’
When she ended the call, she was despairing. It was too late. Following her to Spain had been his last-ditch bid to keep her, and only days later she had thrown it back in his face. They would never come back from this.
She made a cup of tea, her hands trembling, and took it up to bed with her. Not that she would sleep. But there seemed little point in doing anything else. In bed, she tried Kate again. No reply. She switched the light off and lay in the dark, listening out for the sound of David’s key in the front door, his tread on the stairs.
When she woke, dawn was breaking. She rolled over to see if he was awake so she could begin her apology. But his side of the bed was empty, unslept in. Immediately, she got up, wrapped her dressing gown round her and went to the spare room. She turned the handle carefully so as not to wake him. Inside, the curtains were wide open, as she had left them, and the early light shone on another empty bed. She checked Paul’s old room: empty too. David hadn’t come home.
She checked her phone for messages. Nothing.
A while later, she called Paul. The phone rang on and on. She was about to hang up when he answered. ‘Yeah?’
Seven-thirty and still not up.
‘Paul, it’s me.’
‘Mum! It’s early. What do you want?’ She could tell he had rolled over and the phone was suffocated between his ear and the pillow.
‘Have you heard from Dad?’
‘What?! It’s first thing in the morning. Isn’t he with you?’
Perhaps phoning him had been unwise. She didn’t want to alert him to anything wrong between her and David. ‘No. He’s away for the night and not answering his phone. If he calls, would you ask him to call me?’
‘Mmm, sure. How was Spain?’ In the background, Elaine was saying something. ‘Look, I’ve got to
go. I’ll talk to you soon.’ He ended the call.
But he wouldn’t speak to her soon unless she called him. That was the way these days. Elaine didn’t like him speaking to her and if she could engineer a way for it not to happen, she would. And Jane couldn’t blame her. What she had done was unforgivable, but she had apologised profusely. Surely her soon-to-be daughter-in-law would forgive her with time, especially after Jane had paid the inevitable heavy price. Just one more day to the tribunal and after that the case would be on the MPTS website for all to see.
With a heavy heart, she showered and got ready for work. There would be a small backlog of emails to attend to before her morning clinic, one of the most challenging but rewarding parts of her job. However grim she felt, she could not let those people down and she could be nothing but professional, keeping her own problems to herself. As she drank her black coffee, she thought about the day ahead, the patients depending on her to be there to discuss the treatment of their cancer and help them navigate their future.
The morning passed quickly, one patient after another, some of whom she had been seeing for some time, each of them equally absorbing. She did her best to reassure, explain and comfort where she could. Watching people fight cancer was both hard and humbling. Their bravery and stoicism in the face of the illness could be extraordinary. After a snack lunch, she went on to the wards to see her patients who ranged from an elderly woman in the very last stages of life, surrounded by her large Turkish family, to a young woman in her thirties whose cubicle was covered in cards from her friends and photos of her Westie which was inexplicably called Marrow.
‘I can’t wait to get home,’ she said. ‘I want to see Marrow.’
‘I’ll see you after your next scan,’ said Jane, knowing that there was little chance of her surviving much longer than that. But if a patient didn’t want to know their own life expectancy, she didn’t tell them.
There was the usual mountain of admin and Jane made her way through it with the ruthless efficiency for which she was known, updating patient notes, reviewing lab work and contacting colleagues to discuss individual cases. As they were short-staffed that day, she had called a couple of patients to ask them to come in to discuss their results. By seven o’clock, she was exhausted. Only then, did David’s whereabouts and the looming tribunal re-enter her thoughts.
She drove home, let herself in and checked the landline. No messages. Where had he got to? She tried him and Kate again but neither picked up. Her behaviour in Spain may not have consolidated those old friendships but surely Kate wasn’t the sort of person who would drop her because of that. They’d been friends for too long. But as the evening wore on and she thought about what had happened and been said in the last week, she felt a terrible, creeping sense of loneliness. With little effort on her part, she had succeeded in alienating everyone; her friends and, most importantly, her husband and their son and his fiancée. It was all very well having the admiration and gratitude of her patients, but that counted as nothing beside the love of her family.
She took her baked potato and tuna through to the living room where she curled up on the sofa and switched on the TV. Her plate sat on the coffee table, the potato untouched, as she surfed the channels unable to get absorbed in anything. What had she done with her life?
A hot bath and early bed didn’t do much to improve things. Through the night she tossed and turned, unable to get David, Paul, Amy, Linda and Kate, and the impending tribunal out of her head. It was as if everything had coalesced into one huge testing ground that, for once, she didn’t think she would survive.
In the morning, things looked as bleak. David still wasn’t answering his phone. He had never ignored her before and, as far as she could see, it could only mean one thing. But he would have to come back at some time and she had to be here when he did, even if it was to hear the worst. The tribunal was at noon – the other thing that demanded her attendance.
She was sitting hunched over a bowl of uneaten cold porridge and a cup of tea, when she heard a key in the lock. Her stomach flip-flopped. This was it. This was the end of her marriage, timed perfectly to coincide with the end of her career.
‘Jane!’
‘In the kitchen.’
The tenor of David’s voice gave little away. But when he came in, she could see how tired he looked. His face was grey with exhaustion, his features gaunt.
‘Where have you been?’
His eyebrows rose. ‘That’s not a question you have any right to ask. But since you do, I went to the Premier Inn. I wanted to be alone to think.’
She poured him a cup of tea and slid it across the table. ‘Did you get my message?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded his head slowly. ‘I didn’t want to talk to you until I was clear about what I wanted to say to you.’
‘I’m so sorry. I made such a stupid mistake.’
‘Yes, you did.’ He drank his tea and screwed up his face. ‘It’s cold.’
‘I’ll make another.’ She stood up.
‘No, don’t. I’ll get one on the way to work.’
‘You’re going to work?’ Was that how important their marriage was to him now?
‘It’s the last thing I want to do, believe me, but there’s a diversity meeting I have to be at, at nine-thirty. I wanted to come home first.’
Her stomach flip-flopped again. This was it.
‘I’ve lain awake all night, thinking about you, about us. I thought when I came to Mallorca that I made my feelings clear.’
‘You did,’
‘Not clear enough, it seems.’ He rubbed his cheeks with both hands as if that would energise him.
‘I’m not going to see Rick again. He knows that now.’ She spoke quickly to would silence him.
‘No, you’re not.’ His eyes fixed on hers. ‘I must be mad, but I want to give us one last chance. I don’t pretend to understand why you’ve needed him in your life, so perhaps your suggestion of counselling is a good one.’
‘When Rick and I had counselling, all we were told was that there was no hope for us.’ Those ghastly hour-long sessions where their mediator ultimately had to announce defeat.
‘There’s nothing more I can suggest, except I can help you find the least painful way to separate,’ she’d said, brushing her hands together.
‘Then perhaps we need to inject a little more pain into the proceedings.’ His face was stony. ‘Counselling and compromise. We’re doing this on my terms or not at all. We need to talk honestly about all this and we need help to do that since we don’t seem to be able to on our own.’
She hung her head in agreement. ‘All right.’ Relief swelled up in her. He hadn’t forgiven her but they would be all right, and this time she wouldn’t mess things up. Coming so close to losing him had made her realise even more how much he meant to her.
‘Last chance. I mean it.’ He left the room and went upstairs where she could hear him showering and getting dressed.
When he reappeared, he looked more like himself, spruced up for the office. Standing in the doorway as he put on his jacket, he said, ‘I’ll meet you at eleven-thirty.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m coming with you. You don’t seriously think I’d let you face the tribunal on your own?’
She stood up and flung her arms round him, feeling his resistance give way. ‘I really don’t deserve you.’ How, after Rick, she had found such a generous, kind man was a mystery to her.
‘No, you don’t!’ He put his arms round her. She relaxed into their warmth and familiarity. ‘Don’t look so glum. It won’t be as bad as you think. You’re a bloody good oncologist. You know that, and so does everyone else. This was one awful moment of madness that deserves a warning but not a suspension. They’ll surely understand that. And if they don’t, we’ll appeal.’
She heard that ‘we’ and smiled up at him. Despite everything, she still
had him, and that was all that mattered.
29
In the two days I spent at Ca’n Amy alone with Dan, our relationship slipped back into calmer waters. Having found employment and a source of income, he relaxed again, so much so that he barely reacted when I warned him: ‘Don’t ever tap my friends for money again.’
He just gave a lazy smile. ‘But they’re not really your friends, are they? Not any more.’
‘They are now.’
In such a short space of time, that was quite an achievement, but I did believe that’s what had happened. Three of us had bonded all over again and, if nothing else, we’d got a better grasp of Jane and who she was. We might be far from the same people who had hung out together as children and teenagers – life had seen to that – but underneath there was an unbreakable bond and understanding between us.
‘Even Jane?’
‘Let’s just say I’ll definitely be seeing Kate and Linda again.’
He laughed. ‘So are you going to tell me what happened with the famous artist?’
And I did. I didn’t need to tell him about Linda’s part in the story (that was hers to tell) but there was plenty more to discuss. I had a funny feeling that I could leave the island and Dan would take pleasure in doing something to scupper Jack Walsh.
Sure enough a couple of days after I got home, I received his email.
Been seeing plenty of our old friends before starting work
That was so typical. Having a good life always came first.
Unfortunately I found myself telling them about Walsh and his past. I don’t think you said it was secret and of course there’s plenty online about him, if you look. I have! Brendan and Sheila were all for live and let live. ‘The man’s paid his dues,’ was Brendan’s take – idiot. But they never saw the effect all that had on you. I won’t forget the angry, defeated Amy who crashed in our squat that boiling hot summer, and how long it took you to get over what happened.