Apple of My Eye

by Claire Allan

  ‘Eli?’ Rachel’s voice sounds around the car through the Bluetooth system.

  ‘It’s me,’ I say. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance you can pull a late shift tonight? I hate to ask, but Margaret’s come down with the flu. We can get a bank nurse in if you can’t, so don’t feel under pressure, but, you know, budgets … We’ll work the rota so you get your time back.’

  I think of how tired I am. Of how I need to talk to Martin. Of how my back aches after the long drive. But then I know Rachel wouldn’t ask if she wasn’t stuck.

  Perhaps it’ll do me good to go there, feeling rotten and tired as I am. Work has that habit of helping me to put things in perspective.

  ‘I can be in for seven, if that’s okay?’ I find myself saying.

  ‘You’re a lifesaver,’ Rachel says. ‘Eli, thank you. I’m pulling an extra shift too, so I’ll see you when you get in. Hope you’ve had a good few days off?’

  I almost laugh.

  *

  The visit to the police station proves as frustrating as I thought it might.

  ‘Without any evidence of a break-in, there’s not much we can do. Even with this message,’ Constable Dawson tells me, his face serious, the bags under his eyes still there, accompanying a look of indifference.

  ‘But this message is evidence. I didn’t take that picture. My husband’s in England.’

  ‘Could it be an old one? A visitor to your house in the past? We tend to find with most things like this it’s someone you know, personal grudge going on. A practical joke got out of hand. I’d suggest you talk to any keyholders.’

  ‘I doubt very much that if a keyholder did this, they’re going to admit it. And if this is a joke, it’s most certainly not my kind of humour.’ I feel a band of tension across my head. ‘Surely forensics has turned up some information? Fingerprints? Anything?’

  ‘Nothing conclusive at this stage. The only fingerprints we’ve positively ID’d so far are from yourself, your husband and your mother. There are a few others to check, but they don’t show up on our database. They could belong to someone else familiar with your household. You mentioned you had a cleaner.’

  We do have a cleaner, once a week. Caroline. I suppose I could ask her to give a fingerprint sample to police. I’m not sure how she’ll react to that.

  But apart from her, no. We don’t have regular company – not recently anyway. It was different before; when I wasn’t pregnant, miserable and a party pooper. The only people I know of who’ve been in our house recently have been Martin’s partner, Jim, and Rachel.

  I give him Caroline’s details anyway but ask him to let me speak to her first. Then I ask what’ll happen if they can’t find any concrete information.

  He shrugs his shoulders. ‘We can’t do much without evidence,’ he says.

  ‘And the CCTV showed nothing?’

  ‘There’s no CCTV close enough to your house to show anything that’d be deemed anything other than circumstantial at best. If your mother could remember any details about the car she saw pull off, that would help.’

  But I know Mum can’t. It was dark, she was panicking and all she saw was a blaze of headlights.

  ‘I know it must appear very threatening and believe me, we’ll keep everything on file,’ Constable Dawson says.

  What would have to happen for them to take further action than just keeping things on file? ‘Could you put on extra patrols in this area? Keep an eye on the house?’

  He shrugs. ‘We can see about sending a car past every now and again but operationally, I don’t think this would be a productive use of police resources. We can review that, of course, if anything else happens. But in the meantime, my advice to you would be to talk to your husband again, but of course, if you feel in any danger, you can call 999 at any time. We’ll keep your number on our emergency response list,’ he says.

  It feels like he’s reciting a script. He doesn’t really care that this is turning my life upside down. In fact, I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m playing the role of hysterical woman beautifully.

  ‘You should try to keep things in perspective,’ he says. ‘All we know for certain is that someone seems to want you to know that your husband may be playing away. It sounds to me like you’ve a friend who wants you to know.’

  I’m not sure if there’s a hint of a smirk in Dawson’s tone as he speaks. As if this isn’t the first time he’s seen some deluded woman try to find an explanation that differed from the obvious for suspect behaviour.

  I suppose I could argue with him to do more, but from the way he’s looking behind him, eager to get back to his desk, I realise there’s probably little point.

  Dejected, I bid him goodbye. He tells me he’ll be in touch if anything comes to light. I don’t imagine I’ll hear from him again.

  I get home just twenty minutes before Martin’s due to arrive. It no longer feels like the safe place it once was. It looks exactly the same, but it is not the same. It has been violated. Our home, our marriage, everything has been violated. I sit in the car for a few minutes, taking deep breaths to try and calm myself, then I go in. From a glance around the house, there’s no sign that anything is amiss. No whisky glass in the bedroom. All glasses accounted for in the cupboard. I don’t keep a close enough eye on our alcohol supplies to know if anything has gone from the bottle, but from what I can see, everything in the house is just as I left it.

  There isn’t even a feeling anyone’s been here – you know, an aura. Does that sound a bit hippy? We believe in that, you see, in the hospice, that people alive or dead leave a presence. I suppose it’s my form of religion. A belief in spirit.

  Maybe Dawson, with his lack of charm and his dark circles under his eyes, is right. Maybe the picture is an old one. I try to think of exactly when someone would’ve taken it.

  Last New Year had been our last big party – pre-pregnancy. Could it have been taken then? Or could it have been taken at another time? When a guest was in our house. In our bedroom. In our bed. Just at a time when, perhaps, I wasn’t there.

  I make a quick call to Caroline. Tell her the police might be in touch. She sounds aggrieved and I have to reassure her, repeatedly, that neither Martin nor I believe she has anything to do with recent events. Even though we can’t say for sure. Everyone’s a suspect at the moment. I feel unsettled when I finish the call. I’m sure it will only be a matter of time before she hands in her notice.

  Timed to perfection, I hear Martin’s car pull up in the gravel driveway. I suddenly feel off-balance, physically and emotionally. Panic starts to swirl again. The fight or flight response telling me to fly.

  I perch on the edge of the bed and focus on my breathing, willing my legs to stay still. Don’t run. Don’t bolt. Just get through the moment.

  I hear the front door open. A happy ‘hello’ echoes from downstairs, his footsteps approaching as he launches into a monologue about how the meeting couldn’t have gone better and that the London partners were delighted with his work. He presents me with a bunch of flowers. Clearly, he’s stopped at M&S on the way home and picked up the best bunch he could find. He’s in great form. The issue with the redesign of the hospice has been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. They’ve been invited to make an official bid for the second project.

  I plaster a smile on my face. One so fake, I’m sure he’ll be able to see right through me.

  ‘That’s great news,’ I tell him as he walks into the room. ‘I’m delighted for you. And Jim, of course. You’ve worked very hard.’

  I will him not to come close. Not yet. There’s only so much I can fake and right now I can’t fake tenderness with him.

  Dawson’s cynical face swims before mine. ‘I think you should talk to your husband.’

  ‘We should celebrate,’ Martin says, pulling off his tie and throwing it on the floor.

  Now, he’s walking towards me, arms spread. I don’t want him to touch me. I don’t want to feel his
skin on mine. His breath in my ear. His voice in my head. I don’t want to smell him.

  ‘We will,’ I say, standing up, moving out of his reach and starting to take my uniform out of the wardrobe. ‘But, sadly, not tonight. I’ve been called in for an extra shift. They were really stuck.’

  His face drops. ‘I was looking forward to some quality time with you. Especially after the weekend, you know.’

  ‘And I was looking forward to some time with you, too,’ I lie. ‘But I couldn’t say no. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’

  I angle past him into the en suite, calling behind me that I just need to grab a quick shower. Locking the door in case he gets any notions to come after me, I set the water running so that I can’t hear what he’s saying over the noise. And he can’t hear the crack in my voice as I call that we’ll talk later.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Louise

  I wasn’t immune to the fact that not everyone would agree with me that what I was doing was the right thing. But those were probably people who’d led perfectly normal lives and who’d never experienced the tragedy I had.

  I had that perfect life once. A husband. A house. A belief that my life was going exactly where I wanted it to go. He went out to work and it was my job to make us a home. To make us a family.

  It was my body that had let us down.

  It was so unfair. Unfair and cruel. Lots of women didn’t want a baby in the way I did. Lots of women didn’t want a baby at all. I had friends who’d ‘gone to England to deal with a tricky situation’ in the past. Who’d destroyed perfectly healthy pregnancies because it wasn’t something they’d wanted at the time. They were nothing more than cold-blooded, selfish murderers.

  I’d tried to find forgiveness and understanding in my heart for them, but couldn’t.

  I wondered if they’d have thought any differently if they’d known what I’d known. That nothing can be taken for granted. A happy ending wasn’t always promised, and certainly never guaranteed.

  Sometimes you have to make your own. Steal your own, even. It didn’t make me a bad person.

  I’d never hurt anyone in my life. I’d always done the right thing. I’d followed the rules. I still went to Mass every week, even though I couldn’t understand how my God could make me endure so much. Before I realised He had a bigger plan for me.

  I’ve lived a good life. I could give this baby a good life. Full of love and happiness and faith. I knew I could do that. It’s what I was born to do.

  I had to remain careful, though. I had to protect myself from sinful ways and sinful thoughts. God would’ve punished me. He might have taken her away from me, if I’d given in to my temptations.

  This man in front of me was a temptation sent to try me. I couldn’t help it. Each time I saw him, I felt more of a pull, but I knew this was the final test. I had to resist.

  Yet, still my heart skipped a beat when I saw him. When I sat outside their house and watched him arrive home. He looked so handsome. His tie loosened. His hair messy. For just a second I wondered, would he ever think me attractive? I wished I could be her – and have him come home to me. I wondered what it’d be like to have him hold me in his arms. To kiss me.

  I touched my fingers to my lips. It has been so long since I’d been kissed. So long since I’d been held and loved.

  It would have been so easy to give into temptation. So easy and so good.

  But it would have destroyed everything I had planned.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Eli

  I get to work early, leaving Martin bewildered in my wake. Relief washes over me when I walk across the car park and push open the hospice doors. I’m in my comfort zone here. I know what to do and I do it well.

  ‘Eli, I’m so glad to see you,’ Rachel says enthusiastically as I walk in.

  She has a handful of files and the look of someone near the end of their rope.

  ‘Busy day?’

  ‘Tough day,’ she says. ‘Two patients passed today, including Nicola Flanagan. Poor thing. It’s been tough for the staff, you know.’

  I feel winded. Nicola is, was, only twenty-six, had been battling cervical cancer for the last three years. We knew she was very ill, but there was no way anyone was expecting her to go quite so quickly.

  ‘Oh God, that was very sudden.’

  ‘Too sudden. She just deteriorated on Saturday night and didn’t come back from it. The family are distraught, as you can imagine. And the staff, too.’

  I think of her mother, who’d always tried to keep smiling any time Nicola was in for respite care, and my heart aches for her. It seems so grossly unfair. I feel tears unexpectedly spring to my eyes. You’d think we’d get used to it, but sometimes it just feels all wrong. The cruelty of it seems to get worse.

  ‘That poor girl,’ I say, brushing my tears away hastily.

  ‘At least she’s not suffering any more. That’s all we can take from it,’ Rachel says, but she looks bone tired and as if she could break down herself.

  I give her a hug, tell her I’ll do my best to make sure she gets some quiet time during the night.

  ‘No rest for the wicked,’ she replies with a weak smile. ‘But sure, we’ll get through it. Can I bring you up to speed on everything?’

  ‘Of course,’ I say and follow her to the nurse’s office.

  ‘You’ve no idea how much you’re pulling us out of a hole tonight,’ she says. ‘I hated asking you, especially with you being so pregnant.’

  ‘I’ll be out of here soon on maternity leave,’ I say, ‘you might as well make the most of me while you can.’

  The thought of maternity leave makes me shudder. Who knows what state the rest of my life will be in by the time this baby arrives.

  ‘I don’t know what we’ll do without you. What I’ll do without you. I’ll miss you, Eli.’

  ‘I hope very much you’ll come and see me when I’m off. You know much more about this parenting carry-on than I do. And I require gossipy updates, and a shoulder to cry on when I need it.’

  ‘You’ll be too busy enjoying that baby of yours to think of me,’ she says, sitting down. ‘But you know I’ll be there for you if you need me.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I tell her, thinking myself ridiculous that I’ve even, so much as for a second, considered that she could be having a fling with my husband.

  ‘Look,’ she says. ‘I’m not sure if this is the right thing to do or not, Eli. But something arrived in the post for you today.’

  She sorts through the pile of paperwork she’s been carrying and hands me a crisp white envelope, with my name neatly printed on the front.

  ‘It looks like the same writing as that other letter,’ she says, her face filled with concern. ‘I wondered whether to keep it from you because of the stress, but then I thought you needed to see it, in case it needs to be brought to the attention of the police.’

  I hold it in my hand. But it feels as if it might as well be a ticking time bomb. I sit down.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Rachel says.

  ‘It’s hardly your fault,’ I tell her, ‘it’s not like you sent it.’

  I open the envelope, take out the single sheet of white paper:

  HE’S NOT THE ONLY ONE BETRAYING YOU.

  SHE’S LAUGHING AT YOU BEHIND YOUR BACK.

  WITH FRIENDS LIKE HER, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?

  ‘Are you okay? What does it say?’

  I hear Rachel speak and look up at her. A face filled with concern. With friends like her …

  She has to be who this letter’s talking about. Who else could it be? She’s my closest friend her. My only real friend, who’s spent a lot of time with both Martin and me. If she needs anything fixing in her house, I send him over to help. We’ve had her at our house for Christmas dinner when her kids were with their father. I’d never even once considered that I could’ve been pushing them together. I feel sick.

  I want to scream at her. I want to slap her square across her face. I want to show her t
he note and tell her to explain it, but I think of the patients who need us. The shift we have to get through. I focus on it. Push down the hurt and the anger and the sense of betrayal.

  Again.

  It’s what I always do.

  Bury it. Get on with things. Make for an easy life.

  Pretend there’s still good in the world.

  ‘It’s not from the same person,’ I lie, surprising myself at just how steady my voice sounds. ‘It’s just an invoice for something I ordered for Martin. I ordered it to come here. It’s a surprise for him.’

  She looks at me as if she knows I’m lying. I don’t care. I don’t care any more what she thinks of me. I thrust the note into the bottom of my bag, which I put in my locker, and then I ask her to fill me in on our current patients.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Eli

  I do my best to listen and focus on what Rachel’s telling me. Remind myself that our patients are my main concern now. We currently have five patients in for respite and four others in the terminal stages of their illnesses. We’re waiting to admit another patient.

  ‘Mrs Doherty’s in?’ I ask.

  ‘Came in last night,’ Rachel says. ‘She just wasn’t able to manage at home any more, so she’s on subcutaneous morphine and Levomepromazine. She was very agitated and anxious earlier. So she was given 2 mg of Midazolam SC to help her rest. She’ll be due another top-up soon. I see no reason to withdraw it at this stage. I think we’re near the end now.’

  I know it’s likely her medication needs will only increase at this stage.

  ‘Any family or friends with her?’ I ask, although I suspect I already know the answer.

  ‘Her son’s on his way from England, but he can’t get here until the morning,’ Rachel says. ‘One of her neighbours was in earlier this evening for a bit, but she’s mostly been on her own. She’s asked us to hold off on too much sedation until she sees her son, but, well, that’s something we have to continue to reassess as the night passes.’

  I read her notes. She’s already on a high dose of morphine and is requiring frequent top-ups. As a woman who’d rarely complained about her pain levels before, I know things must be bad for her.