by Lola Keeley
Chapter 16
For a while it seems like Travers is everywhere she turns. He attends meetings he has no place in. He drops by Cassie’s office with inane questions and countless interruptions. There’s even an operation or two disrupted by him talking to her from the observation gallery.
Cassie puts in a request for more agency nurses, and it’s immediately declined. Strange, given that there’s room in the budget for exactly that. That’s annoying more than anything because it’s getting harder to give her staff the small accommodations here and there that keep them happy.
She gets an invoice for the nurses anyway, but before she can call someone to complain, Travers is doing his creepy rounds again, taking the agency’s bill from her and promising to resolve it as the hospital’s point person on all things financial.
Another time Cassie would be grateful for the help. Now she just feels tired and worried, right down to her marrow. She certainly never used to feel this way.
“Fine!” Cassie pushes Veronica’s office door opening without knocking. It clearly startles her, and she jumps in her seat at the interruption. “You win.”
“I mean, I always do,” Veronica says in that drawling way she has sometimes. “But what specifically did I win at this time?”
“He’s such an infuriating little shit.” Cassie can feel a real rant building as she starts to pace, shoving the door shut on her second lap of the room. “Everyone else I mention it to is like you—he doesn’t want to know, not a numbers man, basically incompetent at all of our jobs. Then every other day he’s asking me questions, poking around my files, and just sent a ‘new template’ for me to work from. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that much all at once before,” Veronica answers once the silent starts to stretch on.
Cassie can’t stop moving. Right now she’s a shark, and to stop is to die where she stands. Motion is comforting and keeps her head quiet enough to think. She gets the distinct impression she’s making Veronica dizzy, judging by the way she pinches the bridge of her nose.
“He thinks he can take advantage of me. It’s probably why I got the fucking job. Assumes I’ll just snap a salute and let him sell me down the river. He’s doing something with money for my department, and I can’t seem to catch what.”
“God, you’re really in a tizz, aren’t you? Major Taylor has a temper.”
Cassie shoots Veronica a glare. She’s really not in the mood to be mocked.
“Come, sit,” Veronica says, maybe as a peace offering.
Cassie does, but her leg is bouncing as soon as she’s stationary in the visitor’s chair.
“You know, I haven’t opened that wine yet. Shall I let it breathe?” Veronica asks.
Fuck the headache. Cassie nods in agreement, not trusting herself to speak again yet. She folds her arms over her chest and waits for Veronica to come up with some brilliant plan. That’s what she does, right? Fixes everything?
It’s only mildly alarming that Veronica has a corkscrew in her desk. She has some friends for Cassie’s bottle of wine, too, if the clinking when she pulls the desk drawer out is any indication. Not too far gone, though, if they still only have coffee mugs to drink the stuff out of.
They’re pouring the second mug’s worth when Veronica comes at the subject properly for the first time. “We could be imagining it. What has you so sure now?”
“I suppose the heavy-handedness of it all. I actually sat down and did all the bloody work over two days, cancelled surgeries I was looking forward to and everything. Suddenly there’s a new template needed. I get the impression that whatever I do submit is going to get changed.”
Veronica nods, leaning back in her chair and clasping her hands over her stomach. She’s a vision in blue today, the cerulean shade vibrant against brown skin. Her hair is back in a French twist, not a strand out of place despite the evening hour.
“Why you, then?”
“Newness, I suppose? Although what if your boy Peter had gotten it instead?”
“I was thinking about that. He’s better than me at financials. Maybe that’s why Travers was so keen they not go with the obvious, internal choice.”
“Right.” Cassie tries to keep the hurt from her voice.
“Not that he was the right choice just because of that,” Veronica amends.
Now that Wickham is off to Kensington, Veronica has seemed a little snappier with everyone on the wards. She must miss him.
“But any newbie would need time to learn our ways of doing things,” Veronica continues. “No two Trusts are the same, apparently.”
Cassie finishes her second mug of wine, wishing for something pale and frosty instead. Instead, Veronica has her covered with a fresh bottle of something red. It’ll do. It’s not like she has to drive home.
“How goes the house hunting, despite all this?” Veronica asks.
“Your agent is pretty keen,” Cassie tells her. “She crunched the numbers for me and everything. We’re looking at some places on Saturday. You’re more than welcome to tag along, if you really do enjoy stuff like that.”
“Well, no other plans that I know of,” Veronica replies, considering. “Sure. Where are you looking?”
“Not too far from you. I said running distance from work, so…”
“We might end up neighbours, then.” Veronica sounds almost pleased at the thought. “That’s worth a second bottle if nothing else, surely?”
“I’m game if you are.”
They sip more slowly now, relaxing into the low light of the desk lamps and the creature comforts of Veronica’s office. Cassie wants to turn hers into something like this. A place she can greet her staff and hide away from the world as needed.
When they’ve caught up on the rest of the hospital gossip, Cassie makes a move to rise. “I should get going. Trains aren’t as frequent this time of night, and there’s nothing gloomier than waiting around the train station.”
“Well, not for much longer, hopefully,” Veronica offers.
They both stand at the same time, Cassie reaching for Veronica’s mug to clear them away to the staff kitchen across the hall. Veronica moves around the desk, apparently with something important to say.
Suddenly Cassie notices how close they are. “Oh.” She doesn’t know what else to say.
“Whatever Travers is playing at, he won’t drag you into it. I won’t let him. Understood?”
Cassie blinks a little as Veronica lays her hands on her upper arms again. It’s supposed to be soothing, but it makes her breath catch in her throat, her heart beat a little faster in her chest.
“If you say so.”
“I do. You’ll get home safe?” Her eyes, dark and unreadable, never leave Cassie’s face. Lips parted, all Cassie can hear is each of them breathing, slightly out of time. There’s something in the unguarded look between them that says yes, this is it. She leans in, closing the distance inch by painful inch until her lips are just about to—
A shriek of laughter in the corridor outside. Juniors pulling off some prank, maybe, or someone stayed behind after visiting hours without getting caught. It’s enough to have them springing apart like magnets.
“Right, train. Got to go.” Cassie doesn’t give Veronica a chance to call her out or make excuses for her. “Goodnight.”
Chapter 17
The taxi rank is populated mostly by braying city types and giggling girls daft enough to go home with them. Veronica keeps an instinctive distance without surrendering her place in line. When slipping into the cab, she pops her hopefully visible white earphones in, pausing only to give her address. She’s in no mood for small talk.
There’s no point pulling out the journal that rests unread in her lap for the short journey. She skips a few tracks on her phone until something classical with thundering percussion
and no words fills her head. All the better not to think to.
Just as she gets out of the taxi, dreading an empty house, she sees her ex waiting. Leaning against the garden wall, Angela makes for a tall silhouette, but one Veronica can still recognise anywhere. Those broad shoulders, the regal tilt to her jawline—it couldn’t be anyone else. The soft cloud of her afro is gone these days, but the close-shaved look is just as striking on her. It’s nice to still see some of what Veronica loved about her in stolen moments like these.
“He’d better be in there.” And thus the nostalgic spell is broken. That passes for a greeting when it comes to her ex-wife these days. Angela doesn’t bother adding a hug or any kind of physical contact to her words, not the easy way she always used to.
“Danny? He didn’t say anything about coming here. And you could have called if you were looking for him.”
“Well, he’s not answering the door and I don’t have a key. He’s an hour past curfew and his phone’s turned off. Yours is just ringing out.”
The obvious reply is a sarcastic one, and sure enough Veronica can almost feel it queuing up on her tongue. She summons one last scrap of energy, and her better instincts along with it.
“Well, let’s see if he’s here. Sorry about the calls, I was in a late meeting.” She opens the front door and can feel the emptiness of the house from the first step. “And then we’ll go looking, if you drive.”
“Out partying, were we?” Angela accuses, but her heart doesn’t seem in it.
“Couple of glasses with a colleague having a tough time, if you must know.” Veronica slings her light coat over the bannister and heads upstairs, looking around. No shoes kicked off, no schoolbag full of homework dumped in the hallways. She calls out for Danny, getting no response, as expected.
Angela isn’t satisfied. “Can I go upstairs and check? Just for my peace of mind?”
Veronica nods. What does it cost her at this point? She’s trying to ignore the chill down her spine, the creeping dread she’s only known since becoming a parent. She listens to Angela’s progress by footsteps, only moving when she hears them reach the stairs.
“I found this?” Angela says when she gets to the bottom. There’s a little red book in her hand. “I thought it looked a bit like a school book, but it says Cassandra Taylor inside the cover? Who’s she when she’s in our home?”
“A home you haven’t lived in for two years, Ange.”
“I thought it was Daniel’s, okay? I’ll mind my business.” Angela holds up her hands in surrender, before tossing the book at Veronica. “I suppose I’ll have to go looking for him now.”
They don’t say it, but the weighted look between them expresses a hundred worries about raising a brown-skinned son in London. No amount of choosing a safe neighbourhood or the right school is protection enough. As parents they’ve worried over every scraped knee and bruise, right through to the reality of his teens where gangs and knives and drugs are lurking in even more places than anyone imagines. On top of that, there’s the risk of him being stopped or roughed up by the police, just for not being white enough in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Daniel knows all this. They’ve talked him through it a hundred times between them, and his uncles and cousins on Angela’s side have stressed that they don’t have the luxury of skipping curfew, going off on their own, or neglecting to check in. There’s too many horror stories, and Veronica has certainly seen enough of them filtered through A&E on a weekend.
It’s so late on Thursday that it’s a yawn away from Friday. She could sleep where she stands. And yet the knot in her stomach of pure panic, the spiralling weight of it, is waking her up again by the second. They need a plan. Action helps; useless fretting does nothing.
“He’ll head home, if anywhere.” Veronica leads Angela back to the kitchen and its kettle. Two cups of strong tea, just a splash of milk, coming up.
“Mrs Okosha from next door is keeping an eye out. She’s up with her husband’s coughing anyway, so she’ll call if he comes home.”
The kettle starts to heat, and Veronica goes through the motions of fetching cups and tea bags. “I assume you checked the website for delays? If he’s just stuck on a train somewhere, or there are overnight roadworks.”
“Vee, please. I’m not that desperate to see you, so you have to understand if I’m coming here, I’m already worried. For good reason.”
“Then we can take my car and go looking. Tea first to make sure we’re both alert. Then we take all his likely routes home. Oh! I’ll call work, have them check admissions. And I’m sure Wendy in triage will ask her husband for me. He’s a fraud detective or something, but they’re all coppers in the end. Nice bloke. You know, considering.”
While Veronica’s no fan of the police herself, she does see what they’re up against whenever they appear at the hospital. It doesn’t erase what they’ve done to her family and friends over the years, or how many needless traffic stops she’s had ever since her cars got into a certain price range.
She pours the tea, frowning as Angela adds a lot more milk and two heaps of sugar to hers. “You’re supposed to be watching that,” Veronica warns, careful to keep it light. “A diabetic coma won’t help anyone.”
Angela rolls her eyes, taking quick sips of the tea. She never did wait for it to cool. “Drink up, then, so we can get going.”
After half a mug, Veronica straightens. “Okay, come on.” She moves across the kitchen to dig the car keys out of the drawer. “I swear, if that little shit is chatting up a girl somewhere with his phone turned off, he’s grounded for a year.”
“If he’s chatting up a girl, he gets it from you,” Angela chimes in, taking the offered keys for Veronica’s Audi. “This new?”
“Trade in,” Veronica fibs. They don’t have alimony; it’s none of Angela’s business how she spends her money. But still. “The last one had a steering issue.”
“Right.” Angela’s favourite hobby, when things first turned sour, was telling Veronica the many, myriad ways in which she sold out. From her expensive cars to changing her name, right down to shopping at the posh organic supermarket—which happened to be nearest—rather than getting down to the market for fresh veg and spices as their parents had done, everything was a symptom of assimilation.
Most of the streets are ones Veronica recognises. She grew up further west, and Angela’s new place is just outside of Hammersmith, so the routes are logical enough that she doesn’t have to offer suggestions or turn on the Satnav. Instead, she turns the radio to a local station she generally ignores, waiting for the next news bulletin between the dusty eighties hits.
Angela slots her phone into the dashboard holder, and they both glance at it every time it lights up with a new message. Clearly she’s already put the word out to the loose network of fellow parents and local relatives who might have seen their boy. When they park for the first time, at the McDonald’s that Daniel swears he doesn’t waste any pocket money at, Veronica makes good on her promise to rouse her A&E colleagues, and their police contacts with it.
“Can’t we report him missing already?” Angela asks when they get back in the car.
“You know better than I do that we can’t yet. Let’s not lose our heads entirely.” Despite the tension, Veronica risks reaching across slightly to pat Angela’s jeans-clad thigh.
“How many mothers have said that, hmm? Told themselves they were being hysterical. It’s a gut feeling, Vee. I know you don’t spend the same time with him, but trust me on this, okay?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” It’s snappish, and Veronica isn’t sorry. “Let’s cool it on competing for mother of the year and focus on looking for Daniel.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
Later, the car purrs through another junction—Notting Hill this time, because he still comes up this way on weekends—and they scan the pavements
for any signs of their son.
The sun has been up for more than an hour when Veronica calls it quits, parked outside Angela’s new flat. Of course she bought it a few years ago now, but everything after the home they shared is still labelled new to Veronica.
“We’ll try your place one more time, in case the neighbour missed him. Then I need to shower and change.”
“What for?”
Veronica isn’t expecting the challenge. “What for? For work, of course. It’s bad enough I’m going to be tired and irritable, I’d rather be hygienic and less crumpled at least.”
“No, I mean, you’re going into work?” The darker circles under Angela’s eyes must mirror her own.
Veronica tries to summon the fondness she felt for so many years for this face. Those high cheekbones, eyebrows with their broad, dark lines. Full lips that Veronica has kissed more than any others. Almost fifteen years together, and one beautiful, cheeky, missing son to show for it. “I have to keep busy. There’s only so much we can do.”
“No, right, of course. I’ll drop you an email or something if he shows up before Sunday?”
“Angela, don’t.”
“Just go to your fucking hospital, yeah? I’ll be here, waiting for him.”
“He’ll show up. Trust me, he’s just going to get the bollocking of his young life when he does, okay? Is there someone who’ll come wait with you?”
A nod. “Yeah, I’ve got people.”
Veronica doesn’t press any further. Part of her just doesn’t want to know. There’s a reason she doesn’t pull all-nighters anymore. Her eyes feel gritty and there’s a low-grade headache, probably thanks to dehydration.
“The hospital is another place he might show up, for better or worse.” Veronica is trying not to think about the worse. “Ideally because he knows he’s in trouble and he’ll come there first to try and manipulate me. Or, well. Let’s hope not the other way, yes?”
Angela startles her by leaning across the front seat now their seatbelts are off, pulling Veronica into a hug. Just like that, the bubble in the back of her throat seems to burst, and the first panicked tears come.