Emergency: Wife Lost and Found (4 page)

‘Mum, you’ve done enough already, both of you.’ She lay back on the pillow, exhausted, even though it was only eight-thirty in the morning. ‘I’m so sorry for all the trouble.’

‘These things are sent to try us!’ her father said, giving her a rather wintry smile. ‘We’ll ring when we get home.’

How, Lorna tried to fathom, could he always make her feel guilty? He could make her feel like a troublesome child with one look, even at thirty-two years of age. She could feel the tension start to seep out of the
room as the door closed. Despite drifting in and out of consciousness, she had seen more of her parents these past few days that she had in ages, just concentrated time, with no nieces or nephews to distract, no parishioners dropping in. Just the three of them stuck in this blessed room and James Morrell, as she had found out, on the loose in the building!

‘Hello, there!’ A kind, lined face, speaking in a thick Dublin accent, walked towards her and with a small smile Lorna held out her arm for her blood pressure to be taken. ‘Lorna McClelland, and I’m in North London Regional Hospital.’

‘So you are.’ The nurse smiled. ‘Only I’m not here to do your obs. I’m May Donnelly. I was working in Emergency when you were brought in. I’ve just come to see how you’re getting on.’

‘I’m sorry!’ Embarrassed, Lorna winced. ‘Believe it or not, I was making a joke. I couldn’t remember my own name for the first couple of days, let alone tell them where I was.’

‘I’m not surprised!’ May perched on the edge of the bed and Lorna moved her knees. ‘You gave us quite a fright.’

‘I’ve given everyone a fright!’ Lorna sighed. ‘My parents just went home.’

‘Good or bad?’ May asked, and there was something about her eyes, something so knowing in that question, that Lorna felt relief. Tears welled in her eyes for the first time since the accident.

‘I’ve just caused so much trouble…’

‘Accidents do that.’ May patted her arm. ‘But it’s not you causing the trouble.’

‘You don’t know them.’

‘No,’ May said gently. ‘But I did meet them on the night of your accident.’

‘Oh.’

‘I was with James when he came up to Intensive Care to see you.’

She couldn’t even manage an ‘oh’.

So he had been to see her. Her parents hadn’t told her that. Her father had said he’d had a brief discussion with James, who of course had wanted to check that she was recovering, but that James had felt it better if he didn’t come to see her.

‘He was the doctor in charge when you were brought in.’ May let the words sink in and it took a while. Lorna closed her eyes as she tried, and failed, to comprehend how it must have been for him. They may only have been married a short while, but she couldn’t fathom her own response if she’d been on duty and it had been James who’d been brought in critically ill.

‘Did he tell you?’ Lorna asked. ‘Do you know that we…?’ Her voice trailed off, but May nodded.

‘I only found out that he’d been married that evening.’

‘How was he? How was he when he realised it was me?’

‘That would be telling tales out of school,’ May said, ‘but naturally he was upset. He’s asked me to come up and see you.’ Those tears were welling but Lorna sniffed them back. It hurt that he was still so bitter or, worse, blasé, that he couldn’t even come and check on her himself, hurt more than it rightly should. Only May hadn’t finished. ‘He was hoping to come up and see you
himself, but he didn’t want to, if it might upset you further.’

‘No.’ Lorna shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I thought he might have come up already.’

‘He would have, except…’ May gave her arm a little squeeze ‘…it might have been hard on you, with your parents here and everything.’

‘Did Dad tell him not to?’ May didn’t answer. ‘Ask him since when he listened to my father?’ And they came then, the tears she’d been holding back since her eyes had opened in ICU. It was the sheer horror of waking up sore and bruised and not knowing where she was and finding out her parents were here and that James was too. It wasn’t just a car that had crashed that day, her whole world had. If May had pressed a tissue in her hand and told her to calm down it would have been better, but instead she was stroking her hair and patiently telling her to let it out. ‘You have a good cry, pet.’ So Lorna did, for the first time since she had awoken to this strange, confusing world. When she had finished and May asked if there was anything she could do for her, Lorna felt so much better she was tempted to ask if May didn’t mind going to buy some decent pyjamas for her, but thought that might be pushing it.

‘I’ll let him know you’ll see him.’

It wasn’t exactly the look one hoped for when you had to meet one’s ex, Lorna thought, wishing she had the energy to drag a comb through her hair and trying frantically not to think of the bigger picture, wondering what he’d look like, what they’d say to each other, what she’d say to him if he asked why she’d walked out on him all those years ago.

But nothing, not an hour lying thinking about it and racking her brains as to how she would feel, came close to the sweep of emotion as he pushed open the door and for the first time in a decade she came face to face with him.

‘Lorna…’

She couldn’t speak, just had no idea what to say as he stood there. His voice was just as deep, his shoulders just as broad, his eyes just as green. She’d thought she’d finished crying with that nice Irish nurse, but the second he walked into the room Lorna started again.

Ten years of pain came bubbling to the surface as the man she loved, the man she had always loved, walked towards her once more.

H
E’D
had no idea what he would say, or do. He didn’t know if he was angry, bitter, hurt, or simply no longer cared any more. Very deliberately James hadn’t examined those feelings in years and certainly he’d tried not to these past few days. But seeing the way the tip of her nose went red, just as it had back then, seeing those huge amber eyes well the second he walked into the room, seeing the black, swollen eyelids and the glimpse of her badly bruised chest peeking out from her pyjamas and hearing her sob, knowing all she had just been through—it was entirely right that gently, very gently, he took her in his arms.

How could he not?

‘It’s okay, you’re okay…’ He said it over and over, to himself not just to her. He held her and breathed her in, because the last time he’d held her he’d thought she must die or, worse, live with a mind that wasn’t hers. He let her go only when the nurse came in to do her obs. He watched Lorna blink as she correctly stated where she was but she faltered on the date.

‘Do you know what day it is?’

‘Wednesday…’ Lorna blinked. ‘I mean…’ She shook her head.

‘It’s Friday,’ the nurse said. ‘Don’t worry Lorna, it will all come back. Do you need anything?’

‘Just some water, please.’ James frowned at the full jug and tumbler on the table beside them, wondering why she didn’t get it herself, but he watched as the nurse poured her a drink and peeled open a straw, holding the cup for Lorna, who took a couple of sips.

Only then did James realise just how fragile she was.

‘My hands.’ Lorna explained a bit sheepishly. ‘They’re still a bit numb, I keep dropping things.’

‘You’ll get there.’

‘So everyone keeps saying.’

‘So how are you?’ James asked once they were alone.

‘Not bad, considering.’

‘Considering what?’ James asked shrewdly, seeing the nervous dart of her eyes as he gently confronted her. ‘How are you really?’

‘Scared.’ Lorna admitted it for the first time. Not wanting to create waves while her parents had been there, she’d been the model patient, had tried to answer all their questions without asking any of her own, but somehow to James she could admit the truth. ‘I don’t actually know what I’m doing here.’

‘Has anyone told you what happened?’

‘I don’t know.’ He could see the terror in her eyes. Her voice was still hoarse from the endotracheal tube and no matter how much of an improvement there was, he was reminded, if he needed it, just how very ill she had been recently. ‘I mean, I know there was a car accident, I know I was in London for some job inter-views,
I just don’t understand what’s happened to me. I didn’t want to worry my parents by telling them how confused I am. I feel like I’ve missed the start of a film and I can’t ask anyone to explain. I don’t even know what day it is till someone tells me.’

‘Hey.’ This he
could
deal with. In this case he did know what to do. ‘You’ve been so ill, Lorna. Just three days ago you were in Intensive Care. It’s normal
not
to be able to remember things.’

‘Not as badly as this—’

‘Yes.’ James interrupted. ‘Yes, Lorna. The fact we’re even having this conversation shows you’ve got insight. That’s good.’

‘I guess.’ She let his word soothe her, lay back on the pillows and closed her eyes for a moment.

‘Do you want me to fill you in?’ James saw her frown and because it was Lorna, even with a head injury, he knew what she was thinking. ‘I meant fill you in on the last week.’ He watched a smile lift the edges of her pale lips as he continued, ‘Not the last decade!’

‘Please, then.’

‘Do you want me to write it down?’ He smiled a touch when she gave a small giggle.

‘Just tell me and if I’ve forgotten again by the time you go then, yes, write it down.’

‘You did have a car accident, there was a coach crash on the M1, you do have a head injury, but from all the reports it’s slight.’

‘But I was unconscious for hours, Mum said, before they found me.’

‘No. Do you keep a blanket in the car?’ She frowned and nodded.

‘On the back seat. There’s a tear…’

‘Well, you were wrapped in it when they found you so you must have come to at some point and had the ability to know you were cold and needed to get warm. Lorna, it took them a long time to find your car.’ He couldn’t stand to think of what she’d been through. Maybe it was better if she didn’t remember it, but James realised she had to know the truth. ‘It was four or so hours before your car was found. You’d veered to avoid the collision apparently—and you lost control. In all the chaos of the major incident your car wasn’t noticed till the clear-up.’

There was a tiny chirrup, like a bird singing that she couldn’t see but could picture, an image flitting into her mind of trying to get her phone but not being able to reach to the floor of the car, her head a lead weight against the headrest, snow billowing in through the smashed windscreen. Inching her arm around the twisted seat, it had taken for ever, but she had reached the blanket, she
had
known to stay warm.

‘You’ve been through an awful lot, but you’re coming out of it now.’ James said assuredly. ‘You really are doing marvellously.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’ James nodded. ‘You’ll soon be back to the old Lorna.’ He gave a small swallow, as he remembered the Lorna of old. ‘Okay, I’d better get down to the department now.’

‘You’re a consultant?’

‘Yes.’

‘You always said that’s what you wanted to do.’

Oh, there had been a lot of things he’d wanted, but
James just smiled, wished her well again and deliberately didn’t kiss her on the cheek.

‘Are you on over the weekend?’

‘Not officially. I’ll be called in a couple of times no doubt.’

‘Well, if you are, it would be nice if you could stop by.’

He gave a small nod that didn’t say yes and didn’t say no—more a
we’ll see
—and she lay watching the door long after he’d gone, soothed by his visit but unsettled all the same. She should never have asked him to come and visit her. Lorna turned and stared at the now familiar sight of the hospital generator. She was depleted completely by the morning’s events, not even turning her head when the nurse came in and changed the rate on her IV. Instead, the little energy Lorna had left was all being concentrated on James.

Stay away, she willed him. Even though she wanted him to come and visit, for his sake she hoped that he didn’t.

For James’s sake, she truly hoped that he’d stay away.

‘H
ERE.
’ James put down his pager and keys and placed a large take-out coffee in front of Lorna and started to peel a straw from its wrapper, but she stopped him.

‘I’m doing better.’ She smiled, taking a sip of decent coffee and relishing it for a moment before continuing. ‘And I am
not
drinking coffee through a straw.’

She
was
doing better. Since her parents had gone and James had explained things, the mist seemed to be clearing a touch. Lorna had chatted with the nurses, even walked the length of the ward a couple of times, shuffling along as the nurse had pushed her drip, but it felt good to be up and about, and it felt even better to see James again.

‘May said you were on duty when I came in.’ Her eyes met his, knew, despite all that had happened between them, how appalling that must have been. ‘I’m so sorry for that.’

‘It’s hardly your fault. Still, it never entered my head it might be you when the ambulance doors opened—I never thought I’d see you here. So how come you were looking for a job in London?’

‘I had four interviews lined up.’ As she told him, she was remembering things herself.

‘So you’re moving back here?’

‘If I get one of the jobs…’

‘I thought you hated London, you said you weren’t happy—’ He stopped himself then. Now was surely not the time to examine their past.

‘It wasn’t the place,’ Lorna said quietly, which could only mean that it had been their relationship that she’d hated, or him. ‘I’ve been working as a GP, and I’ve also been doing some cover at one of the cottage hospitals. I just wanted a change—I really liked working in a big city hospital.’

‘They have them in Scotland,’ James pointed out.

‘I just…’ She shook her head, just wouldn’t go there with him. ‘I just wanted a change. I handed in my notice last month, and I thought I’d have no trouble getting a job, but the interviews didn’t go too well. I think they look at the patient numbers I’m used to dealing with and think I’m not equipped to cope. They don’t seem to want to understand that often I’m the only doctor around for miles—they don’t seem to comprehend the scope of things I have to deal with.’

‘You should have called me.’ James gave a half-smile. ‘I could have put in a word.’

‘I almost wish I had.’ There was a small rueful smile on her lips. ‘So now I’m jobless, homeless, and my car’s a write-off.’

‘Homeless?’ James frowned.

‘I put my flat on the market ages ago. It sold really suddenly, but they wanted a quick settlement, so it was either lose the sale or get out. I’m staying at a friend’s.
She’s on holiday at the moment so I’m house-sitting. It was only supposed to be for a couple of weeks, that’s why I had so many interviews lined up.’

‘Well, you’re a guest of North London Regional Hospital for the next week or so.’ James smiled. ‘Who knows? They might give you a job offer.’

She fiddled with his keyring for something to do, saw, then felt the weight of a big silver ‘L’ that hung from it.

‘Not you.’ James smiled, noticing her noticing the key ring. ‘I’m not that much of a sad case.’

‘I know.’ She put down his keys, flushed just a touch at the edge in his voice and knew he was telling the truth. ‘James, I hate to ask a favour. I did ask my mum but she came back from the shop with the wrong one. Do you think—if you get a chance, I mean—you could buy me a phone charger?’

‘Sure.’ He rummaged in her drawer and found her phone then wrote down the model number. ‘It won’t be till tomorrow, though, I’ve got a list of things to do today and then I’ve got a wedding reception to go to tonight.’

‘That will be nice.’ She stopped as he pulled a face. ‘You’re not looking forward to it, then.’

‘It’s Ellie’s cousin. He’s a real pain, neither of us want to go.’

‘Ellie?’

‘My girlfriend.’ James said, walking over to the window and staring out at the hospital generator, billowing smoke into the cold grey sky as Lorna leant back on the pillows. The L on his keyring made sense now. Of course, it should be an E, but James had always
done that sort of thing differently. L-E—she spelt it out to herself as she lay there. She was relieved when James made a move to go. ‘I’d better get going. I’m supposed to be getting a haircut at twelve.’

‘Of course.’ She gave a bright smile. ‘Thanks for coming to see me, and for explaining things yesterday—I feel so much better.’

‘Good.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow then.’ He gave a brief frown. He shouldn’t have said he’d come and visit her tomorrow. That wasn’t a habit he should be forming.

‘Of course.’ He gave her a smile and there was an awkward moment, when again he chose not to give her a kiss on the cheek. The ease with which he’d pulled her into his arms yesterday was starting to worry him. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

As he walked back down to the department James’s phone buzzed and he stared at the screen, but chose not to answer.

Ellie.

He’d deliberately said her name to Lorna. At the first opportunity he had let Lorna know about Ellie. Because he’d had to, because he’d needed to, because it was right to.

Only he wasn’t doing it just to be loyal to his girlfriend.

It was called self-preservation.