Emergency: Wife Lost and Found (9 page)

T
HE
trouble with reunion sex, Lorna decided as they fell through the front door, tearing at each other’s faces with their mouths, is that you
know
how the other likes it. On the rather rapid drive home she’d fleetingly wondered if they’d run a bath, or make slow blissful tender love, but when he stalled the car, reversing it into his rather small parking spot and then forgot to put his handbrake on and she had to remind him, Lorna was quietly delighted that that would all come later—after all, they had the whole night.

The trouble with condoms, Lorna also decided as he kissed her into the hall, was that nice guys, which James was, didn’t suddenly whip one from their wallet, one that they’d been carrying just in case. Oh, she knew where they were, she’d seen them when she’d been rummaging in his bathroom, except the stairs looked like Mount Everest all of a sudden and her oxygen levels were somewhat depleted as he pulled his rugby shirt off her and she kicked off her shoes, and James shrugged out of his jacket.

They did
try,
Lorna reasoned as she sank to her knees, a pile of clothes strewn in their wake…

‘Oh, Lorna.’

He was taking off her bra now, kissing the little breasts she’d always hated so, but that James had adored. Their little buds swelled in his lips and beneath his fingers as, spoiled for choice, he greeted them both. His shirt was off but she couldn’t remember removing it. She ran her hands along his familiar shoulders and then slipped them under his arms. Her long, cold fingers checked every rib, every vertebra as her mouth moved over his broad shoulder. It took only seconds—just a few seconds to familiarise her fingers, her mouth, her skin with the delicious planes of his body. They might have made it up the stairs had she not found his belt, wrestled with the heavy leather, tried to get his trousers down. It was rather awkward while he was kneeling, so he stood and dispensed with the clothing as Lorna attempted the final summit, but then he caught her ankle and the attempt was thwarted, the climb happily abandoned.

James, four steps down, was kissing her deeply
there,
her legs wrapped around his head and her fingers tugging at his hair, his lovely soft hair, and his big thick arms that held her buttocks as his hands spanned her waist. It was James, and it was bliss, and she couldn’t stop crying, and she couldn’t stop saying his name, because that was what he did to her. He pulled at every emotion buried inside her and exposed it, took all guilt and shame and erased it, because if this beautiful man wanted her so much, so very, very much, then surely it had to be good, and with James it was.

It just was.

And she’d miss him for ever.

She could hear him moaning, and that told her before she even knew it that she was going to come, because he knew her body better than her. She wanted him inside her, didn’t want to do it alone, so she was tugging at his head, dragging that lovely body up to her level.

‘Are you on the Pill?’ He had a lovely dewy look in his eyes, a lusty, almost drunk look that drove her to delicious distraction. In this trance-like state he struggled to deal with the practicalities, but luckily Lorna had already dealt with them, long ago.

‘Yes!’

She was on the Pill, she was on hundreds of bloody pills, in fact, but she told him only about the one that mattered, only the one that he needed to know about today.

‘Yes!’ She was pleading, begging, urgent. ‘Yes!’ She wept as he swept into her, and she welcomed him with tight, tight hugs, a sweet frantic release as he groaned, as he took her to a place, a white-noise place that drowned out everything, took her back to their little island where it was only the two of them and nothing and no one could touch them.

‘The best,’ he said, kissing her with a kiss she didn’t have a name for yet, laced with tenderness and regret and something else she couldn’t find the word for, but she’d work that one out later.

And then the night was just for them—and them alone—back in his bedroom closing the door on the world, shutting it all away as they slowly kissed each other goodbye.

‘I
HAVE
to get away by midday.’ Pauline surveyed the bomb site that was the kitchen on the following Monday morning. The surfaces were littered with mugs and champagne glasses and the scent of debauchery was in the air. Not that you could tell from looking at him. Not that you could ever tell from looking at him! Clean shaven, he was wearing one of those blessed linen shirts that took for ever for her to iron and chomping on his toast. Butter wouldn’t have melted in his mouth as he sat reading the paper.

‘No problem.’

‘I might not get it all done.’ She bobbed her head into the lounge, which unfortunately was the only decent room in the place; she’d been hoping to tackle it today because there was a show she wanted to watch at eleven. Still, he had pay TV in his room, Pauline reminded herself. ‘I’ll do your bedroom after the kitchen. Give it a good spring clean now that Lorna’s gone.’

‘Actually…’ James stood up and attempted to find his keys. ‘Could you leave the bedroom? I started doing
my tax return last night, there are papers everywhere. Don’t even go in.’ He flashed her a smile. ‘I’ve got a pile of receipts.’

Work was busy, which for James was good—anything to take his mind off her. He immersed himself in the rhythm of the busy department. A cyclist hit by a taxi got him through to eight forty-five a.m. before the trauma team took over his case. A jogger with a dislocated patella was a quick distraction. James popped it back while the patient was still on the stretcher. That got him to nine a.m. Then there was a meeting in Admin. He did try to focus, but his foot kept tapping and he kept having to ask the CEO if he’d mind repeating the question.

‘I wasn’t asking a question,’ Brent Gillard said tartly. ‘I was
stating
that the delays have been far too long in your department in recent weeks.’

‘Because we’re two doctors down,’ James answered back. ‘Because the consultants and registrars are dealing with the stuff that the SHOs usually do.’

‘We’ve provided locums,’ Brent responded coolly.

‘Just never the same one twice.’ James’s tone would have cut ice. ‘Which means they have to be orientated, which means they don’t even know where the IV trolley is, or the patella hammer, or how to use the paging system…I could go on.’

‘Please don’t.’ Brent said. ‘Just get the waiting times down.’

James was not best pleased when he strode back into Emergency, especially when May followed him into his office.

‘I don’t care if this is a bad time!’ May slammed the door closed in a way only a very good colleague could, but he was boiling too, refusing to look at her, refusing to respond, lest he say the wrong thing. He flicked through his emails as May ranted on. ‘I have just had another locum
shouting
at one of
my
nurses because she dared to buzz him on his coffee-break. I tell you, James, this place is at breaking point. Something has to give.’

‘It just did.’ James looked up at his favourite nurse. ‘I quit!’

‘No!’ May practically shrivelled in front of him. ‘No, James.’

‘Er, I was joking!’

‘Cheeky pup.’

‘Remember Dean Hayes?’

‘The one with the terrible dandruff?’ May frowned as she placed him.

‘That’s him.’ James nodded. ‘Well, he’s jetting off to Europe in two months and has emailed asking for every shift available.’

‘He is good.’ May nodded, but was only slightly mollified.

‘And Lorna.’ James cleared his throat. ‘She just sent in her résumé. She can start in two weeks, light duties only, but she’s very good, very sharp.’

‘She’s a GP, isn’t she?’

‘She is—and she also covers a rural area, so she’s pretty used to dealing with whatever lands in her lap, though she might struggle with the volume.’

‘She’ll cope.’

‘And I’ll go and have a word with the locum.’

‘Right!’ May gave him a very nice smile. ‘That is better!’

‘I’ll email Dean and give him a pile of work.’ He gave a shrug. ‘I’ll ring Admin now and tell them I’ve just done a telephone interview with Lorna. I know it’s been hard on the nursing staff…’

‘We’ll get there.’ May smiled. ‘Okay, I’ll give the girls the news and then I’m off.’

‘It’s only midday.’

‘Ah, but I’m on the old contract.’ May smiled. ‘And I’m glad that I dug my heels in—I still get my half-days!’

That took him to midday, but all he wanted to do was go home, all he wanted to do was remember. He had no qualms about Pauline cleaning up behind him, he’d long since stopped feeling embarrassed when he’d come home to find a neat little pile of earrings and bras that she’d retrieved during her working day. He no longer noticed the way her mouth disappeared into itself when a pretty new face tumbled into the kitchen as she was unloading the dishwasher.

He wanted his room as Lorna had left it—wanted the scent of her in the bedroom and a couple of long auburn hairs on his bathroom floor for just a little while longer—
then
he’d deal with getting over her.

Again.

‘H
IS
tax return?’ May lowered the elevation on her treadmill so she was walking on flat ground at two miles an hour. ‘He’s doing his tax return at this time of the year?’

‘He’s got papers everywhere,’ Pauline huffed, still climbing up that hill, ‘apparently.’

‘Apparently?’

‘I’m not to open the door in case it disturbs his receipts.’

They stopped talking for a minute, first to get their breath back and second, to ponder the lovely young man who was working on his pectorals.

‘I did pop in to say goodbye to Lorna,’ Pauline added fifteen minutes later as they rewarded their workout with croissants and cappuccinos. ‘It would have been so lovely to see her before she went, but I didn’t have the heart to disturb them, they were up in his bedroom.’

‘In his bedroom, you say?’

‘She was crying.’ Pauline said, discreetly
not
mentioning the underwear strewn banister that had greeted her along with the thuds from the bedroom. ‘Up in her
room, well, his room, but she’s used it since she was there. It has a bathroom, you see.’

‘Well, that makes sense.’ May nodded. ‘She was crying, you say?’

‘Sobbing actually,’ Pauline confirmed, pursing her lips and catching May’s eyes. ‘It would break the coldest heart to hear it—it’s good that he was there.’ She took a bite of her croissant. ‘To comfort her, of course.’

‘Poor pet,’ May tutted, then rallied. ‘Did I mention she was coming back?’

S
HE
was just a colleague.

Over and over he told himself that as he skimmed through her résumé.

She was also his ex-wife, James consoled himself as he read it more closely, as every detail was imprinted for ever on his mind.

It was natural to be curious.

Natural to notice that she’d now become an organ donor and that her hobbies were listed as swimming, tennis and triathalon.

Liar, liar, liar James had wanted to respond to her, but he fired it over to Admin and sent a quick email to her headed ‘Reading, reading, reading’, which he knew she’d understand. That was the only hobby he’d ever seen her indulging in! Then he sat back, watching as his past developed into the present.

The security check cleared, and then in came her new London address, which meant that she was already here in London. Then her certificate check came through too.

It was a slow process and one he was entirely used
to. Then the thick envelope arrived—the one he couldn’t open—with her medical details that were sealed and had to go straight to Admin. It contained her past medical history. It infuriated him that the ectopic pregnancy would be in her notes but not in his. It had hurt him just as much, but apparently it didn’t count.

Oh, but it did.

He’d
told
her to sign the consent form. In bitter truthfulness with himself, James admitted that in the end he’d been impatient with her. He’d had to be firm with her. The registrar had taken him aside and told him there was no way the baby could survive and if they delayed and the pregnancy ruptured, yes, they were in a big hospital and they would be onto it straight away, but there would be serious risks involved.

‘Just sign the form, Lorna.’ Ten years on he could still recall the expression on her face when he’d pushed her to get on with the inevitable—a mixture of grief, hurt, trust and hate, as her shaky hand had taken the pen from him. They’d wheeled her off to Theatre some five minutes later, and there had been a sense of foreboding inside him as he’d sat in the waiting room, watching the clock.

He’d known they’d lost the baby, but somehow he’d also lost
them.
That dark thought had been confirmed when she’d come to after the operation. She had removed her hand from his and then rolled on her side and faced the curtain. In a particularly cruel twist, the female ward had been under refurbishment, so she had only been a corridor away from Maternity—babies’ cries carried at night.

‘Lorna, talk to me.’ Over and over he said it, hoping
things would improve once they got home, except they didn’t. It felt like two strangers waking up after a wild party to find they had nothing in common except for the mess and the misery they had both created.

There
were
certain privileges to being a doctor, however.

If you could call them that.

James was able to call up the results from that little jar neatly labelled ‘POC’ that had headed off to the lab. He could still remember crawling into bed and holding Lorna’s taut, skinny body, trying to imbue some warmth into her, desperate to hold her, to scoop her into his arms and cry with her.

Except Lorna was in a different place.

A dark, lonely place where she did not want him beside her.

But he was lonely too—holding that knowledge inside him, getting up to go to the loo at two a.m. and wanting to kick the door.

His little Product of Conception—or POC because it was too long to write on the label—had been their baby, a little girl, their daughter, and he’d never told Lorna that, because surely it was easier not to know.

He missed his daughter.

He missed Lily—Lily Morrell, it was the name they had decided on for a girl, and
how
he missed her.

Not every minute, not even every day—but even ten years on,
still
he missed that amber-eyed brunette or that green-eyed redhead, or that black-haired, black-eyed girl they might just have made. This little puzzle of genes and personality that hadn’t clicked into place—he
still rued the card that fate had dealt them and still he mourned that glimpse of fatherhood.

Who, James thought as he shoved the envelope into its pigeonhole and sent it on its way to the nameless faces in Admin, said that men had it easy?