Unsuitable Men (31 page)

And I’d repaid her by being selfish and thoughtless and rude. She was right: I’d assumed that my brave and clever aunt was some doddery woman to be made a fool of by the conniving
plumber. Whatever Jim’s motives, and I still suspected them, Auntie Lyd could take care of herself. More than that, she took care of everyone else, too. I owed her a proper apology. I left
the rest of my wine sitting on the table and said goodbye to the owner, who called after me to send my aunt to see him soon.

The afternoon light was just turning to dusk as I turned the corner into Elgin Square. One street light cast an orange glow from the far side of the children’s playground, but the rest of
the square squatted in a murky gloom. On the white steps of Auntie Lyd’s house I could see the figure of a man, sitting with his head held in his hands, his dark coat spread out on either
side of him. I had imagined this sight so many times that I doubted what I was seeing, certain I must have hallucinated it. I stopped still. Even from this distance, even with his head buried in
his palms, I knew that figure better than any other. I would have recognized him from twice the distance. Martin.

As if he had felt my eyes on him, Martin raised his head up, and slowly got to his feet. My legs carried me unsteadily towards him. His hand reached for the wrought-iron gate at the bottom of
the steps just as mine did, and for a moment we both stood there, the gate between us, our fingers touching.

‘Rory,’ said Martin, putting his cold hand over mine. My first thought was to snatch my hand away, but instead I stayed still, waiting to hear why he was there. We were standing so
close that I thought he must be able to hear that I had almost stopped breathing.

‘Yes?’ I whispered.

‘Your aunt’s had a heart attack. I’m here to take you to the hospital.’

It felt both entirely familiar and perfectly surreal to be at Martin’s side in his car again. As if nothing at all had changed, and also as if everything had. Martin
explained all that he knew: Auntie Lyd had collapsed at the butcher’s this afternoon. The butcher had found a next-of-kin card in her wallet and, failing to reach me by the mobile number
listed, had called the number marked ‘Rory: home’. Thank God Martin had been there to take her call. He told me he had driven to the house and found that no one knew where I was. The
plumber had taken Percy and Eleanor to the hospital to wait for news, while Martin had sat alone on the cold steps waiting for my return. I was sick with shame. As if I hadn’t already felt
guilty enough about taking her for granted, now my proud aunt had collapsed in a butcher’s shop, all alone, taken away in an ambulance by strangers with no way to contact her nearest
relative. While I self-indulgently slept in a cinema, and drank wine afterwards, feeling sorry for myself.

Martin glanced at me as I huddled in the passenger seat, not speaking, dry-eyed with fear of what I would find at the hospital. He rested his palm on my thigh, stroking my leg with his thumb as
he drove. When we were together I used to tease him about this dad-like move, calling it the Reassuring Thumb-Rub, but I didn’t feel reassured at all by it today. I let him carry on, though;
it felt rude to pull my leg away when he’d come all this way to help me. I just wanted to see Auntie Lyd and make sure she was okay. Martin had said she was going to be fine, but what did he
know? I cursed myself for losing my phone yesterday. How could I have been so stupid? It proved to me what I should have realized long ago – messing around with unsuitable men, trying to be
someone I wasn’t, brought trouble not only to me, but to the people I cared about. After all, who had ended up coming to the rescue but Martin, my once-suitable man? Didn’t that tell me
something important about the sort of person I should be with? It wasn’t like Malky had rushed to my aid, with his guitar on his back and his dog at his heels.

Martin dropped me off at the hospital entrance and went to park the car once I’d given him some cash; luckily I had a lot of pound coins in my purse because apparently the parking charges
were astronomical. Outside the hospital two thin old men stood in their dressing gowns, attached to drips which swung, full-bellied, next to them. They passed a cigarette between their yellowed
fingers.

‘Can you tell me where the cardiology unit is?’ I asked as the automatic doors slid open ahead of me.

The man nearest me coughed into his sleeve and wheezed, ‘G Wing, dear.’ His companion gave me a wan smile of sympathy.

I took the stairs, not willing to wait a moment for the lift to arrive, and feeling, too, that I wanted to punish myself in some way for letting Auntie Lydia down. I forced myself to run up the
four flights until I felt that my lungs would burst. My chest had only just stopped heaving when I pushed open the door marked
CARDIOLOGY WAITING ROOM
. There, looking
pathetically small on the hard yellow plastic chairs, were Eleanor and Percy, their hands clasped. I had grown so used to seeing them both every day that I registered with a shock, in this
unfamiliar environment, how frail they both were. Here in the harsh, antiseptic surroundings of the hospital, uncertain and confused, they looked elderly and frightened.

‘Rory,’ Eleanor quavered, standing up with difficulty. ‘Rory, my dear. You mustn’t worry. Lydia is going to be quite all right.’

‘Is she?’ I asked, grasping her hand. ‘Have you seen her?’

‘None of us has seen her,’ said Percy, rising up from his seat to stand next to Eleanor. ‘But Jim spoke to the doctor. He said it was a very minor attack. Lydia will have to
stay in for a few days, but she is going to be just fine.’

‘I want to see her,’ I said, looking around for a nurse. ‘I want to see her. Where’s Jim? Is he with her?’

Eleanor and Percy looked at one another. ‘I’m not sure where Jim is, dear,’ said Eleanor, leaning a little on Percy.

‘He said he had to sort out a few things, didn’t he, Eleanor?’ said Percy. ‘He said he’d be back soon.’

‘How long has he been gone?’ I asked. ‘How long have you been waiting here?’ It seemed outrageous to me that Jim would just leave these two frail pensioners alone in the
hospital. Eleanor’s face was lined with exhaustion and worry; they should have been at home.

Percy waved his hand dismissively. ‘A few hours. It’s nothing; nothing.’ He stumbled a little at Eleanor’s weight on him.

‘You both sit down,’ I said. ‘My boyf— I mean Martin, my friend Martin is here. That is, he’ll be here any minute. I’m going to get him to take you home. You
shouldn’t have had to wait here all this time.’

‘But we wanted to, dear, for Lydia,’ insisted Eleanor, sitting back down gratefully.

‘Auntie Lyd would want you both to be at home. I can call you if there are any updates. You’re both far too good to have waited for so long. I don’t know what Jim was thinking
of, leaving you here with no way of getting back.’

‘We could get the bus, dear,’ Eleanor suggested gently.

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ said a voice from the door. Martin glided into the room, extending his hands to Eleanor. I remembered suddenly how charming he could be when he tried;
my mother had always adored him. ‘Eleanor Avery, how is it possible that you don’t age like the rest of us? And Percy Granger? How marvellous to see you again, sir.’

Eleanor’s eyes swept from Martin to me, trying to assess the situation. I silently wished her luck with that one, since I had no idea what was going on myself. It had been extraordinarily
good of Martin to come all the way to Clapham to find me; it seemed quite bizarre that he was still at my side instead of driving back to North Sheen and his new girlfriend.

‘If Percy and Eleanor need a lift home then I insist on taking them,’ said Martin, executing a Reassuring Thumb-Rub on my shoulder. Behind him I saw a nurse passing the waiting-room
doors.

‘Thank you,’ I said distantly, distracted by the nurse, who failed to turn into the waiting room as I’d hoped. I turned back to him. ‘Yes, that would be brilliant. Thanks
so much, Martin, it’s really kind of you. Thank you.’

Martin helped Percy and Eleanor up and led them towards the doors. When he’d ushered them out he took a step back into the waiting room and wrapped his arms around me. Before I knew what I
was doing, I buried my head into his shoulder, inhaling the familiar scent of his coat.

‘I’ll drop them there and then I’ll come back to wait with you,’ he whispered into my hair. ‘You shouldn’t have to wait on your own.’

‘I’m fine. I’m really fine. You’ve done more than enough,’ I said. I pulled out of his embrace before I got too comfortable there. His behaviour was confusing me.
As was my own. Why was he here? And wasn’t I supposed to be shouting at him? Furious and angry? Not just falling gratefully into his arms as if we were still together.

‘No, I’m coming back,’ Martin insisted. I started to protest, but he placed a silencing finger on my lips. ‘Anyway, I’ve got a twenty-four-hour parking permit so I
shouldn’t waste it.’

When they had gone I stepped out into the corridor, but the nurse had gone. There didn’t appear to be anyone else I could ask about Auntie Lyd, so I went back into the empty waiting room.
It seemed to have been designed to keep anyone waiting in maximum discomfort – the plastic chairs were welded on to a metal rail so that they couldn’t be moved, and their ergonomically
designed curved edges discouraged any position other than sitting sharply upright. No wonder Percy and Eleanor had looked so drained by their hours here. I appreciated there was probably some
important medical reason why everything needed to be wipe-clean – superbugs or something – but it felt as if all the grief and fear was magnified and reflected in the harsh, unrelenting
surfaces of the room. I shuffled to the edge of the row, where a Formica table-top offered a selection of reading material; when I got closer I saw that it consisted entirely of NHS leaflets about
looking after your heart. I picked up one about giving up smoking and put it in my bag, hoping if I gave it to Auntie Lyd she would be weakened enough not to use it as a weapon against me.

I hated to think of her, somewhere in this hospital, on her own. I should have been with her to hold her hand, to tell her I was sorry. I wanted to talk to a doctor, to take charge somehow. It
had hurt to hear that the person who had spoken to the doctor was Jim; it should have been me. I should have been there. But I had only myself to blame. Who else should the doctor speak to when a
woman is brought in, unconscious, with no relatives, accompanied only by her tenants and a plumber? Poor Auntie Lyd.

As well as making the waiting room relentlessly uncomfortable, whatever sadist had been in charge of the decorating had neglected to provide a clock. Perhaps it had been kindly meant –
trying to spare anxious relatives the torture of the slowly ticking hands. But without my phone, a clock, or even a window to show the passing of time, it was impossible to gauge how long I had
been there. When the waiting-room door swung open at last, I looked up gratefully.

Instead of the nurse or doctor that I’d hoped for, it was Jim’s highlights that I saw peering round the door. Seeing me, he edged into the room quietly, as if fearing I might launch
straight back into the argument we were having when I last saw him. He was carrying a Marks & Spencer’s bag and I felt a rush of fury towards him – he’d left Percy and Eleanor
here, all on their own in the hospital with no way to get home, so that he could go and do some light shopping? I sat on my hands and counted to ten. It would help no one to lose my temper with him
again. Auntie Lyd would want us to get on, especially now.

‘Rory,’ he said. He hadn’t stepped fully into the room, but hesitated by the door, rubbing his head so that his hair stuck out in all directions. ‘Rory, Jesus, thank God
you’re here. We were so worried when we couldn’t get hold of you.’

‘Martin found me,’ I said. ‘He’s been great. He’s taking Percy and Eleanor home right now. They were really tired after waiting so long on their own.’ I
didn’t mean it to come out accusingly, but it obviously did as Jim pressed his lips together into a tight line.

‘Martin, right. Okay. I was just coming to take them back. I didn’t know it was going to take so long to pick up a few things.’ He held the bag out to me as if I might want to
inspect his shopping. I didn’t need to take a look. It would no doubt contain a new supply of T-shirts a size too small, and I’d seen enough of those over the last few months.

I shrugged.

‘Don’t you want it?’ asked Jim, shaking the bag at me. A bit aggressively, actually. ‘I expect you’ll be the first to see her when she wakes up.’

‘What do you mean?’ I said, flinching backwards away from the bag.

‘The stuff I got for Lydia,’ sighed Jim crossly. ‘Where do you think I’ve been? Just hanging out at the shops?’

‘No,’ I mumbled, shamefacedly since that was exactly where I had thought he’d been. Why did I always feel that Jim caught me at a disadvantage with everything he did?

‘Look, Dawn,’ he smiled, seeing my embarrassment. ‘I know you’re going to think I’ve got some evil reason for doing this, that it’s just part of whatever
dastardly scheme you think I’m up to, but the truth is when my mum was in hospital I remember how much she hated wearing the hospital gowns and eating their sorry excuse for food. I
didn’t want to root through Lydia’s stuff at home – I know how you feel about me going through her belongings – so I just went out and got her a few things, okay? Nothing
sinister; no evil plan. Here. Have a look.’

Jim dropped the bag on my lap. I peered inside and saw a soft flannel nightgown, a muted plaid with buttons that reached up to the neck. It wasn’t her sort of thing at all, but I knew
Auntie Lyd would be grateful for it. Under the nightgown was an assortment of ready-made snacks – pasta salads and chopped fruit and some breadsticks.

‘Thanks, Jim,’ I said, my head bowed. ‘You didn’t have to do that, I could have sorted this out.’

‘I thought you probably had enough going on already,’ said Jim. He settled himself in the chair next to me and stretched out his legs as if he was planning to stay for a while.