‘Staying over?’ he asked.
‘I think it’s best, don’t you? I don’t feel particularly welcome here at the moment,’ she said loudly. ‘Anyway, it’ll be late by the time we wrap up. And I’m not sure about tomorrow yet – if I’ll come back here after my meetings or if I’ll head straight to Crow Hall. Either way I’ll be in touch.’
‘Whatever suits.’
She pulled at the hem of her short black dress, smoothing it over her legs. She glanced in the mirror above the hall table. ‘I bought this yesterday. I’m still not sure. What do you think?’
‘Is it a little short?’ he asked innocently. ‘A bit “mutton dressed as lamb”?’
Some of her own medicine wouldn’t go astray.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that, Luke. A lot of women my age have spare tyres and cellulite. I think I carry it off all right.’
Opening the door, she turned to him, ‘Oh, before I forget. Glenda Wallace on the Tidy Towns committee? Her child with Down’s syndrome has been on a waiting list for months. She’ll be contacting Fran for an appointment. I said you’d see them shortly.’
Luke didn’t have a chance to respond before the door slammed shut. He stood listening as Gilligan’s two-seater revved and skidded out of the driveway. He gritted his teeth. Luke hated patients jumping the queue because they knew the right people. He had a private as well as a public practice. Despite that, he was convinced that equal access was the way to go, that care should be single tier. But life, politics and circumstance had got in the way of any ideals. He’d forfeited those years ago.
Nina joined him in the hall. ‘You think Mum will win?’
‘You kidding me? Of course she’s going to win. You off to see that lad now?’ he asked. ‘I’m a proper Johnny-No-Mates this evening.’
‘Aw, Dad, I won’t be gone too long. When I get back maybe we could watch that Everest documentary on Netflix, if you’re still awake?’
‘OK, you’re on.’
He felt a momentary lift. He may not be able to rely on Alison. But there was always Nina. She would always be his girl.
A Proposal
Despite his scepticism, Luke found himself making and attending repeat appointments with Terence Black. If he overlooked some of the guy’s more annoying personal habits, he was easy enough to talk to.
‘Where did you and Alison meet?’ Terence asked, settling back and loosening his tie.
‘At a charity lunch,’ Luke responded. ‘It was a fundraiser for the cardiac surgery unit at St Enda’s Children’s Hospital in Dublin. We needed a heart–lung bypass machine and I was chosen to stand in for Professor Wilkins to accept the cheque on behalf of the unit, say a few words, shake a few hands, keep the goodwill flowing. The sort of thing I hate, to tell the truth.’
Luke had definitely drawn the short straw that day. He was missing an arterial switch. To make matters worse he was being taunted by his colleagues. Wilkins only chose him because the charity needed a pretty boy for their photos, so they said.
‘It was an upmarket hotel,’ Luke recalled. ‘Lots of fizz and frocks. The way I remember it, this tall, slim woman approached me after I had spoken. “You’re a young professor,” she said. She’d missed me saying I was standing in for Wilkins.’
They’d laughed at her mistake.
‘I’m sure you’ll be a professor someday though.’ Her eyes twinkled and he felt himself relax. She’d held out her hand, studying him intently. ‘I’m Alison Thompson. It’s lovely to meet you.’
She looked an outdoor type. Her long, lean arms were tanned and he imagined she’d look good with the wind in her hair.
‘Nice to meet you too, Alison. And now I’d better head back to the hospital. Enjoy the lunch.’
‘I didn’t come for the lunch,’ she said quickly. ‘I work in PR but I volunteered for this fundraising gig. Judging by the size of the cheque, I’d say my efforts were successful, wouldn’t you?’
‘For sure. A great success indeed,’ he agreed.
‘Why don’t you let me get you a quick bite of something? It’s a crab dish for starters. I could sneak into the kitchen and pinch a plate for you,’ she said mischievously.
He laughed. ‘Thanks but no. I’m not a fan of seafood and anyway I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble. We need all the fundraisers we can get.’
‘More needs to be done though.’ She touched his elbow and looked at him in earnest. ‘The fact that parents have to sleep on floors by their kids’ beds because there are no proper facilities, I find that shocking.’
‘We junior doctors have no say on how the money is spent,’ he said. ‘I’m only the errand boy today.’
‘Oh, I imagine you’re a little more than that.’ She tilted her head and smiled. Her front teeth were prominent and overlapping. But it was an attractive smile in spite of that.
‘So you found yourself attracted to Alison from the outset?’ Terence asked.
‘She had a magnetism. And yes, she was attractive.’ Luke remembered thinking her face too long and thin at their first encounter, but pleasant for all that too. ‘She had an energy I found compelling.’
Terence signalled for him to continue.
‘I was busy and Alison didn’t cross my mind again. I was a Registrar and researching RHD—’
‘RHD?’
‘Rheumatic heart disease,’ Luke explained. ‘I’d volunteered for a programme in Tanzania and headed out that summer. That was when I came across Alison again. She’d volunteered with the Equal Hearts Foundation. There she was, right in the thick of it. Lobbying NGOs, seeking funds from the WHO, organising visas, and tackling all the admin to get paediatric cardiac surgery expertise into the country.’
It all seemed such a long time ago now. A different life. Luke described how one night Alison had come looking for him. She had some infected mosquito bites and he was arranging antibiotics. She’d leaned across as if to kiss his cheek in thanks, or so he’d thought. Her lips had landed on his. He was unprepared, startled. She pulled away, blushing, and the moment had been ruined. Luke had cursed himself, feeling like a fool, unable to navigate the rudiments of a simple kiss.
After that night, unsurprisingly, nothing further happened in Tanzania. On arriving home, Luke realised that he missed her. He missed their discussions about the programme, who she might lobby, which government officials she might meet in person.
Alison contacted him once or twice to go for a drink, but on each occasion he was working. He expressed dismay at not being able to meet. He was surprised she bothered with him at all, given their last encounter.
‘I suppose you could say it was a neat confluence of events that Alison ended up volunteering in Vietnam the following year,’ Luke concluded.
‘You’re saying you don’t think it was a coincidence?’ Terence raised his eyebrows.
‘I thought so at the time.’ Luke shrugged. ‘Oh, I was excited to see her, don’t get me wrong,’ he said. ‘Alison was right at the centre of things. She’d managed to secure a sizeable tranche of overseas funding. Alison seemed able to unlock doors that had been shut. To be fair, all she was ever doing was pushing on an open door—’
‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Terence.
‘If you recall, Cornelius Thompson was in government back then. Teflon Thompson, that’s what they used to call him, remember? Nothing that smelled ever stuck to the guy. And you can just guess what Cornelius’s portfolio was …’
‘Overseas aid?’
‘Bingo.’ Luke gave a sour smile. ‘I’d taken extended leave of absence from my post at home,’ he continued. ‘I wanted as much exposure as possible to children with congenital abnormalities.’
‘I take it you and Alison were going out together at this stage?’
‘Not quite. But things began to happen quickly in Ho Chi Minh.’
Around the hospital, Alison’s name was linked with his. He’d hear mention of Dr Luke and Miss Alison in the same breath. Staff assumed they were a couple, yet the
y’d never been on a date. He decided to broach the subject. In a clumsy fashion, he blurted it out without ever considering the consequences.
‘So, Miss Alison,’ he’d joked, ‘word around the hospital is that we’re going out together.’
‘And tell me, Dr Luke, is that suggestion so repugnant to you?’
She looked up from her computer where she was sorting out work permits. She pulled a sad face.
‘No, erm …’ he stumbled, ‘no, actually. Not at all.’
It was as if the idea had suddenly revealed itself to him.
‘Well, that’s good to know,’ she said, merriment in her eyes. ‘How about we go out tonight for dinner? You work hard and need some fun. How about Le Chat Blanc, two blocks down? My treat. When you finish your list, of course.’
Alison had gone back to typing with no suggestion of coyness or embarrassment. Afterwards, Luke realised the dinner at Le Chat Blanc that night had been the culmination of a courtship he’d been unaware was even taking place. Sex had followed too that night, but try as he might, he couldn’t remember a thing about it. The experience must have been adequate because from that point on Alison assumed they were a couple.
‘I’m guessing you proposed marriage sometime after?’ Terence clicked the top of the biro.
‘Not exactly.’
‘Oh?’
‘The way I remember it, Alison was folding T-shirts into a suitcase, getting ready to fly home. She looked up and asked me if I intended returning the following year. I’d already committed to doing a charity climb on Kilimanjaro. Alison has this way of doing T-shirts, you know, sleeves in, and then folding into three parts. She’s quite particular like that. Then she said, casual-asyou-like, “That’s fine. Time is precious and we should use it wisely. We’ll kill two birds with one stone and do Kilimanjaro on our honeymoon.” And that, Terence, was the way it happened.’
Terence nodded, allowing himself a little smile.
Sitting in the green upholstered chair in Terence’s office, Luke cast his mind back to that time. The marriage had seemed as good an idea as any. As for the wedding day itself, Alison made all the decisions. Luke had gone along with all the plans. A recipe for an easy life, so his married colleagues said.
Luke made critical decisions every day in his professional life. He was more than happy for Alison to take care of matters concerning their personal life. It left him free to concentrate on his work. In finding Alison, Luke counted himself a lucky man indeed.
Making his way back to reception, Luke reflected on today’s session. Terence was good. The guy’s clothes might bear testimony to his last meal, his shaving might be haphazard, so what? He put Luke at ease. And Luke needed reassurance if he was going to risk any journey back to the dark.
He’d never spoken to anyone as freely about his wife before. How could he? Her name was synonymous with children’s charities. Along with her Thompson Consulting profile, Alison’s public image contrived to put her beyond the reach of any criticism. The woman was beyond reproach.
Hugh Smyth and Johnny Whelan were friends as well as work colleagues. The three of them could speak frankly to one another. They had shared experience. But this stuff with Alison was different. Luke couldn’t share that stuff with them. There were times he wondered if Hugh knew. Did he suspect? And for some unknown reason he was keeping quiet?
At reception, the Buddhas gazed serenely from the wall. Luke tilted his head to the picture of the footsteps in the sand. ‘Now there’s a thing …’ he said to the woman on the desk. ‘A walk on a sunny beach, wouldn’t that be nice?’
Outside the rain was hammering down.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t go dusting off the bikini just yet.’
‘Me neither,’ he said.
He made his next appointment. He chose the last slot of the day. It was tough returning to the hospital after a session, to a waiting room of patients, to the scrutiny of students.
‘See you soon,’ said the woman at reception.
Things were improving slowly. Now, in the middle of the night when the white bird came to see him, he could usually wake before it started screaming.
The Mask
Putting his key in the door, Luke was dismayed to hear raised voices coming from inside. It had been a busy day and all he wanted was peace and quiet. He took a breath, turned the key, and went into the house. The voices grew louder. The spats between his wife and daughter were growing tiresome. If he moved quietly, they might not hear him. He edged towards the basement door. He might be able to slip down there, unnoticed.
Duffy barked and rushed to greet him. Luke groaned. He’d been rumbled. Alison had started to shout. Resigned, he went through to the kitchen.
‘He’s a total scumbag. Nothing but white trash. Trailer trash.’ Alison was in full throttle.
‘You wouldn’t want people to hear you use pejorative, emotive language like that, now would you, Mum? I thought the representative of the people was standing on a ticket of inclusivity – all colours equal?’
Nina glowered at her mother through a curtain of hair and over the top of her glasses. Earlier in the week, she had pointed out Alison’s social media posts and he had balked. On the surface, Alison’s campaign was honourable. On closer scrutiny, he was uneasy with her tactics. They made one thing clear though. Whatever was going on between his wife and that weasel Gilligan, Luke still had his uses.
‘Damn, she’s good, isn’t she?’ Nina had remarked.
Luke had scrolled through the tweets. Alison had been peppering her Twitter feed with photographs. Him in surgical scrubs cradling an infant. A black infant. Him at an outpatient clinic surrounded by a swarm of faces. Asian faces. Him with a surgical team in Tanzania. There were links to articles about his overseas charity work prefaced with ‘So proud of my husband, Professor Luke Forde.’ Another read, ‘Luke Forde, a doctor for all hearts and colours.’
Luke had been appalled. Mortified that Alison would try to make political capital out of the projects that were dear to him. That she would so brazenly appeal to the immigrant vote by hanging onto his coat-tails. He’d felt deep embarrassment and disgust. Nina stood in front of him now in the kitchen, eyes blazing, and she thought she knew it all. She had no idea.
‘Mum, get over yourself – it’s only banter.’
‘If that’s your sense of humour, Nina, then you’re more delusional than I thought. You’re as sick as he is.’
‘What’s going on?’ asked Luke, reluctantly.
Alison spun around like a marionette. ‘I’ll tell you what’s going on, Luke. Nina’s lame, misguided, yobbo boyfriend has only been defacing my election posters, that’s what’s going on.’
‘Sebastian has to stand by his convictions too,’ retorted Nina.
‘That so? By the looks of him, I’m sure he has plenty of those. The drunk and disorderly kind and God knows what else.’
‘People in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘How many times has Grandpa been caught for drunken driving?’
‘Your grandfather has never been convicted of drunken driving.’
‘Convicted being the salient word, Mum. And only because you know people. Only because you fixed it. Grandpa is a drunken old pisshead.’
‘Don’t you dare speak about my father like that!’
Nina was a great kid but she didn’t know when to pull back.
‘Well, I passed a bunch of election posters on the way home,’ said Luke. ‘They all looked fine to me.’
Alison shot him a filthy look. ‘It’s the ones over by town that I’m talking about, up from their grubby encampment. That’s where they’re defaced.’ She planted her hands on her hips. ‘You know my byline is “Alison Forde-Thompson, a voice for the people”, right?’ Luke nodded. ‘This clever-arse yobbo has only superimposed a photo under my byline with a text that reads “Who’s a voice for me?”’
‘What’s the photo of?’
&nbs
p; ‘A masked head and torso. It’s revolting. Depraved. The torso is all slashed up and … uuugh, there are bleeding flaps of skin.’ She shuddered. ‘Coward’s tactics, of course … wearing a mask like that, afraid to show his face. Pathetic.’
‘What kind of mask?’
‘A ridiculous fox mask.’
Luke glanced at Nina. She nursed a gleeful smile. Nina had always refused to hunt, proving a disappointment to her mother. When Nina saw a hare or fox she saw something cute. When Alison saw a hare or fox, she saw something she could kill.
As a child, Nina had tried to persuade her mother not to hunt, not to kill. But Alison would shrug off her tearful pleas and leave the sobbing child behind. Cornelius too would shake his head, pronouncing Nina the oddest child.
‘Was defacing the posters the work of your friend?’ Luke turned to Nina, disinclined to leap to her defence. He’d had a bad feeling about this character from the outset. This guy whose pubescent animal-rights paintings Nina so admired.
‘I don’t know why you bother to ask,’ said Alison. ‘Of course it was Sebastian. The little shit was caught on CCTV in the town.’
She turned her fury back to Nina. ‘This guy must be thick into the bargain. Interfering with posters right next to the police station? Did he not think that I’d find out?’
‘Sebastian isn’t to know you know every bloody policeman in County Clare.’ Nina flicked a curtain of hair over her shoulder.
There would be no apology. Alison looked like thunder. Luke knew his antagonism towards Sebastian was fuelled by a desire to protect his daughter. He knew his opinion was skewed, his impartiality impugned. What bothered him was not the fact this tosser had defaced Alison’s election posters, but the lengths to which he was willing to go to make his point. Nina’s so-called boyfriend.
It was puzzling that Sebastian was drawn to Nina. Surely Luke and Alison represented all that he reviled? They were Establishment. Some might commend the guy’s stance on blood-sports. It was his attitude, however, sullen and dismissive, the latent sarcasm, the lack of respect – these were the things that pissed Luke off. The smugness of his smile. The knowing glint in his eyes. The thought of him pawing his daughter made him queasy. Luke imagined his hands around the guy’s neck, slowly, deliberately, pressing his thumbs against his carotid artery, cutting off the blood supply.
Guilty Page 4
