by Carmen Reid
Not when totally corrupt men were being promoted into even more expensive posts to run the hospital into the ground.
She’d thought of Gayle often.
Gayle who had phoned her with courtesy on the day before the story was to be printed to warn her what was in it and how to play it cool at work.
Gayle who had joked about her two ex-husbands, unruly teenage boys and unsuccessful dates, but took her work with an impressive, deadly seriousness.
Gayle who obviously loved what she did and believed in it.
‘You did a great job,’ she had told Jo. ‘Finding the documents, photocopying them. Ever thought about being a reporter?’ It was probably banter, intended to make her smile.
But Jo had found herself saying: ‘Yes. I have thought about it. How do you become a reporter? Do you have to go on a course?’
Gayle had laughed: ‘I don’t think so. Well, it’s not compulsory yet anyway. Why don’t you meet our health editor for a drink? Start with what you know best. Have a specialist subject and start writing about it. God knows, we could do with some excellent contacts up at the Royal. We could probably put you on the payroll for that alone.’
The health editor had advised a night course in shorthand; even better, her health reporter had just informed her she was pregnant and planning a long maternity leave, so there was a temporary job coming up.
‘Write me some sample stories,’ the health editor had suggested, ‘I’ll see what you’re like and we can take it from there.’
Jo, who had gone along in a spirit of curiosity had suddenly found herself seriously considering a future job offer, a career change . . . before she’d even had the chance to breathe a word of this idea to her husband.
Well, OK, she’d decided not to mention a word of it to her husband – not even the Chief Executive and his wife story – because she knew exactly what her husband would say.
He would tell her she’d lost her mind.
He would remind her what a ‘nice little job’ she had. Emphasis on the words ‘nice’ and ‘little’.
It was probably talk of her nice little job that had sent her whirling off in the direction of journalism in the first place.
She had eventually, after much debate with herself and with her incredulous husband gone on the course then taken the job. Sealing the rumours that she’d tipped off the Echo about the Chief Executive and his wife, but not making it any harder to break many new stories kindly provided by the people she’d spent so many years working alongside.
When Simon had finally landed the plum London hospital post he’d been so longing for, she and Mel had moved too.
She’d taken a pay cut to go and work for the South London Press with her eyes now firmly on the prize of making it as a national news reporter. Because she knew she was quite good. Despite all the cracks Simon made about her ‘joke’ profession. Despite the belittling, despite the fact that when he introduced her at parties as a ‘journalist’ he always accompanied it with a roll of the eyes.
Just coincidence that when she finally got her national newspaper job Simon suddenly wanted to talk about more children? Hmm. She wasn’t so sure now.
The pregnancy and post-natal time with Annette had been the busiest in Jo’s life. She had worked ten- and twelve-hour days, rushing around England in her car, flying abroad on foreign jobs, feeling like an important reporter, yes, feeling like a guilty, absent mum too. Her children had been in full-time nursery care until Jo’s parents had decided to move down to help her out. Meanwhile Simon had worked even harder.
Not difficult to see where the marriage started to fall to pieces. By the time Annette was six months old – where was Simon? Who was Simon? He was the increasingly distant Dr Daddy figure. The man who came home very late every night and spent the weekends he wasn’t on call wanting sleep, peace and quiet, a round of golf or an evening in front of the TV. Slightly shocking to realize you’ve got a baby just a few months old and you can’t stand her father. Jo hadn’t known what to do with the feeling. A lot of time was spent in denial, hoping that it would go away, that things would improve.
But she couldn’t stand him, didn’t seem to have even a single opinion in common with him any more, would take long surreptitious looks at him when he ate, when he read, when he slept, and wonder what she’d seen, what she’d been so in love with, who she’d once laughed with and liked. It wasn’t there. Who was this person? Someone sleeping in her bed. The father of the small baby in her arms and she didn’t know him.
It was usual to feel strange for months after giving birth, she knew that; maybe it was best to wait, not do anything drastic. Not do the thing she wanted to do – run from the house screaming – until at least a few more months had passed. She had to make sure this wasn’t just some hormonal hell she would recover from.
Simon still looked good: a well-proportioned handsome face, blondish hair in a collar-length cut, his rangy, tall body kept trim with gym visits, tennis and golf. He was a grown-up grammar school boy. All doctors were though, weren’t they? They were good at school, sensible, a bit sporty, dedicated hard workers. A little bit self-sacrificing and a great big chunk of smug.
OK, not all doctors, but Simon and most of Simon’s colleagues. How had he seemed to her when she was 23 and in love with him? Desperately handsome, charming, clever, energetic, in a hurry, hungry. In a rush to do well, to sort things out, to make people better, to make love to her, to marry her. He was good-natured, had an easy charm, didn’t make people laugh, exactly, but laughed readily. He concentrated on Jo, flattered her with his attention. Their romance had been wrapped up with the hospital. It was about flirting on shifts, trying to keep their minds on the job not on what they’d done to each other the night before, it was about joining the rest of the gang in the bar that night, at lunchtime . . . whenever they came off duty.
It hadn’t been a private romance. It had been a group one. She remembered how oddly dislocating their honeymoon had been. Their first holiday alone together, the first time they’d spent hours and hours alone with each other. After several days of it, they’d made friends with two couples in the hotel and joined them for dinner and sightseeing trips.
Simon, who’d been so quiet, so lethargic when it was just the two of them, had come back to life again in the group. That was when Jo had made her first entry in the T for Troubling section of the marriage filing cabinet. He was the oldest son of a doctor father and traditional doctor’s wife. He had some pretty puzzling old-fashioned ideas about how their married life was going to be. He didn’t exactly say he wanted Jo to give up her job when they had children, in fact, he always seemed quite glad of her income, but he had an ingrained image that men worked hard, had the main job, had priority. Women did the child thing.
Jo, brought up by two egalitarian, lefty teachers, couldn’t have come to the relationship with more different perceptions. She’d thought they were two individuals together, both able to fulfil their own potential.
Nothing about splitting up from Simon had been easy. In the early days apart she had regularly agonized about whether or not they were doing the right thing, the best thing, but now she had made peace with her choice. She tried to focus only on the good that had come from it. There was nothing wrong with Gwen, Jo tried to tell herself often. Well, apart from the fact that she had moved in with Simon and therefore had also moved into the lives of Jo’s children three days a week. For that reason alone Jo found it hard not to resent her.
She hated the way Gwen fussed over Simon, cosseted him, massaged his neck and his ego, doted on him, ironed his shirts and made his supper. She hated the way Gwen fussily kept house, all coasters and freshly hoovered, and neatly folded rugs on the arms of the sofas. Even the girls, when she got them back on Sunday, seemed to have been Gwen-ed. Their hair was shiny, their tops had been ironed, their shoes polished. It was supremely irritating. But probably well intentioned.
Still, Jo couldn’t help herself from thinking about Simon and Gwen’s
sex life. Did the Thatcherite blouses and tweedy skirts clothe a simmering cauldron of passionate abandon? What was it exactly that her ex-husband saw in their rather frumpy friend? Desperately Jo tried to delete the recurring mental image of Simon eating a gourmet dinner while Gwen, in a PVC bondage outfit, worked her mouth between his legs. Oh for goodness’ sake, it was probably nothing like that. Was it? Was it?
Jo was distracted from her thoughts by her mobile.
‘Mum?’ Mel’s voice filled the car. ‘Where are you?’
‘Hiya. I’m nearly there, just ten minutes now.’
‘We really need the cake, we’ve eaten everything else apart from the disgusting pizza Gwen made.’
‘Mel. Be nice to Gwen. Just hang on for me. Ten minutes at the most, I’ll run all the way from the car, promise.’
‘OK.’
‘Are you having fun?’ Jo asked.
‘Yeah, yeah, even though Alexandra has given me some stupid Lego thing which is just so bo-o-ring.’
‘How nice of her. I hope you said a big thank-you.’
‘Yeah, yeah . . . whatever.’
Chapter Eleven
A Houston, Texas, woman has been indicted for criminally negligent homicide for causing her husband’s death by giving him a sherry enema, a police detective said yesterday.
Reuters
Thursday: 5.25 p.m.
‘Mummy!!’
When Jo finally got to the door of Simon’s flat, both her daughters were there to greet her excitedly. She set the mountainous pink birthday cake to the side and gave each girl a big hug before entering the flat with a smile fixed firmly on her face. There, that was sure to hide the teeth gritted behind it.
‘Hello, sorry I’m late. I did leave on time, but the traffic was terrible,’ she announced to the room – the open-plan living space, all shiny blond wood, cream decor, careful display of possessions and floor-to-ceiling window overlooking a chink of riverside and exactly the same kind of building across the road.
She didn’t really think she should be apologizing. Thursday was one of her busiest days, usually she didn’t leave the office till 8 or 9 p.m. It was hugely inconvenient of Simon to arrange the party today, but he’d ruled out earlier in the week and couldn’t do Sunday.
Gwen, Simon and her parents, as well as a handful of Mel’s ‘best friends’ from school, including Sue’s youngest daughter, were all here, chorusing hello.
Both her parents and Simon stood up to greet her. Simon walked over. In immaculate blue and white check shirt, chinos with an ironed knife-edge, he looked even lighter and leaner than on Sunday when she’d seen him last, and he was still sporting the beard she hadn’t got used to. In the months since their split, it was as if Jo and her ex-husband were trying to obliterate their marital selves, transform into unrecognizable people. Make it clear there was no return.
They’d gone through various forms of greeting over the years: passionate snog to start with, obviously, dutiful peck on the lips later on, then moving to frosty glares, disdainful handshakes. Now, in an attempt at being civilized, one kiss on the cheek was settling into the way they normally said hello.
Jo leaned over to kiss him quickly; there was no other contact, no hand on arm or back or any of that.
His new beard prickled against her cheek and he wafted aftershave. The strength of the smell made the back of her throat contract.
She went over to kiss and hug her parents and then had to kiss Gwen too because otherwise it would have been odd.
Her parents moved to opposite ends of the leather sofa, so she took the invitation to sit down between them. They were sweet; obviously they thought she needed protection here in husband territory.
‘How’s work?’ her dad asked.
‘Oh it’s fine, busy . . . the usual,’ she told him. ‘That’s a very . . . um . . . colourful new jumper.’ She smiled, a little taken aback to see her father in something so patterned, so shockingly acrylic when the plain lambswool V-neck was his wardrobe staple.
‘Oh this? Yes. Your mother over there’ – he gave Jo a wink – ‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ he said a bit louder, to make sure her mother heard.
‘The children have been good as gold,’ Jo’s mum leaned over to tell her. ‘Haven’t they, Steve? No fights, no rampaging. Absolutely nothing like your and Matt’s birthday parties. I’d be wiping cake off the ceiling by the end of the day.’
This made Jo smile. Yes, she could recall the year of the ‘jelly bombs’. ‘Are you OK?’ Jo asked her mum, giving her hand a squeeze. ‘I could come round on Monday with Nettie to see you. I’ve not had the chance to talk to you properly for weeks.’
‘Yes, do that. Come at twelve-ish, have lunch, you’ll still be back in time to get Mel from school.’
‘OK.’
Jo looked up to see Gwen hovering with a plateful of sandwiches, looking unsure about interrupting.
‘The flat looks great, Gwen.’ Jo waved an arm about, taking in the table set up with pretty pink glasses, printed napkins and platefuls of already decimated party snacks.
‘Oh, you know, we’re getting organized. Books on the shelves, things on the walls,’ Gwen answered, holding out the sandwiches.
Paintings from Jo’s marital home, so familiar to her she could close her eyes and visualize them, were on these walls alongside ones she recognized from a rare visit to Gwen’s old flat. Jo registered the weirdness of this but tried not to dwell on it.
‘Bet this is your first children’s birthday party in years?’ Jo ventured.
‘Er, yes . . . well, I suppose so,’ Gwen smiled. ‘Woolworth’s seemed to have everything required, though – matching cups and napkins, all that sort of thing.’
Jo was quite tempted to ask why Simon hadn’t been the one out buying the birthday accessories. But she decided, in the interests of world peace, to leave that question out.
Mel and Nettie were to-ing and fro-ing, showing her the new birthday loot, and soon she was busy trying to keep several conversations going at once, with her children and the adults.
‘Mummy, Mummy!’ Nettie interrupted, ‘I got a joke.’
‘OK, you tell me your joke,’ Jo replied.
‘Knock knock.’
‘Who’s there?’ Jo and her parents answered together.
Nettie scanned the room in search of inspiration; she looked up at the ceiling where a hairline plaster crack was visible in the snowy white paint.
‘Crackie,’ she answered.
Uh-oh . . . Jo hesitated, this joke was a loose cannon now, it could go anywhere: ‘Crackie who?’ she dared.
‘I like to pick my crack.’
Oh good grief. Time to hyperventilate now.
Her dad’s eyebrows shot up.
‘Nettie, did you bring any toys with you today? Why don’t you bring them over and show me,’ Jo said.
‘Let me get you a drink, Jo,’ Gwen offered.
‘Juice or something soft would be great,’ was Jo’s response. ‘I’ve got the cake, by the way. Shall I put it on the table?’
When she took off the layers of foil wrapper, Mel and her friends crowded round for a look at Barbie plunged waist deep in the rippling cake waves of a vibrant pink flamenco outfit.
‘Wow, she’s great!’ one of the little girls exclaimed.
Nettie gasped, open-mouthed, even though she had seen the cake on the kitchen table this morning.
‘Mum’s boyfriend made it. He’s a chef,’ Mel said matter-of-factly, which led Jo to adopt an expression not unlike Nettie’s. How on earth did Mel know? Had she heard Marcus arriving last night . . . leaving this morning?
‘Hey, it was mainly me,’ she told her daughter, but then turned to see her parents’ expression of surprise. Somehow she hadn’t quite got round to mentioning a boyfriend.
‘Welcome to 21st-century family life,’ she said, not really wanting to have the boyfriend conversation here or now.
‘Nettie –’ she scooped up her little daughter, needing to move swiftly on fro
m cake-baking issues – ‘how are you? Have you had lots of supper?’
Nettie shook her head.
‘Well what about you and Mummy have some tasty sausages.’ Jo pulled out a chair, sat down with Nettie on her knee and picked up one of the three remaining cocktail sausages.
She popped it into her mouth, ‘Mmmm. . . ’ She held the other one out to her daughter, who bit off a big mouthful.
‘Here’s your drink.’ Gwen came over and put a glass of orange juice down beside her.
Jo was halfway down the drink when she registered that the rhythmic rasping noise was coming from her daughter on her lap. She swivelled Nettie round so she could look at her face: she was bright red and gagging.
‘Oh my God,’ Jo cried, ‘She’s choking!’
Quickly she leaned Nettie forward and prepared to do whatever it was the Heimlich manoeuvre required.
‘Simon!’ she shouted. Even wanker doctors had their uses.
But before Simon could make it over, Nettie turned to the plate on the table in front of her and half retched, half spat the mouthful of sausage out.
‘Yuck!’ she exclaimed, when her mouth was empty, ‘So hot. So hot.’ There was water squeezing from the corners of her eyes. ‘Need a drink.’
Jo held out her orange juice, Nettie put her chubby hands round the glass and took a long drink.
‘Don’t know what that was,’ Jo explained to Simon who was beside them now. ‘Don’t think it was a choke.’
Nettie took three more big gulps, set the glass down and said: ‘Pepper.’
‘Oh dear,’ Jo sympathized, patting Nettie soothingly on the back.
‘Was it?’ Simon picked up the offending regurgitated mouthful and nibbled a piece of it. ‘Hmm . . . I think she’s right. Ooops. Must have been a mixed pack.’
‘Never mind,’ Jo said to Nettie, cuddling her tight.
‘Ouch, my arm,’ was Nettie’s response.
‘Oh dear, what’s wrong with your arm?’
