When You Walked Back Into My Life

by Hilary Boyd

  ‘You weren’t going to leg it without saying goodbye again, were you?’ Jake stood leaning on the bathroom doorway in his boxers, rubbing his eyes.

  ‘I was, actually.’

  ‘Very bad manners,’ he said. ‘Won’t you even have some coffee before you go?’

  Flora shook her head. ‘I have to be on duty at eight, and I’ve got to run home and change first.’

  Jake shrugged. ‘Couldn’t you pull a sicky and come back to bed?’

  Flora shook her head. That was the trouble with private nursing, the sense of obligation you developed for your patient. If she didn’t show, the people who would suffer most would be the night nurse, who had to hang around until a replacement was found – and Dorothea.

  For a moment they stood and looked at each other in silence.

  ‘Thanks … thanks for last night,’ Flora said. ‘I had fun.’

  ‘Yeah, me too.’ He moved aside to let her go.

  *

  As soon as Mary saw her, she raised her eyebrows, giving an amused smile.

  ‘Rough night, eh?’

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘Perhaps not to most. But I’m from a family of professional drunks, me. Curse of the Irish. I’d recognise that jazzy look about the eyes at forty paces.’

  Flora sat down heavily on the wooden chair in the kitchen.

  ‘Coffee?’ Mary moved to the kettle. ‘Water’s just boiled.’

  Flora nodded gratefully.

  ‘Don’t forget it’s the stomach x-ray today. Rene rang last night to say she’ll be here to pick you up at nine-thirty.’

  Flora’s eyes flew wide open. ‘Oh, no! Not today … please, please don’t let it be today. I’d totally forgotten.’

  Mary laughed as she handed Flora her steaming mug of instant coffee. ‘Must say, I don’t envy you the outing.’

  Flora looked at her watch in a panic. ‘I’d better get her dressed or we won’t be ready in time. Did she have a good night?’

  ‘Yes, pretty normal. I thought I heard her cry out at one point, but when I went in she was fast asleep. She seems quite bright this morning.’

  ‘Does she know about the x-ray?’

  Mary nodded. ‘Not sure she took it in, but I told her.’ She went into the hall to get her backpack. ‘Sure you’ll be OK? You look pretty rough. I could stay and help with getting her ready if you like.’

  ‘Thanks, Mary. That’s a really kind offer, but I’ll be fine once the coffee kicks in. You get off.’

  *

  The morning was hell for Flora as she struggled with her pounding head and incipient nausea, still reeling from the previous night. Sex with a man on a first date, when she wasn’t sure she even fancied him that much? She had shocked herself.

  She went through the routine of the bed-bath mechanically, rubbing the warm flannel around the old lady’s body, quickly drying her before she got cold. But she remembered the moment when Jake had laid his hand against her cheek. She knew she had hesitated for a fraction of a second before leaning into his caress. Then she’d made the decision to go with it, with him. And yes, she had felt a drunken desire, which grew as she gradually let herself go, as she gave in to his enthusiastic lovemaking. But she knew she was not in love with him.

  Might love grow? she asked herself, doubtful. But the spectre of Fin, never far from the surface, chose that moment to rise up and offer a rude comparison. The head-over-heels obsession they had had for each other made her feelings for Jake Hobley pale into insignificance. But does it always have to be like that? she wondered, as she bent to tie the laces on her patient’s beige shoes, suddenly disheartened by the likelihood of ever finding such strength of feeling for another man.

  *

  Rene drove up to the entrance of Charing Cross Hospital in her battered Volvo and stopped in the drop-off parking bay.

  ‘Could you not get too close to the pavement?’ Flora asked, knowing from past experience that it was easier to lift Dorothea into her chair from the road. ‘Just here would be great.’

  ‘I’ll park somewhere and find you. First floor, isn’t it?’ An obsessive stickler for rules and regulations, Rene’s gaze darted fretfully about, on the lookout for officials.

  Flora did her best to hurry, but it wasn’t easy getting Dorothea out of the front seat and into the wheelchair.

  ‘Put your hand up here.’ She swung the old lady’s legs, encased in the navy polyester slacks, out onto the road, placing her hand on the top of the door as she hauled her up. ‘Hang on tight.’ She eased Dorothea round until she could sit back into the chair. The old lady had been completely silent on the journey to the hospital, just staring out of the window at the passing traffic. Now she looked up at Flora, her face a mask of bewilderment and anxiety.

  ‘It’s OK, we’ve done it.’ Flora gave her a reassuring smile as she tucked the rug securely around her patient’s knees.

  The x-ray department was packed. Flora asked how long it might be until they were seen, but the unsmiling receptionist, clearly used to this question, merely shrugged. ‘We’re running late,’ she intoned, pointing to the blackboard on the wall on which was scrawled in chalk, Current waiting time, approx one hour.

  Flora pushed the chair to the end of a row of seats and put on the brake.

  ‘Might be a long wait,’ she told Dorothea.

  ‘I … don’t mind. I find waiting rooms entertaining.’

  ‘You do?’

  Dorothea’s eyes flickered with a smile. ‘I don’t get out much these days.’

  Flora grinned back. ‘True. Well, Rene will be here soon. Do you want anything to drink? I’ve brought some water.’ But the old lady waved her hand to indicate she didn’t.

  Flora drank some water herself. She wasn’t feeling any better, she was just functioning on autopilot, looking forward to the moment when she could lie horizontal again, and sleep. Blurred thoughts of Jake strung through her brain, making her feel alternately uneasy and liberated; her body felt almost bruised. But perhaps, whatever happened next between them, Jake’s touch might have begun to expunge the memory of Fin’s.

  The x-ray, when it finally happened, was over in minutes; undressing Dorothea and dressing her again seemed to take hours and was exhausting. Rene fussed around her friend, making everything more stressful for Flora, and probably for Dorothea too, but it was finally done, and Flora wheeled the chair out towards the exit with relief. Rene moved ahead to open the door to the lifts.

  ‘Flora … Flora, wait.’ The voice came from behind her and a tall figure leaped to her side.

  CHAPTER 5

  21 September

  Flora stopped, clinging onto the chair handles as she realised who it was. She saw Rene waiting, holding the door open, but she couldn’t move.

  Fin was grinning from ear to ear. ‘God, is this a stroke of luck or what! I’ve been dying to see you again after the supermarket, but I didn’t know where you were.’

  ‘You’re here for an x-ray?’ She asked, realising how stupid her question was. Why else would someone like Fin be hanging around a hospital x-ray department?

  He nodded. ‘I’m still getting pain when I walk, and they thought it might be some gruesome condition where the hip begins to crumble because the blood’s been cut off … altogether too much information.’

  ‘Avascular necrosis?’

  Fin looked impressed. ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘And is it?’

  ‘They haven’t told me yet.’

  Rene was watching her impatiently.

  ‘Listen, I’ve got to go,’ Flora said, beginning to move the wheelchair forward.

  Fin glanced over at Rene and gave her a charming smile before turning his attention back to Flora. ‘Hey, don’t rush off again without telling me how I can get hold of you. Please.’

  ‘If you can manage the doors,’ Rene was calling, ‘I’ll go ahead and get the car round to the front.’

  ‘Thanks, I’m just coming.’ Flora was flustered, her heart jumping
in her chest. ‘I’m at Prue’s,’ she muttered to Fin as she walked.

  He frowned. ‘You’re living with your sister?’

  ‘In the basement flat,’ she said.

  ‘OK …’ He followed her, propping the door open as she moved towards the lift. ‘Could you give me your number though? I’m not sure I still have hers.’

  She waited by the lift, hardly daring to meet his eye. She knew she looked a wreck, and all she could think of was Jake’s hands all over her naked body. The lift was taking a bloody age. Fin hovered, his eyes searing into her. Can he tell what I’ve been doing? she wondered. Not that he had any right to judge.

  ‘Flora?’ His tone softened to hardly more than a whisper, and she felt his hand on her shoulder. ‘Please. Can we meet up? Just once?’

  She looked up at him finally. Their eyes met, and a frisson of pure longing passed through her tired body as she took in his familiar face, his expression both boyish and pleading. She tore her gaze away.

  ‘OK …’ She rattled her mobile number off. His face looked panicked as he tried to remember it while rooting around in his Eastpak for a pen, quoting the number back to himself. She relented, and repeated it more slowly. He found a pen and wrote hastily on the back of his hand. She remembered him often writing stuff on his hand or the inside of his wrist, and also her frequent, lighthearted advice to him that this wasn’t the best way to file information.

  The lift doors opened and she wheeled Dorothea into the crowded interior, everyone pressing themselves against the sides to make room for the chair. There was no space for Fin, and she didn’t turn round as the doors closed.

  *

  Flora had thought she would sleep like the dead that night. When she got home, almost dizzy with exhaustion, she just ate some toast, drank a large glass of water and was in bed before nine o’clock. But minutes later her mobile pinged with a message. Fin, she thought, as she reached across for it, and suddenly she was wide awake.

  Last night great. Should do it again soon? Best, Jake, read the text.

  She fell back on the pillows, disappointed, and then cursed herself for giving in and letting Fin have her number. She felt suddenly on the back foot, as had so often been the case in the past – waiting for him, in thrall to him, however willingly. And although she wanted him to ring, part of her also dreaded hearing what he had to say: perhaps that he had moved on, or that he just wanted to exonerate himself, no more than that. Fantasies that he still loved her were nothing short of imbecilic, she knew. And here was Jake, willing to take her on.

  Yes, I enjoyed it too. Bad head now! See you soon, she texted back to Jake on the spur of the moment.

  *

  Flora mooched around for the rest of the weekend, checking her mobile a ridiculous number of times, and gradually getting more and more angry with Fin. Why did he ask for my number if he wasn’t going to use it? she asked herself repeatedly. What does he want from me? But however much she talked herself down, the feeling that she might see him again drove her heart to race, put her off her food, made her languish on the sofa, dreaming, like a lovesick teenager.

  She was glad when it was Monday again.

  ‘Morning Keith,’ she said, stopping by the porter’s desk.

  Keith’s face lit up. ‘Florence! Haven’t seen much of you recently. How’s it all going?’

  ‘Not so bad,’ Flora replied. ‘You?’

  For once Keith Godly didn’t pull a face. ‘Yeah. Not so bad my end either. Been out a bit …’ He looked embarrassed and hurried on. ‘Nothing serious yet.’

  ‘Know the feeling.’ Flora decided the porter did look different this morning, his heavy face topped with the dark buzz-cut somehow brighter, a light in his normally troubled eyes.

  ‘Do you now? So you’ve got something brewing too?’

  ‘You could put it like that,’ she laughed.

  Keith nodded approvingly. ‘Nothing like a bit of action to lift the spirits, eh?’

  Mary looked relieved to see her and immediately pulled her into the kitchen before she even had time to take off her coat.

  ‘Happened again. Sunday night, just like last week. She was as twitchy as hell all night. Calling out all the time, saying she was uncomfortable, or wanted a wee, anything and nothing. Seems she just wanted me there.’

  ‘But she didn’t seem ill?’

  ‘I took her blood pressure, which was quite high, but it often is. And she doesn’t have a temperature. I’m saying, it’s just like last time.’

  Both of them stood thinking for a while.

  ‘You don’t think it has anything to do with Pia do you? I mean, that’s two weeks running that she’s been like this on a Sunday night. And Pia stayed over Saturday night both weeks, didn’t she?’

  Mary nodded, reaching for the kettle and filling it. ‘Pia said she needed the extra work, and I must say it was grand having the night off.’

  ‘So Pia was here all weekend each time.’

  Mary looked at her, frowning. ‘Are you thinking there’s something going on?’

  Flora told her about what Rene had said.

  ‘But can you imagine Pia being mean to anyone?’ Mary countered.

  ‘No, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t, does it?’

  ‘Should you talk to Dorothea again?’

  ‘I suppose. But I don’t want to put something into her mind about Pia if it’s not true.’

  ‘Christ,’ Mary muttered. ‘Pia seemed very bright and breezy about the day when I came on. How can we find out then?’

  ‘I’ll try again, and I’ll tell Rene. Not sure what else we can do.’

  Mary’s brow darkened. ‘If anyone’s bullying that sweet old lady, she’ll have me to answer to.’

  ‘Well, hold on. Let’s establish some facts first. It’s probably nothing to do with any of us.’

  *

  Flora waited till she had settled Dorothea. It was a gloomy day, and she put the lamp on next to the old lady’s chair, then sat down opposite her on the sofa.

  ‘Dorothea, I … er … I wanted to ask you about Pia.’ This wasn’t the first time she had asked, but the old lady was always vague in her replies.

  ‘Pia?’ She looked blankly at Flora.

  ‘You know, the nurse who looks after you at the weekend.’

  Dorothea looked away, then down at her hands.

  ‘Dorothea?’

  ‘What is it that you want to know?’ she eventually replied.

  ‘Well, I was wondering if you like having her here.’

  There was a very long pause.

  ‘I think she’s … helpful.’

  Flora was puzzled by the word. ‘So you do nice things together do you? She said in the report that she took you to church on Sunday … in Eldon Road?’

  Another pause.

  ‘She … No, she didn’t.’

  Flora was surprised, but maybe Dorothea had forgotten. It was possible. Surely Pia wouldn’t lie about something like that?

  ‘So you didn’t see Reverend Jackson?’ She knew how much Dorothea loved the charismatic vicar of her church.

  ‘I … don’t think so,’ the old lady replied.

  ‘You know that Rene can stop Pia coming if you don’t like having her here.’

  Dorothea looked at her, her expression suddenly alert.

  ‘We can easily get another nurse to look after you at the weekends,’ Flora added.

  ‘Can you?’ Her pale eyes looked doubtful.

  ‘Yes. It would be no problem. You wouldn’t have to see her again.’ It would be a problem, in fact, finding a really good nurse to take over weekends. But Flora knew Rene would go to the ends of the earth to protect her friend, if that’s what was needed.

  Dorothea seemed sunk in thought, to the extent that Flora began to wonder if she had forgotten what they were talking about.

  ‘I don’t think that would be a very good idea.’ The old lady spoke slowly but firmly.

  ‘So Pia is kind to you. You like having her here.’
<
br />   Her patient stared at her for a long time. ‘I … think it’s best to leave things as they are,’ she said.

  Flora didn’t know what to think. Surely, if Pia was the problem Dorothea would have said something to one of them by now. She and Rene had given her every opportunity.

  On her way out to the shops, she questioned Keith.

  ‘I’m not up here much on the weekends,’ he told her. ‘I know who you mean … small Asian lady, plumpish. We’ve said hello once or twice.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t know if she took Miss Heath-Travis to church on Sundays, for instance?’

  Keith shrugged. ‘Not sure how she’d get the chair down those steps, she’s only a wee thing. She hasn’t asked me, but maybe one of the residents helped her out?’

  Flora sighed.

  ‘Problem?’

  ‘Not sure.’ She wasn’t going to point the finger, but Keith had understood anyway.

  ‘I can check on them next weekend if you like. Wouldn’t be a problem to make up some excuse to drop in. I’ve got a key.’

  Flora thought about this. ‘That might be helpful. Can I let you know when I’ve talked to Rene?’

  *

  Dorothea slept for almost two hours that afternoon. Flora took the opportunity to ring Rene and tell her what had happened, but she wasn’t sure what to do either.

  ‘Keep an eye,’ she told Flora in her breathless high-pitched voice. ‘Let me know what you think by Thursday, so we have time to get something else organised if necessary. I’m going to ring Pia and see if she can throw any light on it all. We mustn’t fall into the trap of blaming her unless we’re absolutely sure. I must say, I find it hard to believe … Dorothea might just be going a bit dotty.’

  As Flora finished the call, she found a text from Jake: Do you fancy music and pizza Tuesday eve? Got friend playing jazz in Soho caff. Might be a laugh. Jake x

  Without hesitation she replied, Yes, love to. What time?