Learning to Love Again

by Chrissie Loveday

  ‘Perhaps I’m a better actress than I thought. Don’t beat yourself up about it. All’s well now. You have to get your own life sorted out. Time you began to live properly again. Time you forgot about that husband of yours and thought about the future for you and Holly. She needs a daddy in her life.’

  ‘I suppose you’d prescribe Joe, would you?’

  ‘You could do far worse. He’s a good man and he is obviously fond of you and Holly. In fact, I’d half hoped you’d have some news for me when I came home? Spending time together, as you did.’

  ‘We’re very good friends. But I’m not ready for more. Not yet.’

  * * *

  The next few days were a quiet routine of building Lucy’s strength and organising Holly. She kept asking for Joe but he seemed to have disappeared completely. Anna began to realise she had probably scared him off. Her response to him must have proved that she was a hopeless case and now he’d gone away. It wasn’t only Holly who missed him.

  Her first night on duty at the hospital was reasonably quiet. There were the usual ward rounds and new-born babies who needed night feeds, to organise. She even managed a bit of sleep in the staff rest room and was ready to start her day with Holly when she returned home. The one problem with the weekend was that there was no nursery, so any sleep had to be snatched at odd moments when Holly was resting. Lucy listened for the child and promised to wake her when she was needed.

  The next night was busier, with a fairly straightforward birth. There was no rest possible this time and she went home feeling totally drained. She tried to be lively for Holly but it was very difficult not to drop off to sleep whenever she stopped. Reading a book was fatal and Holly kept prodding her to get on with the story.

  By the time her next duty started, she felt quite dizzy and she hoped desperately that there were no complications. It reminded her of student days when they worked all day, partied all evening and studied into what was left of the night. How on earth had they ever coped? The joys of youth, she assumed.

  She walked along the hospital corridors to get herself something to eat before the canteen closed. She half wondered if she might meet Joe, as she had done once before.

  ‘Where are you, Joe?’ she whispered. She had come to rely on him and was missing him dreadfully. This was the painful part of loving someone. Made even more painful because she daren’t tell him just how much she loved him. Even more than Ben? She wondered.

  She shivered. It was too disloyal to the father of their child. How could she allow herself to love anyone more than Ben? He had been everything to her. He hadn’t been able to help getting into financial difficulties. She just wished he’d confided in her before it had all gone so wrong. Poor Ben.

  Not for the first time, she once more wondered if he’d killed himself deliberately. Scuppered the boat because he couldn’t cope any longer. But as always, she pushed the thought away.

  Not Ben. Never. He enjoyed life too much to ever end it deliberately. Fun loving, madcap Ben would never have ended it that way.

  * * *

  Anna had agreed to work five nights on and three nights off. It was a long time reaching the fifth night but in the long term, it should enable her to establish some sort of sleep pattern. She felt totally exhausted and longed for a proper night’s sleep. Inevitably, when the time came, she found it almost impossible and thoughts of Joe and Ben whirled around her mind. Lucy was getting very worried about her and suggested that she must return to her normal routine right away and that somehow, she would cope. But Anna would not ever consider this and insisted that she was fine.

  She finally got a call from Joe.

  ‘I’ve got some news for you. I need to see you as soon as possible.’

  ‘What is it? Where’ve you been all this time? Nobody would tell me where you’d gone. I thought you’d left because you were sick of us.’

  ‘Oh, my love. Of course not. Not directly, that is. When can we meet?’

  ‘Tell me, Joe. Is it something terrible?’

  ‘When can we meet,’ he repeated.

  ‘Now, if you like. I can’t stand the suspense.’

  ‘I want you to be alone. Can you arrange that?’

  ‘Of course. Pick me up here and we’ll go out somewhere.’ Anna stood clutching the phone. Holly was in bed and Lucy was watching some television programme.

  On pins, Anna waited for Joe to arrive. She had forgotten to ask where he was so had no idea how long he would be. She was in her old jeans and a scruffy T-shirt but changing didn’t occur to her. He clearly had something serious to discuss and she was very scared of what it might be.

  A SHOCKING DISCOVERY

  Anna watched through the window for his car. When he stopped in the drive, she ran to the door. Joe put his arms round her and kissed her gently. He held her close and comfortingly.

  ‘What is it, Joe? You’re scaring me.’

  ‘You’d better sit down. I have some news. News about Ben.’

  Her face went pale and she felt the room suddenly seem to be swirling round. ‘You’ve found his boat?’

  ‘Yes. But there’s more. Much more. I’ve been trying to think of easy ways to tell you this, but there is only one way. He isn’t dead at all. I don’t really know how to tell you . . . but he’s alive and well. He’s living in Santander. In Spain. I’m sorry. I mean, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.’

  Anna thought she was about to faint, but Joe put his arm round her for support and comfort. He was feeling almost desperate to know her thoughts but dared not ask. He wanted to take away the hurt. To love her better. To blot away all her pain. All he could do was to hold her.

  Anna was conscious of every beat of her heart and the blood pounded round her head. She felt as if her feet were floating above the ground. She managed to whisper.

  ‘But how could he be? How could he be alive and not get in contact with me? Let me think he was dead all this time? How could anyone be so unbelievably cruel?’

  ‘Because he wanted it that way. It was a deliberate plan. He’s changed his name and that of the boat. He planned it all carefully. I’m afraid there’s something else.’

  ‘What could be any worse?’

  ‘He’s got another partner. They went away together to start a new life.’

  ‘So he must have cleared our bank account deliberately. And the second mortgage was to raise even more funds? And all this to make a new start with someone else. How could he? Surely he must have realised what this would do to me? To his parents? I find it impossible to believe. Not my beautiful Ben. He would never do this to me.’

  Sobs wracked through her body as the whole truth was dawning. Three long years of grieving and all the time he was enjoying life with another woman. All the struggles she had to pay off debts. Joe put a hand on her shoulder but she shook it off.

  He went to make some tea. He felt helpless. He’d known his plan might backfire on him. That it could lead to something like this and for the hundredth time, he asked himself if it had been the right thing to do. He’d thought about some of the things Anna had said when telling the story. He remembered the thoughts the lifeboat crews had at the time and the comments they’d made.

  He’d had the feeling that Ben’s disappearance had been too thorough and he had decided to go and search for him. It had been only a faint chance but he knew that Anna would always hold back with him, unless she finally found closure. If he had failed to find Ben then he would have gradually convinced her that he’d been lost. But he had been too successful and his worst nightmare had proved to be true. He took the tea into the sitting room.

  ‘Come on, drink this. I know it doesn’t help much but sipping it might stop you crying for a few minutes.’

  ‘I need to know everything,’ Anna told him. ‘Right from the beginning. How, why . . . everything.’

  ‘You once asked if it was possible that he meant to disappear and start again. It played on my mind. I know the sea is a large place but if he really had sailed
where he’d said he was going, there would surely have been something found from the boat. So, I decided to follow it up. I checked a couple of marinas along the coast and found someone who remembered him. Ben was well known around these parts.

  ‘This chap said he’d loaded up with stores and there’d been a woman with him. He’d thought no more about it and assumed as we all did, that he’d been lost at sea. I worked out where he was likely to have gone and tried a few ports in Brittany to start with. Eventually, I went to Santander in Spain and bingo. There he was. He’s running some sort of hire business, pretty much as he did here.’

  ‘Utter swine!’ she exclaimed. ‘How could he? How could he hurt people so much? How did you recognise him?’ Tears were streaming unchecked as she spoke through her sobs.

  ‘You have photographs around the place. I’ve usually felt he was also haunting me a bit. Keeping watch to see I behaved myself. Then I mentally added a beard. That’s the usual disguise. I was right.’

  ‘What did he say to you?’

  ‘You don’t want to know. Words to the effect of you’re welcome to her. Only ruder.’

  ‘Did . . . did you tell him about Holly?’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m afraid so. I let it out when I was telling him what I thought of him. Apart from what he’s done to you, I was pretty angry about the amount of time and money that was wasted by all of us looking for him. He’d sailed away in entirely the opposite direction, so even if he’d been spotted by the helicopter somewhere south, he may not have been recognised. He’d already painted over the boat’s name and registration number. I really find it hard to believe he’d do this to you.’ Joe rubbed his chin as if remembering something.

  They talked long into the night. Questions poured from Anna and always Joe tried to answer honestly and without prejudice. Evidently Ben had been shocked to learn about Holly and even seemed to show slight remorse at this point. Joe’s greatest fear was that he might show up again to see the child or worse. He was much too afraid to ask Anna how she would feel.

  ‘I think I should leave now,’ Joe said at last. ‘I’m due back at work in the morning. Shall we meet up at lunch time?’

  ‘I’m not working at the centre at the moment. I’ve swapped with Joanna. I’m doing nights at the hospital. Just till Lucy’s fully recovered.’

  ‘I hope that will be very soon. The place won’t be the same without you there.’

  * * *

  Lucy was understandably devastated when she heard the news and immediately tried to take charge again. They spent a lazy day, doing their best to shield Holly from the frenzy of feelings they both shared. Over and over she asked how he could have done it to her and his own family, but there was never an answer. Anna decided that it must have been life with her that had been so awful. Ben must really have hated her. Her confidence sank once more to rock bottom.

  She went to work with a heavy heart. Her hopes of possibly making a new life with Joe were completely dashed. Whatever Ben had done, they were still married. How could she ever marry anyone else? She could have been happy with Joe and without a doubt, Holly would have loved him almost as much as she did. Now she had to face seeing the handsome doctor every day at work, once she went back to the Medical Centre. It was almost too much.

  He was probably going to stay on indefinitely, unless this turn of events made him change his mind. Her brooding was ended rather abruptly when a call came in to say the ambulance was bringing in a patient. It was Sandy Pierce. Her labour had started and though the baby was very early, they were all praying it would survive. Anna paged the consultant. He would need to be present for this one. She could not make any decisions on her own.

  ‘Oh Anna, thank heavens for a friendly face,’ Sandy gasped. ‘I couldn’t hold on any longer.’

  ‘Bring her through here,’ she told the ambulance crew. ‘The doctor is on his way down.’

  Anna pulled over the sophisticated monitoring devices and attached the pads to Sandy’s tummy. She clipped the pulse peg to her finger and attached the blood pressure monitor. She watched the readings before examining her further.

  ‘How long might it be, do you think?’ asked Sandy anxiously.

  ‘We’ll know better when the doctor’s seen you.’ Sandy was sweating profusely and she got a face cloth and wiped her forehead. ‘Where’s Jack?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Doctor Grey said, as he came rushing in. ‘What have we got?’

  ‘This is Sandy Pierce. Thirty weeks. She’s started labour. Not very far yet but you need to look at the foetal heart rate. Bit erratic. Down to sixty at times.’

  The doctor made a thorough examination and listened to the heart.

  ‘I was hoping we might be able to slow you down. Even stop the contractions, but I think we’re a bit too late for that. We need to deliver this baby as fast as we can. We really need to do a caesarian section. Are you all right with that?’

  ‘Oh, but I so wanted to have a normal birth. With Jack there too.’

  ‘He can attend the birth, unless there are any problems. It may not be what you wanted but it’s for the best. I’m afraid we might lose your baby, unless we hurry.’

  ‘I’ll let theatre know we’re on the way. It really is for the best,’ Anna assured her and once she’d phoned the theatre, began to prepare Sandy for the surgery. She’d spoken to the doctor and established the procedure to be used.

  ‘We’ll give you an injection which numbs all the nerves in your spine. You shouldn’t feel a thing. I’ll be with you all the time.’

  ‘Thanks, Anna. I’m so glad you are here. It will be all right, won’t it?’

  ‘We’ll do everything we possibly can. Look, here’s Jack. I’ll leave you to explain what’s happening.’ Anna hoped that giving her something to do would lessen her patient’s anxiety. She went through to the small operating theatre to prepare herself and make sure everything was ready. For a baby delivered before term, they more often went to the large hospital at Truro, but there was no time.

  The on-call anaesthetist arrived and everything was ready. Sandy was wheeled in and an anxious Jack followed, gowned and ready to play his supportive role.

  The expert staff was soon delivering the baby and Anna immediately took charge of him, taking him to the table where a radiant heater shone down, making sure he was warm.

  He was very tiny and having difficulty in starting to breathe. The staff watched as Anna worked on him, shielding him with her back to make sure the new parents were unaware of their anxiety. She cleared the mucous and gently coaxed his heartbeat. She gently flicked his feet to stimulate a reaction and rubbed him with a towel. She applied the oxygen mask to help him. Nothing.

  She rubbed him again, doing everything she could to stimulate the fragile life. More oxygen until at long last, he gave a splutter. A thin wail came from him and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. She smiled and quickly wrapped him in a soft cloth and took him to his parents.

  ‘Meet your son,’ she whispered, her own emotions running high, as always. After the initial struggle, she felt even more moved this time. ‘I’m afraid I need to put him in the humidicrib right away. He needs to be kept warm and we will need to monitor him all the time. You’ll be able to see him soon.’

  ‘I can’t believe how quickly it was all over,’ Jack was saying to his wife. He was still feeling stunned by his experience of being rushed into theatre so swiftly.

  ‘I get the feeling it’s all only just starting,’ Sandy said feebly.

  It wasn’t long before she was back in a bed, sitting up and sipping tea.

  ‘Your little boy’s resting now. He seems to be holding his own,’ Anna said.

  ‘And you think he’s going to be all right?’

  ‘We hope so. Now, you need to rest. You can stay for a while Jack, but I recommend you go home and try to sleep. You’ll need your strength once the family get home.’

  ‘Family. That sounds good. After all this time, I thought it was always going to be just the two of
us. Well done, darling,’ he murmured to his wife.

  Anna left them alone. How much she would have loved the closeness of a loving husband when she had given birth. Instead, he’d been sailing around the Spanish coast with another woman, leaving her believing she was a grief stricken widow, coping alone. She felt the surge of anger rising once more and wished she could talk to Joe again.

  Dear Joe. He seemed so dependable and to think he’d done all that for her. For them, perhaps. Maybe if he’d known the outcome, he wouldn’t have made such an effort. Perhaps she would have got over her guilt in time but now, she resented the fact that she wasn’t free. However free Ben thought he was, she knew she was still married.

  Joe had mentioned a divorce, but that still depended on Ben actually admitting his deception to the authorities. She still couldn’t believe he could have got away with it for so long.

  What on earth would his parents say? She gave a jolt. Ben’s parents. They would have to be told. Mrs Kington was not in the best of health. The shock could be too much for her. And who was going to break the news to them? Not her, if she could help it. The bleeping of a monitor brought her back to her work and she swept into action.

  Anna drifted along for several days. Joe called to them several times but she felt honour bound to keep him at a distance. He wasn’t very pleased about it, she knew.

  ‘I’d hoped to make things better, not worse,’ he said ruefully. ‘I begin to wish I hadn’t bothered.’

  * * *

  After two more weeks, Lucy begged Anna to return to her normal working hours.

  ‘I can easily look after Holly again, especially if we continue with the nursery school in a morning,’ she assured her. ‘And you look exhausted. I want to see some colour in your cheeks again.’

  ‘We’ve really missed you,’ Maggie told her when she returned to work during the day. ‘And so has the gorgeous Doctor Meredith. He’s been so serious nearly all the time since he got back from his holiday. Barely a joke in sight. Let’s hope you get him back to his old cheerful ways.’