‘Patrick?’ she said, puzzled. ‘I thought you’d be at work.’
‘I have been—seen my pre-ops, started Raj on the first case. I just wanted to be here when you got back.’
‘Why—is it Scruff? Has something happened to him?’ she said, suddenly panicked and unable to read his expression, but Scruff had come hobbling out of the sitting room and was nuzzling her hand, and she realised it was nothing to do with him. But Patrick was still looking odd. Expectant? Worried? She didn’t know. She couldn’t read his face, but there was something going on. So—what, then...?
‘Has something happened to the house? A break-in or something?’
She looked past him to the end of the hall—and froze. Oh, no. What on earth...? ‘Where’s the kitchen door?’ she said warily.
‘Gone. Come—let me show you.’
He held out his hand, and like an automaton she let him lead her through the dining room and into—her kitchen?
Her hands flew to her mouth, holding in a gasp. It was her kitchen. The kitchen in the plan. Everything. The wall, the doorways, all the changes. The gleaming stainless-steel range cooker was there on the far wall, in pride of place, and on the worktop that divided the kitchen from the dining area, there was an enormous flower arrangement.
‘It isn’t tiled above the worktops because we didn’t know what you’d want,’ Patrick was saying, ‘and likewise the floor covering, and we haven’t put the things away because we didn’t know where you’d want them all, so it’s not quite finished, but—’
‘We?’ she said, registering the word through the roaring in her ears.
‘Sally, Fliss, Tom, Ben. They all helped. Fliss especially. She’s been amazing.’
She looked up at him, stunned. ‘You did this?’
He nodded.
‘You didn’t get a firm in?’
‘No. We did it.’
She looked away, back at the kitchen she’d dreamed of for so long, and shook her head. All those people...
‘You shouldn’t have done it, Patrick,’ she said, her voice quivering.
‘We wanted to.’
‘No. No, you really shouldn’t have done it,’ she said, her voice hardening now, her body taking over the shaking as reality hit home. They’d all been here, planning, plotting...
‘How did you do it? Plan it all? All of you getting together and talking about it? Keeping it a secret from me, lying to me— and getting the key. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you’d planned Scruff’s injury to give you an excuse to get in here.’
‘Oh, come on, Annie, you know that isn’t true.’
‘Isn’t it? You deceived me! When I phoned to ask how the dog was, and asked you how it was going, you deliberately deceived me, and you know how I feel about that. My God, to think I trusted you!’
She broke off, shaking her head, her hand over her mouth again. ‘How could you, Patrick? How could you talk about me, bring people in here, into my house, coercing them into doing things for me, because I can’t cope? I was coping, dammit! I was virtually there. I could have done it. I didn’t need everybody’s pity, their charity, their—oh, God, I’m so humiliated! How could you have done this to me? I feel...’ She cast around for words. ‘Violated,’ she said eventually, tasting the word and finding it every bit as bitter as it sounded. ‘And.. .betrayed.’
And then finally, running out of words, she walked to the door and opened it. The front door, since she no longer had a back door. ‘Please, leave,’ she said, and after an endless moment he walked slowly down the hall, pausing beside her, his eyes stricken.
‘Annie, please, it wasn’t like that—’
‘Oh, it was, Patrick. It was—it is—for me.’
For an age he said nothing, just stood there, then he said softly, his voice raw, ‘Annie, I’m so sorry.’
And he walked out, leaving her to close the door behind him.
She went back into the kitchen—via the dining room, because there was no other way now—and stood staring in agony at the kitchen that for so long had been her dream.
And then she burst into tears.
CHAPTER TEN
He was devastated. How could he have got it so wrong?
He had no idea, but get it wrong he had, in spades. Patrick went back to the hospital, scrubbed up and took over the second operation, his mind whirling and his hands on autopilot.
‘You all right, boss?’ Raj said, and Patrick stared at him blankly. ‘Only you’ve already reamed that out.’
He stared down at the instruments in his hands, and realised they were shaking. ‘Sorry—not feeling too great. Can you take over?’
‘Of course. I can do the rest of the list if you like. It’s pretty quiet today, we’ve had cancellations.’
He nodded. ‘Thanks.’ He moved away from the table, stripping off his gown and gloves, chucking them into the bin, ditching his mask, walking out without a backward glance. He went down to A and E and found Sally. He’d promised her he’d report back, and now, he supposed, he ought to do it.
She pounced on him the moment he walked into the department. ‘Well? Good grief, Patrick, whatever did she say? You look dreadful!’
‘She said she felt violated,’ he said, and he felt his eyes start to prickle. No, dammit, he wasn’t going to do that. ‘I, er...I think we misjudged her reaction.’ And he recounted the basic elements of their conversation. If it could be called a conversation, since he’d hardly got a word in edgeways.
Sally was staring at him, horrified, and if he wasn’t going to cry, well, she was. Her eyes filled with tears, and she dashed them away angrily. ‘That’s ridiculous. I’m going to see her.’
‘Don’t. Leave her. She’s exhausted. Let her get used to it, and then talk to her. She’s right, Sally. We should have asked her. You know what a private person she is. We just invaded her home without permission, and even with the best intentions, it was still the wrong thing to do—’
‘Rubbish! You’re both being ridiculous now!’
‘Problems?’ Tom said, coming over to them with a frown on his face.
‘Annie’s upset,’ Sally told him. ‘She feels violated.’
‘Ouch. She said violated? That’s a bit strong.’
‘What?’ Fliss said, appearing out of nowhere. ‘That’s crazy. Silly woman. Doesn’t she know why we all did it?’
Patrick shrugged. ‘I couldn’t reason with her. She felt deceived by us. She hated that and I couldn’t get past it.’
Sally snorted. ‘Leave it to me,’ she said, and stalked off before he could stop her.
‘I suppose I’m meant to arrange cover while she’s on a “break”,’ Tom said wryly, and put a comforting hand on Patrick’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, old man. She’ll come round. Sally’ll sort her out.’
But somehow he doubted it. He had a feeling that the damage was too great, the infringement of her privacy, the invasion of her space too deep to allow any easy solution.
With a heavy sigh, he turned and went back up to Theatre. He couldn’t stand about all day doing nothing, and he’d be better busy.
It knocked spots off thinking about the stupid, stupid thing he’d done...
‘Do you have any idea how upset he is? How much he wanted to do this for you? How much we all did?’
Annie listened to the woman she’d thought was her friend as if she were on the other side of some great divide.
‘If you’re going to harangue me you’d better come in, since you seem to be quite at home here. And since you probably know more about my kitchen than I do, maybe you’d like to make us coffee.’
She walked off, going into the sitting room and plonking herself down on the sofa. Scruff wagged his tail, but she couldn’t even summon a smile for the poor old dog.
‘I’ve put the kettle on.’
Was she expecting to be thanked? Annie ignored her, not knowing how to speak to her or what to say. There was only one word that kept going round and round her head. Violated. No, mak
e that two words. Violated and betrayed—her friendships, her trust, all the little confidences she’d made to Patrick over the weeks.
How many had he shared with the others? What had he told them? She’d given Sally scant details, but Patrick—she’d poured her heart out to Patrick in the last few weeks, and she had no idea how much he would have told the others.
She felt raw inside, her trust shattered, and now she didn’t know what to say to the only real friend she’d had for years.
Sally came back a few moments later with two mugs of coffee, and set them down. ‘Talk to me,’ she begged.
‘I can’t. I daren’t. I can’t trust you any more.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ she said, and Annie heard the catch in her voice and realised she was crying. ‘Annie, please try and understand. We didn’t want to upset you, we weren’t planning and plotting and scheming, we didn’t lie to you.’
‘Patrick did. He told me he’d spent most of the weekend hanging around, drinking tea.’
Sally smiled unsteadily. ‘It’s true. I must have made gallons.’
‘It isn’t true. He deliberately lied to me.’
‘No! He didn’t lie, Annie. You’re being silly. He kept a secret, that’s all. It’s called a surprise. Most people would be thrilled.’
‘Well, I’m not most people. I’m me. And it seems there’s nobody left who I can trust. Still, looking on the bright side, at least I can get the house on the market, and then we can move away and I can start again.’
‘What? Annie, no!’
‘Sally, yes! Tell me why I should stay.’
‘Because we love you. Patrick loves you.’
‘Does he? Tough. I don’t need a man like that just because he loves me. It’s not enough. He needs to have integrity—’
‘Integrity? How much integrity, for heaven’s sake? Enough integrity to sit beside his wife for ten years, talking to her and telling her things just in case she could understand? Do you know he went every single day to see her? For ten years?'
She stared at Sally coldly. ‘Was there anything he didn’t tell you?’
‘Yes—plenty. He told us nothing about his relationship with you.’
‘Are you sure? If he told you that much about himself, why wouldn’t he talk about us?’
‘Because he’s a good man? Because he has this precious integrity you’re on about? Because he loves you?’
Annie looked away. ‘What did he tell everyone about me to get you all on board?’
Sally stared at her in confusion. ‘Nothing. He told us nothing. He didn’t need to. We all know what you’ve been through, how brave and gutsy you’ve been, how hard you’ve worked to hold things together for Katie. There was nothing he could tell us about you we didn’t already know, but he told us about Ellie, and how it was, finding her lying there, and about the baby and how his child might have been like Katie or my Alex. How holding Meg and Ben’s baby had hurt. How lucky he thinks we all are to have kids.’
Annie felt a little finger of fear. ‘Do you think he’s been befriending me to get to Katie? To make up for his loss?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, no, I do not! I think he’s a lovely man, kind and decent and caring, and he’d love to be a father, and he adores you and your daughter and if you’re seriously thinking of throwing it all' away just because he’s hidden a surprise from you, then you’re right, you don’t need a man like him. You don’t damn well deserve him! Do you know, when that kitchen was finished he couldn’t even thank us because he was virtually in tears? And this is all you have to say about it.’
And with that Sally got up and ran out, slamming the front door behind her.
For an age Annie didn’t move, just sat there, and then she stood up and walked slowly into the kitchen, Scruff limping at her side, his eyes troubled. He butted her hand with his cold, wet nose, and she reached down and stroked him gently.
‘Is she right, Scruff?’ she asked. ‘Am I just being silly? I wish he’d asked me...’
He did. He asked you over and over to let him help.
‘And I said no.’
He should have listened.
She scrubbed the tears away. She was exhausted beyond thought, but she wouldn’t sleep. Not now, with her heart in shreds and her relationship with Patrick and all her friends in tatters.
So she shoved the flowers out of the way, pulled the dusty boxes of kitchen equipment out of the corner of the dining room where they’d been lurking for over two years and unpacked them all, put them through the dishwasher—such a luxury—and put them away in the pristine new cupboards.
So much space. So much worktop. After years of working on something the size of a small chopping board, it was astonishing.
And the flowers.
She let her hand stray out to touch them. They were beautiful—a sop to his guilt, because he knew he’d overstepped the mark?
Or just flowers for her, because he loved her?
Had she been too hard on him? On all of them?
She hugged her arms around her waist and stared at her kitchen. So much work. So much work.
And for her.
She shook her head.
No. They should have told her. Should have asked her.
And she would have said no. They’d known that. So they’d kept it to themselves and done it anyway, because they loved her.
She glanced at her watch and blinked. Heavens. Katie. And whatever would she say? She hurried to get her from school, and didn’t say anything about it, just opened the front door and waited for her reaction.
It wasn’t what she expected, but it was appallingly similar to her own.
‘What happened?’ she asked, walking slowly through the dining-room door, her eyes wide and puzzled.
‘Patrick and Sally and the others did the kitchen over the weekend.’
Katie turned to her, her eyes accusing now. ‘Did you know?’ Annie shook her head. ‘No. They didn’t tell me.’
‘Why did they do it?’ she asked, then burst into tears and ran up to her room, sobbing. Annie followed her, aghast, but couldn’t get a word of sense out of her. Eventually Katie fell asleep, still whimpering from time to time, and Annie sat there stroking her hair and soothing her until she was peaceful.
Dear heavens. How much more damage could one kitchen do? Her heart in turmoil, she went into her bedroom, too exhausted to sit up any longer. She’d just lie down for a little while and keep an ear out for Katie...
The doorbell rang.
It was nine o’clock, and Patrick was physically and emotionally drained. He contemplated not answering it, but then it rang again and again, insistently, and he prised himself out of the chair and went to the door.
‘Katie?’
He hunkered down to her level, taking her cold, wet hands in his. She was soaking, rain dripping off her hair and nose and chin—or were those tears? Her eyes were red-rimmed and wary, and he drew her into the hall and closed the door, taking off her coat and gathering her close, his heart pounding with fear. ‘Sweetheart, what on earth is it?’
‘Why did you do it? Why did you fit the kitchen? Now Mummy’s going to sell the house and we’ll have to move, and I don’t want to move! I like it there. I love my bedroom, and the swing in the garden, and next door’s cat comes and talks to me, and I don’t want to leave it, and now we’ll have to and it’s all your fault...’
She burst into tears, her skinny little body shaking all over, and he held her close and stroked her soggy hair and closed his eyes in despair.
What had he done to them? He’d only meant to help, but now Annie wouldn’t speak to him and Katie was accusing him of taking away her house and home, the fragile security of her safe haven.
‘Come on, let me take you home, your mother’ll be worried sick. Does she know you’re here?’
Katie shook her head. ‘She’s sleeping.’
‘I’ll ring her.’
Annie didn’t answer the phone, so he wrote her a note and tucke
d it in his letterbox in case she came round to his house. Then, putting Katie back into her coat, he ushered her into his car and drove her straight home.
The landing lights were on, and when he rang the doorbell Scruff barked and he saw the hall light come on. Thank God. Annie was at home.
He saw her silhouette approaching, then she opened the door, took one look at him and tried to shut it.
‘Patrick, please, I can’t talk to you tonight.’
He jammed his foot in the door and levered it open. ‘I think you can. I’ve got Katie here.’
The door whipped open, and she stared down at her daughter in bewilderment. ‘But...darling, you were in your bed.’
‘I went to see Patrick. I didn’t want you to do the kitchen. I want to stay here.’
And she ran past her mother in floods of tears, rushing up the stairs and into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Annie stared after her for a few seconds, then turned back to him, her face appalled.
‘What’s she talking about?’
‘She doesn’t want to move. She likes it here. It’s familiar. I think she feels safe.’
Annie scrubbed her hands over her face and turned to stare up the stairs again. ‘Oh, what a mess.’
He could hear the tears in her voice, but there was nothing he could do to comfort her because the mess was all of his making. He stepped back. ‘Annie, I’m sorry. We need to talk about this, but not now, you’re right. You’re exhausted, and you need to talk to Katie, but I want to talk to you about where you can go from here.’
‘I know exactly where we can go. There’s a semi about half a mile away for sale. It’s not brilliant, but it would cut my mortgage down to a manageable level. I’m viewing it after work tomorrow.’
He shook his head. ‘Talk to me first.’
She gave him a haunted look that cut him like a razor. ‘I think we’ve talked enough.’
And she closed the door, leaving him standing in the rain at a loss.
Annie was stumped. Katie was adamant she didn’t want to move, and her tears last night had been so heartbroken Annie had promised to look again at the figures. If she took the money she’d earned for the kitchen off the mortgage, it would make a little difference.
A Wife and Child to Cherish (Audley Memorial Hospital) Page 15
