Taken For Granted

by Caroline Anderson

  Did the two worlds have to be mutually exclusive?

  If only there was a compromise…

  * * *

  Sam stood at the school gates waiting for the children. This was the part of the day he hated most—hovering on the fringe while the coven, as he called them, clucked and chittered like hens.

  They threw him the odd glance, but so far no one had approached him—except Julia, the woman they shared Brownie-night lifts with, and she’d only wanted a favour.

  He scuffed the toe of his trainer into the ground, kicking idly at a pebble. Whoever said sex discrimination was a thing of the past hadn’t ever picked their kids up from school, he decided, because he was certainly discriminated against!

  Of course he could always go over there and talk to them, but there’d be a pregnant silence as he arrived, and they’d all shuffle awkwardly.

  No, he’d just stand here and wait, and hopefully Ben woudn’t lose his trainers today, for a change.

  He was tired, that was the trouble. Tired and crabby. The woman from Dustbusters had said they couldn’t come until tomorrow, and so he’d had to make a start on the cleaning.

  So far he’d done the sitting-room, and that was all. What a tip! Molly would kick up such a fuss if she knew what he’d chucked out, but the place was rapidly turning into a hovel. Sally should be pleased, though. It gleamed now from end to end—he’d even taken off the loose-covers and put them in the washing-machine.

  They were in the new tumble-drier now. Please God it wouldn’t catch fire, and he could get them back on before Sally got home. She’d be so pleased.

  ‘But what happened to them, Sam?’

  ‘I washed them—how was I to know they’d shrink?’

  ‘Well, they don’t normally. I put them on a fairly cool wash, tumble them on warm and put them back still damp—so what did you do?’

  He flushed even deeper.

  ‘They were filthy.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I gave them a hot wash.’

  Sally sighed. ‘And?’

  ‘I tumbled them on hot.’

  Sally shut her eyes. Men. How could they be so clever and yet so lacking in intelligence?

  ‘Maybe if we damp them down and tug them on, they’ll stretch,’ she suggested, and Sam bundled them up and handed them to her.

  ‘You do it—I’ve done quite enough damage.’

  Two hours later the covers were back on—just about—and Sally was curled up in the drawing-room on a dry sofa with a cup of tea.

  Sam was sitting opposite, his jaw set, looking like a thundercloud.

  ‘Sam?’

  ‘Everything I try and do goes wrong,’ he said bitterly. ‘Every last damn thing.’

  ‘You’re just not naturally domesticated, darling,’ she told him.

  He snorted rudely. ‘You knew that when you married me.’

  ‘Hey—when we got married, I wasn’t domesticated either!’

  He gave a wry grin. ‘No, you weren’t, were you? We had some rum meals those first few months.’

  ‘It was fun, though.’

  His face softened with the memories. ‘Yes—yes, it was fun. What happened to us, Sally? Where did we go wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said truthfully. ‘I really don’t.’

  He swirled his mug, staring down into the dregs of the tea. ‘Are you enjoying being back at work?’

  Her smile was wry. ‘More than you’re enjoying my job, I fancy.’

  He snorted. ‘That isn’t difficult. Of course, if I could do it well it might have its own reward.’

  ‘I shouldn’t bet on it,’ she advised him drily. ‘I’m going to ring ITU and find out how Carol Bailey is. They were scanning her.’

  Sam followed her, propping his hips against the worktop beside her and listening to the conversation.

  ‘Craniotomy to drain a small abscess in the brain, eh? You were right—clever girl.’

  Sally laughed. ‘Sam, you’d have to be blind and ignorant not to get that right—she had all the right symptoms. I wonder if she’ll make a complete recovery, or if she’ll be left with epilepsy?’

  ‘God only knows. Why don’t you come to bed while the phone’s quiet—?’

  ‘You were saying?’

  She lifted the receiver. ‘Dr Alexander.’ She listened for a moment, then scribbled an address. ‘Yes, of course I’ll come.’

  She gave Sam a weary smile. ‘Don’t wait up.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THERE’S a time, towards the quiet morning, when we are at our most vulnerable, when our souls most readily slip the leash.

  At just before four, Sally was woken by the phone. At her own lowest ebb, she felt her blood chill even further as the man spoke.

  ‘I can’t wake her—she’s freezing, and she won’t talk to me!’

  ‘I’ll come. Give me your address,’ she said calmly. Jotting down the directions, she watched as Sam got out of bed, laid her clothes out ready on the bed and then waited quietly until she put the phone down.

  ‘What is it? You look awful.’

  ‘He can’t wake his wife—he sounded awfully young, Sam—in his twenties?’

  She dressed quickly without saying any more. Sam waved her off, and then she was on her own. What would she find? A coma? Death, even? And from what? Suicide? Brain haemorrhage? Heart attack?

  God knows, she thought, and wondered what on earth she was doing. She was qualified, of course, but equipped? Emotionally and spiritually, did she have what she would need to deal with the situation and help those left behind?

  She arrived at the house to find lights on from top to bottom and the front door hanging open.

  A man of about thirty ran out, clad only in pyjama bottoms, his face ravaged.

  ‘Oh, Dr Alexander, thank God you’re here. Help her, please—she’s upstairs.’

  Sally followed him in, running lightly up the stairs and into the bedroom.

  His wife was lying in the bed, looking very young and quite peaceful. She was also obviously dead.

  As Sally examined her briefly, something else became obvious. She was pregnant.

  ‘Has she been complaining of anything in the last few days? Any pain? Headaches, that sort of thing?’

  ‘She had a headache yesterday.’

  That could well be significant, Sally thought, because, whatever she’d died of, she hadn’t been able to get help. Either that, or hadn’t wanted to. There was still the possibility of suicide. Certainly on brief examination there was nothing to indicate the cause of death. She straightened up slowly.

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ Mr Lennard asked frantically. ‘Why aren’t you doing anything?’

  Sally folded her stethoscope and put it in her pocket. ‘Mr Lennard, I’m awfully sorry, I’m afraid your wife’s dead. She’s been dead for some time.’

  He stared at her blankly for several seconds, then his eyes swivelled to his wife. He shook his head slowly. ‘No. No, she can’t be—she can’t!’

  He fell on his knees beside her, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her, yelling at her to wake up.

  Gradually the yells turned to sobs, then he rested his head against her and wept.

  Sally left him to it, checking the other bedrooms to see if there were any children asleep in the house. There weren’t, thank God. She didn’t feel up to dealing with them. He was going to be quite enough of a challenge.

  She went down to the kitchen and put the kettle on. While it boiled she looked round, to see if she could discover any clues. The kitchen was neat and tidy, wellkept, as if Mrs Lennard had been well up to last night. Certainly there was no evidence of her having been ill at all.

  She checked the bin for pill bottles, but there was nothing obvious. The police would have to investigate, of course, but so far Sally could see nothing suspicious. She would have to check the woman’s medical records to see if there was any reason why she might have died—high blood-pressure leading to a brain haemorrhage, for instanc
e—but the post-mortem would reveal the cause of death.

  Oh, dear. She rang the police, gave them the address and went back up to Mr Lennard.

  He was still kneeling by his wife, his face ravaged with pain and now the knowledge that, yes, she was dead. He had gone through disbelief into belief, and the next stage was shock.

  Sally laid a hand gently on his shoulder.

  ‘Mr Lennard? Is there anyone I can call for you? Anyone you want to tell?’

  He looked slowly up at her, his brows drawn together in confusion. ‘Tell?’ he said hoarsely.

  ‘Your parents, perhaps? Your wife’s parents?’

  ‘Oh—um—I suppose…My mum…’ His voice cracked, and she laid an arm round his shoulders and hugged him reassuringly.

  ‘Come on—come downstairs and have a cup of tea and I’ll help you phone.’

  He was reluctant to leave his wife, but Sally persuaded him to come down to the kitchen and pressed a cup of hot, sweet tea into his hand.

  ‘Drink this,’ she told him.

  ‘I hate sugar in tea.’

  ‘Just drink it. You can have the next one straight.’

  ‘Gabby always has sugar in tea,’ he said, and then he started to cry again, huge racking sobs that shook his body mercilessly.

  Sally took the tea out of his hand and put it on the table, then stood beside him, her hands resting on his shoulders.

  His arms came round her waist and he buried his face in her front and cried his heart out.

  That was how the police found them a few minutes later.

  A policewoman went upstairs to check the bedroom, while her male colleague tried to get some sense out of Mr Lennard about his wife’s details.

  ‘Have any of the dead woman’s relatives been informed?’ he asked Sally.

  She shook her head. ‘No, we were just getting round to that.’

  ‘Leave it to us,’ he advised her. ‘We’ll send a patrol car round. There’ll have to be a post-mortem of course.’

  Mr Lennard shuddered. ‘No,’ he pleaded weakly. ‘Oh, no…’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but we have to establish the cause of death.’

  He flinched at the word, and Sally reached out automatically to comfort him.

  The police procedure seemed to take forever, and it was six o’clock before Sally was able to get away.

  Sam was up and dressed, waiting for her when she got home.

  ‘Was she dead?’

  Sally nodded. ‘Yes. It was awful. She’s pregnant…’ Sally’s voice cracked, and she found herself in Sam’s arms, wrapped hard against his chest. She didn’t want to cry. She ought to be able to deal with this sort of thing without crying. It happened every day. Why was she finding it so damned hard to deal with?

  Her tears fell faster, and Sam rocked her gently against his chest and made soothing noises, meaningless sounds of comfort that gradually calmed her.

  She straightened away from him, scrubbing the tears from her cheeks, and looked round the kitchen.

  ‘Any tea?’ she asked unevenly.

  ‘I’ll make some—sit down.’

  He switched the kettle on. It boiled very quickly, as if he’d been expecting her.

  ‘Was it Gabby Lennard?’ he asked.

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘What a damn shame. Any idea why?’

  ‘No…Was she hypertensive?’

  ‘Slightly. I was going to monitor it closely—actually she was due in this afternoon for an ante-natal check.’

  ‘Oh, God.’

  Sam put a cup of tea down in front of her, turned a chair round and straddled it, folding his arms along the back and regarding her steadily.

  ‘Awful, isn’t it? Such a wicked waste.’

  ‘I’m sorry I cracked up,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It was just having to be strong for him, and deal with the police as if it was just an inanimate object we were talking about instead of a young, apparently healthy pregnant woman…’

  She broke off, on the brink of tears again, and took a gulp of her tea.

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ he said softly. ‘We all cry when it’s too bad. I’d be appalled if you didn’t.’

  She looked up at him, amazed. ‘When have you ever cried?’

  He laughed softly. ‘Me? I’m the world’s original marshmallow.’

  ‘I’ve never seen you cry about a patient.’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t bring it home. I don’t think it’s fair to you, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect me.’

  ‘You do bring it home,’ Sally told him gently. ‘When you’re crabby and irritable, yell at the kids—there’s usually something that’s gone wrong. You just don’t bring your vulnerable part home. You should. It would make you easier to love.’

  He regarded her thoughtfully over the back of the chair. ‘Am I so difficult to love?’ he asked softly.

  She sighed. ‘No, not always. Sometimes you’re all too easy to love.’

  His eyes softened, and his jaw clenched as if he was fighting his feelings. Sally smiled tentatively.

  ‘Of course you can be downright impossible—like when jealousy has a grip on you, for instance.’

  He flushed slightly. ‘I don’t know how to apologise for that. I was a complete pig.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, you were. I’ve been thinking about that.’

  She took a swig of her tea and set the mug down again.

  Sam was watching her guardedly. ‘Yes?’ he prompted.

  ‘I think we ought to have car phones. Then we’d be in contact all the time, not just on duty. If I’d had a car phone the other night, I could have got help straight away.’

  He gave a wry grin. ‘Funny, that. I’ve been thinking the same thing, but I didn’t know how to suggest it because I thought you’d feel I was trying to keep tabs on you.’

  ‘So why shouldn’t you? Sam, I have nothing to hide.’

  He sighed. ‘I know that. I just thought you might feel—I don’t know—threatened.’

  She smiled patiently. ‘Sam, I don’t feel threatened because you love me. I just don’t like being strongarmed out of the car and kissed until my lips are bruised!’

  He rubbed his hands over his face. ‘Oh, dear. That’s going to take some getting away from, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mmm. You’ll have to work terribly hard to make it up to me.’

  He gave a rueful laugh. ‘I have been—hence the loose-covers.’

  She laughed. ‘Yes, well…’

  ‘Don’t say a word! Don’t say a single damn word!’

  Sally bit down on her smile, finished her tea and then went to shower and change for the day.

  As the water streamed over her, she reflected on his confession that he did sometimes cry about patients. It was something she hadn’t realised, a chink in his armour that made him somehow all the more lovable.

  She began to feel that things might, after all, work out between them—but only if they didn’t slip straight back to square one as soon as their roles were reversed again…

  She told Martin Goody all about Gabby Lennard as soon as she arrived at work.

  ‘Oh, dear, how sad. Have you checked the notes?’

  ‘No, I’m just about to,’ she said. She pulled the envelope of Mrs Lennard’s details out of the drawer and removed the contents. ‘Slight hypertension—one-forty over ninety-five. There’s a note here from Sam to follow up and watch for complications, but there were none present at the last antenatal check, by all accounts, and she wasn’t on an antihypertensive. He was obviously happy just to keep an eye on her.’

  Martin nodded thoughtfully. ‘That’s just what I would have done. The notes are very thin—she’s obvously been quite a well person. How did her husband take it?’

  ‘He was pole-axed. Young, healthy couple on the brink of becoming a family—how would you expect him to feel?’

  ‘Hmm. How do you feel?’

  Sally gave him a weary smile. ‘Awful. I howled all over Sam.’

  ‘Good. We
all need someone to howl all over when things like this happen. I must say I’ve been known to howl on Sam, too!’

  Sally stared at him in amazement. ‘You?’

  ‘Oh, yes—occasionally, when it just seems all too unfair and sad. It’s mutual. I’ve mopped Sam up in the past—well, you must have done, too.’

  ‘No. He never brings it home—well, not like that. I get the temper and the distraction, just not the vulnerable bit. I thought he’d grown hard.’

  ‘Sam?’ Martin was clearly amazed. ‘Sam’s a pussycat. Things rip him to bits—that’s why he’s so conscientious. And being slightly understaffed, as we are, there isn’t time to get away and top up as much as we probably should. Actually I should imagine being at home is doing him a power of good.’

  Sally thought of the pansies, the tumble-drier and the loose-covers. ‘Not entirely,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘I think he’s finding the odd challenge there, as well.’

  ‘Do him good,’ Martin grinned. ‘After all, that’s what you want, isn’t it? For him to struggle a bit?’

  She sobered. ‘Not struggle, exactly, Martin—just see it from the other side. I’ve got more insight into his life now. I’d forgotten about the emotional pressure. I thought I’d find the new drugs and so on difficult, but actually it’s the age-old problem of dealing with sad, sick people that’s the challenge and the reward.’

  Martin nodded. ‘Are you enjoying it?’

  ‘Enjoying? I’m not sure that’s the word, but certainly I feel more alive than I have in years, even without any sleep!’

  ‘You look well. Happier, more relaxed.’

  ‘Hmm. I just hope it lasts once this little game of ours is over and we settle back into our rut.’

  ‘You’ll have to make sure that doesn’t happen, won’t you?’ Martin said over his shoulder. ‘I’m going to tackle my paper-work before the patients arrive.’

  Paper-work. Now that was one part of the job that Sally was definitely not enjoying!

  Sam slowed the treadmill to a walk then, after cooling off for a minute, he turned it off and went over to the heart monitor. A hundred and fifteen, and falling. That was more like it. He was jogging up to fifteen minutes now at seven miles an hour—not up to Sally’s standard, but yesterday he had tried the course and pushed himself a bit too hard.