After making my discovery I switch my computer off and march along the surgery corridor towards Rob’s consulting room. As senior partner, he must be informed of serious matters immediately. I knock on the door and stand outside impatiently. No reply. I open the door and step right in. No time to be wasted as we move to your dismissal, Jenni. We can’t risk any more mistakes. My husband is leaning forwards listening intently to an elderly male patient who I recognise as Benedict Tootle. Rob looks up, surprised. As soon as he sees it is me his eyes cloud with worry.
‘Carly, is everything all right?’
‘I need to talk to you urgently.’
He frowns in concern.
‘I’ll come and find you as soon as I’ve finished this consultation.’
It was always like this; Rob has always put his patients first. I knew this when I married him. It seemed to matter less in those days. Back then he always had time for me as well.
‘Thank you,’ I say without meaning it.
I slam the door as I leave.
Back in my consulting room I buzz Sharon on the internal telephone.
‘Please put my patients on hold.’
I can’t cope with my patients until I’ve dealt with you, bitch-whore. I can’t be expected to palpate sagging breasts, dispense holiday disease advice, and take copious amounts of blood from people who mostly have nothing wrong with them, when the patient records are in chaos. If I can’t concentrate properly I might hurt people as I withdraw blood.
I pace up and down waiting for Rob. He is taking so long – what on earth can be wrong with Benedict Tootle? Does he have Munchausen Syndrome? Is Rob writing a letter to the BMJ about him? About twenty minutes later Rob finally arrives.
‘What’s the matter, love? What’s happened?’ he asks as he walks towards me, face riddled with concern.
‘Sit down, Rob. We need to talk.’
‘I’ve got another ten patients waiting; if it’s just talking, can we talk tonight?’
Just talking. Just talking. How dare he say that? Something explodes inside me but I manage to contain it.
‘Talking’s important,’ I manage to say as I fix him with a look he usually takes notice of.
He looks back at me and sighs.
‘OK then. If it’s that bad.’
Slowly, slowly, he walks towards one of the laboratory stools dotted at the edge of my room, in front of the counter space. I sit next to him. He leans towards me.
‘I’m all ears. How can I help?’
All ears. A second ago he was sidling back to his patients, without even waiting to know what I wanted to talk about.
‘You can help by trying not to sound like a slime bag. I’m your wife, not one of your over-adoring patients.’
‘I know – I’ve noticed,’ he says with a feeble grin.
‘There’s someone else you’ve been noticing too much. Someone who is incompetent at their job.’
His eyes stiffen, as if he knows what’s coming.
‘Who, Carly?’ he asks in a jaded voice.
‘Bitch-whore Jenni.’
He stands up.
‘Carly, I am fed up of this childish language. Surely you know that speaking like this is both offensive and inappropriate?’
He’s walking towards the door
‘I know far more than you think, and you must let Jenni go.’
He is looking at me in the patronising way he does when he thinks I’m pissed.
Put that look away, Rob Burton, I’m not pissed today.
I stand up and put myself between him and the door. I push my eyes into his. His eyes are green, watery and insincere.
‘Jenni has messed up our computer records; she did it yesterday when I wasn’t here to help her. It’s serious, Rob. I need to send out reminders to people who need smear tests, without the correct data back-up I can’t do my job.’
His eyes widen.
‘Are you sure? She’s always seemed so capable on the computer.’
I tense my neck muscles, giving him my most piercing stare.
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
‘Well then,’ he says, eyes avoiding mine. ‘We’d better do something constructive about this.’ He pauses. ‘Let’s send her on a computer course.’
‘Get real, Rob. We need to sack the bitch, not send her on a training course,’ I shout. The shout rises up through my voice box, resonant and loud.
He steps back from me. He shakes his head.
‘How can you talk about a friend like that?’
‘Because everybody needs to know she’s incompetent,’ I snap.
Someone is knocking on the door.
‘Carly. I need to get back to my patients. And you must get back to yours. We’ll deal with it tonight.’ He pauses. ‘Is that all right?’ he asks.
I say ‘Yes,’ but I mean no.
Of course it’s not all right.
~ Jenni ~
The atmosphere in the surgery has cracked – something’s wrong. The noise level is different; the patients are more chattery as they wait. Discontent is hovering instead of kindness, which is why the patients seem so loud. It’s Friday morning. We’re not usually this busy on Fridays. Monday is normally the worst, after all the stored-up weekend illness. Sharon is the front receptionist today, signing in patients as they arrive. A long queue has formed. I’m sitting next to her, answering the phones, which are ringing every few minutes so I can’t abandon them to help her. For the first time since I joined the surgery I feel overwhelmed by the sea of patients seething towards us. The waiting room is clogged. An elderly lady, Mrs Frobisher, who comes every Friday to have her blood pressure checked, can’t even find a seat. I see her from the corner of the receptionists’ window, looking around uncertainly, rubbing her back because she’s in permanent pain. I know about her pain because she often mentions it to me. I put the phones on hold for a few minutes and go to help her. I ask a mother to put her toddler on her knee. Soon Mrs Frobisher is sitting down, looking relieved.
As I return to reception I overhear someone complaining to Sharon in a very loud voice.
‘I’ve been waiting over an hour for my blood test. I’m hungry. I’m thirsty and, as I said, I need to get to work.’
As I get closer I realise it’s Mrs Robertson, a single woman in her early forties who I know from church.
As soon as she sees me Sharon commands, ‘Jenni, I’ll deal with the phones. Go and see what’s happening. Rob hasn’t called for his next patient yet and Mr Tootle left twenty-five minutes ago. No one has seen a nurse. Perhaps Carly hasn’t arrived yet. Maybe I’m going mad but I thought she was here.’
Sharon is trying to placate Mrs Robertson as I sidle out of the sanctuary of our receptionists’ enclave. I step through the heaving waiting room, along the corridor to Rob’s consulting room, and knock on his door. No reply. I open the door and step inside to check he’s all right. He isn’t here. He’s left his computer on. His old computer that hums to itself. I keep telling him to upgrade it, but he says he’s frightened of technology. I keep telling him I can help, but he takes no notice.
Where is Rob? Do you have a problem, Carly, and he has gone to see you? A difficult case that you need to discuss before you start your list? I retrace my steps back along the corridor, towards your domain. Once again, I knock. No reply. But I hear voices. Raised voices. Carly and Rob arguing. I knock again, louder this time. Still no reply. Then I shout, ‘Is everything all right?’ through the closed door.
Footsteps move towards the door. It opens. Rob is standing in front of me, pretending to smile. I know that smile. His mouth moves but the rest of his face does not. But, Carly, you do not smile. You are pretending you don’t know I’m watching you. Pretending to check your phlebotomy equipment.
‘I’m sorry,’ Rob says. ‘Tell Sharon I’ll buzz for my next patient in a few minutes. I’ll stay late; as long as necessary to catch up.’ He moves towards me. I can almost taste his breath. Peppermint and sandalwood, clear cut and fresh.
>
‘Are you OK?’ I ask.
‘I’m fine,’ he says. ‘Everything’s fine.’
I know he isn’t, but I will talk to him later. For now, I step aside to let him past. He walks away from me towards his consulting room. I start towards reception. Carly, I hear your heels banging along the corridor behind me. You tap me on the shoulder. I turn around to find you fixing me with angry eyes.
‘Jenni. We need to talk, in my consulting room.’
You punch your words towards me like a threat.
I sigh inside. I follow you into your lair. You insist I sit in your prickly horse-hair chair, and are staring down at me from one of your plastic bar stools. I’ve never seen you look so thunderous. You are making me sweat.
‘I’ve spoken to Rob and have recommended that he sacks you,’ you tell me, in a voice that sounds like a newscaster announcing a mass shooting.
I knew you were angry with me but I wasn’t expecting this. I feel winded. My breath has been pushed out of me.
‘Whatever for?’ I ask.
‘Incompetence.’
Even though I’m sitting down, I fear I will faint. I sit bent over, head in my lap, while I compose myself. The strength of the Lord moves towards me and makes me feel a little better. I look up.
‘You’ve messed up all the patient notes,’ you continue. ‘Half of them are jumbled so I can’t retrieve them. Half went missing.’ There is a pause. ‘On my day off – yesterday.’
You’re smiling at me now, Carly, aren’t you, because you think you’ve hit the jugular? Well think again. The battle between is only just beginning. And Jesus is on my side. I remember your unexpected visit to the surgery. I push back.
‘You did it. You’re setting me up.’
‘Prove it,’ you taunt, putting your head on one side. If you are trying to look sweet, Carly, it doesn’t work.
‘Sharon knows what happened,’ I retort.
‘Jenni, you’re pathetic if you think my mentor is your best shot to lie your way out of this one.’
‘Carly,’ I ask, ‘what’s happened to us? We used to be friends.’
~ Carly ~
The bitch-whore was so upset after our meaningful little chat that she had to go home early. But when she got to the surgery car park someone had let her front tyre down. Who would do something as unkind as that to the stupid little stick-insect? She went home, a little tearful, on the bus.
~ Jenni ~
I am sitting with Rob in his consulting room. The door is safely locked so that no one, especially Carly, can disturb us. Rob and I are buried in each other’s eyes; buried with concern for her.
~ Carly ~
I have retreated to bed again; it’s my safe place. When I am in bed nothing bad will happen to me. I empty the contents of my handbag across my duvet, scattering pills over it like confetti. A stash of tranquillisers, anti-psychotics and anti-depressants, raided from the surgery and from Rob’s emergency bag. Oh and I managed to get some MDMA. Whoopee. What to do? What to do? Mix them up like a lucky dip of sweeties and take them at random? What about that? A medical lucky dip. Washed down with plenty of alcohol. I cannot manage without alcohol.
Good.
I laugh aloud, scoop up my first handful and swallow them. A swig of wine straight from the bottle. Jenni still has a picture of Craig in her wallet. I saw her looking at it in the café last week. She still wants him. I lie on my bed, smelling and feeling Craig. I reach for my mobile and text him. He doesn’t text back. I ring his mobile. Ten times.
Everything is blurred, the bedroom is a sea of colour. Some people in uniform are scooping up my drugs. Sometimes I think I can hear Rob’s voice, but then it fades again. I am being lifted onto a stretcher, tucked into a blanket, carried downstairs at an angle. I try to speak but I cannot. Outside now, I hear the hum of passing traffic and feel cooler air pass across my skin. Someone speaks in my ear. I smell cigarettes on their breath. My eyelids are heavy and I cannot keep my eyes open. Someone is leaning over me, hands on my shoulders, shaking me gently.
‘Stay with us, Carly; stay with us.’
On the edges of my mind there is an ambulance, an ambulance that is moving. It’s the siren that gives it away. A repetitive wailing, pulling me towards my destiny, crying to the world of my distress. A siren that wraps itself around me and engulfs me. I cannot move away from it. I cannot see. I cannot think. All I can do is listen to the avalanche of noise surrounding me. Rob is here. I can’t see him but I can feel him. A judder and the siren finishes. Silence. A release. A metallic clatter pushes through the quiet and the ambulance door opens. My eyes are beginning to focus. Now I can see Rob. He is holding my hand. His green eyes are watching me. He’s with me as I am stretchered through the casualty waiting area. As I am lifted onto a bed. He is with me as a nurse with sharp eyes and elephantine legs is stripping me and putting me in one of those hospital robes that never fit – an army of nurses behind her, moving towards me. I cannot stay awake any longer. I cannot hold on. Oblivion is whispering to me, telling me that she is sweet. I step towards her and allow her to swallow me up.
When I wake, I’m in a different hospital bed, a bed near a window looking out onto the hospital car park. The cars are fuzzy at first but their metallic shells sharpen in front of me. I know Rob is here. I sense him. I smell him. I turn my head to find him with my eyes. He is sitting in a chair next to the bed, watching me. He stands up and walks towards me. He leans across and kisses me on the forehead. I try to hold him and that is when I realise I can hardly move because I’m attached to so many medical tubes and wires.
~ Rob ~
I kiss her on the cheek and walk away, but she is oblivious to me again. Asleep, golden curls spilt across the pillow like honeysuckle, face paler than pale. Why, Carly? Why? Why couldn’t you cope with our life? What should I have done to make sure you could? Please God. I know I can’t press rewind – but give me a second chance. Please God, if you can.
Approaching the nurses’ station. Moving towards the staff nurse who is sitting at her desk by the ward telephone, filling out paperwork. Praying to God. She looks up as I pass.
‘Rob, may I have a word?’
‘Of course,’ I say.
I pull myself away from my prayers and begin to see her. Her rounded features. Her ample bosom. Tired eyes looking at me over her paperwork.
‘Has the doctor spoken to you?’
‘No. Not yet.’
‘We’ve confiscated your wife’s personal belongings including her phone, just until her condition is clearer. Would you mind taking them home?’
‘Of course not.’
The nurse bends and fumbles beneath her desk, producing a clear plastic bag, Carly’s possessions visible. She hands it to me. If only Carly’s mind-set was so easy to see.
I drive home on automatic pilot, suburbia moving past me like a ghost town. A world I do not recognise, a world I do not see. Blurred houses sliding past my periphery, their brickwork indistinct and grey, followed by the green interruption of the park.
Rewind. Rewind.
That’s all I can think about.
If I could press that button, where would it stop? At what moment did her life pivot? Rewind to when? To what? Pippa’s birth? The Gospels? Is this Jenni bitch-whore stuff just a red herring? Did Carly start being difficult long before then?
Always difficult?
Always challenging and fun?
Which is it?
I press into my box of memories, determined to pull the good ones out. For bad memories will overtake and destroy me. I prefer to leave them boxed. Good times stretch their fingers towards me, brushing across my mind. I bend my head towards them, allowing myself a sensation of the past – yellow stone and golden fields, memories drenched in sunshine. Golden Carly memories. Carly, my good-time girl. And then again the brush stroke of my memory starts to darken, making me frown, making me want to turn on the light.
Light.
Lights.
Left at the
traffic lights, second right by the greengrocer. Copthall Gardens. The car pulls into the drive. Ignition off. Home.
As soon as I open the front door Heather is there, standing in front of me, pushing her worry towards me. Before I have closed it. Before I have taken my coat off. Before I have put Carly’s plastic bag on the hallway table.
‘How is she?’ she asks.
‘Fine. She’s going to be fine.’
Heather’s face is sucked in, in a way I have never seen it before. Tight, as if she’s being held together by cling film.
‘Do you call recovering from an overdose fine?’ she asks.
‘I know. Sorry. I mean fine under the circumstances.’
We stand in the hallway, eyeball to eyeball, conjoined in a deep drowning sadness; a sadness we need to swim through or walk away from.
‘We failed her, didn’t we?’
‘Come on, Heather, it’s not that simple.’
I’m too tired for this, but Heather will not leave me alone. She will not drop it.
‘It is that simple,’ she replies. ‘We should have sent her to a psychiatrist a year ago.’
Heather. Is she a mental health expert now? My temples tighten as if I’m about to have a migraine.
‘Everything’s always easier in retrospect. She begged me not to send her to a psychiatrist. She was hysterical when I mentioned it,’ I reply.
‘Hysterical? Hysterical is serious. That’s when we should have made her go.’
Possibly for the first time ever, I feel like shouting at Heather. I have to breathe deeply in and out to control myself. I do not want to upset Heather, she’s always been so good to us.
‘Made her?’ I manage to ask softly enough, so I allow myself to continue. ‘How were we supposed to do that?’ I pause. ‘In all my years as a doctor I’ve learnt how difficult it is to section someone. How much they resent it, at the time and in later years.’ I shake my head, eyes almost filling with tears. ‘I just couldn’t do it to her.’
Obsession: A shocking psychological thriller where love affairs turn deadly Page 12
