by Lucy Diamond
‘I was just going to ask if you knew if anyone else from the surgery was coming along tonight?’ Clare said. There were five doctors at the practice – Angela Copper (forty-something, married with two teenage daughters), Marcus Walter (as delicate and blond as Luke was strapping and dark; Lancastrian, gay), Edward Arkwright (approaching retirement; grizzled and grumpy) and Hilary Manning (a pale fifty-something who looked like a librarian, was devoted to her four cats and had the kindest, gentlest voice Clare had ever heard). Of all of them, the only likely contender was Marcus, but Roxie was so unpredictable that she might well have asked Dr Arkwright down for a few flaming Sambucas.
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ Luke said. ‘I think Marcus is in London this weekend, and Angela said something about having friends over for dinner. As for Hilary and Edward …’ He grinned. ‘Somehow I doubt it. In the nicest possible way, of course.’ He swung his head around to take in the circle of friends around Roxie. ‘What’s the plan for tonight anyway? Roxie said something terrifying-sounding about going to some godawful club later on – are you planning to tag along?’ He pulled a face. ‘Please say you’re not. I can’t bear those places any more. They make me feel such an old fart.’
Clare spluttered with laughter. Luke Brightside was so not an old fart. ‘Don’t give me that!’ she told him. ‘I bet you’re younger than me. And no, I’m not going on to a club. I’ve—’ She was about to say her mum was babysitting and she’d promised to be back by midnight at the latest, like the Elderchurch Cinderella. Something stopped her, though. She didn’t want to be mumsy right now, blathering on about babysitting and children. ‘I’m more of a pubber than a clubber these days,’ she said instead.
‘Oh, me too,’ he replied. ‘And I’m thirty-four, so I must be … oh, at least ten years older than you.’
His eyes were twinkling, he was teasing her, but it was nice. ‘Thirty-four?’ she repeated, pantomiming horror. ‘Oh God, well, I take it all back then, you are an old fart. I’m a mere spring chicken at thirty-three, you see.’
They both laughed and it felt so cosy, so intimate, that for a second – for a mad second – she felt a pulse of attraction between them.
‘Clare,’ Luke said, leaning in a fraction closer.
‘Yes?’ She was all but shivering with excitement.
An unmistakable buzzing and trilling sounded from her bag. She’d turned her phone up to loud so that she’d hear any calls above the sound of the music. ‘Um … is that your mobile?’ he asked.
She tore herself reluctantly from his gaze and bent down to find it. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Just a sec, I’ll turn it off.’ The caller display read ‘Mum’ and she hesitated. It was probably only something silly about whether Karen could give the leftover sausages to Fred, but … ‘Sorry,’ she said again, ‘I’ll be two seconds.’ She pressed the green button. ‘Hi, Mum, is everything okay?’
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ came Karen’s flustered voice. ‘It’s Leila, I think you’d better come back. She’s been sick in her bed, and she’s burning up.’
Clare felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of icy water over her. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ she said, rising from her seat. ‘Sorry, Luke, I’ve got to go, my daughter’s ill.’ She stared around in search of Roxie, but saw that she was in the middle of some outrageous story or other, judging by the shrieks coming from her audience. ‘Tell Roxie I’ve had to go, will you?’
Then, without waiting for an answer, she grabbed her bag and hurried out of the pub.
Chapter Twelve
‘Clare! Wait!’
She was pounding along the street, the warmth of the pub fading from her cheeks, the shout only dimly registering in her brain amid a tangle of swirling worries. Typical, wasn’t it, the one night she dared go out and her daughter fell ill. The one night she wasn’t there, guarding her babies. Bad mummy. Negligent mummy. She had to get home as fast as possible. Thank goodness she had the car.
‘CLARE! Wait!’
Footsteps thudded behind her and then Luke was at her side. ‘I’ll come with you,’ he offered, his eyes liquid in the filmy evening light. ‘We can stop at the surgery, grab a medical kit, I can check her over for you. If you want me to, of course?’ he added, less certainly.
‘Would you? Oh God, that would be brilliant, thank you,’ she panted gratefully. ‘My car’s just in here,’ she added, pointing at the car-park entrance on their right. ‘Thank you. She slowed to a jog, putting a hand to her chest. She was wheezing like an old boiler and probably scarlet in the face, but who cared. Who fucking cared. All she cared about was her daughter.
This was what happened when you weren’t watching all the time, she thought miserably. This was what happened when you took your eye off the ball for a second, allowed yourself to be distracted by ridiculously pink cocktails and ridiculously handsome doctor colleagues. This was what happened when you swanned off to a swimming gala, insisting both parents came with you, leaving your ill brother behind, only for him to—
She felt as if something was squeezing her heart in an iron grip. Don’t go there. She’s going to be okay.
Clare unlocked the Fiat, her fingers shaking on the key. ‘Thanks, Luke,’ she said as he folded himself into the small car. ‘I really appreciate this. I’m probably completely overreacting, but …’ She gave a false laugh as she started the engine, willing it to fire up first time. Result.
‘But she’s your daughter, and it’s not worth taking a risk,’ Luke finished gently.
She swallowed. ‘Yep,’ she said. She turned on the headlights, released the handbrake and drove away, her usual caution deserting her. Thank God she hadn’t drunk any more than a few sips of the cocktail. Thank God Luke was with her too. It was one of the things she hated most about being a single parent – trying to make medical diagnoses and decisions about her children on her own when they were ill or injured. How she longed to have someone else there to say, ‘I think he’s fine, it’s just a bump’ or ‘Let’s get her down to A&E’ so that it wasn’t solely up to her to make the call. Clare always felt as if her mind froze with hundreds of possibilities at the slightest rash or temperature or tummy ache. Was it meningitis? Pneumonia? Gastric flu?
Worse was when one of the children had a headache. It was all she could do to prevent herself roping them to her side, not wanting to be apart from them for a single second until they felt better.
Aneurysms were hereditary, she knew. If the same string of genetic code was present in her children as had been in Michael, then—
She snapped her attention back to the road. She was driving too fast. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘My brother died young,’ she went on by way of explanation. ‘I get kind of twitchy about ill children.’
‘Shit, Clare, really?’ The sympathy was coming off him in waves. ‘How awful. What happened?’
‘Cerebral aneurysm,’ she said tightly, not trusting herself to say anything else for a moment. She pulled in at the surgery and left the engine running. ‘And it was all my fault.’
He stared at her and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, Clare. An aneurysm isn’t anyone’s fault. Ever. Wait there and I’ll just grab some kit. I’ll be right back.’
She sat there numbly, the indicator still ticking as he scrambled out of the car, unlocked the surgery and was swallowed up in its darkness. The lights blinked on and she saw him disabling the alarm, then running into one of the treatment rooms.
He was back in the passenger seat in less than two minutes, and she drove off while he was still clipping his seatbelt in.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled again. ‘I shouldn’t have gone on like that about my brother. It’s just there in my head whenever one of the kids is ill.’
‘Well, that’s entirely understandable,’ he said. ‘And I’ll give you a lecture about how it couldn’t possibly have been your fault another time. Tell me about your daughter now, though. What do you know?’
Clare started reciting back what her mum had said, but her
mind had travelled to the pool in Waterlooville. There she had been, racing costume, white rubber cap and goggles on. Lane four. She and the other girls in her heat were standing at the edge of the pool, knees bent, poised to spring, waiting for the countdown. Under-fourteens butterfly, one hundred metres. Her favourite event.
She was trying to empty her mind as her coach had taught her, to focus only on her body, her beating heart, her pumped-up energy, the strength and power in her arms and legs. She could do this. She could win it. And if she could just knock a second off her personal best, then—
‘Could Mr and Mrs Graham Johnson please report to Reception?’ came a crackly voice over the tannoy, and Clare had jerked out of her thoughts in surprise. ‘That’s Mr and Mrs Graham Johnson, please report to Reception.’
Then came the official’s command. ‘On your marks.’
The other girls bent into their starting positions, heads tucked in, hips high, fingers dangling by their toes. Clare copied after a moment, feeling distracted as she glimpsed her parents making their way through the rows of spectators. They were going to miss her race. What was going on?
‘Get set …’
Five bodies tensed on their blocks. Clare couldn’t concentrate. The voice had said Mr and Mrs Graham Johnson, hadn’t it? Could there really be two Graham Johnsons in the building? Was everything all right?
BEEP!
The signal went and everyone dived in, Clare’s body working automatically as she threw her arms forward and took off, entering the water cleanly. Focus, Clare, focus. She powered down the pool, trying to push her parents from her mind. Think about this. This race. Your arms and legs, nothing else.
It was no good. Her concentration had deserted her. She’d finished fourth, a full five seconds off her personal best. Afterwards she’d hauled herself out of the water and raced to find someone who’d tell her what was happening, only to hear the most devastating words anyone had ever said to her. Michael’s dead.
Whatever Luke said, it was her fault Michael died that night. Her mum had wanted to stay behind and look after him, but Clare had pulled a strop, stamped her foot even, saying that these were the County Championships, didn’t Mum care?
If only she’d kept her mouth shut and gone with just her dad. If only she’d had the sense to think that of course her mum cared; she just cared about Michael too.
Too late for ‘if only’ now, though.
‘Here we are,’ she said thankfully as they reached Elderchurch and she turned into her street. For a moment, she felt self-conscious at the idea of Luke seeing her ramshackle little cottage. He probably lived someplace much grander, being a doctor. But again, who cared? All that stuff was irrelevant right now. ‘Come on in.’
The house was quiet as they entered. ‘Mum?’ Clare called softly.
‘In here,’ came a voice from the living room.
They went in to find Leila and Karen on the sofa, Leila lying with her head on Karen’s lap as they watched Kung-Fu Panda on DVD; Fred at their feet, as if guarding the young mistress from any more germs. ‘Mum,’ croaked Leila, her eyes fever-bright in her flushed face. ‘I’ve been sick.’
‘Hello, love,’ Clare said, rushing over and putting a hand on her daughter’s clammy forehead. ‘Poor old you, Grandma told me you were poorly. Dr Brightside’s here, he’s going to have a look at you. Mum, have you met Luke before? Luke, this is my mum, Karen.’ The words were gushing out of her in a torrent.
‘Yes, we’ve met,’ Karen said, smiling up at him. She’d been to the surgery for her arthritis a number of times, but always booked appointments on days when Clare wasn’t working. She didn’t want her to worry.
‘Hi,’ Luke said politely, but his eyes were on Leila and he crouched in front of her. ‘Hello, Leila. Can you sit up for me? Let’s see what your temperature’s like.’
He popped the thermometer into her mouth and felt behind her ears for swollen glands. ‘Good girl,’ he said.
Clare perched on the arm of the sofa and held Leila’s hot sticky hand while Luke checked her tummy for spots (none, that was good), read her temperature (one hundred and one, not so good) and peered into her mouth and ears.
‘I don’t think there’s anything to worry about,’ he said after a few minutes. ‘Nothing is seriously wrong, it just looks like a virus to me. Give her some Calpol to bring down the fever, and make sure she has plenty of fluids.’ He smiled at Leila. ‘The best place for you now is bed, young lady,’ he said. ‘Have a nice long sleep and hopefully you’ll feel better in the morning.’
Clare’s heartrate began to subside from its nervous gallop; she felt dizzied with relief. ‘Thank you,’ she said, squeezing Leila’s hand. ‘I’m so grateful. I’ll just sort Leila out, then I’ll give you a lift back to Amberley.’
‘There’s no need, honestly.’ He rose to his feet. ‘You stay here. I can call a cab.’
‘Definitely not,’ Karen said. ‘It’ll cost a fortune, this time of night. I’ll run you back, Luke, my car’s just outside. That way Clare can stay here with Leila.’
Luke looked awkward. ‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘I don’t want to put you out.’
‘You won’t,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s the least we can do.’
Clare’s relief that Leila was okay was now giving way to huge embarrassment that she’d torn Luke away from his Friday-night drinks to her shabby little cottage when nothing was even badly wrong with her daughter. Look at him there, so tall and handsome, in his nice going-out shirt and aftershave, the doctor to the rescue … and for what? A piddly virus and a botched, ruined night, cut short because of a paranoid, hypochondriac, sad old mum.
‘Sorry about this, Luke,’ she said, remorse coursing through her. ‘I shouldn’t have dragged you out, I just panicked. I owe you one, all right? I’ll – I’ll bring you extra coffees all week. It was really kind of you.’
He smiled. ‘Hey, you didn’t drag me anywhere,’ he reminded her. ‘I followed you and invited myself along, remember? But I’ll take you up on the free coffee thing all the same,’ he added, his eyes crinkling at the edges. He looked as if he was about to say something else when his phone beeped and he looked at the screen. ‘Ahh,’ he said.
‘Everything all right?’ Clare asked.
Luke dragged his eyes away from the phone. ‘Yep. That was Corinne,’ he said. ‘Finished her shift early.’
‘Corinne?’ Clare echoed, feeling her heart contract.
‘My girlfriend,’ he said. ‘She’s a nurse in Salisbury,’ he added for no particular reason. ‘I’d better go,’ he went on, turning to Karen. ‘Are you absolutely sure about giving me a lift? You’re not just being polite?’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ she said, getting up and smoothing down her skirt. ‘Let’s go. Goodnight, Clare. Goodnight, darling.’
‘Give me a ring if she’s not well again by Sunday,’ Luke said to Clare on the doorstep. ‘Here, this is my mobile number.’
Clare felt worse than ever as he scribbled it down. Luke had a girlfriend. Corinne. A sexy piece in a nurse’s uniform, no doubt. Damn it. Damn it! She cringed as she thought how gooey-eyed she’d been at him in the bar earlier. Horrendous or what? He’d probably have a good old laugh with Corinne about it later on. Talk about a desperate housewife, he’d say. Totally delusional!
No. He wouldn’t say that. He was too nice. But all the same … Thank God she hadn’t drunk all of that cocktail. The evening had been embarrassing enough without her getting sloshed and fawning over him even more.
She gave Leila some Calpol, put her back to bed, sent Roxie an apologetic text explaining her sudden disappearance, then slumped in front of the television feeling a total fool. Why did everything always go wrong for her?
Not at all, Luke had said when she’d thanked him for the thousandth time. Better to be safe than sorry when it comes to children. I’m just glad there’s nothing seriously wrong.
His niceness curdled inside her, somehow making things even worse. Oh well, she thought
glumly, leaning her head back on the sofa and shutting her eyes. At least it had nipped her tragic little crush in the bud before she made an even bigger fool of herself. At least now she knew where she stood.
The following morning Leila seemed much better, if a little wan and washed out, so Clare decided a quiet day at home would do them all good. She and the children baked cookies together, then they found homes in the garden for the young strawberry plants her mum had brought round the night before. After a restorative cookie or two all round (‘just to test them’), Clare did some weeding while Leila read an Artemis Fowl book in the shade, and Alex played a rowdy game of football with Fred. She was growing some plants that she could use in her bath products – lavender, mint, rosemary, chamomile – and was cultivating some baby cucumber plants because she’d read about a cucumber-and-lemon shampoo that was meant to be amazing. She sat back on her haunches and nibbled a peppermint leaf in the sunshine, feeling slightly more cheerful. Who needed a man around the place, anyway? She and the kids were doing just fine without one.
On Sunday they went to Clare’s parents for lunch, as they had done every Sunday for the last ten years or so. The only difference today was that Polly was there. Somehow having that one extra person at the kitchen table altered the dynamic completely. The children seemed more subdued, her mum was getting flustered about the gravy, and even her dad wasn’t whistling while he carved the chicken. He always whistled while he carved the chicken – admittedly a tuneless, rather irritating drone of a whistle, but it meant he was happy at least. Not today.
Clare made everyone drinks and helped carry the dishes of food to the table while her sister sat there, Princess Polly, not lifting a finger. Not even making conversation with her niece and nephew who were whispering furtively together, their heads bent low.
‘Is that everything? Then help yourselves,’ her mum said, a rather strained expression on her face as she sat down.
Polly looked less peaky, Clare noticed, eyeing her across the dishes of roast potatoes and vegetables as she spooned peas, carrots and green beans onto her children’s plates. (‘Not that many peas, Mum,’ Alex moaned, but she ignored him.) Her sister’s face actually had some colour to it now, Clare saw, rather than the deathly pallor it had had a few days earlier. But there was still a haunted look about her eyes and huge dark rings around them, as if she wasn’t sleeping well.
