The London Doctor

by Joanna Neil

  Ryan’s brow furrowed. ‘I would have to think about that. I’m not at all sure that it would be an option. Your father kicked me out, remember? I was accused of stealing, and no one believed anything I had to say. As I recall, he was never too happy about having me around.’

  Adam frowned. ‘I don’t believe he ever actually outright accused you of stealing and, in fact, the reason he let you go was because you were volatile and too quick to anger. It caused too much of a problem with the other workers, and you weren’t able to change the way you behaved.’

  He studied Ryan for a moment. ‘Over the years, my father has shown enough interest in your progress to talk to your foster-mother about how you’ve been doing, and I think he realises that you were young and unsure of yourself back then. I’m sure he appreciates the problems you had to overcome, and he must know that you’ve calmed down over the years.’

  Hannah looked at Adam, wide-eyed. ‘I didn’t know that he had kept in touch with our mother. You didn’t say anything.’

  ‘I doubt you would have believed me.’ He glanced back at Ryan. ‘Anyway, bear it in mind. I’m sure there won’t be a problem, whatever you decide.’

  Ryan grinned. ‘I never thought I’d see the day…’ His expression sobered. ‘Thanks, Adam. I’ll give it some thought.’

  Turning back to Hannah, he said, ‘I’d better go. I said I would go back to Abby. I’ll perhaps see you in a while.’

  ‘That’s fine, Ryan. I’ll see you later.’

  She watched him go, and was glad that his step was jaunty for once. He was getting on with his life and that was good. At the same time, it struck her that she had just witnessed something very special. Adam and Ryan had actually spoken to each other in a warm and friendly way, and just the thought that they were no longer sworn enemies gave her heart a lift. A small glow of hope flickered to life inside her.

  Adam was looking at her, his gaze considering. ‘That was all a bit of a surprise…though not for you, judging from what you said.’

  ‘I thought there was something going on between them. I’m glad that he’s happy at last, and I’m glad for Abby, too. I think they’re well suited.’

  ‘That’s probably true.’ He looked at her. ‘It can’t have been easy for you, these last few days, standing by and watching as people are reunited with their families…first Dean, and now Abby. It must make you feel disappointed in your own lack of headway.’

  ‘I don’t have any choice but to accept it, do I? I’ve tried everything, and I’ve gone nowhere, fast.’ He had said that he would help with her search, but she wasn’t really expecting anything to come of it.

  He was silent, then, deep in thought, and she wondered if he had problems of his own. She said tentatively, ‘You’re very quiet. Is there something on your mind? Did your meeting go as you wanted this morning?’

  ‘It was fine. It went more or less as I expected.’

  He didn’t say any more, and Hannah was left to wonder whether or not he had been given the job. He seemed relaxed enough, though, despite his contemplative mood, and she guessed that things must have gone his way. It didn’t give her any hope for the future.

  ‘Well, perhaps I should get back to work,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I need to check up on my tachycardia patient.’

  He nodded. ‘You’re off duty tomorrow, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes…why?’ Was he thinking of asking her out somewhere? She would go with him in a flash.

  ‘No reason,’ he said. ‘I was just checking the situation with the duty roster.’

  Her hopes were instantly dashed. Why did she keep on hoping that he felt something for her, that he might want her the same way that she wanted him? It wasn’t going to happen, was it? Deflated, she went back to work, and tried to put all thoughts of him from her mind.

  Back at the flat, she welcomed Abby home and then left her to enjoy her reunion with her parents. They were glad to see their daughter, and it seemed that they were overwhelmed by the prospect of getting to know their grandchild. Abby’s mother hugged Ellie, while her husband was busy talking to Ryan and Abby. He looked pleased with the way things were going, and Hannah breathed a sigh of relief that at least Abby’s life was changing for the better.

  She went into her own sitting room and phoned her mother. ‘How are you, Mum?’ she asked. ‘Is Saxon behaving himself?’

  ‘I’m fine, and, no, he isn’t,’ her mother said with a chuckle. ‘The wretch just chewed up your dad’s mobile phone. I swear I’m going to have to take out a bank loan just to cover all the damage he causes. He’s a monster mouth on legs.’ She laughed, and in the next breath said, ‘Have you heard Ryan’s good news? He called me earlier today to tell me about his girlfriend, Abby. She sounds like a lovely girl.’

  ‘She is.’ Hannah chatted with her for a few minutes, telling her about Abby and Ellie, and how they had managed to find Abby’s parents.

  ‘How is your search going?’ her mother asked. ‘Have you managed to get any closer to finding your real mum?’

  ‘That sounds wrong. You’ve always been my mum,’ Hannah said. ‘You know how much I love you, don’t you?’

  ‘I do, Hannah…but I know how much it means to you to find out what happened to your birth mother. I do wish that things would go well for you.’

  ‘Adam says he’s going to check the hospital records. Perhaps something will turn up.’

  She could almost feel her mother’s smile. ‘I’ve always liked Adam. I’m sure he’ll do his best.’

  They talked for a while longer, and then Hannah busied herself with household chores. She felt lost and alone and, more than anything, she wished that Adam could be there with her. With him by her side, everything would be so much brighter.

  To her surprise, though, he called for her the next afternoon, just as she was thinking about tackling a pile of ironing. Opening the door to him, she blinked in astonishment. ‘I thought you were working today?’

  He shook his head. ‘I was, but I rearranged the schedules. I want to take you for a drive, to a place in St Albans. Are you up for it?’

  ‘That’s where Ryan and I used to live, before we moved house,’ she said, puzzled. ‘Why are we going there? What’s this all about?’

  ‘I’ll explain on the way.’ He cast a glance over the ironing board and the pile of clothes on the table. ‘You didn’t really want to stay home and do the ironing, did you? Are you ready? Shall we get started?’

  He was all fired up about something, and she was intrigued to know what it was all about. Without giving it any more thought, she grabbed her bag and her jacket and went with him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘WHAT’S in St Albans?’ Hannah asked, as she sat beside Adam in his car and they started to head north.

  ‘I’m hoping that we’ll find your mother there…’ he said. ‘Your natural mother. I did some checking up, and that’s where the trail appears to lead. I thought you’d like to see what came of it for yourself.’

  She stared at him. ‘How can that be? You can’t have found an address already, can you?’

  He sent her an oblique glance. ‘It wasn’t easy, because I had to be careful to act within the law, but I did manage to make some headway…And I also had to make sure that I have permission to tell you what I know.’

  He was silent for a moment or two as he manoeuvred the car across a junction, but then he added, ‘It turns out that your mother was admitted to hospital some eleven years ago, and also on occasion before that. I managed to find out what might have happened to her. She had been ill, on and off, for a long time, as you know, but the diagnosis was always vague and no one could find an explanation for her symptoms. I suppose that’s why your father thought she was behaving oddly. He didn’t know that there was a medical cause.’

  ‘What was it? What was wrong with her?’

  ‘Her medical team discovered that she had a rare tumour known as a phaeochromocytoma. It was after you went into long-term foster-care, and I think she wen
t into a downward spiral after that. It’s probably why she gave you up for adoption, because she must have realised she couldn’t cope with looking after a child. The tumour was benign, but it started to produce catecholamines in the adrenal medulla, and that caused her to be hypertensive, and made her emotionally unstable. She suffered weight loss and heart problems, and there were periods of crisis when she would have palpitations, tremor and high blood pressure.’

  ‘All the things that my father put down to alcohol or drugs?’

  ‘I suspect so, but no one knew that she had a tumour at that stage. After all, she’d had a nervous breakdown, and you went into foster-care. It was some time after that, probably when she was living with your grandmother, when the doctors learned the true cause of her troubles. They operated, and gradually she became stronger.’

  ‘But she didn’t come back for me.’

  ‘No.’ He sent her a quick glance, then turned the car on the road towards St Albans. ‘You’ll have to ask her the reason for that. All I know is that her medical records were sent from London to St Albans.’

  ‘How do you know that she’s my mother? Isn’t it possible that this person has the same name?’

  ‘That thought crossed my mind, too. I managed to get hold of an address and phone number, and I took the liberty of ringing her. I didn’t want to get your hopes up for no good reason. I spoke to her and when it seemed that I had the right person, I asked if she would agree to see you. She said she wanted to do that and she told me it was all right for me to go through her records and tell you what you needed to know. She hoped that you would understand why you were fostered and put up for adoption.’

  Hannah was quiet for a long while. All of this had come as a huge shock to her and now, here she was en route to see her mother after all these years. She felt a swift sensation of panic, and she had to struggle to calm herself. How would it be if her mother didn’t live up to her expectations…or if her mother was disappointed in her?

  It wasn’t long before Adam drew the car to a halt in a leafy avenue. It was a quiet residential area, and the houses were all well kept and respectable-looking.

  ‘This is it,’ Adam said. ‘This is where your mother lives.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m ready for this,’ Hannah said, her voice faltering. ‘I don’t think I can go through with it. I need more time.’

  ‘Do you want me to go with you? I will, if that would make it any easier for you. I don’t want to intrude on your meeting with her, but I’ll stay with you if you want me to do that.’

  ‘Would you?’ Her voice was thready, the pulse in her throat hammering as the blood surged in her head. ‘I’m nervous. I don’t know what to say to her.’

  ‘It’ll come. Just keep breathing in deeply, and take things slowly.’

  She tried to pull herself together. After a while, when she was feeling up to it, she slid out of the car and stood on the pavement, looking up at the house. She turned to him. ‘You won’t leave me?’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Her hand was shaking as she reached up to ring the doorbell, but a woman came and answered the door almost immediately, and they simply stood and stared at each other. The woman was slender, a faded beauty, with a pale face and soft, honey-coloured hair.

  ‘Mum?’ Hannah knew her instantly, and it was as though the years melted away in that one moment.

  Her mother put her arms out to her. ‘Hannah, my angel…you’re here at last.’

  They held onto each other, and neither of them spoke. It seemed so right to be standing here like this, absorbing comfort from one another, all the hurt forgotten and pushed to one side.

  After a long moment, her mother reluctantly released her, and Hannah said in a shaky voice, ‘This is Adam. He’s very dear to me, and I would like him to stay.’

  Her mother nodded. ‘Of course. Come in, both of you.’ She brushed down her skirt with her fingers and tried to compose herself.

  They went into the living room, and sat for a while, and Adam talked quietly to Hannah while her mother went to make coffee for them. It gave Hannah a little time to get herself together.

  Then her mother came back into the room and they talked, going over everything that had happened in the intervening years, trying to fill in all the missing pieces of the puzzle.

  ‘I never wanted to give you up for adoption,’ her mother said, ‘but I was becoming very ill and I knew that I couldn’t look after you properly. I’d hoped that your grandmother might be able to help me take care of you, but she was very frail, and I knew that it wouldn’t work. I didn’t want to mess you about any longer. You’d already suffered when I had the nervous breakdown. I thought it would be better for you if I let you go. I hoped that it would give you the chance to have some stability in your life.’

  Hannah thought about that. Then she asked, ‘What happened to you after you had the tumour removed? Why didn’t you come and find me?’

  ‘I didn’t know how to get in touch.’ Her mother hesitated, and then offered a plate of biscuits, but Hannah shook her head, refusing them. She was too wound up to eat. She noticed that her mother’s arm was not as dexterous as it should have been, and that her grip was awkward. What could have caused that?

  ‘I knew your adoptive mother’s original address,’ her mother went on, ‘but when she moved house, the agency that looked after your records changed. I spoke to the people at the first agency, and they said that the current agency was in a different county. They’d posted all the records over there, but someone messed up and they didn’t have any paperwork or anything on computer to say where the files had been sent.’

  She frowned. ‘I wondered if they were being deliberately vague…after all, it isn’t encouraged for parents to contact their children once they’ve been adopted. I left my name and address in case you wanted to contact me, but soon after that I was taken ill again.’

  ‘Was that after my grandmother died?’

  ‘Yes. I had planned to sell the house and buy a property near to where you originally lived…here in St Albans. I thought if ever you came back here, you might check to see where I was living.’ She grimaced. ‘It was a long shot, I know. Of course, by then I had married again, and my name had changed. Perhaps that was what caused some of the mix-up. It has all been such a mess.’

  Hannah frowned. It hadn’t occurred to her for quite a while to go back to the area where she had once lived. By the time she had done that, her mother must have started using her married name.

  ‘You said that you were taken ill again…What happened? Did the tumour come back?’

  Her mother shook her head. ‘No, but I still suffered from occasional bouts of hypertension before they could get my medication right, and I had a stroke. It turned out that there was a vascular malformation in my head, and the blood vessel ruptured. I was lucky that my neighbours saw me collapse and called an ambulance right away. I think if they had delayed, I might not have survived. As it was, it took me a long time to recover from the paralysis.’

  Hannah closed her eyes briefly, trying to take in all that had been said. Adam spoke softly to her mother, saying, ‘You’ve been through too much, and it seems as though you’ve had a raw deal. How are you now? Is everything under control?’

  ‘Yes, I believe it is. I have regular medical supervision, and my husband is a good man. We met when I was recovering from the stroke. He’s seen me through a lot, and he takes care of me. He’s kept me going through all the bad times. I wanted to get in touch with Hannah and it hurt so much when I couldn’t find her. I suppose she must have been working in different places all the time that she was doing her medical training, but I didn’t know where to start to look. Then I thought that perhaps she wouldn’t thank me for disturbing her life all over again. She had such a disrupted childhood, one way and another.’

  ‘I’m glad that I’ve found you at last,’ Hannah said. ‘I don’t ever want to lose you again.’

  They stayed with her mother for a long tim
e, talking things through, remembering all that had gone on in the past.

  It was late evening when Hannah said reluctantly, ‘I think it’s time we started back to London. I have to work in the morning.’ She gave her mother a hug, and said, ‘Will you keep in touch? Will you come over to my adoptive mother’s house some time? I’ll probably be staying there for a while when my stint at the hospital finishes.’

  ‘You won’t be able to keep me away.’

  A short time later, after they had exchanged addresses and phone numbers, Adam drove Hannah back to London. Instead of taking her back to her flat, though, he parked the car at his Bayswater apartment. ‘I thought you could do with some time to yourself,’ he said. ‘All this has come as a bit of a shock to you, hasn’t it? Back at your flat, you’ll probably have to start explaining things to Abby and Ryan, and even to Dean, and at least here you can have a bit of a breathing space.’

  She smiled. ‘That’s true.’ She gazed up at him as they walked into his living room a few minutes later. ‘I don’t know how to begin to thank you for what you’ve done. I’ve waited so long for this day, and yet, now that it’s finally arrived, I’m overwhelmed by all that’s happened.’

  ‘That’s understandable.’

  She said softly, ‘I want to ring my mum, and let her know what’s happened.’

  He nodded. ‘I’ll give you some space while you do that. I’ll make some food for us. It won’t be anything special, perhaps a pizza and salad—would that be all right?’

  ‘That will be lovely, thanks.’ She hadn’t realised how hungry she was. All the time she had been with her real mother, she had been keyed up, on edge, and now she was finally beginning to come down to earth once more.

  Her adoptive mother was thrilled to hear her news. ‘I’m so glad for you, Hannah,’ she said. ‘It must be wonderful for you to have found her after all this time. Would she come and visit with us, do you think? I could make room for her and her husband to stay with us for a while, if you like. It might be a bit of a squeeze, but we’ll cope somehow.’