Out on a Limb

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  Whatever. I go in. The Ward Sister, a young woman I’m only on nodding terms with (it’s a big hospital), doesn’t seem remotely fazed that I’m here to see Charlie, and it occurs to me that she probably doesn’t even know I no longer work here. And doubtless many of the orthopaedics team have been up here today already. She confirms he’s on his own, and then points me towards him.

  He’s been put in a side room just off the main ward. A sunny nook, west facing, with a whole wall width of window, beneath which he’s sitting, not in bed, but in an armchair, reading the Telegraph. I mentally breathe out. Not in bed. Not on a monitor. Not wired up to anything. Bar the dressing gown and slippers, he could be a visitor himself.

  The dressing gown, the slippers, the holdall in the corner. The newspaper. The box of tissues. The two paperbacks. The wash bag. The china mug. The box of fruit teabags on the table. Most of all, the box of fruit tea bags on the table. She’s been here already. Getting him sorted. Getting stuff in. Looking after him. The door’s open, but even so, I knock.

  He turns around, and then looks surprised, and then smiles.

  And then shakes his head. ‘See?’ he says. ‘Told you it would come to this, didn’t I?’

  He says it so matter-of-factly, so calmly, so dispassionately, that I immediately find myself bursting into tears. Well, not bursting, exactly, because one tries not to burst, exclaim, squeak, wail, or otherwise make a spectacle of oneself in the presence of a sick person, but the net result is the same. I am suddenly a muddle of spouty tears, tight throat and facial contortions and in trying to tourniquet any impolite floods I am rendered incapable of speech. So instead, I gently push the door almost closed behind me and sit heavily down on the bed, snivelling.

  Charlie puts down the paper and considers me. ‘It’s all right,’ he says gently. ‘I’m not going to die on you.’

  Which completely undermines my first attempt at hysteria-management, and necessitates a hasty re-grouping. He reaches across to his bedside table and plucks a tissue from the box. Which I take from him. ‘I doe,’ I say. ‘I doe.’

  He looks a little disappointed about that. ‘ How d’you know?’ he says, narrowing his eyes.

  I lower the tissue from my face and let good sense kick in automatically. ‘Because you’re here. They’d hardly let you leave CCU if you were critical, would they? Oh, but Charlie, I should have realised. I should have –’ And then I’m off on one again.

  He plucks another tissue from the box and hands it to me. ‘I didn’t even have a heart attack, if that’s what you’ve been thinking.’

  ‘But Carolyn said –’

  He shakes his head. ‘Just a nasty little bout of viral pericarditis. I’ll be off home tomorrow as long as my temperature’s down.’

  I lower the tissue from my face again and exhale heavily. ‘Oh, thank God.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve done a fair bit of that, believe me,’ he says wryly. ‘I might even consider re-engaging with the Church. Anyway,’ he says briskly, ‘dry your face and come over here and give me a hug. I think I’m entitled, don’t you?’

  So I step over the holdall and round the over-bed table on wheels, then bend down to let him wind his arms around my back. It’s an awkward sort of clinch, with him seated and me standing, but we’re long past the point where I might sit on his lap, and in some ways that makes it much nicer. He eventually lets me go, and once freed up and straightened, I lean down again and plant a kiss on the top of his head. His hair smells all hospitally and is warm against my lips.

  That done, I go back and sit on the bed, not knowing quite what to say or do next.

  ‘So,’ he says, as if addressing a nervous patient. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘You bloody should. I’ve been waiting and waiting. What kept you, anyway?’

  ‘I didn’t know.’

  He touches my knee with a fingertip. ‘Hey, now, you. I’m only winding you up.’

  ‘Well, don’t. This isn’t funny, Charlie.’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘It isn’t, is it?’ He lifts his arms and laces his fingers in the air above his head, then turns them palms upwards and stretches. ‘No,’ he says again. ‘But instructive, for all that.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  H e unlaces his hands again and sits forward, re-lacing them loosely between his knees. I realise I’ve never seen the dressing gown before. Never seen him in a dressing gown at all. Never seen this dressing-gowned version of the man I thought I knew. The one I knew always strode around naked as the day. I wonder if he’s left the flat now. I wonder if they’re all settled back living together again. I wonder, mainly, how he really feels about the future of his marriage, which is something I’ve never allowed myself to wonder about before. Not properly. Not truthfully. Not in the sense which that packet of fruit teabags has forced me to wonder about it. ‘God, I’m going to miss you,’ he says suddenly.

  Like he hasn’t up to now. Like we haven’t already parted. Like, most of all, that he’s making a point. And then I have a thought. ‘Why? Are you going somewhere or something?’

  He shakes his head. Then his eyes leave mine and he turns to scan the dark sky. It’s a clear night. And a bright one. With an almost full moon.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Just back, that’s all.’

  ‘You haven’t been anywhere.’

  ‘I’ve been with you, Abbie.’

  ‘Yes, I know that, but –’

  He taps his temple. ‘But now it’s time to go back.’

  ‘Charlie, we already split up,’ I remind him.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘There was no ‘we’ about it, Abbie. You left me.’

  ‘I never had you.’

  ‘But that’s just it. You did.’

  ‘No, Charlie. That’s not true. I had a bit of you. That’s all.’

  ‘And yet I had every last bit of you, didn’t I?’ I say nothing. ‘Which I should never have pursued and certainly didn’t deserve.’

  There seems no answer to that, other than a knowing affirmative. Yes, he did. For a short while. And looking at him now, I realise, with relief, that I have no regrets about any of it. So I stand then, and join him in gazing out at the sky. Growing ultramarine now above the blackening buildings. I feel his hand reach for and clasp mine.

  I turn. ‘ Is anyone likely to –’

  He squeezes it. ‘Don’t panic, Mr Mainwaring. She’s not long left. To get some things. Pick up the kids and bring them down. We have at least twenty minutes.’

  I almost laugh. ‘To do what, exactly?’

  ‘To give thanks and to reflect.’

  I let my hand remain in his. ‘You’ve gone all strange,’ I say. ‘All philosophical. All, well, I don’t know… funny. ’

  ‘It’s probably the virus. Infected my hard drive.’ He turns then, to look at me. ‘Abbie,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m very, very sorry,’ he says.

  My eyes fill with tears again because though he’s said those words to me many, many times, this time I know he really means it.

  ‘For what?’ I ask him anyway.

  ‘For involving you in my mid-life crisis, I suppose.’

  ‘Your mid-life crisis? Tell me about it.’

  ‘What a pair we are,’ he says softly. ‘Eh?’

  My turn to squeeze his hand now. ‘ Were.’

  I leave Charlie feeling lighter of heart than I have done in a long time. It’s the stupidest thing. Which is odd, not to mention pretty damn ironic. I’m all cried out, of course – long since all cried out about Charlie – but I thought when I came here that something terrible would happen. That I’d see him and, well, I don’t know, that I’d get sucked back in all over again. That I’d be all overcome and infatuated again. Compassion doesn’t mix well with sexual attraction. It’s too volatile a cocktail to be stable. But it hasn’t happened, and shocked as I am, I feel free.

  Free, and also –
perversely – as if this whole sorry shambles has actually been good for me. As if Charlie’s attentions, inappropriate as they may have been, have been a shot in the arm when I needed it most. An escape from my way-too-long post divorce purdah. Which is enough for me to begin to feel optimistic about the future, at any rate. And having been an optimist since birth, of course, also means that it doesn’t feel in the least unreasonable to suppose that my exit will be as uneventful as my entry, and free of any further Scott-Downing sightings. But that, in itself, is unreasonable. There is only one main corridor that links the wards with the main entrance, and as I know the family are en route back at some point, there is, of course, every likelihood that we’ll meet up.

  Thus it’s no surprise really that we do. And with spectacularly bad timing, to boot. Thirty seconds sooner and I could have slunk off down the byway to X-ray. Twenty seconds later and I could have dived into the sluice room. As it was, I have made just sufficient progress down the corridor that I’m marooned in the bit of it that offers up no alternatives. The bit where all the admin offices are. Admin, of course, as I have had previous cause to consider, being that thing hospitals do only between nine and five.

  They’re headed straight towards me. All of them. En masse. Charlie’s wife, Hamish, a smaller version of Hamish, and a tall young woman who is clearly her daughter. And as the distance between us shortens, I can see that Hamish – Hamish/Oliver? Oliver/Hamish – which? – who has obviously recognised me, is telling his mother who I am. No chance, therefore, to slide past without contact. I hope it’s not obvious I’ve been crying.

  We draw level, mid-corridor. I take a deep breath. I smile.

  It’s so obvious she has. ‘Hello,’ I say, straight at her, with a nod towards Hamish. ‘I’m Abbie McFadden. You must be Oliver’s mother.’ She nods but doesn’t speak. We don’t shake either. We’re two women, and women don’t shake hands. I don’t know why I know that but I suspect it’s something my mother drummed into me at a very early age. It’s an anachronism these days – why wouldn’t we? Why shouldn’t we? I idly wonder if the same drill has been passed on to her.

  Charlie’s wife Claire is much taller than me, with artfully – and no doubt expensively – mussed hair. I force myself to meet her gaze, which is intelligent and focussed and quizzical. She has perfectly tweezered eyebrows. She is wearing a grey suit. I feel shabby and insignificant beside her. ‘I heard about –’ God – what do I say? Charlie? Mr Scott-Downing? Your husband? What?

  ‘…Charlie,’ is what I plump for, and there’s something in her answering expression that seems a little disapproving. And momentarily, much as I don’t want to, much less have the right to, I find it instinctively makes me disapproving of her. Because, really, it is the right form of address. We were colleagues. Okay, so he’s a lofty consultant and I’m a lowly physio, but that’s how he asked me – asked all of us – to address him. From day one. And so we all did.

  But perhaps, were I her, I’d want to puff him up too. Want people like me to know their place around him. Around them ? Keep their distance, at any rate. By some instinct? Or intuition? The benefit of experience? This woman is clearly not stupid. She must know how attractive a man Charlie is. How charismatic a man he is. How very lucky she is. And I decide, in an instant, recalling his words, that it’s she who’s undeserving. Of him. And also that I doubt she’s ever hugged him enough. That she doesn’t look after him properly. Outrageous, I know, and probably way off the mark, given that I know she’s a busy GP with enough problems of her own – least of all her straying husband, but even so, the thoughts tumble out regardless, thumbing their noses at propriety. I indicate behind me. ‘So I just popped by to see him.’

  ‘Jake’s mum used to work here with Dad,’ Oliver explains to her. For which I’m grateful, as it spares me from having to do so myself.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ she says. ‘Small world.’

  ‘I’m a physiotherapist,’ I add, as if it actually matters. ‘I was working here,’ I bolt on, ‘till a couple of months back.’

  I note the way her daughter’s arm is linked so tightly in the crook of hers. Like they’re shoring each other up. ‘Oh,’ she says again, politely. I am, I realise with mixed feelings, not even on her radar. Just some instantly forgettable ex-member of the staff. ‘Right,’ she says. ‘Well, nice to meet you, anyway.’

  I nod. And never now, God willing, will be. When next we meet, if next we meet, it will be as fellow mothers. Which is an interesting thought. ‘Yes, you too,’ I say. Then to Hamish. ‘See you soon.’

  I pause a moment to watch their progress as we part, and wonder if this brush with her husband’s mortality will make her appreciate him more.

  And then I wonder if he has any right to expect that. Any knowledge (or lack) of his infidelity is irrelevant; it is he who reneged on the deal. And whatever she does or doesn’t know about Charlie, she must surely know the one thing – the only thing – that matters. That he’s a keeper of secrets that he doesn’t share with her.

  And there’s something about her that tells me she does know. Not specifics, not names, I don’t think, just the fact of it. That she knows but can do little about it except hope. Her shoulders are slightly uneven, I notice, under the weight of the basket she has in the crook of her other arm. More things for Charlie. Some fruit? Another book? Certainly another newspaper. And Hamish is even, I think, carrying his laptop. His family are all looking after him.

  I brought nothing. As it should be. All is now as it should be. For the moment, at least. But their future’s not my problem. Now it’s time for me to go home.

  Chapter 16

  WHEN I GET IN, the house is silent, and from the hallway I can see that my mother is sitting at the kitchen table doing my Times Su Doku puzzle. I presume she thinks she has the right, given that I’ve come in so late. Probably in a huff about sorting her own dinner. Well tough, frankly. Too bad. I’m not the bloody maid. It’s only when I’m taking my jacket off that I notice that, though she’s sitting in the kitchen, she’s dressed for an altogether grander location. She’s all dolled up in her pink floaty top and skirt thing, and has her triple string of pearls around her neck. All dressed up but with nowhere to go. Is she supposed to be going somewhere this evening? Is she going somewhere right now?

  ‘Oh, there you are,’ she says sourly, as I enter the kitchen and put my keys down on the table. And her expression makes clear that no, she ain’t not goin’ not nowhere not now. But she should have been. Oh, yes. No doubt about that. Then the penny drops. Rehearsals. No. Actually, a casting. Cyncoed Theatre Club. Tonight. Oh, dear, oh dear. She puts down my pencil-with-a-rubber-on and glares at me.

  ‘Oh, God, Mum. I’m sorry,’ I say.

  Which history should tell me (but chronically forgets to) is the absolute last thing one should ever say to my mother. For she has only the one stock response.

  ‘And so you should be!’ she snaps. Which makes something snap in me. Why not vary things a little? Why not something along the lines of perhaps asking for an explanation? Why not some startlingly innovative cognitive reasoning process that culminates in her wondering – even if for just the tiniest instant –if there might just be a very good reason why I, this daughter who runs around for her pretty seamlessly pretty much whenever instructed to do so and has been doing so, like, forever, might have – no patently has – forgotten to come home on time and deliver her to her club? Why not just a straightforward ‘has something bad happened?’ Why not any and all of above? Huh?

  I check the time. Eight-forty. I snatch the keys up again.

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Come on. We’ll go now.’

  She wafts a hand in the air. I am clearly not going to get off that easily. ‘Oh, it’s much too late now. They’ll be almost done.’

  ‘I’m sure they won’t. It’s only –’

  ‘Abigail, they started at seven.’

  ‘So you’ll be a bit late. It’s not the end of the world.’


  ‘And they’ve already cast the principals anyway.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I just spoke to Wilfred.’

  ‘Wilfred who?’ She picks the pencil up again. Pointedly. ‘Wilfred who ?’

  ‘Wilfred who could have come and picked me up!’ she barks. ‘Only I told him not to because I thought you’d be back!’

  ‘Look, come on. Let’s go now. We can be there in ten minutes.’

  ‘No, no. Please don’t you worry yourself about me. I don’t want to go now, anyway.’ She turns her attention back to the puzzle. Well, fine. If she’d rather sit there and sulk she can go right ahead. I know full well that she’s expecting more appeasement and cajoling, but she’ll be waiting a bloody long time.

  I put the car keys down again and go over to the fridge, but the scant glassful of wine I had left in the bottle in the door isn’t there any more. I turn around. It’s standing empty on the windowsill above the sink, along with a similarly empty Tio Pepe bottle. I shut the fridge again and slap on the kettle. My puzzle. My wine. My solitude, most of all. Perhaps I should persist. Perhaps I should just manhandle her from her chair and bundle her into the car and deposit her at theatre club after all. Perhaps not. I don’t have the energy for it. Or for making tea. I switch the kettle off again and pour myself a glass of milk instead, aware from the dusky reflection in the kitchen window, that her eyes are now boring into my back. I turn around.

  ‘Mum, don’t look at me like that, please.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like that. Look, I’m sorry I’m home so late, but something important came up, okay?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just something.’

  ‘Too important for you to phone me?’

  ‘Look, I didn’t phone you because I forgot all about your meeting, okay? I didn’t know I needed to phone you, did I?’

  Down goes the pencil again. ‘But you should have phoned me anyway. Meeting or no meeting. Would that have been such a chore? I’m well aware that your comings and goings are entirely your own affair, but if you’d at least extended me the courtesy of bothering to phone me I could have asked Wilfred to come and pick me up on his way, couldn’t I?’