The Wedding Day

by Catherine Alliott

  ‘Because Clare insists on doing it so flat out,’ I said ruefully. ‘It is lovely, if you let it all drift over you. Don’t let it become a mission.’ I felt sad for her. For Clare. She could do it like that, if she tried. I hesitated. No, all right. Not without napkins.

  ‘Well, maybe tomorrow night, Rosie. Why don’t you all come over at about seven? Bring some booze and I’ll get some sausages and chicken legs and we’ll – Oh! Darling? What’s wrong?’

  I broke off to stare at David who’d emerged from the dining room. He looked as white as the walls behind him. His fists, at his sides, were clenched.

  ‘They’re going to do it,’ he said incredulously, oblivious of the fact that I was on the telephone. His lips were thin and bloodless and his eyes slid past me, over my shoulder. ‘They’re actually going through with it.’

  ‘What? Going through with what?’ I said, bewildered. ‘They’re going to sue me for professional misconduct. And not only that …’ He struggled for composure. His eyes found mine. ‘They’re suing me for manslaughter, too. Manslaughter, Annie!’

  I stared at him aghast, as to my horror he put his hands over his face, sank down into a chair, and wept.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘I’ll ring you back,’ I muttered to Rosie.

  ‘Manslaughter!’ she gasped, agog. ‘But who – Why –’ Brutally I cut her off, dropping the phone and flying over to David’s side. I knelt beside him, cradling his head in my arms, horrified. ‘David, don’t! What’s happened, why –’

  ‘They’re suing me, Annie.’ He jerked up suddenly, his face wet. ‘The wife, the family of the man I told you about. The one who died on my surgery steps.’

  ‘Yes but …’ I licked my lips, my mind whirring frantically. ‘I thought that had all blown over. I thought –’

  ‘Obviously not!’

  ‘But, David, it wasn’t your fault! And – and so what if they sue? So what? It was just a misdiagnosis.’

  ‘Which is medical negligence.’ He got to his feet abruptly, wiping his face savagely with the back of his hand, pacing around the room. ‘And it’s quite possible I’ll never be able to practise again, and just remotely possible I might go to prison.’

  I stared at him, horror-struck. My jaw dropped as I knelt there on the floor.

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ I spluttered finally. ‘That’s absurd! You’re overreacting, David. They don’t send doctors to prison for making a mistake, for missing something. And you said yourself this chap was always crying wolf, always in your surgery complaining about something or other –’

  He swung around, eyes burning. ‘Yes, and then he fucking died!’

  I swallowed. ‘Well, I know. I know, but – but with his track record, being a hypochondriac and all that, how were you to know which particular pain was real? He had a history of –’

  ‘I have a history,’ he interrupted, stabbing his chest viciously with his forefinger. He was over by the window now, staring at me with huge full eyes I didn’t recognize. ‘I am the one with the fucking history, Annie.’

  I’d only ever heard him swear before once. ‘What?’

  ‘I have a history of misdiagnosis,’ he said with a terrible crack in his voice. ‘Remember last year, that woman with a lump on her neck, and I told her it was a harmless ganglion and it turned out to be malignant?’

  ‘Yes, but you said anyone could have made that mistake. They look so similar!’

  ‘But I should have had it looked at. Should have had a biopsy done. And then last winter, the boy who got septicaemia – and recovered, thank God, but only after a month in hospital – and all because I hadn’t got to his wound in time, hadn’t checked if he’d had a tetanus injection. And then back in January, the old lady in Battersea who died of pneumonia, who’d refused to come and see me, said she was fine even though when she’d been in previously I’d detected something on her chest –’

  ‘But she wouldn’t come in! You said you asked her, and she wouldn’t –’

  ‘Yes, but I should have gone to her, shouldn’t I? Paid her a house call, which was what she wanted, but I said I was too busy. She was eighty-two, for Christ’s sake, and with a psychiatric history too. I should have known she was ill and shielding it. Shouldn’t just have taken her word for it, I’m the bloody doctor! And her daughter …’ He shuddered as he remembered. Shook his head. ‘Oh God, her daughter, at the hospital, shaking with emotion –’ He broke off.

  My throat felt dry and constricted. ‘That wasn’t your fault,’ I repeated. ‘She said she felt better. None of those cases were your fault!’

  ‘Hugo only just managed to keep me out of court that time,’ he said, turning his back on me and raking a despairing hand through his hair. He gazed out to sea. ‘Says he won’t be able to do that for me this time.’

  ‘Who’s Hugo?’ I whispered. ‘My solicitor. And an old friend.’ He was silent a moment, his back to me. Then he turned. ‘I’m not up to it, Annie. Never have been.’

  I stared, horrified. His face was pale but composed. There was a terrible clenched calmness about him. I got up from the floor and went to him; I shook his arm.

  ‘That’s nonsense, David. You know it is. You’re a wonderful doctor, everyone says so!’

  He gave a tight smile. ‘You say so. I say so, occasionally. But no. Not everyone says so. In fact an awful lot of people say it’s not so. Ask Gertrude.’

  ‘Gertrude?’ I was stunned.

  He turned away from me. Looked out to the horizon again. ‘I was so desperate to be a doctor, Annie,’ he said softly. ‘So desperate. Like my father, a great surgeon. Well, it was clear early on I could never be that, didn’t have the brain power, but – well, OK, like my uncle then. Gertrude’s husband, Hugh. An excellent general practitioner. So I trained. And failed my exams. And trained again and failed, but eventually … eventually I got there. Got my bits of paper. Got those precious letters before my name, changed the boring Mr for something more sonorous. Something with a bit more gravitas.’ He put a hand to his brow. Stretched it across and rubbed his temples wearily. ‘But you know, Annie, the awful thing was, I always knew. Knew I was a fraud.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘No, OK, not a fraud,’ he said quietly, ‘but I knew I couldn’t cut the mustard. Knew I’d be terrified when it came to actually doing it.’

  ‘But – but Hugh took you on. You were fine! And he must have trusted you to work with you.’

  ‘Well, he’d brought me up from the age of eight,’ he said bitterly. ‘He was like a father to me. Who wouldn’t do that for their nephew? Let them into the family business in Sloane Street? What an opportunity. Also …’ He wrestled with something. ‘I always felt that he liked that arrangement. Him looking over me. It meant he could watch me, you see. Keep me safe. Keep an eye on me. But when I’d been with him a year or two, I saw the worry in his eyes.’ He swallowed. Fixed his gaze on a small red boat out at sea. ‘Before he died, when he was really quite ill – and knew it – he called me into his room next door. Asked me if I was sure I was in the right profession. If I wouldn’t prefer research or something. And then when he died, I had to persuade Gertrude to let me take over the practice.’

  ‘She didn’t want you to?’ I breathed. ‘She did, but she was worried too. Hugh had told her about his misgivings. But when she saw I was so utterly determined to carry on, she urged me to find a senior partner to work with. Someone like Hugh. And I knew she meant a sounding board, someone I could nip next door to, discuss a tricky diagnosis with, but I didn’t. I was too proud. I took on Kim. Who was over here on a year’s sabbatical.’

  ‘But Kim was good. You said so!’

  ‘Yes, but young. And only temporary. A very young Aussie who was going back home in time, and that suited me because … well, because I wanted to be the elder statesman to her. Like Hugh had been to me. But you know, in time, even Kim realized I was missing things. Five years younger than me,’ he said bitterly. ‘But she knew. She was too loyal to say
, but before she went back, she kept hinting that if she wasn’t sure about something, she sent patients straight round to Harley Street for a second opinion – which she didn’t much, incidentally. Kept saying it. Kept looking me in the eye and saying it. Trying to tell me something.’

  ‘Which is what you do a lot,’ I whispered. My hair felt damp on the back of my neck. ‘You do do that.’

  ‘Yes. I do. Pretending to the world that it’s because I’m a cautious, conscientious chap. But actually … covering my back. And it’s worked. Mostly. I’ve muddled through. Because you see’ – he turned back and looked at me beseechingly – ‘I’m not a bad doctor, Annie. I’m just – not a very good one.’

  I put my arm around his neck, holding him close. ‘Oh my darling.’

  He rested his head on my shoulder and, to my distress, sobbed again. I held on, very tight. After a while, he recovered. Composed himself.

  ‘Sorry,’ he muttered, turning away. He tugged a hanky from his pocket and blew his nose noisily. Moved over to the fireplace. He placed his feet apart and shoved his hands in his pockets. Gazed into the grate. ‘Can’t think what’s come over me. Blubbing like a baby.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, you need a good cry,’ I said staunchly. ‘Golly, we all need a good cry sometimes. I know I do.’

  He didn’t seem to hear me, though. Seemed miles away. Staring into the empty fireplace. Finally he took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, shakily. It seemed to me his whole body shuddered.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said quietly, ‘Hugo’s got all sorts of ideas up his sleeve. He’s had years of experience with this sort of thing.’

  ‘Because everyone makes mistakes,’ I said firmly. ‘Of course they do.’

  ‘Yes, everyone makes mistakes. But it’s a bit more serious when you’re a doctor. If you make a mistake, Annie, if you write a terrible chapter, your book isn’t published. If Michael makes a mistake, the share prices plummet; if Clare makes a mistake, an important client gets irate. I make a mistake, and … well.’

  I crossed the room and put my arms around him from behind. Laid my head on his back and squeezed hard.

  ‘It’s all going to be fine,’ I said firmly. ‘You’ll see. Hugo will find a way. That’s what these expensive lawyers are for.’

  ‘Yes, and so I wriggle again. And meanwhile there’s a wife with no husband, and three children with no father.’

  I froze. Gazed into his pink shirt, at a loss to know what to say. We were quiet for a moment.

  ‘I should go,’ he said suddenly. I felt his back muscles tense. ‘Hugo said he’d see me at his office tomorrow. Said he’d run through some things with me.’ He turned.

  ‘Go in the morning.’ I urged. ‘Early. Not now. You’re too upset to drive now, David. Sleep on it and go tomorrow.’

  ‘No, I –’

  ‘Please, darling, don’t go now.’

  In the event, I persuaded him to stay. That night, in bed, he held me very close.

  ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, Annie,’ he said into my shoulder. ‘Really don’t know. I think I’d go to pieces.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ I laughed softly, stroking the back of his neck.

  ‘I need you, Annie. I really do.’

  ‘And I need you too,’ I murmured, but there was a desperation in his voice that unnerved me.

  ‘I want to make love to you tonight. Please.’

  ‘Of course. I do too,’ I assured him, wishing he hadn’t said please.

  His love-making was intense, desperate even, with a ferocity about it which alarmed me. I tried to come up with some kind of reciprocity of scale, gripping him tightly, trying not to gasp in pain as he pinned my arms to the bed, but found after a while that he was almost oblivious of me anyway. He was in a world of his own, or trying to be. Losing himself in me. All the bedclothes were on the floor as he wrapped himself around me, engulfing me, possessing me, making noises that sounded almost primeval. I was terrified Flora, next door, or even Matt upstairs would hear.

  Eventually, he flopped round on his back, sated; exhausted; his body heaving. I lay quietly beside him. I was worried that he’d lie awake for hours, but after a moment, I saw him lean across to the bedside table and take a pill. Something else I’d never seen. He lay back without a word, and after a while, I heard deep, rhythmic breathing as he sank into a heavy sleep.

  I, meanwhile, for the second night in succession, lay awake for hours, eyes wide and raw in the darkness, listening to the waves lapping gently in the creek and the wind rustling the treetops. My mind was racing. So much I didn’t know. I didn’t know Hugo had had to keep him out of court. I hadn’t even heard of Hugo. I didn’t know he’d repeatedly failed exams – not that it mattered a jot – but why hadn’t he told me? In conversation? Just as I’d told him I was hopeless at school? The old lady in Battersea I had known about; I remembered his white face as he’d come home from work one day, told me she’d died and that it could have been prevented if he’d got her to hospital, acted sooner. I didn’t know of Gertrude’s misgivings. Of course I didn’t, she was loyal, and anyway, he’d been a doctor for years before he met me, why would it come up? Round and round went my mind, my thought processes spinning, until, eventually, Morpheus rescued me, and I fell into a fitful sleep.

  The following morning, I awoke to find the bed empty beside me. David had gone. On the duvet was a note, folded in half. I snatched it up.

  My darling,

  I’m so sorry for all the histrionics last night. You were right, things do look better in the morning. I’m sure all will be well. I love you.

  David

  I sighed and lay back on my pillows for a moment. Then, with a mammoth effort, swung my legs around and pulled on my dressing gown. I put the note in my pocket and went to the bathroom. When I’d brushed my teeth, I leaned the heels of my hands heavily on the basin, gazing at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes looked pinched and tight through lack of sleep, and my long dark curls flat and lank. I ran a hand through them listlessly. Raised my chin.

  ‘All will be well,’ I murmured, repeating the line in David’s note. ‘All …’ I assured myself, ‘will be well.’ My dark eyes gazed back, slightly wider, but with no real conviction.

  The house was full of sleep as I crept downstairs. Certainly Flora’s door was shut as I passed, and Tod wasn’t around. I made myself a cup of coffee, and leaned back against the yellow Formica work-top, cradling my mug, and wondering what to do with myself. My eyes unaccountably filled with tears. Still tired, I reasoned, swallowing hard. Lack of sleep. What I needed was to work. Needed the single-minded focus that writing afforded, so that whilst my body took refuge in the discipline of tapping a keyboard, my mind took refuge in someone else’s fictitious life. I remembered Adam asking me once why I wrote, as I scribbled away furiously in an exercise book, lying on our bed in London. I’d replied, without thinking, that it had always been a safe place to go. I’d glanced up and caught the surprise in his eyes. The guilt. It pained me now to think that I was going to the summer house for the same reason. I didn’t want to be happy only in dreams. I wanted still the bright anticipation of yesterday. But, for the moment, it had gone.

  I made a fresh cup of coffee and took it out into the garden. As I passed the study window, I saw that Matt, head down, had had the same idea. His window was open and, as I went by, he glanced up.

  ‘Everything OK?’

  Not ‘morning’, or ‘hi’, or even just a grunt to indicate he’d registered but was busy, but: ‘Everything OK?’ Quietly. Solicitously. In that soft, melodious accent.

  I nodded, gave a weak smile, and passed on.

  Tears were welling again, and I couldn’t speak. Mustn’t speak. Mustn’t even think. He would, of course, have noticed that something was wrong last night. Would have noticed when he and Tod returned from the beach. Glancing into the sitting room, he’d tactfully ushered Tod and Flora out into the garden to eat the pasties they’d bought on the way home, claiming food always tast
ed better in the fresh air, even if it was a bit windy. And all the while David and I had sat huddled inside, talking in tense whispers, me clutching his hands, trying to soothe him, trying to shake some confidence into him and banish the demons. Matt would have noticed, too, the repeated calls back and forth to Hugo, the dining-room door opening and shutting, and the fact that neither of us had any supper and went early to bed. Nice of him to shield Flora for me, I thought. To feed her, and take her off later with Tod to look for cormorants on the cliffs with binoculars.

  I shut the summer-house door behind me and sat down. As I switched on my computer a sea of words filled the screen, but I stared, almost unseeing, feeling sick inside for poor David, but also so horribly, horribly confused.

  ‘Everything OK?’

  He could have chosen tactfully to ignore me, but instead the blue eyes had flashed up, soft, concerned, over his glasses. I raised my own eyes to the ceiling, knowing they were full and mustn’t spill over. Swallowing hard, I pulled myself together. Right. Now. Lucinda. My heroine. I had to get a move on with this wretched book, or my editor would be wondering what the hell was going on. And Lucinda hadn’t even got her kit off yet. She was still wandering around her empty house, Justin’s invitation clutched to her heaving bosom, eyes shining, her heart full. Oh no, I thought, rereading the last paragraph in panic, that wouldn’t do at all! I quickly erased a few lines. She wasn’t supposed to fall in love, for heaven’s sake, not with Justin Reynolds! That way madness lay. I tapped away furiously.

  Lucinda stalked into the drawing room and cast the invitation ruthlessly aside, pushing it behind a stack of similarly embossed cards on the mantelpiece. She regarded herself sternly in the mirror above it. Certainly her husband’s faithlessness had to be avenged, certainly a dalliance of some sort was in order, but allowing another man into her heart could only lead to more pain. Terence, on the other hand, was an entirely different proposition. Her heart would slumber peacefully whilst her body did all the work. Even now she could hear his heavy tread in the kitchen as he came to collect the dogs for their afternoon walk. She flew to intercept him. Flashing him a winning smile, she dangled the tartan leads from her finger.