At the wake, Iris went overboard on the G&Ts again whilst engaging in some shameless flirting with Reggie’s brother. When we returned to Bay View, Rhys took Ruby into the residents’ lounge for a game of cards and I accompanied Iris back to her room.
‘I might have a bath,’ Iris announced. ‘A lovely relaxing bubble bath before bedtime.’
‘I don’t know about that. You’ve been drinking. What if you fall asleep in there?’
She laughed. ‘Reggie’s brother’s gorgeous. He was my sweetheart when I was seven. Did you know that?’
‘Yes, Iris. You told us earlier. Several times.’
She laughed again. ‘He was the first boy I kissed, you know. A girl never forgets her first kiss.’
I unlocked her door for her and steered her towards her bedroom. ‘Would you like a drink of water?’
‘Yes please.’
When I returned with her drink, she’d kicked off her shoes and was sitting on the side of her bed, grinning, no doubt thinking about her first kiss with Reggie’s brother. I moved to place the glass on the cabinet, but she reached out to grab it at the same time. The glass tipped onto the bed, sloshing water over her pillows and sheet.
‘Whoops! It’s missed your duvet but I’m going to have to strip the rest of the bed.’
I helped Iris over to a tub chair in the corner of the room, then peeled back the duvet, removed the sheet, and grabbed the pillows. ‘I’ll get you some fresh bedding.’
My heart thumped as I hesitated outside the laundry room. Not only did it hold memories for Tony and me, it was now tainted with his and Maria’s deception. I closed my eyes for a moment and concentrated on pushing my emotions aside. Taking a deep breath, I pushed down on the handle. Locked. How strange. I knocked on the door and listened. Silence. ‘Hello? Anyone in there?’ Silence again. I rattled the handle, but it was definitely locked.
I poked my head round the door of the residents’ lounge as I passed. ‘Water spillage,’ I called to Ruby and Rhys who were sitting by the window, engrossed in their game. ‘I’m getting Iris some fresh bedding but the laundry room’s locked. Won’t be long.’
Retrieving the key, I dashed back round the corridor, opened the laundry room door, and flicked on the light. The room seemed to spin around me and I felt like I was in a vortex as I launched myself to my knees beside her still body.
‘Denise!’ I grabbed her cold arm and, with shaking hands, felt for a pulse. ‘Denise!’ An empty bottle of pills lay on the floor beside her. ‘Shit, Denise! What have you taken?’ I could feel a pulse, but it was weak. I pushed a strand of hair away from her face and flinched at the coolness of her cheeks. Shit! Shit! Shit! I needed an ambulance. I didn’t want to leave her but I had no choice. She was already on her side so I quickly moved her into the recovery position before racing along the corridor. Entering the residents’ lounge, I tried to apply a poker face so I didn’t scare anyone. Where the hell were the staff? ‘Rhys. Can I borrow you for a second?’
‘Is everything okay?’ asked Ruby, frowning. Poker face obviously hadn’t worked.
‘Fine. One of the washing machines is leaking so I just wanted Rhys’s help. Men stuff, you know?’
Rhys smiled and ambled over. As soon as we’d passed the windows, I grabbed his hand and broke into a run. ‘Can you call an ambulance?’
‘What? Is Iris okay?’
‘It’s not Iris.’ I pushed open the door to the laundry room.
‘Shit! Is that…?’
‘I think she’s taken an overdose.’ I crouched down beside her as Rhys dialled 999.
‘Is she breathing?’ he asked.
‘Yes, but her pulse is faint.’
‘Hi, yes, ambulance… yes, that’s right… Rhys Michaels… just my mobile… yes… we’ve just found our manager on the floor unconscious and we think she might have overdosed… yes, female, early forties…’
Heart thumping, I held onto Denise’s cold hand and stroked her hair back from her face while Rhys spoke to the operator, reading out the name on the bottle of tablets and outlining the circumstances around finding her. He hung up. ‘All we can do is keep her in the recovery position and wait for the ambulance.’
‘Did they say how long?’
‘Ten minutes. Do you want me to wait out the front?’
I shook my head. ‘Can you stay with Denise? I need to see if Gillian’s back and I’d better check on Iris.’ I grabbed a bag containing two new pillows, two pillowcases, and a sheet off the shelf and hurried to the front of the building. Reception was empty. So were the offices. As I made my way back past reception, one of my older colleagues, Sally, wandered in from outside, wafting a cloud of cigarette smoke away.
She stopped when she saw me. ‘You’re back!’
‘Is Gillian back?’
‘I saw her about five minutes ago. How was the funeral?’
‘Sorry, Sal, but I need to find Gillian urgently.’
‘She’s in the staffroom, I think. Are you okay?’
‘Can you get these to Iris?’ I thrust the bedding at her then sped off down the corridor towards the staffroom.
‘Callie!’ Gillian exclaimed when I burst into the room. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Denise…’ I turned and ran back along the corridor with Gillian hot on my heels.
‘On my God! What happened?’ she cried as I opened the door to the laundry room.
‘An overdose by the looks of it. The ambulance is on its way.’
Rhys stood up. ‘I’ll go out the front and wait for it.’ He caught my hand as he passed and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘I’m sure she’ll be fine. You’ve done everything you can.’
‘Denise! Can you hear me?’ Gillian bent down and lightly tapped her face. ‘Denise!’
A pair of paramedics appeared and lifted Denise onto a stretcher. I recognised them as the same pair from the day Reggie died. Moving Denise to the recovery position could have kept her alive, but what if lightning struck twice? What if she died in the ambulance just like Reggie, despite my intervention? My throat felt like it was encased with razor blades. I sagged against Rhys’s side and he put a comforting arm round me.
‘I can’t get hold of Ian and I can’t leave the site,’ Gillian said as the paramedics wheeled the stretcher towards the entrance. Ian was our relief manager.
‘I’ll go with her,’ I said, unable to bear the thought of her being all alone. ‘Will you ring her husband?’
‘Of course. Thanks, Callie. Will you let me know how she’s doing?’
‘They might not tell me anything with me not being family, but I’ll ring you later either way.’
‘I’ll follow the ambulance,’ Rhys said.
‘You don’t have to…’ But as I said the words, I knew I desperately wanted him to.
‘No arguments. You’ve had a shock. I’m staying with you.’
Pacing up and down in the waiting room was agony. After forty minutes or so with no news, a man in his mid-to-late forties marched into the room. I recognised him immediately from a photo on Denise’s desk. ‘Mr Kimble?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘I’m looking for my wife.’
‘I’m Callie. This is Rhys. We work with her. I’m the one who found her.’
‘What happened?’
I bit my lip. ‘It looks like she might have taken too many tablets.’ I couldn’t bring myself to say the words ‘overdose’ or, even worse, ‘suicide’ to him. It could have been an accident. It wasn’t up to me to speculate about what had happened.
‘Christ! Stupid woman! Where is she?’
‘In surgery, I think.’
He rubbed his hand over his stubble then sat down heavily on one of the plastic chairs. ‘I should have seen it coming.’ He looked up at me. ‘You work with her, you say?’
I nodded.
‘Is she as horrendous to work with as she is to live with?’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t answer that. Actually, the expression on your face already has. Did she tell you we’re getting divorc
ed?’
So Pete had been right. ‘Not directly. I’m sorry to hear that.’
He sighed. ‘I knew she was struggling, but I had no idea she’d do anything like this. Christ! Denise! What was she thinking?’
‘She maybe wasn’t thinking. She’s been pretty upset recently.’ I cringed. Had I said too much? Thankfully he nodded.
A doctor appeared a few moments later, breaking the awkward silence. ‘Kimble family?’ he asked, looking round the waiting room.
‘I’m Denise’s husband, Gavin. Is she okay?’
‘She should be. We’ve pumped her stomach and she’s regained consciousness.’
‘Can I see her?’
‘Give us five more minutes.’
‘Would you like us to give you some space?’ Rhys asked. I could have hugged him for asking the question that I was struggling to phrase as anything other than, ‘Please can we go?’
Gavin nodded. ‘Yes, that would be good. Thanks for staying with her.’
I stood up, my legs feeling quite shaky, tears pricking my eyes. ‘Please can you give her our best wishes when you see her?’
‘I will.’
Rhys took hold of my hand as we left the waiting room. Feeling very unsteady on my feet, I was so grateful to have him to cling onto. He drove us back to my flat in silence. I didn’t need to invite him in. He didn’t need to ask. It just felt like the right thing to do.
As soon as we stepped into the lounge, I crumbled. ‘There was one pill left in that bottle. One pill. What if that was the difference between her living and…?’ My voice cracked.
‘Hey. You can’t think like that,’ he said, gently placing his hands on my shoulders. ‘We’ll never know, and the important thing is you found her and raised the alarm. You saved her.’
‘What was she was she thinking of doing something like that at work? Why did she…?’
‘I don’t know. Hoping she’d be found? A cry for help? Maybe whatever is hurting her simply became too much to cope with today.’
‘But if Iris hadn’t split her water, we might never have…’
Rhys wrapped his arms around me and held me close as tears rained down my cheeks and my body shook. As he stroked my back and hair, whispering reassurances, my thoughts drifted to how Tony would have responded in these circumstances. From past experience, it was obvious that he wouldn’t have been there to comfort me when I needed him and, if by some miracle he had come round and hugged me, he’d have made a move and made it all about sex as usual. Yet here was Rhys, a virtual stranger with whom I hadn’t had the best of starts, simply being there for me when I needed him, and doing it without being asked. To think that, only a few weeks back, I’d thought that I loved Tony and hated Rhys.
‘I’ve soaked your T-shirt,’ I said when I finally pulled away.
‘It’ll soon dry. How are you feeling?’
‘Like I’ve just had the worst day ever. Actually, make that the worst month ever.’
He pushed a strand of hair behind my ear, butterflies doing an unexpected swoop in my stomach at his tender touch. ‘I think that might be an understatement. Can I make you a drink? Tea? Coffee? Something stronger.’
‘There’s some lagers in the fridge. I think we’ve both earned one. Ooh! I promised I’d ring Gillian.’
‘You do that, and I’ll sort the drinks.’
‘Do you want to talk about Denise? Reggie? Tony? All three?’ he asked, handing me a bottle and sitting beside me on the sofa after I’d updated Gillian. ‘Or would you rather watch some mindless TV and sink a few of these?’
I smiled weakly. ‘The latter? For the moment, anyway. I feel so drained that I don’t think I could actually have a coherent conversation. You don’t have other plans tonight? A hot date or anything?’ I wasn’t sure why I’d added the last part, but it suddenly felt important to know the answer.
He laughed. ‘Between the house move and work, I can’t remember the last time I had one of those. You?’
‘God, no! I’m still licking my wounds after Tony.’
‘I hope there aren’t too many wounds,’ he said, his expression sympathetic.
‘No. My pride was hurt the most, I think.’
Rhys smiled at me and butterflies fluttered in my stomach again. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘I was starving earlier but my appetite’s completely gone now. I can’t stop thinking about Denise and hoping she’s going to be okay, not just now, but long-term.’
‘I know. Me too.’
Handing Rhys the remote control, I stood up. ‘I smell of the hospital. Do you mind if I put my PJs on while you pick out a film?’
‘No problem. I’m thinking a comedy or a rom-com?’
‘Yes please.’
Halfway through the film, Rhys announced that we needed to eat something to soak up the lager, so he made cheese on toast.
‘Why do you keep smiling at the cheese?’ he asked.
I blushed. ‘I didn’t realise I was. Sorry. I was just thinking how nice it is to tuck into a pile of cheese without someone wittering on about the high calorie count.’
Rhys frowned. ‘Tony did that?’
‘Regularly.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘To stop me getting any fatter.’ I stuffed the final piece into my mouth.
Rhys put his empty plate down on the coffee table and shuffled round to face me. ‘Any fatter? That would imply that you’re fat in the first place, which you’re not.’
‘I’m hardly skinny like his wife.’
‘Callie, you’re gorgeous. I’ve seen you in a swimming costume, remember.’ He laughed at my shocked face. ‘Sorry, was that too full on?’
I hung my head, cheeks burning, partly out of embarrassment, but partly from the unexpected compliment. He really thought I was gorgeous? ‘I’m mortified about that,’ I muttered.
‘Don’t be. You have an amazing body and if that stupid twat couldn’t see that… well, he didn’t deserve you and I’m glad it’s over.’ He ran his hand through his curls and shook his head.
‘Thank you. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in a long time.’
‘I mean every word,’ he said. ‘Can I ask you a question? Why did you stay with Tony if he treated you like that?’
I shrugged. ‘That’s a very good question. Without a very good answer.’
Sipping on my drink, I told him all about my ill-advised year with Tony and he told me all about his relationship with his daughter’s mum, Izzy. They’d only been together for a couple of months and he admitted even that was probably six weeks too long. After the initial attraction faded, he realised they had very little in common so ended it. He was shocked to discover she was pregnant as he thought they’d both taken precautions. It turned out that Izzy wasn’t really on the pill and had deliberately placed pin pricks in the condoms. Her sole objective had been to have a baby so that she could pack in the job she hated and live off benefits as a single mum instead. Seriously. What sort of woman does that? The respect I’d initially felt for her for raising Megan on her own was replaced with disgust and contempt. It appeared that being devious was a shared trait amongst our exes.
I gazed into those cornflower-blue eyes of his that sparkled as he talked about his daughter and realised that I’d enjoyed the last week-and-a-half in Rhys’s company more than I’d enjoyed a whole year in Tony’s. He properly listened when I spoke, seeming genuinely interested in what I had to say. In return, he was fascinating to listen to, but it made me realise how little Tony and I had talked about things. Conversation had always been superficial and cut short by sex. It turned out that Rhys and I loved the same music, films, food, and doing the same things. Had Tony and I had anything in common outside the bedroom?
‘I can’t believe Tony never took you out anywhere. What a nob.’
I nodded. ‘Now that I know about the wife and kids, I know why. The worst thing is that he kept promising me we would go out, then he’d change his mi
nd and say he was tired from work. Idiot here believed him.’
‘If you had gone out, what would have been your idea of a perfect date?’
‘After a year of not going on one, absolutely anything. It could be a meal, the cinema, the pub or just a walk along the beach. Anything other than being stuck in my flat. What about you? What’s your idea of the perfect date?’
‘Glamping.’
I laughed. ‘Glamping? Well, it’s certainly different.’
‘I have this mate, Kev, whose parents own a campsite just outside Whitsborough Bay. It’s got this glamping field with a mixture of Bedouin tents and wigwams. About a dozen of us stayed there on Kev’s twenty-first birthday. There’s this amazing view and you can see the sun setting over the moors and Kittrig Forest. It’s so romantic, or it would be with someone special and not a load of lairy, drunk lads. I’ve never been out with anyone I’d consider special enough to take there, though.’
It sounded like the most perfect date ever. Even if Tony had taken me out, I suspected he’d never have thought of anything romantic like that. A trip to the pub and a grope in the park on the way home would likely have been his idea of a good time. An image filled my mind of Rhys and me sat on a hilltop watching the sun set, his arm round me, my head resting on his shoulder. I liked that image. ‘I hope you find that special person.’
‘I’m working on it.’ He held my gaze as butterflies danced in my stomach again. Then I ruined it. I tried so hard to stifle it, but a huge yawn escaped. It was shortly after one in the morning and, much as I was loving Rhys’s company, I really was drained.
He leaned forward and put his empty bottle down on the coffee table. ‘I think that’s my cue to leave. You looked shattered when we got back from the hospital and I’ve selfishly kept you up talking. I’ll call a taxi and pick my van up in the morning and—’
‘Stay.’ I reached out to touch the back of his hand, a zing of electricity zipping up my arm. ‘I don’t want to be alone. Not after everything that’s happened today. Unless you have to get back for something. It wasn’t an order. It’s just that…’
Making Wishes at Bay View Page 9
