‘I thought you were in the bath?’ I say, closing the laptop with a snap, feeling like a cheating spouse even though I know I’m doing nothing wrong.
‘I had a quick shower instead,’ she tells me. ‘Do you fancy a beer? Or even a glass of wine as a nightcap? Think I’ll have a beer then head to bed.’
I stutter and stammer, trying to find a response to her simple question, telling myself that – although I feel bad – I wasn’t doing anything wrong but was just reading an email from an old friend.
An old friend my fiancée has never heard me talk about. An old friend I’ve never mentioned to Lesley throughout our three-year relationship and who I know very little about, yet I seem to think about so much.
‘I’ll have a beer, please,’ I tell her, and then I find the remote control and switch on the TV news to take my mind elsewhere. ‘I think I need an early night too. Thanks, Les.’
Lesley brings in two bottles of beer and she snuggles beside me on the sofa, her blonde hair still damp from the shower and the smell of coconut radiating from her skin. I clench my hands in frustration, then kiss her damp hair to try and ground myself again.
If this is the way hearing from Kate Foley is going to affect me, I’m not sure this is a path I should be travelling on after all.
8.
KATE
Isometimes feel as though I’ve become an expert at pretending to be brave and strong, as if I’m trying my best to be some sort of warrior champion, made of steel, who sword-fights feelings out of my way as if in battle on a daily basis.
Bomb victim?Don’t dare label me.Working-class kid?Nurse with an honours degree, thank you very much.Wasn’t your ma in prison?Mind your own business.What do you mean you haven’t seen your father in months?His choice, not mine.Your boyfriend was having a fling with your friend and you found out on the day you thought he was going to propose?I’m so over it. (I’m so not.)
I can handle, or at least pretend to, most of the incidents I encounter on this crazy old path of life, yet sometimes all it takes is the tiniest little problem belonging to someone else to send me into a spin, and I won’t stop until I know I can change the world for them, or at least try to.
Take Cassie, for example, an 8-year-old girl who stayed on the ward with us for two days just this week after a minor operation, and who touched my heart and left her tiny fingerprint there when I heard her story. Her mum died when she was just nine months old, her father is a drug addict, and she hadn’t seen her two sisters in six months since they were separated in the care system.
The thing she missed most was not her mum, her dad or even her sisters, but her shiny new red bike, which she had to leave behind in the family home. Since her dad had gone to rehab, her foster parents couldn’t access the place to get it back for her. I just couldn’t get her off my mind, so I made a few calls and, before she went home, a local toy shop sponsored a brand-new, almost identical red bike all for herself that she could ride. I hoped she would be reunited with her sisters and her daddy one day soon again but, until then, at least she had her bike.
‘You’ll be working for one of those wish foundation charities soon,’ Sinead tells me. She loves to hear my stories of goodwill and happier faces. ‘Saint Kate, Queen of Deprived and Injured Children.’
‘Oh, give over, I’m not that bad,’ I tell her. ‘I just take stories to heart sometimes and find it difficult to switch off.’
So it’s no surprise to me that, when I finally get a reply from David, his despair and angst over his mother’s illness affects me in the same way. I find I am spending much ofmy spare time contemplating what I can do to make the situation just a little easier on him.
Dear Kate,he wrote to me, two days after I sent my own slightly tipsy message to him.
It’s so lovely to hear from you.I’m so sorry to hear you’re going through a break-up – are you OK? Make sure and look after yourself, Kate! It’s a tough thing to go through for sure.
I have to say you’ve been on my mind a lot, as has Shannon, since we met again on the day of the memorial service. Ten whole years, imagine? I really hope life has been kind to you after all you’ve been through. I’d love to hear more about your life and what you’ve been up to since we met on such a tragic day. Thank you again for all your help. I don’t think I’d have got through it without you.
Life is a bit of a rollercoaster for me at the moment. Our wedding, which was supposed to happen in March, has now been rearranged for May as my mum is going to have another blast of chemo to try and beat her cancer. She had been in remission a while but now they’ve found new abnormalities in her lungs and, to be honest, I’m worried sick. Planning a wedding is the last thing on my mind.
On a different note, your positive outlook has somehow inspired me to go for something I wouldn’t really havedreamed of. There’s a head of department post coming up at school and, even though it’s an absolute long shot as I’m up against two other cracking teachers who have been here for many years, I’ve taken a punt, ‘bought the lotto ticket’, so to speak, and thrown my name in the hat.
I really hope we meet again soon, Kate.
Until then, take care,
David x
Sinead watches me pacing the kitchen floor while preparing our dinner – a very easy lemon linguine recipe I inherited from my mother – and reads my mind like only she can.
‘What are you plotting now, Florence Nightingale?’ she asks as she watches me serve up. ‘I just know you’re cooking up more than dinner, by the way. You’re not listening to one word I said. Who is it? I bet it’s the little one, Ellen, on the Disney ward who has chronic diabetes. Have to say, she melts my heart too. Did you see her dad? What a hunk!’
‘No, no, it’s nothing to do with work for a change,’ I tell Sinead as I stir up the linguine. ‘Well, not really. I’m on a totally different mission but I don’t know where to start. You see, it’s a tricky one knowing, or not knowing really, the people involved. I’ve told you about David, the guy from—’
‘Oh yes, you sure have told me about the dreamy David,’ she says, her eyes glazing over. ‘Have you any photos of himat all? I’d love to see if he’s as gorgeous as you described him.’
‘Give over and go find yourself a man,’ I joke in return, before explaining and updating her on David’s email and his despair over his mother’s illness when he is so far away from home.
