Wrapping his arms around her waist from behind he kissed her gently on the neck. “Very well perceived, Miss Pryor, but your brother and I appear to be friends now.”
Steph turned to pass him a cup of coffee from the machine. “You really don’t need to stay here with me. I do know that there is nothing I can do, but I just want to be close by if that makes sense. But I can do this alone if you have things to do.”
“I get it, but I have no intention of leaving you here.” They sat next to each other, nursing their coffee. “Now we can either play eye spy or we could talk.”
“We were going to talk tonight weren’t we?” she mused. “I don’t know that hearing about your wife is ever going to be easy, but I know it’s time.”
“Yes, but that can wait. Now, here is probably not right so let’s talk about ourselves,” he said determined to discover more about her, at least about her past.
Steph laughed at his suggestion and when she was met with a stony stare she stifled her giggles. “Sorry, that just sounded a bit conceited and pretentious, ‘let’s talk about ourselves’ that was all, but I know what you mean. Do you want me to start with my first day at school?” she asked making him smile.
“No, darling, but maybe you should start with your time with Dr Smarmy in there.” He gestured towards the ward.
“I had no idea he worked here,” Steph said defending herself.
“I know that. So tell me about your family, uni, anything.”
“By the time I left school there were only four of us left at home, me, Jason, Dylan and Paul. Mum and Dad were there too, obviously, but Mum was really poorly by then. Dylan and Paul were working full time, Jason was in his second year at college and I had just started my A-levels meaning much of my mum’s care fell to Dad, but he worked too. She had been ill most of mylife to some extent and probably for the previous couple of years had needed professional carers, one of whom was Janice,” said Steph calmly.
“Ah,” was all that Jon said in response.
“She was very good and Mum liked her, but as she became sicker Janice began to do ‘extras’.”
“Extras?” asked Jon nervously hoping he wasn’t going to make this seedy.
“Yeah, she would cook dinner for Dad and make his sandwiches to take to work, bake cakes and stuff like that,” Steph explained with a giggle at Jon’s face and his obvious interpretation of ‘extras’. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Brooker,” she told him making him smirk at her. “Then she started to pop in when it wasn’t her shift, but the others just thought she was a nice lady, which she was I suppose, until she went to the Christmas dance with Dad from the club where he’s a member. That swayed Jess and Trish towards the fact that she liked him, but the lads all thought we were being bitches, which may have been a fair accusation to some extent, but it was more than that. Anyway, after Paul moved out, Dylan spent most of his time with whoever he was shagging and that just left me and Jay. Jason drank too much, partly to avoid what was happening I think.”
“What was happening?” queried Jon.
“Yeah, sorry, our mum was dying. Nobody ever told us in such blunt terms, but it became quite obvious and somehow we both felt responsible for it and inadequate in what we did for her. Dad just buried his head in the sand. I think that’s where I get that particular trait from,” she admitted with a wry smile. “He was becoming more distracted by Janice who was an almost permanent fixture in our house.” There was a distinct wobble to her voice as Jon took her hand in his.
“Darling, we can talk about something else if you’d rather,” Jon offered, still wanting to know about her, but not wanting to make her sad by reliving what he could only imagine as being the hardest thing for a child to endure.
Steph shook her head and continued, “I didn’t know what to do or how to feel and the others all tried to protect me from everything because I was still a baby as far as they were all concerned, so I rebelled. Jay became quieter and introverted for the most part with an occasional side order of angry fighter. I well and truly came out of my shell; I threw myself into college life and all that it offered, drink, parties and boys. I was quite popular with boys, maybe with having so many brothers I knew how to act with them and I always had a look that most boys seemed to like. I started seeing this lad at college. Marco. He was in the same engineering class as Ade off the tenth floor.” She laughed.
“What?”
“When Ade introduced himself I was so relieved that he didn’t mention Marco or say they were friends or flatmates. You would hate Marco, although we were both young.”
“Mmm, I hate him already,” said Jon sardonically.
“We saw each other for a few weeks and one night after we were both drunk, me more than him, we ended up in bed together and that was the first time I had sex and it was okay, a bit weird afterwards but we carried on seeing each other for a few months and then it fizzled out and we lost touch. As my mum became sicker, the harder I partied and the more I shagged around really, that really was the birth of slutty Steph I suppose. Although I was always careful and never left home without a condom, but I can see with hindsight that it’s how I react to extreme emotional situations that I can’t cope with.” Looking up at Jon’s dark expression she suddenly regretted sharing so muchinformation with him until he bent down and kissed her gently on the lips.
“I am so sorry about that whole slutty Steph thing, darling,” he said as his lips found hers again if only for a split second.
“It’s kind of okay. You were probably right, to a point,” she acknowledged and then continued. “So, I figured that I was good at maths and I appeared to be a decent shag so that’s where I concentrated my efforts and left college with several uni offers and a few ex-boyfriends.”
“And your mum?” Jon needed to focus on the important facts here, not her ex-boyfriends.
“Still with us at that point, but she was so poorly it was almost cruel that she hadn’t died sooner. She was lovely my mum; beautiful, smart, funny and a proper lady, not like me and she had so much dignity even at the end when she was in absolute agony.”
“So you went off to uni?”
“Yes, I went to a uni close enough to stay at home, but I lived in Halls of Residence anyway and Jason had moved out when he’d gone to uni the year before so that left Mum, Dad and Janice and the other carers. I came home for weekends and Jay and I both came home for holidays which is when my suspicions about Janice were proven true. I had planned to come home on the Saturday because I was seeing this lad at uni, not Chris,” she added seriously, needing Chris not to be an issue, not now and not here.
“Sorry,” Jon muttered, seeming to understand that Steph didn’t need to discuss her relationship with the doctor and as much as he wanted to know exactly what there had been between them, he knew now wasn’t the time.
“We had planned to spend the Friday night together, but he cancelled, which I found out later was because he was seeing other people, but that’s unimportant. I decided to go home onthe Friday night and found the carer was there. My dad had gone out so I sent the carer home and I sat with my mum and we talked and laughed until we both fell asleep.”
