She tries not to talk too much about the specifics with Max, or anyone else for that matter. It doesn’t feel fair to offload this kind of stuff on others when she’s a trained professional andstill finds it bloody hard sometimes. Plus, there’s the privacy of her patients to think about. Last night when she should have been at the pub with Max and a group of his mates there had been an emergency with one of her patients, Frank. He had started having serious suicidal thoughts, so Phoebe and the rest of the team had to arrange an emergency bed in the local hospital’s psychiatric ward where Phoebe used to work. As usual, they were pressed for beds, so it took hours. Phoebe waited with Frank all the same though, right past the end of her shift and all the way to the hospital, holding his hand in the back of the ambulance.
‘I do know,’ Max says, his tone making her recoil slightly. He probably just needs coffee.
She gets up to make him a cup, slipping in a dash of vanilla syrup when he isn’t looking. She knows he likes his coffee milky and sweet, but he would never in a million years order a vanilla latte in a coffee shop, thinking it emasculating. He’d rather wince his way through an espresso than ask for what he actually wants, the silly bastard. Hopefully the dash of vanilla will help sweeten his mood, and maybe her guilt too at being the cause of it. But what was she supposed to do? She was hardly going to leave Frank on his own last night or even with one of the other nurses who offered to take over when her shift was up. Frank didn’t know them, he knowsher.
Once the coffee is ready, they sit down opposite one another at the table.
‘Thanks,’ Max says, wrapping his hands around the mug. ‘What’s all this, then?’ He points at Phoebe’s phone, where one of the holiday sites is still displayed on the screen.
The excitement returns to Phoebe’s voice as she replies. ‘Oh, yeah. So, I know we haven’t spent much proper time together recently. Things for me have been kind of hectic …’
‘You could say that again,’ remarks Max. ‘It wasn’t just last night. Remember my birthday?’ He takes a sip of his coffee and his face relaxes slightly with the pleasure of it, making Phoebe have to hide a smile.
‘I know. And I’m sorry, you know I felt awful about that.’
His birthday had been a tough one. She’d organised the whole thing – a dinner at his favourite local pub with his family and his closest friends. She’d even made a cake, staying up late to get it ready because the time she’d put aside for it had got eaten up by catching up on important paperwork. OK, so it maybe wasn’t the world’s best cake – it looked absolutely nothing like the picture she’d found online and suspiciously like it might topple over at any moment – but it was a cake and she was proud of it.
But just as she was preparing to leave work and get ready for their evening, she had got a call from a patient who was in crisis. The voices had been getting louder and louder and had now started giving him instructions. They wanted him to hurt himself and he didn’t know what to do.
By the time Phoebe eventually arrived at the pub hours later, the meal was finished and Max was paying the bill. She’d tried to explain the situation, but the idea of voices had always perplexed Max.
‘Can’t he just ignore them?’
Phoebe tried her best to explain how real the voices were to her patients who experienced them, trying to get Max toimagine howhewould feel if the same thing happened to him. She’s thought about it a lot over her career and has always believed it would be absolutely bloody terrifying. But he didn’t seem to understand and she was too exhausted to try to explain any further. Even the cake she presented him with at home hadn’t helped to lift the mood.
‘I know you’re fed up with how much I work, but I really want to make it up to you. I think we should go on holiday. It could be just what we need. A proper break. A chance to spend some time together.’
She reaches across the table for his hand, but he lifts it up to his coffee mug at the last minute.
‘You really want to go on holiday?’ he asked, meeting her eye. ‘But you always say you’re too busy. Remember New Year?’
God, she had hoped it would be easier than this. But he’s probably right to not let her off the hook so easily. She probably has been a pretty shit girlfriend.
‘I know. But I really want to make it work this time. How about Italy? Sunshine, enormous pizzas … It’ll be great.’
Max downs the last of his coffee and places the empty mug carefully on the table.
‘I don’t think we should go to Italy.’
‘OK, well somewhere else then. France? Spain? There’s wine and good food there too.’
But he shakes his head. ‘I don’t think we should go on holiday at all.’
‘Is it the cost? Because I was worried about that too, but I know you’re hoping for that promotion soon and I have a little bit saved …’
She’d always hoped that by thirty-five she might own her own place rather than still be renting and have more than the most meagre savings in the bank. It doesn’t help that her brother is a high-flying lawyer who goes on both a beach and ski holiday each year with his family. But she didn’t go into this career for the money – she would have been pretty disappointed if she did – although she’s been right there on all the various marches and picket lines over the years, trying to fight for better rights for nurses.
Since moving in together, Max has covered more of the household expenses than her because he earns far more in his job at a start-up tech company. He never seems to mind, but it weighs on her. She does what she can.
‘It’s not the cost,’ he replies.
‘OK …’ She really doesn’t want to have to do this right now but finds herself sneaking a quick glance at the time on her phone. Shit, she needs to leave soon. Her first patient of the day, Maude, lives a twenty-minute ride away. Her patients are spread out all over the local area. ‘Do you not think you could get time off work?’ she asks Max, trying her best not to show that she’s itching to grab her leathers and go. ‘We could go in a couple of months if that would work better for you?’
‘It’s not that.’ Max rakes his fingers through his hair again. ‘God, I didn’t want to do it like this.’
He looks up at her and as his eyes meet hers again, she realises how wrong she’s got this conversation. How wrong she’s been getting it all.
‘Phoebe, I have to tell you something.’
