The Doctors of Swallowbrook Farm

‘I don’t know about that,’ he told him, ‘but one thing I do know. I can’t exist without Laura … and she’s just told me that she wants a divorce.’

‘Ah, now I understand.’ James nodded sombrely. ‘But do let the wheels turn with regard to you being allowed to return to medicine one day. You might change your mind at some time in the future when you’ve put things right with her.’

‘I doubt that will happen. It could be the same thing all over again if I do.’ Gabriel rose from his chair. ‘I’ll leave you my phone number so that you can get in touch when I’m needed to face the board. And, James, it’s been great to see you.

‘I’m going to have a quick word with my team before I go. Jenny, my secretary, and no doubt the rest of them think I’m going to be able to take up where I left off here just like that, so I owe it to them to explain and say goodbye.’

‘Yes,’ James agreed, ‘but it will be a sad day for this place.’

‘No one is indispensable. There will be others to come with the same skills as mine. For all I know, they might have already appeared,’ he told him, and went to carry out the next painful thing that he had to do, say hello and goodbye to those he’d worked with.

When he arrived back at the town house in the smart London square Gabriel sat staring into space. If someone had told him a year ago that he would calmly give up practising medicine with no other kind of job prospects in view, he would have laughed in their face.

But the fact of it was that he’d had to make a choice, his career or his family, in particular his wife, and he knew that he could just about exist without the one, but not without the other.

He was going to phone Laura, as he’d promised, but later when the children were in bed and when she knew what he’d said to James, maybe she would change her mind about wanting a divorce.

The children were asleep and the house was still around her as Laura thought about the day that had started with Gabriel actually being around to take the children to school, then going back to London as swiftly as he had come.

He was always happiest there for the very good reason that it was where the hospital was, the huge, redbrick magnet that could always attract him away from her and the children and would soon be casting its spell over him again if he was allowed to continue practising there after what had happened.

Where was Gabriel now, she wondered, celebrating his freedom somewhere with James, or in a bar with the members of his team? She wouldn’t blame him for doing either of those things. He’d been shut away from reality and needed to get back to it.

Though wasn’t his idea of reality to see a patient cured, or at the least provide more time for them to enjoy what quality of life he was able to give them?

When the phone rang she was there in an instant, heart beating faster, nerves stretching, but it was Nathan’s voice coming over the line to say that the doctors would like to get together with her to discuss some refurbishment of the surgery premises and would she arrange a meeting to that effect?

It rang again shortly afterwards, once again breaking into the silence of the house, and this time it was the voice she wanted to hear.

‘I’ve been to see James to find out what happens now with regard to my position at the hospital.’ Gabriel said, bypassing small talk in order to get to the news he hoped Laura wanted to hear. ‘He says there will be a meeting shortly to discuss it, and that in view of my stay in HMP he won’t be able to guarantee them agreeing to me taking up where I left off.

‘All of which is no surprise, and until I hear more about it from him I will be returning to Swallowbrook some time tomorrow if that is all right with you.’

‘Yes, of course,’ she told him unsteadily, after trying to take in what he’d been saying. They’d both known that the sentence Gabriel had served could affect his career, but he was in much demand medically, and James would not want to lose him as one of the hospital’s top consultants.

When he’d rung off she spent the rest of the evening in a state of acute anxiety. His career was Gabriel’s life, she thought desperately.

If he couldn’t treat the sick he would be devastated, yet he’d sounded calm enough at the prospect. But she wasn’t. His job might cost them their marriage if he was allowed to go back to it, yet she couldn’t bear the thought of him being separated from it. And what did he mean by announcing his intention to join her and the children here? It was as if their earlier conversation had never happened; he still hadn’t responded to her request for a divorce.

The night that followed was not one of peaceful sleep. She tossed and turned and eventually went into the kitchen to make a drink at four o’clock as a midsummer dawn was beginning to lighten the sky, and as she gazed unseeingly to where the lake shimmered on the skyline the thought came that if Gabriel was given the chance to go back to his life’s work, a divorce might be the only answer. It would leave him free to follow his calling without his responsibilities to her and the children weighing him down.

She’d told him it was what she wanted in the middle of a hurtful moment, not really meaning it, but maybe in the long run it would be the best thing for all of them if she could endure the agony of a permanent separation. The one that she’d just lived through, if living was the right word to describe it, had been hard enough to cope with, and that had been only for a matter of months.

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