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‘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.
CHAPTER THREE
WHEN Laura arrived home the following afternoon after collecting the children from school, there was no sign of Gabriel’s car on the drive, but he arrived shortly afterwards and relief washed over her. He was back where she could see him, touch him, not shut away like a common criminal.
She’d spent most of the day trying to imagine his conversation with James and her spirits had been at a low ebb, but now that he was back again the dark thoughts were receding, His friend wouldn’t let the world of medicine be deprived of Gabriel’s contribution to it, she decided.
‘I’m so glad you’re back,’ she told him. Sophie and Josh came running out. ‘And so are the children.’
‘I told them I would be,’ he said with a tight smile. ‘If the traffic hadn't been so bad I would have been in time to pick them up from school. The last thing I want is to upset them by doing another disappearing act.’
They were on the drive where she’d gone out to greet him when she’d seen the car pull up outside and he said, ‘Maybe we should go inside to talk rather than discussing our affairs out here. I’ll get my stuff in later.’
Once they had closed the door behind them she said sombrely, ‘It is awful that you have to justify yourself to these people who can decide your future with just a few words.’
‘They won’t be doing that, Laura, it’s sorted,’ Gabriel said, wishing he didn’t have to tell her in one way, yet in another he needed to see her reaction when he told her that he was giving up oncology and anything else medical.
He wanted her to know how much he regretted his past fixation with his career and wanted to put things right between them, but before he could explain she was saying joyfully, ‘You mean it’s all right? You don’t have to face any meeting of the board? Your job is safe?’
‘Not exactly,’ he said slowly, with a sinking feeling inside. ‘At this moment I have joined the ranks of the unemployed. I’ve just told James that I’m quitting.’
‘What?’ she asked in a strangled whisper. ‘It was your life, Gabriel! You can’t just walk away from it.’
‘Yes, I can,’ he told her. ‘Before I became a workaholic you and the children were my life, we had a good marriage, were a happy family, but always there was in my mind the longing to try to save others from the same fate as my parents and I let it govern me.
‘But not any more. I intend to make up for my neglect of you by being here when you need me, and also when you don’t. This place you have moved us to is paradise and I intend to make every moment count.’
‘What about your staff?’ she asked urgently. ‘Your team worship you. What will they say?’
‘They know. After I’d told James I went to see them.’
‘And how did they react?’ she croaked.
‘They weren’t happy, but I explained that I wouldn’t have been able to take up where I’d left off with them for some weeks or even months if I’d intended staying, as it would have depended on the powers that be whether I would still be able to practise, so there you are.’
Yes, there I am, she thought. Obviously the days are gone when we made life-changing decisions together.
The nightmare she’d created that day at the hospital was still there, assuming larger proportions all the time, and now there was this awful news that Gabriel was ready to cast his life’s work aside because of it.
All it had needed had been a little adjustment in their lives, a little more time spent with her and the children, but it had turned into a monster that was eating up their happiness, what was left of it.
‘And what are we going to do about the town house?’ she asked, as if she cared after what she’d just been told.
‘Nothing for the moment,’ was the reply. ‘It is too early to start making any decisions about that.’
‘Yes, whatever,’ she agreed wearily, and moving towards the kitchen turned her attention to something less shattering, the preparation of the evening meal.
Dismayed at her reaction to his news, he followed her and framed in the doorway said softly, ‘Laura, please don’t be like this. Life can only get better without the weight of my job in our lives.’ But she carried on peeling and slicing vegetables with her head turned away from him as her hopes for their lives getting back to normal were disappearing with the news of the extreme measures he’d gone to for her sake.
She’d never wanted anything from him except a little more of his time, but Gabriel had given her all of it in one magnificent gesture, and instead of being overjoyed she was horrified.
The atmosphere during the evening was not lively. The meal had been mediocre due to the state of mind of the cook, and Sophie was developing some sort of a virus infection, was hot and fretful, and was for once happy to go to bed.
With nothing they wanted to say to each other after the painful moments in the kitchen earlier, they went up to bed themselves not long after the children, and once again Gabriel headed for the spare room after he’d checked that Sophie was no worse and was sleeping peacefully. Tonight Laura was relieved that she wasn’t going to be sharing a bed with her husband.
The next morning when she went downstairs after a night that had been a mixture of dozing and sleeplessness and checking on Sophie, Laura heard voices and found Gabriel giving the children their breakfast amidst lots of laughter, with his daughter looking better after a good night’s sleep.
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