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‘We’d like to thank you and your team.’ The minister shook James’s hand and for James it was as if he was touching a snake. ‘Betty and I are leaving for Scotland today, now that we know Lorna’s on the mend. We have the major fundraiser for the church this weekend and I want to thank my congregation properly for all their prayers and, of course…’ he cocked his head to the side just as he always did when he tried to inject a little humour into his preaching ‘…I’d like to properly thank the man himself.’
Did he think he was the only one who had prayed for her? James had been on his knees that night, had prayed like he never had in his life—not, James realised, that his prayers counted for much in the minister’s eyes.
‘Have a safe trip.’ James said, then picked up his pen to resume working. He had nothing to say to the man—well, that wasn’t strictly true, he had plenty that he could say, but he refused to go there.
‘There is one other thing.’ James gritted his teeth as Minister McClelland put on his serious expression and James knew what was coming next. Strange how the Scottish lilt he had found so endearing in Lorna grated when it came from her father. ‘As I’m sure you will understand, Lorna’s feeling extremely uncomfortable.’
‘Well.’ James deliberately didn’t get the point. ‘It’s early days yet, but if her pain control is proving a problem, I can have a word.’
‘Not about that,’ Minister McClelland snapped as James suppressed a smile. ‘She’s extremely uncomfortable knowing that she’s in the same hospital as you.’
‘Really?’ James raised his eyebrows, but inside he rallied a touch. She must have improved considerably since he’d spoken to the ward if she knew that she was in the same hospital he worked in. Till a couple of days ago she had been having trouble with her own name.
‘Lorna’s quite clear on the matter—she doesn’t want you coming to see her.’
‘I haven’t been to see her.’ James pointed out.
‘Yes, but now that we are going back to Scotland, we want to make sure that that continues.’ Now you’re not guarding her bed James wanted to say, but didn’t. ‘It took a long time for Lorna to get over things,’ Minister McClelland explained. ‘A long time, but now she’s got her life together, she’s seeing a nice young fellow, he’s a doctor actually, he’s working in Kenya at the moment.’
‘Good for Lorna!’
‘You staying away is what’s good for Lorna.’ He stood up and offered his hand, but James refused to take it. There was no need for feigned politeness now, no need for anything really—the McClellands were all a part of his past. As the minister went to go, he spelt it out one final time. ‘What I’m saying, James, is that if you do have Lorna’s interests at heart, it would be better if you stay away. You are not to go near my daughter.’
‘Fine.’ For maybe the fiftieth time that morning, James said it. He was speaking to the minister’s back as he walked out.
‘He’s a charmer!’ May didn’t even pretend that she hadn’t heard anything this time.
‘He always was!” James attempted a shrug, but his shoulders were so rigid with tension that they barely moved. ‘Funny how nothing changes.’
‘Are you going to go and see her,’ May pushed, ‘now that her parents are gone?’
‘No.’ He’d made up his mind and Minister McClelland had neatly affirmed it. ‘There’s no point raking up the past.’
‘Oh, I think it’s already been well and truly tilled and turned. Let’s have a coffee, James.’ May wasn’t asking him, she was telling him. ‘In your office!’
‘Just leave it, May.’ He had gone to his office, because this he certainly wasn’t going to do on the shop floor—his personal life had already provided enough entertainment for the entire hospital these past days. From professor to porter, everyone seemed to be offering sympathetic smiles, or stopped talking when he walked in, and James didn’t like it one bit. He certainly wasn’t going to go up to the ward just to add to the drama of it all. ‘It was over years ago between Lorna and me. You’ve heard what Minister McClelland said—she’s uncomfortable that I’m here and she doesn’t want me to come and see her.’
‘According to her father.’ May said. ‘James, you were devastated when she was brought in.’
‘It was a shock.’ James shrugged. ‘She was my wife once—I’m not that callous.’
‘You’re not callous at all! You married her because she was pregnant, I take it.’
He gave a curt nod.
‘And then she lost the baby.’
‘Yep!’ His voice was flip, but there was a muscle pounding in his cheek and finally he relented a touch. ‘Lorna went crazy when she found out she was pregnant—she said her father would be wild, I told her that he’d come round, that once the news sank in, he’d support her.’
‘She didn’t consider an abortion?’
‘Nope.’ James shook his head. ‘Not for a minute. I said I’d support her in any way I could. I went with her to tell her family… May, I have never seen anything like that man’s reaction. The names he called her, called me. He wasn’t worried about Lorna, about her future, he was worried what his congregation would say—what people would think. We were married two weeks later and it still wasn’t enough. We had to keep the pregnancy quiet. He didn’t want people counting on their fingers and working out dates—we moved down to London just to get away.’
‘Oh, James.’ May shook her head at the horror of it all. ‘I know…’
‘No, May, you don’t know.’ James said angrily. ‘You don’t know what he’s like.’
‘Actually, James, I do.’ May stood her ground. ‘I worked for ten years on a gynaecological ward. I didn’t actually like working there, but I’d laid out two beautiful young women’s bodies in my training. Beautiful women, who were too scared to tell their parents they were pregnant. I chose to do the best job I could on that gynae ward for the sake of those young girls. So don’t stand there and tell me I don’t know, because I do.’
And James understood that she did, wished for a moment that he’d spoken to her about it years ago. In those early days when he’d started at the hospital, he’d been so blind with confusion and grief he’d been positive no one would understand—yet he’d been working all the time, next to one woman who perhaps did. ‘At her antenatal we found out the baby was ectopic, she had to go to Theatre straight away. It had already ruptured by the time she got there. I rang her father to tell him, and all he was was relieved. He didn’t say it out loud, but I knew from his voice he was relieved that his congregation wouldn’t be counting backwards on their fingers now when the baby arrived. There would be plenty of time for other babies apparently and he and his wife said the same when they came to see Lorna.’
‘She wanted that one,’ May offered but James shook his head.
‘We both wanted that one,’ he corrected her.
‘I’m sorry.’ May nodded.
‘It was a shock finding out she was pregnant, but we’d dealt with that. We got married and even if it was rushed, even if we were broke and the timing could have been better, we were crazy about each other and looking forward to being parents. When we lost the baby, we lost everything, May. She walked out on the marriage before the first anniversary, headed off back to Scotland and became a GP, refused to even talk to me. It’s taken me years to get over what happened and finally I have. I’ve been seeing Ellie for more than a year now. That’s the longest relationship I’ve had since Lorna and if you think I’m going to jeopardise it by heading up there to go over old times you’re wrong. For a start, it wouldn’t be fair on Ellie.’
‘It’s not fair on Ellie if your heart’s elsewhere,’ May said. ‘Maybe it’s time to find out. Maybe you’ll see Lorna and feel nothing and you can move on properly, because it sounds to me like you haven’t.’
‘Oh, and you’d know, would you?’ James said, annoyed with May for saying out loud what he had been thinking. ‘You’ve been married for forty-two years—’
‘Which makes me an expert!’ May answer tartly. ‘Because you don’t stay married for forty-two years these days without learning a thing or two! Do you want me to go and speak to her?’
And say what?’ When May widened her eyes a touch, even James managed a reluctant smile—May was certainly never lost for words and, in her line of work, had handled far more than this little drama without rehearsal. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said, irritated but curious and just a little bit relieved too that he might hear what Lorna had to say. ‘Go and test the water.’
Lorna remembered virtually nothing of ICU. Just the odd blurry memory of noise and someone asking her to say her name and if she knew where she was and then being wheeled through the hospital.
There had been lots of lights flashing into her eyes and people asking her what her name was and even though she’d known it, she hadn’t known how to say it, her mouth and tongue refusing to obey. She had just wanted them to leave her alone so that she could go back to sleep, because it had hurt to be awake. It felt as if a bus had been parked on her chest and moving her limbs in response to the questions had taken a massive effort and one she hadn’t had the energy for.
‘Come on.’ Someone was pinching her ear. ‘Tell me your name.’
‘Lorna.’
‘And do you know where you are, Lorna?’ It was a very good question and one that had been asked a few times, Lorna hazily recalled.
‘Lorna, answer the nurse!’ Dad was there, which didn’t exactly cheer her up. Here she was in hospital and her dad still managed to make her feel as if she was misbehaving. Oh, yes, that was where she was…
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