11.34 p.m.
Col is still awake when I get home. I’m so tired, I trip on the front door mat.
‘Hi, love,’ I call out, hanging my coat in the hallway.
There’s a pause. Then Col appears from the office room wearing his black glasses, a T-shirt and some tartan pyjama bottoms.
His usually neat blond hair is fluffy and his broad face pale with tiredness. I’m guessing he was waiting up for me – probably playing one of those strategy games he likes.
‘Where did you get those pyjamas?’ I ask. ‘You never wear pyjamas.’
‘Oxfam,’ says Col, yawning and stretching his long arms into the air, touching the low ceiling with his fingertips. ‘You’re even later than usual.’ He hasn’t noticed the bruise on my jaw yet and I’m in no hurry to point it out.
‘You went into town?’ I ask.
‘I had the interview. Remember? Kate? What’s wrong?’
I’m crying again and I can’t answer.
‘What happened?’ asks Col. ‘Was it something at work?’
‘What is it, love?’ He studies my face, eyes widening at the mark on my jaw. ‘Good God. What happened?’
‘One of the kids,’ I blurt out, letting more tears come. ‘I’m so tired.’
‘Leave this job immediately,’ says Col, pulling me into a hug. ‘Hand in your notice tomorrow. This is completely unacceptable. Someone struck you.’
‘Col, I always knew it wouldn’t be an easy road. This is a trial. A test.’
‘I love you, Kate Noble,’ Col replies. ‘I love your faith and determination. But this is getting too much. Hop into bed. I’ll bring you a glass of water and we’ll talk.’
I head into the bedroom, pulling off my black lace-up shoes and lining them neatly in the wardrobe beside my running shoes. I can’t sleep properly if things aren’t neat – a little OCD quirk of mine.
Even undressing is exhausting.
Col returns with my water, glances at the bruise on my chin and says, ‘I’m serious, Kate. You should leave this job. It’s a safety issue.’
‘I’ve trained for years,’ I say. ‘It’s my path. This is … a bad day. A bump in the road.’
‘Come on, Kate. I haven’t seen you in months. And when I do, you’re exhausted. This isn’t one bad day. It’s a bad job.’
‘That’s why people like me need to be doing it.’
‘You’re going to make yourself ill.’ Col walks into the en suite. ‘I’ll brush my teeth and then we’ll talk.’
‘I’m too tired to talk.’
‘Seriously, Kate,’ Col calls, his words gargled with toothpaste. ‘How are we ever going to have children if you fall asleep the moment your head hits the pillow?’
‘It’s not every night.’
‘It is every night. We’re husband and wife now. Not flatmates.’
Col comes back to the bedroom frowning. Wordlessly, he folds his glasses, puts them on his bedside table and climbs into bed.
‘Col?’
But Col pulls the duvet over himself, rolling away from me.
‘Are you going to sleep?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ says Col. ‘You are too, I imagine.’
He does this sometimes – gets in moods.
‘Hey,’ I say, giving his shoulder a shake. ‘What’s going on?’
‘You’re always tired,’ he tells his pillow. ‘We only just got married – oh, it doesn’t matter.’
I know what he’s saying.
We haven’t had sex in a long time.
And yes – he’s right. I’ve been too tired.
I lie back on my pillow, knowing I will fall asleep straight away, then wake up at 3 a.m., thinking, thinking.
I’m just closing my eyes when I hear my work phone bleep from the hall. It does that when emails come in – a very irritating setting that I haven’t yet worked out how to turn off.
‘Leave it,’ Col says, his back still turned.
‘I need to turn it off, Col. Otherwise it’ll bleep for the next hour.’
I grab my phone, return to the bedroom, and think: Better check my emails quickly.
Col, reading my mind, says, ‘Don’t do it, Kate. Go to sleep.’
‘If someone’s sent something at this time of night, it must be urgent. I just want to make sure I’m not walking into anything major tomorrow.’
‘Oh, Kate.’
‘It’ll only take a minute.’
‘It never takes a minute.’
I know he’s right, but I open up my email account anyway, bracing myself for bad news, tension rising in my chest.
And there it is. Right at the top of the pile.
The worst news.
I’ve been sent a secure, encrypted email from Westminster Hospital.
It’s from a paediatric consultant, informing me that Tom Kinnock fell unconscious this week. Not quite a seizure, but something like it.
While Tom was passed out, the doctors found a partially healed head injury and are flagging this up as cause for concern.
The consultant paediatrician believes the injury happened several days before Tom was taken into hospital and is consistent with being hit with a blunt object.
My working days just got longer.
I need to arrange a multi-disciplinary meeting urgently.
And Col’s sex life will just have to wait.