‘I’m taking the girls to London for Easter, Nathan. The schools break up on the Thursday and we’ll get the teatime flight down.’
Nathan hadn’t expected that. ‘You can’t, Laura. It’s Easter – I thought you’d be here, so we could at least pretend to be playing happy families. I won’t get to see them or—’
‘Look, I don’t want to be here with you. I want to be in London with—’
‘Simon.’
The name struck home; he could tell by the silence on the other end of the phone. Eventually she recovered her composure. ‘Well, I suppose you had to find out some time, but I hadn’t planned on mentioning him. I want to be in London with the girls; there’s so much to do now the weather’s getting better. It’ll be a whole new experience for them and I want them to see it.’
‘What about me?’
‘You’re not invited,’ she said cruelly. ‘Look, Nathan, I don’t want to fight about it. I don’t want to spend Easter with you, but I do want my girls with me. They should be with their mum during the holidays; I don’t get to see them enough.’
‘Yeah, well, whose fault is that?’
‘I’m not going to fight with you, Nathan.’
‘But it’s not fair.’
‘No, it’s not, but I’ll only keep them for a week and you can have the second week of the break. I’ve taken the two weeks off work so that’ll still leave me with a bit of time to tidy up and sort stuff once they’ve gone.’
‘And gives you some alone time with Simon?’
Laura paused. ‘Maybe. I didn’t want you to find out about him yet. I’m not sure how I feel; it’s all very early. How did you find out anyway … Millie?’
‘Yeah, she’d got really upset about it.’
‘How did she know? She only met him the once when he gave us a lift to the airport.’
Nathan didn’t want to reveal his daughter’s clandestine surveillance techniques, which also meant he couldn’t mention the whole happy families bit either, at least not directly. ‘I think she just put two and two together. She’s very perceptive. She said he told her he makes oodles of cash.’
‘Oodles?’
‘That’s what he told her.’
Laura considered that for a moment. ‘Yeah, that’s the sort of thing he would say. Not one of his best features, I have to admit.’
‘How did you meet?’
‘He works in the office down here. He’s an accountant in a different department.’
Nathan snorted. ‘Love over the water cooler.’
‘Jealousy doesn’t sit well on you, Nathan. It never has.’
‘You’re my wife. You shouldn’t be shagging someone else.’
‘Nathan, our marriage is a sham. It has been for years. I’m surprised one of us hasn’t done anything before now …’
‘You mean you’re surprised you haven’t?’
‘If I’m honest, yes. I needed to get away for my own sanity. I didn’t expect to meet anyone, nor did I go looking for it, if that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t know what’ll happen. It’s early days.’
‘Why would he want to get into a relationship with someone with three kids?’
‘Simon loves children.’
‘Does he have any of his own?’
‘No.’
‘Does that not strike you as a bit weird?’
‘Not at all. If he wants to be with me then he knows I come with baggage.’
‘Is that how you described your daughters?’
Laura snorted down the phone. ‘Good try at winding me up, Nathan, but I’m above that sort of comment now. I just need someone to hold me and tell me everything is going to be okay.’
‘I could do that, Laura. I used to do that.’
‘I know you did, but I don’t believe you any more; nothing about us works. We’re broken. Our marriage is broken and it’s not fixable.’
‘We could—’
She interrupted. ‘No, Nathan, we couldn’t, and I don’t want to, that’s the thing. If someone came along and said, “Here, take this pill and everything will be okay between you and Nathan,” I wouldn’t take it. It’s over. You need to accept that, Nathan. We can’t keep going over this old ground. It’s not good for anyone.’
They were both silent for a few moments before Laura said, ‘Anyway, that’s why I’m not coming back for Easter. I did think about it, but I couldn’t deal with the arguments and resentment, so I think it’s best if I’m away. I’ll bring them back on the Sunday and you can have them until they go back to school.’
Nathan hated the fact she’d started seeing someone else, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He didn’t want it to eat him up inside and destroy what little self-confidence he had left so he had to try and learn to live with it. His marriage had been a sham for a while, he knew that – although he’d tried to fool himself otherwise. He’d started to wonder if Laura had been unfaithful before, but he’d stopped himself. That train of thought would take him to another dark place he didn’t want to visit.
*
He’d made it to Wednesday and the girls had been away for six days now. He missed them, but they were due back on Sunday, so he had a few more days to kill. Daisy and Chloe had been excited to be going on a long train journey, but Millie knew the reality of the situation and had been difficult and huffy. However, at the age of ten she still did what her mother told her, albeit reluctantly. Laura had moved to a larger flat a few weeks ago and had tried to placate her with a room of her own. It didn’t work.
Thankfully Nathan had been busy working on another commission that his friend had pushed his way.
Graham had phoned and said, ‘I need your help on a health campaign, Nathan.’
‘Nothing to do with nettles?’
‘No, though I wouldn’t put it past them to come up with some health thing to do with them; no, this is for kids. Constipation is on the increase due to poor diets and increased obesity.’
‘Is it?’
‘Apparently.’
‘So what is it?’
‘A suppository for under sevens.’
‘A what?’
‘A suppository, you know, that you stick up—’
‘Yeah, I know what you do with it. How are we supposed to sell that?’
‘That’s why I need your brains on this.’
Later, as he sat staring at a picture of the product on-screen Nathan realised why it had been given to him. The infantile staff in Graham’s office would have wasted hours joking and mucking about instead of expending any serious energy working out how to sell it.
Sending it to him made a perverse kind of sense – he had nobody to joke around with.
As he sat and thought about the products and their purpose he asked himself how the hell he could persuade anyone to buy them.
The target market was mothers – what made mothers buy things for their kids?
To make them happier, cleverer, healthier or safer. Nathan spent hours mulling over ideas and trying to work out an angle. Around lunchtime he took a break and remembered he had his last (hopefully) hospital appointment in the afternoon. He’d had the plaster cast from his arm removed by the GP weeks ago and today would be his last visit unless they found something else wrong with him. He welcomed the interruption from thinking about infant constipation and how he could persuade a mother to somehow think it would be a good idea to shove a hard white pellet up her kid’s bum at bedtime.
The hospital had also scheduled a session with the psychiatrist that had visited him soon after his miraculous return from the dead but, given his current delicate mental state and his preoccupation with toddlers’ suppositories, Nathan might give that a miss.
He drove to the general vicinity of the hospital and parked on a quiet street rather than be forced to pay the exorbitant car-park fee. An icy wind cut across the road and open land around the hospital, making him pull up the collar of his coat. The warmth of spring had yet to reach this far north; London would feel positively balmy compared to Edinburgh. The sky had darkened considerably since he’d left his flat and rain looked imminent. He waited in the outpatient department half an hour past his allotted time before being ushered into a cramped and dimly lit consulting room. A middle-aged consultant, Dr Spencer, reviewed his case notes whilst periodically peering over the top of her glasses at him as if to convince herself that he really existed and wasn’t the figment of someone’s imagination.
She closed the file, sat back and gazed at him. ‘Remarkable.’
Nathan nodded but remained silent, not knowing how to respond.
‘What did you feel when it happened?’
‘When what happened?’
‘When you died?’
He sighed. ‘Nothing, but then I wasn’t really dead, was I?’
‘Weren’t you?’
‘I don’t know, you’re the doctor.’
‘You know it’s called Lazarus Syndrome?’
‘Somebody did mention that, yes.’
‘Named after the man that Jesus brought back to life.’
‘Okay.’
‘There are well-documented cases around the world, and probably many others that don’t get recorded, but, in your case, we think you had a cardiac arrest when the bus hit you, and at the scene the paramedics couldn’t revive you. Then later, probably in the ambulance, your heart started spontaneously, but possibly with an extreme bradycardia arrhythmia which made it difficult to detect. Then your severe concussion kept you unconscious until you became normally responsive in the mortuary.’
‘You’ve lost me.’
‘It doesn’t matter, you seem fine now, but I’m not sure why we didn’t pick up any life signs when you arrived at the hospital. Perhaps the equipment was faulty or maybe the autoresuscitation didn’t happen until later. We still have more questions than answers. Are you spiritual, Mr Jones?’
‘I’ve never seen any ghosts.’
‘That’s not quite what I meant. Do you believe in God?’
Nathan had to think about that. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I’ve never really given it much thought.’
‘I take it you’re not a regular churchgoer, then?’
He shook his head.
‘Shame.’
Nathan wondered if she worked on the side as a lay preacher, trying to convert or recruit lost souls into religion.
She took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘I’ve never reviewed a case like yours before. I suppose now that you’re physically healed – all except your skull, that might take a few more months to knit together fully – the only issue is your mental well-being. I see you’ve got a psychiatric evaluation scheduled after you’re finished here?’
He nodded.
‘Well, as I say, physically you’re on the mend. I do think that you might need some spiritual counselling but, of course, that’s up to you. However, for the next six months or so you need to take care not to damage your head. Do you play football?’
‘Err, no.’
‘That’s good, as I wouldn’t recommend you head any footballs. Do you take part in any other contact sports?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Do you regularly crawl into small spaces?’
Nathan stared at the doctor. ‘I don’t make a habit of it, no.’
‘That’s good – just in case you bang your head, you see. People who crawl into small spaces, especially when they’re older, do suffer some serious head injuries. Do you jump up and down a lot?’
‘Not usually no, and again it’s not something I’ve got planned.’
‘Good – it wouldn’t be good either. I recommend you try and remain as sedentary as possible for a few months. What’s your occupation?’
‘I work in advertising.’
‘Right, well, that should allow you to stay relatively calm, shouldn’t it?’
‘Physically yes, but it’s mentally challenging at times. Is it okay if I think a lot?’
Dr Spencer completely missed his sarcasm. ‘Yes, that should be fine. Everything in moderation though.’
He left the consultation room with an overwhelming sense that he’d wasted an hour of his life. He headed towards the main entrance, having no intention of meeting with a psychiatrist who would no doubt try and recruit him into the Masons or Rosicrucians. He remembered an old joke about psychiatrists. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one but the light bulb needs to want to change.