‘I’M SORRY I couldn’t make dinner last night,’ Jenny said.
‘You’re a surgeon, Jen. You can hardly stop in the middle of an operation and tell the rest of your team that you have dinner plans and they’ll just have to carry on without you,’ Rachel said. ‘It was fine. I got your message, and I had stuff in the fridge so I could make myself dinner.’
‘Which had better not mean just a cheese sandwich,’ Jenny said.
‘A toasted cheese sandwich—with good bread, chutney and a salad—is one of life’s joys,’ Rachel said. ‘No, actually. For your information, it was salmon baked with lemon and thyme, roasted veggies and wilted greens.’
‘Mediterranean food. Just what a cardiac surgeon likes to hear,’ Jenny said. ‘So how was your first day in your new job?’
‘Great. The team’s lovely, and Tim, the head of the department, is one of the good guys—he managed to talk HR into letting me do most of the induction stuff online. And he bought me a brie and cranberry panini to welcome me to the team.’ She grinned. ‘So I got my cheese fix yesterday anyway.’
‘Sounds good. And how are the girls?’
‘Saskia’s settled in really well, Meg’s busy planning her dissertation, and they’re doing tag team texts to nag me to eat properly. Which,’ Rachel said, ‘is probably in collusion with their godmother.’
Jenny batted her eyelashes. ‘I couldn’t possibly comment.’
Rachel laughed and raised her glass of red wine in a toast. ‘Thank you. It’s good to know you all have my back.’
‘Of course we do.’ Jenny smiled. ‘We love you.’
‘I love you, too. And I’m so glad you’re not doing the set-up dates any more. Tim said it’s the same for him.’
‘He’s divorced?’
‘Widowed. Don’t get ideas,’ Rachel said, seeing the interest on her best friend’s face and guessing what Jenny was thinking. ‘We’re going to be friends.’
‘It’s always good to make new friends,’ Jenny said. ‘But I still worry about you being lonely.’
‘I have my girls, I have you, I have other friends and I love my job. All the loose ends are tied up with Steve. Apart from wishing I’d had the sense to ask him to leave, years ago, I’m doing fine,’ Rachel said with a smile. Tim Hughes really was going to be just friends with her. He understood that she wasn’t ready to start all over again, because he was in exactly the same place that she was. Friends was good. Friends would be enough.
And she wasn’t going to think about the way his cornflower-blue eyes crinkled at the corners and made her heart do a little skip.
‘Hello, love.’ Tim handed his daughter a bouquet of bright orange gerberas. Flowers weren’t really enough to bridge the gap he suspected he’d put between them, but it was a start. And you didn’t always have to say things out loud, did you?
‘Oh, Dad. They’re gorgeous. Thank you.’ Hannah gave him a hug. ‘Oof. Either you’ve got fatter since last week or I have,’ she teased, ‘because I can’t get my arms all the way round you.’
Tim chuckled and rested his hand on the bump. ‘Good evening, little one.’ His smile broadened when the baby kicked in response. ‘Knows their granddad’s voice, I see.’
‘Good, because we’re so lining you up for babysitting duties. Come and sit down while I put these in water.’
‘You’re the one who should be sitting down, not me.’ He took the flowers back. ‘Sit. Just remind me where you keep your vases and tell me which one you want.’
‘Were you this bossy when Mum was pregnant with me?’ Hannah asked.
‘Absolutely. So there’s no standing at the top of a stepladder to paint the nursery ceiling. If you want it done, ask Jamal or me. Got it?’ His heart ached. This was when Hannah needed her mum to tell her all the little stories about what it had been like to be pregnant with her, to share the experiences and reassure her and make her laugh instead of worrying. But Mandy wasn’t here—and Tim could only tell Hannah stuff from the outside, not how it actually felt to carry a baby. ‘Your mum rested when I told her to, though she refused to put up with my cooking. You’re lucky that Jamal can cook, because if you’d had to rely on me you would’ve been stuck with scorched baked beans on burnt toast every day of the week for months.’
She looked at him. ‘Dad, you are—?’
‘Yes, of course I’m eating properly,’ he cut in, reassuring her. ‘I’m not that bad. Half of what I tell you about my cooking is for dramatic purposes.’
‘Not convincing, Dad—I used to live with you, remember.’ But she let him usher her into the kitchen, directed him to the cupboard where she kept her vases, and sat down at the table while he put the flowers in water and started making them both a mug of tea.
‘So how’s your week been?’ she asked.
‘Good. My new consultant started on Monday. Just as I’d hoped, she fits in very well with the team.’
‘Consultant?’ Hannah looked interested. ‘So she must be in at least her late thirties, then.’
‘She’s nearer my age, actually,’ he said.
‘Oh.’ Hannah raised an eyebrow. ‘Would she be single?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Don’t you start. Actually, she is, but don’t get any ideas. I think we’ll become friends, but no more than that.’ Even if Rachel Halliday was really pretty and had a warmth that drew him, he wasn’t looking for love. He was just getting through the days. ‘Nobody will ever match up to your mum, Han.’
‘Soph and I don’t want you to be lonely, Dad,’ Hannah said. ‘Mum wouldn’t have wanted that, either. And it’s been two and a half years. That’s a long time to be on your own.’
‘I know, love.’ He brought their mugs of tea over. ‘And I’m fine as I am. Really.’ It wasn’t strictly true, but Tim didn’t want his daughter worrying about him. He’d find his way through this, in his own time. ‘Now, tell me about your week.’
On Thursday morning, the paramedics rushed in with a middle-aged man who’d been cutting wood with an electric saw. They’d called the department beforehand, so Rachel had already got the surgeon and anaesthetist on standby, and when the patient arrived she asked Lorraine, the triage nurse, to bleep the surgeon.
‘I’m Rachel, one of the doctors, and I’ll be looking after you today,’ she said.
‘Dave Fleetwood,’ he said, ‘but everyone calls me Woody because of my name and because of what I do.’
‘OK, Woody. Can you tell me what happened?’ Rachel asked.
‘I was cutting some wood. It slipped, and my left hand ended up under the blade,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure how bad it is because I blacked out and Baz—my best mate, and thank God he was working with me—put my fingers in a plastic bag with ice.’
‘That’s quick thinking.’ The situation was time-critical, Rachel knew. The longer that the blood supply had been cut to a body part, the lower the chances were that the surgeons could reattach it. From the amount of blood on the dressing covering his hand, it looked as if this case could be tricky.
‘I’ll give you some pain relief,’ she said, ‘and the surgeon’s on his way down. I’m going to send you—and the fingers your friend saved—for an X-ray, so we can get a better idea of whether we’re looking at crush injuries as well as laceration and what the surgeon’s going to need to do. Can you remember when you last had a tetanus vaccination booster?’
He shook his head. ‘No idea.’
‘We’ll add that in,’ she said. ‘Did you hit your head at all when you blacked out?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Baz caught me and sat me on a chair.’
‘That’s good. Can I ask, how old was the blade?’
‘Pretty new,’ he said, ‘so hopefully it doesn’t mean there was any gunk on the blade and it’s not going to get infected.’
She unwrapped the dressing; there were three fingers missing, and his little finger looked damaged as well. ‘OK. I’ll clean this up, give you some pain relief and a tetanus jab, and then we’ll get you to X-Ray. Can we call anyone for you?’
‘Baz called my missus when the ambulance came,’ he said. ‘She’s on her way in now. I feel so bad about this. We were supposed to be going away, this weekend. It’s our wedding anniversary. But I’m not going to be able to drive us there, and she can’t drive.’ He bit his lip. ‘We’ll book a taxi. I’ll be out of hospital by then, won’t I?’
‘That’s one to ask the surgeon,’ she said with a sympathetic smile.
The surgeon had come down to the department by the time the X-ray files were through to her computer.
‘This isn’t looking great,’ Mr Gupta said as they reviewed the X-rays together. ‘You can see there’s a lot of damage to his little finger as well as the three he’s severed. I’ll try to save as many of his fingers as I can, but with that level of damage I think he’s going to need to prepare for the worst.’
‘Poor guy,’ Rachel said.
Lorraine came into the office. ‘Rachel, I’ve got Mrs Fleetwood in the relatives’ room. The whiteboard says her husband’s with you.’
‘Yes. He’s on his way back from X-Ray,’ Rachel said. ‘We’ll come with you to collect her.’
In the relatives’ room, Lorraine introduced the anxious-looking woman as Suze Fleetwood.
‘Is Woody going to be all right? I mean, Baz said on the phone he’d cut half his fingers off. He lives for his job. If he can’t do stuff with wood any more, I just don’t know what he’ll...’ Looking distressed, Suze shook her head.
‘Mrs Fleetwood, let me introduce you to Mr Gupta, the hand surgeon,’ Rachel said gently. ‘He’ll be helping your husband in Theatre.’
‘I’m going to do my very best for your husband, Mrs Fleetwood, and I’m good at my job, but I’m afraid I need you to prepare yourself for the fact I might not be able to save all his fingers,’ Mr Gupta said. ‘It’s going to be a very long operation. I’d say it’s likely to take more than twelve hours, so I’d advise you to either get some rest at home or call some family or friends to come and be with you, because waiting here on your own will give you too much time to worry.’
‘Twelve hours?’ Suze looked shocked. ‘And you might not...’ She dragged in a breath. ‘Working with wood—that’s what he loves, more than anything. Making furniture. He’s a proper craftsman. If he can’t do that any more, then it’ll be the end of the world for him.’ She looked distraught.
‘We’ll do our best for him,’ Mr Gupta said gently. ‘And we can do a lot with prosthetics, nowadays. Rehab will take time, but with support I promise we’ll be able to help him. He doesn’t have to lose everything.’
‘Can I see him before he has the operation?’
‘Of course you can,’ Rachel said. ‘He’s on his way back from X-Ray now.’
‘You can come to the doors of the operating theatre with him,’ Mr Gupta added, ‘but then, as I said earlier, I’d advise getting someone to come and sit with you in the cafeteria or the relatives’ room. We’ll let you know as soon as there’s any news.’
‘Let’s go and wait for him at the cubicle,’ Rachel said.
Woody was wheeled into the cubicle just as Rachel pulled back the curtain, his face pale with pain. ‘Oh, Suze, I’m so sorry. I’ve ruined our anniversary. I can’t drive us to the hotel now. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to go away.’
‘Idiot,’ she said, and kissed him. ‘None of that matters. As long as I’ve still got you—I don’t care about posh hotels and cocktails. It’s you that’s important. And thank God you’re still here. When Baz phoned, it terrified the life out of me.’
Rachel had to swallow the lump in her throat. She’d found out the hard way that the posh hotels and cocktails had been more important to Steve than she was. Much as she would’ve liked to be loved the way that Suze Fleetwood clearly loved her husband, the idea of signing up for dating apps and putting herself out there felt way too daunting. How did you find love again when you were middle-aged? How did you deal with all the emotional baggage of a potential partner as well as your own?
Though, right now, she needed to concentrate on her patient’s needs rather than her own insecurities. She introduced Dave to Mr Gupta, who talked him through the operation and answered as many questions as he could.
‘I’m going to have a word with the anaesthetist and scrub in,’ Mr Gupta said. ‘Can you take Mr Fleetwood to Theatre Six, please?’ he added to the porter.
‘We can still have cocktails and bubbly at home, when you get out of hospital,’ Suze said. ‘And I’ll cook you a steak, just the way you like it. Even if I have to cut it up for you and feed you like a baby.’
Woody gave her a watery smile. ‘I love you, Suze.’
She kissed him. ‘Love you, too. Always have, always will.’ She turned to Rachel. ‘Thanks for doing what you’ve done, Doctor.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Rachel said. ‘All the best—and happy anniversary to you both.’
‘Cheers, love,’ Woody said. He was smiling again now, even though he was clearly worried sick; he’d definitely perked up as soon as his wife had arrived.
Suze held his good hand and walked alongside the trolley as the porter wheeled him out towards Theatre. And Rachel squashed the little sad bit of longing for a love like that in her own life, wrote up her notes, and went to find her next patient.
On Friday, when Rachel had finished writing up her notes before lunch, she headed for Tim’s office. ‘Busy?’ she asked.
‘Depends,’ he said.
‘Coffee and a sandwich? My shout, as you paid last time.’
‘All right. And it’d be good to catch up and see how your first week’s gone,’ he said.
Once they were settled with lunch, he said, ‘Right. Hit me with it. The good, the OK, and the things that need changing?’
‘I love my colleagues, I love the team spirit here, and Mr Gupta managed to save three out of my patient’s four fingers from the other day—that’s the excellent stuff. The paperwork’s bearable and thank you for persuading HR to let me do the online stuff at home instead of dragging it out. And the things that need changing—well, the head of department would be all right if he kept his promise to introduce me to the best cheese shop in the world,’ she said with a grin.
‘That,’ he said, ‘can be arranged.’
‘What are you doing on Saturday?’ she asked.
‘Laundry,’ he said with a groan.
‘Me, too. But can I tempt you out for an hour?’
He was silent for a moment, and she suddenly wondered if he thought she was hitting on him. ‘As friends,’ she added swiftly.
Was that relief she saw in his eyes? Either way, it was a reminder to her not to get too close to him.
‘All right. I’ll meet you at the Tube station at ten,’ he said.
‘Perfect,’ she said, and switched the topic back to the safe topic of work. ‘How’s your head injury patient doing in ICU?’
‘Holding his own,’ he said. ‘And your flail chest?’
‘Discharged today. His wife popped in earlier with a tin of biscuits, a jar of coffee and a box of teabags for the staff room.’
‘Ah, that’s kind,’ he said. ‘But the bit I like best is hearing that someone who was rushed into us on a trolley is well enough to be discharged and go home.’
‘Absolutely,’ she agreed.
On Saturday, Tim waited outside the Tube station. Just friends, he reminded himself, feeling the little bubbles of excitement fizzing through his veins. Platonic friends, that was what they’d said they’d be. This wasn’t the start of a relationship. He wasn’t even looking for a relationship. But the bubbles of excitement increased as he saw her walking towards him. He lifted a hand in acknowledgement; as soon as she saw him, she smiled, and his heart felt as if it had done an anatomically impossible pirouette.
‘Good morning, Mr Hughes.’ Though she wasn’t being formal in the slightest. She was being cheeky, and he liked her sense of fun.
He grinned. ‘Good morning, Ms Halliday. Ready for some intensely serious discussion about cheese?’
‘Certainly am.’
He resisted the impulse to take her hand. Not appropriate, he reminded himself. But he chatted lightly to her on the way into the high street and realised how much he’d missed making inconsequential chatter with someone he felt instantly comfortable with. It was weird how it felt as if he’d known Rachel for years instead of for barely a week. They’d just clicked.
He led her through a couple of the back streets and stopped outside a shop. ‘Ta-da.’
‘Muzzy’s Barn,’ she said, reading the sign. ‘OK.’
But as soon as they stepped inside, he heard her soft ‘oh’ of delight.
The cheese counter was dedicated to small artisanal cheeses; there were locally made chutneys, pickles, jams and jars of sauces; there was a deli section with a barrel of gleaming olives; there were artisanal bread and pastries, displayed beautifully; there were locally produced fruit, vegetables and eggs; and there was a section for locally roasted coffee and blended teas.
‘It’s like an indoor farmers’ market,’ she said. ‘And, look—they even have a specialist vegan section.’ She smiled. ‘My youngest is vegan. I’m definitely coming back here and stocking up, before she’s next due home. There’s some non-dairy cheese there I’ve not seen before and it might have the right texture.’
‘I take it vegan cheese isn’t a hit with you?’ he asked.
‘Cashew-based soft cheeses are lovely, and I’ve found something that’s not far off Camembert,’ she said, ‘but I’ve yet to find something with the right texture to replace a decent Cheddar.’ She smiled. ‘Though, actually, I’ve liked nearly all the things Saskia and I have made together. I think our favourite’s been the caponata sauce. And these,’ she added, taking a jar of capers off the shelf and adding it to her basket, ‘are so going in the next batch I make.’
‘So you like cooking?’
She nodded. ‘And experimenting. Now the girls are both at uni, my best friend’s my usual guinea pig.’ She gestured to the counter. ‘My new second-best friend, if he chooses, could be my guinea pig to say thank you for introducing me to such a wonderful shop.’
She was inviting him to dinner as a friend and co-conspirator, not as a date. Which was a relief and a disappointment at the same time. ‘I’d like that,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid you get a choice of burned beans on charred toast or a takeaway in return. Hannah—my eldest—says I can’t cook because I forget to keep an eye on things and can’t follow a recipe. Which is a bit ridiculous, given that I can follow procedures to save a life. Her words, not mine.’
‘I’d guess that work matters to you but cooking doesn’t,’ she said.
‘Mandy did the cooking and I did the washing up,’ he said. ‘I’m guessing you had a similar arrangement?’
‘We had a dishwasher,’ she said, and looked away.
Her marriage had clearly been very different from his own close partnership. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to stomp over a sore spot.’
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and look at the cheese.’
She seemed out of sorts, but he didn’t know her well enough to know how to fix it. Being bright and breezy would be tantamount to sticking his fingers in his ears, closing his eyes and singing La-la-la, I can’t hear you. Feeling awkward and cross with himself, he followed her to the cheese counter.
To his relief, she started talking with the young woman behind the counter about the different cheese, trying several; and then she turned to him to encourage him to do the same. By the time she’d added half a dozen different sorts to her basket, she was smiling again.
‘Shall we stop and have a cup of coffee?’ he suggested. ‘The café here is very good.’
He wasn’t surprised that she opted for the Parmesan shortbread to go with her coffee.
‘This is seriously good,’ she said after her first bite. ‘I think it’s as good as the cheese biscuits Mum taught me to make. I used to bake them for school fundraisers and family parties, and if people knew I was making them I’d get a bunch of texts begging for a doggie bag, so I always had to make an extra batch.’
‘Sometimes the Emergency Department staff bring in things they’ve baked and leave them in the kitchen for everyone to share,’ he said.
‘Would that be a hint, Mr Hughes?’
‘Just a teensy, tiny one,’ he said.
She laughed. How pretty she looked when her eyes crinkled at the corners, he thought. Those were real laughter lines. Rachel Halliday might have had a rough couple of years, but she was definitely the sort of person who looked for the good in life.
‘OK. Next time I do some baking, I’ll bring them in,’ she promised.
‘I used to cheat,’ he said, ‘because Mandy used to make brownies for me to bring in. Nowadays I cheat and just buy a ton of brownies from the bakery down the road.’
‘You don’t fancy trying to make them yourself—burned baked beans aside? I have an easy one-step recipe—you just dump everything in a bowl and then mix it together.’
He shook his head. ‘It’d just be a waste of ingredients. Baking isn’t my thing.’
‘I miss baking for school coffee mornings,’ she said. ‘And, as I’m an only child, I miss cooking big family meals. The Sunday roast, or the curry night. The nearest I get to it is batch-cooking a lasagne and putting individual portions in the freezer.’ She smiled. ‘Though Steve’s family have told me I’m not getting away from them that easily and, in their view, I still count as part of them.’
‘That’s nice.’ Thought he wasn’t surprised that her ex’s family wanted to keep her close. Rachel Halliday was lovely, the sort of woman whose smile made the day feel that little bit brighter. ‘So what does my new second-best friend do on her days off?’
‘Read, go for walks, maybe go to the cinema or the theatre—I don’t mind going to see things on my own if nobody else fancies going with me,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I dance around the house, singing my head off to the old stuff. Oh, and I’m a bit of a crossword addict. What does my new second-best friend do?’
He’d been a hermit for the last couple of years, except for when his best friend or the girls had dragged him out. And he knew he spent too much time at work. It was easier to fill his head with paperwork that needed doing rather than face the emptiness of his house. He just hoped it would get better when Hannah was on maternity leave and he could do a bit of babysitting. ‘I go to the odd gig,’ he said. ‘And I try to avoid dinner parties when I suspect I’m going to be set up with someone.’ He paused. ‘Maybe we could go for a walk together, some time.’
‘I’d like that,’ she said. She glanced at her watch. ‘And I need to stop taking up all your time.’
‘The laundry’s winning, now you’ve got your cheese?’ he teased.
‘Afraid so.’ She smiled. ‘I learned the hard way that it’s easier to do things in smaller chunks; if you let them build up, they’re a lot more daunting and take a lot more mental effort.’
‘Good point. I, too, ought to do some laundry.’ He couldn’t quite bring himself to admit that he paid a cleaner to do his ironing as well as keep the house clean. It sounded too entitled.
‘Thank you for bringing me here,’ she said.
‘My pleasure. I’d better let you go, as I need to pick up a couple more things while I’m in town,’ he said. It wasn’t actually true, but he didn’t want her feeling obliged to offer to wander round the centre of Muswell Hill with him. Particularly as he was aware that he did actually want to spend more time with her, and that was a dangerous thing. He wasn’t quite ready to move on from the past, and he had a feeling that it was pretty much the same for her. For both their sakes, it would be much more sensible to leave things be.
‘I’ll see you on Monday. Thanks for the coffee,’ she said.
‘My pleasure,’ he said.
And oh, that smile. It warmed him all the way through and made him want to ask her to stay a bit longer. But that really wouldn’t be a good idea. He had nothing to offer her; and he didn’t want to make life complicated for either of them. So he smiled back and left the café.