RACHEL WAS ON a late shift on Monday; just after she’d started, an elderly man was brought in with a suspected AAA—an abdominal aortic aneurysm, which was a bulge in the main blood vessel running from the heart to the abdomen. As the swelling grew larger, the walls of the blood vessel grew thinner, and if the aneurysm ruptured the patient could bleed to death.
‘This is a tricky one,’ Samir, the paramedic who was doing the handover, said. ‘John Reynolds, aged eighty-six. He had a fall this morning and he’d got pain in his lower back—the paramedics who saw him thought it was probably a fractured hip and took him in to his local hospital. No fracture, but they think it’s an AAA. Apparently, he had a small one twenty-five years ago, but he took the advice to stop smoking, change his diet and start exercising, and according to him he’s been fine ever since. He hasn’t been on any medication at all, for the last seven years.’
Rachel raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s quite unusual, at his age.’
‘I gather he’s quite independent,’ Samir said, ‘and he doesn’t think very much of his GP, which is why he refuses to go to appointments—he says he’ll go to the walk-in centre if he has a problem. Anyway, he says he’s been really well in himself, until he fell today.’
‘Any history of falls?’
‘According to him, no. Today was different because he tripped over the cat. Right now he’s worried about his cat, he’s got a pain in the middle of his tummy, and both legs hurt.’
‘Got it. Any next of kin?’
‘His daughter, Marnie. She’s on her way here,’ Samir said. ‘And she says the neighbour’s looking after the cat, so we can tell her dad not to worry. I’ve already told him, but I think he could do with the reassurance if you don’t mind repeating it.’
‘Of course,’ Rachel said. ‘Thanks, Samir.’
When Samir brought the patient in, Rachel introduced herself swiftly. ‘Samir tells me you’ve had a fall and thought you’d broken your hip, Mr Reynolds, but the local hospital couldn’t see anything on the X-ray and thought you might have an aneurysm.’
‘I told them, that was twenty-five years ago now,’ Mr Reynolds said. ‘I’m fine.’
‘What hurts?’ she asked gently.
‘My tummy, and both legs,’ he said.
‘Did you hit your head at all when you fell? Can you remember blacking out, even for a few seconds?’
‘I might’ve hit my head, but I don’t remember blacking out,’ he said.
‘Would you mind if I examined you and did a couple of tests?’ she asked. When he gave his consent, she added, ‘Marnie’s on her way in, by the way, and she says to let you know that your neighbour’s looking after your cat, so don’t worry.’
‘Smudge. He’s a dear little thing. But he got under my feet, this morning—he was fretting, because I was late giving him his breakfast—and that’s why I fell,’ Mr Reynolds said. ‘I felt such a fool. I couldn’t get myself up again and I had to press my bracelet to get someone to come and help me.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Marnie will say she told me so.’
‘To be fair,’ Rachel said, ‘I used to worry about my mum having a fall. I made her wear a bracelet, too—that meant she could keep her independence and I wasn’t worried sick about her all the time.’
‘You girls worry too much.’ He patted her hand. ‘Tough as old boots, me.’
‘Let’s have a look,’ she said.
But she really wasn’t happy with the feel of his stomach; his blood pressure was lower than she would’ve liked, and his heart rate was too fast. There were definitely signs of a bleed, somewhere. ‘I’m going to send you for a CT scan,’ she said, ‘just to give me a better idea of what’s happening. And I’m going to take some bloods to check a couple of other things.’
When the blood tests results came back, she really wasn’t happy. His blood wasn’t clotting properly and the balance of acids and alkalis wasn’t right. The CT scan showed a mass in the psoas muscle—the one in the back of the abdominal wall that went down the leg. The mass could be a cyst but, together with the other symptoms, she thought it was likely to be a haematoma. It wouldn’t be an easy fix, because the muscle was hard to get to; plus there was a bleed on the brain that she wasn’t happy about, either.
She headed for Tim’s office. ‘Got a couple of minutes?’ she asked. ‘I could do with a second pair of eyes on something.’
‘Sure.’
She gave him a swift patient history and brought up the scan results on his screen. ‘I’m thinking a psoas bleed, plus he hit his head when he fell and he’s got a bleed there as well. And his bloods are all over the place.’
‘I agree—that scan looks like a psoas bleed, and it’s one for the surgical team,’ he said. ‘I think the best we can do is to sort his bloods here, if we can, and admit him to ICU for monitoring until the surgeons can get him on the table.’
By the time John Reynolds came back from his scan, he couldn’t wiggle his toes and had no feeling in his feet or his right leg. Rachel’s instincts were all on red alert: the symptoms meant that his peripheries were shutting down, and the bleed was getting more serious. She spoke to the surgical team and got him admitted to ICU. When his daughter arrived, Rachel took the time to explain what was happening and took her up to see her father. ‘They’ll have the most up-to-date information about how he’s doing,’ she said, ‘and the surgeons will see you before they take your dad to Theatre.’
‘He’s done so well,’ Marnie said. ‘Most of his friends are gone, now, or are in nursing homes. That’s why I suggested he adopted a cat, to give him a bit of company.’ She bit her lip. ‘I feel so guilty now. I can’t believe he tripped over Smudge.’
‘You couldn’t have predicted the fall,’ Rachel reassured her. ‘And you’d persuaded him to wear an alarm on his wrist, so he could call for help, so you did the right thing there as well.’
Marnie nodded. ‘I was panicking in case he’d fractured his hip and would have to go into a nursing home for months—he’d hate it, even though my neighbour works in one that’s good and they’d look after him there as well as I would. But he’s in better shape than some of my friends, and he can give most of them a good thirty years.’
‘It’s hard to lose your independence,’ Rachel agreed. ‘I felt really guilty about my mum going into a nursing home, but she needed more care than I could give her, and it was the best way to keep her safe. If your dad needs extra rehab after here, it won’t be for a hugely long time. He’ll cope—and, as you say, he’ll have the cat for company when he gets back to his own place.’ She just hoped that the surgeons could fix that bleed.
But, at the end of her shift, Theatre called down with the bad news: John hadn’t made it off the operating table. Rachel could feel the tears pricking her eyelids. She forced herself to blink them away so she could deal with her last patient professionally, but by the time she’d changed out of her scrubs she was swallowing hard.
‘Are you OK?’
She glanced up at Tim. ‘Fine,’ she fibbed.
He clearly wasn’t buying it. ‘What happened?’
‘The patient I saw you about—he didn’t make it.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He patted her shoulder awkwardly. ‘You did your best for him. You did all the right things. A psoas bleed is hard to fix, and a bleed on the brain as well was a complication too many.’
She was incredibly aware of him. Where his hand had touched her shoulder, even though her scrubs had been a barrier between their skin, she tingled: which was crazy, not to mention inappropriate. Tim was her boss, and he was treating her in exactly the same way that he treated everyone else in the department. Ediye had told her that when they lost someone, Tim always squeezed their hands and reminded them that they’d done their best and they couldn’t save everyone.
‘Yeah, I guess,’ she said.
‘It’s always hard when you lose a patient,’ he said. ‘But you’ve got nothing to reproach yourself about. We can’t save everyone—we try to, but it’s not humanly possible.’
‘I know.’ But it didn’t stop her wishing she’d been able to fix things. Or that sudden longing to lean on him. For goodness’ sake. She was an experienced doctor. She knew that some conditions just weren’t fixable, and she didn’t need to lean on anyone.
His blue eyes were filled with kindness—and was there something else, too, or was she deluding herself? ‘See you tomorrow,’ she said.
Though she was still out of sorts when she got home, both from losing her patient and from struggling with her inappropriate feelings towards Tim.
‘He’s your head of department,’ she told herself out loud. Ha. As if that mattered. Plenty of people dated colleagues. ‘And he’s not looking for anything from you other than friendship. That’s what you agreed. So stop thinking about him in any other sense.’
Despite her pep-talk, she couldn’t get Tim Hughes out of her head. She liked him. More than liked him. But she didn’t want to make a fool out of herself by making an unwanted move. Could she even trust her instincts any more? If she made a mistake, and what felt like mutual attraction really was nothing more than a platonic friendship, working together would be incredibly awkward.
Baking, when she got home, made her feel a bit better. The next morning, she left a box of the cheese biscuits in the staff kitchen, with a note.
Help yourself, from Rachel.
And she left a smaller box of them on Tim’s desk with another short note.
Thanks for being kind yesterday. Enjoy, with best wishes from your second-best friend.
Tim was on a late and caught up with her just before her break. ‘Those biscuits you left me: are they the ones you were telling me about? They’re amazing.’
‘I put some in the staff room as well,’ she said, ‘but I know how quickly they vanish at family get-togethers, so I gave you a separate box because I wanted to make sure my fellow cheese fiend did actually get some.’
‘You,’ he said, ‘are a superstar. Thank you.’
Funny how his praise made her feel so warm inside.
On Friday afternoon, Tim sought her out in the office where she was filling out paperwork. ‘Are you busy tonight?’
‘I have a hot date,’ she said, ‘with the ironing.’
‘I saw what you did there. Very good.’ He laughed. ‘Seriously, though, are you busy? I was going to a gig with my best friend tonight, but he’s been called in to do some very tricky spinal surgery and he can’t make it. It’d be a pity to waste the ticket.’ He named a band she’d loved in her early twenties. ‘They’re playing a tiny gig in Camden, as a warm-up for their new tour. Would you like to come with me?’
‘I’d love to,’ she said. ‘How much do I owe you for the ticket?’
‘Nothing, because it would’ve just gone to waste.’
‘Then maybe I can buy you a pizza and a beer first,’ she suggested.
‘All right, it’s a deal.’
A deal, not a date, she reminded herself: even though she had that funny, fluttery feeling in her stomach when he smiled at her. ‘Let me know what time it starts and where,’ she said, ‘and I’ll find us a table somewhere nearby.’
She booked a pizza place near to the venue for an hour before doors opened and texted him with the details. When she got home after her shift, she reminded herself there was nothing romantic about this and she was simply going to a show with a friend; she dressed casually in jeans, low-heeled ankle boots and a plain black T-shirt that wouldn’t make her feel sweaty in the heat of the club. Tim was already at the pizza place when she arrived, and raised his hand to greet her from their table; again, she had to ignore that funny fluttery feeling in her stomach.
She enjoyed chatting with him about music and was delighted to discover that they had quite a crossover in their tastes. They spent a while swapping tales about gigs they’d enjoyed and their favourite albums, and Rachel couldn’t remember the last time she’d enjoyed herself so much.
In the venue, they managed to find their way to the front. The support band was good, and the main band was three songs into their set when some lads behind them decided they wanted to make a mosh pit, pushing into the crowd before them and swaying back again.
‘We can move to the side away from them, if you want to,’ Tim said. ‘Or I can stand here as a buffer.’ He frowned. ‘I don’t see why we should have to miss out just because they’re being selfish.’
‘I’m happy to do whatever you want,’ she said.
Tim shifted so he was standing behind her, with one arm either side of her braced against the barrier to protect her from the worst of the shoving. It made her feel warm all the way through; Steve wouldn’t have taken her to see the band in the first place, let alone acted so protectively, and she really appreciated how safe Tim made her feel.
Plus, if she was honest with herself, she really liked having Tim’s arms round her. It would be oh, so easy to let herself act on the attraction she felt towards him and let their relationship move past a simple friendship.
But was that what Tim wanted, too, or was he just being gentlemanly?
Asking was out of the question. She didn’t want to risk making things awkward between them, either at work or as part of their new friendship. But she was aware of every movement he made, every brush of his body against hers.
After the gig, Tim saw Rachel home to Hampstead. She lived in a gorgeous period terraced house; he guessed that, like himself and Mandy, Rachel and her ex had bought the house years ago, before property prices had gone completely insane. He walked down the tiled path to the front door with her and waited while she extracted her key from her jeans pocket—all the while trying not to think about how well the soft denim hugged her curves.
‘Thanks for—well, protecting me at the gig,’ she said.
‘You’re very welcome. I’m only sorry that those lads had to be selfish and spoil it for everyone else.’
‘It’s not your fault, and I still enjoyed myself. The music was great.’ She gave him a slightly shy smile. ‘Would you like to come in for coffee?’
If he had any sense, Tim thought, he’d say no and make the excuse that they had work tomorrow. He’d already got too close to Rachel tonight, standing at the gig with his arms round her. He’d done it primarily to protect her from the pushing of the lads behind them; but he’d enjoyed being close enough to her to feel the warmth of her body and breathe in the sweet vanilla scent she wore.
He opened his mouth to make the excuse, and a completely different set of words tumbled out, because his common sense clearly wasn’t working in sync with his mouth. ‘That’d be lovely.’
She opened the front door and ushered him in to a hallway with black and white chequered tiles.
‘This house is too big for just me. I’m kind of rattling around in it,’ she said. ‘But I’m not planning to downsize until both the girls have finished uni and are settled. I want to make sure they always have a home.’
He nodded. ‘I know what you mean. Mandy and I kept dithering about downsizing, once the girls had graduated, and then we decided we needed room for any future grandchildren to come and stay. I’m kind of glad we did, especially now Hannah’s going to have her first baby, but being the only person in a family home feels a bit...’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘As you say, rattling around.’ And he wasn’t ready to lose all the memories, starting over in a new home.
‘The room on the left was Mum’s room,’ she said, gesturing to a door in the hallway. ‘It’s the guest room, now. The girls and I painted it over the summer. There’s a bathroom en-suite, so if you need the loo that’s probably the quickest, or there’s a bathroom up the stairs and straight in front of you.’
She led him past the door on the right, which he assumed led to the living room, and through to the kitchen. There was a beech dining table with six chairs on one side of the room, in front of large French doors; the kitchen cabinets were all cream, and there was a pine dresser with blue glassware and pretty china cups and saucers on display. The room was tidy and the work surfaces uncluttered; there was a vase of flowers on the windowsill, next to a narrow tray which held three terracotta pots full of fresh herbs.
‘Would you prefer coffee or tea?’ she asked.
‘Coffee, please—decaf, if you have it, and just a splash of milk.’
‘I stick to decaf at this time of night, too,’ she said, taking a jar from the fridge then shaking grounds into a cafetière.
‘What, no posh coffee machine?’ he teased.
‘No—not when all the pods end up in landfill,’ she said. ‘This is a bit old-fashioned, but it works just fine, and I can save the grounds for mulch in the garden.’
‘My girls have nudged me into a few eco changes, over the years,’ he said. ‘I can’t quite bear to give up my coffee machine, but Sophie found these metal pods that you fill yourself, wash up and reuse rather than dump in the trash.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ she said. ‘I might look into doing that.’
He noticed the photographs held to the outside of the fridge with magnets. ‘Can I be nosey?’
‘Sure.’
There were photographs of Rachel with two girls who were clearly her daughters, and others with an older woman who looked so like her that it was obviously her mum. There was another snap with the four of them in front of a Christmas tree; Rachel and her mother were wearing Santa hats, the girls were sporting hairbands with reindeer antlers, and they were all laughing and holding up a glass of something bubbly.
‘We took that one the Christmas before last,’ she said, ‘when Mum could still join in.’
Two Christmases ago. It had been his first Christmas without Mandy, and he’d made sure that he was working a split shift so he was too busy to even think about what he was missing. Then he’d gone home and curled up in a bed that was way too wide and, knowing nobody would see, sobbed his eyes out for an hour.
Last Christmas had been rough, too. He’d worked a double shift to block it out.
This Christmas... He was dreading it. The misery and the memories and the loss, bound together with the guilt that he wasn’t there enough for his girls. But working was the only way he knew how to keep everything from battering his heart. He could block out his feelings with work. He’d rather patch up the drunks who’d lost their temper and ended up in a family fight than ruin Christmas for either of his daughters by sitting brooding in a corner. Yet, at the same time, he felt guilty for not being there enough for them.
It looked as if Rachel loved Christmas as much as Mandy had. He’d bet she would make a traditional wreath for the door with her daughters, just as Mandy had, and put up a real tree, scenting the air with pine. The fir tree that Mandy had nurtured and brought in every year had remained outside for the last couple of years, completely neglected. Tim hadn’t even been able to face putting up a small artificial tree, let alone decorating it, and he’d left all the Christmas cards in a heap on the sideboard rather than pegging them up on a string over the door.
He didn’t know what to say. Part of him wanted to run and avoid any discussion about Christmas; yet part of him wanted to stay. Could Rachel help him see things differently and find a way back to all the warmth and the wonder?
As if she’d guessed what was going on in his head, she handed him a mug of coffee. ‘Let’s go and sit down.’
‘Thank you.’
Not Christmas, he decided as he sat at the table opposite her. Think about anything except Christmas and all the happiness he’d taken for granted would carry on and on and on—but had abruptly stopped.
He stared out of the patio doors. Of course. He couldn’t see it in the dark, but there was obviously a garden out there. And she’d said earlier about keeping her coffee grounds as mulch. This would be a safe topic of conversation. ‘Are you much of a gardener?’
‘Not really,’ she admitted. ‘The garden’s mostly shrubs because one of my ex’s friends started a landscape gardening business years ago and we asked him to design us something low-maintenance and child-friendly.’ She smiled. ‘And thankfully he comes back every autumn to prune everything for us and sort anything out that isn’t quite working. But I’ve got also little clumps of spring bulbs from pots that the girls bought me over the years, and I planted out when they’d stopped flowering. The troughs on the patio are a bit bare at the moment, but in the summer they’re full of wildflowers; it helps to bring the butterflies and bees into the garden.’ She looked at him. ‘Are you a gardener, then?’
‘I’m not much of anything, really,’ he said. Apart from being a workaholic. ‘We have a few roses and things in the garden.’ Things he’d neglected horribly, along with the fir tree, because nothing had felt right without Mandy.
‘It’s hard to find the time to do everything,’ she said. ‘I’ve learned not to beat myself up about it. With a job as demanding as ours, something has to give.’ She chuckled. ‘With me, it’s the oven. I pay someone to clean it for me. And my living room only really gets a dusting and a proper hoovering when I know someone’s coming over, because the kitchen is my favourite room in the house and it’s where I spend most of my time.’
‘It’s a nice room,’ he said. Warm. Comfortable. Inviting.
‘The French doors and the windows make it really light in the daytime,’ she said. ‘And I’m not a big one for telly. I’d rather sit here with a mug of tea and read or listen to music.’
‘That sounds good to me.’ Tim was relieved that she’d managed to get his head to change gear; but she’d also given him something to think about.
I’ve learned not to beat myself up about it... Something has to give.
She was right. He was struggling—and he’d been struggling for a long time. Maybe it was time he admitted it, instead of beating himself up about it or trying to block it out with work. But the words stuck in his throat.
He finished his coffee and lifted his mug. ‘I’ll wash this up before I go.’
‘No need,’ she said, taking it from him.
‘And I’d better let you get some sleep. Thank you for coming with me tonight.’
‘Thank you for asking me. I really enjoyed it.’
He honestly meant to just kiss Rachel’s cheek, as he would with any of his and Mandy’s joint friends. But somehow his lips ended up touching the corner of her mouth. She froze. He was about to pull away and apologise, when she moved closer, and her lips brushed against his.
His mouth tingled where her lips touched his. The next thing he knew, they were really kissing; his arms were wrapped round her waist and hers were wrapped round his neck. And there was a warmth spreading through him, as if a long, icy, lonely winter had finally ended and spring was starting to break through.
He broke the kiss and rested his forehead briefly against hers. ‘I’m sorry. That really wasn’t meant to happen.’
‘It hadn’t been my intention, either,’ she said. ‘I know neither of us is looking for a relationship.’
‘This thing between us was meant to be strictly friendship,’ he said.
‘It’s what we agreed. I kept telling myself the same.’ She rested her palm against his cheek, and her grey eyes were huge and serious. ‘Except, if I’m honest, I like you, Tim. And I liked it when you put your arms round me at the gig tonight to protect me.’
If she could be honest about it, so could he. ‘Me, too. I mean, about liking you. And about liking holding you tonight at the gig. It just felt right, being close to you.’ He bit his lip, aware that neither of them had moved; his arms were still wrapped round her waist and hers were round his neck. ‘So what do we do now? Pretend this didn’t happen?’
‘Right now,’ she said drily, ‘you couldn’t get a blade of grass between us, so we can’t exactly deny it’s happening.’
‘There is that,’ he admitted. But where did they go from here? What did she want? What did he want? He wasn’t sure. This whole thing scared and thrilled him at the same time. ‘What do we do?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’m a bit set in my ways, but the whole idea of starting all over again, at the age of fifty-two, terrifies me. I don’t even know where to begin dating again. How do you even meet someone?’ She shook her head. ‘I know there are internet dating sites, but how do you know people are telling the truth on their profiles? And going to a speed-dating evening or what have you just isn’t my thing.’
‘I’ve never done it. But I imagine it’s like being on parade, pretending to be someone you’re not, and being judged by people who don’t know you.’ He grimaced. ‘Which sounds even worse than the set-up dates.’
‘At least your friends know the people they’re trying to set you up with and can reassure you that you’ve really got something in common, and that they’re nice,’ she agreed. She looked at him. ‘So what happens now?’
He wanted to date her. At the same time, the idea made him antsy. What if it went wrong? Working together would be awkward. And what if it went right? Would that mean wiping Mandy completely out of his life?
As if she guessed what he was thinking—or, more likely, she had similar doubts—she said, ‘Just so we’re clear, if things do happen between us, I’m not trying to replace Mandy.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And I’m not trying to replace your ex.’ He paused. ‘I really like you, Rachel, and I don’t want to wreck what could be a really good friendship. But, at the same time, I think there’s something else between us. Can we keep things low profile for now, until we’ve worked out where this thing between us is going and what we both want from it?’
‘That’s a really good idea.’
He kissed her. Just because he could. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to kiss someone, and he really liked the feel of Rachel’s mouth against his. ‘Is it weird that I feel like a teenager again?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘because so do I. Though I haven’t dated anyone else since I met Steve, nearly a quarter of a century ago, and I don’t have a clue what dating etiquette is, nowadays.’
Neither did he.
‘What about the set-up dates?’ he asked.
‘They don’t count,’ she said, ‘because if I accept an invitation to go and see my friends it isn’t the same thing as accepting a date to have dinner with someone I’ve only just met.’
‘I haven’t dated anyone else since I met Mandy, which is even longer ago,’ he said. ‘So don’t expect me to be smooth and suave and sophisticated.’
She laughed. ‘I promise, as long as you don’t expect me to be a siren.’
He gave her an assessing look. ‘You have siren potential.’
‘Honestly? I’d rather be in jeans and boots and a big sweater, out for a long walk, than wearing high heels and a slinky dress at a cocktail party.’
‘Me, too. Walks rather than cocktail parties, that is.’ He rubbed the tip of his nose against hers. ‘Are you off on Sunday?’
‘Yes.’
‘So am I. I’m going to my daughter Hannah’s for dinner in the evening but, if it’s not raining, how do you fancy a walk in Richmond Park on Sunday morning to see the deer? Maybe grab some lunch while we’re out?’
‘Going with the flow? That,’ she said, ‘sounds wonderful. Even if it rains, we can still go and see the deer; we’ll just need to remember an umbrella and waterproof coats.’
‘Great.’ He kissed her again. ‘I’ll see you on Sunday. Shall I meet you here?’
‘You live in Muswell Hill, right?’
He nodded.
‘Then let’s meet at Hampstead Heath station, because there’s a direct overground train from there to Richmond.’
‘All right. I’ll see you on Sunday at Hampstead Heath station,’ he confirmed. ‘What time?’
‘Quarter past nine?’ she suggested.
‘Perfect. See you then.’ He stole a last kiss. ‘Sweet dreams.’