Page 99 of Mistaken Impression

“Have you thought about changing your detective?”

“I can’t, really. He needs to be a doctor in order to solve the crime. There’s a medical element which only a doctor would understand.”

“Okay. But does he have to be a man?”

He pulls his hand away and I glance over at him. I half expect him to be staring out the window, or frowning, insulted by my suggestion, but instead, he’s sitting with his thumbnail in his mouth, staring into space.

“Do you know what? That might work,” he says, sitting forward a little, so full of excitement it makes me giggle.

“Did they even have female doctors in the nineteen-twenties?” I ask, not wanting him to get carried away with my spur-of-the-moment idea.

“I don’t know. They must have done, surely. Especially after the First World War.”

He has a point. “I would imagine they were consigned to dealing with women’s problems.”

“Possibly, but I could always give her a rebellious nature… and I could introduce a little romance as well.”

“You could?”

“Yes.” He leans over, kissing my cheek. “This is perfect, Ella.”

“Really?”

He pulls his phone from his pocket. “Just give me ten minutes to write all that down and I promise I won’t talk about it anymore.”

“I don’t mind, Mac.”

“You will. Trust me. Authors can be really boring. They talk about nothing other than their work in progress, and how it’s going, or not going.”

“Why did you say ‘they’, not ‘we’? Don’t you think of yourself as an author?”

“Not yet,” he says and starts tapping away on his phone. I let him, continuing the drive in silence for a while, until he stops, sighing deeply and puts his phone away.

“Okay?” I ask.

“Absolutely.”

He puts his hand on my thigh again. “Did you always want to write?”

“Yes, I think so. I can’t remember wanting to do anything else. Not even when I was a child, when most little boys want to be a fireman or a train driver.”

I chuckle. “Were you happy… as a child, I mean?”

“Yes.” He gives my thigh a gentle and reassuring squeeze. “I was very lucky.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because I know you weren’t so fortunate.”

“Oh… I wasn’t unhappy. I had my brothers, and Pat and Mick.”

“Who are Pat and Mick?”

“After my mother left us, my father employed them to look after us and the house.”

“The one in Newport?”

“Yes. We all lived there. Mick took care of the house, and Pat took care of us… like a surrogate mother, I suppose. Although I don’t know why I’m talking in the past tense. Pat and Mick still live there.”

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