Page 13 of A Midlife Marriage

‘I’ve come to learn some maths.’ He nodded at the whiteboard.

‘Well, you’re ten years too late.’ She frowned. ‘What’s going on? Where’s Dad?’

‘Don’t panic.’ Craig smiled. ‘Your dad’s fine. He’s gone ahead to the staffroom. We thought we’d surprise you and stop by. You can have a drink then, can’t you? And I can drive back.’

‘It’s just a quick goodbye thing,’ she said. ‘Nothing to get excited about.’

‘Well personally I can’t wait.’ Craig tapped out a drumroll on the desk. ‘I’ve never been in thestaffroombefore.’

And despite herself, despite the waves of doubt and sadness that had threatened all day, Kay laughed. ‘You’ve never been in the staffroom? All the years you were here?’

‘Nope.’

‘It’s nothing special,’ she said as she turned to clean the board. ‘A cross between an Ikea showroom and a doctor’swaiting room. And besides,’ she added, looking over her shoulder, ‘you’re in the wrong seat. You always sat at the back, it’s probably why you never learned anything.’

11

By the time Helen had printed the encounter report, handed it to Dr Ross and watched the ambulance doors close, her shift was over.She went into the kitchen to rinse her cup and collect her jacket. She was thinking about the way panic had undone the very fabric of the man’swife, like wool unravelled. It was a feeling she understood. She knew how it felt to dissolve under the force of extreme fear, the cold acidic wash of it. The last few weeks of her mother’s life she had been no more stable than a loose thread and it was (always) a miracle to Helen how, in time, everything had knitted together again, how she had, slowly, been incorporated back into her life. Her mind had re-learned how to rest, her body to sleep. Even her sense of humour had come back. Remembering all this, she felt suddenly very tired and very sad. She popped the cup in the dishwasher, took her jacket from the peg and stood looking at the green cardigan. She hadn’t been joking when she said it had been here longer than she had. Daisy hadn’t been joking either, when she’d said she hadn’t noticed. Daisy, who spent her breaks staring at TikTok, whose manicured nails and perfect eyebrows and contoured nose, gave away apersonal care regimethat required discipline and attention to detail, the same kind of attention she’d failed to bother with this morning. Because it had been Daisy, she remembered now, who had been on the desk earlier. Helen’s mouth turned down. It had been Daisy who had sentthat man through to wait for over an hour, Daisywho was only interested in a free lunch. That man could have died, might still die. She yanked the cardigan free from the peg and dropped it into the bin and just as she did, the door opened, and Dr Ross came in. ‘It’s been there years,’ she said, as she looked at the cardigan.

But Dr Ross didn’t speak.

And neither did Helen. The expression on the doctor’s face, she could see now, was a mix of shock and fatigue. She was obviously still processing what had happened, as well she might. Dr Ross was a partner; claims of neglect against the health centre, accusations of professional ineptitude, stopped with her. ‘Has the ambulance left?’ she said quietly.

‘Yes,’ she said, still distracted. She took her glasses off and rubbed her eye. ‘That was well spotted, Helen’ she said, as she put them back on. ‘He shouldn’t have been left like that.’

‘No.’ Helen bit down on her lip. Dr Ross had turned to look at the cardigan now, the heap of it lying at the top of the bin. ‘I hope it wasn’t yours?’ she said. ‘I didn’t think it belonged to anyone … It really has been here years.’

‘As long as the copy ofGood Housekeeping, outside my room?’ Dr Ross smiled.

‘Oh, Idon’t know. How long has that been there?’

‘It’s dated March 2017.’

‘Then the cardigan wins.’

Dr Ross nodded. ‘Are you heading straight off?’ she said. ‘I’m going to make a coffee. Would you like to join me?’

They carriedtheir cups out to the inner courtyard of the surgery to sit under the wide-spoked branches of a plane tree. From here, Helen could see all four sides of the surgery. The waiting room, the doctors’ consultancy rooms, the corridor that joined them and behind, if she turned, the front reception desk. She didn’t turn. She sat under the umbrella of green, her face tilted to the sun, her eyes closed. Beside her, Dr Ross was silent and understanding the shape of the moment, Helen too stayed quiet. Close up, serious illness is frightening, a mangled, ugly tear in the fabric of an otherwise smooth world and the only way to allow the fissure to close again, was to do was exactly as they were. Sit in the sun and wait it out.

Minutes passed, above her head, hidden amongst thousands of leaves, she could hear the rhythmic chirrup of sparrows, from the open windows the muted but constant sound of a phone ringing. She opened her eyes.

‘So,’ Dr Ross said. ‘How was your trip, Helen?’

Helen nodded. She drew in a deep breath, her shoulders rising. In the five hours she had been back at work, this was the first time anyonehadasked.And it wasn’t just the girls. A couple of the doctors had stalked past her with nothing more than a curt nod, asif she had simply walked out the door for five minutes and come back again.Which, she thought bleakly, she might as well have done. ‘Transformational,’ she said, looking across the courtyard. ‘Quite transformational.’

Dr Ross smiled. ‘You’ll have to tell me all about it.’

Helen shook her head. ‘Honestly? I wouldn’t know where to start.’

‘Did you do much trekking?’

‘Lots.’

‘In the Rockies?’

She nodded. ‘And Yosemite, Canyonlands, Redwood National Park, Glacier Park.’ Pushing her hair back, she turned.‘Did you know that two-thirds of the glaciers in Glacier Park have melted? Fifty years ago, there were over eighty, it’s about twenty-five now. It’s so sad.’

‘It is, yes.’

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