Page 40 of Together Again at the Cornish Country Hospital

Troubled singer, Lijah Byrne and his childhood sweetheart enjoy time on the beach with their baby

It was only later in the article that the journalist admitted the ‘baby’ in question was in fact a dog. The majority of the story was just as full of half-truths and fabrication as the headline, but worse than that it had stirred up a hornets’ nest of interest from other journalists and, by the third day, it was obvious it was really getting to Amy.

‘They were outside the hospital again today.’ There was a sigh in her voice when she got back to the flat, where he’d been waiting with Monty. Lijah had wanted to pick her up from work, but she’d told him it was a bad idea, because it would just encourage the journalists. ‘I thought they were going to follow me all the way home.’

‘It’ll calm down, I promise.’ He swept the hair away from her face as he spoke, hoping he was right, but she looked close to tears.

‘Have you read what they wrote?’

‘Don’t take any notice of that, they just make up whatever they want.’ He was doing his best to make it sound easy, when he knew from bitter experience it wasn’t.

‘The comments from people online are worse than the article itself. I can live with being described as curvy, when I know they mean fat, and having a girl-next-door charm, when I know they mean plain, but the comments…’ Tears welled up in Amy’s eye, and she furiously wiped them away. ‘I hate myself for caring so much, but my God some of the comments are horrible.’

‘You’re beautiful, inside and out.’ He wished she could see it, but he knew she probably never would. ‘The people who post horrible comments are saying far more about themselves than anything else. It’s got nothing to do with you, there’s something wrong with them and people like that just need an outlet for their hate. You get used to it after a while and it gets easier to ignore.’

‘I don’t want to get used to it. One of them said I should have been drowned at birth and another said that if we did have a real baby, it wouldn’t look like a dog, it would look like a pig, because it would take after its mother.’ She tried to laugh, but she didn’t quite pull it off, and he felt capable of violence towards the people who were deliberately setting out to hurt Amy.

‘There are some awful people out there, but I promise you that?—’

She cut him off before he could finish, pulling away. ‘I knew this would happen and that people would say I wasn’t good enough for you.’

‘It’s the other way around, you’re far too good for me.’ He pulled her closer again, relieved when she didn’t resist. ‘Don’t let anyone take this second chance away from us. Please, Ames.’

‘I won’t.’ She nodded, but he could see the doubt those comments had put in her eyes. She’d admitted it was other people who’d made her question whether things could work out between them the first time around, so-called friends who’d suggested that when his career took off he’d inevitably outgrow her. It meant they’d never had the chance to find out for themselves. Amy had seemed far more assured when they’d reconnected, and he’d assumed it was the desire to protect the life she’d built for herself that had made her set parameters on their relationship. But he’d seen the signs that her self-doubt was still there and he knew from experience just how damaging online comments could be to someone’s self-worth. He couldn’t bear the thought of this coming between them.

Kissing her gently, Lijah wished she didn’t have to try and grow a skin thick enough to deal with all the hatred out here. He’d had years of that, and it still had the power to drive him to the edge at times. Whatever Amy might believe, he wanted to protect her from every kind of hurt. Yet, because of him, she was being exposed to a vicious onslaught. Part of him knew it would be kinder to walk away, but he couldn’t do that, because he was already struggling to imagine his life without her and he didn’t even want to try.

* * *

‘Can you tell me again exactly where the pain is?’ Amy was spending the shift triaging patients and she was almost certain the man in front of her was trying to pull a fast one. She had enough experience to recognise the signs when she saw them. The man didn’t wince, until she directly questioned him about the source of his pain, and when he did react it was with clinical regularity.One, two, three, wince. One, two, three, wince. His description of his pain had been textbook too, almost as if he was reading it out, which was why she’d asked him to repeat it.

‘It started just below my belly button and then radiated out until it was concentrated on the right-hand side of my abdomen.’

‘It sounds like it could be appendicitis.’ Amy made some notes on the computer, turning back in time to see the man, whose name was Tom, trying to take a surreptitious photograph with his phone. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Just a hospital selfie, you know, for Instagram.’

Amy’s scalp prickled. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to get out and stop wasting hospital resources, but she could just imagine how that would be reported. So, she breathed out slowly instead. ‘I’ll go and speak to one of the doctors. They’ll need to do some test to establish whether it’s appendicitis.’

‘What kind of tests?’ For the first time, Tom’s over-confidence seemed to desert him, and the corners of Amy’s mouth twitched, something Meg had said recently inspiring her.

‘A rectal examination is the best way, but you’ll probably need an enema first.’ It was an outright lie, one she could get into serious trouble for, but it was worth it for the look of sheer horror on his face. ‘I won’t be long.’

Amy almost laughed as she left the room and she had a funny feeling that, by the time she came back, Tom would have made a miraculous recovery. As it turned out, he’d disappeared altogether, and she was more certain than ever that he’d either been a journalist, or a member of the public hoping to make a bit of money by selling a story. The thought of being photographed at work made her feel sick. She was just trying to do her job in a service that could ill afford time wasters, and the idea of having her face splashed all over the papers horrified her. She didn’t want to believe anyone could sink low enough to make up an illness, but she knew they could and she hated the fact it might make her doubt a genuine patient, in future.

‘Tough shift?’ Isla asked when they had the chance to catch up properly in the staff room, just before Amy was about to head home.

‘I had a journalist in, pretending to have appendicitis and trying to take photos of me.’ Amy frowned. ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’

‘Don’t let them take this away from you Ames.’ Isla lowered her voice to almost a whisper as Eden came into the staff room. ‘It’s obvious how you feel about Lijah.’

‘You don’t have to whisper. Eden knows about me and Lijah. Everyone does.’

‘I think it’s great.’ Eden smiled. ‘But then I always was a sucker for a good love story, and you can’t beat one about childhood sweethearts who get back together.’

‘It’s probably the reason why the press are so interested. It’s a really nice feel-good story and we all need more of those these days.’ Isla was beaming and Amy envied her naivety, but then her friend probably hadn’t looked at the comments on the articles about her and Lijah. There was nothing feel-good about those.

‘They’re interested because no one can believe someone like him would go for someone like me.’

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