IT HAD been five full days since Matt had seen Beth but he had given up counting, in the sure knowledge that the raw sense of loss wasn’t going to be measured by just days. Months maybe. Years perhaps. At the moment he could see himself still thinking of the life he could have had with her when he reached his last breath.
His week had been busy, the last two days particularly so, as the run-up to Christmas and the cold weather took its toll. He’d got through it, though, and so had his patients. The middle-aged man who had required a coronary angioplasty was responding well, and with the insertion of stents into the collapsing artery he could look forward to a full recovery. It was still early days for the woman who had needed emergency bypass surgery, but he was cautiously optimistic.
His phone sat on his desk and when he thumbed it open he saw the expected message. Returning his mother’s call, his weariness lifted a little as she told him about Jack’s day. Then he sat up straight in his chair, heart pounding. Beth had phoned, saying only that Matt could call her back any time. He passed it off as nothing, a simple message from a friend, and said that he would catch up with her. Then
he went to take a shower and change out of his hospital scrubs.
There wasn’t much point in pretending to himself that he had seriously thought about what he was about to do next, or that an alternative course of action would have been possible. Matt stood on Beth’s doorstep and pressed his finger on the bell, hearing it sound inside the house. He heard a few muffled thumps and then the sound of heels clattering on the bare floorboards of the hallway. The door flew open and he was about to tell her that she should look through the glazed panel before she opened the front door after dark, but she shocked him into silence.
She was dressed in dark-coloured trousers and a jewel-green silky blouse that complemented her colouring. A little lipstick, her hair newly brushed, she was obviously on her way out. But as usual it was her eyes that drew his gaze. Luminous, like pools of silver, beckoning him home.
‘Matt!’ She seemed surprised to see him.
‘I’ve come at a bad time—I’ll catch up with you again.’ He had already half turned to walk back down the front path when she stopped him.
‘No. Don’t go. I was only going to go out for a quick drink with Marcie, and I can cancel. Come in.’
He went to protest, say that she should meet up with Marcie and that he would go home, but he couldn’t. Although she didn’t move, her eyes drew him in, practically dragging him over the threshold. He was tired. He shouldn’t be doing this, he should be going home, getting a good night’s sleep and then coming back in the morning when he was rested. But Matt knew that he couldn’t sleep until he had heard what she had to say.
‘Would you like some coffee?’ She was drawing her phone from her handbag and flipping it open with her thumb.
‘Yeah, that would be great. Thanks.’ He let her motion him into the sitting room and sat down on one of the easy chairs. Not the sofa, that held too many memories. Things that only the determined focus that his work required could drive from his head and which came back to taunt him at every other moment of the day and night. Disappointment, regret and tantalising, heady thoughts of her body under his.
She reappeared with a tray and put the coffee pot and the mugs onto the table. Her phone beeped, and she pulled it out of her pocket and scrutinised it. ‘Good. Marcie hasn’t left yet. We’ll meet up some other time.’
Whatever it was she wanted to say, it had to be important. She had been all dressed up to go out, and now she was sitting on the sofa, rolling up the legs of her trousers to unzip her boots and pull them off.
‘All set for Christmas, then?’ He thought he would set the ball rolling with something innocuous.
‘Just about.’ Her face was unenthusiastic. ‘What about you? Have you got Jack sorted?’
He nodded. ‘I hope so. I took him to the shop you told me about, down by the library, and we both painted mugs for the family. They said they’d have them glazed and ready to pick up at the weekend.’ He shrugged. ‘Mine weren’t very good, but…’
‘They’ll love them!’ Her smile morphed from pasted on to something much nicer.
‘For his present, I was going to get him that toy with the fish that all the kids are mad for this year, and I actually had one in my grasp and then put it down again. I’ve got him a real fish tank instead.’ He turned the edges of his mouth down. ‘I’m still not sure if that was the right thing to do.’
She clapped her hands together, infectious excitement breaking through the guardedness of her manner. ‘I think that’s just perfect. Something that you can both take an interest in and do together. Does he get to choose his own fish?’
‘Oh, yes.’ For a moment, Matt almost forgot what he was here for. ‘If he wants to fill the tank with minnows and tadpoles then that’s up to him. I’ll take him to the shop where I got the tank and show him the fancy tropical fish, but he can have whatever he wants.’
She laughed, and Matt wondered whether that was the last time he would hear that melodic, irresistible sound. Apart from in his head. It was over too soon, and her face darkened. ‘You look tired.’
‘Yeah. That flu virus that’s been going round has knocked us for six. And Christmas is always a busy time for us. Stress, rich food, too much to drink.’ Matt could identify with the stress part. Christmas loomed ahead of him like a steep cliff in an endless range of stony crags.
‘So I hear. Are you still on call?’
Matt shook his head. ‘No, I get the weekend off. I wasn’t expecting it, but someone’s holiday plans fell through and he stepped in.’
‘That was good of him. Means you can spend some time with Jack and get sorted before Monday.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’m not keeping you from seeing him before bedtime, am I?’
‘No, that’s okay. He’s at my parents’ tonight and I’ve already called him. He tells me he’s got a few secret things left to do tomorrow, so I’m picking him up after tea.’
She nodded silently. It seemed that she had run out of things to say, apart from the thing that she had called him around here for.
‘You phoned me.’
She seemed thrown by the shortness of his remark. But he wanted to get this over with and go home to bed. Nothing that she said would have the power to change anything. It was he that needed to change, and if he was unable to, he was damn sure that no one else could do it for him.