“Thank you, Val. I’ve just finished a bugger of a case. I’m gasping.”
I smiled and nodded at the right moments as he summarised his op on some poor woman’s throat cancer. Our paths didn’t cross that often in theatre, but I’d always warmed to him. With his stooped posture and benevolent attitude, Alistair always reminded me of a country vicar. It struck me as funny, how you could spend years working in the same environment as someone else and hardly know them at all. I didn’t even know if he was married or had children.
“Your friend missed his outpatient follow-up appointment,” he remarked after he’d drunk most of his tea. “Is he all right?”
God knows.I hoped so.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” I replied, trying to ignore the sudden sweatiness of my palms. “He’s not the most reliable.”
Understatement of the year.
“Can you have a word with him, Val? See if you could persuade him along to the next one? I’d really like to take some post-op X-rays to check the metal plates haven’t moved. And to check the alignment of his bite now the swelling should have resolved.”
I seized the opportunity, the pulse in my neck pounding, and prayed it would work.
“I’ll do my best. Do…do you have the details of his next appointment?”
Alistair shook his head, and my heart sank. “Not with me, no.”
He flipped open his laptop lid and once more began that painful typing. “But I’ll email my secretary now, and ask her to forward them to you—is sending them to your hospital email address okay? Then he’ll have no excuse not to turn up.”
I’d waited for Matt for over twenty-five years, so one more afternoon shouldn’t have felt as endless as it did. Either Alistair’s secretary indulged in long, leisurely lunchbreaks, or his communication with her had been lost amongst the ridiculous number of round-robin emails circulating daily throughout the hospital interweb. I didn’t care one jot that the windows were being cleaned outside the maternity offices at four o’clock this afternoon, nor that the WRVS sweet shop had a half-price sale on Murray Mints. But someone in an office somewhere believed I should.
At two minutes to five, when her email pinged into my inbox, I’d almost begun to give up. With a fluttering heart, I clicked it open. Hallelujah. A sigh of relief whooshed out of me. Instead of opening the appointment letter and scanning it for the date and time before penning me a polite email, she’d done exactly as I’d prayed an overworked medical secretary would do; she’d forwarded it to me in its entirety. And there, printed in black and white in the top left-hand corner, under his name, date of birth, and hospital ID number, I learned Matt Leeson’s address.
STANDING HERE
(THE STONE ROSES)
On the drive over, I wondered how many years we’d lived obliviously in such proximity to one another. Bournemouth wasn’t a large town; I estimated the year-round population at a couple of hundred thousand, swelling during the summer months. As the satnav led me farther from well-heeled coastal areas and towards unfamiliar, built-up suburbs I realised that, like at school, Matt and I had possibly been moving in different social circles. Our chances of stumbling across each other in a smart Sandbanks restaurant or wine bar were virtually nil. Which said more about me and my blinkered, comfortable existence than I felt masochistic enough to unpick.
My first impression, as I manoeuvred the Audi down a potholed drive, was that it seemed an odd location for a holiday park. Certainly not in walking distance of Bournemouth’s fine sandy beaches. And then I realised, with a jolt, that the rows of plain white caravans sandwiched between a dual carriageway and an industrial estate weren’t temporary holiday accommodations at all, but permanent homes. Which made me a first-class chump, because while I’d seen plenty of trailer parks in American movies, until this moment I hadn’t appreciated they existed in the UK, let alone in my own small town.
Matt’s hospital appointment letter had stated number fifty-four. Which, in the fading light of early evening, was identical to the rest. A couple of residents had a few plant pots boasting splashes of colour around the doorsteps, but number fifty-four remained unadorned. The curtains were partially drawn, and as I parked alongside, I began to wonder whether I was committing a dreadful mistake. After all, he’d vanished while I slept; if he’d wanted me to know his whereabouts, he’d have left a note. I’d convinced myself on the drive over that checking up on his health fulfilled a professional duty. If he told me to piss off, then at least I’d have my answer.
He opened the door while I was still summoning the courage to knock on it.
“You might want to lock that,” he suggested by way of greeting, jerking his head towards the Audi.
For a long moment we stared at each other. If discovering him on the operating table had sparked a lightning bolt to my soul, then standing face-to-face now, triggered a meteor shower. He was…oh, God. I stared at him in disbelief. I clasped a hand over my mouth.
“What?” He pretended to glance up and down the track. “Why are you looking at me like that. Were you expecting someone else?”
I shook my head, unable to speak, and carried on staring unable to tear my gaze away.
Forty-two-year-old Matt Leeson, newly recovered from his beating, was nothing short of stunning.
He was thin, of course, too thin for his own good. His tatty blue Levi’s hung from his narrow hips as if he were still a teenager. Paired with a faded Bowie T-shirt, his outfit was both infuriatingly and effortlessly cool. Cooler than anybody our age had a right, and he was still blessed with the type of cheekbones women raved about. The rest of his pale face was an age-defying mix of hard angles and dark shadows. Two silky black curtains flopped across his forehead. Two infernal dark eyes regarded me, amused.
“You’re not disappearing again.”
Not how I’d meant to open our conversation at all. I’d intended to be calm and dispassionate. Enquire after his health. Apologise for tracking him down, when he might not have wanted to be found, then volunteer to drive him to his outpatient appointment. But now, seeing him in the flesh and recovered, I wanted to throw something at him, shake him until his teeth rattled, and then dive on him and kiss him into oblivion.
“So it would seem.”
I expected the caravan to feel less roomy than it did. Homely touches suggested it was not a temporary stop-off, such as a couple of arty black and white framed landscapes, a stack of well-thumbedTimemagazines, books, and the way the breakfast table had been turned into a desk.
“How long have you lived here?”