Emergency: Wife Lost and Found (3 page)

James knew that he should nod, shake his hand, take his exit cue and just leave, except he couldn’t.

‘Of course I sat with her.’

‘James!’ How did one smile and shoot venom at the same time, but Minister McClelland had it down to a fine art. ‘It was very kind of you to take time out of your schedule—’

‘What do you mean “ take time”?’ James interrupted. ‘She was my wife.’

“Now your ex-wife,’ Minister McClelland neatly pointed out. ‘She left you, remember?’ He wasn’t smiling now, just dripping false compassion. ‘Lorna divorced you more than ten years ago. As I said, Betty and I have drawn a lot of comfort knowing that someone who used to be close to our daughter could sit with her till we arrived. But we’re here now—and we’d like you to leave.’

‘Lorna would want—’

‘I know what my daughter would want, James.’ Minister McClelland broke in. ‘You haven’t seen her in years. She’s a very different woman to the one you took advantage of then—and, I can assure you, the woman Lorna is now would not want you sitting by her bedside. Now, you’ve caused my family enough pain in the past, you’ll forgive me if I don’t invite it in again.’

He headed to his daughter’s bedside and James stood there, knowing he had to leave, but loath to.

‘Come on, James.’ It was close to midnight, but that wasn’t why May was in a hurry, she just wanted James away from the toxic atmosphere the minister had created. ‘You’ve seen her, you’ve spoken to her.’ And with that he had to be content.

‘Thanks for all you did,’ James said to Angela, and took a long, last, lingering look at Lorna. ‘Will you call me if there is any change? I’ll be staying at the hospital.’

‘Her family have asked that only they be given information as to her condition.’

Bastard.
The word hissed in his head.

‘There’s a lot of press interest and things—they’ve made their wishes very clear.’

Oh, they’d always made their wishes very clear. He could see them all praying around her now and wondered what Lorna would want him to do, only he truly didn’t know. Out of control and hating it, he asserted himself as best he could. ‘Well, I’m not asking as the press and I’m not asking as her ex-husband. I am the emergency consultant—and she did come through my department. I have every right to be informed if our
prolonged resuscitation was successful. Page me when there’s any change either way.’

‘Certainly, Dr. Morrell.’

‘Mr Morrell,’ James corrected, and then he gave her a small smile. ‘Again, thanks for your help.’

ICU
DID
keep James informed of Lorna’s progress.

Despite Ellie’s protests that she was hardly seeing him, he moved into the on-call room and divided his time between work, of which there was plenty, and staring at the ceiling, or dozing on the small single bed, jerking into consciousness whenever his phone bleeped.

Sixty hours later, after two failed attempts, she was successfully extubated and twenty-four hours after that on the Tuesday morning she was transferred from ICU to a medical ward. This was all extremely encouraging, except Lorna’s consciousness levels were variable and at best she was disorientated and confused, at worst she didn’t know her own name.

May never said a word to anyone, but the hospital world was a small one and word soon spread that the dashing but elusive Mr Morrell’s ex-wife was a patient and that he was
devastated
apparently—absolutely
devastated.

Which he wasn’t. Apart from the shock of seeing her and the hellish hours waiting to see whether she lived or died, apart from that one breakdown when
he’d held her again after all those years, James was doing fine.

‘I’m fine,’ he said in answer to everyone who enquired.

‘I’m fine,’ he said to Ellie when she asked why he hadn’t called, and why he wouldn’t talk to her about it. He was just busy, that was all.

‘Look, really I’m fine,’ he said to Abby, when she said she
knew
what he was going through and when it hit him, as it surely would, she was there if he needed to talk.

‘Fine,’ he said to Minister McClelland when a week after the accident Lorna’s father came to speak with James, who was going through the medial roster and having an impromptu meeting with May at the nursing station about the increasing pressure the shortage of doctors was creating for the staff.

Naturally, May stood to excuse herself and James asked if she’d mind waiting for the whole sixty seconds that this would take.

‘We’d like to thank you and your team.’ The minister shook James’s hand and for James it was as if he was touching a snake. ‘Betty and I are leaving for Scotland today, now that we know Lorna’s on the mend. We have the major fundraiser for the church this weekend and I want to thank my congregation properly for all their prayers and, of course…’ he cocked his head to the side just as he always did when he tried to inject a little humour into his preaching ‘…I’d like to properly thank the man himself.’

Did he think he was the only one who had prayed for her? James had been on his knees that night, had
prayed like he never had in his life—not, James realised, that his prayers counted for much in the minister’s eyes.

‘Have a safe trip.’ James said, then picked up his pen to resume working. He had nothing to say to the man—well, that wasn’t strictly true, he had
plenty
that he could say, but he refused to go there.

‘There is one other thing.’ James gritted his teeth as Minister McClelland put on his serious expression and James knew what was coming next. Strange how the Scottish lilt he had found so endearing in Lorna grated when it came from her father. ‘As I’m sure you will understand, Lorna’s feeling extremely uncomfortable.’

‘Well.’ James deliberately didn’t get the point. ‘It’s early days yet, but if her pain control is proving a problem, I can have a word.’

‘Not about that,’ Minister McClelland snapped as James suppressed a smile. ‘She’s extremely uncomfortable knowing that she’s in the same hospital as you.’

‘Really?’ James raised his eyebrows, but inside he rallied a touch. She must have improved considerably since he’d spoken to the ward if she knew that she was in the same hospital he worked in. Till a couple of days ago she had been having trouble with her own name.

‘Lorna’s quite clear on the matter—she doesn’t want you coming to see her.’

‘I haven’t
been
to see her.’ James pointed out.

‘Yes, but now that we are going back to Scotland, we want to make sure that that continues.’ Now you’re not guarding her bed James wanted to say, but didn’t. ‘It took a long time for Lorna to get over things,’ Minister McClelland explained. ‘A long time, but now she’s got
her life together, she’s seeing a nice young fellow, he’s a doctor actually, he’s working in Kenya at the moment.’

‘Good for Lorna!’

‘You staying away is what’s good for Lorna.’ He stood up and offered his hand, but James refused to take it. There was no need for feigned politeness now, no need for anything really—the McClellands were all a part of his past. As the minister went to go, he spelt it out one final time. ‘What I’m saying, James, is that if you do have Lorna’s interests at heart, it would be better if you stay away. You are not to go near my daughter.’

‘Fine.’ For maybe the fiftieth time that morning, James said it. He was speaking to the minister’s back as he walked out.

‘He’s a charmer!’ May didn’t even pretend that she hadn’t heard anything this time.

‘He always was!” James attempted a shrug, but his shoulders were so rigid with tension that they barely moved. ‘Funny how nothing changes.’

‘Are you going to go and see her,’ May pushed, ‘now that her parents are gone?’

‘No.’ He’d made up his mind and Minister McClelland had neatly affirmed it. ‘There’s no point raking up the past.’

‘Oh, I think it’s already been well and truly tilled and turned. Let’s have a coffee, James.’ May wasn’t asking him, she was telling him. ‘In your office!’

‘Just leave it, May.’ He
had
gone to his office, because
this
he certainly wasn’t going to do on the shop floor—his personal life had already provided enough entertainment for the entire hospital these past days. From professor to porter, everyone seemed to be
offering sympathetic smiles, or stopped talking when he walked in, and James didn’t like it one bit. He certainly wasn’t going to go up to the ward just to add to the drama of it all. ‘It was over years ago between Lorna and me. You’ve heard what Minister McClelland said—she’s uncomfortable that I’m here and she doesn’t want me to come and see her.’

‘According to her father.’ May said. ‘James, you
were
devastated when she was brought in.’

‘It was a shock.’ James shrugged. ‘She was my wife once—I’m not that callous.’

‘You’re not callous at all! You married her because she was pregnant, I take it.’

He gave a curt nod.

‘And then she lost the baby.’

‘Yep!’ His voice was flip, but there was a muscle pounding in his cheek and finally he relented a touch. ‘Lorna went crazy when she found out she was pregnant—she said her father would be wild, I told her that he’d come round, that once the news sank in, he’d support her.’

‘She didn’t consider an abortion?’

‘Nope.’ James shook his head. ‘Not for a minute. I said I’d support her in any way I could. I went with her to tell her family…May, I have never seen anything like that man’s reaction. The names he called her, called me. He wasn’t worried about Lorna, about her future, he was worried what his congregation would say—what people would think. We were married two weeks later and it still wasn’t enough. We had to keep the pregnancy quiet. He didn’t want people counting on their fingers and working out dates—we moved down to London just to get away.’

‘Oh, James.’ May shook her head at the horror of it all. ‘I know…’

‘No, May, you don’t know.’ James said angrily. ‘You don’t know what he’s like.’

‘Actually, James, I do.’ May stood her ground. ‘I worked for ten years on a gynaecological ward. I didn’t actually like working there, but I’d laid out two beautiful young women’s bodies in my training. Beautiful women, who were too scared to tell their parents they were pregnant. I chose to do the best job I could on that gynae ward for the sake of those young girls. So don’t stand there and tell me I don’t know, because I do.’

And James understood that she did, wished for a moment that he’d spoken to her about it years ago. In those early days when he’d started at the hospital, he’d been so blind with confusion and grief he’d been positive no one would understand—yet he’d been working all the time, next to one woman who perhaps did. ‘At her antenatal we found out the baby was ectopic, she had to go to Theatre straight away. It had already ruptured by the time she got there. I rang her father to tell him, and all he was was relieved. He didn’t say it out loud, but I knew from his voice he was relieved that his congregation wouldn’t be counting backwards on their fingers now when the baby arrived. There would be plenty of time for other babies apparently and he and his wife said the same when they came to see Lorna.’

‘She wanted that one,’ May offered but James shook his head.

‘We both wanted that one,’ he corrected her.

‘I’m sorry.’ May nodded.

‘It was a shock finding out she was pregnant, but we’d dealt with that. We got married and even if it was rushed, even if we were broke and the timing could have been better, we were crazy about each other and looking forward to being parents. When we lost the baby, we lost everything, May. She walked out on the marriage before the first anniversary, headed off back to Scotland and became a GP, refused to even talk to me. It’s taken me years to get over what happened and finally I have. I’ve been seeing Ellie for more than a year now. That’s the longest relationship I’ve had since Lorna and if you think I’m going to jeopardise it by heading up there to go over old times you’re wrong. For a start, it wouldn’t be fair on Ellie.’

‘It’s not fair on Ellie if your heart’s elsewhere,’ May said. ‘Maybe it’s time to find out. Maybe you’ll see Lorna and feel nothing and you can move on properly, because it sounds to me like you haven’t.’

‘Oh, and you’d know, would you?’ James said, annoyed with May for saying out loud what he had been thinking. ‘You’ve been married for forty-two years—’

‘Which makes me an expert!’ May answer tartly. ‘Because you don’t stay married for forty-two years these days without learning a thing or two! Do you want me to go and speak to her?’

‘And say what?’ When May widened her eyes a touch, even James managed a reluctant smile—May was certainly never lost for words and, in her line of work, had handled far more than this little drama without rehearsal. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said, irritated but
curious and just a little bit relieved too that he might hear what Lorna had to say. ‘Go and test the water.’

Lorna remembered virtually nothing of ICU. Just the odd blurry memory of noise and someone asking her to say her name and if she knew where she was and then being wheeled through the hospital.

There had been lots of lights flashing into her eyes and people asking her what her name was and even though she’d known it, she hadn’t known how to say it, her mouth and tongue refusing to obey. She had just wanted them to leave her alone so that she could go back to sleep, because it had hurt to be awake. It felt as if a bus had been parked on her chest and moving her limbs in response to the questions had taken a massive effort and one she hadn’t had the energy for.

‘Come on.’ Someone was pinching her ear. ‘Tell me your name.’

‘Lorna.’

‘And do you know where you are, Lorna?’ It was a very good question and one that had been asked a few times, Lorna hazily recalled.

‘Lorna, answer the nurse!’ Dad was there, which didn’t exactly cheer her up. Here she was in hospital and her dad still managed to make her feel as if she was misbehaving. Oh, yes, that was where she was…

‘Hospital.’ She managed a groggy answer through cracked, swollen lips, peeled her eyes open a fraction as the nurse demanded she do so.

‘That’s right. Now, can you give my hands a squeeze? Come on, nice and tight.’ The nurse was
chatting away. ‘You had an accident, Lorna. Do you remember anything.’ She didn’t remember anything so instead of answering she tried to go back to sleep—she was just sick of the intrusion. Over and over they asked the same thing. ‘You had a car crash and now you’re in North London Regional Hospital.’

‘No.’ She shook her head because
that
was impossible. Little flashes of memory darted in, as if she was trying to recall a dream. She’d had interviews in London, that much made sense, but she definitely hadn’t applied for a job at North London Regional Hospital. Even though they’d advertised positions, she had deliberately avoided the hospital because that was where James was working.

She knew because she had checked.

‘No,’ Lorna said, too exhausted to argue, choosing instead to go back to sleep.

She’d lay in a sort of suspended existence for the next couple of days, not examining why she was here or what was wrong, coming back to the world in stages, accepting now rather than arguing, existing rather than living.

Her mother had gone to the shops and bought her several of the most disgusting pairs of nylon pyjamas, a nylon dressing gown and a pair of old men’s slippers, which hopefully had rubber soles because the static energy she gave off when the nurse for the first time wheeled her to the bathroom and helped her shower and dress could have powered a small nation.

And maybe a day or two later, while dozing, she heard them discussing the expense of staying in London,
how she was clearly going to be here for a while. It had taken a moment to work out that the
she
they were referring to was her.

‘We just left everything and dashed down when we heard what had happened,’ her mother said the next morning as she fed Lorna warm tea through a straw. ‘The neighbours are feeding the pets, I haven’t got any clothes. We don’t want you to think we’re abandoning you. If you give me the key to Grace’s I’ll sort out some clothes and toiletries, it will be nice to have your own things’

‘Thanks.’

‘It’s just we’ve been here a week now.’

‘A week?’ Lorna halted herself then, knew her endless questions just upset her mother and exasperated her father, but
a week?
She felt as if it should be two, maybe four days at the most.

‘You do understand.’ Betty had hugged her gently so as not to hurt her sore chest. ‘Only the doctor says you could be in for a while yet and we struggled to get a minister last Sunday to cover your father…’