Page 2 of Far from Home
He shook his head. ‘No, after they sent you to this ward last night, they told me to go home and get some rest. I’m okay.’ As usual he looked impeccable, without a hair out of place, and his crisp white shirt – which she had ironed – didn’t have a single crease in it.
‘Have you any idea how long they’re going to keep me in?’
‘The nurse outside told me they won’t know until the specialist does his rounds later on this morning.’ He glanced at his watch and stood up. ‘To be honest, she said I wasn’t supposed to come in here, but I turned on the charm.’I bet you did, Amy thought to herself. ‘She said just two minutes, so I’d better disappear before she gets into trouble.’
Amy caught hold of his hand and gave it a squeeze, impressed that he had made the effort. ‘Thanks, Gav. I’m sorry you’ve had all this bother. Will you call Scott and tell him what’s happened? Tell him I’m sorry and I hope to be in on Monday morning.’
He bent down towards her and wagged his finger at her. ‘You’ll go back to work when the medics say it’s okay for you to go back to work and not before. Got that?’
‘Yes, sir.’ She gave him another smile. ‘And thanks again.’
He kissed her on the cheek and left. She lay back against the pillows, reflecting that this was the most attentive he’d been for months.
The day passed unexpectedly quickly – mainly because she spent a lot of it sleeping. The highlight was the appearance of the specialist accompanied by a cohort of junior doctors. Amy had been expecting this to be an august older gentleman in a pinstripe suit, collar and tie – probably as a result of watching too many movies with Gavin – but this turned out to be a tall, good-looking woman only a few years older than Amy, and she was wearing red scrubs. She announced to Amy and to her coterie of junior doctors that she believed the collapse had been due to nervous exhaustion, but that there was still the possibility that it might have been what she called a ‘heart event’, and she wanted to keep her in for another night while they did a series of tests. Amy thanked her and all of the staff around her for their care.
In the course of the day she had her blood pressure checked over and over again, more blood taken for analysis through a cannula taped to the back of her hand, another ECG, an X-ray and a CT scan. From what she could glean from the junior doctor who popped in to see her on a number of occasions, the results were looking ‘promising’ and he predicted the specialist would discharge her next morning. This news heartened Amy and she even managed to eat some of the chicken pie and mash at lunchtime followed by orange jelly – something she hadn’t had since she was a little girl, and after eating it she felt pretty sure it would be another thirty years before she would feel like trying another. She was just finishing her meal when she received a visitor. It was Lucy, her best friend from work, and she came in looking far more worried than Gavin had been. In her hands was a packet of grapes from the Waitrose shop near the office.
‘Amy, look at you!’ She sounded genuinely concerned. ‘What have I been telling you for the last God knows how many years? You need to start looking after yourself.’
Amy looked up and smiled. ‘Hi, Luce, thanks for coming. There was no need.’
Lucy set down the grapes on the bedside table and pulled up a chair. ‘There was every need.’
‘How’re things at work?’
‘Forget work. It’s like I’ve been telling you: you’ll work yourself into an early grave if you go on like this.’
‘You sound like my mum.’ Thought of her mother wiped the smile off Amy’s face. Of course her mum was never going to be able to tell her anything ever again.
‘And she was right. Is it true you had a heart attack?’
Amy shook her head and related what the specialist had said, but Lucy wasn’t convinced. ‘You’ve got to take it easy. Your health’s far more important than work.’
Gradually Amy managed to wean her off the subject of health, but Lucy steadfastly refused to talk about work. In fairness, she worked two floors below in Insurance and probably didn’t know much about the foreign exchange side of things anyway. Instead, she recounted how things had gone with her latest conquest – the most recent in a seemingly never-ending stream of paramours. Amy never ceased to be amazed at her friend’s voracious appetite for men. By the time Lucy mercifully changed the subject, Amy was feeling slightly dazed at the degree of anatomical detail Lucy had shared with her. Certainly the two of them, although best friends, were very different in that respect.
Needless to say, Lucy then queried yet again when Amy and Gavin might be going to formally move in together and Amy’s answer to that one remained the same as ever – not yet. Their conversation then changed to the weather and politics, and Lucy’s latest attempt to lose weight – which she didn’t need to lose – by joining a gym. Her parting words were a further exhortation to take it easy. Easier said than done.
Amy spent much of the afternoon dozing and by the time Gavin reappeared at half past five she was feeling much more like her normal self. This didn’t go unnoticed by him.
‘You look a whole lot better than you did earlier. My nurse friend tells me she reckons you’ll be out of here in the morning.’
She held out her hands to him and he bent down to give her a kiss, somewhat hampered by the apparatus alongside the bed. ‘I can’t stay long. I have to take a couple of Taiwanese gentlemen out for dinner a bit later on and I’m just on my way home to change.’ To reinforce the message that this was only a flying visit, he shot an ostentatious look at his watch and didn’t take a seat. She wasn’t surprised and her first question probably didn’t come as a surprise to him either. They both knew each other so well after more than a year of going out together.
‘Did you speak to Scott? What did he say?’
‘Yes, I called in this morning on my way to the office.’ Gavin’s firm was in the next high-rise block to hers. ‘He was very sympathetic and he told me to tell you to take all the time you need.’
‘And the South African deal? No complications?’
‘He thought you’d ask that, and he says to tell you it’s all fine.’ He reached down to his Louis Vuitton briefcase – her present to him last Christmas – and brought out a long envelope. ‘By the way, I popped round to your place on the way here and I found this.’
She took it from him and recognised it immediately as being from the firm of solicitors who had been handling her mother’s affairs. Even though her mum’s death had been almost three months ago now, Amy felt tears springing to the corners of her eyes as it awoke so many memories. She slit the envelope open and pulled out a letter along with another, slightly smaller, envelope. The letter was from Diana Carstairs, the solicitor dealing with her mother’s estate, and it was brief and to the point.
Dear Amy
I hope this finds you well. This envelope has been forwarded to us by the agents handling the sale of your mother’s house. They found it on the mat and thought it looked important.
Yours sincerely
