Chapter 4

Friday 22th September 2017

…

Beth had managed to slip away after speaking to Tom outside of Hanssen's office. No one had stopped her and she hadn't wanted to stay a moment longer. She was sitting at home, sitting on the sofa. The T.V. was blaring but she wasn't listening to it. She had too many thoughts swirling through her head. Even though she had successfully quelled her guilty thoughts earlier, now they were coming back with a vengeance. She knew she shouldn't have betrayed him how she had but she had had to. It was either that or get severely reprimanded or even lose her job. She couldn't let that happen so she had done what she had done.

A loud knock on the door brought her out of her thoughts. She stood up, annoyed at the interruption. It was probably some salesman trying to get her to buy double glazing or something. There had been lots of men like that over the past five or six weeks she'd been living here. She opened the door, and had to bite her tongue.

Tom was standing in the doorway. He had a face like thunder, and he was glaring at her. "Tom." Now she was about to reap what she had sown. She moved aside and he stalked past her and into the sitting room. She stood in the doorway for a while staring out into the empty hallway.

For the first time in her life she was seriously considering if it was all worth it, whether she should just pack it all in. Maybe she would make herself happy for once. She had been happy with Tom – the first time for a long time she had been happy, but now she had messed it up.

She sighed and walked down the corridor to the sitting room. She stopped, suddenly realising that Tom was going to see the picture on her mantelpiece and he was going to connect the dots. She stood in the doorway. Sure enough, Tom seemed transfixed by the picture.

It was a picture of her and Neil, a long time ago. It had been taken by a passer-by when they had been on holiday in Switzerland. They were sitting on a bench on a boat, which was cruising across Lake Thun at the time. Beth had her jumper tied around her waist, and was wearing a strappy, white vest-top, and pale brown coloured three-quarter length trousers. She was wearing sunglasses and a cap that had the Swiss flag on. She still had that hat.

Neil was wearing grey shorts and a light blue polo shirt. He had a sports watch on, and he was wearing sunglasses too. Beth remembered that you had too because of the sun's glare reflected on the water. There was a red rucksack sitting on the bench next to Neil. He had one arm around her back, and she was leaning into his chest, her arms encircling it. They were both smiling broadly. The things that Tom seemed to be staring at where the two rings on her left hand ring finger and the matching one on Neil's.

That had been one of the best days of the two week holiday; they had spent it cruising around the lake and there had been beautiful blue sky and soaring temperatures. She remembered that they had bought ice cream at the Co-op in the town they had been staying in – Interlaken - and they had eaten it back at their tent. She had had strawberry and he had had chocolate.

They had gone camping because they both loved it, and it was much cheaper than staying in a hotel. To cut all unnecessary costs they had driven to Switzerland as well. They hadn't had a lot of money because they both had been still paying off student loans. Neil had driven and Beth had been the map reader. They had stayed a cheap Etap hotel in Besanscon, in France, on the way down and the way back. They had listened to a Michael Connelly audio C-D – The Brass Verdict – and it had been a very relaxed journey, and one they had repeated several times over the next couple of years. It had been nine years ago, and just before she had met Alex for the first time.

She and Neil had been together for a grand total of nine years and they had gotten married after four of them, about six months before the picture on the mantelpiece had been taken, but now there was nothing between them at all: she had made sure of that. But still, like Jac, she kept a picture of the man who had captured her heart.

"You two look happy." Tom stated, quietly. "When was it taken?"

"Nine years ago, and in Switzerland." She said, also quietly. Neither of them wanted to be the one to bring up why Tom had come. "Don't worry; it ended a long time ago." Tom nodded.

"When did you get married?"

"19th January 2008. Six months before that picture was taken."

"When did you get divorced?"

"Four years ago."

After Beth answered, they settled into a silence.

"Why did you tell Hanssen that it was me?" He said, after a while. Beth nearly flinched at his words. He twisted on the sofa, so that he was looking at her.

"I didn't…" She started to try and convince him that she hadn't meant to but the words just petered out after a few seconds. "I'm sorry." She whispered.

"We both know that it was you who caused the bleed, you just froze." His voice was still calm. "I could just go and tell Hanssen, and the anaesthetist will back me up. But I won't, and d'you know why? I like you."

Beth released a breath she didn't know she was holding in. "How long where you together?" Tom asked, after a few seconds had past.

"Nine years." She said, and she saw Tom tilt his head in confusion.

"Whoa, you must've done something bad to make him hate you that bad."

"Something like that." She said, softly, whilst gazing at the picture.

"How long ago did you two spilt up?"

"Four years, I've already told you that."

"And you still have a picture of the guy on your mantelpiece?" Tom asked, genuinely confused as to why she still had the picture up.

"When we spilt up and I moved out of our house – he got to keep it as part of the divorce settlement – I moved into a cheap flat. When I got a new job I moved into another cheap flat, and then I moved here and bought – you guessed it – another cheap flat. And none of them felt like home to me if I didn't have a picture of the guy on my mantelpiece…because we had that picture on our mantelpiece throughout our marriage. I guess I like it." Tom shrugged.

After Beth's revelation about why she still had the picture on her mantelpiece. Tom sighed and looked at her, his eyes sad.

"I think we should just be friends. We're both hurting from our marriage breakdowns."

"Whatever you want, Tom." He nodded and then stood up. He walked towards her and she moved to the side so that he could pass. He got to the door, and turned around.

"See you around, Beth." He flashed her a small smile and then he was gone. She stood, staring at the door for a long while after he had left. Lots of thoughts where running through her head, but she couldn't stop thinking about how happy they had been on that trip to Switzerland and how, now, her former husband hated her.

She brought her hand up to her face and to her surprise she could feel tears. She couldn't stop them running down her face and, not for the first time in her life, she felt helpless.

…

Thursday 28th September 2017

The desk in front of her was full of clutter and she had already spent five minutes searching for a pen. She had found numerous other things, but she still couldn't find a pen. She tried the nurses' station and was looking in Jac and Professor Hope's office as a last resort.

She knelt on the floor, crawling under the desk as she did so. It was dark under the desk and Beth could hardly see anything, so she used her hands to search. Her hand felt a long thin thing and she wrapped her hand around it. She pulled it towards her and smiled when she realised she had found a pen. She slowly backed out from under the desk.

"Hello?" The one word caused Beth to try and stand up, but she wasn't far enough out from under the desk, so she just banged her head on the desk, and ended up sprawled on the carpet. She spent a few seconds regaining her composure and then attempted to stand up. She was slightly wobbly and dizzy on her feet, but apart from that she believed she was fine. She turned to face the woman whose one word had caused the whole embarrassing incident.

The woman was in her mid to late thirties and had bouncy blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She wore quite a lot of makeup but even that couldn't hide the fact that the woman had been crying.

She was wearing a pastel blue dress and light brown sandals, clothing that was definitely not suitable for the weather outside. "Hello, who are you?" She asked the woman.

"Do you know where Tom is?" She asked, and she spoke very quietly.

"Tom Shields?" The woman nodded. "He'll be doing his ward rounds at the moment, but he'll be finished in five minutes." She informed the woman, consulting her watch as she did so. "Who are you?" She asked, again.

"Amy Shields. His wife." She said, as she walked out of the room. When she was gone, Beth raised her eyebrows. So this was Tom's wife, the one who had been sleeping with his best mate. She wondered why the hell she was here.

She walked from the office to the nurses' station, and she cursed – because she had taken so long looking for a pen she had forgotten what she had needed for. She looked out of the window. The weather had taken a turn for the worst in the final days of Beth's first month at Holby. Rain was lashing at the window and the sky was grey and miserable. It had been like this for days and it was dampening her mood.

It was just under a week since Tom had ended their relationship and she was so tired of trying to complete the unachievable task of avoiding Neil completely. It helped that he was trying to avoid her too, but it still wasn't possible to avoid each other all of the time – they were working on the same ward for god's sake.

She decided that she was going to get a cup of coffee from the staffroom. She needed a sit down after hitting her head on the desk. She reached up and was surprised to feel a clump of matted blood and hair. She must have wacked it pretty hard. She winced at the headache it had given her and started towards the staffroom. When she pushed the door open, she saw that Tom was already in there.

He was sitting on a chair and sipping a steaming cup of coffee. "Hi." He said, smiling at her. She smiled back.

"Hi." He was looking at her, with a slight frown on his face. "What?" She said. "Have I got something on my face?" He shook his head.

"It's your head, your bleeding."

"Oh." She reached a hand up and touched the wound on the back of her head, wincing as she did so. "I had an unfortunate incident with a desk. My head hit it." He stood up and walked towards her. He put a hand on her chin and one on the top of her head and tilted in down, so that he had a better look at her injury. He tried to hide it, but she saw him wince.

"That bad, eh." She said, with a teasing note to her voice. He smiled again.

"I'll be back in a sec." He said, walking out of the door. He did as he said. As he entered the room, he was pulling on a pair of rubber gloves, and had a box of cotton wool, a roll of thread and a needle in a packet under his arm. He put the equipment on the table and pulled a chair up to her. "Sit down." He ordered. She did as he asked.

"Do I really need stitches?" She said, after a couple of seconds, when she saw him open the needle packet out of the corner of her eye.

"Uh-Huh." He murmured, through gritted teeth. He was obviously concentrating hard. She sat in silence, trying not to wince or cry out whilst he stitched her wound. "All done." He said, as he pulled off his gloves, and went to stand in front of her. "You've got to be more careful. That was a nasty wound. I'll take the stitches out on Monday." Beth nodded. He pulled a chair up and looked at her, smirking slightly. "How did you manage to get such an impressive wound?"

"I was under the desk in Jac and Professor Hope's office-" He interrupted her.

"Wait – why where you in their office?"

"I was looking for a pen." Tom couldn't stifle a snigger at that, and she playfully pushed him on the chest. Beth didn't know how they had ended up so close, but they faces where nearly touching. She knew what he was going to do before he did it. She didn't stop him, and soon they were kissing.

They door was slammed open, and they sprung apart. Beth looked at the doorway, and closed her eyes, silently cursing. Tom's wife was standing in the doorway, with a hurt expression on her face. "Well, it didn't take you long to move on, now did it, Tommy?" Beth noted that she called him Tommy and not Tom, like everyone else.

"What did you think I would do, become celibate?" A look of hurt flashed across Amy's features.

"No." She admitted. "But I didn't think you would be out on the pull only a few weeks after your marriage had broken down."

"And whose fault was that?" Beth felt like an intruder on their private argument.

"Mine. Okay, I'll admit that I did something wrong, but I'm sorry now, Tommy."

"I don't think sorry will cover this, love." Beth couldn't help be add her own words in to the mix. She never had been very good at keeping her nose out of other people's business.

"And what's it got to do with you?" Amy turned to her now. "You're just his rebound." The words stung, but hurt even more when she realised that there was at least a bit of truth in them. Beth knew she should've kept her words to herself. She was hypocrite for judging this woman like that. She was no better than the woman standing in the doorway. The thought she was currently entertaining made her uncomfortable.

"Amy." He said, quietly. "Can we please do this somewhere else, somewhere more private?"

Amy nodded. "Do you want to come round, tonight?" From the look on Tom's face, he didn't really like the thought.

"With Dominic be there?" Beth guessed that Dominic was the best friend who was sleeping with her.

"Not if you don't want him to be."

"So you're still with him then? Even without the sneaking around?" It was a low blow and they all knew it.

Amy changed the subject. "Are you going to tell me her name, then Tommy?"

"Her name is Beth."

"I guess that if I go to your place, she'll be there?"

"Beth and I are not to together."

"So you're just sleeping with her?" Amy said, incredulously.

"No." He denied. "We were together, but…things happened and our relationship ended."

"So why were you kissing?"

"I-we just got caught up in the moment." The statement sound less than convincing but Amy decided to let it go.

"Are you going to come tonight, or not?" Amy said, suddenly impatient.

"Alright. I'll be there at eight." Tom said, tersely, after a pause of a few seconds. Amy nodded and left. An awkward silence descended on the pair of them.

"So…" Beth said, tentatively. "What happens now?"

"What d'you mean?"

"Don't be thick, Tom." She paused. "What do we do about this?" She said, gesturing around the room. "What just happened, the kissing?"

"Nothing. We just act normal." He said, standing up. She was about to complain but he walked out of the room before she could. His mind was on other things, but her mind was empty. Neil walked past the open door, and she deflated a little. Her mind wasn't empty any longer.

…