OK - so here we have chapter 6 (if my counting is up to scratch!)
I think we have perhaps 2 more chapters to go - this is a bit of a gloomy one, here's hoping it'll get better soon!
Keep on reviewing - it's great to hear what you think!
"Well I don't think you should trust him – you're telling me that he's going to leave his wife for you? Hold still now Mr Beaching – we've just got to stich it up and then you can go."
"I know how it sounds Ethyl – but it's not like that. He's just going to divorce her … for me. Mr Beaching – if you don't hold still I can't stich this! Jesus is that worse?"
"I'm not sure …"
"I think it sounds more promising- at least you're not the other woman!"
"Thanks Gwen – always the optimist."
"Optimism only gets you so far Anna, you can't listen to Gwen all the bloody time, Jesus Mr Beaching – have you had this looked at? It looks septic … I think you need to call him, you haven't seen him in 6 weeks, he hasn't called you since you got back from Dublin. So call him, get a … progress report. Mr Beaching I'm going to have to get a doctor to look at this … just to be sure – and hold still or the nurse can't stich up neatly."
"How did you do this again Mr Beaching? …. Well what were you doing sticking it in a tin of beans? Oh I see – It wasn't a tin of beans – it was a tin of all day breakfast – well that makes sense! Here Gwen – did you hear about our Daisy – and William – as in our Dr Mason?"
"No - no-one tells me nothing you know! Go on."
"Well it looks like their completely un secret, secret relationship is well and truly out of the bag – all over each other at that med school ball that Williams been bleating on about for 6 months."
"How do you know?"
"Well – you know Kerri-Anne in Maternity, the one with the lazy eye? Yeah, well her husband's brother is a van driver for a catering company, and his step daughter does waitressing for the company and she was there – she saw the whole thing and when she got home, she told her step dad, who told his brother who told Kerri-Anne in maternity – who told me."
"Why? I mean why did they all care?"
"Because he was flirting with some blond girl with a dress down to here and a skirt up to here, and so when Daisy had finally had enough and knocked over said blond girl – she fell into an ice sculpture of a man getting a prostate exam."
"Why would you have that as an ice sculpture?"
"Medical school humour I suppose …"
Anna deposited he bag with a sigh on her floor beside the front door, she sighed and inhaling could immediately smell the burning tang of cigarette smoke. Stepping into the living room she could see John, sat in the dim light coming in through the window, waning light now that it was 4 o'clock.
"I'm sorry, I had to use your spare key, you should get a new hiding place, not terribly original – blu tacked to the top of the door frame."
"What's wrong John – you're smoking – that means there's something wrong." He laughed, a hollow laugh, he seemed to Anna to be smaller in his coat, he was greyer – and Anna could see the fight had gone out of him. "Oh yes I'm smoking again – it's my second packet today – that equals a pretty bloody shit day in anyone's book."
"John – what is it?"
"It's my wife – she's found out about you, and she's threatening to destroy you. She's all set up to get you removed from the nursing register, she will get you blacklisted and struck off – you will never work again. Unless I go back to her – unless I go back to her with my wages and savings and my house and I return to being her husband."
"But I don't care – not about my job – John I love you – I'm sorry but I do, and you don't want this – not really do you?" She grabbed his elbow, willing him to hold her back, but she could see that he wouldn't, he didn't meet her eyes, looking over her head. Seeing tears in his eyes she started to cry, to feel as she did about John Bates, and then have him pull away from her broke her heart. She tried to force him to look at her, a hand on his cheek. But still he pulled away, carefully pushing her back away from him. And he left, full of hope though she had been an hour before, Anna felt everything inside her deflate, as though John Bates had punctured her. Tears welling up she collapsed on the sofa, onto her side, exhausted and broken hearted.
John walked down the street, it was a warm May day but that was no reason for him to be out walking the streets. Even more, it was no reason for him to be walking towards the hospital. He stopped, leaning against a bollard and lighting a cigarette, he could see the entrance to the A&E department. Even from 20 feet away he knew every notch in the peeling metal support struts, every pitted greying cigarette burn in the hospitals sign. He had even begun to recognise the regulars who seemed to come to the hospital every day, little old ladies desperate for the company and warmth, drug addicts hoping to scam some morphine. Among these people who skirted the outsides of society he sometimes, just sometimes, saw her. Standing outside, drinking her cup of tea, seeing of a patient or making her way home on her bicycle. Every time he saw he would remember how she looked curled up in bed with him, or how it felt with his arms around her – and although he tried no to he would remember how she cried when he told her he had to leave and how she had told him that she loved him. It had been a long time since anyone had told him that – and even longer since he had felt the same to someone else. It broke his heart every-time he saw her, but still he came to look at her, to watch her.
Life with Vera was miserable, worse than he remembered from all those years ago. She was always a cruel woman, but in the intervening years she had become worse, a kind of dark malevolence seemed to have descend over her. He saw the bitterness in her eyes and he hated her, hated everything about her. She was like a cruel puppet master, she was enjoying having a husband again, enjoying having a husband with a good salary and enjoying spending his savings. And she, with her connections and powers of persuasion, was ready to do whatever she could to keep her man, and to keep him away from Anna. "This has to end …" he thought aloud, he saw her now, Anna stood just outside the doorway, a mug of tea clasped in her hands. Her blue tunic moving in the wind, he hair pulled back into a ponytail, she was watching the steam come out of her mug and then suddenly, as if he had fired a starling pistol she jerked her head up, and saw him, her eyes locked into his from across the car park. He saw her straighten up, and make a start towards him, and while every part of him wanted to do the same, to move towards her, but instead he stubbed out his cigarette with the toe of his boot on the Tarmac and turned away walking back up the street the way he had come, willing himself not to turn around and look at her even though he could feel her watching him from behind.