The Nurse by J. Corrigan (list of ebook readers txt) 📕

and I hope it’s soon, I’ll take you to the new restaurant that’s opened in Nottingham city centre. Lunch on me. That’s why I called.’

‘Scandal, you mean? Ooh, I’d love to go there. It’s got a Michelin star.’

‘How about next Wednesday?’

‘Won’t they be booked up already? I hear they get jammed. It’s expensive too.’

‘It’s no problem.’ His mate from long-ago university days knows the chef. ‘I’ll pick you up at midday.’

‘Do you already have a deal for your book, Theo?’

Marion is most definitely on it today. ‘I do.’

He doesn’t. Not yet. But he will. He has to. He’s three months behind with the mortgage payments on his flat; the fourth will see the bank foreclosing. He was desperate to find somewhere to live after his divorce from Sophie, and wasn’t functioning properly when he bought the overpriced property. Sophie told him to wait, not make a snap decision, but he ignored her and bought it anyway. Then she offered to give him back some of the settlement, which he refused. He wanted her to have all the money. It was as if, by doing this, it absolved him a little in some way. He would always feel crushing guilt about Elliot’s death.

‘See you on Wednesday then,’ Marion says, breaking into his thoughts.

‘Looking forward to it, and sorry to have bothered you again.’ He disconnects.

How can Sam, a self-employed lorry driver (Rose told him he never did make it into the army), afford a villa in Majorca? The question taps at him until his thoughts return to the jigsaw of Rose herself. He cracks open the can of Fanta he bought in the service station, trying to clear his mind of her face.

It will take more than a fizzy drink to achieve this aim.

19

Rose

Theo has left and I’m walking to the meeting point where we’ve been instructed to gather in the event of a fire. I think as I walk. I wonder how Theo’s chats with my mum are really going, because I suspect he’s not telling me everything, although that’s probably because he thinks I won’t want to hear everything.

I’m divulging my past to him and so he’s gaining an insight into the me I once was. He sees beyond what is in front of him; I believe it’s a gift he has. But I sense he’s having problems with my story. As with the judge at my hearing, he knows there’s something I’m holding back, and my mind travels to the place I try to avoid. I was twenty-two, holed up with books and studies, looking after my mum and Sam. Daniel was the manager of a private hospital affiliated with the city’s NHS hospital. I try not to clutch at the scenes of us making love, but I do. Snatches.

I was so stupid. What did Ed call me? Unseeing.

The day in the unit scatters through my mind. How I felt touching Abe’s skin; how I felt afterwards. I shake my head, attempting to get rid of the unsettling feeling that began on that day and was reignited by Bella’s visit.

My session today with Theo was too short, and I’m sad about this because I do really like him. His visits are a relief after Miles’s, which are full of empty silences and things unsaid. But still he comes, every week without fail. And every week he asks me if I’ve made an appointment to see the prison doctor. Please change your mind, Rose. Miles and I are connected by much more than our wedding vows.

Finally I arrive at my destination, and together with around sixty other women I wait for instructions on what to do in the event of a prison fire. It’s a bit chaotic, and no one seems to know what’s happening, but then the fire drill is cancelled and we’re instructed to return to our cells.

All I can think is that Theo could have stayed longer. One of the prisoners from the cell next to mine makes a joke about it being April the first. I don’t think the director possesses that level of humour, or that degree of unorthodoxy.

An officer opens my door and I step into the room. I glance at the calendar pinned to the wall and realise that in fact it’s 2 April. Time is an odd thing in prison. Moments later I hear him turning the key. I fall onto my bed, my mind going through the story I’ve just recounted to Theo. I noticed how intently he listened when I got to Ed Madden and me in Daniel’s hallway. He really is taking everything in.

I inhale deeply. I know that often I am not calm and that my temper can get the better of me. With this self-awareness an unwanted flashback to the high dependency unit burns inside my brain again. I tried to stay calm, but his mother’s words were too much, her utter lack of compassion breath-taking.

He looked so peaceful.

I flip over onto my stomach and push my head into the pillow, as if I’m trying to suffocate myself.

Going to Daniel’s house was the beginning of the end for me, although that end had begun in the house I shared with Tom and Casey, in my tiny bedroom, with Albert Einstein looking on.

20

Theo

6 April 2016

Naked and facing the bathroom mirror, Theo admires the return of some abdominal definition. Not bad for forty-four. Not bad at all, although since starting this new project, his exercise regime has come to a dead halt, not helped by the fact that he’s had to let his health club subscription lapse.

His mind has been on Marion all morning, trying to formulate the best approach with her, but it’s also on Rose and the last part of her story. An image of her and Daniel Deane making love is one he’d rather not linger on for too long. Obviously she didn’t go into detail about her first intimate association with Daniel, but he felt her passion, obsession even. Rose is a