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

jumped up. ‘I’d love to see the rest of your house, Daniel.’

‘It’s a work-in-progress. I’ve been renovating it for a year. These things take time. Hopefully I’ll make a good profit when I sell it.’

‘So it’s not a home?’

‘It could be.’ He grabbed hold of my hand. ‘C’mon, let me show you around.’

23

Daniel took me through to the lounge, which was Middle Eastern in its decor, with sideboards and multicoloured lamps. Two lime-green sofas sat facing each other. Huge brightly coloured silk cushions were scattered thoughtfully and – I smiled – a little too symmetrically across both. The walls were covered in oak panelling, and to the side of the room was a set of patio doors painted dark green; red curtains hung on each side, held up by intricately welded iron hooks. It really worked.

I walked towards the doors and looked outside, spotting an outbuilding to the right side of the garden. Daniel told me it was where he indulged in his hobby of carpentry. The doors led to a small terrace, a wooden table sitting in its centre. From there, a twisted set of steps snaked down towards the lawn, which was surrounded by mature flowering shrubs, silver birches and an oak so old its roots were exposed, its branches thick and gnarled like an old man’s fingers.

I thought of the house I shared with Tom and Casey, of damp and rot and things that crawled into your breakfast bowl if you left it in one place long enough. Despite that, our shared digs held security and love. Daniel’s house was beautiful but empty. Daniel was lonely.

He joined me at the doors. ‘C’mon, I’ll carry on with the tour.’

I followed him through the hallway and towards a smaller sitting room, which was filled with books. A rocking chair sat by a set of smaller French doors.

This was where Daniel spent his time. I looked for signs of his life and spotted several images of two kids, a boy and a girl, in a country that I guessed wasn’t the UK. I pointed to the photos. ‘Is that you and your sister?’

‘Yes, in Morocco, visiting.’

I moved closer. ‘You both look happy.’

‘We were. Our childhood was particularly idyllic.’ The tone of his voice wasn’t coordinating with what he was saying, though, and I saw the veil of grief somewhere within his features. He bent over the rocking chair and rearranged a cushion.

‘I’d love to meet her one day,’ I said.

‘And you will, although she doesn’t often move out of the twenty-mile radius of her home.’

‘Do you see a lot of her?’

‘I do, but it’s mainly me who goes over there. She rarely comes here.’

‘Nice brother!’

‘Just the way it is.’

I moved over to the inbuilt bookshelves, which were filled with medical books, novels, biographies, books on every subject imaginable, including quite a few I wouldn’t have envisaged on a bloke’s shelf. Daniel had eclectic taste. I decided I liked that. I liked too that he enjoyed reading.

‘I have a lot more medical books, but I keep most of those in my office at the hospital,’ he said.

Looking at the textbooks brought a sudden anxiety. I had a biochem clinical assessment as well as written exams soon, and didn’t understand half of it. I should have been at home, sitting with Tom on the deflated and tatty sofa, going through it all. I reached up and pulled down a couple of textbooks on biochemistry and clinical reasoning.

‘Is that what you struggle with?’ Daniel asked.

‘As well as other stuff.’

‘I’m guessing you want to be a GP?’

I threw the book onto the sofa in mock disgust. ‘No, I don’t. Why does everyone think every female med student wants to be a GP?’

He grinned. ‘Orthopaedics?’

‘Sublime to ridiculous. Paediatrics.’

‘Noble.’

‘I love kids.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes, I do.’ And then I wondered if there was some psychology thing going down here about finding the mate you knew was going to take care of you. Because that was how it worked. At the primeval level, a woman could sniff out the perfect breeding mate, and it wasn’t always the most faultless physical specimen. It was the one she believed would stay with her to bring up the kids. Not very feminist, I knew that, but I was certain there was a lot to it. On the male side of things, it was a little different. They looked for a mate who showed good health and the potential to bring perfect kids into the world. Okay, we’ve moved on, but deep down that was how we all operated: looking for good gene matches, and the reason why you didn’t fancy your brother or sister; nature’s way of varying the gene pool. I liked to think it was why we were attracted to our polar opposite. I thought about lovely Tom; our kids’d be screwed. If him and Casey got it together, though, it would be a brilliant mixture. But I did want kids one day. A brood of them. With the right man.

Daniel put his arm around my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry about what happened. It was stupid of me.’

‘I don’t want you to be sorry. We dealt with it. I’m as much to blame as you.’

I watched him sitting in the chair, legs crossed, and my stomach rolled. He attracted me like an industrial-strength magnet.

‘C’mon,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you the bedroom.’

I rolled my eyes.

‘Ah, Rose, I didn’t mean that. It’s where the carpenter’s been doing his thing. Come and have a look.’

‘At your etchings?’

He burst out laughing. ‘Yeah, those too.’

Upstairs, he pushed open his bedroom door and I walked in, my bare feet sinking into carpet of deep pewter grey. A sash bay window at the front of the room faced the door, with a sofa sitting adjacent. To the left, another door, leading into a white-tiled bathroom with towels the same leaden grey as the carpet.

In the centre of the room was Daniel’s bed. The headboard and the foot were made of a deep mahogany wood with intricate carvings.