She disconnected and Noah stared at the phone, a prickle of uneasiness creeping up his spine as the restaurant came into view. She’d sounded sharp. A bit off.
Why did he get a sudden sense that she didn’t want to discuss anything good?
12
KELI
Keli almost kissed Sima when she barrelled through the doors of the ward just before two o’clock, wailing, ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry. Three fillings and a meltdown. That child will never see another ounce of sugar or a fizzy drink until the end of time. Keli, you’re a star. Thank you so much for covering for me. Tell me everything I need to know, then you can get out of this godforsaken place.’ Sima made no secret of the fact that while she was excellent at her job, twenty years after qualifying as a fresh-faced student, the shine had gone off it. She wasn’t alone. Morale in most hospitals had tanked in recent years, between budget cuts, post-pandemic stress, overcrowding and the never-ending stretch of their job descriptions, it was a different role from the one most of them had signed up for.
Carla, the other charge nurse on duty, was at the desk and stepped in. ‘On you go, Keli, and thanks for covering. Yvie, do you want to take your lunch just now and I’ll bring Sima up to speed?’
‘Good plan. Shall we retire to the staffroom for witty conversation and carbs?’
Keli realised that Yvie was talking to her and nodded, almost robotically. The last two hours, since she’d murmured, ‘I’m going to call her back,’ had been the longest of her life.
She’d thought about doing it right there and then, but her professionalism had kicked in, as had the knowledge that they were already short-staffed on the ward. This wasn’t the time to let her personal life interfere with her work or with patient care. In fact, the chat and the motions of the job had kept her mind focused and helped her hold it together.
She’d almost cracked. Almost. She’d gone into Freda’s room to do her stats, and Emily, the lady in the next bed, had returned from the day room and was trying to switch on the ward TV.
‘One o’clock. Time for the rerun of last night’s episode ofThe Clydeside,’ Emily had told her as she stabbed at the remote control with shaking fingers.
Keli’s anxiety, her stress, her whole whirlpool of emotions had ramped up a hundred per cent. Until just a few weeks ago, she’d watched every episode, but now the heartache, drama and duplicity struck way too close to home.
‘Oh, I love that Odette Devine,’ Freda had announced. ‘I’ll miss her when she goes. She always seems like such a lovely person.’
Vera and Janet in the beds opposite had both nodded.
Emily was still pressing the temperamental remote control with no success. ‘I bloody hate these things. They never work. I’d be quicker papping it out the window and hoping it lands on the right button.’
Keli had taken the remote from her and had summoned every ounce of strength she possessed to keep her voice normal. ‘I’ll sort that out for you, Emily. It’s probably the batteries again. And I’ll take your blood pressure last,’ she’d said kindly, ‘because it’ll be through the roof with all that jabbing.’
‘Aye, my husband used to say the same thing,’ Emily had quipped. ‘He was reluctant to work and unreliable too.’
A gale of laughter had swept through the room and Keli shook her head. ‘What are you like, Emily Montrose? I’ll be reporting your complaints to your Ted when he comes up at visiting time,’ she’d teased.
Emily had eyed her tartly. ‘You go right ahead. He’ll have forgotten by the time visiting ends. That man would forget his hat if his head wasn’t cold.’
Somehow managing to smile, Keli had got the TV on to the right channel, relieved that the programme hadn’t started yet, then attended to the charts of each patient, marking up their vitals.
By the time she’d finished with the ladies, and then repeated the tasks in the other rooms, Sima was charging through the door, Keli was relieved of her duties, and Yvie was steering her into the staffroom. Thankfully, it was empty, because Keli wasn’t sure she could hold herself together for another second.
‘Bugger, it’s felt like a lifetime since that text,’ Yvie groaned, flicking the kettle on. ‘Okay, what do you need me to do? Do you want me to stay with you or leave you on your own to make the call and do the test to establish whether or not you’re up the proverbial duff?’
‘Stay. Please,’ Keli shot back. It wasn’t even up for deliberation.
‘Oh, thank God you said that, because you’d have had to bring in a hostage negotiator to get me to leave. Right, what are we doing first, the test or are you going to phone her back?’
Keli pondered that for a moment, changing her mind a hundred times. There was no good option here. If the test was positive, she’d crumble and be unable to make the call. If she made the call first, the anxiety of knowing that she might be knocked up by another woman’s boyfriend would kill her.
No good option, she thought again, so she was as well just getting to the quickest bad choice first.
‘I’ll call her back. It has to be a mistake. Doesn’t it? A wrong number?’
Even as she was saying it, she could hear how desperate that sounded, especially when her gut was telling her something completely different.
Was there ever a sign that he could have another woman? Other than never letting her stay over at his place, nothing jumped out. At least… nothing that she’d caught on to.
Yvie came over to the table with two cups of tea and opened the biscuit tin. ‘I’ll start the diet again tomorrow.’
