Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
LAUREL
‘I’m not going to lie, it’s a vocation as much as a career,’ I said. ‘If you want an easy life, or to earn loads of money, then it’s probably not for you.’
Lulu nodded, looking intently at me across the hospital coffee-shop table.
I could have arranged to meet her somewhere nicer, but I’d figured that if she was serious about becoming a nurse, crap coffee was one of the first things she’d need to get used to.
It was a week since I’d last seen her; I’d waited a couple of days after suggesting to Anna that I contact her.
‘Is it…’ she began, running a finger around the rim of her coffee cup to scrape up the last of the rather scummy froth, ‘I mean, how do you cope, when people die and stuff?’
Her brown eyes were full of sadness. Gray’s eyes. Gray’s death. Gray’s daughter.
‘There isn’t just one answer to that,’ I began carefully.
‘Different people cope in different ways. As your career progresses, you get – not used to it, but I suppose it balances out better against all the patients you’ve been able to help.
It can be traumatic – of course it can. But there’s support for all of us when things start to feel like a lot.
And no matter how much you care about your patients, it’s not the same as when someone you know personally passes away. It’s just not.’
She nodded slowly. I hoped I’d got my answer as right as I could – but her next question took me by surprise.
‘Laurel? How did you know my dad?’
Shit. I wished I’d thought to agree some sort of cover story with Anna, but it would have felt too intrusive to ask her what she was happy for me to say, even though our last meeting had been less acrimonious than previous ones.
I didn’t want to lie to Lulu, but the truth was obviously impossible to tell, so I settled for half of it.
‘We were both into cycling. Your dad helped me out after I had a fall one time, and we got to be friends after that.’
Hopefully, she’d assume that we were members of the same cycling club or something – put two and two together to make five, rather than the correct four. But she didn’t seem to be thinking about me; my words had sparked a memory.
‘Dad was obsessed with cycling.’ She grinned.
‘Barney and I used to take the piss out of him about being a middle-aged man in Lycra. He wanted to buy a new bike – an even fancier one – but Mum said she was introducing a “one in, one out” policy, and it turned out he’d got kind of fond of the old one. ’
I laughed. It was impossible to imagine the Gray I’d known becoming sentimentally attached to a bicycle. His children must have seen a different version of him – a softer one. The one that was their dad.
‘You must miss him terribly,’ I said.
Her face dropped and she nodded. ‘I do. We all do. Even Augustus. Dad used to play this game where he threw treats and Gus chased them, but he won’t do it for any of us.’
‘He was a special man. He sounds like an amazing dad. I’m so sad for you all.’
I longed to ask her more about Gray, gather more fragments of treasure to add to the memories I had of him, even though Lulu’s memories could never be my own.
Instead, though, I turned the conversation back to nursing, offering to send her a list of the universities that offered the most highly regarded BSc degree courses.
But I soon realised she was only half-listening to me. Her eyes had flickered down to her phone, and now she was picking it up, swiping it to life, her face flushing as she read a message.
‘Laurel, I – I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to go.’ I could see her struggling, torn between politeness and the urge to be somewhere else – like, now – which definitely hadn’t been there a moment before.
‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘I reckon we covered a fair bit of ground, didn’t we? You’re welcome to text me any time if you want to know more.’
‘Thanks.’ Lulu was already standing up, shoving her phone into her pocket after glancing surreptitiously at her reflection in its blank screen.
‘Or,’ I added, remembering my promise to Anna, ‘if you just want to chat. I know how hard it must have been, losing your dad.’
‘Thanks,’ she said again, the smile that was so like Gray’s lighting up her face. ‘I really appreciate it. I’ll do that.’
As she hurried away, I found myself hoping that she would.
Although I barely knew her, she was Gray’s child – a part of him that was still alive and present, more tangible and real by far than the idea of that donated kidney, which somewhere – I hoped – was sustaining the life of a man named Joel who I was increasingly losing hope of ever finding.
I hadn’t thought of Orla for several days; she had been kind to me, provided a listening ear when I needed one, but realistically what did she have to offer me other than a few scattered memories from two decades of living near Gray and his family?
I got up from the table, gathered Lulu’s mug and mine on to a tray and took it to the counter. It was almost seven – time to head home.
I was emerging from the stairwell on to the ground floor when I almost collided with Harry. Not unusually for him, he was running late for his shift, had given up on waiting for the lift and was about to make a dash up four floors.
‘Evening,’ I said. ‘You’ve got ninety seconds. You’ll make it if you don’t have a coronary on the way up.’
‘Ha very ha. I certainly don’t have time to stand around chit-chatting with you,’ he joked. ‘I was going to leave this in the office on the ward for you, but since you’re here you may as well take it.’
He handed over a plain brown A4 envelope, my name and the address of the hospital written on it in elegant, spidery handwriting.
There was no ward number, so it must have sat at the front desk until one of the reception staff saw Harry and asked him to take it up for me.
It wasn’t unusual for us to receive post, mostly cards and gifts from grateful patients.
But this felt different. I knew it was different.
‘Cheers,’ I called to Harry’s departing back. ‘Have a good night.’
I waited until I was home before opening the envelope – waited until I’d made a cup of tea and microwaved a jacket potato for my dinner.
I sat down on the sofa with my tea, stuck a random episode of A Place in the Sun on the telly, took the envelope out of my bag and slit the flap open with the back of my teaspoon.
There was a card inside, too small for the length of the envelope, and two sheets of printed paper that looked like they had been cut from a magazine, folded into three.
I read the card first.
Dear Laurel,
I’m sorry it has taken a while for me to send this to you.
I can only blame my memory, which took its time revealing what I’d hoped to be able to share with you – and my clumsy fingers, which made me leave off a digit when I took your phone number.
But here it is. I will not tell you not to get your hopes up, because I think it is likely this is what you were looking for.
I do hope, though, that this knowledge will bring you comfort.
With love,
Orla Clifford
I set the card aside and unfolded the pages, noticing that my hands were trembling.
The first thing I saw was a full-page advertisement for an insurance company, evidently one that specialised in high-end cars.
When I turned the two pages over, there was another ad, this time for package holidays for the over-fifties.
I might not be there yet, but I will be soon enough, I thought gloomily.
Then I opened out the pages so their insides were facing each other and saw why Orla had sent them to me.
It was an article from a specialist music magazine: an interview with a violinist. The left-hand page was a photograph of him with his instrument, the amphitheatre of a concert hall in the background.
He was holding the violin so that its neck was alongside his face, his hands wrapped almost tenderly around it, its body resting on his thighs.
The man was wearing an open-necked white shirt and faded blue jeans.
He was strikingly good looking with dark hair, slightly threaded with grey, and blue eyes. His features were strong without being sharp. His half-smile revealed a dimple in his left cheek.
Printed over the photograph were the words:
Twenty Questions for Joel Chamberlain
The interview itself was on the other page.
My hands were so unsteady that I could hear the fluttering of the paper as I held it up to read.
The first few questions were concerned with music, and I skimmed over them, the answers meaning far less to me than I guessed they would to regular readers of The Strad, which was the title printed at the bottom of the article alongside the page number.
They revealed that the piece of music Joel most enjoyed playing was ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ by Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst, a tune and a composer that meant nothing to me.
The place where he most enjoyed performing was St David’s Hall (‘An iconic venue in my home city of Cardiff’), closely followed by his back garden (‘My neighbours probably hate me’ – a glimmer of humanity that made me smile).
‘Yes, but is it you?’ I asked aloud, my eyes returning briefly to the photograph before I read on.
The questions after that got more personal and more interesting.
Joel had had scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast for breakfast that day, followed by a Pink Lady apple and a cup of builder’s tea (My man!
I thought). When he wasn’t working, he enjoyed long bike rides along something called the Taff Trail, which sounded appealing.
His favourite indulgence was a glass of red wine in the bath (Okay, Joel, you do you).
Clearly, the editor saved the best questions for last.
Have you ever been in love?
Yes, but sadly not for a long time. Unless you count Bertha, my rescue Sealyham Terrier. I love her unconditionally and I hope it’s reciprocated.
Tell us about a moment that changed you.
When I was twenty-one, I received a kidney transplant. It saved my life and I will be forever grateful.
I read the words again, so slowly it was as if I was taking in one letter at a time.
I’d found him. Or Orla had. Or he had been there all along.
Somewhere inside that man – inside his body when he played his violin in his garden, lay in the bath or cycled on that trail in Wales – was a piece of Gray.
This was the man whose life Gray had saved.
The man Gray had loved enough to risk his own life for.
My heart hammering, I turned back to the page with the picture on it and studied it closely, as if I would be able to detect some hint of Gray – Gray’s body, Gray’s DNA, the life force that had been Gray’s – in Joel Chamberlain’s handsome face.
As I stared at the page, I heard my phone vibrate on the coffee table. It was a WhatsApp message from Lulu, sent to the group I’d created that included her mother.
It was so great to see you just now Laurel! Thank you so much for spending so much time with me – hope you got home safely xx
She’d added a string of flower emojis and a smiley face.
I read her message again, puzzled. It was more than two hours since she’d hurriedly departed the coffee shop. And so much time? We’d spent barely thirty minutes together.
Something about her message wasn’t right. Where had she gone when that urgent message summoned her away? And why was she trying to deceive her mother about where she’d been for those lost two hours?