Chapter 2
MARGE DRUMMOND
‘Here you go, Marge,’ the nurse said, as she put down a plate of toast and a mug of tea on the table that stretched across her bed. ‘Jeanie was about to bring it in, but I didn’t want to involve her in our conspiracy.’
Marge Drummond managed a grateful smile that widened as Charge Nurse Yvie Danton glanced around her, as if checking for cameras, then pulled a mini jar of strawberry jam from the pocket of her scrubs trousers.
‘And I managed to get this. Swiped it from my Carlo’s restaurant when I stopped in for coffee this morning. If he finds out about this treacherous act of theft and cancels our wedding, you’ll have it on your conscience.’
‘It’ll be worth it,’ Marge croaked. Her voice hadn’t returned to normal since her surgery and the complications afterwards that had forced the medical team to put her on a ventilator for three days.
That had all happened a few weeks before, and it had been touch-and-go, but she’d made it. This time.
‘How are you feeling today, Marge?’ Yvie asked, after a quick glance at the clipboard at the end of her bed. ‘Did you sleep?’
Marge managed a hoarse whisper. ‘I feel like all I do is sleep.’
‘Well, maybe we can get you into the chair and take you for a grand sightseeing tour of the corridors on this floor of Glasgow Central Hospital today. I’m on with Jeanie today and then Keli is coming in on the late shift, so if one of us manages to get a break we’ll come sneak you out.’
Marge had already learned that Yvie and Keli were best friends both in and out of work, and that they both adored Jeanie, the assistant on the ward.
‘Did I hear my name getting mentioned there? You’d better be saying I’m the engine that keeps this place going or I’ll be contacting my union.
’ Right on cue, Jeanie, the nursing assistant, chief caterer, master gossiper and oracle of all knowledge and scandal within the walls of Glasgow Central Hospital, popped her head in the door.
Marge used all her lung power to get out a breathy, ‘Morning, Jeanie. That’s exactly what we were saying.’
‘Aye, just as well or I’d be grassing her in about the extra jam she sneaks you every morning. Don’t think I don’t know everything that goes on in here.’
‘I’ve no idea how she knows that,’ Yvie said, deadpan. ‘I think she’s got this whole place bugged.’
Marge felt her cheek muscles muster up her best attempt at a grin, but even the short conversation had left her exhausted.
The banter, the sarcasm, the humour and the kindness of these women had kept her going every day of the last four weeks that she’d been in here and she was beyond grateful for it.
The NHS had its very own mountain of problems, but the staff on this ward showed her every day why the people in the health service were the very best of it.
But even with the company of these gems, early morning was her least favourite time of the day, because that’s when she woke up and saw yet again that this was her reality now. It wasn’t all just a bad dream. Or a dreaded premonition of hard times to come. The worst times were already here.
As someone who had never smoked a day in her life, she still raged at the unfairness of her diagnosis.
Lung cancer. A rare kind. The surgery had been the third operation to remove a section of her lung and more lymph nodes, but when they’d opened her up, they’d seen that the cancer in her lung was far more advanced than they’d realised.
Worse, tests had shown that it had spread to her bones, to her brain, to every bloody place.
So that was it. They’d thrown everything at it, but despite the surgeries, chemo, radiotherapy, the bastard disease wasn’t giving up its grip.
The next move wouldn’t take her back to her much-loved home in the west end of the city that she’d lived in since her twenties.
It had been a little cottage flat back then, but after she’d married Ian they’d bought the property upstairs and converted it into a lovely semi-detached home in a building that had been built back in the days before this hospital even existed.
No. She wasn’t going back there. They’d be moving her soon, but it would be down to the palliative care ward, just as soon as they had a free bed.
This was end days. But even though the hours of nothingness stretched in front of her, she was still grateful for every moment, every conversation, every laugh these women gave her.
Jeanie was inside the room now, wiping down the bedside table, plumping Marge’s pillows, straightening her sheets, working around Yvie, who was going through the well-practised routine of taking Marge’s statistics and marking them on the chart.
The pride they took in their work was in every action they carried out while Jeanie chatted.
‘I bet this isn’t quite the same as the swanky place that you worked in, Marge, was it? ’
The corners of Marge’s mouth turned up as she shook her head.
No. This was nothing like the Royal Scottish Private Hospital, the institute on the other side of the city where she’d worked for the best part of thirty years as secretary to Kenneth Manson, one of the best surgeons of their generation.
She’d actually known Kenneth for even longer than that, as they’d run in the same circles before he’d poached her from her role of secretary to Sir Lester Kelaney, President of the Scottish Society of Surgeons, to work for him instead.
She’d been in awe of Kenneth Manson back then, well aware of his genius and his charisma and immune to his legendary arrogance, so when he’d finally attained his own private practice at the Royal Scottish Private Hospital, she hadn’t hesitated to take up his offer of a position at the desk outside his office.
From there, she’d managed every aspect of his work life, ignored the foibles of his personal life, appreciated his surgical excellence, and admired his rise through the hierarchy of Scottish medicine, right up until the day, five years ago, when he hadn’t shown up for his 7 a.m. surgery.
Marge had known immediately that something was wrong.
Kenneth Manson, she’d learned over the years, had many, many flaws – but he never missed a surgery.
Kenneth’s death, just a few years after his divorce from the wonderful Bernadette, a woman he didn’t deserve, was both tragically sudden and a great loss to the medical community.
It had also given her the impetus to retire, something he wouldn’t even hear of while he was alive.
‘I couldn’t do it without you, Marge. Don’t make me start again with someone new.
No one else would put up with me,’ he’d say, with all the suave, self-deprecating charm that made him one of the most well-respected men in the city.
And probably one of the most manipulative too – but weren’t most successful men like that?
Of course, she’d given in to him and stayed at her desk.
Neither of them would ever have predicted that he’d give up on life first. The irony of the cardiac surgeon who didn’t see his own heart attack coming. They did say that doctors made the worst patients and in Marge’s experience that was true.
She drifted back to Jeanie’s question. ‘No, it’s a bit different,’ she told her honestly.
Another irony. If her illness had been diagnosed while she still worked with Kenneth at the private hospital, the terms of her contract included health insurance that would have allowed her to have been cared for there for free.
Instead, her symptoms had developed just a couple of months after she’d handed in her notice, on the day after Kenneth’s funeral.
Just another twisted stitch in the tapestry of her life.
The door to her room opened again, and her daughter, Estelle, came in.
Her gorgeous Estelle. Her quietly artistic only child had grown up to be creative, confident, athletic and so different from the woman Marge had been at thirty-five.
Back then, Marge had been modest in her fashion.
Pristinely dressed and well-groomed at all times.
Never left the house without her hair done, her lipstick on and shoes that matched her handbag.
But Estelle? In she came, her light brown, highlighted hair pulled back in a high ponytail, face free of make-up and dressed in…
what did she call it? Athleisure wear. Stretchy flared trousers – apparently ‘yoga pants’ was the official title – and trainers, with a sweatshirt that fell off one shoulder and had holes in the cuffs for her thumbs to stick out.
The reasons for that were beyond Marge, but she didn’t ask, just happy to have her daughter here, whether she was wearing office attire, athleisure garb or a pink polka dot bikini.
Although, the latter would risk her being ejected from the building.
As always, Estelle had a sketch pad under her arm, a permanent presence since she was a teenager with an obsession for sketching beautiful gowns.
That passion had seen her through a fashion design degree at the Glasgow School of Art, where her talent had been honed and elevated.
An internship had led to a ten-year stint as a designer at a bridal fashion house, until she’d taken the step of setting up her own company, specialising in the kind of stunning bespoke gowns that fairy tales were made of.
Marge couldn’t be more proud, and she chose to believe that her late husband had been by Estelle’s side for every step she’d taken since he passed.
Estelle’s smile was infectious. ‘Good morning, ladies. Lovely to see you this morning.’
Both Yvie and Jeanie returned the greeting, while Estelle went round to the opposite side of the bed from where Yvie was standing and leaned in to give Marge a kiss.
‘Good morning, Mum. Did you sleep well?’
Even if there had been a rock band playing outside her door, three fire alarms and a SWAT team raid during the night, Marge would have given the same answer.
She could already see the deep lines of stress around her daughter’s eyes, and the concern that no amount of faux cheeriness could mask.
If Estelle could fake this, could pretend to be cheery, then the least Marge could do was match that sentiment and be relentlessly positive as she forced out her words.
‘I did, darling.’ She didn’t. ‘And I feel properly rested…’ She didn’t. ‘And all the better for seeing you.’ That last one was true. ‘No Craig, today?’
Estelle’s boyfriend often popped in if he was dropping Estelle off, and sometimes stayed a while, depending on his work schedule.
‘Not today, Mum. He’s gone off to do some work at his brother’s house in Edinburgh for a couple of days – they’re fitting a new kitchen.
’ Craig had a joinery business and was always helping out family and friends too.
He’d even installed a whole new set of beautiful bookcases in Marge’s lounge a few years ago. Definitely a keeper.
Estelle sat down on the blue armchair with the washable surface on her side of Marge’s bed.
She’d spent countless hours there in the last month, sometimes working on her laptop or on her sketch pad during the day, other times curled up under a blanket in the evenings.
Marge would often insist that she go home, but Estelle would always say, ‘A little while longer, Mum.’ Then Marge would fall asleep and it would be morning again.
This might not be a swanky private hospital, but she was grateful for the private room because it came with open visiting hours, allowing Estelle to come whenever and as often as she wanted.
Of course, Marge knew why she’d been moved out of the four-bed ward next door.
Over the years, she’d seen many patients and their families being given their privacy and dignity when it became clear that time was running out.
On the day they’d moved her into this room, she’d been both relieved and devastated.
But she wasn’t going to give in to that despair when Estelle was here.
‘Here you go, Mum, I brought you a ginger slice. Your favourite. Got one for me too and I plan to hoover it up like a Dyson.’
Jeanie was clearly jealous of Estelle’s breakfast choices. ‘Och, these young ones can eat anything and not put on a pound, eh Marge? What I’d give to have a metabolism like that again. I’ve gained half a stone just being in the same room as that cake.’
Estelle laughed, as she pulled her legs up under her on the chair.
Her daughter ran every day and did Pilates or yoga five times a week – three things that Marge had never taken to, despite Estelle dragging her along many times. She much preferred a bit of Zumba or salsa. Of course, that was before her lungs grew TBD. The Bastard Disease.
‘Ah, but I only eat like this on a Saturday, Jeanie. It’s my one cheat day.’
‘Cheat day? I like the sound of that. But only if it involves me and Brad Pitt. My Arthur would never need to know.’
And with that, and a cackle, she went off to cheer up the patient in the room next door.
Marge’s mind latched on to what Estelle had just said. ‘But your cheat day is normally a Saturday, darling. Did you change it this week?’
Estelle put her hand over hers. ‘It is Saturday, Mum.’
‘It is? I get so mixed up with the days in here. It’s so easy to lose track.’ She didn’t add that the reason for that was because every day was the same.
Something else was causing another tug of confusion in her brain as she tried to work it back. Once upon a time, she’d been the most organised person on earth, storing calendars, itineraries and schedules in her acutely methodical mind. Now time just seemed to slip past.
So today was Saturday. It was February. A memory. On the first day of the year, when she opened her new calendar. Circling a date in red. Just as she’d done every year for the last four years. Could that be…
‘Darling, what date is it?’
Estelle paused to think about it, before answering. ‘It’s the twenty-first of February.’
The panic set in before Marge even spoke.
The twenty-first of February. Tonight, Marge had somewhere she should be.
Somewhere she went on today’s date every year.
It was the anniversary of a gathering that had changed her life, one that protected secrets she should have told Estelle about many years ago, but Marge had been too cowardly, too scared to reveal the truth to the one person in the world that she loved more than life itself.
This was her last chance to let Estelle meet the family who would look out for her after Marge was gone – people Estelle didn’t even know existed.
Today was the day that all her truths had to come out.
And Marge just hoped that her daughter would forgive her.