Breathless
Anna feels like she might vomit. She, too, had turned down Tolly, convinced she was being noble and protecting her elder sister from further distress. And now she finds out it was all unnecessary. Her heart aches for Tolly. Except here lies another wrinkle in the tale. He’d had his heart broken by Eleanor and then again by his co-star. And now she’d added to his unhappiness too.
Eleanor clears her throat. “What is this all about? You’ve never asked about this before?”
And Anna capitulates. “I think I’m in love with Tolly Hyde.” It is the first time she has said the words aloud. The first time she has allowed herself to admit the truth. And it feels immeasurably good to do so.
Eleanor laughs. “You and half the world.”
“Except you,” Anna points out. “And that comment is not helpful.”
“Okay …” Eleanor sobers. “Why do you think you are in love with him?”
So Anna tells her tale, how she met him, how they talked. She tells Eleanor about the car, about his party, about their date and how it ended. Finally, she tells her about the message that ended everything.
“I don’t get it,” Eleanor says. “Why not send him a text saying, Thought it over. Quite fancy you. When are you free for sex? ”
“Because it’s not that easy.” But was it? “I don’t want to fall in love.” And when Tolly finds out she is yet another of those Mortimer women, would he still want her, anyway? Haven’t they done enough damage already?
“Why ever not?”
“Because it makes you weak. I saw it all the time throughout the pandemic. The doctors who folded, who left the profession in the aftermath, they were the ones who loved. I think Jasmine would agree with me that love makes you weak. Look what happened to her after her ex died.”
“And I think you are wrong because Jasmine’s in love. Absolutely, completely, and totally in love with her candidate. Part of the problem after Petey passed was until that moment, Jasmine truly believed she could change anything in the universe if only she tried hard enough.”
Anna notices how Eleanor shies away from confronting death. Passed, she said. The euphemism people use for sliding away from the finality of death. But there would never be such an escape for her. She and Death are old friends. They sometimes walk into a room together.
Eleanor obviously takes Anna’s silence for doubt, because she adds, “Oh, don’t get me wrong. She was genuinely fond of Petey, but her loss also shook her faith in one of her core beliefs – the belief you can do anything if you try hard enough. Of course, I learned that at fourteen.”
Anna knows Eleanor is referring to her epilepsy diagnosis. Eleanor had been desperately hopeful it would be temporary, or she might grow out of it, but Eleanor is a person who lives with epilepsy to this day. Anna had learned the same lesson the day she had lost her first patient in the emergency room, despite everything they had tried. She can still see the patient when she closes her eyes. A young girl, her hair soft and golden, un- streaked by grey, her skin smooth, with freckles on the bridge of her nose. She had died of an intentional overdose.
She shakes her head. Eleanor might have a point. By nature, a crusader, Jasmine has held to that belief stronger than most.
“And you know, love does make you weak in some things, but it strengthens you in others,” Eleanor says. “Less depressed, less anxious, less stressed. Have you never looked at our parents and wondered what Daddy would be without Mummy’s love? Think about it. It’s right there in front of you.”
Maybe Anna is stupid, but she has taken her parents and their relationship for granted all her life, never bothering to look inside it. Although, unlike Eleanor, she doesn’t live close by nor work with their father, so perhaps there is some excuse. As a teen, she had been self-obsessed like any normal teenager, her one aim to leave home. Since then, she has been wholly pre-occupied with her own life. She has not really considered other people’s. She realises now that, if she had, she would have known Eleanor was not heartbroken when she first introduced Anna to Jacob. She was excited and elated, practically fizzing with love.
Anna has been going around practising her cynical, world-weary view and instead has missed the obvious things – Eleanor’s whole-hearted love for Jacob, their clever father’s emotional dependence on their mother. Then she considers James and his short-lived infatuation for Bella. What is the difference? What marks a long-lasting love from an infatuation? James had thought Bella perfect when it was plain to all she was far from that.
Is Anna infatuated? It is easy with a movie star. You only see what they present to the world. But Tolly had shown her some of what he really was, and she had been happy in his company when she thought they were just friends. Eleanor has upended Anna’s world, and Anna needs time to think about things. She needs time before she acts because there will be no third chances.
But Eleanor is speaking again: “I know this is very odd, but I can recommend Tolly as a boyfriend. He’s very considerate.”
“Sheesh!” Anna exclaims. “Ew! No one wants a reference for their sexual partner from their sister.”
Eleanor reaches across the sofa and smacks Anna on the arm. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant as a person. Besides, I don’t know what Tolly is like in bed. I never had sex with him.”
“You never had sex with him?” Anna echoes.
“What part of ‘I was already in love with Jacob’ did you miss?” Eleanor is clearly exasperated.
“But you were dating for months?”
“Exactly. He was very considerate. He knew I needed time.”
“He was an idiot,” Anna says, but she cannot help feeling relieved. She does not want to think about Tolly’s exes and there is something particularly icky in her mind about one of them being her sister. She is extraordinarily relieved to know that if they ever get to the stage of sex, she wouldn’t have to image him comparing the two of them.
“Now,” Eleanor says. “Are you going to message him or shall I do it? I still have his number.”
Anna goes cold. Their father’s inclination to meddle in other people’s lives has been passed straight down the line, father to daughter, to Eleanor. “Don’t you dare!” Anna warns. “This is my life. I will make my own decisions. It isn’t as easy as you think. I cannot work in the US without completely retraining. Five years of a life is too much of an ask. Neither will I stop being a doctor. It would be like being only half a person.”
“So, what are you going to do?” Eleanor asks.
“I don’t know …” Anna shrugs. She’s normally good at making decisions; it’s what makes her effective in the Emergency Department and the theatre. But for once, she hesitates. “I am going to think about it. Tolly is the romantic type.”
She spots her sister rolling her eyes. “Yes, I know you know him better than I do. What I meant is, if I go all in, so will he. But if I get cold feet, the damage will be enormous. He’s had his heartbroken by you and by that co-star of his – he doesn’t need to add me to the list.” If it isn’t already too late.
Anna is saved from any further discussions on the subject by the arrival of Jacob. Eleanor immediately switches the conversation to Jasmine. Anna likes her brother-in-law enough to follow suit, although a small part of her wonders what Eleanor will do if Tolly becomes a part of Anna’s life. But then she sees the way the two gaze at each other. They are well past the honeymoon period. They have faced family animosity and now, difficulties in conceiving, yet they are still totally besotted with each other. Anna watches how Jacob treats Eleanor, with respect and care, but also with a playful teasing. Her elder sister is inclined to take life way too seriously. Jacob is good for Eleanor.
Shortly after, Anna makes her excuses and heads back to the Hall. Her parents will have invited Aunty Mary and her sons to dinner, along with any other waifs and strays they have found. She desperately hopes her grandmother has been left off the list. Once a year at Christmas is quite sufficient. But either way, she could do with a restorative nap before she tackles any more family members.
The following morning, Anna joins her parents at breakfast and fields their enquiries into her health and well-being. Her mother’s queries all bemoan the lack of a partner in Anna’s life, but she remembers her mother’s embarrassing enthusiasm for Tolly when he was dating Eleanor, so she remains tight- lipped about her interest in him. Her father asks more practical questions about her career, her home and her pension and investments. Lily is on church duty, so Anna doesn’t see her until lunch. Lily is markedly keener on representing the family at the Sunday morning services than Anna ever was. Anna was always last in – often after the service had begun – and first out. Lily obviously stays for tea and biscuits after and helps with the clear-up.
It is Lily who drives her to the station, though, chattering cheerfully away about the gossip she has picked up at church. At one point Anna asks, “Doesn’t it drive you mad, Lils? Don’t you ever want to run away from here?”
But Lily turns wide eyes towards her. “No,” she says. “I love it. I hated it when I was studying in London. There was always noise. Even at three o’clock in the morning, there’s traffic and sirens and people shouting. I love the peace here. I love the people. I don’t want to go anywhere else. And if Robert was right last night about that job opening where he works, I can even stay here and work locally.”
“Robert? Was that the name of the wet fish you brought to the table?”
“Our cousin, Robert? My friend is called Richard.”
“I hope you are not serious about him because Jasmine will eat him for breakfast.”
Lily laughs. “He is a bit ‘Eton’, isn’t he? But he’s just a friend.”
Lily pulls up at the drop-off point outside the station and Anna grabs her bag. She gives her sister a hug. She can almost feel Lily deflating with the goodbye. But she drops her arms and turns to enter the station. She half-turns once to wave before she disappears inside to begin her journey back to her London home.
The rain has returned by the time Anna makes her way to work the next day. She had expected her conversation with Eleanor to clear her mind of Tolly, but it has done the opposite. She has not stopped thinking about him, yet she is no closer to a decision. She is hurrying across the road to the main entrance of the hospital when her hood blows back and the heavens open, dumping a sluice of water on her head. She is cursing not having stolen an umbrella from Larkford Hall when she hears a call: “Anna!”
Her head whips around, expecting to see another medic, but standing in the rain, a baseball cap protecting his head and a soft fur of scruff around his face, is the Sexiest Man Alive.