Chapter 27 #2
‘He’ll head up my surgical team one day soon, and you know, if you’d just let me look after you, he’ll be my father-in-law…’
She stood up so sharply the chair fell back and hit the floor in a crash. ‘Dad told you to come and look after me last night? That’s what you said, right? That he was worried about me?’
‘That’s right.’ Bastian looked down his body over his crossed arms to his crossed ankles.
‘Bastian? Did you tell Dad about what I did at the hospital that night? About you making me hide it all this time?’
He made an attempt at denial, but Alice saw through it. ‘Bastian! Why?’
‘He needs to know if you’re making mistakes, if a Hargreave is making mistakes! I was protecting his reputation.’
‘Oh my God!’
‘And yours, of course. Obviously!’ He threw his arms in the air. This was the sign she was being unreasonable, her signal she’d gone too far.
She peered at him now, assessing. ‘You always do that.’
‘What?’ he said in a weary way. ‘What am I always doing, Alice? Daydreaming? Not looking after myself properly? Hmm? Sleepwalking through my shifts?’
‘Shut up!’
‘Almost killing a patient?’
‘Get out!’
She’d yelled so loudly the whole apartment block must have heard but she didn’t care, she was shaking so violently and on the verge of crying. She tried physically shoving him towards the door.
Bastian, barely moving, was looking at her in concern. ‘Alice?’
‘Why did I let you in here? I was doing fine! I was getting better.’
She was grabbing his coat now, reaching for his bag by the door, his keys and newspaper, piling them up in his arms.
‘OK, I’ll go. You can call me when you’ve calmed down,’ he told her as she held the door open for him.
‘Out!’
She got him into the corridor.
‘You have to move on, Alice. You have to let it go,’ he said, shoving his face through the gap in the door even as it closed.
She flattened her hand across his face and shoved it. ‘And you have to break up with my father, and you have to stop using me to get to him.’
‘You’re not going to tell him that, are you?’ he was saying through the gaps in her fingers.
With one last shove she got rid of him and slammed the door shut, sliding to the floor as soon as the latch clicked.
* * *
An hour before, Cary had been pacing in his woodworking yard at the back of his cottage where the gnarled old apple trees were still bare-branched and the sawdust swirled in the cold, damp breeze, catching in the cobwebby corners.
This was where, usually, he’d be contented to work from dawn until dark.
He’d barely slept. He’d phoned his mother. He’d attempted a cabinetry job but couldn’t get the planes right. His eye must be off, his hands too stiff from clenching his fists in frustration.
That’s when he’d heard the voices, the guffawing and the gossiping over the other side of the high fence that faced onto the crossroads just off Cairn Dhu high street.
‘It’s you,’ someone was saying. ‘Alice’s… guest?’
Cary knew it was Gracie from the surgery from the salacious tone in her voice.
‘Ah, yes! You were there last night. I never forget a face. I’m Bastian. You work with Alice, don’t you? Did you enjoy the party?’
‘Gracie, surgery receptionist. Aye, it was certainly interesting,’ she replied in a rush. ‘Are you, eh, sticking around for a wee while?’
‘I think so,’ the man was saying, cocksure. Cary hated him even though he’d never hated anyone in his life. ‘Spending some quality time with my Alice. In fact, I’m looking for some breakfast bits so I can surprise her, poor girl’s barely slept…’
Cary had to listen while Gracie, evidently flustered and a bit giddy, filled him in on every shop in town.
‘Has Alice got any days off coming up soon?’ Bastian was asking. ‘Some leave she needs to take?’
‘She’s got some Thursdays, here and there, and Saturdays, of course. What have you got in mind?’
He’d reeled Gracie in like a salmon, but it was Cary who felt torn through with a barbed hook.
‘I was thinking of whisking her away to a romantic spa retreat. She’s exhausted, poor thing. Too much work.’
‘Oh, well, you’ve come to the right place!’ Gracie’s voice bubbled with excitement. ‘There’s loads of nice spas round here. Castle McLeod does a couple’s retreat with yoga and massages and that kind of thing. That’s where I get my nails done.’ Cary pictured her displaying her fingers to him.
‘Wow!’ he was saying, and not all too kindly, Cary thought.
Gracie carried on, oblivious. ‘If you tell Sonya on the booking line that Gracie from the surgery sent you, she’ll do you a discount.’
‘I’ll do that. Yep, things are going to change now that I’m around. She’s not going to slip back into old habits.’
Cary noted the silent pause, guessed that even in a fit of gossip-gathering excitement Gracie might detect something was seriously off about this guy.
‘Right,’ she was saying slowly.
‘Can’t have her burning out up here in the Highlands when, soon enough, she’ll be heading back home with me, back to the bosom of her family.’
‘In Manchester?’ Gracie had definitely got the measure of him now. Cary found her change in tone surprisingly gratifying.
‘Yup, when her stint here’s finished and we get her back to reality. So!’ He clapped his hands. ‘This way for the Post Office shop, you said, yeah?’
‘Aye. That way.’
And he was off, on his way, the sound of his self-satisfied whistling carrying across town as everyone else slept off their hangovers or nursed their aching feet.
Cary, never one to act on impulse previously, took himself straight into the cottage and up the stairs, hauling his suitcase down from the top of the wardrobe, and without anything else in his head but the vision of Alice with Bastian’s arm around her shoulders, he pulled clothes from their hangers and threw them in the case. It was time to go.