1

of her two discontented daughters returning. They came in to her room without knocking. That was something else that

annoyed her these days.

‘What did he want?’ Linda asked.

‘Who?’

‘Dad.’

‘A divorce, he wants to get married again.’

The girls looked at each other. ‘And?’

‘And I told him to get out.’ Clara seemed unconcerned.

‘And he went?’

‘Well, obviously. And did you have a nice night? No? Well, he left you some wine downstairs. You could kill that, I suppose.’

Linda and Adi looked at each other, confused. Their

mother’s phone rang.

‘Oh, Tim, thank you for getting back to me. No, of course it’s not too late. Could you come in tomorrow to discuss a small security job? I am going to knock down a lot of walls and leave a place wide open for a few days, so that will be full time. After that it will just be on regular routine patrol. Fine.

Fine. See you then.’ She smiled vaguely at her daughters.

They were uneasy. It had not been a hugely successful

dinner at Quentins, their father was going to marry a girl of their own age, and now it appeared that their mother had gone raving mad.

 

The next morning flew by. The interviews went remarkably well. Lavender turned out to be trim and businesslike. She was realistic about the number of hours needed to give dietary advice. She suggested a weekly cookery class, and said it had worked well when she had been in a clinic in London. A lot of the patients had no idea how to cook vegetables properly or make a healthy soup and were astounded at the possibilities.

Lavender was a no-nonsense person, a single woman in her

forties. She took two months off in January and February every year and went to Australia but would arrange a substitute herself. She would help Clara to set up the kitchen and

could start work in two weeks’ time.

Clara found it very reassuring.

Johnny the physio was indeed big and bluff but seemed to have huge reserves of patience. He said that heart patients had seen too many movies where people clutched at their chests and died in seconds on the floor. This made them terrified of taking any exercise in case they over-exerted themselves and brought on the heart attack that would kill them. Instead they allowed their muscles to waste. He enquired whether Clara would be able to wire the patients up to an ECG so that their progress could be monitored.

‘Doubt if they’ll give me the equipment,’ Clara said.

‘We could make a case for it,’ Johnny said and joined the team.

 

Tim the security man had lived in New York for two or three years. He had done a lot of hospital work there, so he knew just what was needed. He could give it his full time for the next couple of weeks as he was hoping to go into business on his own and needed a couple of major satisfied clients. But he didn’t want to tread on any toes.

‘Why aren’t you using the existing hospital security?’ he asked.

‘Because I want to run my own show.’ Clara was equally

direct.

‘And will they pay for it?’

‘Yes, if you give us what those guys in the offices might consider a fair quote. They love to think they’re saving money.

It’s all they care about.’

‘Same everywhere,’ Tim said pragmatically.

‘You came back from America?’

 

‘Yeah, everyone I knew out there worked fourteen hours a day. All the people I knew here were wearing designer suits and buying property in Spain. Thought I’d come back and

get a bit of that for me. I’m really no better than the men in suits.’

‘Glad to be back?’

‘Not totally sure,’ he said.

‘Early days yet.’ Clara was practical. She felt at ease with this quiet man.

 

The first nurse she interviewed, Barbara, was exactly the kind of person she would have hand-picked. Outgoing, direct and very much on top of the subject. She answered the routine questions about heart medication, blood pressure and stroke.

The second woman was older but not at all wiser. Her

name was Jacqui and she spelled it twice in case there should be any misunderstanding. She said that she was applying for the job so that she would have no evening or shift work. She said that existing holiday arrangements would have to be honoured. She said she would need an hour and a half for lunch to walk her dog who would sleep peacefully in her car once he knew that an extended ‘walkies’ was included in the day. She said that her present job was like working in the Third World. Most of the time was making yourself understood to foreigners. Clara knew in moments that this woman

would not be part of the team.

‘When shall I hear from you?’ Jacqui asked confidently.

‘Many, many more people to interview. I’ll let you know in a week.’ Clara was clipped.

Jacqui looked around her without much pleasure. ‘You’ll

have your work cut out for you here,’ she sniffed.

‘Indeed, but isn’t that where the challenge lies?’ Clara felt the smile stiffen on her face.

 

What Clara really needed, she discovered next morning, was an extra pair of legs. Someone who could run and find this form, leave in the other form, get the hospital building team and the electricians to gather for discussions. But nowhere had this pair of legs materialised. She would have to find her own.

By chance she found them in the car park. A thin girl with long, straggly hair, carrying a chamois cloth, offered to clean her windscreen.

‘No thanks.’ Clara was pleasant but firm. ‘This isn’t really a good place to get business, mainly staff who don’t care what their cars look like or patients who are too worried about themselves to notice.’

The girl didn’t seem to understand her properly. She was straining to get the meaning of the words.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Polski,’ the girl said.

‘Ah, Poland. Do you like it here?’

‘I think yes.’

‘Do you have a job?’

‘No. No job. I do some things.’ She indicated her cleaning cloth.

‘What else? What other work?’

‘I go to houses to wash the cups and to clean the floors. I put the leaves from the trees into big bags. I see little boys clean car windows. I think maybe …’ Her face was pale and peaky.

‘Do you get enough to eat?’ Clara asked.

 

‘Yes, I live up the stairs in a restaurant so I get one meal a day.’

‘Do you have friends here?’

‘Some friends. Yes.’

‘But you need work?’

‘Yes, madam, I need work.’

‘What’s your name?’

 

‘Ania.’

‘Come with me, Ania,’ Clara said.

 

There were lengthy and wearying conversations with builders.

The foreman told Clara that she’d never get all these changes past administration. They hated change, administration did, they feared open spaces, loved small individual rooms where people could talk in private. Clara chose fabrics for the curtains which would divide the cubicles, as well as blinds for the windows. She looked through office furniture catalogues marking desks and cabinets. The time flew by.

She sent the little Polish girl scampering all over the place as she dealt with officialdom. Clara had typed out a letter explaining that Ania Prasky was the temporary assistant to Dr Clara Casey and put in every initial and qualification that she possessed. They weren’t going to get in the way of this battery of achievement.

 

It was four o’clock in the afternoon and she hadn’t even thought about lunch. Ania must have had no lunch either.

She came running at Clara’s command.

‘Lunch, Ania,’ she said briskly. Across Ania’s face went a shadow of anxiety.

‘No, madam, thank you, but I work,’ she said.

‘A nice bite of lunch and good strong coffee and we will work even better.’

The anxiety left Ania’s face. Clara was going to pay for lunch. A day’s wages wouldn’t be broken into. She looked just like a happy child.

Clara knew that when Adi and Linda had been travelling

the world when they were eighteen kind people had often put them up for the night or given them a good hot meal when they needed one. It was a kind of currency, you were kind to other people’s young, they were kind to yours.

 

‘Come on, Ania, this will put hair on our chests.’

‘It will?’ Ania was startled.

‘No, not real hair. It’s a figure of speech. Do you know what that is?’

‘Not really, madam.’

‘Well, I’ll try to explain it to you over lunch,’ Clara said, reaching for her jacket.

 

Frank couldn’t believe that this woman had taken on so much and so quickly. His desk was filled with forms, requisitioning this, that and the other. It was a day’s work to get through his in-basket. Now he had an additional problem. He had heard that a small Polish girl with large worried eyes had been seen running around at least half a dozen times carrying more information. This Clara Casey seemed to be taking her new premises apart brick by brick. Each request or explanation was accompanied by a personal note from her on her own headed notepaper which she must have had printed practically overnight.

She referred back to ‘our conversation’ or ‘our agreement’.

She was effectively making him part of her expansionist

plan. He would have to stop her now before he was dragged down with her. Or else he could let her go ahead. Not the kind of woman he liked, a real ball-breaker, but as a hospital colleague intent on getting things done, she was unbeatable.

Frank decided to give her a day or two before stepping in.

Surely in the next forty-eight hours she would exceed her brief so spectacularly it would be a case of self-destruct. In the meantime he would write her a cautious meaningless letter covering his back saying that all the plans would of course have to be sanctioned by the board.

 

Barbara sank her teeth into the big hamburger. She had been on a diet for six weeks and lost only six pounds. She had promised herself a treat if she got the new job in the heart

clinic. She had been thinking of new shoes or a big classy handbag. But it had been a long day and she hadn’t the energy to go to the shops. She was meeting her friend Fiona for a celebration.

Fiona was envious. It sounded just the kind of job she

would have liked.

‘But you didn’t apply.’ Barbara was furious with Fiona.

‘You’d have got the job and we could have worked together but no, you wouldn’t fill out any forms.’

‘I didn’t know she was going to be nice, that it would be open plan, that you’d have so much power. I thought it would be a “Come Here, Do That” sort of job.’

‘Well, it’s too late now, she’s probably hired some awful battleaxe that I’ll have to work with just because you wouldn’t fill in a form.’

‘What’s she like?’ Fiona asked.

‘Dark-haired, groomed, sort of good-looking in an oldish way. A bit like that woman at the table over there. Hey, wait a minute, that is her.’ Barbara’s hamburger remained poised in the air.

‘She’s eating hereV Fiona was openmouthed.

‘Yes, and that’s a girl from the centre, a foreign girl called Ania, with her. How extraordinary!’ Barbara shook her head in disbelief.

‘The woman has to eat somewhere I suppose …’ but

Fiona was already heading towards Clara.

‘Come back,’ Barbara hissed, but it was too late. Fiona was already talking.

‘Dr Casey, please forgive me interrupting your meal but I am Fiona Ryan. I work with Barbara over there who is going to start working with you next week. I meant to apply for a job there but I thought it would be a bit routine. Barbara has been telling me all about it and it sounds brilliant. I was just

wondering was it too late to send you my CV. I could leave it in tonight if you haven’t picked anyone else yet.’

Clara looked and saw a pretty girl in her twenties with a broad smile. She radiated confidence and encouragement.

Exactly the kind of person she wanted working with her. In the background she saw Barbara trying desperately to discourage her friend, but Fiona was having none of it.

‘Barbara is embarrassed but I thought if I didn’t ask you now I’d never know.’

She looked bright and alert. It wouldn’t hurt to read her CV.

‘Sure,’ said Clara. ‘Leave it in as soon as you can and a phone number where we can get you. This is Ania by the way.’

‘Hi, Ania. I’ll leave you both to your food. Thank you very much.’ And she was gone, back at the table with Barbara who was babbling abuse at her.

‘Nice, isn’t she?’ Clara seemed to be treating Ania as an equal.

Very flattered, Ania agreed. ‘She has a big smile. Will you employ her, madam?’

‘Definitely,’ Clara said. ‘Now, Ania, will we have an ice cream, do you think, or should we get back and get our clinic up and running?’

‘We go back now, madam,’ Ania said. Lunch was good but

they must know where to draw the line.

At seven o’clock Clara paid Ania her day’s wages. ‘See you tomorrow at eight thirty,’ she said.

Ania’s face was split in half by her smile. ‘I work again tomorrow?’ she said, clasping her hands.

‘Sure, if you’d like to. I mean you’re trained now. But you may have to do some cleaning and hauling furniture about. I’ll help you of course.’

‘Thank you, madam, with all of my heart,’ Ania said, ‘and for my beautiful dinner too. You are a very kind lady doctor.’

 

‘That’s not what they say about me at home,’ Clara sighed.

‘They say I am barking mad.’

 

Adi had brought her boyfriend Gerry home for supper. They were eating soup and a salad at the kitchen table when Clara came in. Adi got up to get some for her mother but Clara waved it away.

‘Just a coffee, love. I had a huge meal in the middle of the afternoon. Burger and chips.’

Gerry sent out waves of disapproval. ‘Meat! Very bad. Very bad indeed.’

Adi was surprised. ‘That’s not your normal speed, Mum.’

‘No, but things are far from normal these days,’ Clara said, taking her coffee upstairs. She knocked on Linda’s door.

‘Come in.’ Linda was in bed and wearing a face-mask. She looked like a mime artist or a child dressed up as a ghost for a fancy dress party.

‘Sorry, I didn’t think you’d be in bed this early,’ Clara said.

‘No, this is just getting ready to go out. I’m off clubbing around eleven, there’s a new place opening tonight and I want to be in the whole of my health for it.’

Linda looked at Clara as if expecting some rebuke or mention of keeping anti-social hours. Surely her mother would say something about the lack of books and study. But you could never second-guess Clara.

‘When will you actually be earning any money, Linda?’ she asked mildly.

‘I knew you’d start to grizzle.’ Linda’s face under the mask was moving with annoyance.

‘Who’s grizzling? It’s just a simple question.’

‘Well, in a couple of years, I suppose,’ Linda said grudgingly.

‘Don’t

you qualify next year?’

 

‘Mother, what is this? Do you want to let this room or

something?’

‘No, I’m quite happy for us all to live here. It’s just that today I met a lot of builders and electricians and plumbers—’

‘And you’re going off to live in a commune with them,’

Linda interrupted.

Clara ignored her. ‘And I was thinking of having a second bathroom built. But your warm, generous father is unlikely to want to support this project, and I was wondering how to finance it. Adi could give a little and I was hoping that next year you’d be in a position to contribute too.’

‘I was thinking of a gap year before settling down to work.’

‘A gap between what and what exactly?’ Clara asked.

‘Don’t take it out on me if you’ve had a bad day.’ Linda looked mutinous.

‘I haven’t had a bad day; actually, as it happens, I had a very good day. I employed a girl who was about your age, she

worked from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. like a little slave. I asked her to come in and do the same tomorrow and she cried with

gratitude.’

‘Bet she wasn’t Irish,’ Linda said.

‘She will be one day, but at the moment she’s Polish.’

‘Aha!’ Linda was triumphant.

‘Oh, Linda, shut up, you don’t know the first thing about work of any kind and here you are bleating on about gap

years. You don’t know how lucky you are.’

‘I don’t think I’m lucky at all, not even a little bit. My parents hate each other. My father is going to marry someone of my age. Think how that makes me feel. My mother is a

workaholic, bellyaching about the fact that I’m not out there slaving for a living even though it was agreed I’d be a student. I was here minding my own business having a sleep and you

come in and unload all this on me. Why not tell me about all

the starving orphans in China or India or Africa as well as the Polish girls who are your slaves?’

‘You are a truly horrible girl, Linda,’ Clara said and banged the door on her daughter’s bedroom.

 

‘What’s all that shouting upstairs?’ Gerry asked Adi.

‘It’s the real world, Gerry,’ she said. ‘It’s the world of people not getting on, not making allowances for other people, not seeing anyone else’s point of view.’

‘It’s all that red meat,’ Gerry said. ‘No good could come from eating a dead cow in the afternoon.’

 

Next morning Clara was gone by the time Adi came down to breakfast. There was no sign that she had eaten anything, and no note left about evening plans. All that shouting last night must have been more serious than it sounded. Adi went to wake Linda who was not best pleased.

‘You only need to close your eyes in this house and someone barges in roaring and bawling,’ she complained as she

struggled to wake up.

‘What’s wrong with Mum?’

‘God, how do I know? She was like a bag of weasels last

night, complaining that I wasn’t Polish, that I wasn’t financing a new bathroom, that I was still a student. She nearly took the door off its hinges. She’s coming unstuck I’d say.’

‘What was it about, Linda?’

‘I have no idea on earth. Maybe she’s upset about Dad

wanting to marry Cinta.’

‘She doesn’t love Dad any more.’

‘How do we know who she loves, she’s totally deranged.

Now will you go away and let me sleep.’

‘What about your lectures?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Adi, go away and poison young minds, will you.’

 

Linda was back snuggled down again, deep in her bed. Adi shrugged and left. There was no further information for her here.

 

Little Ania was sitting outside the door of the centre.

‘You did mean it, madam?’

‘Indeed I did, Ania. I’ll get a key cut for you today, so tomorrow you can be in before me.’

‘You will give me a key to this place?’ Ania was astounded.

‘Sure, then you can have the coffee ready when I get here.’

‘We will have a coffee machine?’ Ania said, excited.

‘Yes, it will arrive today, meanwhile here’s some money. Go get us two huge coffees down in the precinct, and whatever you think we should have for breakfast, something full of sugar to give us energy: a croissant, a doughnut. Whatever.

One each.’

‘This is a wonderful job,’ Ania said and trotted off obediently.

 

The

day flew by again, the builders were a cheerful crew and they worked fast. Soon the place was beginning to resemble Clara’s plan. Her own desk was out in the centre keeping an eye on all that happened. The nurses’ station was waiting to be fitted out from General Medical Supplies. The treatment beds had arrived; small cubicles were erected with curtains made from the material Clara had chosen. The waiting room was painted and fitted with racks that would hold information about heart care. There would be a water filter for patients and a coffee urn.

Lavender’s room had been prepared for the dietician; her weighing scales would arrive later in the day, together with one for the nurses’ station.

The physio room was suitably bare; the equipment depended on what Johnny and Clara could winkle out of the

 

establishment. Clara was pleased with progress so far. She would show that Frank what she was made of. She was

surprised when Ania delivered her a salad sandwich at lunchtime and another coffee.

‘Let me pay you for this,’ she said.

‘No, madam, you gave me much money yesterday. Today I gztyou lunch.’

She looked so pleased and proud it wrenched Clara’s heart and made her even more annoyed with her own lazy daughter who at this moment was probably sleeping off the effects of last night.

‘Have you everyone you need now, madam?’

‘No, Ania, I still need an office manager. Someone who will keep the payments in order. Someone who will cover my

back.’

‘Cover your back?’ The phrase was new to Ania.

‘Yes. Keep me out of hot water, out of trouble.’

‘Will this be a secretary?’

‘Sort of, but they want me to have a young girl. That’s no use to me. I need someone who can stand up to monsters like Frank Ennis and his gang. You can’t expect a child to be able to do that.’

‘Do you think that you will win, madam?’ Ania’s eyes

danced with excitement.

‘If I find the right person we can get her installed before they are aware of it. The trouble is finding her.’

‘You will do that, madam. I know.’

‘You have more faith than I do, Ania.’

‘Where would we be in life without faith?’ Ania asked as she went for a brush to sweep up cheerfully after the carpenters and make them mugs of tea.

 

When the first week was nearly finished Clara knew that she must go and meet the local pharmacist. She knew him to be

Peter Barry, a fussy sort of man of about fifty who had a chemist’s shop in the shopping precinct very near the centre.

He would be filling prescriptions for her patients once they started. She must check that he was up to speed with the various heart and blood pressure medicines that she would be prescribing. She need not have worried.

Peter Barry was certainly on top of his work. Fussy or not he had read all the recent research on new drugs and contraindications.

Clara felt briefly that she was back at medical

school being lectured to all over again.

‘I wish you every success in the centre,’ he said formally.

‘It’s badly needed, something that will make people realise they can control their own heart problems.’

‘Oh, yes indeed, it’s long overdue,’ Clara murmured. It was the usual polite response she gave when told what a worthwhile job it was. No one must suspect how much she resented

this backwater where she had ended up. She would do her job as well as possible and then leave, but her smile was bright.

‘You’re right. If you could see patients clutching at their little bottles of pills terrified that they haven’t understood which little magic potion will keep them alive. I try to be reassuring but often they need to talk, to ask and learn, and there just isn’t the time.’

Clara was impressed. This man had more humanity than

she suspected.

‘It’s a lot of work, I agree. Do you have an assistant here?’

Peter Barry became prim again. ‘There is always a qualified pharmacist on the premises, Dr Casey, I assure you. But my assistant is part-time. I had hoped, you see, that my daughter Amy would join me in the business. But then, daughters!’ He shrugged.

Clara was sympathetic. ‘What did Amy do instead?’

‘Finding herself apparently. It’s a long search.’ Years of disappointment were in his voice.

 

I

 

‘Mine is talking confidently about a gap year. Another year of being supported and having to make no decisions.’ Clara knew she sounded bitter. She hoped that her mouth was not cold and hard like her own mother’s was. But then maybe her mother had every reason to be disappointed with Clara. What had she achieved in life? Two sulky daughters, a broken

marriage, failure to get the cardiology job that everyone said was hers. Possibly her mother was as disillusioned with her as she was with Linda and as this man with his glasses on his head felt about his daughter.

Peter Barry wasn’t letting the topic go. ‘What would you do if you had your time all over again?’ he asked.

Clara knew exactly what she would do. She would not

have married Alan. But then those two girls would never

have existed, and that was unthinkable. True, they had their difficult moments but they were her children - she remembered so well the day that each of them had been born. They

could be very good and loving; they were funny, too, and tender. She wouldn’t wish their lives away. And yet — if she hadn’t married Alan, she would have the cardiology post

which was rightfully hers. But Clara had spent many years hiding her true feelings and disguising her reactions. She wasn’t going to let down her guard and discuss it with this man now.

‘Lord, it’s hard to know. What would you have done?’ she asked, putting the ball firmly back in his court.

Peter Barry had no hesitation. ‘I would have married again and made a proper home for Amy,’ he said simply. ‘Her

mother died when she was four. She has never known a

family.’

‘It’s hard to find someone to love and marry just like that.’

Clara shook her head. ‘It’s so much luck, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. I think there are a lot of

people in the world who would make perfectly suitable mates, companions, spouses, if we just put our minds to it.’

Clara murmured her agreement and left. She saw she had a text message from Alan on her phone but didn’t read it. Her mind was already full with things that needed to be done or worked out or avoided. She didn’t need to think about Alan as well. But at the end of the day she was ready to read his message. She had achieved more than she thought possible.

The appalling Frank Ennis had come on an unexpected visit expecting to find disarray and confusion and found instead a near completed job. The floor covering had arrived, the builders were cheerful and enthusiastic, the furniture was on order and Tim, the security man, proudly showed off the

system he had chosen. The two nurses, Barbara and Fiona, were busy planning their nurses’ station.

Lavender had brought in her posters about healthy food.

Johnny had set up his exercise machines. And, best of all, Clara had found her assistant.

She was called Hilary Hickey and she had come in to

enquire was there any part-time work. She was a qualified nurse, phlebotomist and worked in hospital administration.

She was forty-nine, widowed, with one son. Because of home circumstances she needed to be around the house a bit these days so could not commit to full-time work. Before they had finished talking Clara knew she was perfect for the job. But she must curb her automatic response which was to jump in with both feet before asking any practical questions.

‘Are the home circumstances connected with your son?’ she asked.

‘No, my mother. She’s elderly and she lives with us. She needs an eye kept on her. Someone to put a head around the door and make sure she’s all right.’

‘Sure, sure. How is her health?’

 

‘Sound as a bell. She’ll outlive us all. She gets a bit confused sometimes, but nothing to worry about.’

Hilary was full of energy and could turn her hand to

anything. She helped Ania, Clara and Johnny carry in a huge machine that looked like a bacon-slicer but he assured them was an arm exerciser. Hilary got on easily with everyone who was there. And she was there when Frank Ennis arrived on his tour of inspection. Clara could not have wished for a better ally. She introduced them.

‘Miss Hickey.’ He nodded and shook her hand.

‘Frank, how are you?’ Hilary said cheerfully and Clara had to put up a hand to hide her smile at the look on Frank’s face.

He was so accustomed to being Mr Ennis and having huge

respect.

Frank looked with some mystification as Ania refilled his coffee mug. ‘And you are … exactly?’

‘I am exactly Ania Prasky,’ she said.

He glared at her, but it was clear she did not intend to mock his form of speech. It was obviously unfamiliarity with the language. ‘And are you employed here?’

Clara intervened. ‘I pay Ania from petty cash. I would

prefer to have it on a more regular basis,’ she said.

‘You pay her as what?’

‘As a carer.’ Clara didn’t let her glance flicker.

 

‘But there are carers in the wards to help the nurses, not here.’

‘We find that there will be a great need for a carer here.

Some patients will need wheelchairs, some will need assistance to and from the bus stop, there is a need for coffee, for general cleaning, making the place acceptable and attractive to those who come here. We will need someone to go to and from Mr Barry’s pharmacy for those unable to make the journey. We constantly need someone to go to and fro to the hospital to 4i

 

collect X-rays and to do general messages. There is work every minute of the day, I assure you.’

‘Oh, I’m afraid it will be quite impossible to get the hospital to agree to that,’ Frank began.

Clara saw Hilary’s eyes narrow slightly. The fight was on.

‘You see, Dr Casey, you already have Miss … er …

Hickey here to help you. We can’t expect to provide a bottomless pit of employees—’

Hilary interrupted. ‘But, Frank, a persuasive man like

yourself would have the hospital eating out of your palm in no time and you needn’t think that my knees are as young as Ania here and that I’d get down and clean the floors, nor would I spend the time when I could be helping to run the place, so I am sure you’ll see to it that Ania stays with us.’

It felt like ten seconds but Clara knew it could only have been three at the most. Then he spoke. ‘How much do you

pay her?’ His voice was more like a bark.

 

‘The minimum wage, but now that she has had a week onthe-job training I would have thought—’

 

‘Minimum wage!’ he snapped and left.

Ania hugged them both and brought out the chocolate

biscuits. After all this goodwill Clara was able to face Alan’s text message. He wanted to meet her. He suggested a drink after work, a meal even. She texted him back. He could come to her house but he must bring no wine, they would talk for an hour, there would be no rows, the girls would not be

dragged into it. If he agreed to that then he could come to the house at seven.

Her mother rang just then to know if Clara would come

around and help her decide between fabrics for curtains. Clara knew that this would be an unsatisfactory endeavour. Her mother relished indecision. Nothing would be agreed, nothing would be chosen.

‘I can’t, Mother, I have to meet Alan,’ she said.

 

I

 

‘To get rid of him finally, I hope,’ her mother said crisply.

‘Perhaps and perhaps not. We’ll see.’ Clara was mild.

‘We have seen,’ her mother snapped, ‘and we haven’t liked what we saw.’

‘Sure, Mother.’ Clara hung up wearily.

Hilary looked at Clara who worked so hard and hoped that she had planned a good evening out. But she was surprised when she enquired.

‘My tiresome ex-husband is coming around to the house to ask, yet again, for a divorce,’ Clara said simply.

‘I’m sure you’ll say yes and get rid of him,’ Hilary said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

‘Why should I make things easy for him?’ Clara wondered.

‘Because hanging on to him only makes things worse for

you. I must rush. Lord knows what my poor mother will have got up to.’ And she was gone.

Clara’s friend Dervla phoned as she was driving home.

‘He’s coming round again this evening,’ Clara explained.

Dervla had never liked Alan but she was usually reticent.

Not this time, she spared no feelings when she heard the news.

‘I have been hearing that he’s coming round or that he

hasn’t come around for twenty-five years; Clara, give him the bloody divorce. Get closure on the thing, for heaven’s sake.’

‘Thanks, Dervla,’ Clara laughed.

‘Have you thought he might be tiring of the new broad and wants to come back to you?’

‘No. I’m too old and hatchet-faced.’

 

‘Would you have him if he did want that?’

‘That’s like talking about white blackbirds,’ Clara said. She wasn’t going to go down that road.

 

At home Clara was relieved to find the house empty. It would make things easier. She had a shower and washed her hair. She had just dried it and put on a fresh pink shirt when she heard

him ring at the door. She offered him coffee and poured it out for him. Black, as he always took it.

‘Just a chat, Clara, like old times,’ he pleaded.

‘Not like old times. Old times were mainly a screaming

match if you remember.’

‘Well, the very old times then.’ He had a nice smile. She would have to agree to that. He held his head on one side as if he were convincing you to see things his way, which of course she had done for years.

‘What did we talk about in the very old days?’

‘Work, the children, each other.’ He found the answers

easily.

‘Well, work is the safest. How’s yours?’

‘It’s all right. It’s tiring of course. Banking has changed.

There’s just so much more pressure these days. And yours?’

He really did sound as if he wanted to know.

She told him about the Polish girl, Ania, and the new

assistant, Hilary Hickey. About the two cheerful nurses, the physiotherapist, Lavender the dietician and Tim, the security man. She even told him about the dreaded administrator Frank and Peter Barry the pharmacist. And yes, he did seem interested.

Suppose he hadn’t met this terrible girl Cinta. Could they possibly have had a normal sort of life together? She tried to get the thought out of her head. It wasn’t going to happen.

And anyway, there had been others before Cinta and there would be more after her.

He asked her questions about the people she described.

Questions that showed he was paying attention. She remembered that about him. It had been easy to discuss her work

with him. Alan was a good listener. She had missed him when she had to go it alone through the humiliation of being passed over for the job. She refilled his coffee cup.

‘You might meet someone in this new job,’ he said softly.

 

‘I must have met a hundred people this week,’ she sighed.

‘No, I meant meet someone. You know, I meant get

together with someone.’ He was smiling enthusiastically.

Wishing her well in the great big frightening world of relationships.

She looked at him in bewilderment. Sometimes he

could be impossibly insensitive and thick.

‘I don’t think we should spend any time wandering around that remote possibility. It’s nice of you to wish me well but actually I find it unbearably patronising.’

‘Patronising? Me to you? You have to be joking! Clara,

you’ve always been the brainy one. You know that.’

‘Leave it, Alan. Next thing, you’ll be saying you married me for my fine mind!’

‘I did in many ways but also because you were and are one of the loveliest women in the world.’ He leaned over and stroked her cheek. The sheer unexpectedness of it made her flinch away.

‘Alan, please!

‘Now don’t tell me that you don’t feel something for me.

You’re just lovely, Clara. Your hair is so fresh and shiny. You smell like a flower. Come here to me. Let me hold you.’

Because she was so startled, Clara didn’t fight him off as quickly as she might have and there he was holding her face in his hands and kissing her before she could struggle away.

‘Are you mad?’ she gasped. ‘It’s been five years.’

‘Since you threw me out, but I never wanted to go. I never went in my heart.’

‘Are you telling me that Cinta has thrown you out too?’ She was looking at him in disbelief.

‘Not at all, but she has nothing to do with this. With us.’

‘There is no us, Alan, get off me.’ She struggled but he held her all the more firmly.

‘This reminds me very much of the old days, Clara,’ he said into her ear.

 

She finally got away from him and ran across the kitchen, putting a chair between them.

‘What do you mean nothing to do with Cinta, you live with her. She’s having your baby, for God’s sake. You’re here to ask me again for a divorce so that you can marry her.’ Her eyes were blazing with rage. ‘What are you atV

‘I’m trying to get you to relax. You’re so tense and strung up. Why can’t you unwind and let me make you happy like I used to. For old times’ sake.’

He smiled at her, handsome Alan who was always used to

getting his own way. He hadn’t changed. Alan who was

already as faithless to Cinta as he had been to her. Suddenly like a focus in binoculars, everything became clear. This was a man worth spending not one more minute thinking about,

second-guessing or trying to understand.

‘Right,’ Clara said briskly. ‘It worked. You can go home and tell little Cinta that she has the divorce and the prize of you as a husband. And that you did it as you usually do by suggesting that you screw me.’

‘That’s not the way I’d actually describe it,’ he began to bluster.

‘That’s the only way it can be described and will be described.’

‘You’re

not going to say anything to the girls.’ He was

frightened.

‘Adi and Linda will be only slightly more embarrassed by the news than they already are by you having a child with a girl who is the same age as they are.’

‘Please, Clara …’

‘Go, Alan. Go now.’

‘You’re just locking yourself away. You’re still a fine

looking woman …’

‘Go while you are still able to walk.’

Clara made a gesture with the chair as if she were going to

use it as a weapon. He backed out of the door and was gone.

She didn’t feel outraged or insulted. She didn’t even feel patronised any more. She felt empty and foolish and ashamed that she had spent any small moment hoping this worthless man would tire of his mistress and come home to her.

Tomorrow she would start the divorce process.

What her mother, her daughters, her good friend Dervla

and her new assistant Hilary had not been able to make her do, Alan had done himself. By his clumsy attempt to make love to her, by his casual assumption that she would welcome it, he had actually achieved what he wanted - a divorce. Or maybe didn’t want. But she would never know or care. She had more important things to think about. And for the first time since she had embarked on this new job, Clara felt it was in fact the most important part of her life.

She would put Alan totally out of her mind and think

instead about what lay ahead tomorrow. She would be meeting the new doctor and welcoming him to the clinic. He

seemed a very nice young man, good CV, red hair, a calm

manner - everything in fact you need for heart patients. His name was Declan Carroll and Clara had a feeling he was going to be very good.