‘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, ifa Hargreaveis 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.
