A Week in Winter(53)
‘But how did you know I was in here?’ Poor Frank was bewildered.
‘Isn’t that your van outside?’ John said, as if it was as simple as that.
Frank nodded thoughtfully. It made sense, sure enough. ‘And will you have a hot whiskey, er, Corry?’ Frank offered.
‘I’m no good at morning drinking. I’d love a cup of coffee, however. And do you know my friend Orla?’
They sat and talked about movies, and the boy who served them brought their coffees to a table.
‘I can’t believe you came in here to see me.’ Frank was happier than he had ever been.
John and Orla exchanged glances.
The bargain had been made.
Henry and Nicola
When Henry had qualified as a doctor his parents had hoped that he would go on and specialise, perhaps in surgery. His mother and father, both doctors, regretted that they hadn’t studied further. Look at the worlds it could have opened up, they would say wistfully.
But Henry was adamant. He was going to be a GP.
There wasn’t any room for him in his parents’ practice but he would find a small community where he and Nicola would soon know everyone. They would have children and be part of the place.
Henry had met Nicola during the first week at medical school. Although they were so very young, they both knew in a matter of weeks that this was it. The two sets of parents begged them to wait, let the romance run a bit before getting married. Four years later, they said they would wait no longer.
It was a small, cheerful wedding in Nicola’s home town. The guests all said that in a complicated world full of confusion and misunderstandings, Henry and Nicola stood out like two rocks in a stormy sea.
They prepared themselves well for careers in general practice with six-month postings in a maternity hospital, a heart clinic and a children’s facility. Soon they felt ready to hang up their names outside a door, and while they were looking for the perfect place to settle, they also decided to try for a child. It was time.
It was hard to find the perfect place to live, but even harder to conceive a child. They couldn’t understand it. They were doctors, after all; they knew about timing and fertility chances. A medical examination showed no apparent problem. They were encouraged to keep trying, which they were certainly doing anyway. After a year they tried IVF, and that didn’t work either.
They endured the well-meaning and irritating comments of their parents who were hoping to be grandparents, and of friends offering babysitting services.
It would happen or it would not happen. Henry and Nicola could weather anything. They even survived a tragedy which unfolded in front of them during a stint in an A&E department. A crazed young man high on drugs brought in his battered girlfriend and, in full view of everyone, shot her dead and then killed himself.
On the surface, they coped very well: Henry and Nicola were much praised for the way they handled the situation and protected the other patients from trauma. But inside it had been a very serious shock, and there remained a memory of the morning when, at a distance of five feet, they had watched two lives end. They were trained to deal with life and death but this was too raw, too cruel, too insane. It took its toll. They slowed down in their efforts to find the perfect place to live and to practise. Compared to the violence they had seen close up, it didn’t seem so important any more.
One day, Nicola saw an advertisement for a ship’s doctor with a cruise company that sailed the Mediterranean. They laughed at it together. What a life: deck tennis, cocktails with the Captain and dealing with a little indigestion or sunburn, which would be the most likely problems. What a picnic it would be. And something seemed to click with both of them. They had worked hard always; there was never time for foreign holidays. Maybe this was what they needed.
A little sun, a rest, a change. Anything that might blot out the memory of that day and their pointless sense of regret that they had not been able to second-guess a drug addict and his intentions.
They applied and went to the interview.
The shipping line said it could only employ one doctor but that they could travel together, if the other one would be able to busy herself or himself doing something else on board.
Nicola offered to teach bridge and run the ship’s library.
‘Or you could be the doctor,’ Henry said, ‘and I will do something else.’
‘They would only want you to dance with the old ladies. I think you’re safer in a white coat in a surgery,’ Nicola laughed.
And they signed up.
They were a very popular couple on the ship, and they took to the life easily. Cruise passengers were mainly eager and innocent; their health problems were mostly connected with old age. They needed reassurance and encouragement. Henry was very good in both areas.
Nicola went from strength to strength in her little world. She even started classes in technology, teaching passengers how to work their mobile phones, Skype and basic computing skills.
They saw places they would never have visited otherwise. What other way would they have been able to visit the souks and marketplaces in Tangiers, the casinos in Monte Carlo, the ruins of Pompeii and Ephesus? They stood by the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and swam in the blue seas around Crete.
It was only intended to be a six-month posting but when the company offered to renew the contract, it was very hard to say no. This was the first time they had ever been totally relaxed; they had time to talk to each other, to share experiences. There was a lightness of spirit they hadn’t known before. The terrible events of the shooting in the A&E department were beginning to become less sharp.