The Flatshare(30)

We dump the bags of wool and crochet hooks. A few of the more mobile patients drift into the room. Evidently word of our crochet show has spread, probably via the nurses and doctors, who seem to be running in totally random directions at all times, like pinballs. It’s fifteen minutes until we start, though – plenty of time for me to track Leon down and say hello.

‘Excuse me,’ I say to a nurse whose pinball path has briefly crossed the living area, ‘is Leon here yet?’

‘Leon?’ she asks, looking at me distractedly. ‘Yeah. He’s here. You need him?’

‘Oh, no, don’t worry,’ I say. ‘It’s not, you know, medical. I was just going to say hi and thanks for letting us do this.’ I wave an arm in the direction of Martin and Katherin, who are untangling wool with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

The nurse perks up and focuses on me properly. ‘Are you Tiffy?’

‘Umm. Yes?’

‘Oh! Hi. Wow, hello. If you want to see him, he’ll be in Dorsal Ward, I think – follow the signs.’

‘Thanks so much,’ I say as she scurries off again.

Dorsal Ward. OK. I check the sign fixed to the wall: left, apparently. Then right. Then left, left, right, left, right, right – bloody hell. This place goes on for ever.

‘Excuse me,’ I ask, snagging a passing person in scrubs, ‘am I on track to get to Dorsal Ward?’

‘Sure are,’ he says, without slowing. Hmm. I’m not sure how much he engaged with that question. I guess if you work here you get really sick of visitors asking for directions. I stare at the next sign: Dorsal Ward has now disappeared altogether.

The guy in scrubs pops up beside me, having backtracked down the corridor again. I jump.

‘Sorry, you’re not Tiffy, are you?’ he says.

‘Yes? Hi?’

‘Really! Damn.’ He looks me up and down quite blatantly, and then realises what he’s doing and pulls a face. ‘God, sorry, it’s just none of us quite believed it. Leon will be on Kelp Ward – take the next left.’

‘Believed what?’ I call after him, but he’s already gone, leaving a set of double doors swinging behind him.

This is . . . weird.

As I turn back I spot a male nurse with light-brown skin and dark hair, whose navy-blue scrubs look threadbare even from here – I’ve noticed how worn Leon’s scrubs are when they’re drying on the clothes horse. We make eye contact for a split second, but then he turns his head, checking the pager on his hip, and jogs off down the opposite corridor. He’s tall. It might have been him? We were too far apart to tell for sure. I walk more quickly to follow him, get slightly out of breath, then feel a bit stalkerish, and slow down again. Crap. I think I missed the turning to Kelp Ward.

I take stock in the middle of the corridor. Without the tulle skirt my dress has deflated, clinging to the fabric of my leggings; I’m hot and flustered, and, let’s be honest, completely lost.

The sign says next left for the Leisure Room, which is where I started. I sigh, checking the time. Only five minutes until our show should begin – I’d better get back in there. I’ll track Leon down afterwards, hopefully without encountering any more slightly freaky strangers who know my name.

There’s a sizeable crowd when I head back into the room; Katherin spots me with relief and kicks off the show right away. I dutifully follow her instructions, and, while Katherin enthusiastically extols the virtues of the closed stitch, I scan the room. The patients are a mix of elderly ladies and gentlemen, about two thirds of whom are in wheelchairs, and a few middle-aged ladies who look quite poorly but much more interested in what Katherin’s saying than anybody else is. There are three kids, too. One is a little girl whose hair is just growing back after chemo, I’m guessing. Her eyes are enormous and I notice them because she’s not staring at Katherin like everybody else is, she’s watching me, and beaming.

I give her a little wave. Katherin slaps my hand.

‘You’re a dreadful mannequin today!’ she scolds, and I’m brought back to the moment on the cruise ship in February, the last time Katherin was manhandling me into various uncomfortable positions in the name of crochet. For an instant, I can recall Justin’s expression exactly as it was when our eyes locked – not the way it looks in my memory, faded and changed with time, but as it actually was. A shiver goes through me.

Katherin casts me a curious look, and I snap out of the memory with an effort, managing a reassuring smile. As I look up I see a tall, dark-haired man in scrubs push through a door into one of the other wards, and my heart jumps. But it’s not Leon. I’m almost glad. I’m unsettled, off-kilter – it’s somehow not the moment I want to meet him.

‘Arms up, Tiffy!’ Katherin trills in my ear, and, with a shake of my head, I go back to doing as I’m told.





20


Leon

Letter is crumpled in trouser pocket. Tiffy asked me to read it before I send it on to Richie. But haven’t, yet. It’s painful. Feel suddenly sure that she won’t understand. That she’ll say he’s a calculating criminal, just like the judge did. Say his excuses don’t add up, that given his character and his past he’s exactly what we should all have expected.

I’m stressed, shoulders tense. Barely caught a glimpse, and yet can’t shake the feeling that red-headed woman at the other end of the corridor to Dorsal Ward might have been her. If it was, hope she didn’t think I ran off. Obviously, did run off. But still. Would rather she didn’t know it.