Читать книгу Sydney Harbour Hospital: Ava's Re-Awakening - Carol Marinelli, Carol Marinelli - Страница 10

‘LOOK at you!’

The reception that greeted him as he walked onto the unit for the first time in three months was far more friendly and receptive than Ava’s had been.

‘Where did you disappear to?’ Carla, the unit manager on the day ward, asked.

‘Brisbane,’ James said.

‘She meant this.’ Harriet gave a friendly sort of pat to his stomach as she walked past and, yes, he’d forgotten that Harriet had been getting a bit too friendly before he’d gone away.

‘Ava’s got herself a whole new man,’ Carla said, and winked at him, and he grinned back, because Carla would soon have a word if needed. ‘Bet she’s delighted to have you back.’

‘She is,’ James said, and as Harriet pulled on her gloves he watched her cheeks flood with colour as he made things clear. ‘And I’m really glad to be back—I’ve just been up to see her.’

He’d read through files and results and it really was good to be back—at least on the unit. He tried not to think about Ava’s lukewarm—or, rather, stone-cold—reception. A long breath came out of his nose as he tried not to think about it but, hell, he’d thought she might be at the airport, he’d even emailed his flight times as a prompt, and then when she hadn’t been he had stopped by the flat, just in case she’d taken the morning off, but of course she was at work.

‘We’ve a new patient this morning.’ Carla handed him a file. ‘Richard Edwards. He was supposed to be in on Friday for his first round of chemotherapy but he cancelled. I wondered if you could have a word with him as he’s ever so anxious. Wouldn’t be surprised if he refuses again.’

‘Sure.’ James read through the file and his colleague Blake’s meticulous notes. Richard was nineteen and had been recently diagnosed with testicular cancer. He was stage one and all his markers were good, but after discussion with Blake he had decided to go ahead with chemotherapy, though he was clearly wavering on that decision now.

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s in the coffee room. Do you want me to bring him through to your office?’

‘I’ll find him.’

James headed down to the patients’ and relatives’ coffee room and met with the young man and his worried parents. ‘I’ll have a chat with Richard …’

‘We’ll come,’ his anxious parents said, but James shook his head.

‘I’ll speak with you all shortly, but first I’d like to speak with Richard himself.’

‘He gets overwhelmed—’

‘I’m sure he does,’ James said. ‘That’s why I’ll go through everything again afterwards.’

‘Thanks for that,’ Richard said as they took a seat in James’s office. ‘They’ve been great and everything, but …’ He struggled to finish his sentence and James tried for him.

‘They’re not the ones going through it?’

Richard nodded. ‘They don’t understand why I wouldn’t want the chemotherapy if it gives you more chance that it won’t come back. Blake seemed to think it was the better option, but he did speak about waiting and watching,’ Richard said. ‘I’ve just started a new job, I’ve got a new girlfriend and she’s been great and everything, but I just can’t imagine …’ He closed his eyes for a moment and James didn’t interrupt. ‘I always look after myself. I’m a vegetarian. I just think I might be able to take care of this myself. I’ve been looking into things …’

‘It’s called watchful waiting,’ James said. ‘There’s no evidence your cancer has spread so if you adopt that approach then you’ll come back regularly for tests—and if it does come back the treatment is still there for you. Some people prefer that, whereas others find it far more stressful and just want the treatment straight away.’ He spent time with Richard, going through everything, giving him pointers to do his own research, and it was good to be back at work with real patients. He liked informing his patients, liked them informed, and Richard was. He didn’t, at this stage, want to go ahead with the treatment, but as they wound up the discussion, along came the question, the one he was asked so many times. ‘What would you do if it was you?’ There were variations to the question, of course—if it was your wife, your mother, your daughter, your son. So often James was asked what he would do in their place, and normally he answered it easily, but maybe he was out of practice, because he hesitated a moment before answering.

‘What you’re doing,’ James said. ‘I’d weigh up my options. Do you want to make another appointment so we can talk again in a couple of weeks?

‘That would be great,’ Richard said. ‘Will you speak with my parents?’

‘Sure.’

It didn’t go down very well, but James took his time with them too, assuring them that it was a valid option, that Richard wasn’t closing any doors—and sometimes, James thought as he headed back to the treatment area, it was the relatives who had the hardest time dealing with things.

‘No go?’ Carla asked.

‘Not at this stage,’ James said. ‘I’ve given him some decent sites to look at and some reading material.’

As he wrote in Richard’s notes James could fully understand Richard’s decision. He was fortunate that he did have options, and chemotherapy wasn’t a decision to be made lightly, or pressured into. He looked through the glass screen at the patients in for treatment this morning and recognised a couple of them.

There was Georgia, back to do battle again, her headphones on. She gave him a smile as she caught him looking over and James returned it, and then he let her be because she closed her eyes and went back to the affirmations she played through the headphones each time her treatment was delivered. Then he looked over at Heath, who didn’t look over or up. He was still too busy controlling the world from his laptop, still insisting the world wouldn’t survive without him for a couple of days …

It just might have to, though.

James must have dropped his suitcase off on his way to the hospital because when Ava walked into the apartment, laden with bags, there it was in the lounge.

She could smell that blasted cologne in the air, just a trace that lingered, and she opened a window to let in some fresh air. They had a two-bedroom apartment at Kirribilli Views. It was the perfect place for a young professional couple and several other medical staff from the hospital lived there. One of the bedrooms was used as James’s study. Many times while he had been away Ava had found herself in there and she found herself in there now. It was always messy. James had forbidden her from tidying it, insisting he knew where everything was. There was their wedding photo on the desk and Ava couldn’t help but think how young and happy they looked. She wandered into their bedroom—well, for the last year or so it had been her bedroom. She kept her home far neater than she kept her office, though it was hard to keep anything tidy with James around, even though they had Gladys, the cleaner, coming once a week. Really, for the last three months Gladys must’ve thought herself on holiday—well, she’d get a shock when she came in this week now that James was back.

She wandered into their en suite. Gladys would have a fit when she saw it, because for the last three months it had been spotless. Ava routinely wiped down the shower after use and folded towels and put them back. James left his clothes where they dropped and his towels too. Funny, that even though he slept on the sofa, he always used the en suite. There was a small bathroom in the hallway, a guest bathroom, and James probably didn’t want to be a guest in his own home.

God, she was nervous, and she jumped when her phone bleeped a text from James telling her he’d be home about seven.

Well, he wasn’t exactly racing home his first night back.

So she put the shopping away and marinated some chicken and tried to tell herself it was ridiculous to feel so nervous. It was just James coming home.

‘Sorry about that.’ She jumped as she heard James’s key in the door. ‘I dropped into Mum’s.’ He was balancing containers of food from Veronica, who seemed to think he needed rations to fortify him. He gave her a kiss but he was still holding the containers, so it was rather hit-and-miss.

‘No problem.’ Ava was used to him being late, so she didn’t put the vegetable steamer on till she heard him come through the door. ‘Dinner won’t be long.’ It felt strange to be cooking for two again. The last three months she’d been eating mainly frozen meals, healthy ones, though, and with extra steamed vegetables, and she’d taken up exercising again and lost a little bit of weight too. Still, cooking for two really meant cooking for two in this house. James liked jacket potatoes and butter with everything and he hated steamed vegetables, which were what Ava liked. She’d started eating really healthily when she’d lost the first baby, and she couldn’t quite let go of it, but she was trying to get her old self back.

‘Do you want veggies?’ she asked as she served up, and he gave her the oddest look. ‘I mean, you’ve lost weight, I thought maybe you’re on a diet.’

‘I joined a gym.’ James shrugged. ‘I can eat what I want now,’ he said. ‘It’s great.’

No, she wanted to correct him, because it wasn’t just about that, but she didn’t want to start the night with nagging. She’d already pursed her lips when he’d come home with cartons of chicken and stir-fried rice from his mum’s.

‘You look like you’ve lost weight too.’ James followed her into the living area and they sat down at the table for the first time in a very long time. She felt more awkward than one of her patients on their first visit. ‘I’ve been riding,’ Ava said, ‘and swimming.’

‘That’s good,’ James said. ‘That’s good, Ava.’

It was good, except she felt as if she was giving up on her dream … She’d given up so many things trying to hold on to their baby. Their first pregnancy the doctor had said that of course she could ride, given that she regularly did, and she was incredibly fit after all. So she’d carried on riding and swimming each morning and they had made love lots, as they always had.

The second pregnancy, she’d given up riding, figuring that it seemed stupid to risk a fall.

The third pregnancy, she had felt as if she were on a tightrope and had given up swimming, and by the fourth she had given up James.

And when she’d lost that one, Ava simply knew she couldn’t go through it again. It had been a relief to go on the Pill, to decide that children weren’t going to happen for them, to get on with their lives.

Except they hadn’t.

She sliced her grilled chicken, tried not to think about it. She didn’t want to think about babies. It was hard not to, though. She never had any problems getting pregnant. It was staying pregnant that had proved impossible. Six weeks, nine weeks, seven weeks and then ten weeks once …

She remembered Finn dragging her to the door.

Remembered his voice as he’d called her husband, but by then it had already been too late.

‘So what did you get up to in Brisbane?’

‘Not much. The teaching was pretty full on.’

‘You seemed pretty busy.’

He stood to get another bottle of water.

‘Might treat myself to sparkling,’ James said, and she knew it was a dig, because after three months apart they should be popping corks.

‘Can you check I turned the oven off?’ She watched his shoulders stiffen, knew it drove him crazy when once it had made him laugh, but she was forever checking things like that.

‘Well?’

‘It’s off,’ he said, cracking open the sparkling water, filling his glass and then raising it. ‘Cheers!’

She was quite sure he hadn’t checked but didn’t say so, very determined not to start a row.

Or face that conversation.

‘I got you Mum’s present for her birthday.’ God, but it was awkward. They hadn’t seen each other for three months so they should be at it over the table right now, completely unable to keep their hands off each other. Instead, there had been no contact and, worse, the conversation was strained. They simply had nothing to say to each other—it was worse than a first date.

‘How’s your work?’ James asked.

‘Busy.’

‘I heard about Finn’s operation being cancelled.’

‘Postponed.’

‘Ava.’ He’d finished his chicken and she had barely started hers. ‘While I’ve been away, I’ve been—’

‘I had a chat with Evie …’ They didn’t speak at the same time. James started and she interrupted and then stopped. ‘Sorry.’ She knew she had to face it. ‘You were saying?’

‘It can wait,’ James said, because he didn’t want to face it either. ‘How was Evie?’

They watched a movie, or tried to, but it was a crime one and she hated those, so midway through Ava gave up and went on her computer, writing up patient notes, fixing other people’s lives instead of her own.

‘I’m going to bed.’ She didn’t bend her head to kiss him and James hardly looked up, neither quite brave enough to have that talk.

He sat in the semi-darkness, teeth gritted, and tried to concentrate on the film, because if he didn’t he might just march into that bedroom and say something he’d regret.

Some welcome home.

He was a night person, and once Ava had been. She’d been a morning person too—up at the crack of dawn and swimming on weekdays, riding at weekends, and he was glad she was doing that again. It was the early nights he couldn’t stand and she was going to bed even earlier. Now it was lights down at ten, like some school trip.

James hauled himself from the sofa and wandered into his study, saw the wedding photo on the desk and he barely recognised them so he closed the door, went back into the living room, opened up his case then headed to the cupboard and took out a blanket and pillow and tossed them down.

God, but he hated that sofa.

There was a small bathroom in the hall and he was quite sure she’d prefer that he use it, but he refused to, so he took out his toiletry bag from the case and walked into the bedroom where she lay pretending to be asleep as he went into the en suite.

James took off the shirt and discarded the linen pants on the floor, then he rinsed off the cologne and looked at her make-up bag, saw the little packet of pills that was supposed to have been the solution. He thought about having a shower, but decided that it could wait till morning. There was a show he liked starting soon, so he put a towel around his hips and walked past her bed on the way to the sofa. They’d talk tomorrow, he decided, or maybe they should wait till after his mum’s birthday. He was starving. One piece of grilled chicken and a baby potato with a tiny knob of low-fat sour cream—there hadn’t been butter in the apartment for years, another thing that was banned. Maybe he should ring for a pizza; that would really get under her skin …

And then he stopped.

He just stopped.

Because he could do this no longer, because it had come to this. He was sick of the sofa and sick of not wanting to come home—and, as hard as it was, he had to say it—he was an oncologist after all, should be able to stand by a bed and deliver a grim diagnosis.

‘Ava.’ He stood by the bed. ‘I need to talk to you.’ Her eyes were still closed but he carried on. ‘These last months while I’ve been away in Brisbane, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.’

‘James.’ She turned on her side. ‘It’s late, can we talk tomorrow? At the weekend maybe?’ She didn’t want to hear it.

‘No,’ James said. ‘We’re going to talk now. You know how we agreed about no children, that we weren’t going to have babies …’

She didn’t want this conversation, just didn’t want to have it, but James pressed on regardless. ‘When you went on the Pill, I thought it was supposed to take the pressure off, supposed to be a relief, but if anything it’s made things worse.’ She could feel him standing over her, could feel tears building behind her eyes, and then as he carried on, she grew angry. ‘I mean, even if we only had sex because you wanted to get pregnant, at least we did it …’

‘Oh, poor James.’ She opened her eyes now—angry eyes that met his. Three months apart and a whole lot of thinking and that was all he could come up with, that they weren’t doing it any more. ‘So you’re not getting enough!’

‘I know I’m not good at this.’ James hissed his frustration. ‘I know that I say the wrong thing, but will you just hear me out? Every day you tell your patients to talk things through,’ James said. ‘Every night you come home and refuse to.’

‘What do you want to talk about, James? That we’re not doing it? Well, sorry …’ And she stopped. She just didn’t have the energy to argue any more, couldn’t drag up any more excuses, and she sat up in the bed and looked at the face she had always loved, and he was looking at her as if he didn’t even know who she was.

‘We’re finished, aren’t we?’ James said it for them and it made her want to retch, but instead she just sat there as he answered the question for them. ‘I mean, how much more finished can you be if after being away for three months I’m automatically heading for the sofa?’

‘Some sex therapist!’ She made the stupid joke for him, the one he must hear every day, when no doubt people nudged him and said how lucky he was. If only they knew. She wanted to reach out to him but she didn’t know how. She’d tried so many times to have the conversations that ran in her head with him, to mourn the loss of their babies together. She had tried to tell him how she was feeling, that it wasn’t just the baby she grieved for but the chance to be a mother, to fix what had been broken with her own mum. She really had tried. At first she’d cried on him. James all big and strong, telling her things would be fine, that there would be other babies, except that wasn’t what she had wanted him to say.

Neither had it helped when he’d told her that they’d try again soon because she hadn’t wanted him to say that either.

He was an oncologist, for God’s sake; he should know how to handle grief!

She could remember how excited he had been the first time she had been pregnant. He’d told her how much he wanted children, how much he was looking forward to being a dad. He’d shared his dreams with her and she felt like she’d ended them.

‘What happens now?’ She looked over at him.

‘I don’t know,’ James admitted. ‘I guess we both get a lawyer.’

‘We don’t need lawyers.’

‘That’s what everyone says, isn’t it?’ James said. ‘Let’s just get a lawyer and get it done.’

He headed out to the sofa and she called him back. ‘It’s your mum’s birthday next weekend—should we do it after that?’

He gave a short nod. ‘I’ll go to a hotel tomorrow. I’ll tell her after, well, not straight after …’

‘Okay.’ She couldn’t stand it—she couldn’t stand to look at what she was losing so she moved to turn out the bedside light. ‘Night, then.’

That incensed him. He strode over, his face suddenly livid, and as she plunged them into darkness he turned the light back on and stood over her. ‘You can’t even squeeze out a tear, can you?’ James accused.

‘Don’t say that.’ Because if she started crying she thought she might never stop.

‘You’re just glad it’s done, aren’t you?’ James said. ‘Well, you know what? So am I. It’s been hell …’

‘It wasn’t all bad.’

‘No, Ava, it wasn’t all bad,’ James said, his voice rising, ‘but it wasn’t all good either, so don’t try and sugarcoat the situation. This last year has been hell and I just want done with it.’ She winced at his anger, at the hurt that was there, and then he stopped shouting. ‘Sorry.’ he ran a hand through his hair. ‘I’m sorry, okay? I don’t want to fight.’ He sat down on the bed and took her hand. ‘We’ll do this civilly. I don’t want any more rows, we’ll finish things nicely … You’re right, it wasn’t all bad.’ And he looked at her. ‘There was an awful lot of good.’

‘I don’t want to fight,’ she begged, because she hated fights, she hated rows, they made her feel ill, and James knew that.

‘We won’t,’ he promised. ‘We’ll just …’ He gave a shrug. She could see all his muscles, he’d really toned up, he looked amazing, he felt amazing on her skin as his hand met her arm. ‘We’ll remember the good times,’ James said. ‘We don’t want to end up like Donna and Neil.’

And they both shared a pale laugh, because they’d had Donna and Neil over many times, at first together and then, when their marriage had broken up, separately, where they’d sat bitching and moaning about their exes—and James and Ava had shared many cross-eyed looks in the kitchen as they’d topped up drinks or put out dips …

‘“He makes out he’s so easygoing …’” She put on Donna’s voice.

‘“Don’t know what she spends it on.”’ He put on Neil’s.

‘“He was crap in bed …”’ She was still Donna.

‘Well, you won’t be saying that,’ James said, but in his own voice now.