Читать книгу Could It Be Magic? - Melanie Rose - Страница 10

Chapter Four

When I awoke snuggled in the double duvet in my own bed, the feeling of relief was immense. I still wasn’t convinced that my experience as Lauren was simply a normal dream, there were too many abnormalities, too many questions left unanswered, but I was awake now, I was Jessica again; my body was feeling physically rested and my mind relaxed as if I had merely been deeply asleep and dreaming. Yawning, I luxuriated in the knowledge that I was home and safe in my own world.

I sat up and hugged Frankie tightly. ‘You will never believe where I’ve been,’ I told her as I slid out of bed and padded barefoot to the high window. I flung open the curtains to another glorious autumn day. ‘What would you say if I told you I was somewhere else all night while you were lying here keeping my feet warm for me?’

Frankie put her head on one side and gave a short bark.

I ran myself a hot bath, and while it was running I gave Frankie her breakfast of dry mix, put the kettle on for my morning tea, and went to the front door in my pyjamas to look for the post.

Nothing but circulars. It should have been sad really that few people ever wrote to me. The only mail I received on a regular basis usually came in brown envelopes, with the exception of occasional airmail letters from my brother Simon, but I supposed that was because I was what some people might call a bit of a loner. I smiled to myself as I sifted through the junk mail. I preferred my own character description of self-sufficient, work-orientated and perhaps a little wary of commitment. But either way, today I didn’t care. All that mattered was that I was here, back in my own body where I should be, flaws and all.

As I lay in the bath looking down at my youthful body, I smiled at the lack of stretch marks and bruises, the dark body hair in all the right places. I wondered if blondes had to shave their legs. I hoped I would never have to find out.

The thought sobered me, robbing me of the joy I’d been experiencing since I’d woken up. Grabbing the soap, I worked it to a rich lather and began to wash vigorously. I might be home now, but the nightmare clung, refusing to simply rinse away with the soapsuds. At some point this body would need to sleep, and while it was resting, the nightmare might return. I had only dreamed the dream twice, but the fact that the second dream had seemed to continue on so smoothly from the first was dreadfully worrying. Suppose I found myself struggling with that other life again?

Lying back in the warm water, my mind dwelled on the possibilities. Dream or not, while I was being Lauren, her life had seemed as real to me as my own.

And what if I had to experience going home to that family? The thought brought a rush of terror. Yesterday, when I’d been dozing, I’d been aware of Lauren having her drip disconnected. Did that mean that every time I slept, I ran the risk of returning to continue the dream? If that were the case then I’d be constantly on the go, flitting from dream to reality without respite.

Watching a tiny bubble drift up to the ceiling, I was filled with the dreadful certainty that the real Lauren was dead. After listening to Dr Shakir’s account of her injuries I was sure he felt Lauren should be dead or irreparably brain-damaged, despite his outward claim that her quick recovery was nothing unusual.

The thought that the children’s mother had probably died not only shook me to the core, it brought a lump to my throat. She had been a stranger to me, of course, and possibly a figment of my imagination, but in my dream I had been there in her body and I felt an overwhelming grief for this woman I had never known. My heart went out to her husband and children. They had lost the wife and mother they loved, and didn’t even know they should be mourning her loss.

My lips trembled and I pressed them firmly together. There was nothing I could do for her now, I told myself. The best I could do while I was there was to try to keep her body from further harm, and I found myself wondering what another chapter of the dream might hold for me. Meanwhile, I rather guiltily thanked my lucky stars it had been Lauren who had died and not me.

I lay back in the warm water for a moment or two, pondering why I had survived and Lauren obviously hadn’t, when the whole situation suddenly seemed absurd. I sat up abruptly, slopping water over the edges of the bath onto the green bathroom carpet. What was I doing, allowing this incredible situation to take over my thoughts? I asked myself angrily. Why was I accepting this living nightmare as if it were a normal, everyday occurrence? I knew that what was frightening me most was the possibility that it wasn’t a dream at all. Not in the normal sense, anyway. And if it wasn’t a dream, then what?

Sitting in the rapidly cooling water, I gazed into space, wondering. What other explanation could there be, other than the shadowy fear that when I was awake I was Jessica, and when Lauren was awake I was her…

I groaned loudly, putting my hands over my ears as if I could shut out the clamouring of my own thoughts, thoughts which sounded as if they had come straight from watching the sci-fi channel on Sky TV. I had to believe that the dream was over now, or I’d be afraid to sleep ever again.

Frankie had heard the groan and was whining at the bathroom door.

‘It’s okay, Frankie,’ I called through the door. ‘I’ll be out in a mo.’

Still sitting up, I shampooed my dark brown hair, thanking God for the lack of burns to my scalp as I massaged it to a lather. The lightning hadn’t hit my head at all.

Perhaps, I thought, as I ran Saturday’s events through my mind for the umpteenth time, my lucky escape hadn’t been solely due to the protection afforded by my thick sheepskin coat. It might well have been partly due to the way I’d been hunched forward against the downpour, ready to dive into the passenger seat of Dan’s car, so that the force had missed my head.

Ducking under the water to wash the shampoo away and then wriggling upright, I stepped out of the bath, squeezed the excess water out of my hair, and wrapped myself in my towelling bathrobe. I glanced at the clock. Damn! I’d been so caught up in what was happening to me, I was going to be late for work if I didn’t hurry. I dressed quickly, shoved a piece of crispbread into my mouth and ran up the steps with Frankie at my heels. We walked for ten minutes while Frankie sniffed at lampposts and did her business, which I picked up in my trowel and deposited into a doggy-bin, then headed home at a brisk trot.

‘See you at lunchtime,’ I called as I closed the door to my flat behind me and, biting a chunk out of a juicy red apple, headed out onto the pavement for the ten-minute walk to work.

The legal firm I worked for, Chisleworth & Partners, was housed in a drab-looking building in a side road off the high street. I took the steps two at a time, and arrived at my desk about half a minute before my boss, Stephen Armitage.

Stephen was a good-looking man in his early forties and had been my boss for the last ten years, ever since I’d left secretarial college at the age of eighteen. He’d overseen most of my training to become a legal secretary and had encouraged me to work towards gaining extra qualifications in the legal field, taking me under his wing as his assistant and protégé. Stephen had been kind and attentive and we spent much of our working hours together, sometimes working late into the night when the office was quiet and we were gathering documents and files for court.

As I shrugged out of my coat in the narrow confines of the outer office, I was reminded of how our close working proximity had led one night to a gentle coming together, and while I had never been totally sure of my feelings for him, a relationship with him had seemed easy and inevitable. It had seemed sensible after a while to move into a flat he owned, though I retained my independence by paying him rent and splitting our everyday expenses. Although we had both known I wasn’t ready or willing to settle down properly, we had remained lovers for nearly six years.

Walking back to my desk, I flicked on my computer, unable to keep my mind from dwelling on past actions and decisions I had made. I knew my experience as Lauren was making me question my life here as Jessica, and it suddenly became clear that my doubts about Stephen had probably been obvious to him all along. That doubt was possibly the reason that he’d kept his own flat close to the office, and had influenced our joint decision to see each other socially several times a week rather than living permanently together. I realised now that I had thought him more of a friend with whom I was having a relationship than a partner, and cringed when I remembered I had even introduced him to my parents as such.

I stared blankly at the computer screen as it flickered into life before me, recalling how we’d muddled along in that unsatisfactory fashion until rumours reached me that he was seeing a female barrister on a regular basis. I knew it wasn’t so much the lies or the fact that he was cheating on me that prompted me to move out and put a down-payment on a flat of my own, but the fact that the news hadn’t bothered me anywhere near as much as I knew it ought to have done if I’d really cared for him.

It seemed that Stephen had felt much the same way, and somehow we’d made the difficult transition from lovers to friends, because I loved my job, even if I had to admit I had never really loved him.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, I knew how fortunate I was that the working day began late at Chisleworth & Partners. Stephen never put in an appearance until after ten o’clock, and as long as I was in the office slightly before him he didn’t seem to mind what time I arrived.

This morning he squeezed my shoulder affectionately as he passed my desk, which was a mistake as the high-voltage burn was still pretty tender. I winced with pain, and he was instantly contrite, asking what on earth was the matter. I told him about the lightning strike and he was suitably horrified.

Not as horrified as he would have been if he’d known I’d spent my sleeping hours since Saturday in the body of another woman, I thought to myself, as he asked me solicitously if I was well enough to be working. The nightmare seemed unreal, even laughable now, in the familiar surroundings of the shabby office, with the coffee machine gurgling away in the corner and the computer blinking up at me.

I assured him I was fine, and he vanished into his office with the undisguised relief of a man who had thought I might have wanted him to do something about it if I hadn’t been.

There were two other girls working with me: Clara, who was secretary to Rory Chisleworth himself, and Delores, who answered the telephone, made coffee for clients and spent the rest of the day bitching about her boyfriend to anyone who would listen. As soon as the office door closed behind Stephen’s smart but rather dated blue pinstripe suit, I got up and grabbed the newspaper from Clara’s desk, my eyes flicking straight to the date. Monday, 20 October. And there was the article about the royal family. How could I possibly have dreamed that?

‘Help yourself,’ Clara smiled, with a touch of friendly sarcasm, handing me a cup of coffee before I’d even had time to assimilate all that the date meant.

I sat down at my desk and sipped the hot drink thoughtfully. Monday again, and with the same news. I’d already lived through Monday as Lauren. So what kind of a dream had this sort of continuity? The thoughts that had plagued me earlier returned, reducing my legs to jelly. I’d certainly never heard of anyone picking up a dream from where they’d left off the previous night and living it as if it were an alternate life.

There was that other possibility, I told myself uneasily. It was even more frightening than the dream theory. It might explain why when I was here I was Jessica, and when I was asleep I became Lauren. I knew I couldn’t keep blocking out the awful dawning suspicion forever. Sooner or later I would have to face the inconceivable…Could it be that somehow my life force—my soul—had been split by the simultaneous lightning strike, so that it now inhabited both bodies alternately?

The outlandish idea caused me to suck in a quick intake of breath, which in turn caused a coughing fit as the coffee slid down the wrong way. Clara, who I believe had been talking to me, came and held out a tissue, which I took gratefully. I wiped my eyes and then gave my nose a good blow, which seemed to calm everything down.

‘Are you sure you’re okay to be working?’ she asked, perching on the corner of my desk. ‘You look very pale.’

‘I’m fine, honestly,’ I assured her untruthfully.

She’d heard me telling Stephen about the lightning strike, and wanted to know the details. I told her about meeting Dan and how he’d given me a lift back to my car the next day. She grinned at me and looked as if she was about to interrogate me further when Delores appeared from reception.

‘Mr Chisleworth’s ten thirty is here,’ she announced. Clara returned to her desk with a knowing glance at me, and there was no more opportunity for small talk as the working day began.

Today, unfortunately, Stephen was preparing a case for court. That meant that I would be working closely with him, getting the files together, and would probably not leave the office until after six o’clock, except for my hour-long lunch break when I walked the ten minutes home again to see Frankie.

As it happened, Stephen wanted to work right through lunch, but he knew I walked Frankie in my break and begrudgingly allowed me half an hour to hurry home. I let Frankie out and sat on the wall that surrounded my little courtyard, eating the egg and cress sandwich I’d bought from the sandwich girl at the office before I left.

Everything was so familiar, so normal. I began to think that my experiences as Lauren must simply have been a very real-seeming dream after all.

Back in the office, Stephen was panicking over some mislaid notes, and I hardly had time to grab a cup of afternoon tea, let alone dwell on the workings of the sleeping brain, or the outlandish theory of shared souls. By the time I returned to my flat after Frankie’s evening walk, it was after seven o’clock. I kicked my shoes off in the hallway and walked in stockinged feet into the kitchen to throw a ready-meal into the oven, then flopped down in my armchair with a glass of orange juice.

I glanced anxiously at the clock, allowing my thoughts to return to the forbidden territory of ‘what if?’. So far, if I assumed the worst—that Lauren and I both really coexisted in some way—then it had worked quite well logistically until now because Lauren and I had been keeping strange hours, due to the fact that we’d both been in hospital. What would happen, I wondered—providing she was real—if she was ready to wake up before I was ready to go to bed? Could both of us be awake at the same time? I couldn’t see that it was possible, given that there was only one me, one consciousness—even if I had started flitting between two bodies like something out of a horror movie.

After eating the cardboard-flavoured shepherd’s pie and giving Frankie her supper, I curled up in my chair to see what was on the television, flicking through the channels without much success. I was about to give up and see if there was any ice cream in the freezer, when the phone rang.

It was Dan.

‘How are you today?’ he asked solicitously. ‘Feeling better?’

I could feel the adrenaline flooding my body at the sound of his voice. There was a discernible tightening in my chest and my palms became so clammy I thought the phone was going to slip right out of my grasp. My voice sounded strained when I tried to use it, so I cleared my throat and tried again.

‘I’m much better, thank you. I went in to work today. I’ve only been home just over an hour.’

‘Do you feel well enough to come out for a drink this evening?’

I was about to say I’d love to, when I glanced again at the clock. Eight thirty might not be late in evening terms, but it was getting late to be sleeping in the morning.

I was about to refuse his invitation, when I remembered Nurse Sally’s voice speaking to me as I’d woken as Lauren the previous morning. She’d complained that I was an incredibly heavy sleeper, and that she hadn’t been able to rouse me. Did that mean that Lauren couldn’t wake until I went to sleep?

‘That would be great,’ I heard myself saying. ‘Where should we go?’

He suggested a friendly little pub not more than ten minutes’ drive away. I agreed to meet him there in half an hour. However, once the phone was down and the feeling of euphoria I had felt at the sound of his voice had started to wear off, I was assuaged by feelings of guilt. Poor Lauren—or, rather, poor Lauren’s family, I thought. Suppose my theory was right and this wasn’t a dream? Her children would be waiting to visit her and wondering why their mummy wouldn’t wake up. On the other hand, I had no wish to jump back into her shoes any sooner than I had to. Apart from the children, there was Grant of course. He seemed like a nice caring husband, but I was not his wife and I could see that things could get very complicated there. If I could postpone the moment when I was back in her body by an hour or two, then that suited me just fine, especially if she was going to be allowed home today. I wasn’t looking forward to stepping into that minefield one little bit.

Anyway, I reasoned, as I brushed mascara onto my eyelashes and finished slapping lip-gloss onto my lips, this was all simply a wild theory. I would probably tumble into bed tonight and dream about something completely different. And even if I was somehow right, then I didn’t owe them anything. If their mother was dead, then that was very sad, but why was it my responsibility? I’d never asked for any of this, had I?

The pub was noisy and crowded when I pushed through the front door, and I was beginning to wonder how I would find Dan when he appeared at my side. ‘Shall we go through to the other bar?’ he shouted over the din, and I nodded, following him into the much quieter lounge bar, where he grabbed us a couple of seats at a small round table.

‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked.

‘I’d like a still mineral water, please.’

His eyebrow went up, but he didn’t try to change my mind, as happened frequently when I was out with friends. I’d stopped drinking alcohol in any quantity a few months previously, not for any highbrow reasons, but because I didn’t like the feeling of being out of control. Now, with the lightning strike and my present state of confusion, I decided it might be more sensible, for the present at least, to abstain from drinking altogether.

Dan returned with my water and a pint of lager for himself, and we sat looking at one another warily across the small divide afforded by the table, sipping nervously at our drinks.

‘You’re very pretty when you’re clean and dry,’ he said at last, sitting back and licking a moustache of froth off his top lip with his tongue.

‘You brush up quite well yourself,’ I replied with a smile.

We sat in silence for a moment, contemplating each other over our glasses.

‘I’d really like to get to know you better.’ He blurted it out as if he’d been unable to prevent his thoughts escaping him.

I must have looked rather apprehensive about the unexpected remark, because he grinned widely and took my hand in his.

‘I mean, I’ll tell you something about my life, and you can tell me something about yourself.’

‘You start then,’ I said, trying not to show that it felt as though his touch was setting my hand on fire.

‘Okay. Well, for a start I’m not married,’ he said, answering the question I’d been itching to know. ‘I was engaged to a girl for a while a year or so ago, but she ran off with a friend of mine.’ He took a swig of his lager and looked me in the eye. ‘Your turn.’

‘I lived with a guy for a while, but it didn’t work out. I moved out and got a place of my own two years ago. I live alone now, apart from Frankie of course.’

‘My elderly father lives with me,’ he said. ‘He’s an old rogue, but his heart’s in the right place. You’d like him.’

‘I’m sure I would.’ I yawned suddenly and clamped my hand over my mouth, embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry. It’s been a long day, especially after what happened…’

‘Come on,’ he said, downing his pint and pulling me to my feet. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you out this evening, especially as you struggled in to work today. You would have been perfectly within your rights to have stayed in bed all day.’

I longed to tell him that bed was the last place I wanted to be. That was the place where I was thrown into a bizarre alternate world, but that information wasn’t something I thought would go down particularly well on our first date.

He walked me to my car, and I apologised again for having to leave almost before our evening had begun.

‘I’ll ring again in a few days, when you’ve had a chance to recover properly,’ he said, giving me a chaste peck on the cheek. ‘Go on, get yourself home. What you need is a good night’s sleep.’

It was gone ten o’clock when I clambered at last into bed and snuggled down with Frankie on the floor beside me in her basket. I was so tired, I didn’t even have time to fret about what might lie ahead of me. My last thought was that the nightmare might all be over by now. Perhaps the lightning had, after all, induced hallucinatory dreams, and that being the case, maybe I would never have to be Lauren again.

As it turned out, there was no such luck.

I felt myself being shaken awake by Dr Shakir, who was standing over me looking extremely concerned.

‘How do you feel, Lauren?’ he asked as I opened my eyes.

‘Fine,’ I replied groggily. My head felt as if I was waking from the deepest of sleeps, my eyes were having difficulty opening, and I was sure my lids were puffed up like a pig’s.

‘We have been worried about you. Do you remember who you are?’

I contemplated for the briefest of seconds telling him that I was Jessica Taylor, but decided against it almost immediately. What was happening to me was the result of no medical condition Dr Shakir would ever have encountered. There seemed no point in doing anything other than playing along with this strange game in which I found myself once again.

‘I’m Lauren Richardson,’ I said. ‘I’m married with four children.’

‘Lauren, sweetheart!’ came a voice from the other side of the room. ‘You’ve got your memory back!’

I turned my head to see Grant advancing on me, eyes bright. ‘We—the doctors and I—thought you’d gone into a coma! We thought we were losing you all over again.’ And, to my horror, my husband gathered me in his arms and began to sob uncontrollably.

Dr Shakir snapped his fingers at Nurse Sally. ‘Fetch Mr Richardson a cup of hot sweet tea, would you, nurse?’

‘Grant,’ I said from somewhere beneath his shirt, ‘you’re suffocating me.’

‘Don’t do that again, my love,’ he said, releasing me, but taking hold of both my hands as he perched on the edge of the bedside chair. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you left us.’

I stared with some embarrassment into the tear-stained face of this man who was gazing at me with such love. I told myself to think him as if he were the husband of a good friend. I knew that if I were an onlooker and not the object of his love I might have been moved by his obvious devotion. The knowledge quelled my instinctive feelings of alarm and I found a small spark of compassion. Grant was not a strong man.

‘I’ve only been asleep,’ I told him gently. ‘I’ve felt so tired since this all happened.’

His eyes darted to Dr Shakir, who shook his dark head as if my condition was a new one on him.

‘The nurses have been trying to rouse you since seven o’clock this morning, Lauren,’ Dr Shakir said. ‘In the end I was called, because they feared you had fallen into a coma. We ran tests, but although they showed your metabolism had slowed considerably, your vital signs have remained steady. We simply couldn’t wake you up.’

‘I think,’ I said slowly, realising that my worst fears had been justified. ‘That I might be needing a lot of sleep from now on. I’m sure there’s no need to worry about me, though.’

‘Lauren!’ Grant exclaimed, undisguised exasperation overlying his earlier tone of abject misery. ‘They’ve been trying to wake you for the last three hours. That’s not normal, sweetheart.’

‘Wouldn’t you rather have me back for a few hours a day than not at all?’ I asked him shortly.

Grant looked affronted, but I ploughed on regardless.

‘What I’m trying to tell you is that if you let me wake when I’m ready, I’ll probably recover a lot quicker.’

Grant nodded eventually and went out into the corridor. I heard him calling the children and I closed my eyes again, mentally preparing myself to try to be suitably motherly to his children.

‘Lauren,’ Dr Shakir’s voice murmured softly. ‘Is there something you aren’t telling us?’

‘Like what?’ I asked, frightened suddenly that he knew my secret.

‘I don’t know. Maybe your memory has returned more than you are willing to admit?’

‘Why should I say I don’t remember things if it’s not true?’ I asked. I was unsure what he was getting at, but he was looking at me strangely, and I didn’t like it.

‘You have a very demanding home life,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Everyone seems to depend on you. It can’t be easy to cope with four children under the age of eight, especially as one of your twins has special needs.’

I stared back at him, relieved that he thought I was shamming. It was a lot better than the prospect of him discovering the truth. I had no intention of spending the rest of my days in a laboratory, being hooked up to monitors while I slept, and having my life examined in minute detail. I decided to act as if affronted by his comment.

‘If you’re insinuating that I’m delaying my recovery on purpose, then I can assure you, you couldn’t be further from the truth.’

‘You haven’t seemed too eager to see your children since you’ve been in hospital,’ he pointed out. ‘No one’s blaming you, Lauren, everyone deserves a rest sometimes.’

‘Perhaps I should share my secret for a peaceful life with other harassed mothers,’ I retorted. ‘Get yourselves struck by lightning, girls, it works wonders in the sympathy stakes.’

Before the doctor had a chance to respond, Grant appeared with the children in tow, and I sat up and pecked them each on the cheek in turn. Teddy tried to twist his face away at the last moment, but I managed to kiss the side of his ear. I felt it was the least I could do for Lauren.

‘Did you all enjoy Chessington World of Adventures yesterday?’ I asked them.

‘We went on some really cool rides,’ Nicole said. ‘Daddy wouldn’t let us go on the really big ones, but Sophie and me went on the Vampire Ride!’

‘Toby and Teddy were too small,’ Sophie put in with a twinge of disappointment. ‘They only wanted to go into the Bubbleworks and to Beanoland.’

‘I drove Daddy in a Tiny Truck,’ Toby put in excitedly, ‘and in Beanoland we fired foam balls and went on the Bash Street Bus.’

‘Did Daddy go on it?’ I asked with a smile.

‘I had to go on all sorts of things,’ Grant said with a playful grimace. ‘Most of the rides require a parent to accompany young children, and it wasn’t easy with the twins being too small for a lot of the bigger rides.’ He gave me a wan look. ‘It would have been easier and more fun if you’d been well enough to come, Lauren. We missed you.’

I turned my attention to Teddy. ‘Did you have a nice time too?’

He twisted the toe of his shoe into the floor and wouldn’t answer.

‘You know he finds those sorts of places a challenge,’ Grant said with a sigh. ‘Remember when we took the children to the local fair last year and he spent the whole time with his head hidden under my jacket?’

I stared at him blankly and there was a short silence as everyone realised they’d forgotten I didn’t remember anything about anything at all.

‘Is Mum coming home today?’ Sophie asked into the silence.

‘It may be possible, depending on the result of the MRI scan and as long as there will be someone at home to look after her for the next few days,’ Dr Shakir said.

‘I’ve taken the week off work anyway,’ Grant said. ‘And Lauren’s sister Karen has said she’ll come to stay for a couple of days next week.’

Dr Shakir looked at me. ‘What do you think, Lauren? Are you ready to go home, even though your memory has not yet returned?’

I didn’t like to say that if the return of my memory were the criteria for going home with the Richardsons, then I’d be in hospital forever. Lauren’s memories were not available to me. I would have to start fresh from here, or else I’d have to persuade them to keep her sedated in hospital for the rest of her life in the hope that under the influence of a drug-induced sleep I never had to return here.

Studying each of her children in turn, I decided I’d give it a go, for their sake. A heavily sedated mother was really no mother at all, and I felt they needed a mother desperately, each in their own special way.

Dear God, I thought, as I watched Toby bouncing on the end of the bed and the girls chatting animatedly about yesterday’s outing. Is that why I’m here?

Grant brought in a fresh change of clothes for me that afternoon, when he returned with the children for a second visit. He told me he’d got rid of the ones I’d been wearing when the lightning struck.

‘They were all burned, Mummy,’ Nicole told me, her eyes as large as saucers as she remembered the incident.

‘And your shoes were melted,’ Toby added. ‘I carried them to the ambulance for you, but they were squished.’

I didn’t want to dwell on the horrible reality of Lauren’s burns, which I now believed had actually killed her.

‘Don’t forget I still haven’t been given the all-clear from Dr Shakir,’ I reminded them gently.