Anywhere's Better Than Here (16 page)

‘‘Go on, Laurie, amuse yourself, you're a big girl now.''

She hadn't said it unkindly, but Laurie had left the room. It was such a nothing experience, a non-event, that Laurie couldn't fathom why she kept thinking of it. She could just see her mother's head bent over her work, licking envelopes and firmly running her nails over the flap to seal them. She could feel the pressure on her elbow and the small push as her mother sent her on her way. She was just trying to remember what her mother was wearing when she became aware that someone was asking her a question.

‘‘Earth to Laurie? Come in Laurie?''

It was Margaret, gazing open-mouthed at Laurie while the other two looked on.

‘‘Sorry,'' Laurie said, shaking her head. ‘‘I was miles away.''

Pat smiled at her kindly. ‘‘Penny for them?''

‘‘Is it man trouble?'' asked Marie.

Laurie sighed. ‘‘Yes. I suppose it is.'' Laurie held her hands out in front of her, palms up. ‘‘It's my sort of boyfriend.'' She tried to smile. ‘‘We've sort of split up.'' She shrugged.

‘‘Sort of boyfriend? Sort of split up? What?'' asked Pat.

‘‘I haven't split up with my real boyfriend.'' She shook her head, but she couldn't even work up to feeling angry. ‘‘I just don't know what I'm doing.'' She felt like leaning her head against the coffee table but the angle wouldn't work and they'd all think she was a complete nut job so she resisted the urge.

‘‘Does your real boyfriend know about this other one?'' Pat looked confused.

‘‘He hasn't said he does, but I think he might.'' She stared into her tea cup. ‘‘He went to stay at his mum's for a couple of days,'' she swirled her tea, ‘‘but he came back again.''

‘‘Oh,'' said Margaret. ‘‘And the sort-of boyfriend, does he know about the real one?''

‘‘Yeah. But I haven't gone into any details.'' She drank her tea. ‘‘I don't think that's the problem. I think he thinks I'm too young.''

‘‘Oh God Laurie, how old is he?'' Pat was horrified.

‘‘Oh, he isn't a lot older. He's in his thirties, early thirties.''

‘‘And how old are you again, Laurie?'' Marie's face was puckered with concern.

‘‘Well, I'm in my early twenties.''

Pat laughed. ‘‘You're a bit young to be being vague. How old
are
you?''

‘‘I'm twenty four.'' Laurie felt like a hopeless case. She didn't even know these women, but she had no one else to tell.

‘‘Well,'' Pat sat back, considering. ‘‘That's not a massive age difference, is it?'' Although she didn't seem convinced. ‘‘Do you really think it's that?''

‘‘Has he just come out of a bad relationship?'' asked Marie.

‘‘No.'' She thought for a second. ‘‘At least I don't think so. He has just come out of the army quite recently.''

‘‘Has he got that Post Stress Trauma thing?'' asked Marie, looking knowledgeable.

The other women stared at Marie.

‘‘What?'' she said, annoyed. ‘‘I saw it on
This Morning
. Dr Chris was saying that it happens more than we think.'' She nodded sagely at the others. ‘‘He said there are a lot of guys coming back from Afghanistan experiencing trauma.'' She said trauma as if it was in quotations.

Pat and Margaret looked expectantly at Laurie.

‘‘I don't know,'' she considered then shrugged. ‘‘He won't talk about it.''

Marie nodded again. ‘‘That's one of the signs. They don't like to talk about it because it brings it all back.''

‘‘Oh yeah,'' Margaret nodded. ‘‘My granddad was like that. He wouldn't talk about the war and he went very quiet sometimes.'' She looked off into the distance. ‘‘My Gran made us go out and play when that happened. I was only wee when he died, of course.''

‘‘But, I mean, that was different, wasn't it? That was, like, a world war. It's not the same now, is it?'' Laurie couldn't see how the two things could compare.

‘‘I dunno Laurie,'' said Pat. ‘‘War's war, isn't it? I saw some pretty hellish stuff on the news, and I bet that was only the half of it.''

‘‘God,'' said Laurie, putting her cup down and her head in her hands. ‘‘I hadn't thought of that.''

‘‘Well Marie,'' said Margaret, turning to Marie. ‘‘What should Laurie do? What did Dr Chris suggest?''

‘‘Oh. I don't know. I went and made a cup of tea and when I came back he'd moved on to Irritable Bowel Syndrome.''

The other two women shook their heads in dismay.

‘‘Laurie, is this the hospital radio fella?'' asked Pat.

‘‘Yeah,'' said Laurie without moving her head from her hands.

‘‘And you say he's mid-thirties?''

Laurie nodded.

‘‘Is he quite a big lad, quite nice looking?''

Laurie looked up at Pat and nodded again.

‘‘Do you know him Pat?'' Marie was agog.

‘‘If it's who I'm thinking of.'' Pat considered a moment. ‘‘I think he's Douglas Callander's son.''

‘‘Dr Callander?'' asked Margaret.

Pat nodded.

Laurie racked her brain for Gerry's surname, but he'd never told her. She tried to remember what the sign on his flat door said, but nothing came to her. Was that what the woman had said in the Art Centre?

‘‘How would you know his dad?'' asked Laurie.

‘‘I used to work in his dad's surgery on the reception. A long time ago. I remember when he went off to the army.'' She looked at Margaret.

Margaret nodded. ‘‘I remember that too. There was quite a hoo hah.''

‘‘What do you mean? Anyway, it can't be Gerry.''

‘‘Well,'' said Pat. ‘‘Let's see, Gerry would be about thirty four or five, because he's the same age as our Irene's oldest because they went to the same nursery. And Dr Callander's boy went off to the army the year he left school, didn't he?'' She looked meaningfully at Margaret.

Laurie caught her look.

‘‘Hang on a minute! What's going on here? You're not saying something!''

Pat and Margaret looked at each other, considering what, if anything to say.

‘‘What?'' asked Marie, sitting on the edge of her seat. ‘‘What?''

Pat sighed. ‘‘If you were my daughter, I'd want you to know.''

Laurie wished she was Pat's daughter. She looked at her pleadingly.

‘‘Well.'' She took a deep breath. ‘‘If it is him, he left for the army in a bit of a hurry.''

‘‘What do you mean? In a hurry?''

‘‘He was seeing this girl, Jenny. Nice girl, lived near me. I don't think it was anything serious, they were both supposed to be going off to uni. Both going to be doctors, I think.''

Laurie had a quick image of Gerry in a white coat, holding a stethoscope. It seemed daft.

‘‘And?'' asked Laurie.

‘‘Well. He went off to the army all of a sudden and then Jenny had a baby a few months later. There was a big fuss. A lot of people stopped talking to the Callanders and then he retired soon after.''

‘‘Really?'' Laurie didn't believe it. ‘‘I doubt that's my Gerry.'' Her Gerry? Laurie felt herself smiling, despite the story.

‘‘Well. Ask him. When are you seeing him next?''

‘‘I don't know. I don't know if he wants to see me again.''

‘‘What happened to the wee baby?'' asked Marie with a damp tremor in her voice.

‘‘Jenny had a boy. He must be about fifteen or so now. But they moved somewhere else in town and I haven't seen her since the boy was a toddler.''

Gerry with a child? She couldn't picture it. And yet she could completely picture it. He'd be a good dad, she thought,. remembering his warm, comfortable bulk. Cuddly.

‘‘I'm going to go and see him later and I'll find out then.''

‘‘D'you reckon?'' asked Margaret. ‘‘Is that a good idea? What if he has got post traumatic whatever?''

‘‘Well.'' She thought for a second. ‘‘If he does, he'll need a friend won't he?'' She felt a warm, saintly glow come over her. Maybe she wasn't so very different to her mother after all.

She had decided during the rest of her shift that she was just going to have to brass neck it. There was no way around it. Fair enough, she didn't know what direction she was going in just at the moment, but she thought she did want to keep seeing Gerry and she was just going to have to be brave and face up to things. Tomorrow she would have to break up with Ed, but first she needed to sort things out with Gerry. She stood in front of the station door and gathered her resolve.

Straightening her spine and taking a deep breath, she raised her hand to knock on the door, but stopped herself just before her hand made contact with the wood. What if he knew it was her and just ignored her? Worse still, what if he locked the door and stood on the other side – unrelenting, silent, glowering through the closed door at her impertinence? Better to just open the door, give him no warning. She straightened herself up, put her hand on the door handle and turned it forcefully.

She jarred her shoulder as she stumbled against the door. He'd locked it! Furious, she pounded on the door.

‘‘For fuck's sake Gerry! Let me in!''

Nothing.

She banged on the door again. There was no sound from the station. She stood looking at the sign on the door, deciding what to do. She leaned her ear against the door straining to hear whether he was standing on the other side, laughing at her stupidity.

But there was absolutely no sound. She realised that there wasn't anybody in the station. Where the hell was he? Oh God, had something happened to him? No, she didn't think he was the type. Was he?

Fleetingly, she considered leaving him a note just in case he had been caught short, but somehow that would be even more humiliating than just talking to him. Besides, what on earth could she write on a scrap of paper?

She turned from the station and started to walk the long way out of the hospital. This route took her through the wards she worked on, past the old people snoring and muttering in their beds. She tried to look as if she was still working, so she wouldn't appear suspicious. To that end, she straightened a few cubicle curtains as she passed along the corridor. One cubicle had several visitors in it, crowded around the bed on plastic stackable chairs. She caught the eye of one of the visitors, an old man who was sitting at the head of the bed, hands folded in his lap, while the other three visitors – his children maybe? – read books. It must be his wife in the bed. She must be about to die, Laurie thought. She smiled at the old man and he nodded back at her. She wanted to do something for him, but had nothing to offer, so she nodded back and walked on through the ward.

It was nice in the hospital at this time of night. Everything was quiet and the dim lights of the wards reminded her of the quality of light in airplanes during night flights. She was full of a sort of maternal magnificence, where she had the impulse to smooth patients' hair and tuck them in and glow kindly as she floated along the corridors. There were no other visitors at any other beds and the nursing staff must have all been chatting in their stations. She felt as if she was the last person in the hospital and the thought was comforting. Some days she wished she didn't have to see another person again and go through all that rigmarole of their feelings and their ideas and their pasts. Why couldn't people just start afresh and see what happened? Why were people always holding on to ancient history and dragging their bloody heels? Her mood turned as she walked past the last few beds. If it was daytime, they'd all be awake, moaning and demanding. She passed the last bed and noticed the occupant – she couldn't tell whether it was male or female – had their eyes open and stared at her balefully. She stopped and started back. The patient stared at her without blinking. The longer Laurie stood there, the more she became convinced that she was staring at a dead person, but she couldn't tear herself away. Finally she heard the sound of nurses pushing the drugs trolley and she left the ward, forcing herself not to look back.

Where on earth would she go now? There was no way she was going home to break the news to Ed, but she knew herself well enough to know that she wouldn't in a million years be able to keep it in once she was with Ed. She had to break things off with him. She was many things, but not really a liar. She hated people who had affairs. If you fell out of love with someone, that was one thing, it happened all the time, but to stay with someone and start romancing someone else – that just wasn't on. She didn't hold that what had happened with Gerry was quite the same thing, because she hadn't slept with Gerry and what was happening (had happened?), wasn't what could be described as a relationship, as such. But she knew that things might go that way and, anyway, she didn't love Ed and that was the point, wasn't it? Being honest.

She was starving. She'd been in such a hurry to get up to Gerry that she hadn't had her second break. She thought she might go to the 24 hour cafe in the concourse. She'd walked past it a few times and it looked okay. She hurried down the stairs to the main level, imagining a cup of tea and a bacon roll.

As she turned the corner into the beige and grey concourse she was able to see the whole sweep of the hospital's arrivals area. There were more people about than she had imagined. Several doctors stood around reception area chatting in their scrubs and hitting each other around the shoulders with what looked like clip boards. A solitary cleaner ran a mop backwards and forwards over a square meter of lino. Laurie shook her head at the man's sloppiness. Pat would have been furious. His line manager must be a great deal more lenient. She was probably smoking out the front of the hospital. Pat had no time for cleaning managers who didn't have her evangelical zeal. Laurie could see her point. How hard was it to just keep things clean? She hadn't yet carried this through to her own flat, but she was hopeful that, by some sort of domestic osmosis, her own home would start to become gradually more organised and nice to be in. But she knew that, soon enough, too soon to encourage her to really get her shit together, she'd be moving out. But she didn't want to think about that now.