LITMIR.BIZ

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little of it there was), and the flecked brown of the Munro eyes, but barring that one time when her period had been late and, just for a few frantic days, he’d felt a tiny flicker of rapidly extinguished hope, that had never really been on the cards either. And, as for poor Smudge, well …

      William knew he had made mistakes. He had almost forced his mother and her beloved cat into that London flat. Susan’s idea, of course. Selling the old cottage, she had insisted, before it needed some serious maintenance, before Agnes’s impending and inevitable frailty forced their hand, surely made sense. Good financial sense. But money in the bank didn’t bring happiness. After sixteen years of half-hearted marriage, and with very little to show for it, he knew that only too well.

      William was fifty-seven years old. He was too chubby around the middle, and his hair was not only thinning on top but what was left of it was going decidedly grey at the sides. When he looked in the mirror he hardly recognised the face that looked back at him through his thick rimmed spectacles. Where had his life gone? How could everything had gone so horribly wrong? He wasn’t happy. He probably hadn’t been happy for years, but he’d never stopped to think about it before. And, worst of all, he was ashamed to realise that he didn’t know if his mother was happy either.

      He’d call her. Yes, that’s what he would do. Or, better still, go round there. Unexpected, uninvited, like he used to in his bachelor days, turning up on her doorstep, out of the blue, with flowers and a hug, and sometimes a bag of laundry, and knowing there’d be tea in the pot – whichever of the many pots was his mother’s favourite at the time – and cake in the tin. But that, of course, had been before Susan. Susan had changed things, prised open a little gap between his mother and himself that had slowly, as the years passed, widened and deepened into an almost unbridgeable gulf.

      It was time to do something about it, before it was too late. His mother wasn’t getting any younger. Neither was he, come to think of it. And, now that Susan had gone, there was nothing to stop him from being a part of her life again, and letting her be a part of his. They were both alone now. Lonely, even. Well, he knew he was. He had no idea if she felt the same. She did have old Smudge for company, of course, so there was always somebody for her to talk to, even if that somebody never talked back. Which was more than he had. William rubbed the tips of his fingers over his eyelids and yawned. He had to snap out of this self-pitying phase before he started to go all maudlin.

      Only one thing for it. He’d go tomorrow, surprise her and take her out for lunch somewhere. A nice roast, with all the trimmings. She’d like that. He’d stop off on the way and buy freesias. Lots of freesias, in lovely bright colours. They were always her favourites. And cat food for Smudge. Tuna, or chicken. The expensive chunky stuff in the little foil cartons. Or maybe something tasty from the butchers, if he could find one open on a Sunday.

      He hadn’t realised it before, but he’d missed that old cat. Almost as much as he’d missed his old mum. He had to admit it. Susan certainly had a lot to answer for.

       *

      Laura had been on shift for five hours already and her feet ached. Saturdays were notoriously busy in A & E, even in the mornings, what with the hangovers and drunken falls from the night before, and then came all the football and rugby injuries, half-dressed men trailing the mud from their boots and the drips from hastily applied bloody bandages across the newly mopped floor. And the mums who hadn’t wanted to take their sick children out of school or risk having their pay docked for taking a day off work, and preferred instead to queue up for hours at the weekend to get their five minutes with a doctor, fretting about meningitis or appendicitis, only to be told that the symptoms they were so concerned about pointed to nothing more serious than a bad cold or a touch of tummy ache. No wonder the NHS was in trouble. But at least she didn’t have to deal with those, even though she got to hear all about them from her flatmate Gina who had trained as a paediatric nurse and had been working here in Children’s A & E ever since she’d qualified. No, Laura only dealt with adult patients, not the kids or, thank God, their parents. Good job really, or she’d probably be tempted to say something she shouldn’t.

      After six months in the job, she was getting used to it all now. When she’d first transferred down from the men’s surgical ward, she’d found A & E quite terrifying. Everything she’d had to do before just flew right out of the window. There was never any order. No chance to plan or prepare, so little time to stop and think. You never knew what was going to come through the door next. One minute a dad-to-be dashing in with a wife already in labour and just missing giving birth in the car on the way here, the next an old lady with a twisted ankle or some idiot with his penis stuck up a hoover tube and trying to hide it underneath his coat. From the trivial to the life-and-death to the ‘you wouldn’t believe it!’, it all just threw itself at her from the moment she arrived until she found herself exhausted, shell-shocked and waiting outside for the bus home.

      The road accidents were the worst. No matter how many seatbelts and speed cameras and anti-drinking campaigns there were in the world, the accidents just kept on happening. She stood now, gazing down at the latest victim as the doctor bent over her, shining a light into her eyes, assessing the extent of the damage. The poor girl didn’t look much older than Laura herself, perhaps even younger, and she was in a bad way, the victim of a hit and run. Her clothes and hair were soaking wet, at least one leg was obviously broken, there was a nasty gash on the back of her head, and although she’d apparently been briefly conscious and trying to talk at the scene, there had been no response beyond a few incoherent mumblings since she’d been brought in, and she still hadn’t opened her eyes.

      ‘Can we try to get an ID? Did she have a bag with her?’

      Laura turned to Bob and Sarah, the paramedics. They both looked tired, and Sarah was stretching and rubbing her back with both hands, through the folds of her fluorescent yellow jacket. Having slid her across from trolley to bed and rattled off a list of readings and what they’d already done to help her, they were getting ready to leave.

      ‘Sorry, no.’ Sarah shook her head. ‘She hardly spoke before she blacked out. Just muttered her name. Lily. But that’s all we have. No bag found with her at the scene. Or phone. Unless some friendly passer-by had already nicked them, of course. It wouldn’t be the first time. Couldn’t find anything in her pockets either, except a couple of keys. House, not car. There wasn’t even anything on the key ring to give us any clues. No company logo to tell us who she works for. Not even one of those Tesco clubcard fob things. Bit of a mystery girl, I’m afraid.’

      ‘A pretty unlucky one, too.’ The doctor stood up and wiped a hand over his forehead, a stethoscope strung idly around his thin neck and more than a hint of stubbly shadow on his chin. ‘I don’t like it when patients can’t tell me who they are or where it hurts. We’re getting a few sounds out of her, which is good, and she is responding to pain, but I don’t like head injuries, and I especially don’t like the look of this one. Her airway’s clear now, but she is struggling a bit. Can we get an urgent head CT please, nurse? Her blood pressure is pretty low too, so let’s cross match some blood. Four units. If she’s bleeding into that brain of hers, we’ll need to replace that blood ASAP. I think we’ll need the neurosurgeons to take a look at her.’

      He stood back and wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, then carried on assessing his patient’s less worrying injuries. ‘Fractured left tib and fib as well as a couple of ribs, I’d say, and some fairly deep lacerations on the arms and hands, but nothing too terrible. We can deal with those. Abdomen feels okay. No distension. No obvious sign of any internal damage, apart from the head. Shame there’s no way of knowing who she is.’

      And no one there waiting for her when she wakes up, Laura thought, as she returned to the nurses’ station and busied herself sorting out the paperwork and making the right calls while her colleagues carried on monitoring and did all they could to keep the girl stable.

      Her stomach rumbled ominously, reminding her that she still hadn’t found time to eat. Even in the midst of others’ suffering, life and lunch had to go on. There was a broken custard cream in her uniform pocket. Emergency supplies. She took a sneaky nibble, dropping a scattering of crumbs on the desk, and glanced at her watch. Quarter to one,

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