A Nurse In Crisis

‘I really have to get home after I’ve seen Mrs Bacon,’ he’d said, regret screwing up his face. ‘I’m having the upstairs bathroom redone. The shower’s been leaking and I haven’t been able to use it for a month. I hate baths! There are two contractors coming round this morning to give me quotes for the job. Can I ring you later?’

‘You don’t need to ask, Marshall,’ she’d told him.

And she’d known her eyes had been glowing as she’d said it. He hadn’t seemed to mind. But now he’d gone, and the house felt solitary and just a tiny bit accusatory, too.

What did you do? the quiet rooms seemed to be saying. You didn’t think about it very much, did you? And he’s left his glasses behind…

‘Or I could make it later,’ she heard, and realised she’d missed the first half of Peter’s sentence and possibly another sentence or two before that.

‘Whenever you like,’ she promised vaguely. ‘It’s fine, Peter.’

‘I’ll be straight round, then.’

‘See you soon,’ she answered automatically, and it only struck her after she’d put down the phone that Peter had sounded tense, agitated.

Or was that her guilty imagination?

She had no need to feel guilty, she told herself, as she put Marshall’s glasses carefully in her bag and washed up the evidence of the early morning cup of tea they’d shared. No need at all. It hadn’t been a one-night stand. It had been a beginning, important and meaningful.

Not knowing if Peter had eaten yet—it was only nine o’clock, she saw with some surprise—she began to get out some Saturday brunch things. He’d probably like eggs and bacon. Perhaps a crumpet. Coffee, of course.

Thinking about it, she was surprised he’d phoned so early on a weekend. It was unusual. Could something be wrong? Her breathing suddenly shallower, she ran through the possibilities in her mind. Their parents, Douglas and Dorothy Brent, had retired fifteen years ago to Queensland. Dad was eighty now, and Mum was seventy-six, but if there was bad news from them she wouldn’t have heard it like this, with Pete ringing to ask with a cryptic edge to his voice if he could come round.

Similarly, if there’d been an accident to any member of his family—his wife Annette and their two school-age children, Cameron and Alethea—he’d have said it straight out and not wasted time making the traffic-filled journey from Strathfield.

Yet, focusing on their conversation properly at last instead of on her vividly physical memories of Marshall and the night they’d just shared, she became more and more convinced that this wasn’t just a social visit.

At forty-five, Peter was five years her junior, and they were close. Good friends, she’d have said. She trusted him, loved him, respected him, and was very fond of his family. But they were both busy enough that casual Saturday morning visits to each other, just popping in for a chat and a cuppa, didn’t happen.

He had something to tell her. She was sure of it now, and as she showered and dressed and finished the preparations for breakfast, she couldn’t help feverishly and fruitlessly running through the possibilities.

When he arrived to find her rearranging the napkins on the table on the front terrace for the third time, she’d steeled herself to hear what she was now certain the news had to be. He and Annette were getting a divorce…