The Last Love Note(30)
His spoon hovers in mid air.
‘The tea? What’s that? Some sort of millennial slang you’ve appropriated?’ He knows exactly what I’m asking. He’s just refusing to engage.
I push my bowl of soup aside. ‘Can’t you just play along, if only to take my mind off Cam for a few minutes?’ Setting Hugh up, like some off-camera, real-life love project, could be exactly the distraction I need. ‘I know people,’ I tell him. ‘In case you’re looking for . . . you know.’
I don’t mean sex! I sound like my boss’s pimp.
‘I mean in case you’re looking for a love story,’ I clarify. ‘Like I have with Cam.’
The comparison slips out before I can edit it and rips me straight back into a world of pain. I imagine Cam, right now, being fed brain first into a CT machine, even more frightened than I am about what’s happening to him—
‘She’d have to be all-in,’ Hugh says steadily. ‘I want that “two of us against the world” thing. She needs to be funny. Unpretentious. What you see is what you get . . .’
He checks he’s got my attention back. ‘I’m telling you this purely because I know you’re feeling sick about Cam right now and want to be distracted, okay? Not as permission to go rogue and start matchmaking.’
I sit up straight. ‘Do I seem like the kind of person to go rogue?’
‘Yes, frankly.’
I pretend to look offended. And think of Grace. She’s funny. And also recently single, now she’s turfed Max.
‘I want someone caring,’ he continues. ‘Generous.’
Check. Check.
‘Do you want kids?’ I ask bluntly. Because if he doesn’t, Grace is a ‘no’.
He looks more uncomfortable than I did in the job interview. ‘With the right person,’ he says. ‘That would be wonderful.’
Hugh and Grace and their future babies are as happy in my head as I am bereft, on my own, with my two. I’ve never been so envious of two people in all my life.
‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Kate,’ he says. ‘You all right?’
No. I’m not. It’s hard to explain why, but I feel like I’ve lost my husband and my best friend and my boss, all in one fell swoop.
My phone rings.
‘Kate? I’m Doctor Wilson. I’m a registrar in the neurology department, just taking a look at your husband’s preliminary test results. Are you still in the area? I’d like to speak with you.’
This is the call. Our lives are about to implode. I look at Hugh, watching me, concerned, and I have to restrain my hand from moving itself across the table to grasp his.
‘I’m coming now,’ I tell the doctor.
14
Cam is in the bed, looking as concerned as I feel. Doctor Wilson drags an extra chair into the cubicle and asks me to sit down. I do not want the kind of news that I can’t receive standing up. I take Cam’s hand nervously.
‘Okay. Now, as I understand it, you’ve presented here due to a car accident, with some concern that Cam may have hit his head. We’ve done a structural imaging scan and there’s no sign of trauma from the accident.’
‘As I thought,’ I say quietly.
‘But there are still a few unusual symptoms. Some cognitive difficulties, some confusion and memory issues. Is this something you’ve been noticing for a while?’
‘I just put it down to a busy life and stress,’ I say, feeling neglectful. ‘He’s so healthy.’
‘We’re going to need to do some more tests to find out what’s going on. To begin with, Cam, would you mind standing up and walking down the corridor and back?’
Cam gets off the bed and stands. He’s so tall. Those floppy, blond curls. That relaxed attitude that drew me towards him the second I saw him stride into that first lecture, smiling with his friends. He’d been unaware of the hold he had over me from that very first second, long before he passed that first note.
He walks down the corridor and back. Nothing out of the ordinary as far as I can tell. Surely there can’t be anything seriously wrong when someone looks as good as he does now.
Doctor Wilson performs a couple of tests on his reflexes and muscle coordination. He passes with flying colours. She asks about nutrition and alcohol use and scribbles notes on Cam’s file.
‘I’d like you to draw a clock face with all the numbers correctly positioned,’ she says. ‘And please show the time as ten past two.’
He flashes me a confident grin and does as she asks.
‘Now, Cam. I’m going to ask you to remember three items,’ she says. ‘Table, shoe and Richmond Street. Got that?’
Cam winks at me. ‘Table, shoe, Richmond Street.’
‘Great. Now, what day is it today?’
‘Monday the eighth.’
Relief floods through me.
‘What’s your wife’s name?’
‘Kate.’
‘Name and ages of your children?’
‘Charlie, he’s one. And Kate is pregnant, just a few weeks along. We had the ultrasound earlier.’
I feel like giving him a standing ovation. I’ve never been so proud! It must have been a bump to the head, surely? Can’t we call it a day?