But I keep freezing. Every time I go to ask, I end up with my fingers hovering over my pulse point instead. I’m really not keen on any kind of confrontation and it feels like this might be one. How do I ask him to tell me the truth when sometimes he doesn’t seem to know himself? Instead, as so often happens, my awkwardness is crippling my ability to act naturally.
We’re in the middle of a six-minute walk test when the phone rings. We’ve got Mrs Baldwin in for her weekly check. There’s a flush to her cheeks and I’m not sure if it’s because of the exertion or Clive’s company. I’m timing proceedings and Mrs Baldwin is wandering into her fourth minute. Clive is busy noting down how many laps she is managing. Both need to be accurate so we let the ringing continue. The answerphone takes a message and it is only once Mrs Baldwin has gone, with a couple of extra pink wafers in a tissue again thanks to Clive, that I get the chance to check who the call was from.
When I discover it’s Rob, I ring him back straight away.
‘Is everything okay?’ Whenever he calls my heart flitters like a bird in a cage. Lucy’s illness has been a mystery and I can’t help it when my brain jumps two phases ahead and imagines the worst possible outcome.
‘Lucy’s going to be discharged in a couple of days.’
‘She is? That’s amazing.’ A mix of shock and delight floods me. ‘Is she well enough to come home?’
‘They found the problem. They think she’ll recover quickly with a course of antibiotics.’
‘What was the problem?’ After weeks of being poorly, I’d lost hope of it being a simple fix.
‘Once the inflammation had subdued enough, they found a piece of egg shell embedded in the lining of Lucy’s stomach. The doctors said the probability of it happening were extremely remote, but it was a large piece that had lodged away from the stomach’s natural enzymes so it had caused the widespread irritation that caused her to be so unwell.’
I gawp and blink in Clive’s direction, not quite able to believe it. For the weeks that Lucy has been unwell, I’d been hypothesising all sorts of diagnoses, all of which were either long-term or incurable. ‘So, they’ve removed the shell and she should just get better?’ What are the chances?
‘That’s what they’re thinking. She already has her appetite back. She wants me to buy her a sandwich, although, funnily enough she’s requested that it shouldn’t be egg and cress. But she needs to progress with food gradually. The dietician said binge eating after a period like this will make her feel ill so they’re giving her a menu to follow over the next couple of weeks.’
‘She’d better stick to it.’ I laugh in wonder and disbelief. ‘And don’t let her cook. You know the meal she had before she got sick was an omelette.’
There is a buzz of adrenaline running though my veins. I can’t quite believe it. I jump out of the chair when I come off the phone, all thoughts of my previous questions leaving me.
‘That sounds like a happy noise,’ Clive says from the kitchen area where he’s cleaning the cups and plates.
‘It is,’ I say. It is. ‘Lucy is better.’ Lucy is going to be okay. I quickly relay the details.
‘So you reckon her cooking skills caused this?’ Clive asks with a laugh.
I nod. I won’t ever be so impolite as to point it out to her, but it seems that way. ‘I remember distinctly that the last meal we had was eggs. It was the morning we came to see you. For the first few days I assumed she had food poisoning, salmonella or something. But I couldn’t work out why it wasn’t both of us.’
‘I think I might understand the labels now,’ Clive says, a small smile stretching across his face.
‘Believe me, I do them for her own good. Not just because I’m a tad on the neurotic side.’ I also smile.
Lucy is better.
Clive is going to move in with Tess.
Things are moving on even though I’m standing still.
But my jubilation is met with sadness as I realise there won’t be biscuits served on doilies once Clive has gone.
34
Clive
On the occasions when Clive managed to join Keisha for lunch, he enjoyed it immensely. Not that they were sitting at the same table. That would be after date number forty-two was complete.