St Matthew's Passion - By Sam Archer Page 0,54

a little bit?’

‘No!’ Her indignation was only partially fake.

They sat and continued their vigil.

After a few moments Deborah said, ‘Well, maybe just a bit.’

Melissa glanced at her, felt her lips twitch in a grin. Deborah returned the smile, and within seconds the two women were laughing, the mirth spilling out of them until the setting and the circumstances and the sight of an ICU nurse hurrying over towards them forced them to compose themselves.

Wiping her eyes once more, a different kind of tear this time, Melissa said, ‘Thank you.’

Deborah flipped a hand. ‘Don’t mention it. It’s not like me to get soppy and sentimental. It won’t happen again.’ She stood up. ‘I’ll leave you alone now. But you really do need to get some rest, Melissa.’

Melissa turned to wave goodbye, and as she did so the noise from Fin’s monitor changed again. The rhythmic beeping disappeared and was replaced by the steady drone of a single note.

Melissa whirled, stared at the bed.

Fin’s entire body was jerking uncontrollably.

***

Fin tumbled down, down through the black depths, drawn to the bottom of the river as if hauled along on a rope. There was no sound around him apart from the rumbling of distant motors through the pressing weight of the water.

The journey to the bottom seemed to take forever. During it, Fin experienced his entire life. His boyhood played itself out in leisurely fashion, mundane events interspersed with the big, significant ones like the time he fell out of the elm tree at the bottom of the garden and broke his arm (was that the beginning of his interest in trauma surgery? He’d never made the connection before). His adolescence passed almost as slowly, though more tumultuously: there were the first kisses, and more; the clashes with his parents. Then came young adulthood, and medical school, and the breakneck-paced early years as a junior doctor.

He reached the Catherine years, and the terrible time of her death and its aftermath, reliving the experience as acutely and as painfully as if it were the first time. The ensuing years of loneliness and ever-deeper immersion in his career were marginally more bearable.

And then came Melissa.

As he dropped further down into the water, the river seeming implausibly deep, Fin reflected that the richest period of his life – the time he’d had knowing Melissa Havers – was also one of the shortest. She was with him in her totality; he could not only see and hear her, but smell and taste and touch her as well.

Melissa, her blonde hair cascading around his face, her vivid blue eyes blazing into his.

Melissa, her mouth soft and urgent against his, her musk flooding his nerve endings.

Melissa, her arms around his neck in an unbreakable clasp, holding him close so that no matter where he was going, no matter what terrible unknowable eternity lay beyond the river bed, she would be with him always and he needn’t be alone.

As he felt himself slipping away, Fin experienced a revelation. Of all the awful, corroding experiences a human being could have, worse than loss and longing and failure was… regret. What a time to understand this, just as he was about to die, when it was too late to do anything with this knowledge.

If he’d had a second chance, Fin would have done what his heart had been telling him to do ever since he’d first acknowledged to himself his feelings for Melissa.

He’d have told her that he loved her, that she meant more to him than anyone else he’d ever known – more even than Catherine – and that he wanted to be with her for the rest of his days.

He’d have questioned the rationality of clinging with every fibre of his being to a vow he’d once made which now seemed not so much a method of atoning for his sins as a way to avoid being hurt again.

To avoid truly living.

Well, there was to be no second chance. He was dying, and he had time for regret, but nothing more.

He could only hope that the regret didn’t accompany him as he passed into whatever was waiting for him on the other side.

For the first time since he’d sunk into his reverie, Fin became aware of discomfort in his throat, and of the fact that he couldn’t breathe.

That’s odd, he thought. You’d think you’d become less conscious of bodily sensations as you slipped towards death, not more.

It was more than discomfort. It was a stifling, choking sensation, as if the water