Splintered Memory Read online

  “It’ll be okay Claire. We’ll sort things out I promise. I’ll come and stay with you for a couple of days, and we can even go to the spa and treat ourselves,” Charlie said trying to sound as reassuring as she could. She also hugged her best friend tightly, as everyone else made their way over to the front door.

  “Thanks Charlie,” Claire whispered squeezing Charlie tightly before the two of them stepped back from one another.

  Nick threw his arm casually around Claire’s shoulders, and kissed Charlie on the cheek. “Happy Birthday again,” he said smiling before he walked out of the house leading Claire into the night.

  Charlie saw Claire turn and give her a desperate look, and she tried to smile at her reassuringly. She felt awful though that there wasn’t more that she could do for her best friend tonight.

  “Night hun,” Rach said arriving by Charlie and hugging her.

  “Thanks for coming,” Charlie said to Rach and Ben. She then smiled and turned from Rach to Ben so as to give him a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  “Wouldn’t have missed it,” Ben said throwing a wave to Matt who was now sat on the sofa having said all of his goodbyes.

  “Thirty, thirty, thirty, I believe you’re thirty!” Rich sang like a small child whilst dancing stupidly in front of Charlie, and she couldn’t help but laugh at his immaturity.

  “Night Rich,” she said with laughter still in her voice.

  “Night,” he said before winking and flashing his cheekiest of grins at her.

  She shook her head at him by way of warning not to do what he was thinking of doing, but this only made him laugh. It also didn’t work, and she suddenly felt the familiar sensation of Rich’s goodbye. He grabbed her around the waist, and whilst supporting her neck with his right hand he dipped her to the floor. He then kissed her squarely on the lips before returning her to her previous upright position. Charlie shook her head again, and Rich laughed once more.

  “Night,” Bex said to Charlie whilst at the same time rolling her eyes at Rich.

  Charlie smiled and hugged her.

  “Laters,” Rich said as he grabbed Bex’s hand and led her out into the night behind the others.

  Charlie closed the door with a small sigh, but as she turned round she saw Matt walking over with two glasses of red wine. Charlie took one from him gratefully, and kissed him in return.

  “Please don’t ask me yet,” she said knowing that he wanted to know what she’d been talking to Claire about.

  Matt nodded, but kept the concerned expression on his face as he looked intently into her eyes. She looked away though, frightened that she might betray Claire’s confidence if he kept looking at her that way.

  “Good birthday Mrs Grayson?” He asked. Changing the unspoken subject and taking back the glass of wine that he’d just given to her, which he then put down on the table by them along with his own.

  Charlie nodded, and smiled as he pulled her to him. She put her arms around his neck, and he kissed her whilst wrapping his arms tightly around her waist. Yet just as the kiss was intensifying between them, he pulled away and yawned widely.

  She smiled at him and said; “I’m not quite middle aged yet you know, and neither are you.”

  “Sorry,” Matt said stifling another yawn.

  “Come on. Let’s get you to bed,” Charlie said.

  “I’m all about going to bed,” he said winking at her and then laughing when she rolled her eyes at him.

  She pulled away from him smiling, and walked through into their kitchen to throw some last minute bits and pieces into the dishwasher. She also knew that she’d have to lock the back door that he would’ve left open.

  “Rich is going to propose to Bex,” Matt said nonchalantly leaning back against the kitchen sideboard where Charlie had just watched him put down a couple of dirty glasses.

  She looked at him, and she could see that he was trying but also failing to stop himself from smiling at her, and she asked excitedly; “when? And when did he tell you?”

  “You know when we thought that he was just being helpful with dessert,” Matt said and Charlie nodded. “He told me then, and asked if I’d be his best man.”

  “Did he even need to ask?” She asked as he turned off the kitchen light, took her hand in his, and began to walk up the stairs fumbling for the landing light switch which as always she found first.

  “I told him I’d have to think about it,” he said in a tone unlike his own.

  This made Charlie stop dead in her tracks at the top of the stairs and turn and look at him. “Seriously,” she said sounding stunned.

  “No,” Matt said laughing.

  Charlie hit his arm, and then staged a mock stomp into their bedroom. She went straight over to their bed, and put his bedside lamp on before sitting down.

  Matt followed her over, and he was still laughing as he sat down beside her. “Seriously” he said to himself before laughing again. “I can’t believe you just asked me that,” he said to her.

  She smiled but also grabbed a nearby pillow. She then pushed him so that his back went flat against the bed, and she moved quickly so that she was astride him and playfully trying to smother him with the pillow that she was holding. Matt laughed from beneath it, and she lifted it off his face smiling.

  “Don’t stop,” he said cheekily; “I’m enjoying you wriggling on top of me.”

  “What time do you have to be in?” Charlie asked throwing the pillow back into place, and leaning over to his bedside table to pick up his alarm clock.

  “Five,” he said.

  Charlie looked at him sympathetically, and then set his alarm and put it back down on the bedside table. She smiled as she leant over him again, but just as she was about to tell him that he should go to sleep he put his forefinger to her lips and shook his head at her.

  “There’s no more time for chit chat Mrs Grayson,” he said as he pulled her down on top of him.

  She’d meant to pull away and tell him to go to sleep,as he had to be in early and it was already late, but once he started to kiss her she changed her mind. She felt the desire in his kiss, and when he rolled her onto her back she couldn’t wait to begin making love to her husband.

  Matt

  “Charlie,” he said. He then watched as she opened her eyes groggily. “It’s ten past five,” he said moving her hair from out of her face where it’d fallen in the night; “and I’ve got to go to work.”

  “’k,” she mumbled sleepily as she leant up to kiss him, her eyes barely open, and he knew that there was every chance that she was asleep again before her head even returned to the pillow.

  Matt smiled at his wife, and sat there for an extra second just looking at her. He was so lucky he knew. She’d always been the girl of his dreams, and he sometimes found it hard to believe that it’d been fifteen years since he’d first built up the courage to kiss her. Yet thank god he had he thought to himself, because here they were; together and still unbelievably happy.

  He left their bedroom, and quietly closed the door behind him. He walked down the stairs, and into the kitchen where he picked up his thermo flask. He put the kettle on and put four oversized spoonfuls of coffee into the flask, and when the kettle had boiled he poured the water in. He sealed the flask, shook it, and then unlocked the back door and walked out of it.

  He enjoyed his short walk to work, and he loved the fact that he was less than ten minutes from the hospital. His hours at Selly Oak A&E were long, and he knew that Charlie had searched high and low to find somewhere near to the hospital for their first none university home together.

  When she’d shown it to him, he’d loved it instantly for the location alone. From their house, if he used the back door – which he always did, he could cut through their garden and be at the hospital in minutes. Added to this their house was on Lottie road, which Charlie had taken as a sign that it was meant to be. Although this had made him smile from the moment that she’d told him, because he honestly didn’t know anyone that had
ever called Charlie Lottie once in her life.

  Charlie worked for a law firm in the city, and she equally worked some horribly long hours. She was also often called upon to go to London, Bristol, or Cardiff at short notice. Yet over the years they’d learned to live with the fact that there were some weeks, and occasionally some months, where they hardly ever saw each other.

  Many of his friends at work were in relationships with other doctors. They said that they found it easier as both people in the relationship understood the demands of the job, but he knew that Charlie understood the demands of his job. He also knew that she more so than anyone else knew how much he loved being a doctor.

  He walked into the hospital and stopped musing about his life with Charlie. He instead looked over at his friend and colleague Dr James Thompson, who was stood at the nurses’ station.

  “Morning,” James said rather grumpily.

  “It is isn’t it?” Matt responded brightly.

  James looked at him suspiciously, and then with a knowing smile and an approving nod asked; “good night with the missus was it?”

  “It’s always a good night with my missus,” Matt said.

  “I bet it is!” James said smirking slightly.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Matt asked with a raised eyebrow, although he was smiling at the same time.

  “Your missus is über hot, but I’ll say no more,” James said grinning. “Aside to say, that most men would probably look as happy as you at half five in the morning if they went to bed with her.”

  Matt laughed. He was used to comments like this from James and his other friends about Charlie, and they didn’t bother him. If anything he saw it as a compliment that other men thought that his wife was so attractive, not that he wasn’t already well aware of this fact.

  “Although speaking of hotties, have you seen that new doctor?” James asked.

  “Doctors,” Matt said correcting James but smiling again at the same time. “But I’ll assume that you’re referring to the young Dr Emily Peters?”

  “Is that her name?” James asked clearly making a mental note. “I wonder if she needs the guidance of an experienced doctor to show her the ropes,” he said winking at Matt.

  “Yes she and Dr Ryan both will. But I’m afraid the experienced doctor in charge of showing them the ropes is me,” Matt said smiling and then laughing when he heard James mutter; “waste!”

  Matt was about to reply when his pager started buzzing. He reached for the phone which was next to James, but as he did he noticed James smirking again and he looked at him curiously.

  “I’ve got a feeling that you’re going to have a long day, any chance that you’re already starting to regret having had late night sex with your missus now?” James asked.

  Matt held the phone between his ear and shoulder and replied; “not a chance! Would you regret having late night sex with my wife?” But he instantly wished that he’d kept his mouth shut.

  “Not even for a second. In fact,” James said laughing and walking away; “thanks for the visual!”

  Matt shook his head, knowing that he only had himself to blame for that comment.

  Emily

  It was the end of another long and busy shift at Selly Oak A&E. The majority of the doctors on duty were all looking forward to going home to bed, and Emily was feeling just as tired as any of them as she looked around for Dr Grayson.

  She found him, as usual, leaning wearily against the nurses’ station. He was enjoying what Emily assumed by his relatively enthusiastic and light tone, was the first non emergent or patient related conversation that he’d had since he’d arrived on duty some fifteen hours earlier. He was also busily tucking into what looked like homemade cottage pie.

  Emily had heard in her third shift, that Nurse Willis – the scariest Nurse in the whole of the A&E department, favoured Dr Grayson. Yet she’d soon learnt that this was useful information to have found out. As she’d discovered that if Dr Grayson had been on shift for more than ten hours, and he couldn’t be found in the A&E, then nine times out of ten he’d be at the nurses’ station talking to Nurse Willis. He’d also usually be eating something that always smelt very nice and looked homemade, and was – she’d been told, brought in especially for him by Nurse Willis.

  Nurse Willis terrified Emily. She was from a past generation of medicine where fear and reverence to the matron of the ward applied, and all of the doctors knew that she could either be a great help or a great hindrance. It was known throughout Selly Oak A&E, that the worst mistake you could make as a Junior Doctor was to get on the wrong side of Nurse Willis.

  Nurse Willis kept all of the nurses under her control in order, and she ruled with an iron fist and stern demeanour that terrified everyone including most of the doctors. Dr Grayson though seemed to be the exception, and Emily had heard that Nurse Willis had taken pity on him and had become –according to the gossipy nurses on staff, a surrogate mother to him and his wife.

  Emily watched him take another large forkful of food before he reached for his pager that had started to buzz next to his plate. He put down his fork and reached for the phone, which Emily passed to him. He looked at her curiously, and she handed him the x-ray that she’d been carrying around with her whilst she’d been looking for him and that she wanted him to look at.

  “Thanks,” he said as he took the phone from her. He then wedged it into its usual position between his shoulder and ear whilst at the same time taking the x-ray and looking at it.

  He held it up into the light, and as he looked at it Emily looked at him and tried to gage what he was thinking. She’d come to be able to read his face better than anyone else in the hospital, and she could sometimes tell from his expression alone what orders he would give for a patient before he even spoke.

  Dr Grayson was not only her teacher, and an extraordinarily good doctor, but outside of the hospital he and his wife were her friends. Yet as she continued to watch him she stifled a yawn. She was tired, but then they were all tired. It’d been a long day, and she hadn’t even been in for as long as Dr Grayson had. She also knew from a conversation that she’d had with Charlie earlier in the week that Dr Grayson had virtually been living at the hospital for the past few weeks, and it was showing. He looked dead on his feet, and she wondered how he was still standing.

  “It’s fine,” he said handing the x-ray back to her; “but we’ve got a couple of ambulances on the way in. There’s been an accident on the Bristol road, two men from one car with minor injuries, and one female in a bad condition from another. It sounds like she’s gonna be DOA though.”

  Emily looked at him and saw her own tiredness reflected back in his. At that moment her pager also began to buzz and she followed Dr Grayson towards the ambulance bay, and as she walked she tried to shake off the tiredness that was descending upon her with increasing urgency.

  ***

  Her whole life had been dedicated to becoming a doctor. So when she’d found herself ready to quit within the first two weeks, she’d been confounded as to why. She’d had no idea why she’d been struggling so much with the demands of a life as a doctor, and she’d been devastated.

  Emily had known that a career in medicine would be hard. She’d known that unlike many other professions, it wasn’t a job where you worked a standard forty hour week. It wasn’t a job where you clocked in and out at the same time every day. Yet what she hadn’t realised was that none of her preparations, nor her desire to be a doctor, would actually help her cope with the continual tiredness that she’d felt on a day to day basis.

  The twelve hour shifts were gruelling, and always ran longer than twelve hours. Working in the A&E meant that you never really had slow days. You never had the same patients. You were constantly challenged with different situations, and your medical knowledge and ability to react quickly was always being tested to breaking point. She’d also had to learn that being tired wasn’t an excuse for errors or delays. There simply couldn’t be any delays when your
decisions resulted in a patient living or dying.

  If it hadn’t been for Charlie, Emily felt sure that she wouldn’t have completed her first month at the hospital. Every shift had become overwhelming, and the sleep deprivation had begun to feel like it was killing her. She knew that if she hadn’t stumbled across the infamous Mrs Grayson when she’d been sat outside the A&E crying, then she would have walked away from medicine.

  ***

  “Dr Peters isn’t it?” A young woman asked sitting down next to Emily.

  “Yes,” Emily said slightly bemusedly not knowing who this woman was.

  “I’m Charlotte Grayson. Don’t worry,” she said smiling kindly; “I’m not a patient, or an angry patient’s next of kin that wants to yell at you. I’m just here to see if I can find my husband.”

  “You mean Dr Grayson?” Emily asked, and then she smiled and added; “well obviously you do, you just said that your surname was Grayson.”

  They both laughed, and Emily looked at Charlie and could instantly see what all the chatter amongst the nurses and male doctors was about. Charlotte Grayson was strikingly beautiful. No wonder the nurses spent so much time bitching about her she thought, and making up stories about how much of a bad wife she must be if Nurse Willis had to come in on her days off to bring Dr Grayson food.

  “Are you ok?” Charlie asked. “It’s just, if you don’t mind me saying, you look a little frazzled.”

  “Frazzled,” Emily said; “that’s exactly how I feel.” She then looked away from Charlie and said; “I’m not sure I’m cut out for this,” and much to her own embarrassment she began to cry.

  Charlie looked at her sympathetically, and then she gently put her arm around Emily’s shoulders. “I think you’re supposed to feel like this,” Charlie said reassuringly. “When Matt first started he used to get home, sit down, and swear that he was quitting the next day. It’s hard what you do. I think they make it intentionally hard. Without Nurse Willis looking after him, and feeding him when he forgot to eat, I think Matt might have quit as well.”