from the clock ticking steadily around to ten thirty by highlighting the case files on the system for Monday’s appointments, and making a list of those coming up in the rest of the week. For some – the more complex cases – he already has copies of their notes, but I want to be seen as efficient, so I make sure the full list is found. Then I print out the various emails that I think might be valuable or important or forgotten by the management, and then also print out and laminate a list of contact numbers for the hospital and police and various other organisations that he might need. It’s actually quite calming. The-man-from-the-bar is fading in my head and being replaced with my-boss, even if his face is mashing up rather alarmingly with old Dr Cadigan, who he’s replaced.
At ten, I go and put the print-outs on his desk and turn the coffee machine on in the corner so there will be a fresh pot waiting. I check that the cleaners have put fresh milk in the small fridge hidden in a cabinet like a hotel mini-bar, and that there’s sugar in the bowl. After that, I can’t help but look at the silver-framed photos on his desk. There are three. Two of his wife standing alone, and an old one of them together. This one draws me in and I pick up it. He looks so different. So young. He can only be maybe early twenties at most. They’re sitting on a large kitchen table and have their arms wrapped around each other and are laughing at something. They look so happy, both so young and carefree. His eyes are locked on her as if she’s the most important thing on the whole planet. Her hair is long, but not pulled back in a bun as it is in the other pictures, and even in jeans and a T-shirt she’s effortlessly beautiful. My stomach knots. I bet she never drops ketchup on her top.
‘Hello?’
I’m so startled when I hear the slight Scottish brogue that I almost drop the photo, and I struggle to straighten it on the desk, nearly unbalancing the neat pile of papers and sending them tumbling to the floor. He’s standing in the doorway, and I immediately want to throw up my bacon roll. Oh God, I’d forgotten how good-looking he is. Almost-blond hair with a shine I’d kill for on my own. Long enough at the front to be able to run your fingers through it, but still smart. Blue eyes that go right through you. Skin you just want to touch. I swallow hard. He’s one of those men. A breathtaking man. My face is burning.
‘You’re supposed to be in a meeting until ten thirty,’ I say, wishing a hole would open in the carpet and suck me down to shame hell. I’m in his office looking at pictures of his wife like some kind of stalker. Oh God.
‘Oh God,’ he says, stealing the words right out from my head. The colour drains from his face and his eyes widen. He looks shocked and stunned and terrified all rolled into one. ‘It’s you.’
‘Look,’ I say, ‘it was really nothing and we were drunk and got carried away and it was only a kiss, and, trust me, I have no intention of telling anyone about it, and I think if we both do our best to forget it ever happened then there’s no reason we can’t just get along and no one will ever know …’ The words are coming out in a gibbering rush and I can’t stop them. I can feel sweat trapped under my foundation as I fluster and overheat.
‘But’ – he’s looking somewhere between confused and alarmed as he quickly closes the door behind him and I can’t blame him – ‘what are you doing here?’
‘Oh.’ In all my rambling, I’ve forgotten to say the obvious. ‘I’m your secretary and receptionist. Three days a week, anyway. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. I was putting some things on your desk and I saw …’ I nod to the pictures. ‘I, well …’ The sentence drains away. I can hardly say I was having a really close look at you and your beautiful wife like a crazy lady would.
‘You’re my secretary?’ He looks as if he’s been punched hard in the guts. ‘You are?’ Maybe not his guts. Maybe somewhere lower. I actually feel a bit sorry for him.
‘I know.’ I shrug, and pull some no doubt godawful comedy face. ‘What are the odds?’
‘There was another woman here when I came in last month to talk to Dr Cadigan. Not you.’
‘Older, slightly uptight-looking? That would be Maria. She does the other two days. She’s semi-retired now, but she’s been here for ever, and Dr Sykes loves her.’
He hasn’t moved much further into the room. He’s clearly having a hard time getting this to sink in.
‘I really am your secretary,’ I say more slowly. Calmly. ‘I’m not a stalker. Trust me, this is not great for me either. I did see you yesterday when you popped in. Briefly. Then I sort of hid.’
‘You hid.’ He pauses. The moment seems endless as he processes all this.
‘Yes,’ I say, before adding to my shame with, ‘in the toilet.’
There’s a long pause after that.
‘To be fair,’ he says eventually, ‘I’d have probably done the same.’
‘I’m not sure both of us hiding in the loo would have served the right purpose.’
He laughs then, a short unexpected sound. ‘No, I guess not. You’re very funny. I remember that.’ He comes behind his desk, looking down at everything I’ve laid out there, and I automatically move out of his way.
‘Anyway, that top print-out is a list of the files you need to go through for Monday. There’s coffee on—’
‘I’m really sorry,’ he says, looking up with those gorgeous blue eyes. ‘You must think I’m a bastard. I think I’m a bastard. I don’t normally – well, I wasn’t there looking for anything, and I shouldn’t have done what I did. I feel terrible. I can’t explain it. I really don’t do that sort of thing, and there are no excuses for my behaviour.’
‘We were drunk, that’s all. You didn’t really do anything. Not really.’
I can’t do this. I remember the shame in his voice as he pushed away from me and walked off in the street, muttering apologies. Maybe that’s why I can’t think too badly of him. It was just a kiss after all. It was only in my stupid brain that it was anything more than that. ‘You stopped, and that counts for something. It’s not a thing. Honestly. Let’s forget it. Start from today. I really don’t want to feel awkward any more than you do.’
‘You hid in the toilet.’ His blue eyes are sharp and warm.
‘Yes, and one way to stop making me feel awkward would be never to mention that again.’ I grin. I still like him. He made a stupid, in the moment, mistake. It could have been worse. He could have come home with me. I think about that for a second. Okay, that would have been great in the short term, but definitely worse in the long.
‘Okay, so friends it is,’ he says.
‘Friends it is.’ We don’t shake on it. It’s way too soon for physical contact. ‘I’m Louise.’
‘David. Nice to meet you. Properly.’ We have another moment of awkward embarrassment, and then he rubs his hands together and glances back down at the desk. ‘Looks like you mean to keep me busy. Are you local by any chance?’
‘Yes. Well, I’ve lived here for over ten years if that counts as local.’
‘You think you could talk me through the area? Problems and hot spots? Social divides, that sort of thing? I wanted to take a drive around, but that’s going to have to wait. I’ve got another meeting this afternoon with someone from the hospital,
