didn’t survive that car accident. It would’ve broken her heart to see you stuff your life up like this. What were you thinking, Robbie? This time two years ago you were halfway through your engineering degree. Now you’re living on the streets.’
‘I’m not living on the streets,’ Robbie said. ‘I’ve got mates I’m hanging with.’
‘You know what they say about lying down with stray dogs,’ Jake said. ‘Sooner or later you’re going to get fleas.’
‘You’re just pissed because I’m out having fun and you’re not,’ Robbie said.
‘You call getting hammered or stoned every night fun?’ Jake said, anger and frustration making his throat tight and his voice hoarse. ‘Where’s the fun in getting Hep C or AIDS from a dirty needle, huh? Tell me that. Tell me what’s fun about wrecking your life and everyone else’s in the process.’
‘I’m not using any more,’ Robbie said. ‘I’m clean, man.’
Jake was holding his phone so tightly he thought the screen was going to crack. How could he trust a word that Robbie said? Sometimes it felt as if someone had hijacked his little brother’s body. It was Robbie on the outside, but it wasn’t his kid brother on the inside. Where had that sunny faced, happy-go-lucky kid gone? Where was the boy he had coached through the turbulent years of adolescence in the absence of their dead-beat father, who hadn’t even stayed around long enough to see Robbie born? Where was the pimply teenager he had taught to drive? Where was the young man who’d used to drop in to his flat at least three times a week just to hang out after lectures? Who’d talked to him late into the night of his hopes and dreams and aspirations? Who had looked up to him not just as an older brother, but also as a mentor?
And, even more heart wrenching, would Jake ever be able to get him back?
He pinched the bridge of his nose again, taking a calming breath before he spoke. ‘Tell me where you are and I’ll come and get you,’ he said. ‘You can stay with me for a few days. We’ll sort something out.’
‘I don’t need a place to stay,’ Robbie said. ‘I just need some cash.’
Jake dropped his hand from his face. ‘You know what I feel about handing you money, Robbie. If you need food I’ll buy it. If you need rent paid I’ll pay it. But don’t ask me to hand you money to pay for drink or drugs. I can’t do that. I won’t do that.’
The phone went dead.
Jake put the phone back on the desk and dragged his hand over his face. Was this nightmare ever going to end? Where had he gone wrong? He had thought it bad enough when Rosie had got herself pregnant by that jerk who had left her stranded at the age of nineteen. But that was nothing compared to this. Robbie was hellbent on self-destruction and there wasn’t a thing he or anyone could do to stop it.
All the sacrifices he had made to keep his family together were still not enough. All the opportunities he could have taken he had gladly relinquished, just to see his siblings make their way in the world. He had curtailed many of his own plans to make sure his siblings got the care and the resources they needed. The girls were finally on their feet now. And he had been so proud that Robbie had decided to go to university—thrilled that all the hopes their mother had had for each of her children were finally coming to fruition. He had thought when Robbie was doing well in his studies that things would be smooth sailing from then on. But just when he had thought it was safe to have a life of his own, free of the responsibilities he had shouldered for so long, everything had come crashing down.
What more could he do? Did he have to spend the rest of his life worrying about his brother? Was Robbie ever going to grow out of this stage and be responsible for himself? Or was this how it was going to be for ever?
* * *
‘What’s this I hear about you getting it on with the new recruit in A&E?’ asked Greg Hickey, one of the orthopaedic surgeons, in the doctors’ room later that day.
Jake put his teaspoon down on the sink. ‘Just a rumour, Greg,’ he said. ‘You know what this place is like. You only have to look at someone and everyone thinks you’re sleeping with them.’
Greg gave him a cynical grin. ‘That’s because you usually are.’
Jake gave a dismissive shrug. ‘She’s not my type.’
‘She’s a London girl, isn’t she?’ Greg asked as he poured himself a coffee from the brew on the hotplate.
‘Yeah,’ Jake said, thinking of Kitty’s cute little accent and the way she put her nose in the air when she wanted to make a point.
‘And quite pretty, so I’ve been told,’ Greg added.
Jake took a sip of his coffee as he thought about the heart-shaped face and the stormy grey eyes that had stared him down across his desk earlier that day. His body had leapt to attention. He had felt so tempted to come around from behind his desk and taste the temptation of her full mouth. Was it really as soft as it looked? She wasn’t the lipstick type, but she wore a shimmery lip gloss that made her lips look luscious. Would they taste of vanilla or strawberries?
Her hair had been pulled back in a tight, schoolmarmish knot at the back of her head. He had wanted to release it from its prim confines and let it cascade freely around her shoulders. He had wanted to run his fingers through it to see if it was as silky as it looked. He couldn’t quite rid his mind of imagining her cloud of hair spread out over the pillows on his bed, her slim, creamy limbs entwined with his. Would she be a kitten or a tigress in bed? He got hard just thinking about it. He couldn’t rid his mind of her fragrance, either. She had smelled of frangipanis this time, an exotic and alluring scent that had lingered in his office for hours.
‘She’s all right, I guess,’ he said, with another casual up-and-down movement of his shoulders.
Greg chuckled as he reached for the artificial sweetener on the counter. ‘You’ve got it bad, Jakey boy,’ he said. ‘I can see all the signs.’
‘What d’you mean?’ Jake asked, frowning. ‘What signs?’
‘Every time I mentioned her just then you got this goofy sort of dreamy look on your face,’ Greg said, leaning back against the counter. ‘I reckon you’re falling for her.’
Jake gave an uncomfortable laugh. ‘You’re crazy. I’ve never fallen for anyone in my life and I’m not going to start now.’
Greg kept grinning. ‘Gotta be a first time for everything, right?’
‘Wrong,’ Jake said, putting his mug down on the table with a little thwack. ‘Kitty Cargill’s far too conservative for me. She doesn’t have a funny bone in her body. She’s prim and proper and she sweats over the small stuff all the time. She doesn’t smile—she glowers. Besides, she’s still hankering over some guy who broke her heart back in the home country. I don’t think she’s here to advance her career at all. She’s running away from her failed love-life. I don’t need any lame ducks on my staff; God knows it’s hard enough to keep everyone’s morale up as it is with all these wretched cutbacks. I don’t want to have to babysit someone who isn’t up to the task.’
‘What? You don’t think she’s competent?’ Greg asked, frowning over the rim of his coffee cup.
Jake
