Page 24 of The One Day You Were My Husband
“Let it all out, Carrie Cole.” He paused. “My best friend grew up with activist parents. I have some idea what you’ll have been up against with your mum.”
“Two? Christ. One was tiring enough.”
“I saw him get dragged into all sorts of things he didn’t ask to be part of. And, yes, all for the greater good—that was never in doubt. But sometimes kids just want to kick balls and tell fart jokes. They don’t really care about causes.”
He was gazing over at the Royal Mail building, a dank, utilitarian block surrounded by red vans.
“How’s his relationship with his parents these days?”
“He’s dead, actually,” Johan said after a pause. “Got hit by a bus in Gothenburg two weeks after he started university. His mum startedsobbing in the middle of the eulogy, got down on her knees by the coffin and cried, again and again,Why? Why couldn’t we just let him be?It is interesting—bittersweet, is that the word?”
“Yes.”
“Bittersweet, then—for me to meet someone whose childhood was probably similar.”
“I’m so sorry about your friend.”
“Thank you. Me too.”
There was a long silence. I didn’t try to fill it. I just sat next to him, thinking about all the other activist families I’d met when I was young. Had those kids really been used as pawns? Had Maya and I? Certainly, Maya and Dad thought so. I’d always felt it to be more complicated, but then another birthday would pass without Mum remembering to call me and the whole thing felt harder to defend.
“Crisps,” Johan said. He took out another packet. “I eat a lot of them.” He opened them, offered me one, then took a handful. “That was a dark story—I’m sorry. And you having an activist parent has nothing to do with which job you should take. Johannesburg, Jakarta, Jerusalem…” He smiled. “Whoever gets you, I imagine they’ll be very lucky.”
“You don’t know that.”
He held my gaze. “Sure.”
I didn’t look away. Neither did he. My body had never responded to a man in this way.
After a moment, my bleeper went off.
We both stood up and, without a word, Johan started walking with me toward the hospital entrance, as if we were two friends on a stroll. Above us, the sky was a bowl of cold blue, silvered sun warmed our faces, and somewhere in Whitechapel Market a loud burst of Arabic music erupted. When we looked around to see what was happening,we couldn’t discern any reason other than someone having a good time.
I watched the steam of our breath mingle in the freezing air and had a sudden, mad impulse to kiss him. I settled instead for another crisp before he folded the packet into a rocket shape and shot it into a bin.
At reception, I called up to be told I was needed on the ward. While I waited for the lift he showed me a video of him jumping off a large metal boat into freezing water. I found it desperately attractive but made sure to ask sensible questions about the archaeological finds.
Johan called the lift again and leaned against the wall, smiling at me. I didn’t look away, but it was confusing. Why was he interested in me? What did I have to offer a man like him?
“Well, Carrie Cole,” he said eventually. Then, as suddenly as he’d started smiling, he stopped. Silently he reached out a hand, his right hand, and it hovered in the air just by my neck. “You have something on your skin,” was what he said. “Just there.”
My hand went to my neck, but I kept looking at him, and something awoke in me as we stood there in lift lobby 4C, on a Friday morning in January. Something essential, something animal happened to my body.
All I knew was his gaze, focused on the place where my neck met my shoulder. I imagined him reaching his hand just a bit farther and touching me, removing whatever it was, and I knew that was what he was thinking about, too.
I imagined his mouth there.
A deep need flooded my pelvis, my legs, the nerves in my fingertips. I had to back away to stop myself moving forward to make contact with his outstretched hand.
“Are you allowed to see me?” he asked simply. “Outside of here. Are there rules?”
“There are rules. Yes. And I don’t think they’re in our favor.” There was no use pretending not to understand.
Dell had emailed her cousin at the GMC even though I’d told her not to. He’d replied to say that even though “the man” was not a patient, relative, or friend, it was a bit of a gray area because he’d met “the female doctor” through the context of the hospital. Certainly “the female doctor” was not at liberty to contact him socially using a phone number he had left for the ward staff.Best to avoid, he wrote. Just like that. Best to avoid.
“Right,” Johan said quietly. “The thing is, that doesn’t really work for me.”
“Me neither.”
