Splintered Memory (6 page)

“I though
t we were having drinks? Sorry,” Emily said as she turned to leave.

“No, wait
,” Charlie said. “Shit. Sorry we are supposed to be having drinks, don’t go.”

Matt,
who had only looked over at Emily once his attention had been drawn to her by Charlie, stood up and looked at his wife with indignation. He had obviously been hoping that Charlie would let her go.

“No
, honestly, it’s okay. You obviously have other engagements,” Emily said nodding in Matt’s direction and feeling incredibly embarrassed as she felt her face burn brightly.

“She does
,” Matt said grinning at his wife and making Charlie also flush with embarrassment.

Emily felt
the knot in her stomach tighten, and a stab of jealousy cut through her chest.

“Can you give us ten minutes? I’ll come and meet you in the pub
,” Charlie said to Emily.

“Oi,”
Matt said poking Charlie in her side; “couldn’t you have said twenty?”

Charlie laughed, as did Emily.

“I’ll wait in the pub,” Emily said to Charlie before dashing from the room still feeling massively embarrassed.

It was not the situation
that had caused her embarrassment, but her jealousy. The jealousy that was still consuming her as she shut Matt and Charlie’s backdoor behind her and made her way to the pub.

“
What
have we got?” Matt asked the paramedics as the doors of the ambulance were opened, and he took the chart that the male paramedic handed to him. He then looked down at it and began reading it out loud; “female, unconscious, had to be intubated in the field...”

“Dr Grayson
,” Emily said interrupting him.

He
looked across at her. She was stood on the opposite side of the stretcher to him, and he could see that her face was full of concern. Yet it seemed to be full of concern for him and not the patient. He followed her eyes down to the female patient in front of them, and he saw that the unconscious female that had had to intubated in the field was Charlie.

Matt
dropped the chart that he’d been holding to the floor, and he stared almost unseeingly at Charlie. He didn’t hear any more of what was being said around him, because suddenly the whole world had been silenced. Lying there right in front of him was his wife. She had a tube in her throat, and there was blood on her face.

“Charlie
,” he said to her not letting the paramedics move the stretcher inside the hospital. He stroked her face lightly as though she was merely asleep, and like he did at home to wake her.

“Dr Grayson,
” Emily said to him urgently and taking his arm and pulling him out of the way; “we need to get her inside.”

Everyth
ing in Matt’s had world stopped, and he didn’t understand. He’d been running late. He’d expected Charlie to be in town, either still at work or killing time before meeting him at the restaurant. Why had she been on the Bristol road? What was she doing in the car? Where had she been? Yet as the questions filled his mind, the answers instantly followed.

He knew where she’d been, and he felt a sudden rush of anger towards his wife. He couldn’t believe that after all of their arguments,
after all of her promises, she’d still gone to Bath to hold Claire’s hand while she aborted what could possibly be his friend’s baby.

***

“How embarrassing,” Charlie said turning to face Matt after she’d heard Emily shut the back door to their house.

“She lived here. She’s bound to have heard us having sex. What are you embarrassed for
?” He asked smiling and then leaning in to kiss her neck.

He ripped
the top that she was holding in front of her out of her hands, and cast it onto the floor. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her towards him, and pressed his body against hers as he leant forward to kiss her again.

“What do you mean she would
’ve heard us?” Charlie asked pulling back from his kiss.

“W
e’ve got ten minutes till you’ve promised to go for a drink. Do you really want to spend them talking about whether or not Emily has ever heard us having sex, or would you rather that we actually go upstairs and have sex?” Matt asked grinning now, and again leaning in to kiss her.

“Upstairs
, stat,” Charlie said with a huge grin spreading across her face.

Matt grabb
ed Charlie’s hand, and they headed towards the stairs together at full pace.

***

Matt scrolled through his phone for Claire’s number, but he was so angry that when he found it he could barely hit the call button.

“H
ey Matt, if you’re calling for Charlie she left hours ago. Maybe she’s hit some bad traffic or something,” Claire said perfectly at ease.

“She’s not in traffic
,” Matt said through gritted teeth. His temper was rising to the point where everything he was seeing seemed to be tinged with red. “She’s been in accident.”

“Oh my god, oh my god
,” Claire said clearly panicking on the other end of the line.

“Shut up Claire. God’s not going to help
,” Matt said cruelly.

“Is she going to be okay
?” Claire asked.

Matt
hung up. He didn’t have enough patience to try and console Claire. It was her fault that Charlie had been in an accident, and he didn’t even know why he’d bothered calling her.

He
tried desperately to calm down, but he was just so angry. He leant against the wall outside the hospital and rested his head back, took some deep breaths, and tried unsuccessfully to clear his mind. He felt his phone vibrate, and he looked down at it and saw Claire’s name flashing up.

“What
?” He asked venomously.

“Matt
, Charlie’s pregnant. She was going to tell you tonight, but I thought you might need to know now,” Claire said. It sounded to Matt like she was crying, but he hung up without really caring or saying another word to her.

He felt in shock, but he knew that whichever one of his colleagues was treating Charlie would need to know. He ran back inside and towards where he knew she would’ve been taken for treatment.

“Matt you can’t go in there,” James said catching his upper arm as he went to carry on walking past him. “Matt, I’m serious. You’re no good to her in there. You can’t be her doctor.”

“Who is in there
?” Matt demanded of James aggressively, wrenching his arm out of James’ grip.

“Oak
’s in with her,” James responded.

Matt did a double take
. Oak was one of the best doctor’s at the hospital. He was calm under pressure, and he seemed to be able to make the right call about each and every patient without doubt or hesitation. He was nicknamed Oak because he had years of experience and wisdom, and was always around for all of the doctors to go to, but he rarely treated patients anymore.

Oak
believed that his experience was better used in guiding the talent of the future, but there were rumours that he drank and avoided patients. Matt though had dismissed these as nonsense. He’d often seen Oak watching over the carnage that the A&E regularly witnessed, and he’d always been able to jump in and lend a hand wherever and whenever it was needed.

Matt couldn’t decide whether it was a good thing
or not though that Oak was in with Charlie. Did this mean that her condition was so bad that he’d had to step in? Or had he stepped in because everyone had known that it was Charlie? It was likely to be the first he knew. He didn’t even need to imagine what the rest of her chart had said. They’d already been warned that the female patient was likely to be DOA. He’d said as much to Emily.

“He needs to know she’s pregnant
,” Matt said hearing his voice crack as he said it and trying desperately to forget the idea of Charlie having been dead on arrival.

James looked at him sympathetically
, and then asked the obvious question that Matt cursed himself for never having asked Claire. “How far along is she?”

Matt looked
at him blankly. “I don’t know. She hadn’t gotten around to telling me yet,” he said.

James turned and walked into the room where Charlie was being treated, and Matt could feel that he was shaking. He knew that he was in shock
, and he knew that he was seconds from falling apart. He walked away from the room where Charlie’s life was potentially hanging in the balance, and he all but ran towards his office. He could feel the panic rising within him, and it was beginning to overpower him. He felt like his heart was about to be torn wide open.

Matt
only just made it to his office before the tears came, but embarrassed by his reaction he punched the wall. As he felt the pain in his right hand burn, he began to cry in earnest. He slid down the wall, pulled his knees up to his chest, and put his head in his hands.

***

“That was amazing,” Matt said to Charlie. He was smiling, and feeling exhilarated as they walked out of the Red Sea and back up onto the beach where they’d left their towels and clothes.

They were each holding their snorkels and flippers in their hands, and as he looked across at Charlie he thought for what was probably the hundredth time that day just how lucky he was. She was beautiful, and she looked phenomenal in the black bikini that she had on. Added to this her skin was enhanced by a week’s worth of Egyptian sun, and her body was currently sparkling from the reflection of the water that was still desperately clinging to her bronzed skin.

Matt spied a young man eyeing her up, and he smiled to himself. He couldn’t believe the number of looks that she’d been getting while they’d been away. In fact at this rate he thought, he was going to have to keep her in their room for the remainder of the holiday. Although in addition to the looks that she’d been receiving from all the men at their resort, Matt had also seen a number of women looking at her jealously after catching their other halves looking in her direction.

“We should do it again before we go home
,” she said pulling on her T-shirt and putting on her baseball cap before bending down to rummage through her bag. She then stood up, undid the lid of what she was holding, and gently applied some cream to Matt’s nose, cheeks, and forehead.

“Your face has caught the sun
,” she said as she put the lid back on the sun cream before throwing it back into her bag and grabbing her short denim skirt.

He normally loved to see her in this skirt, but he was disappointed
to see her put it on now as he had been enjoying the view of the bottom half of her body in just her bikini.

“Um huh
,” he said. Yet he wasn’t worried about his face, and he wasn’t really listening to what she was saying. He was totally lost in thought about her body, and he was wishing that she’d stop putting her clothes back on. He was also wishing that they were back in their hotel room.

Charlie leaned in towards him
, and put her mouth against his ear and whispered; “why are you looking at me as if you’re about to put a fiver in my skirt?”

He smiled guilty
, and pulled her into a bear of a hug before kissing her neck. “It’d be at least a tenner Mrs Grayson,” he whispered back grinning and then kissing her.

He could taste the salt on her lips from the sea, and he was enjoying the familiar sensation of his wife’s kiss when her stomach suddenly rumbled loudly and they broke apart laughing.

“Hungry?” He asked.

“Starving
,” she said grinning back at him.

“I’ve got an idea
,” he said.

Charlie
eyed him suspiciously.

“Room service
,” he said with a wink making Charlie laugh.

Matt
grabbed all of their stuff from the beach, and began to jog towards the road pulling Charlie along after him. Unfortunately by the time they got into the lift of their hotel to go up to their floor and room, Matt was feeling self-conscious about the way that Charlie kept looking at him.

“
What?” He asked nervously as he caught her eyes once again.

“N
othing, “she said quickly. But when he looked at her dubiously, she smiled and said; “it’s just that I haven’t seen you look at me this way since our wedding night.”

T
he lift doors opened, and Matt grabbed Charlie’s hand and pulled her towards their room. Unfortunately once they neared it he couldn’t get the door open quickly enough, and once inside he couldn’t get Charlie or himself undressed fast enough. Charlie started laughing, and she only stopped when Matt lifted himself up from on top of her and she noticed that he looked serious.

“You’re laughing at me
?” He asked looking hurt.

She
nodded and rolled so that she forced Matt onto his back. “Yes,” she said smiling and then leaning forward to kiss him. But Matt turned his face away.