Coffee Break Story - Unfinished Business, Page 2

fault. I was in a hurry, I needed to catch that bus, get home before…I crossed without looking,” she babbled.

  “Another witness suggested the driver wasn’t looking where he was going. If you want to take it further…”

  “No! Absolutely not!” She cried. “I mean, no real harm done, best to forget about it.” She lowered her voice. “My husband doesn’t need to know where the accident took place does he?”

  The policeman went pink and snapped his notebook shut.

  “As the incident is closed, it’s up to you what you tell him, Madam.” He scuttled out.

  Mark was cleaning grit out of the grazes on her hands now.

  “It’s not what you think,” she said, not sure why she felt she had to explain herself to him.

  “I don’t think anything.” But as he looked up at her, she could see he was dying for an explanation.

  “I was at work. Edward doesn’t know yet that I have a job. I will tell him, of course, there just hasn’t been a right time.” She hadn’t found a right time in the six weeks since starting her part time job. “He can’t understand why I would want to work, it’s not exactly as if we need the money.”

  “Has our super-efficient Julie managed to reach him yet?” Mark changed the subject. “If you have no lift home, I’m finishing up soon.” He glanced at the address on her chart. “I live out your way, I can bring you home, make sure you’re alright until…”

  He looked into her eyes. “I’d like to… I mean…We could have a drink maybe, a cup of tea even. Catch up on old times…”

  “It was a long time ago Mark.”

  He had broken her heart when he had left to study nursing. She couldn’t understand why he turned down an offer closer home, and he was angry that she insisted on staying at home, in the town they had both sworn to escape from, the first chance they got. Stubbornly, she broke it off with him, and then was devastated when he didn’t come begging for the forgiveness she longed to give him. She had married Edward less than a year later. On the rebound, but she had married him. And that still meant something, didn’t it?

  “Any kids?” Mark tried to lighten the mood.

  “No, we’re…well…” She longed for children, but how could she explain that after seven years of refusing to discuss it, Edward had recently announced that he was too old, at forty four, to start a family?

  “Oh well, plenty of time. You’re only thirty.” Mark looked sad for a moment. “It was kids that tore apart my one lasting relationship while I was away. I wanted them, she didn’t. Amy’s a doctor. She said she’d never make consultant if she had children. Although a few years later, she made consultant, got married within the year, and had her first child before the tan had faded from her honeymoon. Maybe she just didn't want to have kids with me.”

  “Do you miss her?” Rosemary was glad to take the spotlight off herself.

  “At first. But it was never going to work…we met too soon after…” He couldn’t meet her eyes. “It was a mistake, that’s all.”

  Rosie’s hand was now cleaner than when she stepped out of the shower, but Mark kept stroking it with the damp cotton wool. Even through the thin layer of latex of his surgical gloves her fingers recognised his touch. She hoped he couldn’t feel her pulse racing. Maybe she was suffering from concussion after all.

  “Rosemary! My Dear. What happened you?” Edward went pale as he pulled back the curtain. She closed her jacket to hide her bloodstained blouse; he was very squeamish.

  “Don’t worry, it’s not nearly as bad as it looks, Mr. Regan.” Mark stood up to leave. “I’m just finished here. Dr. White will put in those stitches and then you can go. If you like you can ask for a referral to plastic surgery to check on that scar, but it's not going to amount to much.” He was gone before she could even thank him, let alone say all things she wanted to say, but were probably best left unsaid.

  Edward leaned over and kissed Rosemary on the cheek. She smelled alcohol and garlic. Not unpleasant odours. White wine, fresh garlic, as if he’d just stood up from the table.

  “I was meeting a client all afternoon with Jeannine, the new trainee,” he explained without meeting her eyes. “I only just heard what happened. As we’re going to be out of here soon, I’ll ask her to wait and give us a lift home.”

  “You didn’t drive to the restaurant yourself?”

  “Eh… no. My car’s still at the office. Back in a minute.” He was gone.

  Suddenly Rosie needed to go to the bathroom. She poked her head between the curtains. From the corner of her eye she spotted Edward beetling towards the waiting area. A young woman, who seemed to be in her early twenties, with long blond hair and wearing navy formal trousers and an expensive white T-shirt, stood up. She looked angry. He said something to make her smile, and then brushed a strand of hair out of her face. A gesture Rosie recognised. Edward used to brush her hair back like that, before he persuaded her that she would look much better with short hair. The woman laughed at something he said, and sat down again. She smiled and Edward took her hand in his and sat down beside her.

  Edward returned to Rosemary just as the doctor cut the thread on the last stitch, and signed her chart with a flourish.

  “That’s it, you’re free to go now. You can come back in ten days or so to get those stitches removed, or go to your own doctor,” he said. “This is a prescription for a course of antibiotics and some painkillers. Those ribs are going to get sore.” He scribbled a few lines onto a sheet of paper and thrust it at Rosemary before leaving.

  “Rosemary…” Edward hesitated, hopping from foot to foot. It was a habit of his that annoyed his wife. It was as though he was trying to look vulnerable, or indecisive, which he never was. “As you’re going to be fine, would you mind awfully if Jeanine and I went back to the office for a couple of hours? It’s just that…”

  “That’s alright, I understand.” She smiled a smile that didn’t get past her lips. “Unfinished business. You go on out to her. I want to leave a thank-you note for the nurse.’ She ignored his look of impatient irritation and went to the desk.

  Rosemary wrote down her name and phone number on a page ripped out of her diary, and asked at reception if there was any way of leaving a message for a member of staff. She named him.

  “Mark?” The receptionist said. “He should be out in a moment and you can give it to him yourself. He’s just getting changed,”.

  Rosie remembered how he had offered her a lift home and the opportunity to ‘catch up on old times.’ She crumpled up the note she had been writing, shoving it back in her pocket.

  “Good, I’ll wait for him. Mark and I are old friends.” Her smile spread beyond her lips, lighting up her eyes, for the first time in far too long. “He offered me a lift home actually, and I think I should take him up on it. My husband has some unfinished business to attend to.”

  She turned as a door beside her opened and Mark emerged.

  “That lift home…” she said as their eyes met. “Is your offer still open?”

  He grinned, and to Rosemary’s surprise, she blushed again and her stomach flipped.

  “I think I have some unfinished business myself,” she thought as he looped his arm through hers and led her to the car park.