The Nurse by J. Corrigan (list of ebook readers txt) 📕

I laughed. I couldn’t remember when I’d last heard it referred to as pot. I stepped over him. ‘You’re right. I’ll be ten minutes.’

Making my way back upstairs, I smiled to myself. Daniel was a bit old-fashioned, but he was right. I was always telling Casey to cut down. Casey and Tom. Brilliant. They were much better suited than Tom and me, and any guilt I felt about him flowed away. If anyone could wean Casey off her guilty pleasure it would be Tom, and she’d still write a phenomenal philosophy essay without it. Casey was gifted. And lucky. There was something about her I envied, and I was never quite sure what it was.

I looked in the tiny mirror that hung next to my bed. Manoeuvred my hair into a messy bun, wishing there wasn’t so much of it; went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth again. Checked I had no toothpaste on my chin.

On the way downstairs, I pulled my puffa jacket off the landing pillar; Daniel was still sitting on the step, waiting. He turned his head and looked up at me, and again I noticed the stiffness in his neck. He wasn’t as relaxed as he wanted to portray. Maybe he was nervous about being here. He stood, and a waft of aftershave penetrated the air between us. He smelt delicious, and a flammable mix of emotions laced through me. I fancied him like mad.

‘Come on then,’ I said. ‘Tea at the abbey.’

At the gate, I turned and saw Tom and Casey looking through the front room window. I waved. Casey waved back. Tom didn’t. Maybe he was a little bit jealous of Daniel, no matter what he’d said.

We walked and talked for hours, ate plastic sandwiches and drank vapid tea from the café. Daniel bought me a book of Byron’s poetry and a Byron mug from the gift shop. He also bought me a totally overpriced multicoloured scarf too, as it had turned breezy.

It was three o’clock by the time we walked back to the car park. He’d parked under a massive oak tree, and as we approached, he peered at the bird droppings on the bonnet of his pristine vehicle and laughed. ‘Bloody pigeons.’

In the car, he turned to me, took hold of my face gently and found my lips. His tongue was in my mouth, gradual and sweet, his hand on my ribcage, and beautiful stabs of pleasure travelled through my entire body, but too soon he pulled away.

‘Beautiful, vibrant Rose, what am I going to do with you?’ His voice was kind more than passionate.

I rested my hand on his thigh. He kissed me again, this time long and languid. When finally we parted, both of us stared through the car window at the afternoon sun as it shimmered like liquid glass through the trees, as if trying to work out what had just happened, because something had. And when I looked at Daniel, I knew he felt the same.

16

6 April 1991

I hadn’t seen Daniel since the abbey visit a week before, although that had been my choice, not his. I’d told him I was full on with university work that I really needed to get done over the Easter holidays. I was, though, beginning to wish I hadn’t been so adamant. I really wanted to see him.

I’d decided to go to my mum’s, because despite our troubled relationship, I wanted to tell her about Daniel. I knocked on the familiar door. No response, so I put my key in the lock and let myself in. Inside it smelt as if the windows hadn’t been opened for weeks, and before I even stepped into the kitchen I knew what I’d find. A tsunami of chaos. Dirty dishes, magazines and clothes strewn everywhere. It didn’t help that Sam was often as messy as my mother. I flicked my eyes around. Worse than normal. I checked the clock, which had sat on the kitchen wall for years. How many times had I peered at it as a kid, wishing my mother would get out of bed? Too many. It had stopped at two o’clock. I looked at my watch; it was nearly ten. I heard noises upstairs; she was where I’d thought she might be. I began tackling the washing-up, wondering if Sam was home. Eventually my mum appeared in the kitchen wearing a grey dressing gown that had once been white, her hair a mass of activity, like an erupting volcano.

‘Hello, love. Happy belated Easter.’

‘You too, Mum.’

‘Didn’t hear you come in.’ Her eyes swept around the kitchen. ‘Was going to clear up this morning.’ She looked at me. ‘Sam’s a nightmare.’

‘Is he home?’

‘Stayed out the last few nights.’

‘Is he really not sitting his GCSEs?’

‘That’s what he says.’

‘He’ll hate the army.’

‘But he’ll be out from under my feet.’ She pulled up the sleeves of her dressing gown. ‘You talk to him, Rose.’

‘I will,’ I said. ‘Do you have any work this week?’

‘Just Friday.’

‘Aw, Mum.’ I went to hug her, but she moved sideways. Any show of affection between us was always awkward; it was as if in a split second we’d both decided not to bother.

‘I’ve got a new job, starting next weekend. Full-time. Well paid,’ she said, her eyes all over the kitchen and not once resting on me. ‘So I’m giving up the factory. Work there’s far too sporadic.’

‘That’s great. What doing?’

‘Cleaning.’ She began pulling at her hair, loose tendrils at first, but then great clumps of it. She wrapped her dressing gown tightly around her torso, and I noticed that its belt was from another dressing gown, another era. She sat down on a kitchen chair and then got up again.

‘Really good news,’ I said.

‘Your tone of voice doesn’t reflect what you’re saying. Cleaning’s a respectable job.’

‘You’re reading things that aren’t there, Mum. As usual.’

‘We can’t all be like you.’ She wasn’t going to let it drop. But suddenly, she did. That was my mother all over. She