An Affair of the Heart (2 page)

The police car
turned into the drive of a large house. All the lights were on.

PC Roberts
looked up at the impressive house. “Gosh,” he said. “I bet they’ve
got a penny or two.”

WPC Foster
switched off the engine and looked across at her partner. “Sarge
told me that he’d heard of the husband,” she said, undoing her seat
belt. “Said he made his money on the stock market in the eighties.
Something to do with commodities, I think. Said he still dabbles a
bit now, even though he’s got money coming out of his ears.” She
paused to retrieve her hat from the back seat, and then added,
“Didn’t do her any good though, did it?”

“I think I
might have something for you at last, Phil,” Dr Askwith was saying
over the telephone. “The donor was the right age, right blood-type,
everything. It’s a perfect match. And the heart’s perfect,
too.”

Dr Philip Jones
raised his eyebrows as he stood at the nurse’s station in the
Cardio-Thoracic Unit at Wythenshawe Hospital.

“What about the
waiting list?” he said. “I know there are other people ahead of us
on the list in this zone.”

“Not that this
heart will match. Check it for yourself. It should be coming up on
your computer right about now.”

Dr Jones wedged
the telephone receiver under his chin and turned to the nearest
computer monitor. He began calling up the information. “Other
people on the lists in other zones might have a greater need,” he
said slowly as he typed away.

“Don’t you want
this heart, or something?” Dr Askwith asked with a slight hint of
humour in his voice. “I thought it was the best going away present
I could give you.”

“I’m supposed
to give you the present, David,” Dr Jones replied, and scratched
his beard as he read the details on the screen.

Dr David
Askwith was both a friend as well as a colleague. Dr Jones had
known him since he had been qualified, and first came to
Wythenshawe Hospital. In fact he had been responsible for much of
Dr Askwith’s training. But now that he was a resident at Manchester
Royal Infirmary, they no longer got to see as much of each other as
they had done in the past.

“You’re the one
going traipsing around Eastern Europe with nothing but a back pack
for a friend,” Dr Jones added, silently envying the prospect of his
younger friend’s long awaited holiday.

“And glad I’ll
be for the peace and quiet at last,” was the quick reply. “My last
day! I’m all packed and ready, and I leave straight from work. I
can’t wait! Well, what do you think? Is it registered yet?”

“It is. And it
does look good.”

“Good? It’s
bloody perfect! You couldn’t have got better if you’d ordered it
with a Madeira sauce and wild mushrooms!”

Dr Jones
laughed. “Alright, alright! I give in! How soon can you get it
here?”

“The donor is
already in surgery, so it’s you, my friend, who is going to have to
move fast.”

Rachel Carter
lay on her bed reading a romantic novel; her glasses perched almost
at the very end of her nose. She wished that she could have the
same exciting adventures and love affairs that she constantly read
about in her books. But she knew that she was just dreaming, and
that it would never happen for her. Not that she was ugly, or
anything. In fact she thought she was quite attractive with her
long brown hair and her deep blue eyes. At five-foot-six, she was
slim, but with a rather shapely figure. But at twenty-four, she had
only ever had two boyfriends.

It was her
mother’s fault of course, but Rachel didn’t mind. Gina Carter was
always very possessive and protective where her daughter was
concerned. She hadn’t hesitated in seeing off any boy that she
thought didn’t come up to scratch. Unfortunately, that had been
most of them. Rachel had come to realise that no boy was ever going
to be good enough to be accepted by her mother. But it was not just
that.

Ever since
Rachel had been diagnosed as suffering from congenital heart
disease as a child, Gina had made it her life’s work to cater to
her daughter’s every need. She did everything and anything. Nothing
was ever too much to ask. Rachel knew why, of course. Gina still
thought that it was her fault. She had been a heavy smoker, and
only after Rachel’s condition had been diagnosed had she finally
given up. She had just put her last cigarette out and never picked
up another. Rachel always insisted that it wasn’t her mother’s
fault, and that she shouldn’t think like that. But Gina would
always carry the guilt with her.

Gina Carter had
been nineteen when Rachel was born. She had never married and never
wanted to. She was fiercely independent as well as being extremely
stubborn and tenacious. She was scared of nothing and no one,
because she had believed that nothing could hurt her. She had been
young and foolish, and now her daughter was suffering the
consequences.

If she had
wanted to, Rachel could have lived her entire life without lifting
a finger. She could have taken full advantage of her mother’s
guilt, and her love and attention, and exploited it. But she never
did, because her own love for her mother was just as strong. It had
to be. So far, Rachel had gone through three operations on her
heart, and each one had been painful and traumatic. Especially the
first, when she had been only ten. Her mother had been there for
her each time. Helping her to prepare for the ordeal, waiting for
her when she woke up, and helping her recover afterwards.

Her mother’s
love was the most constant and dependable thing in Rachel’s life.
She knew that and treasured it dearly. Never more so than when
things were not going so well.

So far, each
operation had been followed by a time of renewed vigour and a rise
in optimism. But gradually would come the shortness of breath and
then the slow decline. Rachel would see the pain in her mother’s
eyes, even though Gina would do her best to hide it, and at those
times the love between them became so strong, that Rachel could
almost feel it pulling her along like a physical presence. It made
them very close. Neither one of them could ever imagine living
without the other.

Now they waited
for a fourth operation, one that would finally put right what was
wrong once and for all.

Rachel took a
long breath and called down to her mother. “Hey, fat arse! How
about a cup of tea up here?”

“Who are you
calling ‘fat arse’? You skinny runt!” Came the quick retort. “I’ve
seen more meat on a spare-rib at the Summer Palace!”

Rachel
chuckled. She put the book down on the dressing table next to her
bed and took off her glasses. She looked towards the door and
waited. She could hear her mother coming up the stairs already.
Jibes about her size were guaranteed to get her mother’s attention.
She would reply in kind, exaggerating Rachel’s slimmer look by
comparing her to anything from a string bean to a brain on a stick.
It wasn’t that her mother was very big, really, just pleasantly
plump, as Gina would say.

“You’re only
jealous,” Rachel said when she heard her mother reach the top of
the stairs.

Gina came
through the door and looked at her daughter stretched out on the
bed. Rachel was wearing her favourite tatty old pair of jeans and a
blue jumper. Her feet were bare.

“Revenge!” Gina
announced and pounced on Rachel’s bare feet, tickling them
madly.

Rachel kicked
her feet and began laughing. “No, Mum! Not my feet!” she cried out.
“You know I’m dead ticklish there!”

“Not until you
give in!” her mother insisted.

“I give in! I
give in!”

Gina relented
and sat on the side of the bed next to her daughter. “You’re
right,” she said. “I am jealous. I only have to look at a plate of
chips and I put on two stone! And me running up and down the stairs
every five minutes! You, you eat like a pig, laze about all day,
and you can still hide in the shadow of a stick insect!”

Rachel laughed.
“The trouble with you, Mum,” she said. “Is that you never stop at
just looking at that plate of chips.”

“A woman’s got
to eat you know.”

“And drink,”
Rachel added.

Gina held up
her finger. “Tea!” she said. “I’ll go and put the kettle on.” She
started to get up.

“I’ll come
down, Mum.”

“No, you stay
here and read your book. I’ll bring it up to you.”

“No, I want to
come down and sit in the kitchen with you.”

“You’ll get
tired and out of breath.”

“Shut up and
help me up!” Rachel insisted and swung her legs off the bed.

Gina relented.
“Oh, alright,” she said, and she put her arm around her daughter’s
waist and began to help Rachel to her feet. “But if you begin to
feel too tired, I’m going to carry you right back up here and put
you straight to bed.”

“I think I was
a lot smaller the last time you gave me a piggy-back, Mum.” Rachel
put her arm around her mother’s shoulder and stood up. She was
taller than her mother, and definitely thinner, but the similarity
between them was obvious in their faces. Rachel’s hair, eyes and
nose were definitely inherited from her mother. Pictures of Gina
when she was younger and thinner could easily be confused for
Rachel. But now Gina’s hair was much shorter, and her face rounder.
They had taken two steps towards the door together when the
telephone rang.

They both froze
and stared towards the door, listening to the ringing sound. For
the past few months they had both dreaded and hoped that the
telephone would ring. Whenever it did, and it wasn’t Rachel’s
doctor, they would feel downhearted, but also a little bit
relieved.

Gina spoke
first. “Why didn’t you wait until I was naked with one foot in the
bath, like last time?” she said to the telephone. She sighed. “Wait
here, Rachel, and I’ll go and see who it is.” She helped Rachel sit
down on the bed before hurrying downstairs.

Rachel swung
her legs back onto the bed and drew them up to her chest. She
hugged them with both hands and rested the side of her head on her
knees. She sat there on the bed, all alone, waiting, listening.

Gina stood in
front of the hall mirror and stared at her reflection. She didn’t
feel any different, and if she sucked her cheeks in, she didn’t
look much different either. Maybe this year she would lose some
weight. If everything went okay. She took a deep breath and picked
up the telephone. “Hello?” she said.

“Hello? Gina?”
said a familiar voice. “It’s Dr Jones. We’ve got one.”

“Have you had a
break-in, sir?” PC Roberts asked Alex Williams as they all stood in
the wreckage of the drawing room together.

WPC Foster
glared at her colleague. Now was not the time, she thought. But he
did have a point. The drawing room was littered with broken china,
and two of the chairs had been over-turned. Mr Williams himself
also looked a little dishevelled. He had quite a bad cut on his
forehead, which he dabbed constantly with a bloodstained
handkerchief. And he was obviously angry and upset about something.
And the room didn’t get into this state on it’s own, either. If it
wasn’t a break-in, then it had to be an argument, a bad one, and
probably with his wife. This was going to be even harder than she
had first thought.

“Did I call you
about any damn break-in?” Alex snapped back at them both.

“No sir,” Jill
Foster replied quickly. She wanted to get their visit back onto the
right path, but her eyes were caught by the picture hanging on the
wall above the fireplace behind Alex. It was a large portrait of a
beautiful young woman with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes,
and she was immediately struck by the age difference. Alex Williams
was still a strikingly attractive man, but he was in his middle to
late forties, whereas his wife had been only twenty-eight. Then she
remembered from the information that she had been given that
Williams had been married before. Why was it that the more
successful men became, the younger their wives got?

“As I said at
the door, sir,” she continued, tearing her eyes away from the
painting. “It’s to do with your wife–”

“I know, I
know!” Alex interrupted, his voice still angry. “Speeding again! As
usual! How fast was she going this time?”

“It’s much more
serious than that, sir. I think it would be better if you sat
down.”

“She hasn’t
gone and ran someone over has she?” For the first time since they
ad arrived, Alex’s voice sounded less angry and more concerned.

“There has been
an accident, sir.”

Alex slowly
lowered is hand from the cut on his head and looked more closely at
the sad expression on the young policewoman’s face.

“Oh, God,” he
whispered, as the purpose of their visit finally dawned on him. And
then he did sit down. “Oh God...”

Dr Philip Jones
smiled when he saw Rachel and her mother coming down the corridor
together. Rachel was in a wheelchair that her mother had insisted
on pushing. The porter who was supposed to push it for her had
given up halfway down the corridor, and had decided to take Gina’s
advice and had gone to do something more useful instead.

Dr Jones
greeted them both. “Hello, Gina, Rachel.” He squatted down next to
the wheelchair and held Rachel’s hand. “How are you feeling?” he
asked her.

Rachel took off
her glasses. “Scared,” she replied. “Like usual.”

“She’s fine, Dr
Jones,” Gina said quickly. “A little tired, maybe. But apart from
that, she’s fine.”