Desperate Measures Read Free Page A

but give thanks that the ordeal was over, share that with her. She had made a Boer chicken pie with a beautiful puff top pastry and some cauliflower cheese. It would re-heat in the microwave. She wondered whether to have some herself or to wait and decided that she would have a glass of wine and if he wasn’t home by eight then she’d see if she was still hungry.
    He had someone else to share his good news with, she was almost certain. That side of things had dwindled between them over time, especially since the menopause. It still happened, but rarely. When they did have sex she wondered why they didn’t do it more often. Norma never initiated it, never had, the thought made her toes curl. What if Don said no and turned her away? Sometimes she had dreams and woke aroused, even had an orgasm, but she had never told him.
    Norma suspected he had a lover because his hours had got longer again, the partners’ meetings more frequent. And she had sensed a new energy to him. At least before the inquest loomed. You don’t live with somebody for thirty years without being able to read the smallest changes in mood and behaviour.
    There was no point in dwelling on it. There had been other women, other flings. Discreet and short-lived. He would never leave her. She knew this like she knew the scales on the piano keyboard or that the sun would rise in the morning. There was too little loyalty these days, people gave up on marriage at the first hurdle. She was loyal to Don and vice versa.
    Norma hadn’t attended the Marcie Young inquest. She had offered, dreading that Don might take her up on it, but he’d said, ‘I’d only be worrying about you. I’ll be fine.’
    He wasn’t fine though, she had seen the signs of strain on him as the start date drew closer. Last night when he came home, he was ashen-faced, distracted. She teased it out of him, ‘How was it, did you have to speak?’
    He said a little, then added to it, then elaborated until he was giving full vent to his sense of outrage at the whole charade. He was drinking more, a tumbler of whiskey as soon as he crossed the threshold, wine with his meal. But who was she to comment? He’d been under so much pressure, what with the inquest and problems at the surgery.
    Don generally got along with people but one of the GPs, Fraser McKee he was called, got right up Don’s nose. A younger man, he was trying to tell Don how things should be done. He wanted to coach patients and staff to use the Internet, to research current medical thinking, he had ideas for setting up clinics for this, that and the other, as though Don’s thirty years in the job counted for nothing.
    At first Don had appreciated Fraser’s clumsy attempts to innovate, then he began to complain mildly about him, putting it down to the man’s inexperience but as the months went on Don became increasingly hostile.
    ‘He’s after a partnership,’ Don had said, ‘he talks as though it’s a sure thing.’
    ‘And it’s not?’ Norma said.
    ‘Over my dead body,’ Don had said, ‘he’s no idea how to work as a member of the team. If you don’t agree with his projects and his buzzwords he writes you off.’
    ‘What do the others think?’ Norma said.
    ‘He’s not made himself popular,’ Don said. ‘I don’t think anyone will disagree.’
     
    Norma wondered now, as she ironed his shirts, what sort of doctor she herself would have made, if things had turned out differently. Would she have gained the loyalty and affection of her patients and colleagues like Don had or been an irritant like Fraser? Would she even have been a GP? Perhaps she’d have chosen a specialty and gone for a hospital career instead.
    At eighteen all she knew was she wanted to study medicine, to save lives. She had worked so hard to get her A levels, to get into medical school, swotting late into the night, taking diet pills to keep awake. Diet pills and black coffee. There were extra classes at school, too, and she went to every