Free Emergency: Wife Lost and Found by Carol Marinelli Page A

say?’
    ‘Lorna?’ The nurse was fiddling with her IV, dragging her back to the present and asking if she had any pain, to which Lorna nodded.
    ‘Could you turn down the infusion?’ she asked, to the nurse’s confusion, but Lorna was too tired to explain.
    The pain of the present she could deal with, it was the past and the future she didn’t want to drift into.
    ‘Pauline.’ James ran a slightly exasperated hand through his hair as he eyed his home through Lorna’s eyes. ‘We’re getting a guest.’
    That he was even considering discussing with his daily that they hire a cleaner was less a reflection on Lorna’s neatness and more a reflection on Pauline’s lack of it.
    He could never consider getting rid of Pauline.
    It would be like asking your mother to leave.
    Your messy, disorganised, borderline alcoholic mother, perhaps, but at least she knew how he liked his toast. At least she knew that when a telephone marketer rang at 10 a.m. when he was on nights, ‘Professor Morrell’ was not to be disturbed.
    Girlfriends had come and gone, pointing out that Pauline did nothing bar empty the dishwasher, shuffle the mess, watch pay TV and make inroads into his whisky—all true. Only not once in the five years she had been with him had James had to think about buying toothpaste, or even a toothbrush, had to iron his shirt, or wonder if there was anything to eat.
    Pauline took care of that.
    Her chatter drove him crazy—the Irish loved to tell a tale and Pauline certainly could—but, then, the time her knee had played up, to his surprise, he’d missed her moaning.
    Whatever dinner she made at home—and her cooking was fabulous—was divided and plated for James and placed in his fridge. If she treated herself andher husband to a chocolate bar, she treated James too. It would be there waiting for him on the kitchen bench when he came home at two a.m., and after a Saturday night in Emergency, being insulted or dealing with a suicide, well, that chocolate bar was welcome, but more the sentiment behind it—especially when it was accompanied by one of her notes. ‘An Englishman walked into a bar…’ Somehow, Pauline made James feel as if he had come home, and if she hired a movie and liked it, well, it was there waiting, too, on those nights he couldn’t wind down from work and sleep.
    A couple of years ago Pauline had taken a month off to go on a cruise with her husband, and James had fast realised that whatever she didn’t do, she made up for with what she did do. She was talking about going on another cruise next year and James was already not looking forward to it.
    ‘What sort of guest?’ Pauline asked, wiping down the bench and working out her excuses, because if his mother was coming again, then her knee was suddenly hurting.
    ‘Her name’s Lorna.’ The awkwardness in his voice made her look up, her dishcloth pausing in midswipe as James elaborated. ‘My ex-wife.’
    She’d known something was up. Her best friend, May, had been dropping hints like a semaphore signaller for well over a week now, but never in her wildest dreams would Pauline have guessed there had once been a Mrs Morrell.
    ‘Your ex-wife, you say?’ Pauline stopped cleaning the bench and started loading bread into the toaster—pulling ham and cheese out of the fridge and taking along time to find the jar of capers. ‘I never knew you’d been married.’ She said to a dozen eggs. She came out of the fridge with a smile on her face. ‘Well, fancy that!’
    ‘It was ages ago,’ James said, flicking open the paper and pretending to read it. ‘She’s been in a car accident and isn’t well enough yet to travel home.’
    ‘And where’s home?’
    ‘Scotland.’ James answered. ‘Fife.’
    ‘She’s a Fifer.’
    ‘No,’ James said tartly, ‘she’s from Glasgow, but now she’s in Fife. She’ll only be here for a few days, but she’ll need to stay in my room.’
    ‘Your room?’
    James looked up from the horoscope he was