The Secrets of the Glen (Scottish Highlands #2)

Chapter 8

Joe stopped outside a door with a small round portal window; he peered in. ‘Right, this will do,’ he said, pushing the door open. Robyn let go of David’s hand so she could hold the door open for Joe. The small sign above the door read Examination Room .

Joe parked David beside the examining table in the centre of the room and walked back to the door.

‘Where are you going?’ Robyn asked.

‘To see what’s keeping the doctor.’

Robyn stared at the door. She hoped he wasn’t long. She still wanted to get out of there as soon as she could. It was her memory issues that bothered her. Selective amnesia, the doctor had said. It was temporary, the doctor had said. And it wasn’t a tumour. They’d done a CAT scan. But how temporary was her amnesia? It had been a little over a week, and still nothing.

Robyn frowned. That wasn’t strictly true – and she knew it. Although she couldn’t remember specifics, there were certain things, certain situations, that were triggering certain feelings, like being afraid to get in a police car. What was that about?

She hadn’t anticipated that sort of thing. In some ways, it was worse than not remembering at all, because now she was left wondering what had happened in her past.

Her eyes drifted around the room. One wall was lined almost floor to ceiling with a glass-fronted cabinet housing various bottles and packets of drugs. Should they be in there without a medical professional present? She looked at the cabinet and imagined it must be locked.

‘Shame you can’t just help yourself, isn’t it?’ David commented.

Robyn glanced at him. His attention was riveted on the cabinet.

‘I mean,’ he continued, ‘it’s not as though I don’t know what I need.’ He reeled off some impossibly long name. Under different circumstances, Robyn would have laughed and accused him of making it up, but the seriousness of his tone made her think otherwise. He had been down this road before.

As if reading her mind, he added, ‘This has happened before – my knee giving way. I know how this works.’

Robyn stared at him, thinking that it might not be like before. ‘You’ve had a fall.’

David seemed to ignore that remark. ‘In comes the doctor, questions, examinations, exclamations, second opinions even, then ...’ he paused, ‘after telling me what I already know, finally a prescription.’ He raised his hands in exasperation.

Robyn sighed. Poor David , she thought. It must be awful, living with an ongoing injury. She just hoped the fall on the ice hadn’t made it a lot worse. What if he needed another operation on his knee? She imagined he’d already had an op on it when he’d first got the injury.

‘Oh, sod this,’ David exclaimed, eyeing the cabinet. ‘Robyn, go and see if there’s some …’ he repeated the impossibly long word.

Robyn shrugged. ‘Why? They’re bound to have some. If you need it, the doctor will give it to you.’

He turned his wheelchair to face her. ‘Just go and look – please.’

Robyn stirred from her spot and walked over to the cabinet. What harm could it do? Besides, by the time she found it, Joe would be back with a doctor, and very soon she could go home.

‘Well?’ David said impatiently.

‘Just a minute. Do you know how many boxes of medicine are in here, and how small the writing is?’ She thought he was being very unreasonable to expect her to find it just like that.

‘You don’t have to read every single one. They must be in alphabetical order.’

Robyn felt foolish; he was right. ‘Here we are.’ She spelt it out; she wasn’t even going to attempt to say it.

‘That’s the one.’

Robyn turned her back on the cabinet to face David. ‘There, you see. I told you they’d have it. What is it, anyway?’

‘Just a painkiller and anti-inflammatory, but it’s really strong.’ David moved his wheelchair just a tad closer to Robyn. ‘Is it locked?’

‘What?’

David’s gaze shifted. ‘The cabinet – is it locked?’

‘I don’t know.’ Robyn shrugged. ‘I imagine so.’

‘Try it – will you?’

Robyn turned back and reached for the handle of the glass door. Then she suddenly pulled her hand back. What was she doing? If someone walked in, if Joe and the doctor returned, what on earth would they make of her standing there with her hand on the door of the drugs cabinet? Wasn’t there some law against stealing hospital medicines? After all, that was exactly what it would look like she was doing.

‘What’s wrong?’ David’s voice sounded closer. She turned around to find him right next to her. ‘Look, it doesn’t matter whether it’s locked or not,’ she said, ‘because I am not going to try to open the cabinet, if that’s what you are asking.’ David was really testing her patience. ‘Besides, it must be locked. They’re not going to leave a whole cabinet of drugs unlocked in an unattended room, are they?’

‘Move over. I’ll do it myself.’ His voice was prickly.

‘Be my guest.’ Robyn held out her hand and moved aside, knowing very well that there was no way David could reach the handle. But she reckoned without his will power.

She stood aside and watched David manoeuvre his wheelchair into position and put the brake on. Then, gingerly putting his good leg on the floor and gripping the wheelchair with one hand, he slowly began the hoist himself out while reaching for the handle.

Robyn watched him until she could stand it no longer. ‘Alright.’ She breathed, pushing David back into his chair – none too gently. She grasped the handle of the door and pulled hard. ‘You see, I told you—’ It flew open.

David whooped.

Robyn’s eyes flew to the door, expecting someone to thunder in as if an alarm had gone off.

Robyn slammed it shut.

‘What are you doing?’

‘OK, so you’ve proved a point – so what?’

‘Open it, will you? Pass me the pills.’

Robyn stopped dead. ‘You are joking, right?’

‘Look, I need them. Just pass them out and then we can be out of here.’

Robyn moved away from the cabinet, away from David, shaking her head. ‘Are you insane? I’m the one who would be out of here, in the back of Joe’s police car, and he won’t be taking me home, either.’ She caught a breath. ‘Besides you might need more than pills to fix that.’ She glanced down at David’s knee. ‘You need someone to look at it first.’

‘Oh yeah? And what makes you such an authority?’

‘Someone who doesn’t want to go to prison.’

David waved away her concerns. ‘Who said anything about prison?’ He raised voice. ‘Just do what I tell you, and get them!’

Robyn flinched, and for just a moment she remembered an old caravan. She was sitting at a formica table inside, surrounded by other children – she had a feeling she was a child herself – and a young woman was screaming at her from the sofa, ‘Just get my pills!’

‘Do you think I want to stay here, in this hospital, for a moment longer?’ said David.

The memory – if that’s what it was – didn’t give much away. Robyn was trying to remember who the young woman was. Was that my mother?

‘Well, it’s not my fault you’re here,’ Robyn retorted, even though that’s what she’d thought on the way there. Now, with David’s attitude towards her, she’d changed her mind.

‘Oh, isn’t it? Who wanted to see me play hockey on the ice?’

Robyn put her hands on her hips. ‘Well, who wanted to show off on the ice?’ Robyn knew this wasn’t exactly true, but she was angry at David for blaming her. It wasn’t all her fault. She hadn’t forced him to play.

‘All you have to do is hand me the bottle of pills – what’s so difficult about that?’

‘No.’

‘No?’ David started to move towards her.

She stood her ground. ‘What are you going to do like that?’ She felt cross and angry at his unreasonable demand. ‘Hold a gun to my head?’ she blurted.

He stared at her as if dumbstruck. ‘What are you talking about?’ he said slowly. ‘Where did that come from?’

Robyn shuffled her feet and looked towards the door. ‘I’m going to find a phone.’ She didn’t bother asking David to lend her his mobile phone.

‘Wait!’

Robyn could hear the squeak of the wheelchair on the move behind her as she walked to the door.

‘Robyn, please.’ She felt a hand close around her forearm. Alarmed that he had moved towards her quicker than she’d anticipated, she whirled around. ‘Let go of me!’ she demanded as a wave of panic hit her. She tugged her arm to try and shake off his grip.

David held up his hands, releasing his grip immediately. ‘God, sorry. What has got into you?’

‘I don’t know! Leave me alone!’ She looked at David, and thought she could say the same about him. He’d never treated her like this before. But then she knew he was in pain, in a hospital, and she expected he was a little frightened too. She knew he didn’t want to be admitted. He just wanted some pills, and for whatever was up with his knee to just resolve itself. Robyn had a feeling that things weren’t going to turn out as simple as that.

‘Are you leaving?’

‘I just want to find a phone.’ Robyn turned to the door once more. ‘I want to go home.’

‘But I don’t want you to go home. I don’t know where your home is.’

‘Gayle’s. I’m going home to Gayle’s, of course.’ Robyn didn’t know where her home was either. She didn’t know why a mobile home had come to mind when she knew she had been living in halls of residence. Nothing made sense.

When she turned to the door and attempted to push the door open, quite forcefully because she was in a temper, she heard a thud.

‘Hey!’ Joe’s voice came from behind the door.

Robyn looked through the little portal window to see him standing just the other side of the door. He took a step back as she opened the door.

‘I found out what was keeping the doctor,’ he said brightly.

Robyn was relieved to see Joe. At least now she didn’t have to feel guilty about leaving David.

‘Everything okay?’ he asked, looking at them both.

Robyn looked away. He must have sensed the atmosphere in the room immediately.

Joe was accompanied by a young doctor with a coffee cup in one hand. He had a tissue in his other hand and started dabbing a large brown stain on the front of his white coat. Joe must have stepped back into the doctor behind him when she’d attempted to open the door. Robyn gave him a brief apologetic look before heading out of the door.

She heard David call her name as she walked out of the room, but she didn’t look back.

‘Where are you going, Robyn?’ Joe asked, but she didn’t want to offer an explanation. She just wanted to get out.

‘What happened between you two when I was gone?’ she heard Joe say to David.

Robyn retraced her steps back to the reception, where she was sure she would find a phone.

In the reception area, she found a payphone. She picked it up and dialled Gayle’s number, hoping she didn’t mind accepting reverse charges. Robyn didn’t have any money for the phone call.

‘Come on,’ Robyn repeated over and over, listening to the dialling tone. She hoped it was Gayle who answered the phone, because Gayle’s mother was liable to put it back on the hook while she went looking for her daughter, and then by the time she found her, she had usually forgotten why she was looking for her in the first place.

‘Pick up, pick up,’ Robyn said impatiently.

She had been standing for what seemed like an eternity, but it was only five minutes. She had been keeping an eye on the clock above the receptionist’s desk. A loud cough drew her attention away from the clock on the wall to an elderly gentleman standing behind her. ‘My wife has just been admitted, and I need to ring my daughter.’

Robyn nodded at him. She listened for three more rings, then reluctantly put the phone down. She’d assumed she was the only person in the hospital without a mobile phone.

She watched him pick the receiver up. ‘My wife fell down the stairs,’ he said, still holding the receiver.

‘Oh dear,’ said Robyn. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that. I hope she’s going to be okay.’

‘So do I.’

His hand fumbled in his coat pocket. Robyn could hear the jangle of change. ‘They say she could have a broken hip.’

He dropped a coin in the slot, his index finger hovering over the buttons. ‘She always was a clumsy oaf.’ He smiled a weak smile and began to dial. A moment later, he was ready with another coin.

Robyn left the old guy on the phone and walked over to the reception desk. ‘Is there another public phone?’ She had a feeling he was going to be on the phone for quite some time.

‘Take that corridor to the coffee machine at the end of the hall.’ The receptionist pointed without looking up.

‘Thanks.’ Robyn started down the same corridor from where she had come. As she approached the examination room, she peeked through the oval window. She couldn’t see anybody inside. She threw the swing door wide; the room was empty. Robyn stood for a moment, staring into the empty room. Surely, if David had been sent home, she would have noticed them leaving through the reception area, or they would have noticed her. She couldn’t imagine that Joe would have left without asking her if she needed a lift.

Robyn let the door swing back and stood in the corridor. ‘Payphone,’ she reminded herself and continued up the corridor, trying not to let the possibility that they’d just left her there bother her.