Page 81 of Five Gold Rings

‘You OK?’ she enquires kindly, putting her sisterly sarcasm to one side.

‘Yeah, but no…’

She looks at me through the screen, my shoulders slumped, knowing there’s little she can do sixty miles away. ‘Do you know who the ring is for?’

‘No. I just have the name of the man who ordered it.’

‘Well, I hope it’s like an episode ofGrey’s Anatomywhere a surgeon proposes to another over someone’s open heart,’ she says, a little too enthusiastically.

‘And then he comes out with some cheesy line about how she has fixed his heart and taught him how to love,’ I add.

‘Because he was just super career driven before. He was mean and didn’t allow people in and now his heart will be full this Christmas and forever more… THE END!’ she announces to the screen, bowing. She’s as mad as a box of frogs but the shift in emotion is very welcome. ‘Well, get it done and come see us. We’ll make it better,’ Carrie mutters at me. ‘You’re also the missing piece in all of this. Christmas will only start when you get here,’ she says, the alcohol obviously hitting her in the festive feels.

‘That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Carrie.’

‘Which I retract immediately. I hope you’ve bought me a gift.’

‘Yes, a picture of me, wine and a comedy fridge magnet. I went all out.’

‘I feel so loved. I feel less guilty about getting you socks now. Get it done. Drive safe.’

She hangs up. I look at the ring in its box again. It’s the simplest ring I’ve had to deliver in the last few days but there is something very perfect about that. I rest my head against the glass of my car window. I used to nap in Olive during my work breaks, in this very car park. One more ring. It’ll be fine.

I put it my pocket and get out of my car, heading towards the large automatic doors at the front of the building, looking up at all the floors, all the windows. This place offered me one of my first placements in medical school and they weren’t awful months, but I do feel some shame being back here. For all the work I did put in, for all that potential I had to just be quashed, still feels like failure on my part.

I walk through the doors, deciphering the signs, amused by the people walking past me with Christmas hats and antlers, gazing upon the corridors and the eighties tinsel hastily attached with blu-tack. It’s not somewhere anyone wants to be at Christmas, poorly and unable to enjoy the season, but back when I was a junior doctor, Christmas was the time this place felt more important than ever. It was bound together by sacrifice and some unerring festive spirit.

I read Mr Caspar’s scrappy writing on the delivery details and suddenly realise where I need to go. Second Floor. Damn it. You can do this, Joe. Eve would be good right now, if only for her company, her support, a hand to hold. I take strides up the staircase and head for the ward name on the delivery slip, walking up to the reception desk.

‘Hi, I’m here to… ummm…’

The nurse behind the desk pauses and looks me up and down.

‘Yes?’ she barks.

‘…see someone?’

‘Visiting hours are 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.’

I look down at my watch that reads 6.09 p.m. ‘I know that but I’m hoping you might make an exception seeing as it’s…’

‘Christmas? Young man, illness does not make an exception for Christmas. It doesn’t take a break. I do not take a break for Christmas.’

I scrunch my face up. ‘Well, you should. You deserve it.’

She seems taken aback by my reply but then studies my face. ‘I know you. James. No, Joseph? Joe Lord…’

‘Yes?’ I whisper at the nursing sister behind the desk. You know this is a woman who means business because she’s got her nurse’s uniform on with a flashing Santa hat but she’s also in trainers because she has places to be.

‘I never forget a face. Or a name.’

‘Sister… Drummond?’ I say, pointing at her, not knowing whether to smile or cry. She still remembers me? I passed through many wards and hospitals in my training, people started to merge into one, but this nurse here used to shout at me because I wasn’t great at labelling blood samples. She quickly put me right. She put us all right. She looks me up and down.

‘Why are you here? I don’t suppose it’s to see me and take me out to dinner,’ she jokes in a harsh voice.

‘Well, no… Unless you want me to go and buy you dinner?’ I say, a little scared.

Her look tells me that was not her intention at all. ‘Are you here as a doctor?’ she asks me again. A receptionist in elf ears snickers under her breath at her interrogation.