Page 82 of Five Gold Rings
‘I’m not a doctor anymore,’ I tell her, and she stands there confused at my admission. It was easier breaking this news to my own mother.
‘Whyever not?’ she asks.
‘Ummm…’ Personal tragedy and a deep introspection into the meaning of life? ‘It’s a long story.’
‘Then why are you here?’ she asks, starting to be peeved that I don’t seem to have a use or reason.
‘I’m here to deliver something.’
‘Deliver what? Is it food? Is it flowers? We don’t allow for flowers.’ I put my hands in the air. There are no flowers about my person unless I’m going to pull that out of my sleeves like a magician. Christ, does she think I’m a magician?
‘No flowers.’
‘Patient name?’
‘David Peare.’
She stops for a moment. ‘How long will you be?’
‘Two minutes.’
‘Well, as it’s you, and I vaguely know you. Room Four,’ she tells me solemnly. ‘Turn right, past the curtains.’
I nod, not before feeling my phone vibrate in my pocket. I retrieve it and see Eve’s contact on the screen. I reject the call, writing a brief message, and put my phone back in my pocket.
‘Thank you, Sister Drummond. Merry Christmas.’
‘Indeed.’
NINETEEN
Eve
I’m sorry, had to run to make the last delivery then headed straight home. Stay, have fun – Merry Christmas.
I look down at the text on my phone, my face scrunched into a thousand different lines, a thousand different emotions that don’t quite know how to process Joe leaving. I tried to call to say something to him but even then, I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. Stay? Come back? I like you? I didn’t get much sense out of drunk Santa and no one else saw him leave. Not even a goodbye. I won’t lie in saying it stung a little but maybe the wisest thing to do was to put some space between us and not pretend this was anything else but two work colleagues who needed to get a job done. The last ring can be delivered. He can go home to his family. The end.
‘I hope this place reeks of alcohol because you threw it at Chris and were going to set him alight,’ Noel says, standing there by the door to my flat, his arm around my shoulder. Noel and I have escaped the party to help transport some pensioners home, and we’ve stopped at my flat now to collect some essentials so I can go and camp at home-home for the rest of Christmas. This basically means I will be packing pyjamas, hoodies and big socks. Maybe my duvet. It will be all I need.
My flat is fast becoming my least favourite place in the world. As I enter the cold, dark living room, nothing has been moved or changed; somewhere that was once a sanctum, my home, now feels sullied. I also worry that all the alcohol on the floor has started to stain the wood. We’ll have to put some nice rugs in place so I can get my deposit back. I stand there in the room, lit by the streetlamps, and head over to the Christmas tree to turn on the fairy lights.
‘When you came here on Christmas Eve, how did Chris explain all this mess to you?’ I enquire.
‘He said you’d had a fight about Christmas gifts. I didn’t pry. I should have seen through his lies though.’
I shrug my shoulders. ‘More like I’d just caught my boyfriend in the shower. I was ragey,’ I tell him. ‘I opened all the gifts.’
‘Not all of them though?’ Noel says, nodding towards a parcel by the tree.
It’s Mrs Milkov’s gift. I collapse on to the sofa and rip the paper off to reveal a massive tin of Quality Street. Noel punches the air in celebration. I prise open the tin and sift through looking for my favourite caramel cups.
‘Purple one, please?’ he asks, plonking himself down next to me and I hand him over a chocolate. We sit back chewing, entranced by the lights on my tree. Noel tries to put the wrapper back in the box and I slap his hand. He pretends to be more hurt than he is and steals another chocolate. There is something of a much littler brother quality to Noel, but he feels like the right person to be here now, the literal other half of me.
‘I’m sorry, sis, that this Christmas has been such a shitshow for you,’ he says with a mouthful of chocolate.
‘Not your fault,’ I tell him. ‘We’re here now. Together, as it should be.’ I reach under the tree and hand him another box. ‘Merry Christmas.’ I see his eyes light up until he reads the tag on the box.
‘You cow, this is labelled to Chris. Are you giving me second-hand gifts? That is both cheeky and rude.’