Finding Milly Read online

  When she got to the end of the corridor, Sister Sutton opened a door with a simple white sign that read ‘Doctor Stephen Fitzpatrick’ followed by a long alphabet soup of letters, none of which Jimmy understood. He figured that the letters weren’t there for people like Jimmy to recognise, but merely to emphasise the point to everyone that Dr Fitzpatrick was an educated man. Not a bin man. Underneath the letters were the words ‘Medical Consultant’.

  Jimmy walked into the office as Dr Fitzpatrick got to his feet. He looked to be about the same age as Jimmy, mid-fifties at best, and was wearing a white coat complete with a stethoscope hanging around his neck just to emphasise the fact that he was a doctor. Underneath the white coat, the doctor was wearing an expensive shirt and tie combination, set off with gold cufflinks. Jimmy heard the consulting room door close behind him.

  ‘Mr Turner,’ the doctor said as they shook hands. ‘I am so sorry to keep you waiting.’ He had a firm grip, and a confident handshake that Jimmy appreciated in a man.

  ‘I’m used to it,’ Jimmy replied with a grin that Dr Fitzpatrick returned. He turned to another doctor, dressed in the same uniform, who was sitting behind the same desk.

  ‘Can I introduce my colleague, Dr Ahmed?’ The other doctor also got to his feet for a handshake, and he greeted Jimmy with a broad smile that accentuated his dark skin. When he spoke, it was with a clipped foreign accent.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Dr Ahmed said as the three of them sat down.

  ‘Sister Sutton,’ Dr Fitzpatrick said. Jimmy turned to see the nurse was still standing by the door, even though it was closed. ‘Were you able to…?’ His voice tailed off.

  ‘No, I wasn’t. Mr Turner is attending on his own.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Dr Fitzpatrick replied, looking disappointed for a few seconds before turning his attention to Jimmy. ‘So, Mr Turner. How have you been?’

  ‘Not too bad, considering the weather,’ Jimmy said with a nervous smile. ‘Cold snap on the way, so they say.’

  ‘Any headaches?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the tiredness?’

  ‘Most of the time, yes. Although since I stopped eating bread, that doesn’t seem to be as bad.’

  ‘Since you stopped eating bread?’ Dr Fitzpatrick asked, frowning.

  ‘I read about it on the internet,’ Jimmy replied. ‘Apparently it makes you sluggish, so I stopped eating it.’ Dr Fitzpatrick didn’t reply at first, looking down at a sheaf of medical notes on his desk.

  ‘So, Mr Tucker, after you went to see your General Practitioner with your headaches a few weeks ago, she referred you to us so we could have a little look at you. We did a couple of scans?’

  ‘Yes, you did,’ Jimmy replied, not sure what else to say. Was the doctor asking him to see if he remembered? Dr Fitzpatrick got to his feet and walked to a screen on the wall of his office. On the screen was an x-ray which Jimmy could only assume was his head. The doctor flicked a switch next to the screen, and it flickered into life, illuminating the x-ray.

  ‘This was the area that I was most concerned about,’ Dr Fitzpatrick said, pointing at an area on the x-ray. He circled a small grey blob on the screen, using a pen as a pointer. Jimmy glanced across at the other doctor, but Dr Ahmed was scribbling something on a notepad. ‘It’s a small sub-arachnoid haemorrhage. Easily treated with a judicious amount of time.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jimmy said, wriggling in his chair. He watched as Dr Fitzpatrick removed the x-ray from the screen and replaced it with a different photograph. Jimmy leaned forward and looked at the new image, but he couldn’t make any sense of it at all. It reminded him of a packet of pork chops, each sliced and placed on its own.

  ‘This is the MRI scan that we did later on,’ Dr Fitzpatrick said, pointing at the screen again with his pen. ‘And this is the area that is troubling me most. That’s why we repeated it a couple of weeks later. Just to be sure what we are dealing with.’ Jimmy frowned, not able to understand what the doctor was trying to explain to him. One thing he did know was that he didn’t want another scan. It wasn’t the claustrophobia from the machine, but the unpleasant feeling of the stuff they injected into him. ‘The MRI scans have revealed a rather large problem.’

  ‘Dr Fitzpatrick?’ Jimmy asked as the doctor pointed at other parts of the image.

  ‘Yes, Mr Tucker?’

  ‘Could you just tell me what’s wrong with me, please?’ He waved at the film on the screen. ‘I don’t really understand any of this. I just want to know what treatment I need to stop these headaches.’

  Dr Fitzpatrick glanced across at Sister Sutton, exchanging a wordless message with her. Jimmy heard her walking towards him and turned to see her pulling a chair across so she could sit next to him.

  ‘Mr Tucker.’ The doctor sat back behind his desk, next to his colleague who put his notepad down. The two white-coated men both clasped their hands in front of them on the desk, as if they were in prayer. ‘Mr Tucker, there’s no easy way to say this.’ Jimmy looked at them both. Everything that he had been through in the last couple of months was about to come to a head. At least if he knew what he was dealing with, Jimmy thought, then he could work out what to do about it. Then the doctor continued. ‘You have a very large brain aneurysm.’

  ‘What’s an aneurysm?’ Jimmy asked, frowning.

  ‘It’s a weakening in the walls of one of the blood vessels. They can happen almost anywhere, but in your case,’ the doctor pointed at the scan in front of him, ‘it’s deep within your brain.’

  ‘But you can fix it, right?’ Jimmy replied, his mouth dry. This time, it was Dr Ahmed who replied.

  ‘Mr Tucker,’ he said, ‘I’m a neurologist who specialises in these sorts of problems, and I’m afraid that there’s nothing I can do. I’ve never seen an aneurysm as large and intractable as yours.’

  ‘In what?’

  ‘Intractable,’ Dr Fitzpatrick said. They really were quite the double act, Jimmy thought. ‘It means that we can’t deal with it. If Dr Ahmed were to try, you would almost certainly never come round from the anaesthetic.’

  Jimmy stared at Dr Fitzpatrick, the room suddenly closing in around him. The hum from the fluorescent lights in the x-ray screen grew and grew until it seemed to be the only noise that Jimmy could hear. He jumped as he felt something cold on his hand and looked down to see that Sister Sutton had placed her hand across his.

  ‘Oh,’ Jimmy whispered. ‘That doesn’t sound good.’

  Dr Fitzpatrick didn’t reply at first, but just nodded his head a couple of inches before responding.

  ‘It’s not.’

  Jimmy tried to swallow, but there was no moisture in his mouth, and he ended up coughing. Dr Fitzpatrick waited until he had finished before continuing. ‘My colleague, Dr Ahmed, will be looking after you from now on.’ Dr Ahmed regarded Jimmy through unblinking brown eyes.

  ‘But you can’t fix it?’ Jimmy asked, even though he knew from the look on the two doctors’ faces what the answer would be.

  ‘No, Mr Tucker,’ Dr Ahmed replied in a whisper. ‘I can’t cure it. The scan shows a large area of weakness that could burst at any time. A cough, a sneeze, an orgasm. Anything like that could rupture the blood vessel catastrophically.’

  ‘What would happen then?’ Jimmy asked, his mouth still dry. He might only be a bin man, but he wasn’t stupid. ‘I die?’

  Dr Ahmed paused for a moment, fixing Jimmy with his dark brown eyes before nodding his head in response. Jimmy felt Sister Sutton squeezing his fingers.

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘How long have I got?’ Jimmy asked. ‘Years? Months?’ Dr Ahmed opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again. ‘Weeks?’

  ‘It’s impossible to say,’ the neurologist said. ‘Technically, you could live for years with it. But looking at how much weaker the walls of the aneurysm have become in the few weeks between the scans, I think we’re talking about some point before Christmas.’

  ‘But it’s September.’

&
nbsp; ‘Yes.’

  ‘So that’s weeks.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you like a glass of water?’ Jimmy heard the nurse ask him. For a second, he wanted to lash out at the stupid woman. He’d just been told that he was going to die, probably before Christmas, so the last thing he wanted was a glass of fucking water. He closed his eyes for a few seconds.

  ‘No, thank you,’ Jimmy replied. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, except perhaps his own. A sudden wave of nausea bubbled up in his stomach, and for a horrible moment he thought he would vomit, but it passed after he took a few deep breaths.

  ‘Will I try calling your daughter again?’ Sister Sutton asked, her cold hand still on his. Jimmy shook his head.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘No,’ Jimmy replied. ‘I mean, yes. I’m sure, thank you.’

  ‘So, Mr Tucker,’ Dr Ahmed said, ‘what I will do is get one of my neurology care team to get in touch with you later today to organise an urgent appointment for you to come and see us.’

  ‘Why?’ Jimmy asked, watching as the three medics exchanged glances. ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘They can help you,’ Sister Sutton replied as the two doctors remained silent. ‘Help you get things ready.’

  Jimmy tried to ignore the shaking in his legs as he got to his feet. He pulled himself up to his full height of a shade under six feet, straightened the collar of his jacket, and took a deep breath before stepping forward in front of the desk with his hand extended.

  ‘Thank you, Dr Fitzgerald,’ Jimmy said, setting his jaw in a firm line as he looked the doctor in the eye. ‘And thank you, Dr Ahmed.’

  ‘Mr Tucker,’ Sister Sutton said as Jimmy shook the doctors’ hands, ‘could we perhaps have a chat before you go?’

  ‘No,’ Jimmy replied. ‘Sorry, not just now.’ He turned and started walking towards the door. ‘I need to talk to Milly.’

  ‘Mr Tucker, please?’

  ‘No. I need to talk to Milly.’

  Chapter 3

  Jimmy gasped as the cold air hit him when he stepped through the automatic doors at the main entrance of the hospital. He’d been watching the weather forecast on the television earlier that day, and there was a vicious cold snap on its way in from the north. From the feel of the freezing wind on his face, it was here already, but the numbness it caused on the skin of his face was welcoming. The rest of him was numb after the news he’d just had, so why not his face as well?

  He’d known something was wrong with him—that was why he’d gone to see his doctor in the first place—but he’d not been expecting a diagnosis like the one he’d just been given. Jimmy was sure that his General Practitioner loved people like him. He’d been to the surgery maybe three times in the last ten years for his own problems. Once for a bout of flu that had taken him ages to shake and, to be fair, if it weren’t for Milly’s concern he wouldn’t have bothered, and once for a nasty cut to his hand that he’d got from a broken bin behind an office block in central Norwich. Apparently, if he’d gone to the surgery earlier, he would have got some stitches, but he’d left it too long and ended up with a bandage, some antibiotics, and a telling off. Then, a few weeks ago, the headaches had started.

  As usual, Jimmy had ignored them at first. When they came, he could normally ride them out in the space of a few moments—they were blinding, almost paralysing, but short lived. It was only when he came round on the floor of his kitchen with Milly frantically patting his cheeks as tears streamed down her own that he’d agreed to get himself checked out. That had led to a visit to the hospital. A CT scan, followed by two MRI scans. Followed by a diagnosis of a brain aneurysm which could burst at any time.

  Jimmy walked across the car park to the bus stop where he could get a bus back into Norwich. He could have asked Milly to drive him in, but then he would have to tell her he was going back to the hospital after they’d phoned to ask him to come in, and he didn’t want her to worry. After everything that they’d been through with Hannah, Milly wasn’t a big fan of hospitals and understandably so. Although Hannah hadn’t been a patient at this hospital but at a psychiatric one on the other side of Norwich, a hospital was still a hospital. Besides all that, given the extortionate cost of parking at the hospital, it was much cheaper on the bus. Especially when you had no idea how long you’d be waiting for when you got there.

  As he walked towards the bus stop, Jimmy saw a young man standing under the scant Perspex roof, trying in vain to shelter from the icy wind. The long green trench coat he was wearing didn’t look anywhere near thick enough to keep him warm. He was probably about Milly’s age, and from the puff of smoke that the wind snatched away, Jimmy could see that the lad was ignoring the hospital’s No smoking anywhere on our site policy.

  ‘Any chance of a smoke, fella?’ Jimmy said as he joined the young man under the Perspex roof. The smoker turned to look at him, and Jimmy took in his unkempt appearance, shabby clothes, and bloodshot eyes. ‘I can buy one off you, maybe?’ He made a show of digging into his pocket.

  ‘No, you’re all good, mate,’ the man said, pulling a crumpled packet of Benson and Hedges cigarettes from his coat. ‘Just remember the favour if it’s the other way round next time, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, no worries,’ Jimmy replied as he pulled a cigarette from the packet. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘No worries. Do you need a light?’

  ‘No, mate,’ Jimmy said, rubbing his fingers over the lighter in his pocket. Even though he’d given up smoking years ago he’d never stopped carrying the Zippo that Milly had given him for his fiftieth birthday. She’d only been sixteen and had to use fake identification to buy it. Jimmy rubbed his fingers over the engraving on the side of the lighter. It said Best Dad Ever, then underneath that were the words All My Love, Milly and the date of his birthday. He did the same thing every time he used the lighter, and the engraved writing was wearing away. It didn’t matter to Jimmy though. Even when it was gone completely, he would always know what it said.

  In a practised gesture that he’d not used in years, Jimmy flicked the lid of the lighter and lit the cigarette. Not much point giving up smoking now, is there, he thought as he inhaled the nicotine. Within a few seconds, he started to feel dizzy.

  ‘Are you okay?’ the young man asked. ‘Bit of a head rush?’ Jimmy looked at the cigarette in his hands, his fingers coiled around it as if it was a part of him. Which, in a sense, he supposed it was.

  ‘Yeah, all good,’ Jimmy replied, taking another puff. ‘It’s been a while.’

  ‘These things’ll kill you in the end,’ the young man said, looking at his own cigarette. For a few seconds, Jimmy considered telling him what he’d just been told in the doctor’s office. He looked at the young man before deciding against it. There wasn’t any point. Jimmy’s companion was at an age when he was immortal.

  Forty hot and uncomfortable minutes later, the bus pulled up at the stop just down the road from Jimmy’s house. An equal distance in the opposite direction was the Heartsease pub, Jimmy’s local. He glanced at his watch, wondering if it was too early for a pint, before heading toward his house. If Milly wasn’t in, and the chances were she wouldn’t be during the day despite her erratic hours, then he could go for one then.

  It only took five minutes to get to his house. Jimmy crossed over the road and looked at it as he always did—with a sense of pride. It was an ex-local authority house, on an estate called Piling Park that was a mixture of a few privately-owned houses like his, and houses still belonging to the local authority. It was easy to tell the difference. The privately-owned ones were much better looked after, like his was, and usually had new front doors. Residents of the ones that the council still owned didn’t care as much about what their houses looked like, how tidy their gardens were, or how battered their front doors were. There were exceptions like his neighbour Muriel, but not many.

  The house was semi-detached, with a coveted corner plot at the far end of a c
ul-de-sac. It wasn’t very large—only two bedrooms—but it was his. When he and Hannah had bought it from the council just after they got married, it had seemed like a mansion. Looking at it now, it looked like exactly what it was—a small ex-council house. But it was Jimmy’s. All of it. He’d managed to pay his mortgage off a couple of years ago, so even the bank didn’t own any of it. It might be in a shitty council estate in the wrong part of Norwich, but it was home. He opened the gate to his front garden, just as he had done thousands of times before.

  Half-way down the concrete path to Jimmy’s front door was a wooden arch that he’d bought not long after they’d moved in. He and Hannah had planted some climbing roses at the base of the arch once he’d cemented it into the ground, and in the years since, the roses had scrambled upwards and twisted themselves around the cheap wooden frame. He looked at them now, noticing the dead heads and spindly tendrils of fresh growth. Jimmy tutted, realising that he would have to spend a bit of time before it got any colder dead-heading the finished flowers and cutting back the new growth so that when it came back in the spring, there would be plenty of space for the roses to grow into. When he realised that even if he dead-headed the roses now he might never see them flower again, a sharp pain dug into his chest.

  ‘Hey, Milly,’ Jimmy called when he opened the front door of his house. ‘Are you in, honey?’ He knew she wasn’t—her red Mini was missing from the front of the house—but there was something reassuring about calling her name to see if she was in. There’d been a time when she would have come dancing down the stairs at the call, all arms and legs and dark curly hair bouncing, with a broad smile on her face to welcome him home. Today, there was nothing. Just silence. Milly wasn’t a child any more, not in the truest sense of the word. But in another sense, she was still a child. His child. His daughter.

  Jimmy walked into the kitchen, a small room that looked out over the almost as small back garden. He flicked the switch on the kettle and busied himself with the familiar routine of preparing a mug of tea. Teabag first, sugar over the top of it, then the boiling water. Thirty seconds later, give or take a few seconds either way, the tea bag could come out and the milk could go in. Then a stir with the spoon—anticlockwise as Jimmy was left-handed—and then it would be time to do it all again for Milly’s cup of tea.