The words nearly left his mouth when he saw the figure extricating herself from behind the steering wheel, with exaggerated care, before finally ending up standing beside him on the pavement.
‘Long-time no see, Gus. Your sister misses you.’ Gabriella pitched her head to one side, a sardonic smile on her face. ‘God only knows why, because I certainly don’t.’
Gus inhaled and decided to ignore her sniping. ‘So, you stopped just to tell me that did you, Gabriella? Job done. I’ll be on my way.’
However, as he prepared to sidestep her, Gabriella shook her head, her hand resting on her swollen belly. ‘No, I thought I’d stop to let you know we’re having a baby shower next week. I think you’re duty bound to be there.’
Gus mentally shuddered at the thought of being in the confined space of Katie and Gabriella’s flat in Lister Mills with a crowd of cackling women going on about childbirth and pregnancy. He’d no intention of going, ‘duty bound’ or not. Besides, the family bubbles introduced because of the Covid pandemic gave him a plausible out – one he intended to use.
‘Your place is a bit tight for that sort of thing, isn’t it?’
Gabriella’s tinkling laugh was false, and Gus had an urge to just spin on his heel and walk away from her. But, he couldn’t. His sense of responsibility wouldn’t let him.
‘You offering to host it at your place are you, Gus? Katie would be pleased.’
A flicker of anger fizzled in his stomach as he shook his head. ‘No way, Gabriella. Don’t think the home we once shared a marital bed in would be a good omen for…’ He wafted his fingers in the general direction of her belly.
Smile fading, Gabriella glared at him. ‘FYI, Katie and I have moved. We’re in one of the terraced houses tucked away behind BRI. If you’d kept in touch, you’d have known that.’
Gus smiled, he had known that, but it pleased him to annoy Gaby. ‘Happy new home.’
Irritated by his blasé response, Gabriella shot out her hand and gripped his forearm with talon sharp fingers. ‘You could at least ask how Katie is. She’s your sister and she’s been through hell.’
Gus nodded. ‘Yes, I could … but I won’t.’
He shook off her hand and walked away. There was no way he was going to tell her that he and Katie met up for coffee every couple of weeks and that he was up to date on his sister’s cancer treatments. Leaving Gaby standing on Oak Lane, he ducked into MO’s café and heaved a sigh of relief when he saw her manoeuvre her expanding waistline behind the wheel again. No way did he want to go at it full on with Gaby. She was poisonous when she got started and he had too many other things on his mind. Not least Compo’s order of samosas and mushy peas.
‘My order ready, Mo…?’
Chapter 40
Bradford
‘How are you feeling after our hypnosis session the other day, Corrine?’ Dr Mahmood, serene and reassuring, kept her gaze on Corrine’s face, which in turn made Corrine nervous.
Lowering her eyes, she focussed on a stain on the carpet. It was hardly visible, but now that she’d found it, it gave Corrine something to concentrate on. Dr Mahmood’s question was difficult to answer and, judging by the silence, the doctor was in no hurry for a reply. The fact that she didn’t have an instant response, upset Corrinne. She was never short of words, never unsure what to say – but this one question flummoxed her. She realised it wasn’t the actual question, but rather the context in which it was framed. Every day she responded to questions about her ‘feelings’ from the minute she got up till the moment she went to bed.
‘How’s my gorgeous wife this morning?’
‘You OK, Mrs M?’
‘You all right, Mum?’
Until this moment, she’d responded on autopilot – a surface sweep of her emotions allowing her to smile and offer a light-hearted response. But today, in this office, with Dr Mahmood and the memory of her brother’s death still buzzing around her mind, she couldn’t come up with a trite reply. Watching the stain wobble before her, she swiped a hand over her eyes to remove her unshed tears and exhaled as she realised that she didn’t want to come up with a trite response – a platitude. It was time for her to confront some of her experiences and this safe place was where she would try to make sense of her childhood.
She raised her head and met the therapist’s eyes. ‘I feel bloody crap. It’s like I’ve released a whirlpool of disjointed jigsaw pieces in my head and they’re all jostling to find a way to fit together.’ She frowned unclasping her fingers which had been so tightly clasped they’d gone white. ‘It’s really quite disconcerting.’
‘Of course it is. You’ve kept all this bottled up for decades, Corrine, and now it’s time for us to work on ways of dealing with the aftermath. You’re not alone in this. You’ve got me for the times when you need an impartial sounding board – until you’re ready to share what you need to with those you love. You need to allow yourself time – time to process, time to understand, time perhaps to grieve, time to heal, and there’s no one route to do all those things or no one timescale. It’s your journey and I’m here to be your travel aid.’
The words reassured Corrine. Until then, she’d been crippled with guilt at not being able to open up to Fergus. Not that he’d expected her to, but she was so used to sharing all her thoughts, moods, experiences with him, that being unable to verbalise these feelings was like a chokehold round her throat. Now Dr Mahmood had, in a few words, released the chokehold
