How To Mend a Broken Heart

by Anna Mansell

Genres: Family Life; Women's Fiction; Romance

Synopsis

Life is good for nurse Kat. That is until the man she intended to marry legs it, she's unexpectedly promoted to a position with too much responsibility, and a patient arrives on her ward under strange circumstances.Susan is a mystery. She refuses to speak or interact with anyone, she's obsessed with a book of fairy tales, and the only name in her diary is that of Rhys – a plumber she barely knows.Down-to-earth Rhys is trying to get his life back on track after the death of his beloved brother. His mum is his priority, and she needs him as much as he needs her. Or at least she did, until she starts disappearing, leaving him to find comfort in the form of his brother's girlfriend.Complicated is an understatement.As the lives of these three lost strangers intertwine, will they find a way to lay ghosts past, present and future to rest? And when the chance comes to mend their broken hearts, will they be brave enough to take it? A compelling, heartbreaking tale perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes, Lucy Dillon and Mhairi McFarlane-

Release date: March 1, 2017

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 346

Sample

‘So the only other thing to tell you about is Susan.’

‘Susan?’ I reach for my tea, wishing I hadn’t let it go past the point of perfect to drink. I hate lukewarm tea. It’s unnecessary. An affront. A crime against hot drinks. It’s also possible I overthink it.

‘Susan Smith. Female, fifty-six. Had an argument with a bus down Ecclesall Road and lost.’

I frown, pushing my new glasses back up my nose. They feel heavy on my face, out of place. I probably shouldn’t have been talked into them by the Gok Wan-lookalike assistant at the optician. New hair. New glasses. A new wardrobe at home with every item still carrying the price tag. Belts to accentuate my waist. Also Gok’s fault – the real one. Can you have a mid-life crisis at the age of twenty-eight?

‘These are great, by the way,’ says Emma, circling the air in the general direction of my face. ‘Tres Geek Chic.’

‘Yes, that’s me. Geek and indeed chic,’ I say, fiddling with them again. I can hear my tone; it’s definitely approaching grumpy yet I don’t have the strength to buck my ideas up.

Emma adopts a bad, Irish accent. ‘You remind me of a young Nana Mouskouri.’

‘A who?’

‘Greece’s finest export!’ she exclaims. ‘Well, Nana and feta.’

The blank look I give her in response forces an optimistic nod of encouragement, as if that answers everything, then a swift roll of her eyes when she realises I’ve no idea. ‘Come on, misery. If we didn’t laugh we’d cry,’ she goads, followed swiftly by, ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here…’

‘Don’t!’ I say, my hands shielding my ears, stopping her before she can finish. There’s a pause in our chat, a pause filled with the warmth of a friendship that can transcend my mood. I crack a half-smile. She’s someone I need right now. She gets me.

I drain my mug – lukewarm is better than none at all – and place it back on the table, waiting for Emma to finish our holiday handover while I resist a second biscuit; it’s barely 9 a.m.

‘So, Susan Smith, then,’ she continues. ‘She was in with that new consultant in charge—’

‘Ooh, Mr Just-Call-Me-Mark Barnes!’ says a bank nurse pushing laundry past our station, dirty bed sheets overflowing. ‘I wouldn’t mind being in with him,’ she says, gurning like Vic Reeves, minus a thigh rub.

‘Leg brace and everything!’ Emma shouts after her with a giggle and a snort.

‘Leg brace and everything?’ I repeat, shaking my head. ‘That doesn’t even make sense, Emma. I thought this was Sheffield’s finest teaching hospital, not a remake of Carry On Nurse.’ I frown again. ‘A few days away and you lot have gone rampant.’ I’m no longer approaching grumpy. I’m right there, wearing its heavy cloak. A cloak smattered with the gentle whiff of Eau de Post Break-Up and Still Not Over It.

‘Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about “Just-Call-Me-Mark” even just a teensy bit?’ Emma looks shocked. Like maybe I’m not a real woman or something.

‘No, actually, I haven’t.’ I glance over the rim of my glasses to labour my point. At least they’re good for something. ‘Mr Barnes doesn’t do it for me at all.’ Which is true. He’s not my type. I wouldn’t say he was a cad – because I’m not from the 1950s – but he’s borderline. Borderline cad. He’s also a consultant. Attractive? I suppose, if you like that sort of thing, but a consultant all the same.

‘He did it for you once upon a time…’ mutters Emma under her breath.

I stare down at paperwork, opting to ignore her. I admit, when I first met him, we flirted. But that was purely whilst in the comfort and security of a long-term relationship – a cheap thrill if you will. But things have changed. Not least my Facebook relationship status. And besides, nurse gets with consultant? Like that’s not a massive cliché. ‘He’s from Manchester, anyway,’ I say suddenly. Emma looks confused. ‘Wrong side of the Pennines.’ I offer it up as a legitimate excuse, then I remember she’s a born and bred Mancunian, so wiggle my eyebrows as if I was just trying to wind her up with some Sheffield versus Manchester rivalry.

‘He may not do it for you, but you definitely do something for him,’ she nudges.

True. Apparently. But since Daniel, my boyfriend of five years, thrust his hand into my chest and ripped out my heart, I’ve sort of gone off men.

Apparently, by now, I should be over it. He doesn’t deserve me. I’m better off alone. Et cetera. All of which is easy for best friend Lou to say, given that her wedding is imminent and unlikely to be suddenly, nay brutally, called off.

Not that I had an imminent wedding as far as Daniel was concerned, but in my head it was a given. Neither Lou nor Emma can feel the pain in my heart. And when either suggest I date, meet people, start afresh… Well, they don’t see how the very idea of re-entering the dating game, if and when I choose, makes the pit of my stomach fall through my shoes. The thought of first-time sex with someone who hasn’t grown to love my stretch marks… Though perhaps, on reflection, Daniel didn’t love them as much as he said he did when trying to extract me from my pants... Well, anyway, the thought of it. Ugh. And besides, what would they make of my plain black, in-a-long-term-relationship-and-can-admit-a-thong-is-in-fact-a-crime-against-one’s-nether-region pants? Emma clears her throat and I pull myself together. ‘Can we stop talking about Mr Barnes and get on?’ I say, taking a deep breath to lock back up the tears that now sting the backs of my eyes. I waft authority and my paperwork in her face. ‘Your shift finished twenty minutes ago.’

‘Alright, mardy bum. Who got you up on the wrong side of bed this morning?’ She winks and I glare, just long enough for my eyes to fill and Emma to spot we’re hurtling towards a line neither of us wants to cross. ‘Okay, okay.’ She surrenders, hands up. She backs off to the light box, attaching an X-ray. ‘Susan Smith then. According to eyewitnesses, Susan got up from her seat outside the coffee shop and walked straight into the flow of moving traffic. It was Ecclesall Road so, you know, busy. She was flipped by a motorbike undertaking a bus. Frankly, she’s lucky to be alive. Her notes are all here.’ She passes me the file. ‘Along with these.’ We study ghostly images of before surgery and after. A clean break, set and plastered. ‘She’ll need physio on her left arm too,’ continues Emma. ‘It’s pretty badly bruised, though no break there. Her pain relief seems to be working and there are no latent signs of additional damage.’

We stare vacantly at the image, heads tilted slightly left in perfect unison. The clock ticks above me, snapping me out of a daze, and I snatch the images from their clips. ‘Sounds like an avoidable accident, surely. Have we talked to her about how it happened?’ I file Susan’s X-rays and papers, then reorganise the desk into my preferred system. Emma watches me with a wry smile. ‘What? It works better this way…’ I try, feeling caught out.

She grins. ‘It works perfectly well the other way too,’ she says good-naturedly. ‘Anyway, yes, we did ask, but getting Susan’s story is proving to be a problem.’

‘Why?’ I move to study the rota, getting to grips with today’s team.

‘Well, she isn’t answering our questions. She won’t actually talk at all. We offered her a pad and pen to make notes, in case it hurt her to talk, but she wouldn’t take it. We haven’t been able to identify a next of kin either. There was some ID in her handbag, one of those old paper driving licences, but little else.’

‘She’s not communicating at all?’ I ask, my hand resting on a pile of files stacked high on the desk. ‘Have we tried everything? You said notebook and pen?’ Emma nods. ‘Signing?’ She nods again. I try thinking up alternatives. My heart quickens at the realisation that actually, I’m in charge now, and I need to at least look like I’m on top of things, even if I don’t entirely feel it. My mind goes blank, Emma helps me out.

‘We’ve tried notes, signing, blinking and Morse code,’ she winks. ‘I considered the medium of dance, but apparently it’s not a universal language.’

‘Right.’ I only hear what she’s said after the fact. My focus to stay on top of this mixed bag of emotions pretty much entirely swallows my sense of humour.

‘There’s no evidence to say she can’t talk, nothing on her records. It could be a post-traumatic thing of course, from the accident. We just need to give her time. From what we can tell, there’s no next of kin either.’

‘Okay…’ I look back through Susan’s file again. Mr Barnes’s handwriting spiders across the pages. ‘Of course, this would be a lot more useful if I could actually read it,’ I mutter, turning the file this way and that in an attempt to decipher his words. I ignore the fact that my own penmanship is no better. ‘Oh, ignore me. Sorry! Okay.’ I snap the file shut. ‘Have we lodged it with mental health?’

‘No, actually,’ she answers, and for a second I feel like maybe I do know what I’m doing.

‘Okay, I’ll sort that, no problem. Anything else?’

Emma scans the whiteboard and looks around the desk. ‘I don’t think so,’ she says, still visibly searching her brain for remnants of handover she might have forgotten. There won’t be any. She is admirably organised. Intimidatingly so – or maybe that’s just me. ‘Nope, that’s it.’ She places her hands on her hips. All done.

‘Great, thanks.’ I offer up a box of Celebrations with a small thank-you card from a patient stuck to the front. Sweet treats are an up- or downside to our job, depending on your point of view. Emma reaches into the half-empty box of chocolates and twists open a wrapper.

‘So, how was it?’ she asks through a part-chewed micro Mars bar, casually leaning against the desk. She studies the empty wrapper; it crackles as she folds it.

‘How was what?’ I bite the side of my mouth, trying to remember the various excuses I planned for the inevitable return-to-work question. A porter jokes with a patient as he pushes him down the corridor and their laughter draws my attention. I pretend to smile in the hope she’ll drop the conversation.

‘Your hol-i-day!’ She spells the word out, then purses her lips, eyebrows raised.

Sigh. She knows that I know what she’s asking. And I know that she knows I don’t want to answer. She twists the empty chocolate wrapper, dropping it back in the box. I catch it out of the corner of my eye, along with her expression – daring me to react to the unspoken law of empty wrappers in the bin, not back in the box. There are few things worse than going to treat yourself mid-morning and finding nothing but empty wrappers.

‘It was great, actually. Lovely.’ I flash a quick smile in her direction, then, head down to hide the twitch in my right eye, I push the chocolates out of sight. ‘Just what I needed,’ I finish, hoping I sound light and breezy, as opposed to constricted and very much swallowing back the urge to cry. Again. My newly cut fringe escapes its loose clip. A side bang is all the rage, according to the hairdresser. I admit it comes in handy for hiding behind.

‘Was it though?’ asks Emma. She tries to catch my eye.

I pull my sleeves down to hide the lack of suntan. ‘It was great,’ I trill, smiling wider. I place suddenly sweaty hands on my hips and take a shallow breath. ‘It was brilliant, in fact. Much better than I expected. I’d love to go back, explore more, you know?’ I laugh, throwing some sort of weird coquettish innocence in her direction and she quite rightly looks at me like I am an idiot.

‘Did it rain the whole time then?’ she asks.

I should have gone for that fake tan in the back of my bathroom cupboard. I mean, who really comes back from a holiday abroad without some sort of colour? Emma stares at me. ‘Look,’ I sigh. ‘It’s fine. I’m fine. Honestly. Everything’s…’

‘Fine?’ She holds my gaze.

‘It was six weeks ago, Emma!’ Actually, I could tell her it was six weeks, two days and three hours ago, but the detail’s unimportant. ‘I know you think I’ve thrown myself into work, that I’m losing sleep over it, but I promise you, I’m not.’ I stifle an ill-timed yawn and try not to think about this morning’s call from Lou, where she casually dropped into conversation the rumour that my ex-boyfriend has a new girlfriend. Adding in the word ‘allegedly’ didn’t stop it hurting.

‘This holiday’ – the word catches in my throat – ‘totally gave me perspective. Daniel wasn’t happy, and maybe I wasn’t either.’

Lou had taken great pains to inform me of the social media research that led to her allegation, then said she was going on a shopping spree in Leeds to make herself feel better about it all. She’d hung up before I could point out I was the one who needed to feel better about things and her revelation wasn’t exactly helping. I’d all but held it together until I found his favourite shower gel casually taunting me in the bathroom. I stood with my face beneath the shower jet, letting the scalding water drown my tears. Five years, a joint bank account and a flat-share apparently meant nothing to him.

Emma coughs, pulling me out of my thoughts. A week’s supply of concealer and too much kohl is really all that’s between my red-rimmed eyes and her watchful gaze. ‘Perspective, you say.’

She was there on the day his text came through. We were on our lunch break. She saw me choke on, then completely unravel into, my roast chicken salad. ‘I’m totally over it,’ I say, thinly.

She peers at me to see if I really mean what I say.

‘Its fine,’ I insist, arms now crossed, the corner of my smile twitching along with my eye. Please, God, don’t let my chin wobble. ‘His loss,’ I finish, then hold my breath, hoping this will mean the discussion is over.

Though she clearly suspects something, it wouldn’t help for Emma to know I actually spent the last ten days in my pyjamas – sleeping, eating, watching trashy telly and reading Jilly Cooper’s back catalogue. No crime per se, we all love Rupert Campbell-Black, but it wasn’t exactly the booked and paid-for holiday of a lifetime that I should have taken; the holiday I bailed on because the very thought of going alone made me want to eat my own face. The glossy magazines tell me I don’t need a man to make me feel complete, and they’re right, I know they are, but when you’re cruising towards thirty as a newly single woman, because the love of your life got bored, it’s tricky to just move on. Or start afresh. Or even feel remotely okay when you hear he’s met someone new. I loved him.

I love him.

I look around the ward, my ward. Thank God for this, is all I can say. ‘Go home, chuck,’ I sigh. ‘I’m back. I’m on it and you came to the end of your shift ages ago. Go. Sleep. Eat. Whatever.’ I stop before adding let me hide in my office until home time.

‘You know you don’t have to do this alone, right?’ she says, kindly.

‘I know.’ I smile and let her give me a big hug, suddenly realising how much a bit of human contact can go towards healing… and also weakening my resolve. I gently extricate myself from her tight hold. ‘I’ve got a job to do, Emma, and crying is not an option.’ I sniff it all back.

She checks my face to make sure it’s okay to leave, then nods in approval. ‘Right, I’m off.’ She kisses me on the cheek, then heads off down the corridor. ‘By the way,’ she shouts, ‘congratulations!’ Her thumbs up are swiftly followed by a heel click towards the exit, à la Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

‘Thank you.’ I smile, glancing to my shoulder at the temporary stripe I now wear three days a week. Acting ward sister. This is the new focus. This could be the very making of me. It’s seven years since I qualified, almost eight. They’re putting a lot of responsibility in my hands. I have to ignore the feeling of complete inadequacy and prove to my boss, Gail, the powers that be, and perhaps myself, for that matter, that I am up to this.

I look around again, at the files, the notes on the board, the corridors with bays and patients and nurses, all under my responsibility. I try to blow out a nudge of fear at the reality before me. Accepting promotion, albeit temporary, is fine by phone. It was good timing. A challenge to distract myself with, I thought. Now, though, it feels different – here, on the ward. My ward. I swallow. ‘See you tomorrow,’ I whisper, but Emma’s already gone.

I push back my shoulders and look down at the piles of paperwork around me. Susan’s file is on the top.

I sigh, then shove a Jaffa Cake in my mouth.

Can I do this?

I can do this.

I have to.

It’s hard to tell if the grim, bleary-eyed, bitter-tasting disappointment is fuelled by hangover or guilt. Whilst feeding uncooperative limbs into my jeans, I felt sick. The stumble back to my place like some carefree twenty-something on an unavoidable weekend walk of shame gave oxygen to the self-loathing. I’m thirty-nine, it’s Tuesday, that was my brother’s girlfriend.

Untangling myself from the sleepy hangover of her X-rated grasp, I’d closed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them again, it would be somebody else. Anybody but her. I’d held my breath, tiptoeing out of her room, stopping at the squeaky floorboard by her door, just in case she stirred. Like a dick. I had no idea what I was going to say if she woke, or what I should say now. I pinch at my aching forehead, barely able to remember the conversation that led us to this.

Should I send a text? Say sorry? Or thanks? Or perhaps that this shouldn’t have happened and can I have my Calvins back? It was supposed to be a night to support each other. To remember him. To help each other deal with the pain of losing the person we loved. But now I hate him. And I hate me. And I hate what she and I did. However good it was.

Our David always knew I liked her.

Jesus.

I pull up to my first appointment, take my phone out of the cradle and type out the first morning-after text I’ve ever sent: ‘Sorry I had to leave, loads on. Talk to you later. R’

I almost delete it, then nearly add a kiss, before eventually just hitting send.

Of course, this probably wouldn’t have happened had Mum been in. I called her first, stopped by her house. I needed to talk. I needed… something. To go round and share stories about him, to sit in his room, to avoid being alone. I tried her phone again this morning, conflicted with guilt about Michelle and worry for the fact that I went to bed without saying goodnight to Mum. We always talk before bed now, since he died. She said it gives her comfort. It does the same for me. Until these last few weeks anyway, when suddenly she’s started going absent without warning. Maybe I should be pleased she’s finding a way to cope, but I’m not. I just feel alone. And selfish.

I tuck my phone into my top pocket and grab our David’s tool bag – it’s hot to the touch. Like contraband. Like Michelle. I scale the steps leading up to Mrs Johnson’s 1960s semi in the leafy bit of Norton Lees. Before I get a chance to shake off my morning and knock on the side door, she’s opened it. Despite the smile on her face, her crossed arms and watch check confirm I’m running late. I’m already on the back foot.

‘I know, I know. I am sorry, Mrs J. The traffic was awful, I needed to pop down Heeley to pick up a few bits, the lads got me talking and—’

‘You’ve always got an excuse, haven’t you, Rhys Woods?’ She purses her bright red lips, but I detect a tiny smile too. One of those you get from someone who finds it impossible to really be cross with you. ‘You were the same as a kid. Do you remember when you lobbed that brick at our Paul’s head and you made summat up about it being too heavy and falling in the wrong direction?’ The sparkle in her eye undermines her crossed arms. ‘And how many times must I say this? I think we’ve known each other long enough for you to call me Sylv!’

She steps back just enough for me to squeeze past her. Sweet yet musky perfume launches itself up my nostrils in the same way it did back in the early nineties when I’d snog Zoe Owen round the back of the bike shed before geography. What was it they all wore? White Musk from The Body Shop, I seem to remember. I bought it for her for Valentine’s but she wouldn’t accept it. She was someone else’s girlfriend too. I’ve got form.

I head through the lounge and into her kitchen. ‘I’m eternally sorry for Paul’s stitches,’ I say. ‘The brick was heavy. I was six!’ I repeat the excuse I’ve always given for that particular childhood incident. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t possibly call you Sylv, Mrs J. You are a client, the wife of a man I dare not cross…’ Mr Johnson was the local Boxing Club trainer. A bit like Paulie from the Rocky films, only bigger. And tougher. And not quite as lyrical with his advice. ‘And you are my best friend’s mother. It’s not right. Now, can I make us both a cuppa before I set about your stopcock?’

My phone rings in my pocket. The initial relief at hearing it is quickly replaced with frustration when I remember I set Mum up with a new tone so I wouldn’t miss her calls. It’s not her tone. I can’t answer if it’s Michelle. Not in front of Mrs J.

‘I’ll make the tea, you answer that. It could be work. Or one of your ladies trying to track you down. A woman hates not knowing where her man is, Rhys!’ She taps manicured nails, which match her lips, on the Italian-style marble-esque worktop. Towards the end, David hated coming here. I thought it would help, the flirting, the interaction, but he ran out of patience for it. Called her a sad old cougar – though not to her face, thankfully. He got nasty like that, towards the end. He was bitter. Michelle said the same last night, said though he was around, he’d ‘gone’ long before he finally…

‘Sugar?’ Mrs J asks, interrupting my regular daydream, the one in which I see my brother’s face for the next to last time, when maybe I could have said or done something different. When the phrase ‘pull yourself together’ should never have left my mouth.

‘No, thanks.’ I shake off the thought. ‘And for the record, I am nobody’s man, Mrs J, except for my own. And I’m happy to keep it that way, thank you very much.’

‘Ahh, girls must be breaking their hearts over you – that height, those tanned muscles. Do you still play rugby, Rhys?’ The heat of something prickles up my neck. Embarrassment? Guilt? Annoyance? ‘And those eyes! I’m not sure if you’re asking for a bone or inviting me to bed!’ she cackles, ignoring how inappropriate her banter is.

As last night’s alcohol dissipates, so too does last night’s bolshiness, the arrogance to flirt with someone I shouldn’t. ‘Mrs J!’ I groan, moving out of reach. Flirting with a client is not necessarily unknown – I’m a thirty-nine-year-old single man – but I’m all out of it this morning.

‘So, how many’ve you got on the go these days?’ she grins, reaching into her cupboard, teetering on one foot as she ignores the mugs right in front of her and opts for china cups from the top shelf. ‘Oops,’ she giggles, pulling her top back down over her waist. I pretend I haven’t noticed. ‘My Paul says you’ve a whole line of ’em chasing after you, you lucky boy. Any of them marriage material? You’ll have to settle down eventually, you know! Do us a favour, love, pass the rejects over? I wouldn’t mind getting our Paul back out of the house and on with his life now. Kissing forty is no age to be at home with your parents.’

Her observation is a little unfair. My best mate’s marriage broke down last year, and after a few weeks on my couch, he really had nowhere else to go, much to his frustration. I let the deconstruction of our love lives wash over me as she hands over a drink.

‘And besides, I want to use his room for a nail salon. I’ve got ladies waiting for me to get my own place. Your Mum could come see me, you know. Give herself a little pampering.’ Mrs J’s tone changes, just like everyone’s does when they ask after Mum now. ‘How is she?’ she asks, head cocked to one side.

‘Okay. Mostly. You know… Mind you, I’ve not spoken to her since yesterday morning so your guess is as good as mine.’ I heft the tool bag on my shoulder, irritated.

‘Ahh, poor love.’ She sips at her tea. ‘It must have been such a shock,’ she says gently, apparently not hearing the grief cliché klaxon. ‘I said to Paul, I said I don’t know how I’d cope if—’

‘Yeah, no, I dunno,’ I interrupt.

I blame the internet. It tells people to say something. To not ignore the difficult conversation when someone dies. But people stop reading at that point, glossing over the bits that suggest you avoid certain responses because those in the throes of grief might find it trite instead of caring.

‘I suppose he must be at peace now,’ she says, nodding gently, and I bite my tongue. That’s the one that bugs me the most. He died angry and sad and rejected by the one person he needed most. Where’s the peace in that?

‘Give her my love when you speak. . .