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Cameron looks around Pulses and spots his mother alone at a table, carefully picking the cress out of her egg mayonnaise sandwich. She looks up and smiles as he approaches.
“Hi Mum, er – Ms. Wolfe,” he says. “Thanks for coming.”
“Mum’s fine, we’re on our breaks. How’s the ED? Still enjoying it, even with Connie Beauchamp’s return?”
“Loving it,” replies Cameron. “Mrs Beauchamp is brilliant. She doesn’t take any crap, but she’s a superb teacher and an excellent manager. Sort of like Serena without the humour.”
“I’m impressed. Most junior doctors are petrified of her,” Bernie says,
“I grew up with you,” Cameron deadpans. He takes a bite out of his wrap. “No such thing as a scary boss lady after that.”
“Point taken,” says Bernie. “Don’t talk with your mouth full. So, what’s so urgent that it can’t wait until our shifts finish?”
Cameron’s airiness vanishes.
“Have you heard from Dad recently?” he asks.
“Of course I haven’t,” Bernie replies. “Well, I did have that nasty cold last month, so he could have got his voodoo doll out again -”
“I’m serious,” Cameron interrupts. “Charlotte’s worried about him.”
Bernie swallows the desire to say that Charlotte is always worrying about something. It’s a facet of her daughter’s personality she finds particularly hard to deal with, despite Serena pointing out more than once that it’s a much nicer trait than Elinor’s freight train-like lack of concern about others. She contents herself with asking Cameron why his sister is worried.
“Dad’s being weird.”
“Now I am intrigued. Your father is the most conventional, predictable, un-weird person I’ve ever met. What’s he done, grown a ponytail? Taken up morris dancing?”
“We’re afraid he’s ill and hasn’t told us,” Cameron blurts.
Ah, this is another matter altogether. While Bernie has not loved Marcus for many years she feels no ill-will either. During childhood, while she was away, Cam and Charlotte – especially Charlotte – viewed him as the centre of their worlds. She doesn’t want to imagine their devastation if anything happens to him. She puts her sandwich down and steeples her fingers on the table.
“Go on,” she says.
“Well, he started - disappearing. He wasn’t about as much. It was just the odd afternoon at first and I didn’t notice. Charlotte did, you know she hangs out with him more than I do. Then it was evenings too. Then he started disappearing for two or three days at a time. He wouldn’t say where, just that it was something private and nothing to worry about. Then he cancelled this week’s Monday lunch with Charlotte.”
“Oh!” Bernie knows Charlottes’s Monday lunches with her father have been set in stone since she returned to Holby after graduating.
“Yes,” says Cameron. “So she started Googling, and she found that the St. James’s urology clinic is on Monday mornings.”
“That doesn’t prove anything, Cam,” Bernie says, ignoring the uneasy coldness suddenly blooming in her solar plexus.
“He didn’t go on the golf club trip to Torquay at Easter either. First time since 2015. He didn’t tell Charlotte or me. I only found out because Max Parker’s mum turned up in minors and she asked me about Dad. She said they’d missed him on the trip. I had to joke about it because I didn’t know he hadn’t gone.”
“I always thought Laura Parker had a bit of a thing for your father,” Bernie frowns. “I understand your concern, Cam, but none of that necessarily means he’s sick.”
Cameron hesitates.
“He’s – he’s gone a bit – soft. Charlotte says he’s being more loving and dad-ish to her lately. The last time I saw him - we went for a pint at the Wellington after work - he went all sappy, hugged me for no reason and told me he was proud of me.”
“Well, he is bound to be proud of you. I am.”
“No, something’s not right. What are we going to do, Mum?”
“May I talk to Serena about this?” Bernie asks. “See what her thoughts are?”
“Yes, of course,” Cameron suddenly brightens. “Hey, doesn’t Elinor’s dad go to Dad’s golf club too? Maybe she could get some intel from him.”
“Absolutely not!” says Bernie. “And if I hear you’ve approached either Elinor or Serena about it Connie Beauchamp will seem like a pink fluffy teddy. With a big red heart and a bag of candyfloss. Clear?”
“Crystal.”
Unfortunately, Serena doesn’t have any ideas that are practical (“Edward goes to the same golf club, but as Marcus is neither an intellectually lightweight twenty-something in a skimpy dress nor a bottle of vodka he wouldn’t notice if he was there or not . . .”), sensible (“maybe Ric could ask his golf pro friend to put out some feelers. Mind, Ric’ll blab to all and sundry. Every golfer in the county will know Marcus is going AWOL . . .”) or ethical (“suppose I ask Sasha to talk to the urology consultant at St. James’s, off the record, of course. Oh don’t look at me like that Bernie! OK, OK, I know I can’t put him in that position . . .”). In the end the situation resolves itself the following Sunday evening.
“Fifty-seven, and I’ve never been to Snowdonia,” Serena remarks as the ‘Countryfile’ credits roll. “It looks like a lovely place for a few days away.”
“Oh yes please!” says Bernie excitedly. “We must both be due some leave by now.”
Serena picks up the TV remote and sits poised.
“ ‘Antiques Roadshow’ or laptop and get looking?” she asks.
Bernie opens her mouth to answer but is cut off by the doorbell ringing.
“Good lord, who on earth is that?” says Serena, slightly grumpily. She puts the remote down and heads into the hall. Bernie hears the door open and a murmuring male voice, followed by her wife’s, higher pitched than normal.
“Hello. Er – come in, come in. This is a surprise – a nice one, obviously. Is everything all right?”
“Sorry Serena, but we really need to talk to Mum.”
It’s Charlotte’s voice. Bernie stands up in surprise as her children troop into the lounge, Serena in their wake.
“Charlotte. Cam. Why are – is everything OK?”
“We’ve come about Dad. Thanks, Serena.”
Charlotte sits where her stepmother indicates. Cameron does likewise. The cold feeling spurts in Bernie’s middle again. She sets her face in doctor mode. Serena sits beside her on the sofa and reaches for her hand. Cameron looks at their clasped fingers.
“It’s nothing like that, he’s not ill,” he says.
Bernie relaxes.
“So he wasn’t at the urology clinic on Monday then?”
“No, he was at the estate agent’s. He’s selling the house,” says Charlotte, shaking her head. “I can’t quite believe it. Granny’s house. Our house.”
Bernie can’t believe it either but keeps quiet, not wanting to upset Charlotte further.
“He’s retiring,” says Cameron.
Bernie does a quick calculation.
“Well, he’ll be sixty in August,” she says. “What are his plans?”
“He’s moving down to Cornwall. He’s going to Falmouth to join the boating fraternity,” Cameron says. “Apparently he used to sail a bit years ago, when he was at Uni.”
“That’s right,” says Bernie. “We went boating on the Broads with his parents once, just after we got married, before I joined up.” She notices Cameron shoot a look at his sister, who nods slightly in response. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Er - um - ”Cameron flounders visibly. Charlotte takes a deep breath.
“He’s buying a house in Falmouth with someone called Craig. Dad’s got a boyfriend, Mum.”
Serena bursts out laughing. Cameron and Charlotte look at her in amazement. Bernie glares at her.
“Oh dear – oh I’m so sorry – not funny – sorry – I’ll just – kettle – tea - ” Serena wheezes, and rushes into the kitchen, mortified.
The three Wolfe-Dunns sit in silence for a moment. Bernie has no idea what to say. Her children are looking expectantly at her, and she hasn’t a clue how to respond.
“That’s – um – quite a surprise,” she says, at last. “I’d never have expected that. How did it – um - happen?”
“He says they met at the golf club,” Charlotte says. “Apparently Craig moved to Holby after the pandemic because of a relationship breakdown. He joined the club last year. They started hanging out together, found they had things in common, golf and sailing and stuff. Dad said they just sort of clicked. He said he’d never had a friend like him before. Then Craig came out to Dad after a few months. Dad said he realised he’d fallen in love with him.”
Bernie wonders if this in an elaborate joke, but of course it can’t be. Marcus is selling his house, his beloved mother’s house, the house their children grew up in. It can’t be a joke. She is saved from having to say anything by Serena, who has been listening from the kitchen while the kettle heats.
“That can’t have been easy for him,” she says, leaning on the frame of the connecting door. “You think you know exactly who and what you are, and nothing can surprise you anymore, and then – bam! I definitely had a bit of a crisis over it.”
“I don’t understand why he thought he couldn’t tell us. You think he’d know we’d love him no matter what,” Charlotte looks a little watery.
Bernie has to bite her tongue at this. Thankfully, Serena is more than ready with an answer.
“I know you youngsters get fed up with hearing it, but it's different for people of our generation,” she says. “It was a different world when we were young. The laws were different, attitudes were different. Even the language used was different. Isn’t that right, Bernie?”
“Yes, yes, absolutely,” agrees Bernie, glad of the lifeline. “I suppose the main thing is, is your father happy?”
“Disgustingly,” says Cameron, making a face. “Show them that photo, Sis.”
Charlotte taps her phone and passes it to her mother. Serena walks behind the sofa and cranes over Bernie’s shoulder to look.
“This is Dad and Craig. He said one of their sailing friends took it,” Charlotte says.
Bernie takes in the photo of her ex-husband. He is wearing an oilskin jacket and standing by a boat. She hasn’t seen him for some time, not since Charlotte’s graduation. He looks the same yet not the same, a little older, obviously, with a longer, more relaxed hairstyle than she’s used to on him, and what looks suspiciously like designer stubble. Beside him is a man of a similar age, also wearing an oilskin, with beautifully cut silver hair and a striking smile that shows straight, white teeth. Marcus is looking at him like he is the eighth wonder of the world.
“Good looking chap,” observes Serena. “When’s the happy day?”
“Oh don’t you start!” groans Charlotte. She points at her brother. “He’s already been dropping bloody great hints.”
“Well why should it always be girls who get to be the romantic ones?” protests Cameron.
“Quite right too!” says Serena. “I’ll go and get the tea. Usual for everyone?”
“Are you OK about this, Mum?” asks Charlotte as Serena is clinking about in the kitchen.
“I should be asking you two that,” Bernie replies.
“We’re meeting Craig next weekend,” says Cameron. “I’m reserving judgement until then. Dad can have all the blokes he wants as long as they’re decent and treat him OK.”
Charlotte agrees. “I don’t care about the gender,” she says. “I just don’t want Dad getting hurt.”
Bernie listens out for an unspoken “again”. There isn’t one.
“When you see your father again, tell him I wish him well,” she says.
Serena is sitting up in bed reading her current library book when Bernie comes in from the ensuite.
“Quite a day,” she observes. “Look, I’m really sorry about laughing like that when Charlotte said about Marcus’s gentleman friend. It was very inappropriate. It was just such an irony, not to mention rather a shock.”
“That’s OK,” says Bernie. “You’re right, it was a shock. I didn’t see that one coming. Marcus never – well . . .”
“How do you feel about it? Really? Now the kids have gone?”
“Well, now the initial surprise has worn off I’m just glad the kids are OK with it,” says Bernie. “If Marcus is serious about this Craig then I hope they develop the sort of relationship with him they have with you. Everyone’s lives will be enriched by that.”
“What a lovely thing to say,” says Serena. “I’d understand if you were a bit miffed though. I stopped loving Edward long before he met Liberty, but it still smarted when they got engaged.”
Bernie says nothing. Serena waits, knowing she is formulating a precise answer.
“The kids aside, I don’t feel anything,” she says at last. “I don’t care about Marcus meeting someone else and I don’t care it’s a man. It sounds cold I know, but he’s not - ” she casts around for the right word “ – relevant, to me, to who I am now, to my life now.”
She climbs into bed and kisses Serena’s nose.
“You are,” she says.
Serena’s eyes twinkle naughtily behind her reading glasses.
“You have to hand it to Marcus, he has good taste. Craig is very handsome,” she grins.
Bernie rolls her eyes, theatrically turns her back on Serena and snuggles down in the bed.
“Good night, Campbell,” she mock-huffs.
Serena chuckles, puts her glasses and novel on the bedside table, turns off the light and snuggles up to Bernie’s back.
“It’s only further proof of what we knew already, though,” she whispers, and Bernie can hear her smile. “I should know, I got the one the one who got away.”
She slides her arm around her wife’s waist. Bernie links their fingers.
“Good night, Serena. Love you.”
“I love you too, darling. Good night.”
They close their eyes.