Precious Time by Erica James Page B

clean off his tongue.
    The vending-machine was situated in a bright, airy space where pieces of artwork from the local comprehensive were displayed on the stark white walls. There was an atrium-style roof to this modern extension - opened by a local soap star last year - and it felt more akin to a fancy hotel than a hospital. Not that Archie had had any first-hand experience of fancy hotels: the nearest he had got to one was when he and Stella were celebrating their twenty-fourth wedding anniversary. He had planned it as a surprise. He let her think he had forgotten about it, then on the day, while she was getting ready for work, he had presented her with tickets for the train to London and a show.
    But it hadn’t turned out the way he had hoped it would. She was moody and distant with him, and found fault with almost everything: the train took too long, the hotel was too small, the food too expensive and the show too loud. During the journey home he had wondered if everything would have been to her liking had she been with someone else. He kept the thought to himself, but he soon knew the answer. He found letters and a couple of photographs. He hadn’t gone snooping, they had been left casually in a drawer, not even covered up; it was as if she had wanted him to find out. If she had been hoping for a confrontation, he must have disappointed her: he simply carried on as though everything was normal, convincing himself that if he ignored it she would get it out of her system and things would soon be okay again. Plenty of marriages had glitches; it was all about riding the storm. After a while he thought he had done the right thing. She stopped inventing reasons to be out of an evening, there were no sudden trips to see her sister, and the phone no longer rang with no one on the other end when he answered it.
    But she wasn’t happy. If anything, she was worse - tearful, or irrationally angry. He almost felt sorry for her, imagining that her lover had decided to call a halt to the affair. Perhaps he, too, was married and hadn’t wanted to jeopardise what he already had.
    Stupidly, Archie spent more time than was healthy putting
    together a background for this unknown man. Was he younger than Archie? Better-looking? Funnier? More intelligent? Rich?
    With the benefit of hindsight, he had been nothing but a coward.
    Instead of wasting time dwelling on her lover, he should have been talking to Stella, making an effort to understand where he had gone wrong.
    But he had left it too late. All the talking in the world wouldn’t make things right now. She was gone, no doubt to this perfect man who understood her. Who didn’t … who didn’t have an ageing mother to care for.
    He swallowed the last of his tea and suddenly felt weary.
    How would he manage Second Best and look after Bessie on his own? She wasn’t so bad at the moment, but he could see that in the future she would need a constant eye on her. He crumpled the empty cup, dropped it into the nearest bin, and cursed himself for having taken advantage of Stella in the way that he had. In relying on her to be at home during the afternoons - she only worked mornings - he had felt that he was doing the right thing by his mother. It served him right that Stella had left him. He had given her a gold-plated final straw.
    With ten more minutes before Bessie would be finished, he went for a stroll. He was just passing a couple of pretty nurses who were chatting about a hen party they’d been to last night when he caught sight of a face he recognised. It was that nice Indian doctor from the surgery in town, the one who was always so good with his mother.
    He was friendly without being overly familiar, which Bessie liked.
    She always used to say that if you had to undress for a doctor, the least he could do was look the other way, and Dr Singh was wonderfully courteous and proper with her.
    Archie went over to say hello. ‘Touting for business, Dr Singh?’
    ‘Ah, Mr Merryman, how