The fluorescent lights hummed softly overhead as Eleanor pushed open the hospital door, clutching a bag of grapes from Marks & Spencer. Her heart still raced from the phone call earlier.
“Good heavens, Margaret darling!” Eleanor rushed to the bedside where her oldest friend lay propped against crisp NHS pillows. “When Emily rang saying you’d been rushed in with chest pains, I nearly fainted right in Waitrose!”
Margaret managed a weak smile, her face pale but warming at the sight of her friend. “Ellie, you angelthank you for coming. I’ve been going spare with boredom in here.”
Eleanor set down the fruit and glanced around the ward. Four beds, only two occupied. In the neighbouring bed, a silver-haired woman lay turned away, her plait trailing over the NHS-issue blanket.
“Who’s your neighbour?” Eleanor whispered, perching on the plastic chair.
“Brought in yesterday. Rosemary, I think. Quiet as a mousejust reads her paper or watches things on her mobile.” Margaret lowered her voice. “Nurse said her blood pressure’s as temperamental as my heart.”
Just then, the woman turnedand Eleanor’s breath caught. Those sharp hazel eyes hadn’t changed in forty years. The faint mole above the lip.
“Rosemary?” The name left Eleanor’s lips like a struck match. “Rosemary Whitaker?”
The woman froze. Slowly, she pushed herself upright. “Eleanor… Parker?” Her voice cracked on the last syllable, that same lilt from their teaching days in Croydon.
Margaret’s gaze darted between them. “You two know each other?”
“Intimately,” Eleanor said, her knuckles whitening around her handbag strap.
The silence thickened. Rosemary studied her IV line. Eleanor stared as if the woman might vanish.
“Christ alive, someone explain!” Margaret wheezed, adjusting her oxygen tube.
Eleanor exhaled sharply. “We taught together at Woodside Secondary. I did English. Rosemary handled History.”
“And citizenship studies,” Rosemary added quietly.
“Colleagues,” Eleanor said tightly. “Briefly.”
“Two terms,” Rosemary confirmed.
Margaret’s eyes gleamed. “Let me guessa man came between you?”
“Like something from a dreadful ITV drama,” Eleanor muttered. “I was twenty-four, fresh from Durham. He was Deputy HeadAnthony Clarke. Married, of course. Ten years older. Charismatic.” Her laugh was bitter. “We’d meet after staff meetings. He spun me the usual yarnloveless marriage, staying for the children…”
Rosemary flinched.
“And then you arrived,” Eleanor continued. “New history teacher. Vibrant. Clever. Suddenly Anthony’s lunch ‘meetings’ required three participants.”
“That’s not how it”
“Isn’t it?” Eleanor’s voice rose. “You knew we were involved! I told you over coffee in the staff room!”
Rosemary’s hands trembled. “He said… he said you were just passing time. That you understood it wasn’t serious.”
Eleanor barked a laugh. “And he told me you were some silly girl throwing yourself at him! The snake played us like chess pieces!”
Margaret gasped. “The absolute rotter!”
Rosemary wiped her eyes. “Three months after you left, he divorced his wife. Married the PE instructor from Thornton Academy the next summer.”
“Bloody hell,” Eleanor whispered. “There was a third.”
“At least.” Rosemary met her gaze. “I married my David eight years later. Solid as oak. Passed last winterpancreatic cancer.”
“My Anthony died in 2015,” Eleanor admitted. “Heart attack. We’d had twenty decent years, once he stopped tomcatting about.”
The heart monitor beeped loudly in the silence. Outside, rain streaked the hospital windows.
Margaret sniffled. “All those wasted years… You might’ve been godmothers to each other’s grandchildren!”
Rosemary reached for Eleanor’s hand. “Do you remember our Thursday pub quizzes? Planning weekend trips to Brighton?”
“Before Anthony made everything about himself,” Eleanor said softly. Then, with sudden clarity: “Perhaps we were lucky.”
Rosemary frowned. “How?”
“Imagine if we’d reconciled back then!” Eleanor chuckled darkly. “We might’ve taken turns being Mrs Clarkeme first, then you, then the PE teacher…”
Rosemary’s laughter mingled with hers, bright as the sunlight now breaking through the clouds.
Margaret dabbed her eyes. “Well! This is better than EastEnders.” She grasped their hands. “Promise me one thingno more secrets. And Ellie, for pity’s sake, stop bringing grapes. I detest grapes.”
As their laughter filled the ward, the nurse bustled in, raising an eyebrow at the trio. “Visiting hours ended twenty minutes ago.”
Eleanor squeezed Rosemary’s fingers. “Same time tomorrow?”
“Bring custard creams,” Rosemary whispered.
And just like that, forty years vanishedleaving only the quiet understanding of women who’d outlived their ghosts.
