How to Mend a Broken Heart

How to Mend a Broken Heart

An emotional, uplifting page turner about love, loss and friendship

Anna Mansell

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Epilogue

A Note From Anna

Acknowledgments

For Grace: anything is possible, if we try.

Prologue

Sun scorches my skin. There’s no breeze, no respite, just the comforting discomfort of prickling pain. Heat-softened tarmac warms my body.

I’m alive.

Despite this, and some discomfort, I’ve found a strange kind of peace. Peace amongst the rising panic in the voices around me. Peace amongst the rumble of queuing cars, engines running on standstill, the buses, the immaculate Chelsea tractors. Sheffield’s buzzing suburbia, brought to a dramatic standstill.

Yummy mummies leave the coffee shop, passing my vacated table, with spent coffee cup now stained with froth and sprinkled chocolate. Their necks crane as they push Bugaboos by the scene. Chubby hands reach for tiny, sockless toes and something somewhere, deep in my subconscious, recalls a feeling. A past.

I stare at the endless, denim-blue sky. There’s a whisper of cloud in the distance; a plane dawdles its vapour trail from east to west. A face obscures my view.

‘Hello.’

Rough, sweaty hands cup my face. It’s a man wearing the green shirt and trousers of a paramedic. ‘Can you hear me? I’m John, I’m here to help you.’ His eyes seek mine for a response. Beads of sweat form across his forehead. He wipes them with his arm; his shirt soaks up the dew. ‘Can you tell me your name? Can you tell me what happened?’

But I can’t tell him. Or I won’t tell him. Because, really, what’s the point? I close my eyes and dream of a Grimm tale without the Disney ending.

Apparently this summer’s going to be a long one. Like 1976. I suppose it would have been a shame to miss it.

Chapter One

KAT

‘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.