Saturday morning was a much quieter affair than the day before and he was up and dressed before the nurse knocked on the door, that days was called Molly, who he had seen before and they chatted briefly before going up to see the patient.
Mid-morning Katie was sat on her throne in the kitchen when they had two unexpected visitors, Elise Riley, who was an IT security analyst, and her friend Sarah Peters, Verger at St Lucy’s, receptionist at the Doctors surgery and organizer of the care rota.
They were very apologetic for not going through the proper channels, Sarah promised to chastise herself for usurping her own system but they were going out for a lunch date.
Elise was in a very serious relationship with Jacks friends and colleagues at the Club, James Lynch, while Sarah was hoping for a similar outcome with her heart’s desire, Jacey Linton, another of Jacks friends and colleagues who had as yet not done anything about their obvious mutual attraction, Emily and James were trying their hardest to rectify that situation.
“We were on our way out so we thought we’d just pop in and say hello,” Elise said.
They only stayed for half an hour then left them in peace to eat lunch.
In the afternoon he asked Katie what she would prefer TV or book and she answered
“Cribbage”
So Katie spent the next couple of hours wiping the floor with him until the new Vicar Paul Massey and his fiancé Martina Wingrove arrived.
They were staying that night as Jack was going to be at the Club late into the night as Jacey was on patrol with the Roving Angels.
They were all sitting around the kitchen table laughing and joking when there was a knock at the door, he checked the clock on the wall and thought to himself “that will be this evenings Nurse”.
But when he opened the door he found it was Gemma.
“Hi Gemma, I was right then” he said
“Right about what?” she asked
“I was just thinking that it’s time for the frumpy nurse to call and here you are,” he said
“You cheeky devil” she said punching his arm
After she had attended to Katie she joined the rest of them for an Indian takeaway.
Kayleigh wasn’t in attendance as she was feeling under the weather and she didn’t want Katie catching whatever it was that she had.
As they were demolishing their curry banquet Katie declared
“This is one thing I am definitely going to miss”
Now far from this putting a dampener on proceedings it prompted raucous laughter and a deep theological discussion on whether heaven could truly be heaven without Indian food.
In the end the consensus was that Indian and Chinese would be available but Pizzas would not.
After dinner Martina helped Katie get ready for bed and Paul and Gemma cleared away while Jack got into his work clothes.
As it turned out he had company on the drive over, or at least part of the way, as Gemma needed a lift into Purplemere as she had abandoned her car there when the snow started to fall, she didn’t like driving in snow so she left it and caught the bus.
On the journey they discussed a variety of things firstly her love life and how her relationship with her next door neighbour Tony Vassell was going, this was merely nosiness he was genuinely interested as it was important to him because they were both good friends of his, then he wanted to know how Hannah Peters was getting on up at Plaxton Park, this was also important to him as he had been instrumental in getting her the job, her answer in both cases was “Excellent”.
Finally they discussed Katie’s nurses and did he have any complaints about them.
“Not that I’m sending them for your benefit” she pointed out and laughed.
“I think they are all brilliant” he said “And so does Katie, nothing is too much trouble for them”
“They all love her that’s why” Gemma said
“You know Katie is completely overwhelmed by everyone’s kindness, she doesn’t understand how much she is loved or how special she is and how much they appreciate her being in their lives.
When they reached Purplemere she directed him to the appropriate car park and he pulled up next to her car.
“Thanks for the lift Jack and for everything else” she said and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
After a long incident packed night at the club he felt a mixture of exhilaration and guilt, the former because he had forgotten how vibrant Saturday nights could be on a good night and the latter because he had enjoyed being there and not being at home and looking after Katie.
Because it had been such a great night he was the last to leave and arrived home just before 5 am.
He dumped his jacket and coat on the back of a kitchen chair and went upstairs to look in on Katie before he crept into the spare room and crawled into bed and fell instantly asleep.
Jack didn’t see or hear the Nurse that morning so he had no way of knowing which one it was that day.
Paul Massey went off early to St Lucy’s for the morning service while
Martina stayed to attend to Katie until he resurfaced.
Katie had wanted to go to church herself but as she was still recovering from the fever she got the last time she went, it was decided in her best interests that she should stay home, and credit to Martina for standing her ground.
She had a lot of visitors that Sunday, 12 in all and she had already had 4 before Jack got up and another 2 before he appeared in the kitchen showered and dressed for the day.
Within ten minutes of his arrival Martina rushed off to join her beloved Paul and Katie and Jack settled back into their own familiar routine.
Had he known however that she had already spent much of the morning with visitors he wouldn’t have agreed so readily to the six she had in the afternoon, and as a result it completely wore her out and Katie had a very uncomfortable night as she had unfortunately done too much.
Because of her poor night’s sleep and her obvious discomfiture the nurse gave her a sedative and Katie slept a lot of the day.
This enabled Jack to spend Monday afternoon in the loving arms of Kayleigh in her house.
Thankfully Katie had a much better night’s sleep on Monday night.
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