When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson Read Free Book Online

smoke on his clothes or notice the cigarette butts nestling amongst the gravel.
    Reggie couldn't help but overhear Mr Hunter because he always spoke very loudly to the unseen people at the other end of the phone. He was 'exploring new avenues' he told them. He had 'very interesting prospects on the horizon' and'opportunities opening up'. He sounded brash but really he was pleading. 'Jesus, Mark, I'm fucking bleeding out here.'
    Mr Hunter was handsome, in a rough, slightly battered kind of way, which actually made him more good-looking than ifhe'd been conventionally attractive. Dr Hunter had met him when she was a senior registrar 'at the old Royal Infirmary', although he wasn't from Edinburgh. He was from Glasgow, 'a Weegie', Dr Hunter laughed, which was generally intended as an insult by people from Edinburgh but maybe Dr Hunter didn't know that, being English. He had courted her for a long time before she 'caved in' and married him. Mr Hunter was 'something in the leisure industry' but exactly what was unclear to Reggie.
    Dr Hunter and Mr Hunter seemed to get along pretty well, although Reggie didn't really have anything to compare their relationship to except for Mum and Gary (uninspiring) and Mum and the Man-Who-Came-Before-Gary (horrible). Dr Hunter laughed at Mr Hunter's shortcomings and never seemed to get annoyed with him about anything. 'Jo's too easygoing for her own good,' Mr Hunter said. Mr Hunter, for his part, would bang into the house with a bunch ofnice flowers or a bottle ofwine and say, 'Hiya, doll,' to Dr Hunter like a comedy Glaswegian and give her a big kiss and wink at Reggie and say, 'Behind every great woman there's some shite guy, Reggie, don't forget that.'
    Most of the time Mr Hunter behaved as if he couldn't see Reggie at all, but then sometimes he would take her by surprise and be really nice to her and tell her to sit down at the kitchen table while he made her a coffee and tried to make rather awkward conversation ('So what's your story, Reggie?') although usually before she could start telling him her (not inconsiderable) 'story' his phone would ring and he would leap up and pace around the room while he talked ('Hey, Phil, howy'are doing? 1 was wondering if we could get together, I've got a proposition I'd like to run by you.').
    Mr Hunter called the baby 'the bairn' and tossed him in the air a lot, which made the baby shriek with excitement. Mr Hunter said he couldn't wait until 'the bairn' could talk and run around and go to football matches with him and Dr Hunter said, 'Time enough for all that. Make the most of every second, they're gone before you know it.' If the baby hurt himself Mr Hunter picked him up and said, 'Come on, wee man, you're fine, it was nothing,' in an encouraging but not very sympathetic way whereas Dr Hunter hugged him and kissed him and said, 'Poor wee scone,' which was a phrase she had got from Reggie (who had in turn got it from Mum). When she said Scottish words and phrases Dr Hunter said them in a (pretty good) Scottish accent so it was almost like she was bilingual.
    The baby liked Mr Hunter well enough but he worshipped Dr Hunter. When she held him in her arms his eyes never left her face, as ifhe was absorbing every detail for a test he might have to sit later.
    'I'm a goddess to him now,' Dr Hunter laughed, 'but one day I'll be the annoying old woman who wants to be taken to the supermarket.'
    'Och, no, Dr H.,' Reggie said. 'I think you're always going to be a deity for him.'
    'Shouldn't you have stayed on at school, Reggie?' Dr Hunter asked, a little frown worrying her pretty features. Reggie imagined this was how she was with her patients ('You really have to lose some weight, Mrs MacTavish.').
    'Yes, 1 should,' Reggie said.
    'Come on, sunshine,' Reggie said to the baby, lifting him out of his high-chair and planting him on the floor. She had to keep an eye on him all the time because one moment he'd be sitting contentedly trying to work out how to eat his