Chapter 7: The Unexpected Gift
The final Friday had a flat, distilled quality. The air in the medical room smelled sharply of antiseptic and the lemon-scented polish used on the floors. Roz packed her few belongings from the locker Hammy had assigned her: a stethoscope she’d barely used, a dog-eared notebook filled with precise observations, a half-eaten packet of mints. The framed jerseys on the walls seemed to watch her, their frozen glory a silent testament to a world she was about to leave.
Hammy was at his computer, typing up reports with two fingers. The click-clack of the keys was the only sound. “Two weeks goes fast, eh?” he said, not turning around.
“It does,” she replied, her voice small in the quiet room. “Thank you, Dr. Hamilton. For everything. Even the… blunt bits.”
He swivelled in his chair, regarding her with that familiar, appraising stare. “The blunt bits are the useful bits. You’ll do fine, Reid. More than fine. You’ve got the brain for it. You just need to…” He waved a hand, searching. “Thaw a little. Let the diagnosis breathe. Remember the tape.”
She flushed, the memory of Ally’s pained ‘Christ’ instantly vivid. “I will.”
“Good.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a crisp, white envelope. “Your formal evaluation. Sealed, for your university. The unofficial one is this: you’re a worrier, but you care. In this game, the second part matters more than you think.” He handed it over. “Now, do I need to sign you a sick note to get you to the pub with your classmates tonight? You look like you could use a pint.”
A genuine smile broke through her melancholy. “I might manage one without a note.”
The door to the corridor burst open, and the moment shattered.
Ally stood in the doorway, breathless. He was in training gear, his hair damp with sweat or rain, a faint sheen on his skin. He had a small, wrapped parcel tucked awkwardly under his taped arm. His eyes scanned the room, landing on her, and something in his posture relaxed a fraction.
“Sorry,” he panted. “Running drills. Couldn’t get away.”
Hammy’s eyebrows climbed towards his hairline. He looked from Ally’s heaving chest to the parcel to Roz’s frozen form. “MacLeod. Fancy seeing you here without a cracked rib. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“Just… came to say goodbye. To Roz.” Ally’s words were for Hammy, but his eyes never left her. They were intense, apologetic, willing her to understand the abrupt departure in the library. “Since it’s her last day.”
The room felt suddenly, unbearably warm. The fluorescent lights buzzed like trapped insects.
“Right,” Hammy said, drawing the word out. He pushed himself up from his chair, the legs groaning in protest. “Well. I’ll just go and… check on the stock of freeze spray. Which is definitely in the other room. For a while.” He ambled past Ally, pausing to clap him on his good shoulder. “Don’t dislodge anything. She’s not on the clock to patch you up anymore.”
Then they were alone.
The silence was different from the library. It was charged with the scent of fresh sweat and liniment, underscored by the distant, muffled thuds of training from the indoor pitch. Ally stepped fully into the room, letting the door sigh shut. He held out the parcel. It was clumsily wrapped in brown paper, a rectangle about the size of a paperback book.
“This is for you,” he said. “A goodbye. And a thank you.”
Her fingers felt numb as she took it. The brown paper was soft, worn at the edges. “You didn’t need to…”
“I know.” He shifted his weight, uncharacteristically awkward. “Open it later. Or not. It’s stupid, probably.”
She looked down at the parcel, then back at his face. The confident rugby star was gone. This was the man from the library, exposed and unsure. The tape on his ribs was visible beneath his thin training shirt, a stark white geometry she had drawn. “How’s the…?”
“Better. Itchy. Hammy says the tape comes off tomorrow. Freedom.” He attempted a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Listen, about the other day. In the library. The phone call…”
“It’s fine,” she interjected, too quickly. “You had to go.”
“It was my agent. And the club media manager. They’d got wind of the injury. Wanted a ‘strategy meeting’.” He made air quotes with his fingers, a gesture of mild contempt. “Talking about narrative control. How to ‘frame the setback’. It was… depressing. I didn’t want to bring that there. To the library. With you.”
The explanation was so mundane, so crushingly real, that it dissolved her vague anxieties. He hadn’t been summoned to some glamorous event. He’d been called to a PR damage assessment. The poetry reader, the library ghost, was also a commodity to be managed.
“I understand,” she said, and she did.
He nodded, shoving his hands into the pockets of his training shorts. “So. Your two weeks are up. The embargo is… lifted?” He said it like a question, testing the ground.
The envelope from Hammy felt heavy in her other hand. The parcel in her other was a tangible weight. She was balanced on a knife-edge between two identities: the medical student leaving a placement, and a woman being given a gift by a man she couldn’t classify.
“Lifted,” she confirmed, her voice barely audible.
“Right.” He took a breath. “Well. My number’s in the card. Just in case. You know. You ever want that drink. Or to discuss… poetic meter. Or the optimal tension for athletic tape.” The ghost of his old charm flickered, self-deprecating and warm.
“I might,” she said. And for the first time, it felt like a possibility, not a panic.
From down the hall, the sound of heavy boots and raucous laughter echoed. Training was over. The sanctuary was about to be invaded.
“I should go,” Ally said, his head tilting towards the noise. “They’ll all be piling in for ice baths. It’s not a pretty sight.”
He took a step backward, towards the door, his gaze lingering on her. “Goodbye, Roz. And good luck.”
“Goodbye, Ally.”
He left. The door closed softly behind him, cutting off the growing roar of his teammates.
A moment later, Hammy wandered back in, holding a can of freeze spray he clearly didn’t need. He looked at her standing in the middle of the room, holding the two items like ceremonial objects.
“All in order?” he asked, his tone deliberately neutral.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Get off home, then. And for God’s sake, open the parcel. The suspense is killing me from over here.”
She didn’t wait. Sinking onto the plastic chair beside the treatment plinth, she carefully peeled back the brown paper. Inside was a small, hardback book with a faded blue cover, and a card. The card was simple, white. She opened it.
Roz,
Thanks for not letting me suffocate.
This made me think of the ‘in-between’. Hope you like it.
Ally
P.S. My mobile is 07---
His handwriting was neat, smaller than she expected, with a slight forward slant.
She set the card down and picked up the book. It was a collection of early 20th-century poetry. The spine was cracked, the pages foxed with age. She opened the front cover. On the flyleaf, in faded ink, was an inscription: For M, from R, Christmas 1919. Below that, in fresh, dark blue biro, Ally had written: Now for R, from A.
A first edition. Or very early. Not just a book. A specific, thoughtful, wildly generous artifact. It was a piece of history he’d given her, a bridge between his world and hers. The ‘in-between’ made tangible.
Her hands began to tremble. The careful clinical detachment she’d worn for two weeks, the shell she’d cultivated for years, felt thin and brittle. This wasn’t a calculated gesture. It was a leap.
She became aware of Hammy watching her. She looked up, her vision slightly blurred.
He didn’t smile. He just gave a slow, deliberate nod, his knowing eyebrow firmly raised. “Aye,” he said, as if she’d spoken aloud. “That’ll do it.”
He turned back to his computer, the click-clack of keys resuming. The dismissal was clear, kind. The chapter was over.
Roz placed the book and the card carefully into her bag, next to her stethoscope and her evaluation. The two worlds collided silently in the dark fabric. She slung the bag over her shoulder, the weight of it new and significant.
“Goodbye, Hammy,” she said.
“See you, Reid. Don’t be a stranger.”
She walked out of the medical room, through the sterile corridors of the stadium, and into the damp Edinburgh afternoon. The crowds were gone, the gates quiet. She stood on the steps, the city spread out before her under a grey sky.
She took out her phone. Her thumb hovered over the screen. She didn’t type a message. Instead, she created a new contact. She entered the name: Ally. She input the number from the card, each digit a deliberate commit.
She saved it and put the phone away, feeling its weight in her pocket beside the silent, ancient book. The in-between stretched before her, vast and uncharted. But she had a number. And for now, that was enough.