'Too much, too young'

1996 - the hospital was difficult to find, the roundabouts and over-passes of Hammersmith confused me as I struggled to find my way from the tube. I remember the hospital being tall like an office block. I wonder if it was.

I arrived between visitors. Elaine looked dreadful. She was very disorientated but she knew it was me. She kept saying she wanted to write to her aunt. Her fingers were too swollen for her to use a pen.

I asked her what had happened. She didn't know, she kept saying her GP had done something or not done something. She was confused but every now and again she'd be very lucid. She pointed up to a 'get well' card which Paul's ex-wife had sent her. Elaine found it strange and rather marvellous that Paul's ex-wife had managed to forgive her for falling in love with her husband and stealing him away from her. But time had passed, she had forgiven her.

Unlike Elaine's husband. He never forgave Elaine for leaving him.