‘Lauriston Place, you can’t miss it. It’s an old Victorian sandstone building.’ I explained.
‘Okay, I’ll come to Edinburgh instead.’ Lucas offered. He didn’t think twice when I’d called him at three am saying I wouldn’t make the London – Schiphol flight.
The phone call earlier from my dad had unexpectedly changed our plans. I unpacked my bag for the sun, repacked for home, and got the tube to Kings Cross for the first Northbound train out of London.

The train pulled into Waverley Station. I stepped out onto the platform and inhaled the familiar malted air. I had intended to get a cab but after sitting for so long I walked along to The News Steps and cut up onto St. Giles Street. I started to feel anxious as I passed the Greyfriars’s Kirkyard. I’d heard nothing from my parents since London. As a nurse on a Renal unit, I knew the medical team would be busy: bloods, imaging, ECG and X-rays. Dad had told me his match was a cadaver kidney from Newcastle. This was the second transplant call Dad had received. I remembered the excitement and hope of the first and how it all crashed around us when surgery couldn’t proceed.
At the entrance to the Royal, I took a deep breath as I crossed under the gold gilded words ‘Patet Ominbus’ and clunked my case up the steps to the transplant ward. Dad was already in surgery. A nurse ushered me to the family room. My mum was waiting. We hugged, then sat mindlessly flicking through out of date magazines.
Dad’s surgery had gone well but the new kidney was reluctant to work. Doctors were confident it would kick in soon.
‘Sometimes, slow starters last the longest, ‘ a consultant informed us.
We were allowed to see my dad when he was transferred to the high dependency unit. Adorned with wires, tubing, monitoring equipment and machines beeping all around him he still managed to speak.
‘You’re meant to be on holiday, with that Dutch fella of yours,’ he said, steaming up his oxygen mask.
‘Not after your call from the transplant coordinator Dad, I got the first train home.’
As Dad nodded off Mum and I went for coffee at the WRVS café. My phone rang. It was Lucas.
‘I’m here.’
‘What? How did you get here so quickly?’
‘First flight out, great connections. Like it was meant to be.’
‘Go, find him,’ my Mum smiled. ‘I’ll see you back at the ward.’

I showed Lucas to the waiting room when we returned and I went back in to see my dad.
‘Well?’ My dad asked.
‘Well what?’
‘I wanna meet this fella, I’ve heard so much about.’
‘Dad, you’re just out of surgery,’ I protested.
‘Bring the lad in,’ he insisted.
As ordered, I led a nervous Lucas through. That moment, only hours post kidney transplant, at The Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, was the first time my dad met the man that would become my husband.