Would it give him hope? Or just other people?
Marie decided not to ask, because Alex was already opening the door that led back into the building, and she doubted whether he would have answered anyway.
CHAPTER FOUR
WAS THIS REALLY what Marie wanted to know about him? That he was the great-grandson of a tyrant king? Alex decided he was overreacting, and that it was just natural curiosity. He’d be curious about the mechanics of the thing if he’d suddenly found out that Marie was a fairy princess. But then that wouldn’t come as much of a surprise—he’d always rather suspected that she was.
He waited until he heard the main doors close and then threw down his pen. The table of dependencies he’d been sketching out for Jim Armitage wasn’t working anyway, and he should probably just tell him what needed to be finished before the clinic opened, and leave him to work it out. There was such a thing as being too hands-on. And he couldn’t leave without taking a look...
Marie had moved some of the planters, obviously having changed her mind on how best to group them. The shrubs were arranged under a makeshift plastic canopy to protect them from the weather, along with the seed trays that they’d filled.
Alex sat down on the upturned crate he’d occupied earlier. It occurred to him that this was the first garden he’d ever really had a hand in. His parents’ garden had been designed to be looked at, preferably from a distance, and hadn’t really been the kind of place for a child who might disturb its well-ordered beauty. When he’d left home, the indoor plants he’d bought to brighten up his flat had generally died from neglect, and Alex had decided that his contribution to the environment was to leave them in the shop and let them go to someone who would remember to water them.
But this time the idea of creating something from scratch and tending it over time was something he very much wanted to be a part of. And so what if Marie had asked him about the one thing he always shrank from discussing? She wanted to know about the Kings of Belkraine because she wanted to know about him. If she had any questions tomorrow, he’d answer them.
* * *
When he arrived at the clinic the next morning, Marie was already sitting on her crate, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. His crate had been left in exactly the same place it had occupied last night, in mute invitation.
Alex opened the door of the courtyard and went to sit opposite her.
‘Morning.’
She gave him a bright smile. Her cheeks were still a little red from where the sun had kissed them yesterday.
Alex nodded and sat down, reaching for an empty seed tray from the pile. He filled the tray with compost and opened one of the seed packets, letting the cool quiet of the hour before everyone else arrived for work seep into him for a while before he spoke.
‘I argued with my father and he threw me out of the house when I was eighteen.’
She looked up at him, her lip quivering. ‘That’s a hard thing to have to bear, Alex.’
He shook his head. Marie knew far more about hardship than he did. ‘Your father left when you were ten.’
‘It’s not a competition, Alex. You don’t have to keep quiet about what happened to you because you think what happened to me might have been worse—it doesn’t work that way. Anyway, my father left because of what happened between my mum and him. She told us that. It’s different.’
Alex wondered how different it really was. Marie had worked so hard to help support her brothers, and he’d always had a sense that she felt somehow responsible for her father leaving.
But this wasn’t about probing her; Marie had never made any secret of her childhood. He’d hidden his past out of a wish to leave it behind. Now, for the sake of the friendship that was so precious to him, he had to put that right.
‘What did you argue about?’ Marie had clearly been waiting for him to go on, and finally she asked the question.
‘My father was an embittered man. He had everything money could buy, but he considered that our family had been deprived of its birthright. He insisted that we live as if we were royal, but I wanted more from life than that. I wanted to make my own choices. I wanted to be a doctor. He told me that if I went to medical school he’d disinherit me, and I told him to go ahead and do it.’
A faint smile hovered at Marie’s lips. ‘I wouldn’t have expected you to do anything else. Didn’t he ever see what you’d achieved and come around?’
‘No, he never accepted what I wanted to do. The money that took me through medical school was from a trust that my grandfather had set up for me. He knew what my father was like, and he locked the trust in an ironclad agreement so my father couldn’t get his hands on it.’
‘Would he have tried? It sounds as if he had enough already.’ Marie’s eyebrows shot up.
‘My father didn’t care about the money; he thought it a paltry amount. He wanted control over me. I got to do what I wanted when I was eighteen because of that trust.’
‘So being disinherited...that was a good thing in a way. Your father couldn’t force you into his mould.’
‘I felt as if I was free.’
She chuckled, picking up another seed tray. ‘Free was how you seemed then. I used to envy you for it, but I didn’t know what you’d had to go through to get your freedom. Did you never reconcile with your father?’
‘I didn’t want to. He was never a good husband; he hurt my mother very badly. I couldn’t forgive him for that.’
There was nothing like telling a story to find out which parts of it really hurt. Alex could feel his chest tightening from the pain.
‘Alex...?’
Marie was leaning forward now, concern registering on her face. Maybe she knew that this was what he really needed to say.
‘He had mistresses. Lots of them. He used to spend a couple of nights a week in London, and my mother always seemed so sad. When I was little I thought she must miss him, but by the time I was fifteen I knew what was going on. He didn’t go to much trouble to hide it.’
Marie’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Your poor mother...’
‘She just accepted it. That was the thing that hurt the most. She grew thinner and sadder every year, until finally she just seemed to fade away. She died five years ago.’
‘And you never got to see her?’
‘I used to visit her all the time. I’d call her, and she’d tell me when my father would be out of the house and I could come. It was the only thing she ever defied him over and she used to love hearing about what I was doing as a doctor. She knew that she always had a home with me, but she’d never leave him.’
‘People...they make their own decisions. Parents included.’ Marie shot him a wry smile.
‘Yeah.’
Alex had made his decision too. However much the idea of a wife and a family might appeal to him in theory, his parents’ unhappy marriage had always made him balk at the prospect of commitment. His father’s money and title were new reasons to make him wary. Alex didn’t know how he was going to cope with that yet, and the last thing he wanted to do was inflict his own struggle on anyone else.
‘I did try to speak to my father once—at my mother’s funeral. It was a very lavish affair, and after the way he’d treated her it made me feel sick. But I decided that it was what she would have wanted, and so I went up to him to shake his hand. He turned his back on me. I’ll never know why he changed his mind about leaving me his money and I wish he hadn’t.’
Marie frowned at him suddenly. ‘It sounds as if he did the right thing, for once.’
‘What? You think I’m better as a billionaire king in exile?’
‘No, I think you’re pretty rubbish at it, actually.’
The tension in his shoulders began to dissolve and Alex grinned at her. ‘That’s one of the things I like about you. That you don’t think it’s a good thing.’
‘I didn’t say it
wasn’t a good thing. I said you were rubbish at it. Look around you and tell me it’s not a good thing.’
‘Point taken. So the clinic’s a good thing and I’m a rubbish king. Is that right?’
She nodded. ‘You can write your own script, Alex. If you let the money and the title define you then maybe that’s what your father wanted. But if you define it, then you can do anything. Things ordinary people only dream of.’
As usual, Marie was right. He’d been letting the money and the title define him a little too much recently, and the idea that he could become anything he wanted lifted a weight from his shoulders. And right now he wanted to be a gardener.
Marie had finished planting three seed trays and they were lined up on one side of her. He hadn’t completed any yet. Alex picked up his tray.
‘I was wondering if you’d cover for me in the office. Today and tomorrow.’ He finished planting the tray and laid it down next to hers.
‘Yes, of course. You’re going out?’
‘No, I spoke with Jim Armitage and he’s given me the go-ahead to lay the pavers. I’ve never done anything like that before, but...’ He shrugged.
‘You can learn. I don’t think it’s that difficult.’ Marie’s sudden smile told him what she thought of the idea.
‘You don’t mind, then?’
It had been Marie’s idea for him to get involved with the garden, and now he was going one better.
‘Mind?’ Marie laughed, a clear happy sound that echoed slightly against the walls that surrounded them. ‘Do I mind you getting covered in brick dust and sand while I sit in a nice comfortable office? Nah, I don’t mind that at all.’
* * *
Marie had spent most of the morning in her office, trying to find things to do. When three-thirty came around and the stream of mothers walking past the clinic from the school began to start she fetched the printed leaflets which detailed the services the clinic had to offer from the stockroom, along with one of the chairs from the café, and went to sit out in the sun by the main gates.
It would be one thing if Alex had changed over a few years—everyone changed. But he’d always carried this burden. The pressure of inheriting the money after his father’s death had just made him less adept at hiding it.
And she’d never noticed. Caught up in her own work and looking after her family, she’d seen Alex as someone she wished she could be. A golden dream that she’d held on to, wanting to believe that work and responsibility weren’t the only things in life. But now she’d seen a new Alex, challenging and complicated, and she couldn’t help loving him better for it.
The stream of parents and kids had lessened now, and she’d given away almost all her leaflets. She’d catch the two young mums who were dawdling down the road towards her, plastic bags hanging from the arms of their pushchairs, and then she’d call it a day.
‘Hi. May I give you a leaflet, please? About what we’re doing here...’
One of them nodded, taking the leaflet and stuffing it into one of her shopping bags. The other took hers, and started to read it.
‘I was wondering what was happening with this place. I used to go to school here...’
‘Me too.’ Marie grinned. ‘Looks a lot better now.’
‘Tell me about it. It was a real dump when I came here. We transferred over to the new school after a year.’
‘We’re opening next week. You’re welcome to come and have a look around, see how it’s changed.’
‘I don’t know...’ The woman shook her head.
‘You don’t have to sign up for anything. Just look. There’s a café.’ Marie fished in her pocket for one of the printed vouchers. ‘And this is for a free coffee.’
The woman took the voucher, stowing it away in her purse. ‘Okay, thanks. What do you think, Nisha?’
Marie offered a second voucher and Nisha took it. Now that she had a conversation going, Marie decided that she should capitalise on it.
‘I don’t suppose you’d like a few extra leaflets, would you? To give to your friends? We have a range of services.’ Marie pointed to the list on the leaflet. ‘There’s going to be a gym and a swimming pool, and they’ll be open seven days a week. There’s a nominal charge for those, but we’ve tried to keep it affordable.’
‘I used to like swimming. The pool over on Stratton Road closed down, you know.’
Two pairs of eyes suddenly focussed away from her and over her left shoulder. Marie turned and saw Alex, wheeling a barrow full of bricks around the side of the building.
‘That’s the director of the clinic.’
Nisha’s eyebrows shot up and the other woman choked with laughter. ‘Really? Doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty, then?’
‘When he’s not laying bricks he’s a doctor. But we don’t just tackle specific medical problems—it’s all about living well.’
‘And what do you do here?’
‘I’m a doctor too.’
‘Neesh...?’
The other woman nudged her companion, but Nisha shook her head. A sixth sense pricked at the back of Marie’s neck. This was just the kind of thing the clinic was here for—the problems that people didn’t want to talk about.
‘Take my card.’ Marie offered one of the cards that had been printed with her name. ‘If there’s ever anything I can help with, just ask for me.’
Nisha nodded, taking the card. She looked at it, glanced at Marie, and then unzipped her handbag, putting the card inside. Maybe she’d take the offer up, but Marie knew from experience that she needed to let her think about it. Pushing now would only elicit a no.
‘My name’s Marie.’ She turned to the other woman.
‘Carol. Do you do mother-and-toddler swimming classes?’
‘Yes—you can sign up for them next week, when the clinic opens.’
‘I’ll definitely do that. We come past here every day. We might get another eyeful of that director of yours...’ Carol laughed as Nisha raised her eyebrows. ‘Only joking, Neesh.’
The toddler in Carol’s pushchair started to fret. ‘Yeah, all right, Georgie. We’ll be home soon, and then we’re going to the park. It was nice to meet you, Marie.’
‘You too. Hope I’ll see you again soon.’
The two women started to walk again, chatting companionably. Marie heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Alex, holding two glasses of lemonade. He handed her one.
‘Thanks, I could do with that. I’ve talked my head off, given out a whole handful of leaflets and also some free coffee vouchers. How are you doing?’
Alex grinned, leaning towards her as if he was about to impart something highly confidential. ‘Rather well, I think.’
‘Can I see it?’
‘No. The courtyards are my territory for the next couple of days. You can have the offices and the front gates. I’ll water the seeds for you.’
‘You won’t forget? You know how bad you are at watering plants.’ Marie shot him an imploring look.
‘That’s reassuring. I’m expecting people to put their lives in my hands, and you can’t trust me with a few seed trays.’
It was nice to see Alex teasing again. Marie had missed that, and it seemed that a little practical work had lifted some of the weight from his shoulders. He was looking a lot more like the relaxed and cheerful Alex that she’d known before all this had happened.
Alex nodded at the pavement behind her and Marie saw Carol hurrying towards them. It looked as if she had something on her mind.
‘Hey, Carol. This is Alex, our director.’
‘Pleased to meet you.’
Alex wiped his hand on his jeans and held it out. Carol shook it, nodding at him quickly, and then turned to Marie.
‘Did you mean what you said? To Nisha?’
‘About coming to see me? Of course. Is there something wrong?’
Carol nodded, tight-lipped.
‘Do you want to come inside and talk?’
Perhaps it was something Carol didn’t want to say in front of Alex.
‘No. No, that’s all right. I’ve got to get home—this one’s going to start playing up in a minute.’ She gestured down at Georgie, who was wriggling in the pushchair, clearly cross that the park was on hold for the moment.
Alex squatted down on his heels and poked his tongue out at the toddler. Their game of pulling faces seemed to be keeping them both occupied for a moment, which left Carol free to talk with Marie.
‘Is there something Nisha needs? Something we can help with?’
‘Yeah. Look, I can’t really talk about it...’
Carol was almost whispering now, and Marie lowered her voice too.
‘That’s okay. Has she been to see her GP?’
‘No, she won’t. This place looks...’ Carol shrugged. ‘She might come here. I could get her to come. But you will see her, won’t you? I don’t know that it’s a strictly medical thing.’
‘If it’s not a medical problem I’ll refer her to someone who can help her. The whole point of this place is to find whatever answer is appropriate.’
‘Right. Thanks. When are you opening? For...um...whatever... Appointments?’
‘Next week. But Nisha doesn’t need an appointment—she can come at any time. All you need to do is get her here and I’ll make time to see her.’
‘Great. Thanks.’ Carol looked down at Georgie, who was laughing and trying to reproduce the faces Alex was making. ‘I’d better get back. I told Nisha I was just popping back for something at the shops and I’d meet her in the park.’
‘All right. But, Carol...’ Marie caught Carol’s arm before she could leave. ‘This is important. If you think Nisha’s in danger in any way you must get her to call someone. Or bring her here.’
‘No, it’s nothing like that. Her husband’s a good man. It’s just...embarrassing. You know?’
‘Okay. I can do embarrassing. Get her to come and see me—you can come with her if that helps.’ She glanced down at Alex, raising her voice to catch his attention. ‘I don’t think Alex’s quite used up his stock of funny faces.’
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