On dark, she trekked up the beach and towards the surgery. The sand was still a sunlit warm, the cicadas drumming. From deeper in the village came the rumble of a crowd and piped music. The concert must be about to start.
The lights were all off in the surgery. She peered in the windows and found it empty, so she walked around the back. Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” played softly through the window, a song she’d last heard in Bermuda. She could only wish for the sentiment of the lyrics.
With hesitation, she knocked.
The music turned down, and the door swung open. Alex looked like he’d just gotten up, his hair ruffled, shirt creased.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Wait a sec,” he said, catching her hand so she couldn’t take off. “Come here.”
He pulled her inside out of the blues and greys of the night and into the soft lemon light from his bedside lamp. Erin tried to stop herself looking around, but she couldn’t help it. The small room was nearly filled with the double bed. Three shirts hung in the open closet, a suitcase underneath. A book was on the bedside table, a receipt stuck in to mark the page.
He tipped her chin gently, his gaze intent on her face. She knew he must just be being professional, but Erin was suddenly wondered how hideous she was. Was she going to be black and blue in two days when she met Ivan? Would that even go ahead now?
“Is it bad?” she asked. “I haven’t dared look.”
“Do you want to see?”
She shook her head, but he pulled her over to the mirror on the wall, his hands gentle. A bruise ran from the corner of her mouth and over the swell of her cheek, where the skin was red and mottled. Her lip had split, the spot scabbed over.
“See?” he said. “Not so bad. Just early for Halloween.”
Erin put her hands up to her face, shaking her head, the upset of the day and the pain worming under her eyelids and threatening tears. Alex’s hands guided her to the bed and sat her down.
“Hurting?”
She nodded.
“Let me make sure there’s no serious damage, ok?”
He didn’t ask her to come through into the clinic, simply sat alongside her on the bed, his hands sure as he tested each of the nerves in her face. Then, when he was fairly sure nothing was broken, he went to find her tablets for the pain. All the time, Pink Floyd played in the background, reminding Erin of summers on the island – crisp chips and tomato sauce, hot sand and cool fruity ice blocks.
“I wouldn’t have picked you for a Floyd fan,” she said when he returned from the surgery. “Though this is the only song I can think of that’s about both medicine and sailing.”
“I found the CD in the cupboard. Listen Erin, I want to apologise for what I said to you last time. Your father is none of my business. I was out of line. Way out.”
He sat beside her again, the mattress shifting her towards him. “I don’t want something like that to be the reason this never went anywhere. I want you to still be here tomorrow morning.” He was looking down at the floor, putting it all out there.
Erin sucked a breath. She was tired and sore but something inside her responded. After the hellish week and the disappointments of the race, he was safe harbour. She wanted to believe that it could work.
She licked her sore lip, remembering the last time he’d been on her boat. Her fingers reached out to undo his top button, a smile suddenly tugging the sore parts of her face.
“Why doctor, are you going to take advantage of your patient?” she whispered.
His eyes were serious as he skimmed his thumbs along her jaw. “I’m not your doctor,” he said. “I’m your lover.”
Chapter 21
Erin surfaced from sleep some hours later, lingering in the soft warmth of the covers. As she rose closer to fully awake, her body knew something was different. The world was still; not a ripple moved the boat beneath her, almost as if she were on shore.
She cracked an eyelid. Alex lay beside her, his chest gently rising and falling, the sheets twisted around them both. It wasn’t her cabin. A proper room with a lofting roof, the walls covered with familiar green wallpaper. The bookcase lining the opposite wall. Erin had slept in here once when her father had been working late one night, watching over Gus when he’d had his heart problems. This night was like that again, a weight of atmosphere sitting heavily on her shoulders. Rain was coming.
Erin pushed her feet to the carpet and stood. Alex never stirred, as though he wasn’t really here. He was a shadow, an echo of the day world. Maybe, if Erin just glided down the hall to the consulting room, she would find her father there again.
The hall tiles were cold, sending shivers across her skin. She crept towards the waiting area, all exactly as it had been the last time she’d dared come in here. The same blue plastic chairs, the same desk, the same tub of worn wooden toys. All shadowed in midnight blues, the smallest sliver of moon hanging outside the window.
She ran her fingers along the smooth edge of the desk, watching the black space beyond the open consulting room door creep towards her. She half-expected her father to emerge, to put his hand on her shoulder, kiss her hand and guide her back to bed as he had that night. But he didn’t. She stood in the doorway of his room, the contents resolving slowly, like ships raised from a gloomy sea floor. The pale examination couch, the hard edge of the sink. Her father would never be here again. She had lost him. And the secret of how burned in the back of her brain, bundled in shame and grief so thick she wished it could be a dream.
Then she did hear a footstep. A warm hand stroked her arm, and a kiss fell on her shoulder.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Alex asked softly, as he drew her back into his embrace. His skin was a furnace against hers. “Erin, you’re freezing.”
Soon he had led her back to bed, pulling her under the covers. Erin lay awake, the pressure of her secret pushing forward onto her tongue.
“Did you have a bad dream?” he asked softly.
“Why do you ask?”
“Sometimes you talk in your sleep.”
Erin felt a bolt of fear. “What do I say?”
The sheets shifted as he shook his head. “Nothing that makes sense. Something about the sea, and once you said, ‘Dad, please’.”
Erin let this wash through her. Alex didn’t push. In fact, she could sense him pulling away, as if a tide was running out in the space between them. As if he was far away, under a different sky.
Then he said, “I have bad dreams sometimes, too.”
Alex didn’t know what it was about tonight, but he knew he had to tell her. He didn’t reopen these memories willingly. But he also wanted his relationship with Erin to go somewhere, and he knew that couldn’t happen without the truth.
“Six years ago,” he began. “I was flying between islands over in Hawaii. There were five of us – a mate of mine, one of his friends, my fiancée Nikki, and the pilot. We’d all been sailing off one of the outer islands, and we were coming back for a wedding the next day. Sun was going down. I remember what it looked like on the water, all rippling gold.”
Alex opened his eyes, focusing on the white ceiling, on the feel of his body against the bed. Anything to remind himself he was here, not back then. Erin was motionless beside him, only her breath telling him that she was listening to every word.
“We lost engine power. It was one of those small, single prop planes. I remember the pilot being so calm about telling us we’d have to ditch in the water. Nikki had hold of my hand really tight, but none of us said anything. I think we didn’t believe it was happening. Even when we hit the water, I was still waiting for it all to not be real.”
Alex blew out a breath, keen to get past this part. “It didn’t take long to sink. My mate was stuck in his seat, trying to get out of his belt. I don’t know how Nikki got out, to be honest. I just remember still being in the cabin, trying to get Trent’s belt undone for him when the whole thing went under.”
The memory of the black w
ater came at him, as if it was happening again. The pressure of it squeezing his chest. He focused on his breath, in, out … in, out, until he could breathe around the choking feeling.
“We did make it out, though,” he croaked. “Obviously. By the time I broke the surface, my lungs were on fire. I thought that was the worst over. I mean, we were alive, right? But we were in the water. I could see land, but a long way off and the sun was nearly down. The water was black. We were pretty sure the pilot had a broken arm, and Trent was bleeding from a cut on his face. The only good thing was that it was summer, and the water was warm. So we started to swim.”
“How far was it?” Erin asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Alex shrugged. “No idea. A few k’s maybe? But the light faded fast and it was hard to see anything then. There weren’t any lights, or even a moon. Just stars, and all that black ocean. We didn’t know if anyone was looking for us. The pilot had made a distress call out, but we didn’t know if anyone had heard it. And anyway, how would they see us at night? It was maybe an hour before we’d all worked that out. That’s when we started to have problems. Nikki went into a panic, saying that we’d never make it. And then Trent said he didn’t want to swim anymore. The defeat was contagious – once one person gave up, it spread. Trent’s friend was falling further behind. I remember he was wearing this orange shirt, but I’d look back and barely be able to see him. The pilot, too.”
“Did you feel like that, too?” Erin asked softly.
Alex shook his head against the pillow, not because he hadn’t felt the same desperation, but because to this day, he didn’t know why he’d reacted the way he had. He remembered the fear as black as the sea. Remembered how everyone’s will to go on was unravelling, that they could easily give up and drown. And how that had made him angry.
“Something in me snapped,” he said. “I managed to get everyone back into a group. The pilot was bleeding from his head, too, and we hadn’t even noticed. We patched that up as best we could, then I told Nikki we weren’t giving up. We were all going to stick together. I’d make sure of it. I pointed at a star over where I hoped the island was, and I told them we had to keep swimming towards it.
“My pep talk worked for about an hour. But everyone was tired, and cramping up. Nikki asked me to hold her up, just for a while. And I couldn’t – I was exhausted too. But she leaned her weight on me, and I panicked that she’d push me under. So I shoved her off. I meant to tell her she could keep going, but all the positive stuff wasn’t working any more. We probably had sharks circling us. So, I said … other things.”
Alex could still feel those words he’d said, so harsh they’d cut his salt-swollen tongue. That he couldn’t believe she’d just give up. How weak she was. That she mustn’t really love him. That if she really wanted to be a mother, what kind of mother wouldn’t want to keep swimming? That had been the worst one. They’d both wanted children, and Nikki was particularly keen to start, even before they got married. Alex had wanted the wedding first, but he’d never questioned Nikki’s dedication to their future children. Never used it as a weapon on her like he had then.
It didn’t matter that it seemed to have worked; that they’d kept swimming for the island even as the inky night deepened around them. That his taunts had given her the energy she needed. The shame of the memory never faded, and now he told this all to Erin.
“I don’t know how many hours it was before we heard the first chopper go over. But they couldn’t see us. Trent started yelling anyway that we were there, or trying to. He had no voice left. We could only listen to the engines fading away, then sometimes coming back, only to leave again. And then there was only stars, until dawn finally came.
“The pilot had disappeared by then. I swam back to look for him, but I couldn’t find him. I tried to bunch us together, but the others weren’t cooperating. Land seemed so much closer, so I tried to pull Nikki with me and make for the shore. It was only a few hundred metres. But she wouldn’t come, so … I left her behind.”
Alex drew in a breath. He smelled only the trace of apple scented detergent on the sheets, and the clean salty edge of Haven’s bay. Erin’s body was tense beside him.
“Did she ... make it?” Erin asked.
“I didn’t know for a while. I pulled myself up on the beach about twenty minutes later and collapsed. I don’t know how long I was there on the sand. Eventually, someone was shaking my shoulder and hauling me up. I was put on a boat and ended up in the hospital on the big island. Nikki and the others were picked up in rescue boats, which had been out since first light. That was the funny thing – the searchers found them first, even the pilot, who I was sure must have drowned. I saw them finding me last as another sign of what a monster I’d been.”
“I can’t believe you went through all that,” Erin said. “I can understand why you didn’t want to sail anymore.”
Alex gave her a bitter laugh. “It wasn’t the accident that did that. That happened in the two years afterwards, and it was all me. Small planes? Now those I have definite pause about. But sailing’s something different.” Abruptly, he rolled towards her so that he could see her face, needing to know that she could understand what he was about to say next, because this, this was truly the point of the story.
“The accident wasn’t the worst part of what happened,” he said. “Yeah, I had dreams about it – still do – but the real damage was what it did to me and Nikki. After what happened in the water, those things I’d said to her? And leaving her behind? I couldn’t take that back. She never trusted me again. Our relationship was broken. Of course, we tried to pretend, to go on with our lives. We did get married, but she didn’t talk about having kids anymore. I wasn’t the same man to her after the accident, even though I never meant any of the things I said. And I was changed. I couldn’t control my temper. I’d never been a hothead before, but I couldn’t suffer fools after that. One of the members at our racing club nearly collided with my boat at a race start one weekend, then later in the bar he made some stupid joke – chauvinistic, stupid blokey joke – and I knocked his head off for it. They threw me out after that. There’d been too many other problems before.”
“So that was true,” Erin said.
Alex allowed himself a dark smile towards the ceiling. Most of the rumours about him were true; the only thing people didn’t know was the story behind it all.
“Did the rumour mill also say I’d had my medical registration suspended?”
Erin made a noise in her throat. “I was sure that one wasn’t true.”
“Well, it was.” Alex sighed. “As I said, I had a lot of trouble controlling my temper. A patient of mine was being abused by her husband. Textbook case. She’d had many untreated injuries. They were all over the x-rays. The guy had the hide to front up to take her home, making lame excuses about how clumsy she was. I knocked him out cold. Not exactly how a hospital wants its doctors to behave.”
Alex rubbed his forehead ruefully. As inappropriate as it had been, he’d never been so satisfied in his life. Even the police who’d read him the riot act seemed sympathetic.
“Of course, the guy was vocal about the police pressing charges. And that gave other colleagues of mine permission to raise their concerns about me. The charges ended up dropped but I was put on report while I worked my problems out. Nikki left after that. To be honest, I was surprised it wasn’t sooner. We’d long stopped talking by then.”
There was a long silence. Finally, Erin said, “How did you work things out?”
“A lot of therapy, a lot of meditation,” Alex said. “The accident and how it affected me … that doesn’t go away. I learned how to live with it. I don’t sail anymore because it puts my blood up, but it’s not a never-again thing. I … just thought you should know.”
“About the sailing, or the whole thing?” Erin asked.
Alex gave a soft laugh. “Both seem pretty important when you’re falling in love with a sailor.”
She buried her fa
ce in his neck, her arms stretched around him.
“I’m so sorry all that happened to you,” she said eventually. “It’s amazing you survived. They should have given you some kind of bravery award.”
“They tried.”
“What?”
He gave a bitter laugh. “Right after Nikki left, I was nominated for one. Apparently Trent would’ve drowned in the crash if I hadn’t helped pull him out, and maybe the others wouldn’t have made it either. But I told them I didn’t want it.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t feel like a hero, Erin. I felt despicable after what I said to Nikki. I didn’t know I was capable of that, even under pressure. No way was I going to collect some award for it. What got me back on my feet was my job. And good therapy. I can’t go back to how I was before the accident, but I won’t settle for the man I was afterwards, either.”
“Well, I like the man you are,” she said softly. “I’ve never felt unsafe with you.”
Alex had to reflect that he’d never met anyone in his life who could accept everything he’d just told her without their estimation of him changing. He’d confided the story in one girlfriend since (the relationship didn’t last very long) and a colleague at another hospital, who had both seemed nervous afterwards. But Erin only tucked herself closer against him, as if the disclosure caused him to make more sense to her, not less.
For the first time since the accident, Alex found himself holding her close, hope so much more beautiful than the first light of day. Maybe this really could go somewhere. Maybe all his past mistakes could be absolved.
And just for tonight, he let himself push down the knowledge she was carrying some secret of her own that she hadn’t shared. In a way, it made sense. In his experience, secrets weren’t the things that hurt – well, except for yourself. It was when all the unspeakable acts were out in the open that they did the most harm.
On a Starlit Ocean Page 21