There was a murmur of agreement. The islanders were indeed grateful, but she glanced around and she still saw wariness. The history of her ancestors was still there, an almost tangible thing, a history of abuse for financial gain. But in what way could she possibly gain by this, she thought, except the satisfaction of seeing an island cared for?
‘Believe it or not, I don’t want gratitude,’ she managed—but suddenly she was caught.
Leo.
She looked at him, really looked at him. She’d thought he’d been laughing as she’d entered. Maybe he had, but there was no laughter here. He looked exhausted. It wasn’t unusual to see Leo look tired, but this was different. His fatigue seemed bone deep.
‘Leo, what’s wrong?’ She said it before she could help herself, but he shook his head, as if to tell her not to go there.
Well, why should she? They had no choice but to be nothing to each other. She shouldn’t care that he looked as if he was driving himself into the ground.
The islanders were being polite. Smiling warily at her. They were assuring her how much they appreciated what she was doing. The thanks were effusive and she thought, They still think I can snatch it away.
But Leo... What was with him? Why the bleak look?
She couldn’t care. He didn’t want her to care.
It was almost time for the formalities. She’d organised for the head of trustees to formally open the emergency department—that seemed as close a gesture as she could make to declaring it was being handed over to the people. Then she’d asked Leo to speak and he’d reluctantly agreed.
‘It’s not my place,’ he’d said, and she’d almost lost it.
‘It’s your island,’ she’d told him. ‘This is for your people. Just do it.’
So he’d agreed.
There’d be feasting and fireworks on the battlements. There’d be a blessing in the island church in the morning and then life would move on.
For twenty years.
* * *
But Leo didn’t play his part.
The head of trustees gave a wonderful, generous introduction but Leo wasn’t there to take over. It was Carla who finally rose to take his place.
‘He must have been called away,’ she told the crowd. ‘But Dr Raymond is already trying to organise additional medical staff for us, so our Dr Leo might be able to have a well-deserved rest.’
She spoke warmly and well, but the gap left by Leo was almost palpable.
Still, it was a party. The fireworks were spectacular. The music was brilliant.
Anna still felt empty.
The silence as she approached, the forced way people responded to her, the wariness... When would it end?
In twenty years?
And then Carla found her. She was flushed, big-eyed, obviously worried. ‘Anna, can you help?’
‘Of course.’ She’d been wondering how soon she could escape. She wouldn’t mind a bit of medical need to give her an excuse.
‘I think Leo’s mother’s dying,’ Carla said, and Anna’s heart sank. This wasn’t the kind of medical need she’d had in mind.
‘She’s slipped badly over the last week and we’re not sure how close the end is,’ Carla told her. ‘I’m guessing...close. Her sister—Leo’s aunt—is starting to be frightened, so Leo’s been sitting up with her these last few nights. But now he’s tired to the point of collapse. We’ve had medical dramas this week, plus more than our share of births, and I know he’s exhausted. He won’t hear of me helping and all his relatives are here. He wants them to stay, to be part of the celebrations, but he’s there alone. Anna, he’s past exhaustion. If you’re not needed here any more...would you go?’
‘I’d go if I could be any use,’ she said, puzzled. ‘Carla, I’m not sure he’d want me.’
That was a heavy statement, but she knew it was true.
But now Carla was almost waspish, weariness and anger showing through her request for Anna to help. ‘Of course he wants you,’ she snapped. ‘I know there are things between you—I’d be blind not to see it—but tonight he needs help, medical as well as personal. You need to get over yourselves, the pair of you, but meanwhile I need you... Donna needs you...to get over there. Here’s the address. Can I depend on you?’
And there was nothing to say to that except, ‘Of course.’
* * *
His mother was deeply asleep. There was time—even a need—to think of the events of the day.
The opening of this first step of the medical centre had been amazing. The plan was the culmination of everything he’d dreamed of for the island. It’d take a while to build a medical team with the skills to take advantage of the facilities Anna was providing, but already international interest within medical circles had been piqued. Doctors’ quarters in a magnificent renovated castle would be a distinct lure, as was building a medical service almost from the ground up.
Island infrastructure was still a problem but Anna was already onto that. He’d heard her tell the head of the trustees...
‘How can I be happy living here if I can’t phone my friends on the other side of the island?’
There were so many issues facing the island, lack of good schools, good roads, a decent port, but Anna was onto those, too. He knew she’d find a way.
She was astounding.
She was the woman of his dreams and he couldn’t claim her.
Maybe in three or four years when the medical team had settled, when the islanders had finally started to trust...
Or maybe not. How deep did mistrust of the Castlavarans go? For him to ally himself with a family that had essentially killed his father...
It couldn’t happen.
He closed his mind, as he’d learned to do so often in the past when things hurt to the point where his chest felt as if it’d burst. As his chest felt like it was bursting now. His mother was slipping quietly from this life. She might rally, as she’d rallied before, but he knew the end was growing closer.
As a doctor he knew that this was a time for acceptance, but this was his mother. For so many years there’d been just the two of them. His distress was for memories of what had been. It was also fatigue—and for a build-up of emotion he could no longer hold back.
In the distance he could still hear the celebrations from the castle. He wasn’t a part of them. They belonged...to the woman he loved?
He’d never felt so alone in his life.
* * *
Talk about the worst house in the best street! Realtors often said these were the best buys, but there was nothing ‘best’ about the house Carla had directed her to. The stone terraces here were crumbling, the façades sagging with time. The ground here must have shifted, maybe with some long-ago earth tremor, Anna thought, as the walls on each seemed out of alignment, plugged with timber, all slightly askew.
Leo’s house was at the end of the row and its skew was the worst. Its woodwork was brightly painted. Its tiny front garden was a tangle of gorgeous vines and flowers—someone here had loved gardening—but nothing could disguise the meanness of its narrow façade, and the way it sagged toward the cobbled waterway at the end of the street.
Had Leo been paid nothing for the work he’d put into this island? For the local doctor to live in such a place...
But she wasn’t here to judge. She knocked tentatively on the door. There was no answer. She pushed and the door swung open onto a small sitting room.
‘Leo?’
‘Anna!’ She heard his shock. She pushed open the next door and Leo was inside.
As a doctor it was a scene she was familiar with. Acceptance came with experience of situations like this.
One look at Donna told her that the end, indeed, was close. She was a tiny woman and disease had shrunk her even more. The mass of white curls around her face was practically the sum of her. She lay completely still,
and Anna wondered if this was sleep or coma.
‘Carla said you might need me,’ she said softly.
The shock was still with him. His hand was holding his mother’s and he didn’t rise. ‘Carla had no right.’
‘Carla loves you—as all the islanders love you.’
There was silence at that. He turned back to look down into his mother’s face and his distress was almost palpable.
‘Unconscious?’
‘She stirred a little while back. She asked for water.’
‘She’s asleep, then,’ she said softly. ‘Leo, when did you last sleep?’
‘I can’t remember.’
She nodded and walked across to lift Donna’s emaciated wrist away from Leo. The pulse was steady. There was time yet, but who knew how long?
She put the old lady’s hand back into his.
‘You’ll collapse if you don’t sleep.’
‘My aunt...she’s the only one my mother trusts and she won’t stay any more. She’s scared.’
That happened. Death could be terrifying—or it could be a gentle slipping away, the culmination of a life well lived.
‘Would you sleep for a couple of hours if I stayed with her?’ she ventured. ‘She doesn’t know me but...’
‘Of course she knows you. You’re the Castlavaran.’ It was said with something akin to desperation.
Now wasn’t the time to argue. Anna simply nodded.
‘If she knows that, then she’ll also know I’m a doctor. She shouldn’t be frightened if she stirs. But if she does stir and worries, Leo, I’ll wake you straight away. I promise. Will you trust me that much?’
‘You know I’d trust you...with everything I have.’
It was a big statement but she had to move past it.
‘Then trust me with your mother,’ she said. ‘Let me take the chair. You go and find your bed and sleep.’
‘Anna...after all I’ve done to you...’
‘Don’t go there,’ she said softly. ‘For now there’s only your mother to think of, and your need for sleep.’ He rose, and before she could help herself she laid her palm on his cheek. It was a caress of comfort, nothing more, and it seemed to ground them both.
‘Sleep, Leo,’ she said softly. ‘I will wake you the moment you’re needed. Know that you can trust me.’
‘I do trust you,’ he said, and his voice was ragged with fatigue. ‘Of course I trust you. But the whole island—’
‘Forget about it,’ she told him. ‘Just go.’
And with one last long look at his mother—and then her—he went.
* * *
In the end it was a time of peace, sitting in the dark, listening to the thready breathing of the sleeping Donna. Maybe she should be distressed. Maybe the events of the day should have left her disoriented. But there was something about this time, this night, that said her world was somehow settling.
She was a stranger to this woman but she didn’t feel like a stranger. This felt like her place.
She sat and let the stillness of the night envelop her and the rest of the world seemed to fade to nothing.
She should be tired but she didn’t feel it. As the night wore on there was nothing but the sound of breathing. The sounds of peace.
And then, just before the dawn, Donna woke. Her dark eyes flickered open, focussing. The nightlight illuminated both their faces, but not so much. Enough.
‘You...’ It was the faintest of whispers. ‘It is you. The Castlavaran.’
‘I’m Anna,’ she said softly. ‘Leo’s sleeping in the next room. Yes, I’m the Castlavaran.’ What was the use of denying it now?
‘You’re the woman my son loves.’
There was no answer to that. She took Donna’s hand to tuck it under the cover but it was grasped and held.
‘I’ll get Leo for you,’ she told her. ‘I’m sorry that you had to find me here, but you know I’m a doctor? Leo needed to sleep.’
‘Don’t be sorry. I’m sorry. You’re Anna.’ She sighed, a huge, regret-filled sigh of sorrow. ‘Anna, he loves you.’
‘And he can’t marry me.’ Why not say it like it was? ‘Donna, it’s okay. Your son won’t do anything to put his family, or the islanders, at risk.’
‘I know that,’ Donna said distressfully, obviously making an Herculean effort to speak. ‘But he fell in love. He has a photograph of you on his bedside table. He sent it to me all those years ago—“This is the woman I’m going to marry.” And then nothing. Finally he explained and I agreed. Impossible. But I thought... I thought he must get over it. Move on.’
‘That was...sensible.’
‘It was selfish,’ Donna told her, fighting for each word. ‘Did he tell you? How could you ever know...?’
‘Donna...’
‘Let me say it.’ The grip on her hand tightened. ‘You know the Castlavarans killed his father? The night my husband came down with appendicitis... Carla was here then, our first ever doctor. She said the appendix had burst, that he needed emergency surgery and she couldn’t do it here. I sent Leo to the castle to plead. He was twelve years old and we thought—it was the only way—a child pleading might just break down the Castlavaran indifference. We needed money to hire a helicopter. He wouldn’t survive a boat trip to where he could get help. But your grandfather asked what was in it for him and then he slammed the door in Leo’s face.’
‘Oh, Donna...’
‘And the stories go on,’ Donna whispered, obviously fighting for breath to speak each word. ‘Every islander has a story. So now... Anna, if there was any way he could do the work he needs to do with you by his side... If there was any way I thought he wouldn’t lose the islanders’ trust... What you’re doing at the castle... I’m so proud of you. If I could see a way...’
‘It’s not for you to see our way for us,’ Anna told her, wiping a tear slipping down the old lady’s cheek. ‘Leo and I will sort it out. We must.’
‘He can’t. He’s like his father. He’s too honourable...’
‘I know that.’
‘You’ll have to do something,’ Donna murmured. ‘Please.’
‘I’ll do what I can.’ She leaned over and kissed her lightly on her wrinkled cheek. ‘Meanwhile, I promised I’d wake Leo the moment you woke and I’m honourable, too. Believe it or not.’
‘I do,’ Donna muttered fretfully. ‘But can the islanders?’
* * *
He was soundly asleep, and it almost broke her to wake him. For a moment she stood, watching the steady fall and rise of his chest. He was still fully dressed, sleeping on top of the bed rather than in it. A big man in a small room.
She needed to call his name. He’d be awake in an instant, she thought. She’d promised to call.
But she took a moment, a moment only, to look around her.
The room was sparsely furnished. It was the room of a man who spent hardly any time here. There were faded marks on the walls, she guessed from childhood, from posters finally fallen down from where they’d been stuck on ancient plaster. The rugs were threadbare and the iron bedstead minimalist.
A decent sound system sat on the bedside table with good-quality headphones and she thought, At least he hasn’t deprived himself of everything.
And then she saw the photograph.
It was small, black and white, enclosed in a simple silver frame.
She remembered when it had been taken. They’d just passed their exams and had gone to a fun fair. There’d been a photo booth and, laughing, sticky with fairy floss, they’d entered.
The picture was of two faces laughing from behind their mass of cotton candy. They were squashed so tightly together they almost seemed an extension of each other. It had been blown up from passport-sized and had been grainy, low-resolution in the first place, but their love and laughter showed through.
S
he had the matching print tucked in a bottom drawer. After all these years it hurt too much to see it, but that neither of them had destroyed it... Maybe such a thing couldn’t be destroyed.
‘If I could see a way...’ Donna’s words were still reverberating.
What way?
But she’d told Donna that now wasn’t the time and she was right. She’d made a promise.
She leaned over and touched Leo on the shoulder. He was awake in an instant.
‘She’s okay, Leo. She’s awake and talking.’ It was all she could say. It wasn’t for her to say what he knew for himself, that things were shutting down. ‘She’s just woken up.’
‘I’ll go to her.’
He rose and raked his hair.
And suddenly she was seeing him the night his father had died. Maybe he’d been woken from this bed, in this room. She thought of a twelve-year-old, woken from sleep, walking across the darkened drawbridge to the great castle gates. What a thing to ask of a child. How alone must he have felt?
He was alone now, facing the death of his mother. Plus he was facing the ongoing needs this island had heaped on his shoulders.
She could help. She could share.
But for an Aretino to become a Castlavaran...
‘If I could see a way...’
This island was so rigid but it had become this way through need—she’d accepted that. The castle and its owners were simply ‘the Other’. You were an islander or a Castlavaran, not both.
If things could change...
They could change. With transfer of titles, with release of castle funds...
In twenty years.
It has to be possible, Anna thought. Her pride, her anger for the way she’d been treated had ebbed away. There was only aching need for this solitary man who’d done all in his power to make things good for his people.
He should be the Castlavaran, she thought. The ruler. He’d earned the right of respect, trust, the things a ruler needed. It shouldn’t be her making these decisions. A tweak of fate had left the island in her hands but this man had earned it.
Second Chance with Her Island Doc Page 15