The last words were defiant, partly to soothe Nellie and partly to reassure herself—seeing ‘herself’ seemed increasingly confused about the issue.
Mrs Neil made a noise that sounded remarkably like a snort, then opened the door to the pantry and followed her mop inside.
‘I’ll see you later,’ Caitlin told Nellie, heading for the door before the other woman reappeared. Maybe she would ask Granny about the Neils and save herself some aggravation.
She unlocked her door and her heart stopped when she saw the folded note that had been shoved underneath.
Surely not another warning of some kind?
Her knees trembled as she knelt to pick it up, her fingers shook as she lifted it.
This is nonsense, she told herself, setting it unopened on the breakfast bar, and put on the kettle for a cup of coffee. It’s a message. Mike, or his admin assistant, had brought it over. They could hardly leave it outside.
But she couldn’t bring herself to open it—not until the coffee was made, a scone buttered and she was seated on a stool with her snack set neatly in front of her.
It was a message, and it was from admin, saying simply that Mrs Cummings had phoned to say she wouldn’t be available today. Would Caitlin please phone and arrange another time?
‘When Caitlin’s nerves have recovered!’ she muttered to herself, then she laughed at how easily she’d been spooked and resolved to put the nonsense of the first note completely out of her head.
‘After all,’ she told herself, ‘that first note might have been a compliment. Someone thought you looked like the illustration and wanted you to see it. The coffin and attitude of death was in your mind, not in the picture.’
She ate her scone and drank the coffee. With this afternoon’s appointment cancelled, she could get stuck into some real work.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A SUDDEN feeling of emptiness distracted Caitlin from the computer screen. The clock showed seven-fifteen. It had been a long time since she’d had that snack.
Her work was progressing well—she refused to acknowledge it might be going much better than that—with family lines falling into place in a most satisfactory manner. Perhaps, rather than cook, she’d go across and have dinner in the hospital kitchen and get Nellie’s views on her presence in the town. She might also mention Mrs Neil—if Nellie had worked at the hospital for forty years, she must know as much about what went on in the town as Granny Russell.
Shower first, clean clothes, do something with her hair, which was hanging limply around her shoulders—yes, a break was what she needed.
What she hadn’t needed was the sight of Connor, already settled at the wide kitchen table, head propped contentedly on his elbows as he watched Nellie ladle aromatic meat and vegetables from a large casserole dish.
He turned as the screen door banged behind her and she saw a smile hesitate at the corners of his mouth. His gaze swept over her, taking in the rather amateurish knot she’d made of her hair, fixing it on top of her head with pins, the pale pink lipstick she’d brushed on at the last minute and the gauzy summer dress that swept down to her ankles. A top-to-bottom scrutiny, repeated in reverse until his eyes met hers and the smile stopped hesitating.
‘Well, I’m glad to see one of your guests dressed for dinner, Nellie,’ he said, and Caitlin realised he was still in his white coat—crumpled and slightly stained by
Betadine, his stethoscope dragging at one pocket.
‘You coming to eat with us?’ Nellie asked.
‘Sure am, if that’s OK,’ Caitlin told her. ‘I didn’t write my name in the book.’
Nellie waved a hand as if it was unimportant, and Caitlin turned to Connor.
‘Had a long day?’
‘The longest,’ he said, standing up and pulling out a chair for her in a gesture that made her feel both special and foolish. In the cash-strapped lab where she worked, you fought the men for use of stools as well as project funding. She wasn’t used to chivalry.
He settled back in his chair and sniffed appreciatively at the dinner Nellie set in front of him.
‘Flying surgeon comes once a month. It’s much easier for the patients if we can do routine surgery here. Sending them to a larger town for hospitalisation dislocates the family and isolates the patient. Here, friends can visit, relatives don’t have to reorganise their lives so someone can accompany the patient out of town—a host of things.’
‘And today was the day? I remember Mike mentioning it last night.’ Caitlin turned to thank Nellie as her dinner was placed on the table.
‘Today was the day,’ Connor confirmed. ‘All fourteen hours of it! I was taking a breather when I saw you earlier. We’re usually better organised, one major op—perhaps a hip or knee replacement—and a few minor things—tonsillectomies, hand contractures or perhaps a carpal tunnel operation, bunions—routine stuff.’
‘And today?’
He smiled again and she forgot her hunger as she bathed in the special warmth of that smile. Or was it a heating in her blood supplying the warmth?
‘Today we had the aftermath of last night’s accident. Young Warwick. It was more complicated than I’d thought, and he’s ended up in traction. We were in theatre four hours with him, then had our normal caseload.’
‘We?’ Caitlin queried.
‘I usually play anaesthetist,’ he said. ‘The government makes sure we have sufficient skills to do the job and provides in-service training especially geared to the needs of rural medicine. But for Warwick’s leg, the surgeon needed a hand so Penny, one of our sisters, did the anaesthetic and I assisted, then took over the anaesthetist’s job for the others.’
‘That kind of day coming on top of last night—it’s no wonder you’re tired,’ Caitlin sympathised, and won another smile to bother her internal thermostat.
‘I imagine doctors like your father had it tougher,’ Connor said. ‘I met an old fellow who was a doctor here forty years ago. He talked about the operations he’d performed on patients he knew were too ill to send to a better facility. I think doctors were expected to have more general skills. I mean, what countrywoman ever went to a specialist to have a baby? Their choice was the local doctor, or the midwife if he happened to be busy.’
‘Most of the women where my father practised preferred the midwife,’ Caitlin told him.
‘Maidenly modesty or because your father treated them too roughly?’ Nellie asked, joining them at the table and urging them both to eat with a commanding wave of her hand.
‘Actually, it was sentiment. My father was a sentimental man and, no matter how many births he witnessed, he was always moved—usually to tears. Most women, having just given birth, freak out if they see the doctor crying. They assume there’s something terribly wrong with their baby. Apparently, knowing his tendency to tears didn’t make it any easier for them, so the hospital staff kept him right away from the maternity suite and let him have his little cry in the nursery later.’
Nellie laughed and Connor chuckled.
‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ he said.
‘It’s the gospel truth,’ Caitlin protested, tackling her dinner with a healthy appetite. ‘He left Coonebar five years ago, buying into a practice on the coast and cutting back on his workload, but I bet they’re still talking about it out there.’
‘We had a doctor here once used to sing all the time.’ Nellie joined in. ‘That drove the women mad as well. Why should he be so happy while we’re going through this agony? they’d say. Typical male, that’s what he was. The nurses used to try to hush him up, and he’d be quiet for a while, then start up again. Used to do it on the wards, and in Theatre—everywhere.’
‘Do you sing?’ Caitlin asked, turning to Connor.
‘Only in the bath,’ he replied.
Four small and trivial words, but there was a smile in his eyes as he said them—and perhaps a challenge. Whatever it was, it teased along Caitlin’s nerves and caused tremors low down in her abdomen.
&n
bsp; What was this weird stuff happening in her usually unsusceptible body?
She concentrated on her meal, hoping her inner reactions weren’t apparent to her companions.
Nellie was talking about another doctor now, a young man who’d never been out of the city.
‘We had a matron back then who ran the place like a military camp, barking orders right and left, bowing to no one. Poor lad thought he’d be the boss, but Matron soon put him right. Then he asked one of the nurses to have dinner at his house, and she really hit the roof. Gave him a lecture on propriety and what ‘‘good’’ girls her nurses were, and threatened him with castration if he didn’t toe the line. Or so the story goes.’
‘Apart from asking a nurse over to my quarters, which I never did, that could have been me when I arrived. It’s hard to know where you fit into the routine when you’re a newcomer,’ Connor countered when they’d finished laughing at the story.
‘Oh, you were never that green,’ Nellie protested. ‘And Mike was here to back you up and see you didn’t do too much wrong. I think men support each other in a work environment.’
Caitlin felt the atmosphere change—as if a door had opened somewhere and a cold breeze had blown through.
Nellie was lifting Connor’s empty plate and offering sweets, as placid and unperturbed as ever. So the shift had come from Connor. Caitlin finished her meal and stood up to take her plate across to the washing-up bench. It gave her an excuse to walk past him, to study his face for a moment. No longer smiling—in fact, shut tight, as if laughter was a memory too far away to recall.
‘Was Mike here when Dr Robinson started?’ he asked.
It was a casual question, one that wouldn’t have meant anything if she hadn’t felt the coolness in the air and seen the stiffness of his lips as he’d formed the words.
‘Angie Robinson?’ Nellie screwed up her face as if remembering such a detail required tremendous concentration. ‘Not at first. I think Matron Hobbs was still in charge when Angie came, then Mike arrived a few months later, if I remember it right.’
‘Was Matron Hobbs your martinet?’
Nellie seemed puzzled by Connor’s question.
‘The tough one who threatened the young doctor?’ Caitlin explained.
‘Oh, no, she’d been gone for ten years by the time Dr Robinson arrived. Matron Hobbs was lovely. You’d know her, Connor, she married that fellow who runs the golf club—never can remember her married name. She’d already given notice and the board had advertised the position but she had a few months to work before the wedding.’
From a discreet distance, over by the bench, Caitlin watched Connor’s reaction. He was more than interested.
‘Did you know Dr Robinson?’ The question was out before she could prevent its escape, but the expression that crossed his face made her wish it unsaid. He looked stricken! That was the only word for it. And now Nellie was studying him more closely, although she answered Caitlin when she spoke.
‘He’s never mentioned it,’ she said, setting down a bowl of fruit salad and ice cream in front of Connor as she answered for him. ‘And, heaven knows, we’ve talked about the poor girl often enough. A lovely lass, she was. Quiet, but that’s because she was dedicated to the job. All she’d ever wanted to be was a country doctor, she told me, and she worked real hard at it.’
‘And are you saying I don’t, Nellie?’ Connor asked, his voice slightly strained as if speaking was an effort. ‘Or that I’m not dedicated because I’m loud and noisy?’
‘Get on with you, Connor,’ Nellie chided. ‘Don’t start that teasing talk with me. You know I get all tangled up, and you also know I think you’re a good doctor. Would I be wasting my cooking on someone who wasn’t?’
‘You’re letting Caitlin eat in here,’ he protested. ‘And you’ve got no idea how good she is at doctoring.’
Nellie chuckled and the comfortable rumble of sound seemed to restore the sense of camaraderie in the room, as if something off-centre had been tilted back into place again.
‘She’s a different kind of doctor,’ Nellie pointed out. ‘One of those thinking ones, not doing ones.’
Not thinking too well tonight, Caitlin added silently. She left the bench and crossed back to the table, refusing dessert but pouring herself a cup of coffee from the insulated pot Nellie had set in front of them.
‘Want one?’ she asked Connor.
He didn’t reply but pushed a cup towards her and she filled that one as well, then pushed it back.
He hadn’t answered the other question either.
‘Why don’t you take Caitlin for a walk up to the lookout?’ Nellie asked as Connor pushed his bowl away, sighing like a man who’d eaten well. ‘Nice night, moon not far past full.’
Caitlin was so surprised by the suggestion she said nothing, but Connor might have been expecting it for all the reaction he showed.
‘Matchmaking, Nellie?’ he asked in his usual calm way.
‘Not at all, just suggesting a bit of exercise for the pair of you. The moon out means you’ll be able to see, you dunderhead. Besides, why would I consider matchmaking for the likes of you? There’s any number of attractive healthy young women in this town who’ve done their own trying, to no avail. No, I know when a man’s not interested, and I’m sure Caitlin’s got enough sense to know it, too.’
Connor smiled at Nellie, then he rose to his feet and turned to Caitlin.
‘Well, seeing the moon’s bright enough for us to find our way, would you like to walk up to the lookout with me?’
She hesitated. Nellie’s words had started so many questions leaping in her mind. She asked the least important.
‘There’s a lookout within walking distance? I know there are hills out where Mike and Sue live, but the town itself is as level as a pool table, isn’t it?’
Connor’s smile became warmer, and his eyes lost the blank look they’d had since she’d asked about Angie Robinson.
‘Come and see,’ he tempted her. ‘Let me show you the wonder of Turalla by night.’
She said goodnight to Nellie and walked out of the kitchen with him. For all Nellie’s judgement of her ‘sense’, her heart was behaving as if she had none at all, as if a walk in the moonlight with Connor was a particularly special treat. It hippity-hopped about in her chest, causing breathing difficulties again, and she was so busy trying to settle it down she missed the beginning of his conversation.
‘Rid of this coat and get a jacket. Will you need something warm?’
Need something warm? With him walking down the steps beside her, she could feel both his warmth and her own—not to mention the inner heat that coiled low down in her stomach.
‘No, thanks,’ she said, marvelling at how well her voice was working.
She walked with him across the parking area, through the park where the swings hung motionless.
‘I’ll wait for you here,’ she suggested, and he laughed.
‘I’ve been wondering how long it would be before you gave in to your urge for a swing. Enjoy!’
He touched her lightly on the shoulder, steering her towards the playground.
‘I’ll be back in a few minutes,’ he added.
She settled on the swing, feeling the hardness of the wooden seat beneath her and the familiar feel of the chains in her hands. She pushed herself back as far as she could, then let her body fly forward, lifting her legs to give upward impetus, then lowering them as she swung backwards.
The movements were mechanical, remembered coordination of muscles, allowing her mind to go back to Nellie’s words and to the question Connor hadn’t answered.
Did one thing explain the other? Had he known Angie Robinson? Well enough for her death to have hurt him? Enough for him to lose interest in other women?
For a period of mourning, perhaps?
Or for ever?
No, not for ever, she told herself as the air rushed past and the pure joy of almost flying renewed her confidence in her judgement. She was certa
in—well, almost certain, not being too practised in the attraction stakes herself—that he felt some of the attraction she was experiencing. Surely something so strong couldn’t be one-sided.
‘Isn’t there a song about flying to the moon?’
She caught sight of Connor as her body plummeted downwards again. He was leaning against one of the supports of the swing, his jacket slung across one shoulder. His smile made her feel dizzy—although that could have been the swing.
She slowed and stopped, plunging her feet into the soft sand to brake the forward motion.
‘I’d like the flying part, but I think the earth holds enough excitement for me,’ she said, crossing to where he stood. Particularly at the moment, she could have added as she took in his strong, clean features and saw the sparkle in his eyes.
Is this how love feels? she wondered, and was momentarily stunned by the thought.
Love?
Where did love come into it?
‘Well, shall we go?’ he asked, and she nodded, too shocked by the path her mind was taking to find the words she needed for a reply.
I must be mad to have gone along with Nellie’s ridiculous suggestion, Connor decided as he led Caitlin across the park and up the street towards the silos.
My body behaves badly enough sitting talking to the woman in a brightly lit kitchen, now I’ve got her on her own with a bit of moonlight thrown in. He lengthened his strides, turning right along the track to the water-tower without turning to see if she was following.
‘Is it a race? Did we have a bet about who’d get there first?’
Caitlin’s voice made him spin around—and realise his pace must have quickened with his thoughts.
‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered, as the wretched moonlight made her skin seem luminous, her eyes dark pools of mystery. ‘I often walk this way at night, but I’m usually on my own.’
‘If you’d prefer to be on your own…’ She smiled, but it wasn’t a real smile—more a politeness. Damn it, now he’d hurt her with his senseless comment.
‘No, no, not at all!’
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