‘Let me have this patient, Charles. It’s something I should have picked up on Tuesday, and I didn’t.’
‘Come and talk in my office for a bit.’
‘So you can tell me I’ve been working too hard? We hardly need your office for that!’
‘So we can get a timetable sorted out, and your priorities. I know you’re not going to leave the hospital in the lurch when we’re so strapped, but you do need to take some time off.’
‘I—’
‘For Janey and Rowdy’s sake, if not for your own. Do you know yet what’s going to happen with the boy? We tend to take the future of our waifs and strays pretty seriously around here. What happens after he’s discharged, as far as you’re concerned?’
Someone walked past, ears clearly pricked to hear the latest news, and Luke dropped his voice. ‘Your office was a good idea.’
‘Mmm, yes, I thought it was,’ Charles answered mildly, with a twinkle in his eye.
So I can still be a cocky young idiot, in some people’s view, Luke realised, and had a sudden flash of understanding about why Janey had found him so unbearable eight years ago. Two minutes later he found himself spilling half his soul across Charles Wetherby’s very nice antique desk.
And Charles listened. He was a good man and he had a lot on his plate right now. The hospital’s administrator, Brian Simmons, whom no one much liked, had been away down south since before the cyclone had hit, and much of his workload was falling on Charles. Luke really had no right to expect such an attentive and empathetic audience but … yeah … he listened, and towards the end of it Luke found himself saying, ‘I don’t know if I’m the best person to have him. I’m his father. I love him.’
Charles nodded. ‘I can see that. Isn’t that all that matters?’
‘But he doesn’t have a clue who I am, and I have no idea if I should tell him, because I have no idea what Alice might have said to him about me. She was inclined to—I mean, it’s the kind of thing I could see her doing. Telling him I was dead, or that I was a bad man, that I hated him and didn’t want him. She told Janey I didn’t want him. He seems to trust Janey. He knows who she is, at least, that she’s his auntie, and he’s happy about that. And she’s such a great person. Grounded.’
‘Yes, I’ve had that impression.’
‘And I want what’s best for my son. And maybe that’s—’ suddenly he was close to tears ‘—not me, Charles, if Alice has said all sorts of appalling things. After everything he’s been through, maybe the best thing for my child is to let him go to Darwin with his Auntie Janey, and I can come and visit occasionally as a family friend, and Rowdy doesn’t find out until he’s an adult who I really am. If that’s best …’
‘But it’s not what you want for yourself.’
‘No. But does what I want for myself count, though? At all? I’ve seen parents shamelessly use their kids for their own ends and it’s horrible. I won’t do that!’
‘You’d be a good father.’
‘How can you possibly know that? I don’t know it yet myself.’
‘Because only a good father would say what you’re saying. Is Janey settled in Darwin for good?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Because if she’s not, then you can reach a compromise, or take things slowly. Live closer to each other, for a start. One or both of you can move. It doesn’t all have to be so black and white, Luke.’
‘Black and white, that was very much Alice’s style. I guess it’s become a habit …’
‘You’re not Alice. And Janey’s not Alice, as I understand it.’
‘No, she’s not.’ He couldn’t hide the heartfelt thankfulness behind the words, and he caught a curious glance from Charles.
‘Here’s what I prescribe,’ the older man said. ‘Go out to dinner tonight, the two of you, and talk. Find out what you’re both thinking.’
‘Dinner …’ Luke said.
‘The Green Dragon is open, in town. I recommend their Peking-style vegetarian dumplings.’
‘Right.’
‘Tomorrow, if I could possibly have you here at the hospital for a longish shift, I’d appreciate it, because I imagine Joe’s going to declare himself on paternity leave for at least the next twenty-four hours.’
‘Done.’
‘We’ll send Rowdy home to the doctors’ house in the morning for some time with Janey, and then on Friday the two of you should take him somewhere. Charm Island is still in business, I’m told, and the resort shuttle boat service is running. Take a picnic, spoil him a bit, talk to each other when you can, you and Janey, and see where you get to after that.’
‘What if—?’
‘See where you get to,’ Charles repeated. ‘There might not be any what-ifs by then.’
Luke nodded, privately doubting. He had that old feeling, the one he’d had in London after Alice and the baby had disappeared—that if he didn’t do something heroic and physical and flashy and one hundred per cent proactive right this second, he’d actually explode, start yelling uncontrollably in the street and pulling out his hair, go stark raving mad.
‘Saturday is Gina and Cal’s wedding,’ Charles went on. ‘They insist they’re not postponing it just for a little detail like cyclone damage.’
‘Aren’t they having their ceremony on the beach?’ The lump in his throat had begun to get looser, thank goodness. It felt a little easier to focus on someone else’s problems.
‘Cal’s organising a clean-up crew,’ Charles said. ‘Walter Grubb is handling the catering, which frightens me slightly, but he says the missus is telling him what to do and it’s going to be a pit barbecue. It’s not your problem. All you have to do is show up.’
‘I have to do that?’ He hadn’t intended to go.
‘With Janey,’ Charles said gently. ‘And Rowdy. Think he might be quite interested in a pit barbecue …’
‘You might be right.’
They smiled at each other, and the weight on Luke’s shoulders lessened a little further.
‘How’s he been?’ Luke moved a spare chair closer to Rowdy’s bed and sat next to Janey. She was watching his son sleep.
‘He’s been great!’ She frowned and added in an undertone, ‘For a kid who doesn’t speak. He played toys with a little girl on the play carpet for, gosh, over an hour. He looked good, Luke, and he tired himself out in a healthy way, and now he’s taking a nap. I’m just—’
‘Watching him,’ Luke finished. ‘Yeah.’
They both did so, for about forty minutes, saying very little. It nourished something in Luke’s soul, just to see that breathing going in and out, and that little face relaxed in sleep. Nourished him to have Janey there with him, too. When a child looked this peaceful, you couldn’t believe there was anything really wrong with his spirit. If only Rowdy would speak …
‘Charles has a plan for us,’ Luke told Janey.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m taking you to dinner at the Green Dragon tonight.’
‘Oh, you are?’
‘We need to talk, don’t you think? Easier if it’s somewhere quiet, with no interruptions and nothing else to do.’
‘That makes sense,’ she murmured, and didn’t argue, and as had happened when he had been talking to Charles, he felt a sense of the weight lifting from his tightly held shoulders.
Janey was sensible.
Good grief, he’d begun to value the fact that she was sensible!
CHAPTER FIVE
GEORGIE insisted on lending Janey a dress for that evening, but then Gina Lopez stepped in and said enthusiastically, ‘Or why don’t you borrow something of mine?’
She and Georgie fought with some degree of animation over whose clothes would fit Janey best, and who had the most appropriate outfit on hand for a scintillating evening at the town’s venerable Chinese establishment. You would have thought that lending a temporarily homeless doctor some clothing was the must-do activity of the year. After a couple of minutes Janey began to foresee an escalation in
to mutual accusations of bad fashion sense and permanently wounded feelings.
‘Let me stick to Georgie’s wardrobe,’ she said, ‘because that’s what we’d already agreed. I appreciate it, though, Gina, I really do.’
And she should possibly have considered the American doctor’s offer more seriously, because Georgie’s dressy outfits resembled her swimsuits in the skimpiness department. ‘Who knew your legs were that much longer than mine?’ Georgie muttered, surveying Janey’s appearance in a sheath-style dress with a splashy abstract flower pattern of dark blue on white.
‘It’s fine. My legs’ll be under the table.’
‘Not in the car, they won’t. They’ll be right there in full view, all four hundred inches of them. I hope Luke can keep his eyes on the road.’
‘It won’t be a problem,’ Janey said firmly.
And it wasn’t. Luke’s eyes stayed glued to the road as if he’d never driven before, and he seemed a little relieved when he announced, ‘Here we are!’
He climbed out, looking strong and well groomed in his pale grey trousers and a white polo shirt which made his dark good looks even darker. It occurred to Janey that she’d be the envy of any woman who saw her, with a man like this beside her, and it gave her an odd feeling. Satisfaction mixed with a desire to run for her life.
Which made no sense at all.
‘Mmm, smells good,’ she said to distract herself as he opened the restaurant door.
She’d been out for Chinese food with him before, she recalled, on one of those awful double dates Alice used to push her into with Luke’s male friends. She knew he liked spicy food, and trying new dishes. She also knew what he looked like when he was glowering at her because she didn’t share his taste.
In men, not in Chinese food.
‘I’m glad it’s just the two of us,’ she blurted out as they were shown to their table, then realised he wouldn’t understand her thought track—he’d misinterpret completely—so made it worse by explaining, ‘Those awful men you introduced me to on all those double dates, with Alice madly trying to demonstrate my intellect or what’s-his-name’s muscles.’
‘They weren’t awful.’
‘Yes, they were! They were horrible occasions, every one of them!’
‘I mean the men. You’re right, the dates were bloody terrible, but Jack and Sean and Stephen are all really nice guys.’
‘Well …’
‘They’re still friends of mine, Janey, so be careful.’
A chilly blast from the overactive restaurant air-conditioning hit her on her way past, matching the sudden chill of hostility in the air between herself and Luke. She bit her lip and swallowed her instinct to keep arguing. They couldn’t afford to be at odds any more.
It felt familiar, though, arguing with him. Safe and satisfying, in a strange kind of way. She had a real struggle, letting it go.
‘Do you see them often?’ she asked politely instead. They’d been seated at a tiny table for two beside the ornately papered wall, facing each other.
‘Not often enough, as they’re down south.’ He added quickly, ‘Look, I appreciate that they probably didn’t come across at their best on those evenings but, trust me, you weren’t exactly the bachelorette of the year, yourself. You drove me nuts, Janey. I was so angry with you.’
‘Oh, I’m telling you, that was so-o-o mutual! The way you—’
‘Looking so prim when they told bad jokes. They were nervous, just trying to ease the atmosphere with some humour!’
‘Showed off with them, all blokey and hearty and bigheaded and full of yourselves. You were so immature!’
‘And you acted like you were a middle-aged woman!’
‘I was nervous, too, for heaven’s sake! Alice used to give me these bright little pep talks about believing in myself, which made me feel as if there was nothing good to believe in. And you were so condescending, it was so obvious—to them, too, no wonder they wanted to run a mile!—that you felt sorry for me.’
‘I never felt sorry for you! Just angry with you!’
‘Why?’
‘Because you were so much better and funnier and more interesting than you ever let anyone see, especially my friends.’ He slammed the palms of his hands on the table for emphasis. His fingers were so long and brown. ‘I sometimes used to think I’d only imagined that there was more to you than met the eye. You were bloody boring!’
‘And you were an arrogant show-off, who thought you could wrap everyone you met, male or female, around your little finger with one sleazy smile!’
‘Sleazy?’
‘OK, charming, then, but it’s the same thing. It was, in your case!’
‘Gee, thanks!’
They glared at each other, and couldn’t look away. Janey’s skin tingled. A rather nervous-looking waiter brought them two menus and a wine list then scuttled off again, as if not wanting to risk getting caught in the crossfire. The couple at the next table—stubborn tourists who’d refused to evacuate, from the look of them—gave them an uneasy glance.
‘What was the plan?’ Luke murmured, still holding her gaze. He had the most gorgeous mouth, not too thin or too full, and it was almost smiling, but not quite. ‘A quiet night? Some serious talking?’
Suddenly they both laughed and the tension broke.
‘I guess we just needed to say it, or something,’ Janey tried. Her cheeks were hot.
‘Get it out of our systems.’
‘Something like that …’
They looked at each other again. There was still an electric sizzle in the air that Janey could almost hear. The tiny hairs on her arms stood on end. Just the air-conditioning? Why did Luke’s amber eyes look so dark, and his mouth so soft? Why had she never noticed before what a beautiful shape it was, even when he wasn’t smiling?
‘Can we get this clear?’ he said. ‘Do you still think I’m an arrogant, immature show-off, with the little-finger thing and the sleazy smile?’
‘Charming,’ she corrected.
‘Pedantic, as usual. You said sleazy first. You said it was the same thing.’
‘I don’t still think it.’
‘Any of it?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
‘How about you?’
‘Do I think I’m an arrogant—?’
‘About me. The bloody boring bit. And prim. Have to confess, I’m pretty miffed about prim.’ She couldn’t drag her eyes from his face, and he didn’t even seem to be trying to. They’d leaned a little closer. And it was a small table. She’d be able to touch her forehead to his, two inches from now.
Oh, she couldn’t keep looking at him like this!
She dropped her gaze, and so did he.
‘Well, you could be prim,’ he said. He spoke down to the tablecloth, low and husky, as if planning to seduce it later tonight. ‘You never were prim, Janey, you just acted that way, and it was so damned annoying. If you’d really been prim through and through, it would have been easier because I could have thought, Oh, yeah, Alice’s prim sister, and had as little to do with you as possible. But it’s frustrating when you sense the diamond under the dirt and can’t get to it.’ He picked up his chopsticks and ran his fingers down the paper wrapper.
‘Diamond. That’s a lot better.’
‘Listen, you’re a diamond, I’ve always known that.’ What beautiful hands he had …
‘You have?’ I’m sounding breathless.
‘Underneath.’
‘I guess that’s why I never knew what you really thought, because the existence of any kind of underneath was never very apparent in you back then. You gave the impression there was just the one thin layer.’
‘Well, there wasn’t,’ he growled. ‘And there isn’t now. We were both pretty young.’
‘And pretty exhausted that year, working those long shifts at the hospital. I’m not sure that anyone shows their best self in those conditions. We were all snappy and short-tempered, living in each other’s pockets, getting on eac
h other’s nerves.’
‘Reading each other all wrong. Making so many mistakes in our personal lives because we couldn’t afford to make them at work.’
‘Yes. I think that’s right.’
They were leaning way, way too close now, watching each other’s hands way too intently. And neither of them was talking. The moment broke in a flash of awkwardness. He put down the chopsticks and picked up the wine list. ‘Going to have wine?’
‘Just a glass.’
‘Red or white?’
‘Shall we order first? See what goes best with what we choose?’ She looked at the menu. ‘I’m thinking a nice cool dry white, because I’m going to have chilli prawns.’
‘Want to share? I thought I’d go for Szechuan chicken.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘And Charles recommended the Peking-style vegetarian dumplings to start.’
‘Yum!’
‘So we agree about the food, at least.’
‘I—I think we agree about a few things, Luke, we just come at them from a different angle, or something. Or we used to.’
‘Maybe that’s it.’
Luke looked at Janey across the table once again, wondering about the heated words that had frightened their waiter away just now. Not such a bad development, perhaps, to have argued that way. Like a shower of rain on a hot, dusty day, it had cleared the air and left something fresh and new. ‘You’re not married, Janey?’ he asked suddenly.
She gave him a crooked smile. ‘Have I mentioned a husband?’
‘We haven’t talked much yet.’
‘Think I might have mentioned a husband.’
‘OK, I guess I mean why aren’t you married?’ He knew she was more than perceptive enough to figure out his subtext—that he was actively glad she was single, so that Rowdy didn’t have the complication of a stepfather figure who might not want Janey taking on a major commitment to her sister’s child.
But he admitted to himself that there was something else, too. He was interested in what her unmarried status implied.
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