But even as he thought this, a juddering feeling inside his body reminded him of why he hadn’t pushed the matter. Deep down he’d always feared upsetting Marcie might mean he’d lose custody of Chloe, and now, knowing she wasn’t his biological daughter was accentuating that fear.
Would it come to a choice? Esther or Chloe?
He pulled up in the hospital car park and sighed. The devastation Hugo had caused seemed minor compared to the mess he’d made of his life.
So, sort it out! he told himself, and he climbed out of the car and headed for the hospital. Check his mother first, then email the attorney, then lose himself in work. He had to speak to someone at Cairns Base Hospital about the earlier dengue cases. Would they have kept samples of the strain? Frozen cultures maybe?
Still thinking of the disease, he entered his mother’s room, to find her sitting up in bed, arguing with the nurse about the monitor leads.
‘Ah, William. About time you got here. Tell this girl to take these things off, will you?’
Bill couldn’t believe it. From death’s door to argumentative. Well, he could believe the argumentative, just not the rapidity of the recovery.
‘I’ll handle it,’ he said to the nurse, then shook his head at his mother. ‘You really are feeling better?’
‘Of course I am,’ she said, though her voice was still weak and he could see a tremor in her hands. ‘You can discharge me now. Discharge? That’s the word you use, isn’t it?’
‘It’s the word we use but you’re not going just yet, Ma. This is a very nasty virus and you could suffer a relapse. Maybe in a day or two.’
‘But who’s minding Chloe?’
Bill hesitated. If he told her the truth, would it ease her mind or worry her even more? He was still dithering when his mother hazarded a guess.
‘That woman is, isn’t she?’
‘Her name’s Esther and, yes, she is,’ he said. ‘And I couldn’t have managed without her—even before she took on the babysitting duties—so not one word against her, Ma.’
Her lips tightened and he wondered what comment she was biting back, but at least, whatever it was, she didn’t say it out loud and he didn’t have to have an argument with a weak, and barely convalescent woman.
The resident who was now officially looking after his mother came in and, pleased someone else would be telling his mother she’d have to stay in hospital a little longer, Bill departed, promising to return later.
Up in his office he found a pile of messages, a lot from journalists enquiring about the outbreak and wanting the latest information. He set them aside, but kept in his hand one marked urgent. It was from Geoff Robertson, Esther’s boss in Brisbane, asking Bill to phone him at the earliest opportunity.
‘The problem is, without samples from people on the island who’ve had that particular strain of dengue, we won’t know if it is the source,’ Geoff said, after explaining what he wanted done. ‘I could send someone from here to take the samples, and ask the locals who’ve had it about how it progressed in their cases, but it would be much better if you and Esther, who’ve seen the progression of the Jamestown strain, spoke directly to those people.’
Bill knew he was right. This was why the CDC sent doctors to the scene of outbreaks, because epidemiology was about more than mapping an outbreak. It was about seeing the effect of it first-hand and talking to people who had suffered.
‘I can arrange for a small plane to fly you out of Jamestown tomorrow morning at first light. It’s a seventy-minute flight, so you can get up there, talk to the locals, take some blood samples and be back in Jamestown in time for dinner.’
Bill wanted to protest—he had a hospital to run, a daughter to care for—but he knew Geoff was right. It was a job that needed doing, and the hospital would survive without him, while Chloe would be well cared for in the crèche. But flying in a small plane with Esther would probably be worse than living in an apartment with her…
‘I’ll have to talk to my CEO here,’ Bill told Geoff. ‘I suppose, if I can’t get away, Esther could go on her own.’
Weak, Bill, and Geoff obviously knew it, insisting it would be far better if they both went.
‘She’s good,’ he told Bill, ‘but you’ve far more experience in the field.’
So Bill agreed, then, as he began to put plans in place to facilitate the journey—arranging for one of the staff who knew Chloe well from the crèche to stay over at his place so she could take care of the baby in her home, and then organising what they’d need for the blood samples and questioning—he felt a growing excitement.
As if this day away together, just he and Esther, was something special. Actually, it was he and Esther and the pilot and a couple of hundred islanders, but he wasn’t going to let realism get in the way of his dream.
CHAPTER TEN
THEY took off as the rising sun was filtering mauve and pink and gold into the eastern sky. As they rose, they saw the great red-gold ball rising above the ocean, and Esther gasped at the beauty of it.
They were in the seats behind the pilot, the other front seat taken up with the cool-box and equipment they would need for the samples.
‘It’s nice to be getting away, isn’t it?’ Bill said, and Esther turned to look at him.
‘You say that as if it’s a little holiday jaunt.’
He smiled at her.
‘Isn’t it? Oh, I know we have to work but, believe me, this is as close to a holiday as I’ve come since the outbreak occurred.’
She saw where tiredness had deepened the lines around his eyes, and caught glimpses of silvery strands in his dark hair, and her sympathy for what he’d been through weakened her resolve.
He must have sensed it, or seen it in her eyes, for he smiled and said, ‘Couldn’t we pretend?’
‘Pretend what, Bill?’ she asked, though her heart was hammering with delight at the possibilities beyond the question.
‘Pretend it’s a holiday, of course,’ he said, though the smile which accompanied the words suggested he, too, was thinking of other pretences.
Like still being in love?
And flying to a tropical island for a passionate liaison?
Esther didn’t respond, but she felt a subtle shift in the atmosphere, and though they then spoke of the work they had to do, and how they’d tackle it, something else was shimmering between them—something indefinable, but exciting in a way Esther couldn’t identify.
They flew over a dark blue sea, studded with thickly forested islands, some so small as to look like floating trees.
‘Coming in to land,’ the pilot told them, pointing ahead to a forested peak that seemed to rise straight out of the water.
‘Land where?’ Esther asked him, and he chuckled, then turned the plane so she could see a white strip apparently carved out of the jungle.
Alerted by Geoff, the nursing sister in charge of the island’s small clinic met them at the little shed which served as the air terminal. With calm efficiency, she loaded their gear and the two of them into an old car, told the pilot someone would be out to refuel his plane shortly, then they bumped their way through the jungle, presumably towards the village.
‘I’ve gathered the people who were sick together, and their relatives, and some others who might have had the dengue but didn’t realise it’s what they had,’ she said. ‘We’ve had people here spraying since the outbreak last year, and we haven’t had any more of the sickness, so I don’t know if what you had in Jamestown came from here.’
As she finished speaking, they emerged from the dark coolness of the trees to a sight of blinding beauty. White coral sand edged an ocean so deep a green-blue Esther gasped with wonder. Tall coconut palms and squat pandanus clung to the shoreline, but it was the clear, clean beauty of the water that made Esther shake her head in wonder.
‘Nice place, eh?’ the nurse said quietly, and Esther heard the woman’s deep pride and love for her home in the simple words.
‘It is that,’ Bill said, and
the woman beamed with delight.
They pulled up at a small, neat, whitewashed stone church, the nurse explaining this was the best place to see a lot of people.
‘The school is next door,’ she said, pointing to another small building set behind the church. ‘So you can see the children as well.’
Inside the church, the villagers waited, a soft murmur of voices suggesting they were happy enough to spend the morning accommodating doctors from the mainland. Bill explained what they wanted to do, and the nurse organised people into groups so Esther could question some while Bill took blood samples, the nurse doing the paperwork for him.
‘Time for lunch,’ the nurse said, when Esther was wondering if she should have brought sandwiches to keep them going.
The cheerful, efficient woman led them out towards the school grounds where a long table was set up under shady trees and an array of fresh seafood was laid out on shiny banana leaves.
‘Oh, it looks beautiful,’ Esther said, admiring the artistry of the presentation of delicious food.
‘Tastes even better,’ the nurse assured her. ‘Plates at the end of the table—help yourself.’
All the villagers joined the feast, talking more freely now they were outside, laughing and joking among themselves, unabashed by the strangers in their midst. And talking with them, listening to them talk among themselves, Esther admired the simple directness of their lives. Tragedy touched them from time to time, as had it the previous year when two women and a child had been seriously ill with dengue, the child eventually dying, but they accepted it as part of the cycle of life and went on with uncomplaining good cheer.
‘Walk along the beach with me?’
Bill had come up behind her, and his question surprised her.
‘But we haven’t finished taking samples,’ she protested.
‘No, but the nurse was telling me everyone will have a siesta—even the school children go home for a rest. We can start again in an hour.’
Esther looked at the beach—at the glistening white sand and blue-green water.
‘A paddle in that water might be just what I need to keep me going,’ Esther said. ‘I can’t believe the colour of it.’
‘So, you’ll come?’ Bill said, holding out his hand.
And suddenly the tension that had simmered between them earlier returned a thousandfold, so strong Esther expected to see it like a wispy ghost shimmering in the air around them.
She put her hand in Bill’s and went with him, uncertainty mingling with an inexplicable excitement.
They walked down to the rocks at the edge of the beach, where they both slipped off their shoes. Esther felt the sand between her toes, and the healing balm that nature often brought her began to creep into her soul, so when Bill took her hand again she walked with him to the water, feeling the warm tropical water washing across her instep.
Hand in hand they paddled along the shoreline, not speaking until they were out of sight of the party when Bill stopped and turned her towards him.
‘I love you, Esther,’ he said, in the same calm quiet voice he used to soothe upset patients, or his crying child, or his overbearing mother. ‘I always have and I always will. I know loving’s hard for you, but will you just think about loving me again? Think about whether there’s some hope for us—some chance that you and me and Chloe can make a family.’
The declaration was so unexpected Esther couldn’t find an answer, but when Bill leaned forward and brushed a kiss, as soft as a butterfly’s wing, across her lips, she felt the power that had always ignited between them charge through her.
She was thinking about this phenomenon when Bill kissed her again, and this time she kissed him back, giving in to all the frustration of the recent sleepless nights and the long, long kiss-less years. Then, because kisses weren’t enough to make a full, whole life, she pulled away, lifted her hands to frame his face and looked into his eyes.
‘I haven’t changed, Bill,’ she said gently. ‘I’m still just as hard to love.’
‘I’ve changed,’ he told her, turning his head to press a kiss into her right palm. ‘I can handle a “hard to love” woman, if that woman’s you, Esther.’
He turned the other way and gave her left palm a matching kiss, so she wanted to curl both hands into fists and keep the kisses for ever.
Just in case…
‘Is that how you felt about Marcie?’ she asked, knowing his second marriage was something that had to be brought out into the open.
He turned away, taking her hand and walking again.
‘We have to go back a long way, Esther, to before you and I were married. You’d have known about Marcie—I’m sure Ma wouldn’t have missed many opportunities to tell you about her. Well, Marcie and I were always being thrown together. We dated occasionally from the time we were at school. As far as Marcie was concerned, I was a convenient escort when there was no one else in her life, and early on, because Marcie had taught me about sex and any evening with her usually ended that way, I was always willing to say yes.’
Esther nodded, understanding what he was saying, understanding the youth Bill had been.
‘After you and I split up,’ he continued, ‘I was empty—lost. Went to work, came home, usually did more work at home, just to fill the time. Then suddenly Marcie was back in Atlanta—back from South America or somewhere equally exotic—and when she phoned up and asked me to go to something with her, more out of habit than anything else, I said yes. She was in town a couple of weeks, we went out maybe five times, ended up in bed together a couple of those, but she was drinking so much at that stage it wouldn’t have been more than twice.’
He took a deep breath, as if this conversation was using up too much air.
‘Six weeks later she was back—pregnant. I know now I wasn’t the cause of it, but at the time I assumed I was—and she let me assume this, though I wonder if she had doubts. In fact, I think probably the guy who fathered Chloe was already married, or not available to marry Marcie for some other reason. Anyway, I married her. As well as being the right thing to do for both her and the baby, it was my mother’s dream come true.’
Another pause, another deep breath.
‘And to tell you the truth, it seemed good to me, too. My own dream had died, and I’d been so damnably lonely, Esther.’
She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips, a silent apology for the loneliness he’d suffered.
‘Not that being married to Marcie meant I had company. She continued to go her own way, resented my “nagging”, as she called it, about her drinking. When Chloe was born I was terrified she’d be suffering foetal alcohol syndrome, and that’s when I realised how much I hated the woman I’d married, right when she was giving birth to my child. Not that Marcie was there to hate for long. She gave birth and took off again, straight back into the fast crowd with whom she moved.’
Esther looked out over the crystal-clear water, unable to believe the story she was hearing.
‘Why did she have the baby? Why didn’t she have an abortion?’
‘I’ve never been able to figure that out. Now, knowing what we know, I wonder if she did it to punish some other poor sucker. Look, I’m having your baby and you’ll never know her.’
He shrugged as if any further explanation was beyond him, and Esther drew closer to him, wanting to offer him comfort for the bleakness of his relationship with Chloe’s mother.
‘And now?’
She knew he understood her question when he turned towards her and smiled.
‘I emailed my attorney yesterday. As of six weeks ago, I was a free man.’
He held out his arms and she stepped into that protective circle, her heart filled to overflowing with the love she felt for him.
No kisses now, just the warmth and total security of an all-enveloping hug—tight and hard and heartfelt, as if all the needs they’d both carried for so long could only be eradicated by physical closeness.
‘We’ve got to get back to work,’
Bill murmured eventually, and reluctantly Esther broke away, then walked, hand in hand with him, back along the beach.
It was a beginning, not a final solution, she reminded herself, a foundation for a future relationship between them, not a signed and sealed commitment.
There were things to consider—a small child being one of them…
‘I have four more months in Australia,’ Bill said, when they were sitting on the rocks, dusting sand from their feet before putting on their shoes. ‘You don’t have to decide anything right now.’
Esther turned and smiled at him.
‘Reading my mind?’ she teased, and caught the full brightness of his answering smile.
‘No, but I know I rushed you into marriage last time. If we do this again, it has to be for ever. I couldn’t go through parting with you again.’
‘Is that the only reason it would have to be for ever?’ Esther asked, and this time caught a frown.
‘What other reason would there be?’ Bill asked, looking genuinely puzzled.
Esther hesitated, then answered honestly.
‘I thought you might be thinking of Chloe. Of the upheaval in her life if we didn’t make it this time.’
Bill pulled on his second shoe, then stood up, holding out his hand to help Esther to her feet.
‘Esther, I want you as my wife because I love you, not because I want a mother for Chloe. But in marrying me you’ll be getting Chloe, some might say as the better part of the bargain, but I know how difficult that might be for you—how hurtful it might be—and I want you to be sure that what you decide is right for you. You, not me or Chloe or anyone else.’
He paused then said in a stern voice she’d rarely heard him use, ‘Do you understand me?’
She couldn’t answer, a lump had grown in her throat preventing speech. But she nodded, and hoped he understood.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THEY returned home to a tired, fractious baby, who wasn’t sure what she wanted, apart from constant attention.
‘It shows she’s getting better,’ Bill told Esther, when she was despairing of ever getting Chloe to sleep. ‘You’re tired, too—you go to bed. I’ll handle her.’
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