Nicola’s mother was watering her garden with a hose. She watched as Blair walked around to the passenger door and helped Nicola out of the car before grabbing her bag from the back seat.
She smiled and said, ‘Morning, love. Who’s this you’ve brought to meet us?’
‘Mum, this is Blair. He’s just helping me.’
Her mum wound up the hose. ‘Well, that’s good,’ she said as she straightened. ‘I’ve made a fresh batch of shortbread this morning. Or there’s a loaf of Irish barm brack if you’d rather have that with some butter.’
Nicola realised that her mum was talking to Blair. ‘He’s not staying.’
‘Oh, go on with you. I’m sure he can spare the time to come inside and have a little chat. We never get to meet your boyfriends with you living in the city.’
‘No, but—’
‘I’d love to,’ Blair said, cutting her off. ‘Shortbread’s my favourite.’
Nicola closed her eyes. She could only hope that today’s topic of conversation would be less embarrassing than normal.
‘Here’s your father now.’
Nicola opened her eyes again as her dad’s car pulled into the driveway. Great. Might as well have both of them there to embarrass her. Why not?
Her dad followed them into the house, grumbling to himself.
‘Have you had any more of those letters about your driving, Dad? I haven’t had time to go and see Dr Whitworth yet.’
‘What letters? I haven’t had any letters from Dr Whitworth.’
Her mum slapped his arm with the tongs she was using to take shortbread out of the old biscuit tin – which kind of defeated the purpose of using the tongs, but Nicola knew from experience that she wouldn’t be able to convince her mum of that.
‘Yes, you did, you silly old duffer,’ her mum said. ‘He wrote to tell you that your six-monthly check-up is due.’
‘What six-monthly check-up?’
‘The one you have every year,’ her mum said with an accompanying eye roll. ‘You have it every year in November.’
Her dad took a piece of shortbread and got a slapped hand for not letting their guest have first go at it. He winced. ‘Isn’t that twelve-monthly?’
‘Who says twelve-monthly? It’s yearly, not twelve-monthly. Honestly, Nicola’s boyfriend will think you don’t have a clue.’
Nicola glanced at Blair. His shoulders were shaking slightly, but apart from that, he appeared to be innocently munching his shortbread. She sighed and took a piece for herself. Once she’d fortified herself with its crumbly, buttery goodness, she was ready to try again.
‘I didn’t want to know whether you’d had a letter from Dr Whitworth, I wanted to know whether you’d had any more letters about your driving.’
‘What has my driving got to do with the dentist?’
‘No, Dr Whitworth isn’t the dentist—’
‘Nicola’s right,’ her mum said, bringing the teapot to the table. ‘He’s the doctor. He’s been our doctor for forty years. How could you forget that?’
‘Well, you were the one who said he wrote to me about my teeth.’
‘I was not.’
‘Yes, you were—’
‘Please, just listen for a minute,’ Nicola said. She glanced at Blair again. He met her eyes, and his own were creased up and twinkling. ‘You had a letter from the government, saying that you had to have a driving test, remember?’
He looked at her aghast. ‘I don’t have to have a driving test.’
‘The letter said that a man would have to sit with you while you drove your car.’
‘Yes, I remember that. I’m not daft.’
‘Well, what did you think it meant if not a driving test?’
Nicola finally found out what she wanted to know from her father, after trying in vain to convince her mother that the government hadn’t passed a law making it illegal for her to use pounds and ounces instead of kilos and grams when baking in her own kitchen, and before Blair excused himself to go and do whatever it was that he had to do in town.
Blair came back an hour later to pick her up. With her mum’s help, she’d washed and dried her hair and finished getting dressed, and she felt a lot better physically. Mentally, she was wrung out, and when she saw Blair arrive, she hastily said goodbye to her parents and walked out to his car.
‘You should have waited inside for me,’ he said as he jumped out and took the bag from her.
‘Don’t worry, you haven’t missed out on the shortbread. Mum sent you some in there.’ She nodded at the bag he’d put in the back of the car.
‘Great, thanks. I love it.’
‘Yes, I noticed.’ She’d also – annoyingly –noticed the way his eyes had twinkled while he’d munched on the shortbread, and even the sexy way his throat muscles worked as he swallowed.
He closed her door after helping her in, and went around to the driver’s side. He’d been so helpful again today, and without waiting to be asked. Maybe she should stop thinking of him as someone she could barely tolerate and consider him … what? A friend? That might be going too far.
‘Are all your visits like that one?’ he asked as he fastened her seatbelt for her.
‘That’s pretty much standard,’ she said with a small smile.
‘How long have your parents been married?’
‘Well, forty years on paper, but if we deduct all the time that they haven’t been talking to each other, it’s more like ten. Fifteen tops. This is why Una had to get away, you know. They were sending her mad. She couldn’t write because they were taking up all her headspace.’
‘She never said anything about them to me.’
‘Well, she wouldn’t, would she?’
He gave her a puzzled glance. ‘Why not?’
‘Because they’re family. People don’t usually talk about family problems with outsiders, do they?’
‘No, you do have a point.’
She nodded.
‘But, honestly, that was the best entertainment I’ve had in ages.’
‘Entertainment?’ Her chest tightened. She’d been gullible again – sucked into believing that Blair Morrissey had grown into a thoughtful human being when he was really no different from the hurtful boy he’d been at school.
‘Yes,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘It was hilarious.’
‘Oh, yeah, I’m sure it’s great fun for people like you to mock them, and to ridicule Una and me for being related to them.’
‘What? I’m not ridiculing anybody.’
‘You used to.’ Her voice was rising and she couldn’t stop it. ‘You got your kicks out of mocking us for years. You were horrible to me. Horrible. I hated you.’
She’d practically yelled the last few words at him, and now to her horror, her throat had clogged up with tears. If she wasn’t careful, they’d dribble out of her eyes and make her look like an even bigger idiot than she already did.
The silence stretched for several seconds.
Blair said, ‘Past tense? Hated, not hate?’
She could hardly say she hated him now, could she? Not when she’d been happy enough to accept his help. But there was a difference between not hating and liking. ‘Maybe.’
‘I’m sorry for being mean to you at school.’
Her mouth dropped open.
‘I am. Really.’
It was a shock, but it didn’t make any difference. She still had a lump of hurt the size of Tasmania that she’d carried around with her for years, and a simple sorry wouldn’t make it go away. Nothing would. He could apologise over and over, be as nice as he liked, rescue her as many times as he wanted, but it would never make her like him. He’d destroyed her ability to like him when he’d laughed in her face because she’d been stupid enough to develop an almighty crush on him.
How and why it had evolved, she couldn’t recall, but she did remember believing that the skinny boy with the striking blue eyes was the most beautiful person on earth, and she also remembered her compulsion to put her feeli
ngs down on paper. In poetry, God help her. What had made her think she was a poet? With her dyslexia, it had taken ages to write as well. She should have stuck to numbers.
The poetry had been worse than abysmal, but the feelings behind it had been real, and Blair had crushed her heart. It had taken her years to repair it – although it had never gone back together again in quite the same way – and the one person she would never let near it again was him.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘That you accept my apology would be nice.’
She started to shrug, but winced at the pain. She’d been so deeply immersed in memories that she’d forgotten about her injury. ‘Fine. I accept it.’
‘Good.’ He turned into East Road. ‘I’ve bought lunch, by the way.’
‘Oh. Have you?’
‘I thought we’d eat it at my place, because there’s something I’d like to show you. Is that all right?’
Curiosity perked her up. She made an effort to put the memories behind her and return to the easy way they’d been relating before her outburst. When she’d been inside his house the first time she hadn’t been paying attention. This time she would.
She took a deep breath and said, ‘Okay.’
Carrying a couple of bags, he led her through to the huge open-plan area at the back of the house. Dammit raced to meet her.
‘Hello to you too.’ Watching him bounce around her feet with excitement, she said, ‘Yes, I’d rub your ears, but it’s too difficult to bend down.’
‘I can fix that.’ With his free hand, Blair scooped up the little dog and held him against the side of his chest. ‘There you go.’
With an eye roll she reached out to rub the dog’s ears, and could have sworn she saw him grin. ‘Dogs don’t smile, do they?’
‘Are you kidding? He has a face to suit every occasion. Okay, Dammit, you’re monopolising our guest. Off you go.’ He put the dog down on the floor where he rolled onto his back, obviously expecting a belly rub, but when he didn’t get one, he leapt to his feet and ran off as if he’d remembered an important task that had been interrupted by their arrival.
‘Have you always lived here alone?’
‘You mean, it’s a bloody big house for one?’
‘Well, yes it is, actually.’
‘When the renovation was started, there were two of us. The intention was that there would be some little Morrisseys to fill it up, eventually.’
‘You were married?’ She hid her surprise, remembering that he’d hinted once before at a bad relationship.
He nodded. ‘But by the end of the renovation, there was just me, and Dammit of course, with a big house all to ourselves.’
‘Did you think of selling it?’
‘No, not seriously, because the most important part of the house was – still is – my studio. I designed that to suit me. The rest of the house doesn’t matter so much.’
‘Did your ex-wife design this part?’
‘No, she left too early to have any influence on it. I got an interior designer in. What do you think of the result?’
‘Impressive.’ And, strangely, she was pleased to hear that his wife had had nothing to do with it, though why it should matter to her, she had no clue.
He off-loaded the bags in the kitchen. ‘Before we eat, there’s something I want to show you in my studio. If you don’t mind?’
‘No, that’s fine.’ Especially as it gave her the opportunity to be nosy. ‘Where is your studio?’
‘Upstairs.’
Surprised, she said, ‘I didn’t know there was a second floor.’
‘No, it looks like a single storey house from the front because of the high-pitched roof, but the extension is actually double height at the back. It’s this way.’
She followed him through a door, up a flight of stairs, and into an enormous, light-filled area. It was as big, she realised, as the whole open-plan area below.
‘Wow.’
There were paintings everywhere, stacked several deep around the walls. One wall was filled with shelves and these were crammed with all sorts of stuff – paper, canvases, brushes, and much more. In the corner was a sink and a workbench with more shelves above.
‘I thought you only painted portraits?’ She stared down at a landscape that captured the beauty of the wetlands outside town.
‘I earn my living painting portraits, but when I’m not working on a commission I paint whatever I feel like at the time.’
‘This is …’ She couldn’t think of an adequate description, and was wary of saying something that would mark her down as a complete ignoramus where art was concerned – which she was. In the end she settled for saying, ‘I really like it.’
‘Thanks. That means a lot.’
Yeah, right. Like her opinion carried any weight at all. ‘What did you want to show me?’
He walked over to the shelves and took down an A3-sized sketch book. He flipped through it, then stood staring at one page. ‘This,’ he said eventually. ‘I found it last week when I was trying to make some space in here.’
Almost reluctantly, he turned the book around so that she could see a full-page charcoal drawing of … herself.
She’d been ugly at school – nerdy, to say the least –but in this picture she looked pensive, but pretty. Her hair was sticking out all over the place as it always had before she’d had it professionally straightened, but strangely, it suited her – or at least it suited the person in the picture. He’d used a generous amount of artistic licence to create the flattering effect.
‘You drew this?’
‘Yes, when I was seventeen. I even dated and signed it, see?’
She leaned forward to see the date and signature in the bottom corner. At seventeen, he’d been her enemy. What would he have drawn if he’d been her friend?
Her mouth had gone dry. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘Draw you?’ He turned the sketch pad and looked at the drawing again. ‘I can’t tell you the exact thoughts that were going through my head at the time, but I do know that I thought you were beautiful. I suppose that’s why.’
She made a sound of disbelief.
Shrugging, he said, ‘I wanted to show you because … well, to prove that you’re wrong about me. I didn’t get my kicks from mocking you. I wasn’t mocking you here, was I?’ He tapped the page.
No, she had to admit it was true. It was still difficult to reconcile the artist with the boy she’d known back then. ‘Are you sure you didn’t knock it out last week and write an old date on it?’
‘Why would I do that?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Anyway, can’t you tell that this was drawn back then? My memory isn’t that good.’
‘It is a bit much to think you could have recreated my embarrassing hair from memory.’ She paused. ‘But I don’t remember seeing you with a sketch pad in your hand. Ever.’
‘No, you wouldn’t have seen me. Drawing was something I did in private.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, you know, peer pressure I suppose. It wouldn’t have been considered cool to be seen doing something so arty-farty.’
‘No, I guess that’s right. You obviously got over those hang-ups, though.’ She waved a hand around the room.
‘That’s what growing up is for, you know. You put the past behind you.’
She shot a glance at him. Was that aimed at her? Because of her outburst in the car? If so, it was hardly fair. ‘Some of us have more to get over than others,’ she said.
He gave an ironic laugh. ‘You’ve got that right. Anyway, I’m hungry now. Let’s go and have lunch.’
Chapter 16
Nicola waited for the doctor who’d treated her for chicken pox at six years old, and mumps at eight, and had been very patient when her mother had insisted on giving him the benefit of her advice, not just with regard to her own family’s treatment, but with that of many of his patients – as many as she could call to mind.
‘Remember me?’ She met the surprised, dark eyes of a man of around her own age. ‘Oh, I thought you were older.’
‘You know, I get that a lot.’ He grimaced. ‘I think it’s the clothes. Trinny and Susannah would have a field day with me, wouldn’t they?’
‘No, I meant—’ She gave his outfit a once-over. Well, actually, they probably would. She shook her head. ‘I meant to say that I was looking for Dr Whitworth.’
‘Yes, that’s me. Have a seat. I’m afraid I don’t remember you, though, and we don’t seem to have any notes for you, so how can I help?’
She closed the door behind her and sat on the chair he’d indicated. ‘I was looking for the Dr Whitworth I knew as a child. Are you related to him?’
‘Ah.’ He grinned. ‘I’m James, the fourth-generation Dr Whitworth. The latest model, if you like.’
Well, yes, she did like, actually. His father hadn’t looked like this– at least, not when she knew him. ‘Fourth generation? It was lucky that you wanted to be a doctor, then. You would have let the side down otherwise.’
‘Yes.’ He picked up a pen. ‘So, what’s the problem today?’
‘I don’t have a problem.’ She tilted her head. Had she just said that? ‘I mean, I do have problems, of course, but I’m not a patient. I’d like to talk to you about my father, who is your patient. His name’s Doyle.’
‘Doyle? Sheilagh and Joe?’
‘Yes, that’s them.’
‘You know I can’t share the details of Joe’s medical history without his permission, right?’
She nodded. ‘The thing is, my father received a letter about a driving test. He’s … mislaid it. I was hoping you’d be able to give me contact details for the sender.’
‘That I can do.’ He opened a file drawer beside him, and sorted through it.
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