When she’d gone, he said, ‘Is it secondary Sjögren’s?’
‘Yes. It stems from rheumatoid arthritis in Christine’s case.’
‘That’s tough.’
‘Yes, indeed. There is no known cure at the moment, but hopefully there will be one day.’
They’d left the picnic basket on the backseat of the car and now she went to get it and asked, ‘Are you ready to eat?’
‘Yes,’ he said absently. ‘It seems a long time since breakfast.’
His voice was flat. She sensed a change of mood in him and knew she wasn’t wrong when he said, ‘It isn’t working, is it, Georgina? If I asked you to marry me a second time, what would you say?’
She was speechless with surprise. What had happened to his brisk confidence? Into the silence he said, ‘You would say no, wouldn’t you? You don’t miss an opportunity to hammer it home that you were happier before I came on the scene. But I’m afraid I’m not going anywhere. You’re going to have to endure having me here in Willowmere because the baby you’re carrying is just as much mine as yours.’
She found her voice. ‘What has brought this on?’ she croaked. ‘We’ve been getting on fine these last few days.’
‘I have,’ he replied. ‘I can’t vouch for you. I’m going to start looking around for a property to buy, so that our situation won’t be so claustrophobic, and also so that when it’s my turn to have the baby, it won’t be in a bare rented house.’
‘You’ve certainly been making your plans!’ she exclaimed, unaware that he’d just said the first thing that had come into his head. ‘So are you going to put the London house on the market?’
‘No. We need somewhere close to where Jamie is, don’t we?’
‘You’ve certainly changed your attitude in the last couple of hours,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t come up to scratch.’ She got to her feet. ‘I’ll leave you to it as I’ve suddenly lost my appetite. I’ll walk back. I need the fresh air.’
He was about to protest, but she didn’t give him the chance, and as he watched her walk away beside the lake’s clear waters he thought sombrely that if James’s sister had fond memories of Willow Lake, he’d just spoilt it for Georgina.
He didn’t stay long, ate some of the food without tasting it, then packed up and drove back to the cottage, taking note on his arrival that her car wasn’t there.
She hadn’t gone far. Georgina had driven up the hill road that led to the moors and was seated, gazing blankly in front of her, the car a solitary vehicle parked against the skyline, with the rugged grandeur of the peaks on either side.
Back there by the lake Ben had told her out of the blue that he’d given up on them being reconciled and it had taken hearing it put into words for her to acknowledge that her protestations that she wanted to stay as she was had been just a way of protecting herself from any more hurt.
She did want them to be a proper family again when the baby came. But Ben had taken on board what she’d said earlier, and as she’d been so definite, he’d had a change of mind. Now he was talking about buying a property in Willowmere that was not so close as they were now, and was in favour of them bringing up their child separately.
It was what she’d wanted at the start, because she’d been confused by his arrival in Willowmere, but the more they were together the more she wanted them to be like they’d been before. Instead she’d blocked every move he’d made towards that end. ‘If I asked you to marry me a second time, you would say no, wouldn’t you?’ he’d said, without giving her the chance to reply, and now she was having to accept that she’d played the ‘I am my own woman’ card once too often.
If she were to tell him now that the answer would be yes if he asked her to marry him again, he wouldn’t believe her. She could hear herself saying what sort of a woman she had become as they were leaving the hospital that morning. Warning him once again that she wasn’t going to fall into his arms and take up where they’d left off three years ago.
So, what now? she thought miserably. The sensible thing would be to carry on as normal. It was just a matter of weeks before she gave birth and that was the most important thing in both their lives. If afterwards Ben kept to his word and moved out of their close proximity, she would have to console herself with the knowledge that at least he was in Willowmere, and accept that once they were parents again, she might be the one who had to do the begging.
When she arrived back at the cottage, Georgina saw that Ben had returned and she hurried inside, only to have to open the door to him seconds later and find him on the step, holding the picnic hamper.
‘You haven’t eaten since this morning, have you?’ he said, bringing the moment down to basics. ‘So why not make use of this?’ Placing it in her hands, he turned and went without commenting that she should be eating for two, but she was pretty sure that was what he was thinking.
She stayed in for the rest of the weekend, saw Ben drive off and return a few times but he didn’t call again, and when Easter was over, she set off for the practice on Tuesday morning, grateful for the chance to be near him.
As she waited for her first patients to present themselves, she thought that it was typical of life’s twists and turns that when Ben had joined the practice she’d thought it wasn’t a good idea from her point of view. Now his presence there was assuming the proportions of a lifeline, if only he would come out of his consulting room and say something.
As if he’d read her thoughts, the door across the passage from hers opened and he was there, smiling a tight smile and asking dryly, ‘How was the Easter egg?’
It was hardly what she’d expected to be the first topic of conversation when they came face to face again, but she held on to her composure and said, ‘I’ve eaten the George part and saved you the Gina bit. Perhaps you’d like to call round for it?’
‘Yes, perhaps I would,’ he said, unconvincingly, and she thought that the gap between them was widening. Then he asked, ‘What arrangements have you made with James for tomorrow, when you see the gynaecologist?’
‘I’m taking the afternoon off. Are you coming?’
‘Yes, I’m coming. I thought we’d sorted that? I’ll have to meet you there, though, and come straight back, as it will be two doctors missing from the surgery all afternoon if I don’t.’
‘Yes, whatever is best for the surgery,’ she agreed.
It was a moment to tell him that she really did want him there beside her when she saw their baby on the scan, but if she told Ben that he might find it hard to believe after what had happened between them at that travesty of a picnic.
As Michael Meredith seated himself opposite her minutes later, Georgina wondered what had brought the local celebrity to the surgery. The man was a well-known botanist turned writer who wrote about the flora and fauna of the countryside and was something of a recluse.
Unmarried and in his sixties, he was rarely seen at the surgery, but today he had made an appointment for some reason that she was about to discover.
He was a pleasant man with a well-modulated voice and open expression, and as they exchanged smiles she asked, ‘What can I do for you today, Mr Meredith?’
‘I’m in severe pain at the bottom of my back and down my right leg, Dr Adams,’ he informed her. ‘I was clambering over some rocks to get a rare specimen a couple of days ago and slipped and jarred my hip. Within a short time the pain came and it is the kind of agony one can’t ignore.’
‘If you would like to lift your shirt and loosen the belt of your trousers, I’ll take a look,’ she told him. After examining his lower spine, right hip and knee, she said, ‘I think you might have damaged the sciatic nerve which is the biggest nerve in the body. It passes behind the pelvis, then backwards to the buttock, from where it runs behind the hip joint and down the back of the thigh. When it reaches the knee, it separates into two separate nerves, known as the tibial nerve and the common peroneal nerve, and the pain that you’ve described are in those areas. In th
e meantime I’ll give you some strong painkillers and a letter to take to the radiology department at St Gabriel’s and they’ll X-ray you while you’re there.’
‘What, straight away?’ he exclaimed.
‘Yes. You might have to wait a little while but it will be done on the spot. I should get the result within the week and in the meantime don’t go rock climbing.’
He was smiling as he got up to go. ‘There’s no likelihood of that in my present state.’
Or in mine, Georgina thought as the botanist bade her goodbye.
When Beth came round with a tray of coffee in the middle of the morning, she said, ‘You don’t look very chirpy this morning, Georgina. Pregnancy gets wearying towards the end, doesn’t it? And the hormones start playing tricks. One moment the mother-to-be is happy, and the next she’s all droopy.’
‘That decribes me exactly,’ she told Beth, but knew her depression wasn’t anything to do with hormones.
As she came up the lane that evening, drenched by a sudden downpour that had caught her unawares on her solitary stroll, Ben’s door opened and they came face to face for the second time in the day.
‘You’re wet through!’ he exclaimed, taking in the vision of her hair lying damply against her head and the loose dress that she’d changed into when she’d arrived home from the surgery clinging to her ample waistline.
‘Yes, I do know that,’ she said wryly, ‘and I didn’t do it on purpose, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and change into some dry clothes.’
‘And then will you come back for a moment?’
‘Er, yes, if you want me to,’ she agreed doubtfully, ‘but I don’t want a lecture.’
‘You won’t get one,’ he promised quickly. ‘And now will you go and get out of those wet clothes? I can’t run the surgery on my own if you get pneumonia.’
‘Yes, all right,’ she agreed flatly. ‘I’d hate to be a nuisance.’
She was unzipping the dress even as she opened her front door and as soon as she was in the hall stepped out of it and then went to towel her hair dry.
Exhaustion always seemed to creep over her at this time of day and, instead of changing into fresh clothes, Georgina wrapped herself in a warm robe and padded across to the house next door.
When she’d left him by the lakeside, Ben had forced himself to stay where he was. He’d wanted to chase after her and give Georgina the chance to reply to his outburst, but hadn’t done so because he’d believed he was right and her abrupt departure had only added to that feeling.
They’d been in harmony for days until she’d outlined what she wanted from life as they’d been leaving the hospital, and it had made him see that they were not going anywhere as a couple.
It had been a pleasant enough moment when he’d taken her to buy an Easter egg, and when she’d followed it up with the suggestion that they have a picnic, he’d been all for it, but it hadn’t stopped him remembering what she’d said before that. It had kept going round and round in his mind and his optimism had suddenly been in short supply.
Now he was regretting letting it show, as instead of bringing everything out into the open it had made the future more uncertain, with the only thing to hold on to being the arrival of the baby.
‘You’re tired,’ he said when he opened the door to her.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, and thought she wasn’t just that, she was miserable and lost and lonely. Her time was drawing near and she had no stable plans for the future. She’d known where she’d been heading before Ben had come to Willowmere. Had been ready to step into the role of single mother, but his coming had changed all that.
Just as she’d been beginning to accept that there could be a second chance of the family life that had been so important to them in the past, she’d driven Ben away by harping on how she was content with her lot as a woman alone.
Unaware of her heartsearching, he was trying to think of a reason for asking her to call back after she’d dried out. The truth of it was, he just wanted to be with her for a while, without the trappings of the surgery around them.
‘I’ve made a hot drink to warm you up after the soaking you got,’ he said. ‘It can get chilly once the sun goes down.’
‘Thanks for that,’ she told him, feeling some of the chill of her body and mind disappear at the first sign that Ben might be relenting.
‘How’s the blood pressure?’ he was asking, and she flashed him a pale smile.
‘All right so far. It’s the first question Ian will ask tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Talking about blood pressure going up, ours in particular, do you remember that poor guy who’d fallen down the rock face?’
‘Yes, of course I do.’
‘When they got him to A and E they discovered he’d suffered a subdural haematoma from the fall and had to operate on him smartly.’
‘And how is he now?’
‘Doing all right, from what I can gather. I had to do a bit of pulling rank when I rang the other day to ask how he was, with my not being a relative, but the sister in charge mellowed when she knew I was one of the doctors who’d treated him up on the tops.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ she asked, her eyes questioning above the rim of a mug of hot chocolate.
‘Why do you think?’ he asked dryly. ‘I’ve been giving you the space that you are so keen to have.’
She put the mug down and got to her feet, too tired to get involved in emotional matters. ‘Thanks for telling me about the walker.’ She didn’t comment on his last remark because it had been partly true. She did want her own space and she always would. But she wanted him more.
‘What was it that you asked me to come back for?’ she asked from the doorway.
‘I just wanted to confirm the arrangements for tomorrow. I’ll try to be there for quarter to three,’ he said, improvising quickly, and with a brief nod, she went.
* * *
Once again sleep was long in coming, and as she lay wide-eyed beneath the covers, Georgina was thinking about how Ben’s patience and understanding had been easing her into a new beginning after his arrival in the village, and now it had all fallen apart. They desperately needed a better understanding. Perhaps seeing the baby on the scan tomorrow would be a step towards it, but Ben wasn’t one for going back on his word.
When she arrived at the consultant’s rooms at a quarter to three there was no sign of him. Her heart sank, but maybe she was being a bit previous. There was still time for him to arrive.
She was beginning to feel weepy and vulnerable as the minutes ticked by and he still didn’t appear, but consoled herself with the thought that it was because her hormones were all over the place as Beth had suggested, and there were other body changes to contend with, too. So by the time she was shown into the presence of the gynaecologist, she was resigned to the fact that Ben wasn’t coming. All the fussing and insisting that he was going to be there had been for nothing.
Ben had arrived on time but, having parked his car, had just crossed the busy main road to get to the large Victorian building that housed the private rooms of various consultants when a young boy walking in front of him with his mother had gone into a fit.
It had appeared to be the first time ever, as the woman had been transfixed with shock. Ben had been beside them in an instant, loosening the child’s clothing and checking that his tongue hadn’t gone back and blocked the airway.
‘We mustn’t move your boy,’ he’d told her. ‘He will come out of it gradually. Has he had a convulsion before?’
‘No, never,’ she sobbed.
‘I’m going to phone for an ambulance,’ he announced. ‘I’m a children’s doctor and I will stay with you until they get here. Try not to be too alarmed. He won’t remember a thing when he comes round. But he needs to be taken to hospital to be examined.’
He was glancing at his watch. It was ten minutes past three. Georgina would think he wasn’t coming. The woman had seen him checking the time and begged, ‘Don’t
leave us. I’m terrified. I’ve never seen anyone in a fit before.’
‘I won’t leave you,’ he promised, and prayed that the ambulance wouldn’t be long. It came in ten minutes, but it took another five for him to feel he could safely leave the woman and the boy, who was now coming out of what was very likely to be an epileptic seizure.
He ran the rest of the way and told Ian Sefton’s receptionist, ‘I should have met Georgina Adams here at three o’clock, but have been delayed. Is she in with Dr Sefton now?’
‘Yes,’ the receptionist said. ‘I’ll buzz him and let him know that you’ve arrived.’ After doing so, she looked up and smiled. ‘You can go in, Dr Allardyce.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Ben said as he faced Georgina and the consultant. ‘A child in front of me on the street had a seizure as I was approaching this place. His mother was almost hysterical and I just had to stay with them until an ambulance came. Have I missed the scan?’
Georgina was smiling. Ben had come after all. He’d always been a man of his word. How could she have doubted him?
‘All is well with the baby and mother,’ Ian Sefton told him. ‘I will show you both the scan in a moment, and you will see that the head hasn’t yet moved down into the pelvis. That is normal enough in a woman who already has had a child. So now the picture show, which I’m sure you must be eager to see. There is your baby,’ he said, and they gazed enraptured a the image.
Georgina reached out and took Ben’s hand in hers, saying in a low voice, ‘I thought you weren’t coming and I’m ashamed.’
A Baby for the Village Doctor Page 9