‘What did you think of him?’
‘He seemed very nice. Smartly dressed, straight as a ramrod. Not always the case with men of his age. I liked him. But do I fancy him as a stepfather?’ he said quizzically. ‘He was an officer in the army and I don’t want to have to stand to attention every time he’s around.’
‘What would happen if you went to live in Canada? Would he sweep your mother off her feet and persuade her not to go, do you think?’
‘Canada!’ he echoed blankly. ‘I’d forgotten about that. It’s been the last thing on my mind in recent days. When you asked me about the job offer the other day I wanted to tell you then that it would depend on you more than anyone whether I accepted it. But it wasn’t the right moment.’ He’d dropped the bag of rubbish and was moving towards her.
‘You know I’m in love with you, don’t you, Annabel? Have been from the moment we met, when I kept wanting to put you on some vitamins. I’ve discovered since that beneath your frail exterior is an amazing woman.
‘I have let go of Eloise, you know. I’m truly sorry about that business with the dress. You are very different from her in every way, and that is how I want it to be. You are your own person and so was she. So am I for that matter, and at this moment I am asking if you would take us on, Lucy and I. I love you and so does Lucy.’
‘You shouldn’t need to ask,’ she said softly. ‘After what has happened to me during the last twelve months I thought I would never be happy again, but you’ve changed all that, Aaron.’
He held out his arms and she went into them. As the clock struck midnight he said softly, ‘Merry Christmas, Annabel. May it be the first of many that we spend together. As for Canada, there’s plenty of time to discuss that.’
* * *
It was Christmas morning and it seemed as if they’d hardly gone to their beds before Lucy was calling. ‘He’s been! Santa Claus has been!’ And on a more awed note she added, ‘He’s eaten the mince pie and drank the sherry we left him.’
Standing tousled and bleary-eyed in their dressing-gowns, Annabel and Aaron showed themselves to be suitably impressed and settled back to watch Lucy open her gifts.
Every moment of the holiday had been enchanted so far, Annabel was thinking. Not least when they’d been clearing up the night before and Aaron had told her he loved her. Nothing could equal the joy of that. And as the day progressed, with Christmas dinner in the late afternoon and a walk afterwards in the snow which was still persisting, her happiness was unabated.
When Lucy had gone to bed that night they were alone. Aaron’s mother had gone to a party at the major’s house with the same crowd who’d been there the night before, and the little girl, over-excited and tired, had eventually dropped off to sleep.
Seated together on the sofa in front of a crackling log fire, Aaron was holding her close, stroking her hair and kissing the smooth cheek nearest to him, when the phone rang.
‘Damn!’ he said. ‘Who can that be?’ He glanced at the contented figure beside him. ‘I hope it isn’t the hospital for you.’
It wasn’t. She didn’t know who it was but could tell that it wasn’t anyone from Barnaby’s, although there was consternation in his expression.
‘When did this happen?’ he asked sombrely.
‘Last night! Christmas Eve! How could he be so cruel? Yes, of course I’ll come. Don’t concern yourself about Lucy. I have a friend staying with me. She’ll be there if she wakes up.’
When he’d replaced the receiver he stood for a moment with a furrowed brow, then turned to Annabel and said, ‘That was Terry Sullivan’s wife, Magda. You know, Terry, my deputy.’
‘Yes, I know him,’ she agreed, wondering what was coming next as the call had obviously been about some sort of emergency.
‘He’s been having an affair with one of the sisters at Barnaby’s and she’s pregnant. That item of news was his Christmas present to Magda and the children last night. They were invited to the party but didn’t turn up and now I know why. The poor woman is in a terrible state. Completely demoralised.’
‘And where is he?’ she croaked as the all too familiar story line unfolded.
‘Terry’s still there. For how long I don’t know. But he won’t want to leave his kids. The philandering rat! And as for women who steal the husbands of others, often because they can’t get a man of their own, they are the lowest of the low.’
In his indignation Aaron hadn’t seen her colour drain away or the horror cloud her eyes. He was leaning over and saying gently, ‘I have to go, Annabel. I know it’s ruined our evening but that poor woman needs someone and I’m fond of Magda and the boys. Terry can stew as far as I’m concerned, but I have to be there for them. What a Christmas they must be having!’ Unaware that he had just blighted hers, he went, calling over his shoulder, ‘If you’re called out, ring me and I’ll come straight back.’
She wasn’t called out. Would have felt better if she had been. There would have been no time to talk when he came back. No time to tell Aaron the full story about her past stupidity.
His face was grim when he returned a couple of hours later.
‘What a mess!’ he hissed. ‘Magda is on the verge of collapse and the children are trying to grasp what’s happened without really being told the full story. As for Terry and his bit on the side, I would imagine that they’re both wishing they’d never bothered.’
‘So he’s staying with his family, is he?’
‘Yes. If Magda will let him. But how she’s going to cope with watching another woman carry his child, I really don’t know.’
‘Which of the ward sisters is it?’ she asked.
Not that it mattered. She was merely prolonging the moment, but her face stretched when he said, ‘I don’t know her name but she’s tall, with brown hair and eyes like you.’
It was as if her heart had stopped beating. So the villain of the piece looked like herself. Very fitting.
‘The man who fathered my baby was married, Aaron,’ she said tonelessly. ‘He had a wife and family. That was why he wasn’t over the moon when I told him I was pregnant.’
His face became even whiter than hers.
‘I don’t believe it! You had an affair with someone else’s husband. So you only told me half a tale. Thought that the seedy part of the story was best left unsaid.’
‘Yes, but it wasn’t how you think,’ she pleaded.
‘Don’t make matters worse by making excuses,’ he thundered.
After that she went upstairs and packed her case without a word from him and let herself out of the house like a thief in the night, and that was probably what he saw her as. Someone who had stolen his trust, his confidence and was well and truly back on the sidelines.
* * *
Back at the flat Annabel stood tearless and drained in its small hallway. She’d had two days of supreme contentment and should have known it wouldn’t last. Why did she have to give her heart to a man as moral as Aaron Lewis? A man who saw no grey, just black and white. Yet his integrity was one of the things she loved most about him.
If he’d given her the chance to tell him that she hadn’t known Randy had been married Aaron might have calmed down, but he hadn’t wanted to know. She’d condemned herself out of her own mouth and not been given the chance to explain the true circumstances.
She had to make him see that he wasn’t the only one who didn’t sleep around. She hadn’t exactly fallen into bed with him at the first opportunity. If she was guilty of anything it was taking Randy at face value. Being a trusting fool and not looking into his background.
Aaron’s castigation of her had hurt. It had been totally unjust and in the midst of her devastation anger was kindling.
She’d already paid for her affair with the American with the loss of her self-esteem and the much more painful loss of her child. And now she was being made to pay again.
Well! Once was enough. Aaron could continue to wallow in self-righteousness. And while he was at it he could go to
Canada, and see if she cared...
But, of course, she did care. She cared so much that the rest of the holiday was a blur of tears and angry avowals.
She was called out on Boxing Day, having to put aside her misery to cope with the problems of others.
A child had been transferred to Barnaby’s with injuries from a road accident. The parents had been driving home in a winter dawn after an all-night party when a drunken driver had swerved into their vehicle. The father was in Intensive Care at the Infirmary with multiple injuries, the mother had escaped with cuts and shock and their six-year-old son was unconscious with injuries similar to those Lucy had sustained when she’d fallen off the climbing frame.
Annabel had never felt less like performing a tricky operation, especially one with such personal connotations, but she had no choice. A child’s life was at stake and that was what she was there for. To save it if at all possible.
Her own problems belonged to that other life where she was the woman who didn’t come up to scratch. But there in the operating theatre she was going to rise above all that, God willing, and use her expertise once again for the good of a child.
* * *
When Mary Lewis came home in the early hours of Boxing Day she found Aaron gazing sombrely into the dying embers of the fire.
‘Annabel gone to bed?’ she asked casually.
He shook his head.
‘Then where?’
‘She’s gone,’ he said heavily.
‘Gone! Gone where?’
‘Back to her place.’
‘But why?’
‘I had a phone call from Magda Sullivan earlier. She was in a terrible state. Terry’s been having an affair with one of the nurses and she’s pregnant. Needless to say, Magda isn’t coping. Apparently he told her last night. Christmas Eve. What a start to Christmas, eh?’
His mother sank down onto the nearest chair.
‘What a start indeed,’ she agreed. ‘But what has it got to do with Annabel?’
‘It appears that she was involved in a similar situation at the hospital where she worked before.’
‘What? She had an affair with a married man?’
‘Exactly. And she fell pregnant.’
‘And where is the child now?’
‘She lost it.’
‘Poor Annabel.’
‘That was what I thought when she told me. But I didn’t know the full story until tonight.’
‘And now that you do, your feelings have changed?’
‘Yes. No. I don’t know how I feel. One thing is for sure. She won’t come back after what I said to her. Why couldn’t she have been honest with me?’
‘Maybe she thought that it had nothing to do with anyone else. That it was her business, and hers alone.’
‘That’s all very well. But I more or less asked her to marry me. However, after seeing the state of Magda and her children tonight, witnessing the devastation that kind of thing can cause, I have no time for men who cheat on their wives or women who covet the husbands of others.’
‘So it’s over, your relationship with Annabel?’
‘What else would you expect?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. But from what I’ve seen of her, Annabel doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who would willingly hurt anyone.’
‘Well, she’s hurt me and will have hurt Lucy when she finds out that her wonderful Dr Swain isn’t in our lives any more.’
‘And are you bothered about the degree of Annabel’s hurt in all this?’
‘Of course I am. As a doctor I have the greatest respect for her—’
‘But as a woman you’re not so sure?’
He was on his feet. ‘I’m not sure about anything any more.’ Planting a kiss on her worried brow, he said, ‘I’m off to bed. Maybe when I’ve slept on it I’ll see things differently.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
AS THE new year approached, with its promise of new beginnings, Annabel accepted there would be none for her. In harness again at Barnaby’s after the Christmas break, she and Aaron were back to being polite strangers, still bound by their commitment to the children there, but otherwise experiencing the bitter taste of an aborted love affair that had shown him to be relentless and her sparing with the truth.
Annabel had heard nothing from Mary and had concluded that she was now just as low in her esteem as she was in her son’s, until they met one day in the town.
Both women had gone to the sales. It was Annabel’s day off and, dreading the long hours with nothing but her thoughts to occupy her, she’d gone to make a lukewarm foray around the stores.
So had Aaron’s mother, but there’d been nothing halfhearted about Mary’s shopping spree. Her friendship with Tom Parbold was flourishing and for that reason, like any other woman with a new man in her life, she felt she needed new clothes.
The two women met in the self-service restaurant of one of the stores where Mary spied Annabel seated at a table by the window, gazing into space with her meal untouched.
‘May I join you, Annabel?’ she asked, as the young doctor observed her in surprise. Without waiting for permission, she unloaded the contents of her tray onto the table and settled herself opposite.
Annabel managed a smile. She had no quarrel with this pleasant woman. Had no quarrel with her son for that matter. It was Aaron who had put an end to their relationship.
‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you ever since Christmas,’ Mary was saying, ‘but I wasn’t sure how you would feel about us having a chat. I don’t want to intrude into your life, Annabel, but I have a miserable son at home and a bewildered granddaughter and would like to see them happy again. Aaron has told me some of what happened between you and I can see both points of view. Sadly he can’t. He’d put you on a pedestal and...’
‘I fell off,’ Annabel replied with a smile as wintry as the day outside.
‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ the other woman coaxed gently. ‘You might feel better if you did.’
‘There’s not much to tell. I had an affair with another paediatric surgeon. He was an American, and a charmer. I didn’t mean to get pregnant, but as I’ve always wanted a child of my own I had no problem when I did. I thought he wouldn’t have one either. But when I told him about the baby he confessed that he was already married to someone back in the States. I immediately ended the affair as husband-stealing is not in my line, but decided that I was going to have the baby no matter what. As you will know, I lost it and, desperate for a new start, I came to work at Barnaby’s.’
‘So you didn’t know that this man was married?’
‘No. He deceived me. But I feel that I was equally to blame for taking him at face value.’
Mary sighed. ‘That is the problem. Those of us who tell the truth expect the same of others, and it doesn’t always work out that way. But, tell me, why didn’t you explain to Aaron that you were unaware of this man’s circumstances?’
‘I tried to, but he wouldn’t listen.’
As Mary observed the shadows beneath her eyes and the defeated droop of her mouth, she ached for both her son and the woman he loved. She had no doubt that Aaron still loved his clever doctor, and if the state of Annabel was anything to go by, her feelings hadn’t changed either.
‘I understood his anger and disgust,’ Annabel went on. ‘He’d just come back from the Sullivan house and seen what distress that kind of infidelity can cause. And I must have had a death wish as I chose that moment to confess. I’d wanted to tell him right from the beginning, but dreaded what would happen. But when Aaron was caught up in a similar situation I felt that I had to tell him, even though I knew what the consequences would be. And I wasn’t wrong.’
‘So let me tell Aaron that you didn’t know the American was married.’
Annabel shook her head. ‘No! Please, don’t. If Aaron can’t accept me for what I am, there is no point in taking it any further. Promise me that you won’t say anything.’
Mary sig
hed again.
‘This is all so sad. But I won’t say anything to Aaron if that is what you want. Though it’s hard to stand by and do nothing when I might be able to put matters right.’
‘The only person who can put matters right is Aaron,’ Annabel told her bleakly, ‘and something tells me that will be a long time in coming. But enough of the woes of foolish people like he and I. Tell me about Lucy. How is she? Having been banished from her life, I’m really going to miss her.’
* * *
It had been a gruelling day at the hospital. A packed clinic in the morning, with ward rounds in the afternoon, and for extra measure there’d been staff shortages for Aaron to cope with in the aftermath of Christmas.
And the day hadn’t gone down any better, with Annabel not being around. When she was there they were polite strangers and when she wasn’t he ached for the sight of her.
When he got home Lucy was waiting for him, and after playing with her while his mother put the finishing touches to the meal, he’d gone into his study and sat staring at the amethyst crystal. It was brittle and beautiful like the woman who’d given it to him, he thought. Annabel had to be hard to do what she’d done to him.
Yet he’d seen her with Lucy and the children in their care. Witnessed her pain at the loss of her own child. So why had she given so little thought to what might hurt him?
When his mother called out that dinner was ready he got to his feet, hoping that he might manage a pretence of an appetite, but food was the last thing on his mind when she said casually, ‘I had lunch with Annabel today.’
Before he could comment Lucy asked, ‘When is she coming to see us again, Grandma?’
‘I don’t know, Lucy,’ she said. ‘You’d better ask Daddy.’
‘What did she have to say?’ he asked, letting that pass.
‘Not a lot. As she’s feeling hurt and angry she didn’t send her love, if that’s what you mean. But, then, you would know that isn’t likely to happen as you must bump into each other all the time at Barnaby’s.’
The Surgeon's Family Wish Page 11