As he raised himself up off the pillows he saw that her door was open as he’d left it the night before in case she had a repetition of the bad dream, but the bed was empty and there was no sound of her in the en suite. Without dressing, he went down the stairs at speed and she was there, in the kitchen. The table was set, cereal dishes were laid out, and she was at the cooker, grilling bacon.
When she saw him she came across to where he was standing in the doorway and, reaching up, touched his face gently. ‘I’m sorry about last night, Gabriel,’ she said. ‘I think I’d rather overdone it at the party and although I’d gone straight to sleep, my brain hadn’t.’
‘Has that sort of thing ever happened before?’ he asked carefully.
‘No! Last night was just a one-off, a bad dream. Why, what did you think it was?’
‘I didn’t know, but it did occur to me that it might be something else that I’m responsible for.’
‘Don’t say things like that!’ she cried. ‘All you ever did wrong was work too hard. If I could turn back the clock, I would. You aren’t the only one to blame for what happened. Our lives will never be right again until we can put the past behind us.’
‘Yes, I do know that,’ he said gently, and thought that he was the one with the most past to put behind him. Would he ever forget the smells, the bars on the windows and the claustrophobic atmosphere of the place?
The bacon was beginning to sizzle and splutter. It took over the moment and nothing further was said.
* * *
On a continent far away Aaron Somerton was preparing to leave the place that had been his home for the last four years and it was a strange feeling to know that he would soon be back on English soil again.
He had been one of the doctors from the UK working at the hospital in an African township when Nathan Gallagher had arrived on a three-year contract, and when it had been up twelve months ago Aaron had been loath to see the other man go, as on meeting they’d discovered that they both came from the same county in England and had been brought up only miles apart.
It was the reason why Aaron had been keen to take Nathan up on his suggestion that he take up temporary employment in the practice at Swallowbrook when he came back to the UK until he had sorted out his future.
The details of the accommodation he’d been sent had caused him to start counting the days and now there were not many left to cross off before he took a flight homewards.
As the two of them had chatted he’d been surprised to hear that Nathan was now married, had adopted a child, and was about to have a child of his own from his new wife, all in the space of a year.
Obviously his ex-colleague was not someone to hesitate when the moment was right, he thought, which wasn’t exactly how he would describe himself, and wondered if all those of his kind who came to Africa to work had left behind some unfinished business.
* * *
It seemed strange on Monday morning for Libby’s consulting room to be empty. Nathan had suggested to Ruby that she move into it as hers was rather small, but she’d told him that she was happy enough where she was, and when he’d reminded her that now she was the only woman doctor in the practice and that she would be getting the bulk of the patients of her own sex, she’d smiled and said, ‘Lucky me,’ and had meant it, even though there would be many pregnancies amongst them.
Her haemophilia nightmare had become bearable with Hugo surrounding her with his love and tender care and she was happier now than she’d ever been.
In her office in the basement Laura was receiving brief visits from surgery staff wanting to say their bit about how they’d enjoyed Saturday night, and she thought in a moment of quiet that the next happy event in the life of the head of the practice would be the birth of his child.
With sudden yearning the thought came that she and Gabriel could do with a ‘happy event’. She would settle for a break in the sun somewhere, far away from painful memories, but they’d let the school’s long summer holiday go by.
The next time the children were off would be the October half-term, so why not then? She was due some holiday leave from the practice, but Gabriel had one big commitment, his appearance before the hospital board. So it would be better for that to be over and done with and a holiday would be just the thing to take away the taste of it.
To her dismay, he didn’t show much interest in the idea when she suggested it. His comment was a lukewarm ‘Yes, possibly we could have a break, but shall we wait until nearer the time?’
He was taking into account that holidays meant being together non-stop, she decided. They would be much closer than in their daily lives and perhaps in the present state of their relationship he didn’t want to rush that as he hadn’t followed up her proposed nocturnal visit that had backfired when Sophie had been taken ill.
He had turned away to hide a smile at her suggestion. It was her birthday in the middle of October. He’d arranged for the four of them to go to one of the Greek islands for the week of the school half-term to celebrate the occasion, and was hoping that by then he would be able to offer Laura the peace of mind that he so much wanted to give her, which all fitted in with his lukewarm response.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT WAS busy at the practice with a doctor short now that Libby had left.
Laura suggested to Nathan and Hugo that they take on a locum until Aaron Somerton arrived, but as it was only a few weeks until he put in an appearance they decided that it was hardly worth it, and that as the room that had always been Libby’s was being decorated ready for his arrival it would be difficult to accommodate a locum.
Those were the problems of her working life, Laura thought, surmountable, possible to sort out. Her home life was a different thing. Every time she thought about the hearing all the new closeness that she and Gabriel had been achieving seemed to diminish, become distant, and she couldn’t bear the thought of them going back to how they’d been before.
He hadn’t been out in the evening again without explanation but she’d discovered from a casual comment by one of the practice nurses that she’d seen him at the local garage getting fuel one morning and she’d described him as looking ‘scrumptious’ in a dark suit, white shirt, and tie.
Thinking back, Laura recalled that when she’d arrived home that day Gabriel had been in jeans and a sweatshirt, mowing the lawns, and no comment had been forthcoming about where he’d been off to that morning.
They’d been used to telling each other everything before their breakdown of communications and had made every decision of importance together, but not any more. It wasn’t surprising that he was not falling over himself to go on holiday with her. Closer they might be, yet the feeling of being on the fringe of what was happening in Gabriel’s life was still there.
She would have been surprised to know that as he had driven out of the village on the appointment that he’d dressed so smartly for, he had been having similar thoughts. Hating to keep things from her but wary of telling her what he was planning in case it all fell apart.
While the children were playing with friends it had seemed that he’d also gone fishing on the day when the nurse had seen him. When Laura had gone into the kitchen to sort out the evening meal his catch had been there, gutted, cleaned and ready for cooking.
For a moment she’d thought that the nurse must have been wrong,
Yet who would mistake the man she was married to, especially in a smart suit, and if that was the case, where had he been going?
He’d been his usual self during the evening and the same the next morning at breakfast, but the thought kept niggling at the back of her mind and was still there as she walked the short distance to the practice. They didn’t sleep together, didn’t talk all that much, he didn’t want to holiday with her and went out on secret appointments. How much longer could she cope with this kind of life? she wond
ered. Roll on the day of the hearing.
* * *
There had been a fire at the cricket ground at the opposite end of the village from where the practice was situated. A storeroom where equipment was kept had gone up in flames from an electrical fault, to the dismay of the cricketers both old and young, especially the young, who flocked there on weeknights for practice and the opportunity of being with their own age group instead of hanging about on street corners.
Since the catastrophe various fundraising efforts had been held with a view to replacing what had been lost, and on a night soon to come the Swallowbrook Community Committee was holding a big barbeque on a field opposite the cricket ground as the final fundraising event. Most of the money had been raised and soon the cricketers would be back on the pitch with new equipment.
It was to take place on the Saturday night two weeks after Libby’s farewell party and Gabriel was keen for them to go because he said that soon Josh and Toby would be there on summer nights with the young throng of hopefuls and maybe even Sophie, as it wasn’t unheard of for the girls of the village to turn up for practice.
Laura agreed that whatever the future of the cricket team, the present was calling for their support and bought four tickets for the barbeque from the post office with the thought in mind that if she and Gabriel rarely spent time together with just the two of them, a family outing was always something to treasure.
* * *
There were sideshows at one end of the cricket ground with the barbeque positioned opposite, and already there were lots of folk there, mostly villagers with just a few strange faces amongst them.
When they came across Hugo and Ruby he had just won a cocoanut and on seeing his young wife eating candy floss Sophie asked if she could have some, and Gabriel went for it to a stall further down the field.
Laura chatted for a while to the newlyweds with the children playing nearby, and when they’d moved on she glanced in the direction that Gabriel had taken and saw him in conversation with the same nurse who had described him as ‘scrumptious’ when she’d seen him at the petrol pumps that day.
She was a captivating creature herself with long dark hair, hazel eyes with long lashes, totally beguiling, and whatever she was saying to Gabriel she certainly had his full attention. Yet he didn’t linger, aware of Sophie waiting for the candy floss, and when he joined them again he said thoughtfully, ‘That was a nurse from the practice.’
‘Yes, I know,’ she told him. ’What did she want?’
‘She was asking if the new doctor at the practice was going to be me, and when I said no, that it was going to be this Somerton guy, I thought she was going to collapse. The colour just drained from her face. What do you think of that?’
‘It seems very odd,’ she replied. ‘Her name is Julianne Marshall and if I remember rightly I have her address on file at the surgery as an apartment above the beauty salon on the main street of the village. Do you think she knows our new doc?’
‘Maybe Somerton is from these parts and the name rang a bell,’ he commented, and they left it at that and went to see what was happening on the cricket field.
* * *
When they arrived back at the house there was a message on the answering-machine to say that her uncle was spending what he described as a ‘culture break’ in London and would be coming to stay with them overnight the following day.
As she listened to the message from her only relative Laura was filled with a mixture of pleasure and dismay. Pleasure because she was fond of the elderly bachelor who had kept in touch ever since she’d lost both her parents when in her early twenties. Her dismay at the thought of him visiting was smaller than the pleasure, but was there nevertheless because of the situation between Gabriel and herself. He’d gone to live in Spain thinking that once they’d settled in the village it would be the end of their troubles, but her uncle was nobody’s fool, and there was the question of the sleeping arrangements.
When she relayed the message to Gabriel he smiled. ‘That is good. It will be great to see the old guy again, though I suppose you are concerned about where he’s going to sleep as I’m using the spare room. Yes?’
‘Yes, I am,’ she said levelly. There was no way she wanted them to sleep together again under those sorts of circumstances.
‘It won’t be a problem, Laura,’ he told her. ‘With a sheet and an extra duvet in your room I’ll be fine. Your uncle won’t know what the arrangements are once the door is closed behind us. The farce will be for us alone to concern ourselves about.’
Fixing him with a steady blue gaze, she said, ‘You always were good at finding the right word when you wanted to describe something, Gabriel, and you still are. A farce is a sham, an empty thing, and if that doesn’t describe what our love life has become I can’t think what does.’ And without giving him the chance to reply, she went to check that the children were asleep before going to bed herself.
He made to follow her, wanting to hold her close and put an end to the thing that was keeping them apart, but what would he have to tell her? Nothing definite, that was for sure, and until there was he would have to wait until the time was right, and it wasn’t now.
* * *
It was Saturday morning so they were all able to meet Gordon at the local railway station.
When he stepped out onto the platform Laura and Gabriel exchanged smiles. Dressed in a lightweight beige suit with a straw panama hat on his grizzled head, he was the picture of the elderly British ex-pat, and then Laura was hugging him, Gabriel shaking him by the hand, and the children, standing to one side, were warily observing the strange-looking visitor that they didn’t see very often.
When they arrived at the house her uncle looked around him at the improvements she’d made. ‘This place used to be just somewhere to eat and sleep when I had it. I can’t believe it’s the same house,’ he said approvingly. ‘It was always too big for me, a family like you folks was what it needed.’ His glance still taking in the changes she’d made, he went on, ‘I see that you’ve had it re-thatched and whoever did it made a better job of it than before.’
They had lunch on the patio and when Laura and her uncle were chatting afterwards Gordon said, ‘I rang Nathan and his father while I was on the train to see if some of us could meet up somewhere tonight and took the liberty of asking them to come here, Laura. Is that all right?’
‘Yes, of course. It is still just as much your house as it is ours,’ she told him, with her glance on Gabriel who had gone to the bottom of the garden to get the children’s ball out of thick bushes where it had just landed.
‘Has the dust of the dreadful thing that happened to you both settled down?’ he asked in a low voice.
‘We’re getting there,’ she said lightly, and wished she was a better liar.
‘That’s good, though I do think you look a bit peaky,’ he commented. His gaze transferred to Gabriel. ‘And your man down there, how is he?’
She had a sudden urge to be truthful instead of doing a cover-up and told him, ‘He has changed, compared to how he used to be, not with the children, he is lovely with them the same as he’s always been, but Gabriel doesn’t share things with me like he used to.
‘He’s waiting to go before the hospital board to see if they will agree to him still practising there, but even if they do I’m not sure that he will go back, and I feel so guilty because I was the one who triggered everything off that day. But please don’t tell him that I’ve told you.’
He nodded. ‘I promise I won’t say a word. Give him time, Laura, that is what he needs.’
‘Yes, but how much?’ she said. ‘He spends his days taking care of the children, going fishing, and is secretive about anywhere else he goes. It is Gabriel that I’m describing, yet it feels like a stranger.’
* * *
The evening was a happy one with those wh
o had known each other a long time enjoying the company of old friends they could chat with about times gone by.
Libby and Nathan had come to Swallows Barn to meet up with Gordon once again. John Gallagher was there, eager to chat with someone who had been employed at the practice when he’d been in charge, and although Gordon had only known Hugo and Ruby briefly before he’d left, Laura had invited them because she was fond of Ruby, and her charming husband had been kind and helpful when she’d been moving into the house on her own when Gabriel hadn’t been there for her and the children.
* * *
When the guests had gone Gordon said, ‘I will be off first thing in the morning as I’m having afternoon tea with an old school friend, and have got a ticket for a concert in the evening. I’ve been doing the rounds of the shows while I’ve been in London and some sightseeing of special places. It has been exactly how I wanted it to be, a pleasant “culture break”.
‘I’m off back to Spain on Monday to tie up a few loose ends and shut up my house there for a while.’ He observed them both calmly. ‘I’ve been diagnosed with cancer of the prostate and want to be treated over here by you, Gabriel, if you will do that for me.’
There was a shocked silence for a few seconds as they took in what he’d just told them then Gabriel said, ‘How long since you found out, Gordon?’
‘The doctors over there have been monitoring my prostate count for some time and recently it has shot up quite alarmingly and the diagnosis is cancer.’
‘I see, and, yes, it goes without saying that I will take you on as a patient,’ Gabriel told him. ‘It will be a privilege. Laura has perhaps told you that I haven’t gone back to my London clinic, but there are ways and means in which I can treat you privately and be in contact with them at the same time with regard to your treatment if that would be all right with you?’
‘And you must stay here with us until you are well again,’ Laura said anxiously.
Gordon was smiling, the only one of the three of them who was.
Marriage Miracle in Swallowbrook Page 11