‘So good to see you, Kelly,’ he said. ‘May I pour you a glass of wine?’
‘Please, but just a small one.’
He poured her a glass, gave it to her, and hoped she couldn’t feel the trembling in his fingers as their hands touched. Just being in the same room as her brought him so much pleasure.
Kelly wasn’t sure what she felt. The usual shock of his appearance whenever they met, the feeling of how good he looked, it was showing no sign of disappearing yet. What would it be like to spend another mealtime with him? She determined not to drink too much. Then honesty forced her to accept that the events two nights ago had not been due to alcohol. All had been her fault.
He led her to a corner of the room where windows opened onto the lawns and the copse beyond. They sat in two easy chairs and looked out. ‘I’ve been looking at the birds,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard that Jenny was very enthusiastic about them and it made me enthusiastic too. Kelly, that was a brilliant idea.’
She felt pleased at the compliment. ‘I enjoyed it as much as Jenny did,’ she said.
‘She wants to carry on with her birds’ notebook. I thought—if you agree—that I might promise her a bird-spotters’ book of her own.’
‘When she’s looked at them for a week or so. Let’s make sure she’s genuinely interested first.’
‘Of course.’
There was something that Kelly had noticed. ‘There seems to be a lot of birds in your garden,’ she said, ‘more than I would have expected. Certainly more than I’ve seen anywhere else.’
‘Ah!’ He smiled. ‘They come to nest in my woods. As you know, France is a nation of hunters—and the hunters shoot birds whether they can eat them or not. But I will not permit shooting on my land, I have heard enough of the sound of guns. So the local hunters are upset but the birds seem to realise that this is a sanctuary and they flock here.’
Why doesn’t that story surprise me? Kelly asked herself. It was a point of view with which she entirely sympathised. ‘You don’t approve of shooting?’ she asked.
‘For food and when it is necessary, yes. Shooting for sport, no.’
‘I think I agree.’ She said.
‘We have a big garden here. I thought that in time, when she is old enough to appreciate them and old enough to look after them, I might buy Jenny some chickens. Minette could buy the eggs from her.’
‘Now, that is a good idea.’
This was a nice, safe subject, Kelly thought. They could talk about a small child growing up without any too personal thoughts.
Behind them the door opened, and Minette’s soft voice said, ‘Dinner served now, m’sieur?’
‘Please, Minette. I see you have already laid the small table.’
Luc stood, held out his hand to Kelly. ‘Shall we dine, Kelly?’
‘Let us do that, Luc.’
It was a simpler meal than the one they had had two nights before. A vegetable and lentil soup with herbs. A roast sea bass on a bed of vegetables. In the French manner, cheese before the pudding, which was crème caramel. And then there was fruit. There was little conversation throughout the meal, both seemed happy to eat and just comment on how wonderful the meal was.
Kelly felt more confident as the meal progressed. She was enjoying herself, being with Luc was not as strained as it might have been. There was something between them, in time it would have to be sorted out, but for now she just enjoyed his company. She had had—was having—a good day. When the meal was over they returned to the two chairs by the windows and Minette brought them coffee, two small glasses and a bottle of brandy.
Kelly was looking forward to a pleasant and peaceful evening when surprisingly Minette returned. ‘There is a phone call for you, sir.’
Luc frowned. ‘A phone call? Who rings at this time? I’m not on call.’
‘The phone call is from London, sir. It is Madame Laforge, she says it is urgent.’
‘She is Madame Laforge no longer, Minette! She is…I forget.’ He stood, his anger only too obvious. ‘I’ll take the call in my study.’
He turned, said, ‘Kelly, please excuse me.’
‘It would be the height of bad manners not to answer, Luc. I’ll sit here and drink coffee till you return.’
He left. Kelly found she had no wish to drink more coffee. She knew Luc was divorced, she had no doubt about his dislike for his ex-wife, but she wished that Merryl had not phoned. She knew from her break-up with Gary that almost as much pain could come from meetings after a parting than during it. There was always bitterness, on both sides. And with Gary, she had a growing certainty that he believed she was responsible for everything bad that happened.
Luc returned. ‘Sorry about that, Kelly,’ he said. ‘These things are sent to try us.’ As ever, his voice was calm, but Kelly could feel an underlying tension that made his words clipped and harsh.
He drank his now-cold coffee in one great mouthful. He reached for the brandy bottle, filled his glass and emptied that. Then he started to refill the glass but stopped when it was half-full.
‘Whatever problems I have won’t be solved by drinking too much,’ he said.
‘True.’ Kelly allowed herself a small smile.
‘Even divorced couples have to communicate at times,’ he said, ‘but this was the first time since the accident that I’ve spoken to Merryl directly.’
‘I’m not surprised. Let me guess, you heard about the accident, you drove to where it occurred to find that Merryl had been drinking and Jenny was quite badly injured—you lost your temper with her.’
‘I did. I said what I thought and Merryl was horrified and even a bit frightened. She said she saw a side of me that she’d never seen before.’
Luc leaned back in his chair, gazed at the ceiling. Casually he asked, ‘Is it possible to love someone, even to be married to them, and not know what they are really like? Can you ever truly know another person?’
Kelly was suddenly alert. She glanced at Luc. His temper seemed to have vanished. This was not a casual question about his wife and his divorce. It was a question to her—and a difficult one.
‘I thought I was in love with Gary. But then he turned out to be…well, not the man I wanted. And I realised afterwards that I’d known all about his bad points, known that he was shallow and self-centred and not even a very good actor. But I’d fooled myself because I wanted to be in love.’
‘Shallow, self-centred and not a very good actor,’ Luc said with a small smile. ‘What would he say if he heard you describe him that way?’
‘I can tell you exactly. He did hear, those are the words I used to him. He didn’t like them—especially the bit about being a bad actor. He said I was boring and just didn’t know how to have fun.’
‘I don’t find you boring. You rescue schoolchildren from buses and like paddling at night. So do you think you will ever be certain enough to fall in love again? Can you imagine finding the right man?’
Where was this conversation going? Kelly looked around her, almost in panic. She knew very well that this was not a vague, generalised question. He was asking her if she could ever love him. And at this moment she just didn’t want to answer.
Unthinkingly, she reached for her own brandy glass, poured its contents into her mouth just as she was about to speak. She wasn’t used to neat spirits, had only sipped in the past. This wasn’t sipping! She choked, coughed, spluttered, leaned forward, desperately trying to get back her breath. She was aware of Luc pounding on her back—and laughing at the same time.
What a way to answer him!
‘I’ll fetch you some water,’ he said, still smiling. ‘You’ll be fine in a minute.’
‘I feel a fool,’ she croaked.
But when he returned with the water and she had drunk it, she realised that choking on the brandy had given her a respite. She could alter the mock joking conversation of before, move onto a safer topic.
But the question echoed and re-echoed through her head. Do you think you will ever be
certain enough to fall in love again? Can you imagine finding the right man? She didn’t know what her answers would be. And she knew she’d like to ask him the same two questions.
Still…‘You say this is the first time that your ex-wife has been in touch since the accident? Not even to ask about Jenny?’
She looked up to see him smiling at her. He knew very well why she had changed the subject. But there was determination in his eyes. This was a topic that would be raised again.
However, she had asked a question, he would answer it. ‘My ex-mother-in-law has phoned to ask once or twice. But no one has been to visit—thank goodness.’ Then his expression changed as he snarled, ‘Until now!’
‘Your ex-wife is coming here to visit?’ Kelly couldn’t hide her alarm.
‘She claims she wants some photographs of herself with Jenny. That is all. But she wanted to bring a professional photographer with her. If a professional photographer comes, those photographs will somehow find their way into the papers.’
‘So you said she could not come?’
‘No. She can come. She wouldn’t say when but she’s likely just to turn up in the next few days.’ Luc paused a moment and then said, very deliberately, ‘She also said that we have some personal things to sort out. I want to know what she means.’
This Kelly didn’t like at all. And she saw that Luc was uneasy too.
‘Luc, if your ex-wife is coming to visit, and you don’t know when, I think that I should leave.’
‘No! I will not have my life and Jenny’s life messed up by that woman. It’ll be hard enough for Jenny to have me and her mother together. You’ll be the person that causes us all to behave.’
Jenny. Kelly hadn’t thought of her. Her heart went out to a six-year-old confined to bed, warred over by two parents. She hadn’t known her long, but she was getting to…like the little girl.
‘Then I’ll stay.’ She thought a minute and then said, ‘But the clothes of hers that I borrowed. I’ll get them cleaned tomorrow, return them and you’re never to say that I wore them.’
‘Of course,’ he said.
Next day she was due to visit the surgery for the first time and she felt apprehensive.
She travelled in with Luc and as they drove into the car park she looked approvingly at the building in front of her. For a start, it was very modern, obviously purpose built in a light grey stone with cream woodwork. It was single storey, the large windows now nearly all shuttered. Outside there were trees, shrubs, small flower-beds.
‘This doesn’t look like an English surgery,’ she said. ‘It’s far too pretty.’
‘If you are sick, injured or afraid, then a gloomy building can only make you feel worse. I want our surgery to be welcoming. Come and look round inside.’
A pleasant reception area, a smiling receptionist. ‘Dr Laforge, Dr Briard asked to be told the minute you arrived.’
‘Dr Briard is here?’
‘He’s made a special visit, to pick up his mail and to meet…to meet the new doctor.’
‘Of course. Renee, this is Dr Blackwood.’
Feeling a bit shy, Kelly shook hands. She’d have to get out of this habit of being wary of meeting people!
But she took to Dr Briard at once. A burly man, older than Luc and whose English was not half as good. But he too smiled at her and she felt welcome at once.
Waving his bandaged wrist, Dr Briard said, ‘I would like you to be my right ’and man—or woman.’ He was obviously pleased with his little joke. ‘Your room will be on the right of mine. Together we shall make a team.’
‘I shall look forward to that. I prefer working as a team to working on my own.’
She had said that, trying to be polite. But when she had said it, she realised that it was true—she had always liked being part of a tight medical team. Only in the past year had she turned into a loner. And now she was changing back.
She was shown around the building. It was far more than a simple GP’s surgery, there were facilities for quite advanced work. ‘Sometimes we have to act quickly,’ Luc explained, ‘and it’s a long way to the hospital.’ She was told a little of the work she would be expected to do, shown her own little consultancy room which, as Dr Briard had said, was to the right of his room. ‘And you can take all the English patients,’ Dr Briard said hopefully. ‘They like people to speak English. And when I have difficulty in understanding, they talk very fast and shout.’
‘Not a good idea,’ she agreed.
She was taken into the doctors’ lounge, given a cup of coffee—the best coffee she had ever had in a medical institution. Then Luc and Dr Briard excused themselves and disappeared for a while. There were tax problems they had to discuss.
French doctors’ lounges were just like English doctors’ lounges, she decided. Just the coffee was better and the tattered magazines in French. She sat there, leafing through an old edition of a glossy magazine. She thought she would be happy here.
Then she heard a loud voice—a loud English voice. The voice was upset—and there was someone crying too. The lounge opened off the reception area. An English woman had come into reception and had a problem. Kelly told herself that it wasn’t her problem, that she didn’t work here yet, that someone would come and deal with the matter. But no one came.
Kelly sighed, stepped outside, looked at a red-faced, distracted-looking woman in a straw hat and a sleeveless dress. Clutching her leg was a crying little boy aged about seven.
‘You’ve got to help me,’ the woman was shouting at the receptionist. ‘Roland here needs a doctor! He was just running and he fell over and put his hand out to save himself and look at his fingers! It’s horrible! He needs an operation!’
‘I’m a doctor. May I help?’ Kelly said calmly.
‘You’re English!’
‘May I see Roland’s hand?’
The woman eased the crying boy away from her skirt, took his wrist and showed Kelly his hand. ‘Look at that! It’s horrible. I don’t want to look.’
Kelly supposed that it did look horrible unless it was the kind of thing you were used to. Roland had dislocated two of his fingers. They stood up at right angles from the back of his hand.
‘Nothing too serious,’ she said to his mother. ‘He’s suffering more from shock than pain. We can deal with it easily. Now, if I can have a closer look…’
She lifted Roland to sit on the receptionist’s desk. Then she held the injured hand, ran her own fingers over the two dislocations. ‘Look Roland!’ she said suddenly. ‘Can you see that big red bird outside?’ She pointed through the glass doors.
It was the excitement in Kelly’s voice that made him look, that made him, just for a second, forget his injured hand. Kelly held his palm in one hand, took the dislocated fingers on the other hand and pulled them back into place.
‘Ooh!’ shouted Roland. But it was a cry of shock rather than pain.
‘All done.’ Kelly smiled at the mother. ‘In a moment Dr Laforge will be here and—’
‘Do we have a problem?’ Drs Laforge and Briard appeared.
Just like buses, Kelly thought. You wait when you need one and when you’ve stopped needing one they turn up in masses. She said, ‘This is Roland. He dislocated two fingers and I’ve just slipped them back into their sockets. I thought a cold compress and perhaps a check to see that nothing else…Sorry, you’re the doctors here.’
‘We’re all doctors here,’ said Luc, ‘but I’ll deal with this little boy for now. Paul, want to have a coffee with Kelly? This won’t take long.’
‘Of course.’
Paul escorted Kelly back into the lounge. ‘Medicine can be exciting, can’t it?’ he asked.
‘I’ve been excited in my time,’ she replied.
Because Paul was not able to use his right hand Kelly offered to start work the next afternoon. Everyone thought this a good idea. She took her own car into work as she would be working very different hours from Luc. Which would mean she could still spend time with Je
nny.
It was agreed that technically she would be Paul’s assistant. He was supposed to check all her prescriptions, agree any treatment that she thought necessary, sign the vast number of forms. In fact, as he told her, he intended to do no such thing. ‘This is a paper thing only,’ he said. ‘I have every faith in you.’
It was a different kind of medicine from that which she had last practised. A lot of the work was to do with seeing patients—often older patients—who had long-standing conditions and who needed regular check-ups. She found that her French was quite good enough for the chat that was apparently part of the therapeutic regime. The ratio of doctors to patients was much higher in France than in England. There was always time for a few words.
She was also sent most of the British patients. Here again, talk was nearly as important as medicine. Many were gastric complaints. A change in water perhaps, or too much rich food. Easy enough to reassure and treat. But there was another complaint that made it difficult for her to keep her temper—surely everyone knew by now? Excessive sunlight was dangerous. The adults had only themselves to blame. She treated them, of course, but tried to impress on them—firmly but politely—the dangers of excessive sunbathing. But when one baby was brought in, bright red from the sun, she did lose her temper. Not shouting and raging, that wasn’t her way. ‘Do you realise,’ she said, in an apparently calm voice, ‘that if you had left your little girl in the sun for another ten minutes she could have died? And the French are far less lenient about things like this than the British.’
‘Well, we thought—’ the father started in an aggressive voice.
But Kelly had just smelled the alcohol on his breath. ‘You thought? I doubt that. If you tried to think more and drink less, your poor baby wouldn’t be in this state. Now, good afternoon. If the little girl appears to be any worse, bring her back here at once.’
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