At least as a friend, though the nagging ache in his body whenever he thought of her kept reminding him he wanted more.
He walked in to the clinic, introducing himself to staff he hadn’t seen before, then made for the administration office, where he pulled out the files he needed—staff rosters, staff wages, patient and procedure numbers, and the figures submitted to the government for Medicare payments. He wasn’t an accountant, but he’d looked into the finances and staffing of a lot of practices, both general and specialist, in order to learn about setting up his own. The basic accounting tactic was to look at incomings and outgoings and see how they balanced.
And the books were all here.
There was a second desk in the room, which he knew belonged to a part-time practice manager, but twenty-four-hour clinics he’d known in the past had had full-time managers. Maybe that was part of the problem. The manager—whom he had yet to meet—was overworked.
Looking at the staff-patient ratio, the place certainly wasn’t overstaffed so that didn’t explain any shortfall in the income. And if the problem wasn’t in the income, it had to be in outgoings.
He tracked through the ledgers available to him, and finally found the answer. About twelve months earlier there’d been a big hike in the rent. The books didn’t tell him why, just that the rent had almost doubled. Going back, it appeared it had been some years since there’d been a rent rise, so maybe the previous owners had negotiated a long-term contract which had finally expired, allowing the building owner—Bob Quayle under a company name—to charge more for the space.
It was more per square metre than specialists like himself would be paying for their suites at the hospital, but he had no idea of the cost of space in the tourist centre of Summerland, so Harry couldn’t tell if the rise was fair or not. But it had happened and had certainly contributed to the decreased profitability of the clinic.
Though if the place stopped bulk-billing the government for patients on Medicare and instead charged patients a normal fee, it would not only make more money but it would pay less interest on its overdraft facility which was currently needed to meet the rent when government funds from bulk-billing hadn’t come through. By charging normal fees, it would soon find itself back in the black, and from all Harry had seen, this clinic—or a clinic—was needed in the area.
He stretched his cramped, tired limbs, then, mainly because he felt so uncomfortable, checked his watch. It was after midnight and, as far as he could remember, he’d had nothing to eat since the breakfast special.
But far more disturbing than missing a couple of meals was the fact that any number of Bob Quayle’s minions, by going through the books as he had, could have seen the problem with the clinic’s cash flow. Was he so tight-fisted he wouldn’t pay someone to do that? So mean he’d asked Harry to do it as a favour?
Harry wouldn’t have minded accepting this explanation, but a feeling of unease told him that was too easy an answer. He said goodbye to the night staff now on duty and went up to the apartment, determined to phone Bob Quayle first thing in the morning.
Bob, sounding excessively pleased to hear from him, invited him to lunch, thus spoiling Harry’s plan to visit Steph and Fanny. But the sooner he got his business with Bob over and done with, the sooner he could approach Steph with a clear conscience and no secrets.
Oh, yeah!
The first thing Bob told him, after welcoming him back to the house where he’d holidayed so often, was that Steph and Fanny were expected that afternoon.
‘It’s our access visit,’ the older man said, and there was no mistaking the bitterness in his voice. ‘Ordered by the courts and supervised by Stephanie herself, would you believe?’
Harry felt his intestines crunch together, as if reacting to a blow they’d been expecting, but though some of his suspicions were being confirmed, he still didn’t know why this apparent animosity existed.
‘I’ve already seen Steph. She’s working at the clinic. You must have known that.’
If Harry had expected Bob to look embarrassed, he was disappointed, though, considering it, Bob had probably lost the ability to be embarrassed very early on—one didn’t build an empire the size of his without treading on toes along the way.
‘Yes, I’d heard she was,’ Bob said, as if the matter was one of supreme indifference to him. ‘With some teenager left to mind Fanny. The girl could be on drugs, or having unsuitable young men over at the house. It’s a most unsatisfactory arrangement.’
Harry said nothing, though the urge to defend Tracy—who’d seemed on brief acquaintance to be an exceptional young woman—was strong. Instead, he asked after Doreen and was eventually led out to the poolside patio, where Doreen lay on a lounger, tanning her fashionably thin body.
Harry greeted her fondly, remembering how kind she’d been to him when he’d been a student and far from his own family. They talked easily, about the old days, and Martin, and the fun they’d had, but as they ate a delicious lunch, served out near the pool by a middle-aged woman who was obviously a housekeeper, Harry’s unease began to escalate.
His mind listed his problems quite succinctly.
First on the list—Steph and Fanny were coming.
Second—there was obviously some ill feeling between Steph and the Quayles.
And whose side would he appear to be on, when Steph arrived to find him drinking fine wine and eating a sumptuous dessert with people she might well regard as the enemy?
‘I really should go,’ he said, pushing the rest of the dessert away and setting down his glass of wine. ‘Didn’t get much sleep last night.’
‘No, please, stay.’
Doreen rested her beringed hand on his arm, while Bob, murmuring something about phone calls, excused himself and vanished into the house.
‘Please, Harry. It’s been so difficult for us, so very hard, to lose our beloved Martin first, then to be separated from our only grandchild. I don’t know what Bob has told you, but we did hope, he and I, that you might be able to talk to Stephanie for us.’
Did that explain Bob asking him to look into the clinic?
Maybe.
But talk to Steph on their behalf?
Yeah, right! Any minute now she’s going to get here, fire killer looks in my direction the very moment she sets eyes on me, and never speak to me again.
How the hell did he get into this situation?
More to the point, how the hell could he get out of it?
Doreen was still speaking, and he tried to follow the conversation, but he suspected either his brain had stopped working or she’d overdone the wine, because not much was making sense.
‘Natural she’d be upset over Martin’s death, but she could hardly blame us for that. But bitter! And unjust. Unnecessarily so. We’d suffered just as great a loss as she had, worse, in fact, for the loss of a child must surely be the worst pain in the world.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Harry said, wondering if this conversation was leading anywhere, and how he could terminate it.
‘She blames him, as if it was his fault he was killed,’ Doreen continued. ‘Now she won’t even speak his name if she can avoid it, but it wasn’t his fault he was killed. If anything, it was hers, having the baby a fortnight early.’
Harry stared at the older woman, wondering if she could really believe what she was saying. And had she told Steph it was her fault? Or made this opinion clear to her?
No wonder there was animosity between the two parties!
‘Here’s our little doll—our darling.’
Bob’s voice, presumably announcing Fanny’s arrival, cut off any hope of escape for Harry and, just as he’d expected, the fury in Steph’s eyes as she took in the conviviality of the lunch table cut through him like a sabre thrust.
Fanny, however, was delighted to see him, though she had enough sense to greet her grandmother with a polite kiss, before flinging herself with great delight at Harry.
‘Are you going to have a swim with me and Gra
ndad?’ she asked. ‘Mum thought it would be too cold, but I knew Grandad would want a swim, so I brought my bathers.’
Fanny ran back to her mother, who stood like a pillar of stone on the edge of the patio.
‘I really must be going,’ Harry said, though he knew the damage had already been done as far as Steph was concerned.
Bob looked from him to his daughter-in-law, then back to Harry, but his face revealed nothing.
‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow,’ Bob said. ‘And now the rain seems to be finished, you might want to pop in at the hospital and talk to the decorators about the soft furnishings—curtains and such—you want in your suite of rooms.’
Harry felt, rather than saw, Steph’s reaction—the air between them solid with distrust—and when he turned to say goodbye, the look she sent him, through slitted eyes, could only be described as venomous.
Steph nodded politely in response to Harry’s goodbye, but regret ached within her when she saw Fanny’s reaction to his departure. Harry was promising he’d see her again soon, but Steph knew it was impossible, and her little daughter was going to lose her Uncle Harry before she’d properly had a chance to get to know him.
But once again she’d been lured into trusting Harry—or almost trusting Harry—only to find him ensconced in the enemy camp.
She moved across the patio, settling into a chair not far from Doreen, a chair, she now realised, which was still warm from Harry’s body. Fanny delved into the big bag, producing her bathers, and, knowing the routine, dashed into the little shower pavilion on the far side of the pool to get changed.
Bob was also ready for his swim by the time he returned from seeing Harry out, and Steph watched as the big man and the little girl swam and frolicked in the pool.
‘She could swim every day if you lived here,’ Doreen pointed out, repeating the words she said every Sunday afternoon.
‘Yes,’ Steph said, because agreeing usually stopped the conversation.
‘Now your mother’s remarried she doesn’t need you,’ Doreen added. As this was a new tack, Steph hesitated before replying, but she could see no hidden traps beneath the statement. ‘She’s travelling overseas for two years, isn’t she?’
‘She didn’t ever need me as much as I needed her,’ Steph said, ignoring the remark about her mother’s travel. ‘Especially when Fanny was a baby.’
‘You could have lived here. You should have lived here! This should be Fanny’s home.’
Doreen’s voice became shrill and Steph sighed.
‘Let’s not get into this conversation again,’ she pleaded, wondering for the umpteenth time why she hadn’t ever come right out and told the Quayles exactly why she’d refused to live with them.
But it would have destroyed their image of Martin and tarnished his memory in their eyes, and they’d done nothing to deserve that.
Nothing more than loving him too much—and giving him too much.
‘She could be such a wonderful swimmer,’ Doreen said, and Steph closed her eyes and prayed for patience as the same conversation began all over again.
By Monday evening when Steph left for work, she was tired, uptight and very apprehensive.
‘If Harry Pritchard turns up,’ she told Rebecca, ‘I do not, under any circumstances, want to see him.’
Rebecca looked so startled Steph replayed the words in her head, then realised it must have been her tone as much as the content which had taken Rebecca aback.
‘OK,’ Rebecca agreed, but the warning proved unnecessary as Harry didn’t appear.
Steph didn’t know whether to be relieved or angry. She told herself she didn’t want to see him—ever again—but she would have liked the opportunity to vent a little spleen by telling him exactly what she thought of him.
Within the clinic, rumours abounded. The clinic had been sold again—it was closing—no more bulk-billing. So many stories, but nothing changed until the following Friday when, along with a slip detailing what pay had been transferred to her bank account, was a dismissal notice. Alerted by the disgruntled day staff, the night shift had gathered in the tearoom, where they’d all fingered the little envelopes before opening them.
According to the notice, the clinic was no longer a viable concern and the owners had been forced to cease operations.
As from this Sunday! She was to work out the night, and weekend staff would operate, but the Sunday night shift would be the last. The clinic would not be open Monday.
Steph stared at the words, sure there must be some mistake, but loud wailing from Rebecca suggested she’d received the same information.
‘It’s ridiculous,’ Colin, the second doctor on night shift that night, said, staring at his own piece of paper. ‘You can’t just shut the doors of a place like this. Look at the patients we see, the people who need attention immediately. Where are they supposed to go? Another ten kilometres to the public hospital where they might wait six hours before being treated?’
‘You’re a far nicer person than I am,’ Steph told him. ‘I’ve been wondering where I’ll get another job, not where the patients will have to go.’
‘I guess I’ll go back to the agency,’ Colin said. ‘They can usually get me night work in A and E at the General.’
He smiled encouragingly at Steph.
‘They’d probably take you on as well,’ he said, but she shook her head.
‘The shifts are all wrong,’ she told him. ‘I’d either be starting late afternoon, when I’d prefer to be with Fanny, or finishing late in the morning, so I couldn’t be home for her when she wakes up. That’s why this job was ideal.’
‘It’s that bloke that did it!’ Rebecca muttered, turning to Steph. ‘Your friend Harry.’
‘No!’
The protest was automatic, but a swirling nausea in her stomach belied her denial. Harry had been here to look at how the clinic was working—but why was it any of his business? Who had asked him to do this?
Who were the new owners?
With her stomach churning even harder, she remembered walking into the Quayles’ mansion on Sunday and seeing Harry sitting there.
Had the Quayles’ vendetta against her reached the stage where Bob would buy the clinic and close it down in order to put her out of a job?
And so force her to take up their offer to house and keep both her and Fanny?
She worked through the night, and by morning knew exactly where to lay the blame for her current unemployment situation. Bob had said something about Harry taking up a suite of rooms in his new hospital. Maybe the hospital would have a phone number for him.
But as she said a tearful farewell to Rebecca, promising to keep in touch, a chance remark saved her the phone call.
‘We should go straight upstairs and tell that Harry Pritchard what we think of him,’ Rebecca said.
‘Upstairs?’ Steph echoed. ‘Upstairs in this building? Harry’s staying in this building?’
‘Didn’t you know?’ Rebecca said. ‘No, I guess you wouldn’t, but that first night he came in, when he was jet-lagged, he said he’d come down and I asked him where he was staying. Unit seventy-four on the twelfth floor—heaven knows why I remember it!’
It all began to make sense. Bob had built Dolphin Towers and, according to Martin, his father had always kept a couple of apartments in the buildings he built. Bob had bribed Harry to spy on her workplace with the offer of free accommodation.
‘You go on home,’ she said to Rebecca. ‘Leave me to deal with Harry Pritchard!’
Shaking with fury, she made her way into the foyer where lifts served the residential tower. She jabbed her finger on the ‘up’ button, and wasn’t the least bit mollified when the doors swept open immediately. She stabbed at the button marked twelve, and as the metal cube slid silently upward she told herself to calm down—to think through this confrontation.
But a red mist of anger prevented any sensible thinking, and she strode out of the lift on the twelfth floor, looked around and spied number seventy-f
our. It would be the one with the views to the beach and out across the wide Pacific Ocean! Bob would keep the best for himself.
Another button to press but, rather than jab at this one, she put her forefinger on it and held it there.
‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’ She could hear Harry’s exasperation through the door, but didn’t move her finger so the chiming bell sound continued to jangle within the apartment.
Finally, he wrenched open the door, and Steph’s fury froze momentarily, her heart kicking up a notch or two of pace as she came face to face with Harry’s broad, bare chest. Her gaze slid lower. Fortunately, from the waist down, he was clad in an ultra-conservative, blue striped pair of pyjama bottoms.
‘Steph?’
His surprise—or mock surprise—reminded her of her mission, and she jabbed her finger out again, this time into the middle of the bare chest. She’d teach it to give her palpitations.
‘You slime-ball, Harry Pritchard! You cheat! You traitor! I can’t believe you’ve done this to me again. To think I let you see my daughter—that I told her only nice things about you so she thinks you’re wonderful, and then you come back to Australia and muck up my life once more.’
Harry had stepped back, possibly because of the jabbing, but he wasn’t getting away that easily. Steph followed him and continued to emphasise her points with forefinger on the slight indentation of his sternum.
‘Well, let me tell you, it won’t happen. The Quayles won’t win, and do you know why? Because you’re going to make up for this. You’re going to find me another job—right now—and if it means I have to come to work for you in your swanky new suite of rooms in Bob Quayle’s hospital, then so be it. But even if I’m only vacuuming the carpet, I work the hours I want and you pay me as a doctor. OK?’
She was surprised to hear this declaration, as she certainly hadn’t thought it through to that extent, but if she was surprised, Harry was far beyond that emotion. Beyond stunned as well, she guessed.
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