‘That’s why you did it, isn’t it? Back then?’
‘It’s only since I came back that I’ve put it all together,’ he said quietly. ‘It was one last swim—one last penance if you like—but, Megan, when I think—’
‘You were hurting, Sam, and you hit back. Not admirable perhaps but at seventeen understandable. But what’s changed? What did you find out about your father that kissing me is now OK?’
He didn’t answer for so long Meg counted forty tiny waves whisper up the beach then shush back into nothingness.
‘I had to go through Mum’s papers after her death, looking for insurance policies, bank accounts, all the things you need to do. She had a bundle of letters in an old chocolate box. Tied with a blue ribbon. How corny can you get? Letters from Daryl Westwood.’
He paused as if Meg should know the name but although she might have heard of a family called Westwood, the Daryl part wasn’t ringing any bells.
‘You didn’t go to the Bay High School, which is why the name means nothing. To me it meant local hero! He was school captain in his final year, captain of the cricket and rugby teams, best debater, top of his class and all-round good guy from all accounts, although history does build up its heroes.’
‘So?’ Meg probed when she’d counted another forty waves.
‘His photo was up on the wall in our assembly hall, and every kid who went to Bay knew the story—knew how he’d finished school and was going on to university in Brisbane to do medicine. His parents and younger sister were all driving down with him to see him settled into college when they slammed into a semitrailer and were killed—the whole family wiped out.’
Meg reached out and took Sam’s hand, squeezing his fingers tightly.
Another forty—maybe fifty—waves washed up the beach.
‘In case I hadn’t heard the stories, the newspaper cuttings of the accident, all brown and brittle, cracking at the folds, were in the box. The letters made it clear the affair was a secret—apparently Westwoods weren’t supposed to associate with the daughters of Italian cane farmers. Maybe Mum’s parents had forbidden it as well. But the last letter had a train ticket to Brisbane in it, and a form already filled out by Daryl for Mum to complete—a declaration of an intention to get married.’
Meg felt tears for Gina sliding down her cheeks, and her chest felt so heavy she leant against Sam’s shoulder, then rational thought subsumed the emotion.
‘But if he was dead couldn’t Gina have told you your father had died? He was this great fellow but he died?’
She felt Sam’s chest move as he took in a deep breath.
‘Yes, she could have, but the way I figure it, I’d just have asked more questions. His name, for one thing.’
He moved and turned towards her so he could look into her eyes.
‘This guy was looked on as a hero, Meg. Mourned by the whole town as a golden youth of tremendous promise cut off in his prime. Do you think the town would have accepted Mum’s word that he was the father of her baby? Do you think Mum would have wanted, even with the proof she had, to somehow dishonour his memory in this way? Had his parents survived, or if he’d had other relatives, maybe she would have told them, if only so they knew something of him had lived on, but Mum was Mum, good at keeping her own counsel—even to the stage of letting it drive a wedge between us.’
He sounded so exhausted Meg put her arm around his shoulder.
‘Have you slept at all?’ she asked.
‘Like a log until midnight, when my biological clock suggested it was time to get up and have some breakfast.’
‘One night without sleep and body clocks go wrong,’ Meg agreed, mainly because she didn’t know what else to say.
They sat in silence until the sky began to lighten in the east, and the moonlight lost its brilliance, then as the first blush of pink heralded another dawn, Sam turned and kissed her, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her close.
Damp, sticky from the salt water and sandy from sitting on the beach—it wasn’t an ideal way to take that kiss further, and as if by mutual consent they stood up, linked arms behind each other’s backs and walked up the path to the road.
‘My place!’ Sam said, and Meg didn’t argue. After all, it was still her place in her head. They showered together, touching, loving with their touches, but keeping the best of their excitement for the bed. Eventually, twined together, they finally found sleep again, Meg nestled close against Sam’s chest, his arm heavy across her body.
She’d come home…
‘We’re late for work.’
Sam looked down into the face of the woman in his arms, seeing sleep creases on her cheeks and shy wonder in her eyes.
‘I hate that,’ she told him, but she didn’t move, snuggled against him like a pup against its mother, so close she might be trying to climb inside his skin.
‘Now can we get married?’
He knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words escaped his lips, but he’d been feeling so content—even happy—with Meg entangled in his arms.
Not any more! She was sitting up and frowning at him, a look of disbelief on her face. Then she wiped away the frown with an impatient swipe of her hand and spoke.
‘OK, your mother getting pregnant out of wedlock might be an excuse for you to keep harping on this marriage thing every time we have sex, but I’ve already said no, Sam. We’re grown-ups now, we can take precautions against pregnancy. In fact, although you haven’t asked, I’m already on the Pill. Have been since I had Lucy because it helps regulate things for me. But there’s more to marriage than sex and it’s time you realised that. Do you have a robe I can put on to go home?’
She was out of bed, delving in his wardrobe now—in the hanging part, not the drawers where she might see her underwear and start to wonder about fetishes as well as the other suspicions she obviously harboured about him.
‘You can’t go home in a robe,’ he protested, as she pulled on his old navy towelling robe and tied the belt around her slim waist. That wasn’t what he’d wanted to say, of course. What he’d wanted to say was, Why won’t you marry me? But he knew it would sound whiny and she’d already accused him of self-pity once today.
Although self-pity had been the furthest thing from his head, he’d been stating what he saw as a fact. No relations—no one to mourn him.
Though Meg would.
He knew that now.
So why—?
But she was gone, obviously thinking his objection to her robe-wearing departure from his house unworthy of comment.
He climbed out of bed, showered and dressed, then considered phoning his psychiatrist ex-girlfriend, not for counselling but for some advice on the female of the species.
His lack of understanding of the way they thought had to be at the root of his lack of success with long-term relationships. He’d always known they were different—would he have gone to Sydney with his mother if she’d behaved as badly towards him as he had towards her? Most definitely not, but his mother, and women in general, he’d deduced, had an infinite capacity for love—providing it through even the most difficult of circumstances.
And for all she said they didn’t know each other. He knew Meg loved him—knew it in his bones, the way he knew his blood was flowing through his veins although he couldn’t feel, or hear, or see it.
She wasn’t in her office when he arrived at work, though when he did his round, signs she’d been ahead of him were everywhere. The nursing staff, he’d noticed before, moved more quickly and spoke more cheerfully when Meg was about, not because she was a martinet—or not that he had seen—but because she had the power to enthuse her staff with her own commitment and determination.
He caught up with her in Melody’s room. It was bright with flowers, but they only served to make the wan girl in the bed look even paler.
‘I can’t do it,’ she said. ‘It hurts too much.’
Sam said good morning, eyed the drip and picked up her chart. Had the
contractions started again?
‘But you want to do it,’ Meg said. ‘For your own sake. Forget about the baby and your mother, it’s for you that you want to kick the habit. So you can get your life back again. You’re young, you’re bright and, yes, it will be terribly hard, but what’s the alternative? Being dead before you’re twenty? Having nothing but an occasional rosy haze when you’ve got drugs, and sleazy desperation when you need more?’
‘You’d have persuaded me off it,’ Sam offered, ‘but my guess is Melody’s in too much pain to even think about it. So, let’s see what we can safely do to make you feel better, Melody.’
He didn’t mention the ‘without harming the baby’ that was ringing in his head. Right now, the baby was the last thing on Melody’s mind. He checked the notes he had from the specialist at the Sydney centre and asked Meg to fetch what he needed—a cocktail of drugs that would ease her into sleep, blanketing the need that was grinding her nerves to pieces.
He was feeding this into the drip, Meg having departed, when a woman who was obviously Melody’s mum came bustling in with more flowers.
‘You’re not giving her drugs, I hope,’ she said to Sam. ‘Cold turkey—isn’t that what they call it? And isn’t this the best place to do it, right here in hospital where she can be watched?’
‘And strapped to the mattress if necessary, with her body writhing in agony?’
Mrs Carter gave him a dirty look, but Sam guessed she was hurting every bit as much as her daughter, and as Melody drifted off to sleep, he took the mother’s hand and sat her in one of the visitor chairs, sitting down on the other one himself.
‘There’s nothing to be gained by giving her more pain than she needs to suffer. We’ve stopped the labour for the moment, but what we really need to do, for the sake of the baby, is to keep her here so we can monitor her. Not for the ten weeks until the baby’s due, but long enough to build her up and help her towards at least a partially drug-free life. Not everyone can get off heroin—or if they do and get onto methadone, they often can’t get off that. But at least we have a chance to help Melody through the worst of withdrawal, and in doing that we’re giving the baby a chance.’
The woman’s tired blue eyes looked into his.
‘What about the baby?’ she asked. ‘Won’t it be addicted? And she hasn’t been eating properly—you can see that. What about the baby?’
‘The baby’s likely to be small, and within a few days develop signs of narcotic withdrawal. It is potentially fatal but if we can do a switch to methadone while Melody’s in hospital there’s a lot better chance for the baby. The symptoms of narcotic withdrawal are general jitteriness, bad sleep patterns, a wailing cry—very high-pitched—sneezing, sometimes seizures. We’ll know and we’ll be ready to treat the baby as well.’
‘If she stays here,’ Mrs Carter said doubtfully. ‘It’s not that I don’t think you’re up to it, but if I took her back to Brisbane with me, there’d be more specialists—there are drug referral centres and special hospitals for people on drugs.’
‘You must do what you think best, but sometimes in a smaller town you get more support than you would in the city.’
Mrs Carter considered this then shrugged her shoulders.
‘I’ll have to think about it,’ she said, then, as Sam stood up to leave, she touched his arm.
‘Stupid, isn’t it, how mothers think about their kids? This one’s done enough a thousand times to make me hate her, yet somehow it only makes me love her more.’
It so utterly echoed his earlier thoughts about his own mother that he looked up, wondering if she was playing him like a puppet.
But Melody’s mother’s declaration disturbed him in another way. He’d been thinking women’s love was strong enough to withstand anything, while maybe it was mother’s love.
Meg was in her office. He went in and shut the door behind him.
‘And if I want it open?’ she said, looking up, her face unreadable. But this was Meg, the woman who’d cried his name as they’d made love only hours earlier, the woman who’d given all she had to him—opened up her very soul, it had seemed—during their love-making.
‘I need to talk to you. Really need to talk. The other night, at the restaurant, you told me why you didn’t want to marry me, and I was thinking of your baby, of Lucy, and didn’t hear what you said. Will you tell me again?’
‘Right here and now?’ The frown was easy to read. She didn’t think much of the idea.
But he stayed where he was and nodded, watching her hand reach out to pick up a pen, her fingers fiddling with it.
‘I’ve got a plan, you see,’ she began. ‘A long-term plan. That’s why Mum selling the house and having to move into the cottage infuriated me so much. Mum, of course, thinks the plan is stupid because I already have a career and should now be thinking marriage and babies.’
So he’d have an ally in Mrs Anstey!
Meg had stopped twiddling the pen and was now looking out the window at the gardens surrounding the hospital.
He walked around and squatted in front of her, rested a hand on her knee.
‘Tell me the plan.’
She looked into his eyes, her face serious.
‘All I ever wanted to be was a doctor. You know that. We were both going to do medicine—practise together. Well, that dream didn’t die when you went out of my life, but it did meet a hurdle when I got married. I think I told you I’d done my pre-med degree and first year, then I was sick carrying Lucy so I deferred second year. When she was born—when we went to Melbourne—well, I had to borrow money—a lot of money—and if I’d gone back to finish my degree I’d have ended up with even more debts.’
The words were stated in such a matter-of-fact manner it made the pain Sam could hear beneath them even harder to bear. His chest constricted, and though he wanted to say something, there were no words to help remembered pain.
‘The school of nursing offered me credits for most of my pre-med and first-year subjects, so I only had to do one more year to get my nursing certificate and most of that I could do part time, working as an aide at the same time.’
‘Paying off these debts? What about your husband? Weren’t the debts his as well? Or your parents? Your father?’
Pain no longer hidden, Meg’s anguished eyes met his.
‘I couldn’t ask Dad. He was so protective of me, loved me so much,’ she whispered. ‘I know I disappointed him, not finishing medicine, but he never said a word. He died six months ago—a massive stroke. I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.’
Sam took her hands and held them tightly. What he really wanted to do was take her in his arms and cradle her, hold her close until all the pain washed away.
But she was strong, his Meg—this new Meg. She sat motionless for a while, regathering her inner resources, then gave a watery smile and continued.
‘I think Dad gave away most of the money he made. It used to drive Mum wild. There was always someone in need as far as Dad was concerned, and being paid in carrots or cabbages had always been OK with him. So, no, there was no way I’d have asked him for money. And Charles—well, he hadn’t wanted Lucy to go to Melbourne anyway. But I was OK. I knew I could earn good money nursing, and as soon as I’d paid the debt and had enough saved to cover basic living costs for three years, I’d go back and pick up where I’d left off my degree.’
‘I was OK,’ she’d said? How could anyone who’d lost their child have been OK?
How could anyone then calmly make a plan for the future?
With difficulty, Sam guessed, but she’d also had to do it as a way of putting her life back together—giving her life a focus. That he could understand!
But she was smiling again now—a better smile.
‘Even with moving into the cottage and having to pay rent, I should reach my financial goal by the end of next year. I’d thought it would be this Christmas, but I’ve waited this long I can wait another year.’
He shook his head.
>
‘Megan, you’re twenty-nine, you’ll be thirty-four by the time you finish, then internship. Is this really what you want?’
Meg looked at him, perversely thinking his knees must be getting sore, squatting as he was while she poured out her heart to him.
But how to answer?
‘Yes, it is, Sam,’ she said, because it always had been—because, except in fantasies and daydreams, Sam had never featured in her future.
He could now.
He’d asked her to marry him.
Twice.
But what Sam was offering wasn’t what she wanted from him. She wanted love and she wasn’t sure Sam even knew the meaning of the kind of love she sought. Oh, he loved her in his way…
‘And because of this—your plan—you won’t marry me?’
She answered yes because that was easier than explaining thoughts and feelings she didn’t fully understand herself, and saw him wince as he stood up.
‘This conversation isn’t over,’ he said carefully, then he crossed the room, opened the door and walked out, poking his head back in to smile and ask, ‘Store cupboard in an hour?’
She had to laugh, although this reminder of Sam’s ability to make her laugh underlined her doubts about sticking to ‘The Plan’.
He was waiting on his veranda when she arrived home, late as usual but today because she’d stopped to talk to Melody when she’d finished work.
‘Come up and have a drink.’
Order or invitation?
Either way, the physical loving they’d shared had desire rampaging through her body, and although she could control it at work—and she hadn’t even thought of store cupboards!—now she wanted to be near him, whether ordered or invited.
She parked her car, then glanced down at her uniform.
‘Five minutes for a shower?’ she suggested.
‘I could get you out of that ghastly uniform faster than that!’
Tempting, but she really needed a shower and showering alone would certainly be quicker than showering with Sam.
‘Five minutes,’ she told him firmly, and hurried inside the cottage.
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