English Rose for the Sicilian Doc

by Annie Claydon

  It made a lot of things clear. Matteo’s attitude towards William, his attitude towards her. How he only ever seemed able to connect to each of them on a one-to-one basis, not as a family unit. And there was one inescapable fact, set in stone, carved into the land. If the only bits of security she had left, her house and her job, were in London, then all Matteo had left was here.

  CHAPTER NINE

  WHEN THEY WALKED down to the village, he seemed to know everyone. He introduced her to so many people that she forgot all their names, remembering only the warmth of their handshakes and the way that they all spoke to William.

  They joined the crowd that clustered around the steps leading up to the entrance of a smart, new building. There was a call for silence, and a short plump man with a chain of office around his neck stepped up to the red ribbon that was strung across the doors.

  Fans flapped back and forth like butterfly wings as they stood in the crowd, listening to his speech. The man obviously fancied himself as something of an orator, leaving dramatic pauses, while the audience shifted restlessly. Then a slim woman in her fifties, dressed entirely in red, marched up the steps.

  ‘That’s Isabella.’ Matteo leaned over to whisper to Rose. ‘I’ll give her thirty seconds to get the microphone away from him.’

  Matteo had underestimated Isabella. She delivered what was clearly an extravagant compliment, followed by a thousand-watt smile that left the man unable to resist when she made a grab for the microphone. Within twenty seconds the crowd had shifted its collective attention to her with a murmur of approval.

  Isabella beckoned to someone at the bottom of the steps, and a little girl, dressed in her Sunday best, was propelled towards her. Isabella took her hand, and everyone started to clap. A few short words and the child was encouraged towards the ribbon and snipped through it, to a loud cheer.

  Isabella flung the doors open wide, waving everyone inside with a smile. Then she ran down the steps, making straight for Matteo and kissing him determinedly on both cheeks.

  ‘This is Rose, and her son William.’ As soon as she had greeted Matteo Isabella’s bright, questioning gaze had moved to Rose, and Matteo introduced them in both Italian and English.

  ‘Ah. Rosa...’ Isabella’s handshake was unsurprisingly firm and she seemed to know exactly who Rose was. She bent to greet William, then began to talk volubly, and Matteo smiled.

  ‘She says that the hat suits you. And that if I’d made the speech, as she’d asked, there would have been no danger of anyone fainting from boredom.’ His gesture in reply said that it hadn’t been quite that bad.

  Isabella rolled her eyes and Rose nodded, laughing.

  ‘He is...’ Isabella gestured, obviously groping for the word. ‘Troppo modesto.’

  ‘Modest.’ Matteo supplied the obvious translation. ‘No, I’m not. I just don’t like making speeches, particularly in the heat.’

  Isabella’s retort was lost as she caught sight of an elderly woman who had ignored the ramp and was struggling to get up the steps. Flashing a last smile at Rose, she hurried to help her.

  ‘Wow. What a lady.’ Rose watched as Isabella danced effortlessly across the broken ground in her four-inch heels, taking the woman’s arm and chatting to her as they walked slowly up the steps together.

  ‘Yeah. Isabella’s achieved an enormous amount. She’s a force to be reckoned with. Would you like to come inside?’

  Rose took Matteo’s arm. ‘I’d love to.’

  Inside the clinic was simple but clean, large windows flooding the entrance space with light. There was a spacious waiting room on one side, which could clearly be used for community gatherings if necessary, with a row of consulting rooms leading off it.

  On the other side of the building, were the more specialised facilities—a small X-ray room, which would render it unnecessary to go to the main hospital for suspected broken bones, a couple of rooms with beds, where patients could stay overnight, and another consulting room that, Matteo explained, could be used for minor procedures.

  ‘Fifty percent of the things that people usually need to go to the main hospital in Palermo for can be done here. They can hold regular clinics, pre-natal check-ups and so on, and they can deal with fractures, simple breaks and dislocations.’

  Matteo was obviously proud of the clinic, wanting to show her everything, but when William began to fidget and pull at her hand, he guided them outside to where food and drink were being served. Matteo was borne away from her by the many people demanding his attention, while William attached himself to Nannu Alberto, sitting with him and the other men who were watching the proceedings from a group of chairs set up in the shade.

  ‘I think William’s had enough.’ Matteo had torn himself away from a group of women who seemed to be intent on making him eat as much as they could and was at her side again, extricating her from the group that had formed around her.

  Rose glanced over to where her son was drooping into Nannu Alberto’s lap. ‘He’s getting used to taking a siesta.’

  ‘Why don’t you bring him back to the house and he can sleep for a while before the fireworks?’

  ‘There are fireworks?’ Rose had assumed that they’d be eating and then going home.

  ‘Of course there will be fireworks. Didn’t I say?’ He flashed her an innocent look, and went to collect William.

  * * *

  Rose seemed to have bloomed. She’d taken a lively interest in everything, making do with smiles and gestures when her limited Italian failed her and talking to everyone. She’d had a taste of all the dishes on the buffet, even the ones that she couldn’t possibly recognise, and the murmurs of approval that he’d heard showed that the village had taken her to its heart.

  It was surprisingly gratifying. If asked, Matteo would have said that he didn’t care one way or the other, that Rose was Rose and the village was the village. But he did care.

  He sat in the kitchen, listening to his aunt and Rose talking upstairs. He was sure that neither fully understood what the other was saying, but they seemed perfectly happy to say it anyway, clearly relying on smiles and gestures to move things along. When Angela had been here, she’d gone out of her way not to understand. It was a difference that had been bugging him all day, and which he dared not think about too much.

  The front door slammed, and he heard English being spoken. And the tone of that English carried him to his feet and through to the hallway.

  ‘What’s up?’ A fair-haired girl, dressed in shorts and a vest top, whirled around as he spoke, obviously reckoning that she was better off talking to him than trying to make his uncle understand.

  ‘You speak English...?’ She must be one of the students who worked part time at the vineyard in exchange for bed and board during the spring and summer months.

  ‘Yes. What’s the matter?’ The laziness of the day disappeared suddenly as he caught sight of the panicked look on the girl’s face.

  ‘It’s Pete... My friend... We’re working here...’

  ‘What about Pete?’

  ‘We didn’t want to go to the party.’ She wrinkled her nose, as if none of it was quite sophisticated enough for her. ‘We went down to the river, first thing this morning, to swim. Pete had some wine at lunchtime and went to sleep, and I can’t wake him up.’

  ‘How long ago was this?’ Wine and the sun were a heady mix, and it wasn’t unusual to find that English tourists couldn’t handle them.

  ‘Five minutes. Just five minutes...’

  ‘Okay. I’m a doctor, we’ll go and take a look at him.’ The girl stared at him blankly. ‘Now.’

  ‘Right. Yes.’ She rubbed her shoulder, and Matteo wondered if the different shade of skin that he saw as the strap of her top moved was because she was tanned or sunburnt. ‘He’s by the waterfall.’

  Matteo knew the pl
ace, he’d played there often enough as a child. The river fell ten feet over jagged rocks, and then pooled out. It was a great place to swim, and the large, flat rocks at the side of the pool were a suntrap.

  ‘You know where that is?’ Rose’s hand on his arm suddenly sliced through his thoughts. Even when he was trying to concentrate on what might be an emergency, she had that effect on him.

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘She’s very sunburned...’ She nodded over at the girl, who had sat down suddenly on the stairs, her hand over her mouth as if she felt sick.

  ‘I think we’d better call Isabella, get her to come and take a look at her. I’ll go and find the boy.’ Matteo hoped he wouldn’t need any help with him, but he turned to his uncle. Getting some men to follow him down with the first-aid kit couldn’t do any harm.

  ‘I’ll come with you.’ It seemed so natural that she should that Matteo had to remember that they didn’t always work together.

  ‘There’s no need...’ Actually, having someone who could speak English, and see the difference between sunburn and a tan might come in very useful.

  ‘Yeah. I know.’ She almost flounced towards the front door.

  * * *

  He kept up a brisk pace through the vines and then along the dry, rocky land that led down towards the river, and Rose had to run to keep up with him at times. But if leaving her behind wasn’t exactly gentlemanly, he could apologise later, after he’d found the boy and made sure he was all right.

  Rose caught up with him as he scrambled down the rocks, the skirt of her dress foaming around her legs as she went. Matteo turned, holding out his hand, and she ignored it, managing for herself.

  ‘Is this it?’ She surveyed the rocks around the pool.

  ‘Yeah.’ He pointed to a striped towel, a beach bag and two empty wine bottles. ‘That’s where they were. He must have wandered off somewhere.’

  ‘The water...?’ Rose’s hand flew to her mouth and she ran to the water’s edge. That would be the worst scenario, particularly after a bottle of wine and most of the day spent in the blazing sun.

  Matteo followed her, scanning the clear water. ‘Do you see anything?’

  ‘No. You?’

  ‘Nope. Matteo turned looking around. ‘He can’t have gone far...’

  ‘There...’ Rose pointed suddenly to a fold in the rock. ‘I see him. There...’

  It looked as if the lad had crawled to the side of the escarpment, trying to get out of the heat of the sun. He was half sitting, half lying, and he wasn’t moving. Matteo scrambled over to him.

  ‘Oh, dear... His back’s as pale as anything, but his face and chest are bright pink, they look very sunburnt.’ He heard Rose’s voice behind him, telling him exactly what he needed to know.

  ‘Okay.’ Matteo tapped behind the lad’s ear with his finger. ‘Pete. Pete, can you hear me?’

  Pete mumbled something incomprehensible and started to move. At least he was conscious, but he looked in a bad way. Suddenly he began to dry retch violently. Not a good sign. There was obviously no liquid in his stomach.

  The men that his uncle were sending would be here any minute, and Matteo knew that he’d have trouble carrying Pete over the rocks on his own. It would be better to wait. He curled his fingers around Pete’s wrist, looking for the pulse, and he yelped in pain, pulling his arm away. Then he opened his eyes and started to curse violently.

  ‘Stop that now!’ Rose’s tone resembled that of the sternest school teacher Matteo had ever encountered. ‘The doctor’s trying to help you. Be still.’

  That was one way of doing it. Pete obeyed her straight away, his eyes trying to focus on the face behind the voice.

  ‘That’s better.’ Rose’s voice took on a note of warmth, and she laid her palm against Pete’s, careful not to touch the sunburn on the back of his hand. Then she turned her gaze onto Matteo.

  ‘Go on then. Take his pulse.’ There was still a touch of the schoolmistress in her manner, and Matteo couldn’t help grinning. Not the time. This was definitely not the time for those kinds of thoughts...

  He concentrated on taking Pete’s pulse. Much too fast. Pete’s skin was dry and hot, which meant that he’d already gone through the stage of sweating and a depressed heart rate, which signified heat exhaustion, and was moving into the far more dangerous territory of heat stroke.

  Voices behind him told him that the men his uncle had sent were here. Good. When Matteo turned he saw that they had the carry chair from the winery’s first-aid cupboard. Even better.

  ‘Help me lift him.’ He spoke in Italian to them. ‘We’ll take the short cut, straight down to the clinic.’

  Rose had soaked the striped towel in the cool water and they’d laid it over Pete’s body, trying to cool him a little. Then they lifted the canvas chair, one on each corner of it. The fastest way down to the village was over rough ground, but it was by far the quickest.

  They cut down along the path of the river, wading across it at its narrowest point. Matteo couldn’t stop to help Rose, but she was keeping up, her canvas shoes and the hem of her dress wet now from the water. Every now and then she caught up with them, and she always had some breathless words of encouragement for Pete, who seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness.

  The clinic was deserted, and they carried Pete through to one of the rooms designed for overnight patients and laid him on the bed. He began to thrash around, mumbling incoherently, and Rose sat down beside him, calming him. In a quick switch of plan Matteo decided to leave her there with Pete and hunt down the ice packs himself.

  ‘Right. I want you to put these in his armpits, neck and groin.’ He handed Rose the icepacks, and turned his attention to the intravenous saline drip. The sooner he could get some liquids into him, the better.

  ‘He’s going to love that.’ A quiet flash of humour and then she did as he asked, placing the ice packs carefully and soothing Pete when he cried out. He didn’t even seem to notice when the needle went into his arm.

  * * *

  Matteo had told her that she should leave, but she’d stayed, helping him to watch over Pete, cooling and re-hydrating his body as quickly as they could, and applying salve to his burned shoulders and chest.

  The news that the clinic had received its first patient had obviously spread, and Isabella turned up, still looking immaculate, to say that Pete’s friend was sunburned but feeling a great deal better now. After an hour, Pete was sleeping peacefully, and Matteo seemed pleased with his progress.

  ‘So you got to be the first to treat a patient here.’ Rose had caught the gist of the joke that Isabella had shared with Matteo in Italian.

  ‘Yeah. I’m not going to live that one down in a hurry.’

  ‘I think you deserve it.’

  Matteo shrugged. ‘Everyone did their bit.’

  ‘What would have happened if this place hadn’t been here?’

  ‘I’d probably have taken him up to the house, cooled him down there and called an ambulance. They would have had a saline drip on board.’

  ‘But it would have taken a while. And it might have been time that Pete didn’t have.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. She’d seen from Matteo’s face how grave the situation had been.

  ‘Maybe.’ Finally Matteo smiled. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Well, I’d rather he hadn’t put himself in that situation in the first place. But given that he did...’

  Matteo chuckled. ‘Okay. The clinic’s first patient and we maybe saved his life. Happy now?’

  ‘Yes. That’ll do.’ It wasn’t easy to get Matteo to take credit for what he’d done, but he knew. And she knew, too.

  ‘Why don’t you go? I’m getting him transferred to the hospital in Palermo, and the ambulance should be here to collect him within the hour. Watch the fireworks with
William.’ Matteo had called up to the house, and his uncle had said that they would bring William down to the village to meet them.

  ‘I’d rather stay here. See it through.’ She wondered if Matteo would understand that, and his small nod told her that he did. ‘Will your uncle and aunt mind?’

  ‘Mind? Of course not. And Nannu Alberto will be thrilled. He’s always up for leading young minds astray...’ Matteo stopped suddenly, wincing slightly. ‘I’m joking. William will be quite safe. Nanna Maria keeps him under control...’

  ‘I know. He’ll be fine, and he’ll love watching the fireworks with Nannu Alberto.’ Rose wished that she didn’t have to borrow other people’s families in order to show William what a happy, supportive family was like. Her mum and dad were great but there was only the two of them, and it wasn’t quite the same.

  ‘We’ll stay here, then. Maybe catch the last of the fireworks.’

  Maybe. But that didn’t matter, because today had already been special.

  CHAPTER TEN

  IT WAS NO surprise to see Matteo on site. He’d got into the habit of coming up here at least once a week, after work, to see how things were going. Everyone knew him, and she saw him stop to chat for a moment as he walked from his car to the lab.

  Even after a hot, humid day, he seemed cool. Probably the result of good hydration and the hospital’s air-conditioning. Rose took a swig from the water bottle on her work bench, which had lain forgotten while she’d worked and lost its refreshing chill.

  He popped his head around the door of the lab.

  ‘It’s hot in here. What you need is sorbetto di limone.’

  Rose rolled her eyes. ‘What are you trying to do? Torture me?’

  ‘No. It’s plain wrong to offer temptation without the means to satisfy it.’

  Yes, it was. But that didn’t mean that Matteo couldn’t turn up here looking like every woman’s dream, when he plainly wasn’t going to back her against her workbench and kiss her into oblivion. Rose stood up, taking a few steps away from the bench just in case she became overwhelmed by temptation and made a pass at him.