by Rebecca Lang
‘You’ve been very kind in listening to me,’ she added. ‘You obviously have your own problems.’
‘Who doesn’t?’ he said. ‘I don’t trust love, except the love for my son.’ Again, he made that last remark almost inaudibly, as though he were talking to himself. It sounded so sad that she felt impulsively that she wanted to reach out and touch his face. Instead, she stared straight ahead, her hands cupped around the warm coffee, concentrating on raindrops hitting the road.
‘What else do you trust?’ she asked tentatively, after a moment of silence in which she was aware of her heart beating deeply.
‘I trust in a spark of goodness in the human spirit,’ he said softly. ‘I believe in cultivating that, of recognizing it where I find it…and being thankful.’
Deirdre bit her lower lip, wanting to cry. ‘Surely that’s part of love,’ she protested mildly.
‘Not that insane sort of love that a man can feel for a woman, and then she lets him down…or vice versa. It’s a sort of madness.’
‘I think perhaps you’re talking about passion,’ she said, overcoming her nervousness by a supreme effort, while feeling a stab of something that was, she thought, jealousy for the unknown woman or women for whom he had felt that insane love. ‘It’s a kind of insanity. That’s why the French have a category of crime called le crime passionel, which is looked upon leniently because the law recognizes the temporary insanity when such strong emotions are involved. Hopefully, one can also feel a more gentle love as well as the insanity of passion for the same person sometimes.’
‘Maybe.’ He turned to look at her. ‘How do you know all that?’ he said.
They were standing very close, and he leaned forward and put a warm hand on her cold cheek, making her face tingle. ‘You’re cold,’ he murmured.
‘It’s purely theoretical with me—love,’ she said hastily, intensely aware of his warm hand yet, oddly, accepting it as quite normal between them, even though they scarcely knew each other. ‘I imagine that passion is a very rare emotion. I’ve never really loved anyone…a man, that is. I love the children.’
It seemed incongruous that she should be saying those things to this man, yet it seemed to come naturally. Unlike many people, he was easy to talk to. She felt he would not judge her.
‘You’re very sweet,’ he said, stroking his thumb very delicately over her cool skin, and for a moment she held her breath at the sheer pleasure of such an unexpected touch, before he dropped his hand.
‘That makes me sound very bland,’ she said. ‘I hope I’m not that.’
‘No.’
The desire to put her arms up around his neck, in full view of the comings and goings of the hospital entrance, was so strong that she forced herself to concentrate on not doing it.
‘Will you come, then?’ he said. ‘To dinner, I mean?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Could I call you this evening to set it up?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But, please, don’t say that if you’ve no real intention of following through because, you see, I don’t trust either sometimes.’
‘I may be a twenty-four-seven man,’ he said ruefully, ‘but I do keep my word.’
‘All right,’ she said, looking up at him, wanting so much to kiss him that she felt weak with the effort of holding back. At the same time, she felt as though she were standing back, looking at herself, surprised at herself.
It was crazy, she knew that, because she didn’t really know him. Being with him felt right…but, then, she knew that feeling could not always be trusted, especially when you hadn’t known a person for very long. Nonetheless, she trusted her own judgement, her own gut feeling. That was all right, so long as you didn’t break your own rules for personal safety and personal common sense.
‘I must get back to work,’ he said, leaning forward quickly to kiss her on the cheek. The brief touch of his warm lips on her cool cheek sent tingles through her.
When he drew back from her they looked at each other for a long moment, as though they could not understand what had happened between them. ‘I’m glad I almost ran you down,’ he said, taking a step back, away from her. ‘Take care.’
Quickly he was gone, striding away from her, back into the hospital, with one backward glance.
‘So am I,’ she whispered. ‘So am I.’
Soon she would walk back to her parents’ home for a while, her own home. For the next few moments she would stay here and let this sink in, that it was not a dream that she had met Dr Shay Melburne. There was a feeling of being punch-drunk from the shock of having her life taking a new turn at such short notice, particularly when she had, such a short time ago, been in despair.
She leaned against the wall, facing away from the hospital entrance, and drank what was left of the almost cold coffee, needing to give herself time to think. Before going home she would go into the human resources department and get a job application form. Once she had it in her possession she would take her time over filling it in. She would do the sensible thing, would work out to her own satisfaction, and that of the people who depended on her, how she was going to be able to work part time and be a mother to two children as well. Perhaps after working part time for a few months, to see how it would go, she could consider increasing her hours.
It was obvious to her now that she should have sought counselling when she had lost her job, because it had been a shock, a great anxiety, as well as a blow to her self-confidence and esteem. At the time, her father had not been well and had had to undergo the operation for the removal of part of his gut, so she had thrown herself into helping her parents. Although it had taken her mind off her own dilemma, nothing had been resolved for her as an individual. Then, having the need to earn money, she had taken the job caring for Mungo and Fleur. Maybe it was now time to seek that belated counselling. It would be a great relief to talk to someone, as she had unburdened herself to Shay, to get some feedback.
Yes, something was wrong indeed with her mental equilibrium—even just admitting it brought a certain relief. But somehow she was now beginning to differentiate between the wood and the trees.
CHAPTER FOUR
SLOWLY DEIRDRE WALKED to her parents’ house, hardly aware of the drizzle that misted her hair. There was so much to think about, yet this time she was very careful to look both ways before she crossed a street.
Maybe she needed to see a psychiatrist, she speculated soberly, still thinking about the counselling, before she should contemplate going to work in a hospital. She had had two major losses in her life at the same time: the loss of her job and then the loss of her parents when they had left the country. Although they would be back before too long, sometimes it seemed as though they were gone for ever, and she mourned them. The stress of loss was the greatest that one had to bear.
Even though her mood had lifted after meeting Shay, blurting out her troubles to him, she could not be sure that the more upbeat mood would last if he were to pull back out of her life. After all, she couldn’t say that he was really in her life. No doubt he felt guilty at having almost run her down. At the time, she had taken all the blame without question, or felt she had. He had kissed her on the cheek, but so what? A lot of people kissed, and it seemed to mean nothing to them, a sort of affectation to which she did not subscribe herself. To her, a kiss did mean something special. So her mind chattered, her thoughts moving back and forth, this way and that.
Often when she came near to her own house she had the irrational hope that her parents would be there, that one of them would open the door and give her a hug. Even though they phoned her often, sent e-mails and regular mail frequently, she never stopped missing them—it was not the same as seeing someone. If they had been there, all this angst with her job would have been easier to bear, because she would have had two wise people to talk to, apart from Fiona. She had some friends, of course, but since she had left nursing they had dispersed somewhat and did not meet as frequently. It was also difficult to go out in the evenings when
you had children to take care of. Granny McGregor had done a lot of childminding, of course, but somehow she, Deirdre, had felt responsible. Gradually you could find yourself socially isolated.
There was someone to greet her at the house; Mollykins, their ginger, black and white cat who queened it over the house, came and went through a cat flap during the day, on most days. It meant that she, Deirdre, had to visit the house frequently when she wasn’t sleeping there, to open and close the cat flap as she could not let the cat out at night. There were coyotes at large that ate cats, that lived in the forested areas and came out in the evenings into the built-up areas.
‘Hello, Mollykins,’ she crooned to the cat, who came forward quickly to brush against her legs, as though she had been waiting in the hall, knowing the exact moment when Deirdre would come. Deirdre squatted down amongst the letters that had been put through the letter-box and were on the hall mat to stroke the purring Mollykins. No doubt the cat missed her parents as much as she did.
Then she went through the letters, gratified to see that there were two from her parents.
She opened the back door to let the cat out, then opened up the cat flap. What another momentous day it had been, starting with the words she had had with Granny McGregor, then the interesting interlude at the Stanton Memorial. Now she found herself somewhat flustered, not knowing what to do first, her mind filled with the image of Shay. In her own mind she was beginning to accept that she could refer to him by his first name, yet she dared not presume that there would be a relationship between them. The kiss he had given her on the cheek had been a kiss of commiseration at her predicament, she felt sure. Even so, it was a relief that he was not married. That didn’t mean that he had no other women in his life, though.
She flung her coat on a chair in the hall and went into the kitchen to make tea, going through the motions to calm her thoughts, which seemed to be all over the place. Sipping tea a few moments later, she was standing in the middle of the kitchen and staring out through the window at the rain-sodden late autumn garden when the main telephone rang.
‘Hi, Dee. Just calling to find out where you are,’ Mungo’s voice announced when she picked up the kitchen extension. ‘Are we having supper at your place tonight?’ Deirdre knew him well enough to recognize a certain timbre of anxiety in his tone, and her heart softened with love for him. Maybe he needed to reassure himself that she was still in his life and would remain there. He was very masculine, yet gentle at the same time, not feeling the need to be aggressive to prove that he was one hundred per cent male, as so many boys and men did. Some men never outgrew that need to prove themselves, it seemed to her, and it could be tedious for those who had to deal with them.
‘Would you like to?’ she said. ‘I thought maybe we would. I’ve got food here.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’d like to sleep over there, too. I need to get away from Jerry for a bit.’
‘That’s fine with me. Will you tell Fleur?’
‘Sure. Be there about the usual time,’ he said, his voice brightening, as though a load had been lifted off his shoulders.
Mungo went to a high school within easy walking distance of the house, and Fleur’s school, the middle school, was fortunately on the same campus. Mungo and Fleur came home together, having a designated spot where they met up each day. Sometimes Deirdre drove them, when her ancient car was in good working order, and if Mungo was sick, she always came and went to school with Fleur. She never took any chances with their safety.
Deirdre was left with the task of letting Jerry know that they would be spending the night at her house, something which he didn’t generally mind about, as it meant zero responsibility for him, and she suspected that he had a woman there, discreetly, when no one else was there. For most of the time he wanted to present himself as a grieving widower—at least he was contesting Moira’s last wishes. It was a relief that he did not answer the phone, so that she could leave a voicemail message.
When the telephone shrilled again a few moments later she thought it might be him, angry at her again for some reason, so she answered warily.
‘Hello, Deirdre.’ It was Shay. ‘I thought I would give you a call to see if you had had time to get to the human resources department. If not, maybe I could go there for you.’
‘That’s kind of you,’ she said, glad that he could not see her flush of pleasure, although no doubt he could hear that pleasure in her voice. She had given him the telephone numbers of the two houses, as well as her mobile phone number. ‘But I did manage to get one. I thought I would wait a while before actually applying…to sort things out first. Thank you again for your time today.’
‘My pleasure,’ he said. ‘Let me know if I can be of any further help.’ Deirdre wondered whether he felt sorry for her, could see that she desperately needed help. Somehow it didn’t matter so long as she could sustain some sort of contact with him. There was a pause, as though he didn’t want to hang up, and she didn’t know what to say next. Then the thought came to her that perhaps this was his way of saying goodbye, having salved his conscience by being of some help to her—even though he had asked her out to dinner.
‘If you’re not doing anything this evening, Dr Melburne,’ she said in a rush, ‘perhaps you would like to come over here to eat with me and the two children, about seven, or earlier?’ She gave him the address hurriedly, before she lost her nerve.
‘I’ll come on one condition,’ he said, amusement in his voice, ‘that you stop calling me Dr Melburne.’
‘All right…Shay,’ she said.
‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can, after I’ve done rounds. If I’m going to be more than a few minutes late, I’ll call you.’
‘All right. See you then,’ she said, thinking it would be interesting to see if he was really late, if he were still ‘the twenty-four-seven man’ that this former wife had accused him of being. Deirdre tried to picture her face, the mysterious Antonia, and failed. The name sounded glamorous to her and she was curious to know what sort of woman had captivated the very attractive and sophisticated Shay Melburne.
There was a lot to be done. She rushed around tidying the house, which was already perfectly clean but had that unlived-in air. They could have a seafood stir-fry for supper, with fresh vegetables, so she took out some frozen prawns and scallops from the freezer to thaw under cold water. Quickly she set the table in the small dining room near the kitchen, then put on the gas heater in that room. It looked like an old-fashioned cast-iron wood stove, with real flames. By candlelight it looked good at this time of the year. In the sitting room she did the same, putting on lamps. Although the house was small, somewhat humble and unpretentious, she often thought, it was nicely and tastefully furnished.
In the bathroom she brushed her hair and put on a little make-up, contemplating her pale face and somewhat haunted eyes, which had dark shadows under them. She could not really call herself pretty, or beautiful, yet she had an interesting face, with regular features; a man she had liked a lot had once called her face ‘arresting’. Thinking of that now, she smiled at her reflection as she smeared a little green eye shadow on her lids. ‘Vanity, thy name is woman,’ she said aloud to her reflection. ‘One of the lesser vices.’
The beds for Fleur and Mungo were already made up in the small, single-storey-plus-basement house, which had three bedrooms. They kept some of their clothes and other personal belongings there, too. She changed into a wool skirt and a lightweight sweater.
Mungo and Fleur came first, as she knew they would, lugging their knapsacks of homework books.
‘We’re eating in the dining room,’ she announced, ‘because Dr Melburne’s coming to supper. And in case you’re wondering, he’s divorced. He told me that himself today.’
‘Well, that’s better than if he was married,’ Mungo said, ever practical, ‘if you really like him, Dee.’
‘I do like him,’ she said. ‘But really we don’t know each other that well…’
‘Ooh, that’s nice,’ Fleur said, standing in the doorway of the dining room, looking in. ‘It’s really warm and cosy.’
‘Great!’ Mungo chipped in, as they both lugged their heavy bags into the living room. ‘Can we watch television for a bit, Dee?’ Their favourite programme was on.
‘OK,’ she said, ‘but then you have to help me serve the supper, and then get on with your homework. I don’t suppose Dr Melburne will stay long, he’s a busy man.’
‘I really like him,’ Fleur said. ‘Are you going to marry him, Dee?’
‘Goodness, no!’ she said, knowing that she was protesting too much and repeating herself. ‘I’ve only known him for…well, a relatively short time.’
‘So long as he doesn’t take you away from us,’ Mungo said. They were both very astute, and could probably tell a lot from her flushed face. ‘Is there any juice, Dee?’
‘Yes, help yourself.’
When Shay came she was in a state of nerves, especially as he was fifteen minutes later than she had expected. The food, which had been easy to cook, was ready. She had decided not to open a bottle of wine, not wanting him to think that she was making a special effort for him. She let Mungo go to the door to let him in while she lit candles in the cosy small dining room where the flames from the lighted gas in the simulated log fire flickered enticingly. The three of them often ate their supper in the dining room instead of at the kitchen table, and always when Granny McGregor joined them or any other guests.
‘Let me take your coat,’ Fleur said to Shay politely.
‘Thank you.’
When Deirdre came out into the hall, he handed her a small bunch of flowers. ‘Winter pansies,’ he said. ‘I’m a little late, so I hope you’re not starving.’
‘They’re lovely,’ she said, looking at the velvety flowers, some of deep purple, some yellow. ‘We’re just about to serve the food. You won’t mind if we eat right away? There’s homework to be done.’
‘No, that’s great.’