by Rebecca Lang
‘I’ll just put the flowers in water. Mungo, please, show Dr Melburne where he can wash his hands, then the dining room. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.’
He looked pale and tired, she thought, the way she used to look after a day in the operating suite sometimes. He was wearing the black turtleneck sweater under his overcoat, simple and sophisticated.
As she put the pansies into a vase, then put them on a small table in the front hall, she found that her hands were shaking. Quickly she went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. It was suddenly very important that Shay should like her, but the last thing she wanted was for it to be obvious, either to him or to the children.
When she brought the food into the dining room, she found the three of them sitting at the table, with Mungo playing the part of host, rather as though he were in a play, one of the parts he liked to play in the school drama class. Deirdre stifled a smile. She always tried hard to give the children certain social graces that would be useful to them now and in later life. Mainly, she included them in everything and made them contribute their share to whatever event was taking place in the home. She thought she was succeeding. For the most part, they were well mannered, polite and reasonably competent in all social situations.
In short order, she was seated with them at the table, with serving dishes of steaming food in front of them. There was jasmine rice to go with the seafood and vegetables.
‘This is great,’ Shay said. ‘Thank you for inviting me.’
Deirdre began to pass the dishes around. ‘There’s a fruit salad for dessert,’ she said, happiness rising in her like a tide. It was a rare occurrence these days for her to have a guest to dinner. Most of the time she cooked for Jerry’s guests, but did not join them for the meal. Here, in her own home, she was in charge. Very quickly they were chatting, laughing and eating as though they had known Shay for a long time.
‘Where is your son tonight?’ Mungo said boldly, after a while, to Shay. ‘We could have invited him, too. Or is he at boarding school?’
Shay hesitated, his knife and fork poised over his plate, and Deirdre was conscious of holding her breath, looking down at her plate. ‘He’s not at boarding school, but he is away at the moment for a week or two. Normally he lives with me and I’m sure he would enjoy a meal like this. Next time, perhaps, if there is a next time…if you’re good enough to invite me again.’
‘What school does he go to?’ Mungo asked.
‘St Andrew’s College,’ Shay replied, naming a prestigious private boys’ school in Prospect Bay.
‘We play soccer sometimes against them,’ Mungo said eagerly. ‘I really like soccer.’
‘Maybe you’ve met, then,’ Shay said. ‘Mark plays soccer.’
There were vibes that she could not understand, and Deirdre covered up quickly. ‘We’ll make sure there is a next time for supper,’ she said lightly. ‘You’ll have to let us know when it would be a good time.’
‘I will,’ he said quietly, looking at her over the tops of the two flickering candles, down the length of the small dining table where they sat opposite each other.
Deirdre smiled at him, knowing that they had common ground there in the care of children. If his son was sick and he wanted her to know about it, he would tell her in his own time.
Music was playing softly from the radio in the kitchen and the atmosphere became very relaxed as they talked about films they had seen and concerts they had been to. Shay knew exactly what would interest the children. It was sad that his marriage hadn’t lasted but, then, if it had, he would not be here with her…
When they had finished eating, Fleur and Mungo went into the sitting room to tackle their homework, spreading their books out on the coffee-table, the sofa and the floor, while Deirdre and Shay cleared the table.
‘I expect you have to hurry away,’ she said shyly as they stood in the kitchen, having carried out the last of the dishes and plates.
‘Soon,’ he said, glancing at the kitchen clock. ‘That was a great meal, Deirdre. Thank you.’
‘I’m glad you could come,’ she said, her spirits soaring. Yes, it had been a good meal.
‘I must have sounded rather secretive about my son,’ he said slowly, keeping his voice low. ‘Well…he’s been in a rehabilitation hospital for a week. He inadvertently took an overdose of a drug. For some time he’s had a drug problem…which started with smoking pot. It’s been a bit of a nightmare for both of us, not least for me because I feel guilty about the divorce, to say the least. He’s desperate to get out of it now, but he’ll be in the hospital for at least another week.’
Deirdre stopped what she was doing, her hands hovering over the dirty dishes. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that,’ she said quietly. ‘He didn’t…um… try…?’
‘No,’ he finished for her, ‘he didn’t try to kill himself. He’s assured me of that, and I believe him. Not just because I want to believe him. He got in with a bad crowd, which is often what happens when you don’t spend enough time with your children and don’t show them the affection they need, even when you love them more than anything on earth.’ He began to pace up and down, his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘They have to know it themselves, they have to see it—and not just in things that you buy for them, material things making up for the lack of time. I don’t believe in “quality time”, that rather idiotic catch-phrase that is designed to make neglectful parents feel good. Time is time. That’s what children see. Sometimes they just want you in the same room, whether you’re interacting with them or not, just sitting reading a newspaper, knowing that you’re with them because you want to be there more than anything else. The same applies to a spouse, of course.’
‘Yes,’ she answered him feelingly, a sober sense of recognition enabling her to understand only too well what he was saying. It was clear to her then that he needed, in his own way, to talk to someone as desperately as she needed to. ‘That must be very difficult to deal with…the drug issue. It’s something I absolutely dread. I pray that I will never need to. You try at all times to know who they’re with, what they’re doing. It’s not easy…’
‘No, it isn’t.’ He stood leaning against the kitchen wall, seemingly casual, yet she could feel the tension in him.
‘How did he start into it?’ she asked.
‘The usual thing. Experimenting with smoking pot at school—not wanting to be the odd one out when others were doing it, then getting hooked. It was at the time when he was under a lot of stress because of his mother’s departure. For quite a while I suspected that something was up, but I could never prove it. And he denied it, as I guess he would. He wasn’t proud of it. He later took pills, hence the overdose.’
‘It seems so easy for them to get drugs,’ she said, fear in her heart that she might have to deal with what he was now tackling.
‘It is. Finally, the school caught several of the boys smoking pot on school property and they were threatened with suspension and expulsion. To cut a long story short, the school decided to give them counselling and a second chance. Things seem to be more under control there now, going in the right direction. It’s what goes on outside school property that’s more difficult to deal with.’
‘You must be very relieved at the attitude the school is taking,’ she said feelingly, abandoning any attempt to clear up while he was there. It could all wait. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ she offered. ‘You’ve made me see that my own problems are not so difficult to deal with after all. With me, it’s mainly getting up the courage to make changes…once I can see my way clear.’
‘Aye, there’s the rub,’ he said, with a rueful laugh. ‘Seeing your way clear says a lot. There’s not a person on this earth who doesn’t have something to contend with, Deirdre. I see tragic things every day in my job that require a great deal of courage to face up to for the patients. I think my part is difficult, just telling them. We feel so alone because we often don’t even suspect about others’ problems until we open up ou
rselves, then other people start talking. Even so, we still have to deal with our own problems, we just feel a bit less isolated when we can talk.’ As he spoke, he walked around the small kitchen, looking at things—the drawings on the fridge door, the pictures on the walls, the potted plants.
‘Yes…’ Deirdre stood by the table, looking at him. She wanted to go into his arms, to feel them close around her, to put her head against his shoulder and close her eyes, feel the warmth of his body against hers, knowing that he was deriving comfort from her also. When she had first set eyes on him he had seemed so in command, and she had been so full of her own angst that the idea that he might be human in that way had not entered her head.
‘As one of my patients said to me recently when I broke the news to her that she had cancer,’ he went on, staring thoughtfully at Deirdre from the other side of the kitchen table, ‘it didn’t help her to know that I might get knocked down and killed by a truck while crossing a street long before she died of cancer. She still had to deal with her cancer. What she wanted, more than anything, was the wisdom and company of other women who had the same kind of cancer that she had. That would really help her. Some doctors actually say to their patients, “Oh, I might get knocked down by a truck tomorrow,” but it’s meaningless, because they don’t really believe it, they don’t feel their mortality tapping them on the shoulder.’
‘No,’ Deirdre agreed. ‘I would call that a serious lack of a bedside manner. But, then, people in the medical and nursing profession don’t talk much about that now, so I find. When I was training, they did still talk about it.’
The electric clock on the wall ticked loudly as they stood and looked at each other. There was a tension of recognition between them, on so many levels. If only she could hug him… ‘If…if there’s any way at all that I can help you…with your son, I would be happy if you would let me know. I don’t want to presume.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, his eyes locking with hers, intense and tired. ‘You’ve done a lot for me already, Deirdre, without even trying.’
Oh, I’m trying, she thought. Believe me, I’m trying.
‘I will have that coffee, please, just a very small one, otherwise I’ll have no hope of sleeping tonight,’ he said, making a visible attempt to lighten the atmosphere. ‘Then I really have to go, reluctantly. It’s been a very pleasant interlude. If I hadn’t felt so relaxed after that great dinner, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you about Mark. Usually I feel pretty uptight about it. I get the impression that you can keep a confidence, that you don’t gossip.’
Deirdre nodded. ‘Does his mother know?’ she asked, getting the coffee things ready. Since he had already told her so much, she sensed that she could now ask certain things.
‘Not yet. There’s no point in worrying her when she’s a long way away. And he said he didn’t want her to know. I will probably tell her when he’s completely rehabilitated, because he would like to see her. He feels bitter that she left him…not so much that she left me but that she discarded him, as he sees it. I don’t suppose it was easy for her either, she wanted custody. But Mark didn’t like the guy she was with—there was no way he could call him Dad and go to live away from here. I wanted him, too.’
‘There’s an open invitation to you and your son,’ she said, pouring boiling water over coffee grains, wishing she could say more. ‘Here, to my parents’ house. Just let us know.’ Her intuition told her that he was informing her quite clearly that he had feet of clay, because he sensed that she was interested in him as a man. He was being honest with her, perhaps asking her to stand back until she knew what he was all about. For that, she respected him.
‘I will. Thanks.’ He took the coffee that she handed him.
‘Thanks to you, Shay,’ she said sincerely. ‘You’ve given me hope of getting a job in nursing. Not so long ago I was in despair.’
He looked at her ruefully. ‘I haven’t done such a good job with my son,’ he said.
‘It’s not possible to police everything they do,’ she said.
‘If I hadn’t been working so much, maybe I would have noticed sooner that things were not right,’ he said. ‘I have a housekeeper, and she alerted me, but I can’t expect her to be a mother to my son. She has her own family and private life.’
Deirdre poured a very small cup of coffee for herself, knowing it might keep her awake. That would make a change from anxiety keeping her awake, she mused. Somehow she knew that any sleeplessness she experienced tonight would be of a different quality.
As they sipped coffee, they could hear Mungo and Fleur discussing something. It felt like a peaceful domestic scene, and Deirdre felt a rare contentment, in spite of the shadow that seemed to hang over them from the revelations that Shay had just made.
‘At the schools the kids go to, they’re very mindful of the drug scene,’ she said. ‘There are all sorts of measures in place. It’s all brought out into the open, so that we’re aware of what could happen. A child can be suspended on the spot, the parents called to remove him or her from the school right away. It’s talked about at assembly frequently. It’s the same thing with bullying. They have zero tolerance for bullying.’
‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘So that you don’t think it could never happen to you.’
‘What you’ve said has certainly put my problems into perspective,’ she said again.
When it was time for him to leave, he said goodbye to the children and Deirdre went with him to the door, where he put on his overcoat. As she opened the door, he took her arm and guided her outside, pulling the door closed behind them. ‘Thanks again,’ he said. ‘If you need someone to talk to, just call me any time. I have plenty of people I can talk to at the hospital about my own problems. Otherwise, I’ll be in touch about going out to dinner.’
‘Yes.’ The word came out in a whisper, as she wished that he did not have to go.
‘I may not be much good at giving advice,’ he said, ‘but I can listen, and maybe suggest a different angle on things. I’ve made a bit of a mess of my life.’
‘Don’t say that,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you’re a great doctor and surgeon.’ Judging by the way his colleagues had responded to him during the tour of the operating suite, he was very respected and liked at the hospital.
‘At the expense of just about everything else,’ he said. ‘I can’t set myself up as an example. I have to remind myself that what I’m doing is a job, it isn’t my whole life, it isn’t who I am. One day it’s going to come to an end. Goodnight, Deirdre.’
They stood looking at each other in the dim light of the streetlamps, reluctant to make a move away. ‘I…’ she said. Then she found herself reaching forward and putting her hands on his shoulders, feeling an overwhelming empathy with him about his son, away somewhere in a hospital. The attraction that she felt moved her. ‘Shay…I…’
With a muffled groan he put his hands on her waist and pulled her against him, hard against his body, and she put her face up for his kiss. His lips were firm and demanding on hers, yet gentle at the same time, and she closed her eyes, the pleasure of his mouth on hers like a long-remembered dream.
He put up one hand to hold her head against his, his fingers in her hair, as his mouth moved warmly, sensually on hers. Pressed hard against him, Deirdre put her hand up into his hair, holding him as he was holding her, wanting the kiss to go on for ever. Unfamiliar sensations, like fingers of fire, moved through her body, and she knew that she wanted him as much as he obviously wanted her. Once again, she knew that she was in danger of falling in love with Dr Shay Melburne.
They pulled back simultaneously, breathing quickly. ‘Goodnight,’ she whispered.
‘Goodnight,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you very soon.’
‘Yes…please,’ she murmured.
Then he kissed her again quickly, crushing her mouth with his, holding her tightly as though he didn’t want her to go, any more than she wanted him to go.
‘Dee! Dee! Where are you?’ Fleur�
�s imperious voice called from the hallway behind them, and Shay pulled back, stepping away from her, running his hands down the length of her arms and gripping her hands hard, before letting go.
Abruptly he turned away from her and strode to the garden gate and to his car parked outside. He raised a hand to her in silent farewell, while she wanted to call out to him not to go.
‘Dee!’
Deirdre went inside, feeling dazed by the speed of events and the shock of learning about Shay’s son. That knowledge had had a sobering effect on her, made her own concerns seem almost petty. ‘Here I am,’ she called. ‘Just seeing Dr Melburne out.’
‘Can you help me with something, Dee?’ Fleur said. ‘I’ve got to learn a poem. Can you listen to see if I’ve got it right?’
‘Sure,’ she said, contented that Fleur needed her.
‘You know, I really like Dr Melburne,’ Fleur volunteered. ‘He’s sort of…genuine, you know? Real cool.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Deirdre said.
‘Is he going to be your boyfriend?’
‘I don’t know right now,’ Deirdre said with a laugh. ‘I sure would like him to be my boyfriend. Anything else you would like to know?’
‘Not right now,’ Fleur answered pertly. ‘I’ve got other things on my mind.’
‘Just as well.’
Deirdre followed Fleur into the sitting room to help with the homework. It had been a long, tiring day, and she was glad that they were all sleeping here in her house. The room looked very lived in and homely, with scattered books and papers, the fire flickering. Not for the first time, she felt deep gratitude for having this house. Not least in her gratitude was the stability of the life that her parents had given her while she had been growing up. Before too long they would be back in the country, then probably her brother would be back, too, when his contract in Australia had expired. They were a close-knit family, she realized more and more, with a strong emotional bond.
She was also realizing more than ever that there was probably no way that she could work anything other than part time in a job as demanding as operating room work—at least, not for quite some time, especially as one had to be on the job by seven o’clock in the morning, or just after, to start the operating list at eight o’clock sharp.