A Nurse in Crisis

by Lilian Darcy

  Here I come, Gordon Parker, and I’m going to vigorously defend my right to listen to ‘Paint It Black’ in the privacy of my own home at eight o’clock in the evening, although I may agree to turn down the volume a notch or two!

  She opened the door.

  ‘Uh…’ Marshall Irwin began awkwardly.

  Aimee gasped, and it was probably fortunate that she didn’t have any pockets in her old black cotton and Lycra leggings to stuff the wineglass into, slurp of Chardonnay included. ‘Marshall! Come in…’

  He looked achingly good, incredibly masculine and a lot better than Mick Jagger. He’d obviously been jogging, though he was only slightly out of breath. A dark blue T-shirt clung closely to a sinewy and nicely muscled frame. Loose black twill-weave running shorts showed off legs that were no strangers to exercise. They were brown, knotty, strong and roughened by dark hair. It was only two weeks until Sydney’s well-known ‘City to Surf’ race, which he entered every year.

  In the surgery, he usually wore glasses. Aimee liked the aura of experience and wisdom which the rectangular wire frames lent to his face. At the moment he wasn’t wearing them and she could see his eyes, and it was starting to be a distinct possibility that she liked those even better than the glasses. They were blue, like the blue of willow-pattern china, steady and twinkling and…uncertain.

  ‘Should I?’ he said. ‘You look as if you’re…’ He stopped.

  Having a party? Oh, hell, this was embarrassing! Lonely widow, dancing her heart out in the dark. Secret women’s business, indeed!

  ‘I’m not,’ Aimee said. ‘At least, I was, but…’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Please, come in!’ She practically dragged him through the doorway by both hands, with the wineglass pressed between her fingers and his. ‘I was…dancing, that’s all.’

  ‘Paint It Black’ came to an end, and ‘Pretty Woman’ came on instead. Following her down the hallway, Marshall laughed. ‘Dancing? All by yourself?’

  ‘I know. It’s—’

  ‘Delightful! It’s absolutely delightful, Aimee,’ he repeated softly, and before she knew it he’d taken the wine-glass from her hand and plonked it down on the sideboard, then whirled her to face him. He took her hands in his and began rocking along with her to the jaunty, driving beat. He was good at it, unselfconscious and naturally attuned to the rhythm. ‘Do you do it often?’

  ‘No!’ she denied frantically, then added, opting for greater honesty, ‘But I often feel that I should. When I do it, it’s so nice. Not really a lonely feeling, dancing alone, because it’s so exhilarating, and I usually phone Sarah or someone afterwards, and anyway William only left home at the beginning of the year…’

  ‘Did he join in?’

  ‘No, he laughed at me! But in a nice way. He thinks the Rolling Stones are dreadfully old-fashioned. He likes Radiohead and Smashing Pumpkins and Powderfinger.’

  ‘I’m impressed at the way you can reel off the names!’

  The home-made tape came to an end, making the last few notes of the song wobble before they cut off, and the silence was too sudden. They both stood in the centre of the room like boats beached by a low tide.

  ‘Ah-h-h!’ Aimee said to break it, lifting her hair up onto her head to cool her neck. She was more breathless than Marshall had been after his jog.

  ‘I had to come,’ he said, his voice suddenly low and serious.

  She looked up at him, alarmed.

  ‘No,’ he hastened to answer her. ‘Nothing’s happened. But when I told you I wouldn’t be good company because of feeling low over Mrs Deutschkron’s prognosis, I realised…I can already tell this isn’t going to come out right!…that that was exactly why I should want to see you, and why I did want to see you. Damn!’

  ‘Marshall?’

  ‘I was right. It hardly sounds like a compliment, does it? That I was down, so I wanted to inflict it on you and added your house to the route of my evening jog. Oh, but, Aimee, I don’t want to waste any more time on explanations! I don’t! This is what I want…’

  He pulled her into his arms slowly, with grace and care, as if it was something he hadn’t done in a long time but had no doubts about the rightness of doing now.

  Coming up against his chest, still breathless, Aimee had no doubts either. Her body and her heart were responding more strongly than she’d thought they had the power to do. Her heart was pounding, in fact, and her breathing was light and fluttery. They were both a little sweaty and damp, both dressed in soft clothing that clung intimately.

  But before she had time to map the places their bodies touched with such electrifying effect, he was kissing her. Not the rather courteous, old-fashioned press of his lips to the corner of her mouth that he’d given her on Sunday evening, but a real, honest-to-goodness, hot, passionate smooch.

  It felt…wonderful! And very quickly much more than a smooch. A…A…There wasn’t a better word in any language she knew.

  Oh, stop thinking about it, Aimee!

  She did, and just gave herself to the endless moment instead. Slowly, his arms came fully around her, one hand resting against her hip at first, then sliding across to lazily trace the curve of her rear, still satisfactorily taut and shapely beneath the close-fitting leggings.

  Marsh’s other hand had crossed her back and kneaded her shoulder, and she had to arch and stretch her neck up to reach him with her own mouth, creating a strangely pleasant feeling that she’d topple backwards if he didn’t have her so tightly and preciously enclosed in his arms.

  His face was a little rough. His body was firm, and still hot from his run. His mouth was confident, as if now that he’d jumped in at the deep end he’d remembered that he was good at this.

  And he was good at it! She hadn’t realised until now that kissing was a talent like any other, and some people had that talent in spades.

  He had a better talent than she did, too, of keeping track of a conversation, because when he finally broke away to ask, ‘Do you understand that it’s a compliment, Aimee?’ she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. Of course a kiss was a compliment!

  ‘I mean the fact that I needed to come,’ he explained, after seeing her confused expression. ‘It wasn’t planned. I was jogging and I was heading in this direction, and it suddenly just wasn’t possible not to come down your street and front up at your door and demand a cup of tea.’

  ‘You haven’t done that yet.’

  ‘Can I do it now? This business of Mrs Deutschkron is still eating at me.’

  ‘Oh, Marshall!’ She reached up and pushed a stray lock of dark hair, thickly threaded with grey, back from his forehead. ‘Of course it is! I’m so sorry, and here I am, dancing away like a maniac.’

  She stroked her fingers down his jaw and neck, felt the beating of his blood briefly, then let them rest softly on his shoulder as she searched his face.

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ he said. ‘You hardly know her, and probably know nothing of her history.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  He opened his mouth as if to launch into a story, then shook his head. ‘We won’t talk about it tonight. That’s not why I came. I really just wanted…’ he paused, then looked straight down into her eyes ‘…to be with you, Aimee.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ she managed breathlessly. ‘Come through, and I’ll make the tea.’

  The mood had changed, but it was just as pleasant. They sat at the big kitchen table, talked about all sorts of things and drank their tea, warming their legs and hands in front of an old-fashioned electric fire.

  It was the kind, at least fifty years old, that was shaped like a fireplace and had fake coals lit from beneath to make them ‘glow’, and was so ugly and silly that it had acquired the status of an antique by this time, and Aimee was perversely fond of it. It had once belonged to her grandmother. She liked it for practical reasons, too. A July night in Sydney could be chilly.

  Marshall seemed to appreciate it. He stuck his bare legs out until they were so c
lose to the heat that they practically sizzled, and when he finally looked at his watch and took note of the time his jaw dropped. ‘It can’t be ten!’

  ‘I know,’ she agreed. ‘But it is. I’ll drive you home.’

  ‘No…’

  ‘Yes. Please.’

  ‘I won’t be annoying and argue the point,’ he conceded. ‘A ride home does sound a lot more pleasant than a jog, now that my legs are so warm and relaxed.’

  They went out through the lounge room side by side, and there wasn’t quite enough room as they passed the sideboard. He bumped it, and the glasses and china inside it rattled.

  So did the half-empty wineglass she’d put down on the top of it two hours ago.

  ‘Oops.’ He reached a hand out to steady the glass and noticed the wine still sloshing inside. There was a tiny pause, then he said lightly, ‘You never finished it.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she answered him. But it came out just a little too hastily, and then she only made it worse by adding self-consciously, ‘I don’t often drink alone.’

  ‘Oh, no, I wasn’t suggesting…’ He didn’t finish the sentence, and there was a tinge of awkwardness in the atmosphere.

  Why did I say that? Aimee scolded herself inwardly. I don’t often drink alone, but saying it only made it sound as if I did.

  The moment passed as she reached the front door and opened it to let in a draught of chilly air.

  ‘Brr!’ Marshall said. ‘Definitely too cold for running shorts!’

  They talked about the weather for the whole car journey to his place. Only five minutes between their two houses, so it wasn’t so disastrous a subject, but Aimee still felt an odd discomfort and disappointment. Was she still smarting over that silly exchange about the wine?

  Surely not! What was it, then? It had something to do with the wine.

  Outside Marshall’s gracious old house his kiss was brief and he didn’t ask her in.

  Driving home alone, Aimee probed at what she felt in the same way that she might have probed at a sore tooth with her tongue, and finally concluded in her mind. It’s still early days. That’s what rattled me about him noticing the wine. For a moment there, he did wonder, and it’s early days in what’s going on between us. We’ve both lived full lives before this.

  She thought about her twenty-six year marriage to Alan. It had been a relatively happy one. She’d entered into it with too many stars in her eyes, of course, at the age of twenty. Then they’d weathered some disappointments, disagreements, coolnesses, ongoing differences in outlook that they’d never really addressed. That sort of thing changed a woman’s perspective, influenced the person she became.

  Neither of us comes without baggage, Aimee realised. We both have children. Previous marriages. Past grief. Complicated finances. It wouldn’t take much, at this stage, to make the whole thing seem wrong, or just too hard.

  Letting herself into her house, she saw that the ‘on’ light was still glowing on her sound system. She turned it off. No more dancing tonight. Time to go to bed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘SORRY…I’m going to interfere, Dad,’ Rebecca said.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Marshall invited.

  He’d known this had been coming when she’d suggested they have lunch together, but he’d accepted her suggestion with an innocent face and had proposed the local Asian noodle house. Now Rebecca was toying with a plate of Pad Thai and making a very obvious effort to be calm and pleasant.

  He waited as she gathered her thoughts, and wondered with a distant sort of curiosity about how he was going to react to what she had to say.

  She was still struggling.

  ‘It’s about Aimee, isn’t it?’ he prompted helpfully.

  ‘Yes.’ She looked up. The noodles were still untouched. ‘And it’s not that I don’t like her. You know that. She seems very nice and, of course, I’ve known her for longer than you have, since we met when we were both working at Southshore Health Centre.’

  ‘But,’ he supplied, still helpfully.

  ‘Just…be careful. Perhaps you don’t need me to say it. Probably you don’t. You’re an experienced, sensible man.’

  ‘Thank you!’

  ‘But I know how hard it can be when two people are working together. Harry and I nearly didn’t reach the finish line a couple of times. Well, more than a couple! And it’s not as if you’re two carefree young lovers, who—’

  ‘We’re not lovers at all,’ Marsh cut in deliberately, feeling a sudden need to assert himself. He wasn’t a fool when it came to human relationships, and he was a private man. This was his business.

  His daughter’s uncomfortable shifting in her seat and sudden apparently starving attention to her noodles gave him a pinch of satisfaction. Rebecca had made her case, he now considered.

  ‘I take your point, Rebecca,’ he went on, making a conscious effort not to increase the gulf in understanding between them. ‘And, of course, you’re right. To a certain extent. Yes, we have more issues to consider at this point in our lives than a couple of twenty-year-olds. But I hope, as you say, that we have more good sense as well. I’m not sure what’s happening yet, and I don’t want office memos to be issued on the subject.’

  ‘Of course not! I won’t say a word. Even to Harry, if you don’t want me to,’ she promised extravagantly.

  ‘I’d prefer that, yes, at this stage.’ He nodded, and saw her eyes widen a little.

  She hadn’t expected him to take her up on that overenthusiastic offer to keep a secret from her own husband, but he really didn’t want it gossiped about for the moment, not even between husband and wife, and if that didn’t convince her that he was being appropriately cautious, what would?

  Everyone in the practice knew that they had been away for the weekend recently, of course, but he’d presented the event as what it essentially had been—a group of friends enjoying two days of winter sports, not a romantic interlude.

  ‘You know I’m only saying this because I care about you, Dad,’ Rebecca said, her voice suddenly husky with tenderness.

  And he did know it, too. As well, he was guiltily aware that he’d once interfered in her relationship with Harry for exactly the same reason, and the result might have been disastrous on that occasion if Harry hadn’t completely ignored his sage advice.

  ‘Shall we change the subject?’ he offered, and she greeted the suggestion with relief.

  Marshall wondered later, as they returned to the surgery together, if she realised how relentlessly her words were laying siege to his inner equilibrium. In many ways he was as wary as his daughter about this new thing that had so unexpectedly entered his life. Rebecca had no reason to accuse him of not being careful.

  If dwelling on things, and replaying conversations—and silences—over and over in one’s mind were signs of being careful, then he was being positively obsessive. That stupid business of Aimee’s wineglass the other night, for example. He could have kicked himself for that unforgivable moment of hesitation.

  He could tell she was afraid he suspected her of being a secret drinker, and he didn’t. She’d given him no reason to. Not at the snowfields or at work here in Sydney. Not during the three times they’d been out together. So why that moment of suspicion, flashing through his mind, that he hadn’t managed to hide?

  ‘Because I’m a doctor, I suppose,’ he concluded, muttering to himself. ‘I’ve had patients who did drink, when sometimes it was the last thing you’d suspect.’

  Like fifty-eight-year-old Joan Allyson, who was first on his list this afternoon.

  ‘How are you, Joan?’ he greeted her, as she sat down in the chair opposite his desk.

  ‘Fighting fit, I hope,’ she answered, and she looked it. Short grey hair, trim, energetic figure, dangling earrings of a pretty red to match her red trouser suit. She had come straight from work, and was due back there after her appointment. ‘I’m just here for my annual check-up.’

  She’d been very good about such things for the past se
ven years, but it hadn’t always been that way. She’d started drinking heavily about fifteen years ago, after a painful divorce, but she’d hidden it so carefully at first that no one had suspected. Not her grown-up children. Not her colleagues at the insurance company where she’d worked. Not even her family doctor!

  Until she’d turned up one day with gout, indicated by her symptoms of pain and confirmed by the test Marshall had done, revealing high uric acid levels. At that point he’d suspected very strongly, but his questions on the issue had brought only flat denial.

  After that, it had got worse and everyone knew. Her two children had each come to see him in turn to ask if there was anything they or he could do. Without her willingness to admit to a problem, of course, there hadn’t been. Her health had deteriorated. There had been more severe episodes of gout, and treatment for venereal disease. She’d lost her job.

  Finally, and he still wasn’t sure what the trigger had been, although he suspected another one-night stand which had turned bad, she’d come to him of her own volition and had asked for help. She’d heard of a drug called Antabuse, which caused any alcohol intake to create strong feelings of nausea, and she’d been keen to try it. He’d prescribed it for her, but had also urged her to join Alcoholics Anonymous.

  Since then, she hadn’t looked back. Now, seven years since her last drink, she had a well-paid and satisfying job in the administration of the Sydney Opera House, her health was good and on this visit she had some news as well.

  ‘I’m particularly hoping everything’s all right today,’ she said, ‘because I’m getting married in six weeks.’

  ‘Oh, Joan, that’s marvellous!’ Marshall said, and meant it. ‘Congratulations!’

  She beamed, and the warmth in the room was palpable. Marshall was honest enough to admit to himself that if it hadn’t been for the advent of Aimee in his life, he wouldn’t be basking quite so strongly in the reflected glow of Joan’s obvious happiness. But, to be truthful, he did find it very encouraging that love could run smoothly on the far side of fifty!