A Nurse in Crisis

by Lilian Darcy

  ‘We’ll order Chinese, home delivery,’ he decreed, and she felt no desire to argue.

  So much for independence! She was in no hurry to find herself alone back at Summer Hill.

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ Marshall said.

  He was opening a bottle of red wine, and he had two glasses waiting, but she shook her head, thinking of the drive back to the hospital later on. She was in such a state already, and didn’t want anything that would impair her concentration at the wheel. Instead, she accepted some fruit juice mixed with sparkling mineral water, and sipped it as she told Marsh the news on little Bonnie.

  ‘Who’s her surgeon?’ he asked, after listening to her account.

  ‘Denny Rutherford is his name. He seemed young.’

  ‘Oh, a baby!’ Marshall teased. ‘About forty, I think.’

  She laughed. ‘You’re right. I’m showing my age.’

  ‘You hardly ever do, Aimee. But, seriously, she couldn’t be in better hands. He must have done that operation many times, both here and overseas, and not always under the best of conditions, so I doubt if anything could throw him off stride. I know quite a bit about him through Gareth Searle at Southshore Health Centre, and I’ve met him twice.’

  ‘That’s all good to know. And I liked his manner. I think Jason was reassured.’

  ‘Are you going to go back there tonight?’

  ‘I’d like to.’

  ‘Stay here until it’s time and I’ll drive you, then drop you home. We can work out something with your car tomorrow,’ he promised vaguely.

  But Aimee shook her head. ‘I’ll stay a couple of hours—thanks for suggesting it—but I’ll go to the hospital by myself, Marsh.’

  Under the cover of riffling through his selection of takeaway restaurant menus, Marshall studied her and decided not to argue the point, although he would dearly have liked to. It was absurd, the way he felt, a complex, bubbling recipe of different emotional ingredients.

  First, sheer exultation that Aimee was beneath his roof once more after two long months, and a determination to crowd the next three hours—she’d said two, but he wanted her here longer—with as many good things as he could think of.

  Second, the prickling pain of knowing that nothing had really changed. She’d turned to him out of need and chance, and if he made the mistake of challenging her in any way, forcing her to acknowledge aloud what they both understood about their chemistry and their intuitive response to each other, he knew she’d close up like an echidna warding off its enemies by showing its spines.

  Third, he simply wanted to look after her. He had an inkling that she wouldn’t like that. Thinking back on all their dealings with each other, as he frequently did, he’d remembered several times when she’d been gently insistent on making her own decisions, doing things on her own—

  tackling a difficult ski run on their weekend away, ordering her meal at a restaurant without advice from either the waiter or her dinner partner, locking up the practice at the end of a busy day.

  ‘No, thanks. I can handle it on my own.’ Firm, friendly, smiling. There was never a sting in it, always a light note of satisfaction, as if she wasn’t quite accustomed to this independence and self-reliance and was just beginning to decide that she liked it.

  Marshall had started to wonder about her marriage, and if that could be the source of her reluctance to become involved with a man again.

  Had it been unhappy? Had Alan Hilliard been a domineering autocrat? Marshall didn’t know, and wasn’t inclined to ask straight out, but he decided to act on that assumption tonight and from now on, and felt, as he tasted the berry-rich wine on his tongue, more optimistic about Aimee than he had since the beginning of August.

  Perhaps he’d been wrong to think that because they had no marriage, no actual commitment, it wasn’t possible to work on the problem that was keeping them apart. Perhaps it was simply a question of taking things more slowly, being more prepared to feel his way.

  He found the take-away menu he was looking for and they looked at it together, spreading it out on the coffee-table in front of the comfortably aged three-seater floral couch where they were sitting.

  ‘Definitely prawns,’ she decreed.

  ‘You like prawns?’ It was the most gentle of probes.

  ‘Don’t you?’ She looked up, and he saw her getting ready to politely back down.

  ‘No, I love them,’ he said, ‘but some people don’t.’

  ‘Alan didn’t.’

  Aha! ‘Did that stop you?’

  ‘Well…he felt they weren’t safe.’

  Aimee hadn’t answered his question directly, but he didn’t push the point, just felt another surge of the same satisfaction he’d experienced a few minutes earlier. He leaned a little closer to study the menu and could feel her warmth. He could have buried his face in her hair if he’d turned. It had started to come loose from its clip, and looked soft and smooth and silky, looping low across her ear.

  ‘I fancy a soup to start,’ he said, ‘followed by something spicy. Beef, I think.’

  They settled on a bean curd and vegetable dish as well, and Aimee said, ‘You won’t have to cook tomorrow either, because there’ll be plenty left!’

  After he’d ordered, he still felt that same impatient need to entertain her, take her mind off things, so he invited quickly, ‘Come up and see my new bathroom.’

  ‘Oh, is it finished at last?’

  ‘Last week. I showered gloriously for twenty minutes as a celebration.’

  ‘Spendthrift!’

  ‘It’s been a wet spring,’ Marshall argued unrepentantly. ‘The reservoirs are in good shape, and I had to test out the staying power of the new solar water-heater, didn’t I?’

  They were climbing the stairs as he spoke. He led the way along the corridor then stood back, watching her face as she took in the full symphony of white and green and gold. While retaining the character of the old house, he’d also gone for something opulent and luxurious.

  ‘It’s gorgeous!’ Aimee said, then accused teasingly, ‘I thought you hated baths.’

  ‘I know.’ He grinned wryly. ‘The tub is huge. It’s not for me—it’s in case I decide to sell up. I was assured most avidly that a tub of such sybaritic proportions was an essential these days.’

  ‘Oh, they’ll tell you anything, won’t they?’ she said with a laugh.

  ‘You think I was conned?’

  ‘No, because I’m sure you’re right. How could any buyer resist this? Are you seriously thinking of selling?’

  ‘Might,’ he admitted.

  His voice had gone gruff all of a sudden, Aimee noticed, wishing she hadn’t asked. Then, to make it worse, he noticed her regret.

  ‘It’s not a sore point, Aimee,’ he said. ‘But, let’s face it, the house is too big for one man, and perhaps it’s time I moved on. A little place on the coast, up on a cliff, a nice, quiet country practice with lots of retirees for patients.’

  ‘You mean, not just leaving this house but leaving the practice and Sydney?’ The idea was too unexpected to allow her to hide her shock. And yet perhaps it would be better for both of them if he did go away.

  His glance was quizzical. ‘People make changes,’ he said. ‘You’ve just made a big one yourself, and presumably for similar reasons.’

  ‘I—Oh, yes,’ she interrupted herself quickly. ‘Much less work to look after something small. I’ll be able to get it just as I want it, then have much more spare time for other things. Helping Sarah, or going away. Thomas has always promised me he’d take me on a field trip some time, and show me some of his beloved creatures.’

  It all started to make sense as she said it, and for the first time since Peter’s news over two months ago she felt as if she was getting back in control, able to mould the clay of the life she’d been given as she wanted to.

  If I can’t afford to live in a place I love, then I’ll simply find better things to do than being at home! she decided. I am not going to let an
y of this defeat me!

  They talked a little more about their children. Marshall was looking forward to a visit to Simon in the United States at Christmas. Aimee was a little concerned that William would choose a career in administration or business because of the security it offered, not because it was what he really wanted. He’d always been very good with children, and she’d have liked to see him go into primary-school teaching, where he could be of real value and where she was sure he would be much happier. Neither of them mentioned Rebecca.

  Then the doorbell rang. It was their meal, which they hadn’t yet set the table for.

  ‘Or shall we eat in front of the box?’ Marshall suggested. ‘I have a couple of videos we could watch. Both comedies,’ he added, as an extra inducement.

  It worked. ‘Probably just what I need,’ Aimee confessed.

  ‘I thought it might be,’ Marshall responded, and she didn’t miss the note of quiet satisfaction in his voice.

  Was it cowardly of her not to examine too closely what that satisfaction might mean?

  Together, they brought plates, cutlery, napkins and glasses to the glass-topped coffee-table, then Marshall put on the movie, which made the time pass quickly and took Aimee’s mind off Bonnie’s surgery.

  Not that anything could do that fully tonight. Her thoughts travelled frequently to her new little granddaughter, only to be dragged mercifully back to what was happening on the screen.

  Beside her, Marshall ate heartily and laughed his rich, frank laugh, which both warmed and soothed her. They didn’t talk much, but when they did it felt good. He poured her a little more mineral water, which he was now also drinking himself, and paused the movie halfway through to suggest coffee.

  Aimee nodded. ‘I might be up late. I wouldn’t mind the caffeine.’

  ‘Don’t think that I’m not thinking about her as well,’ he told her.

  ‘I know, and I’m glad now about that silly mistake earlier, driving home to Woollahra.’

  ‘So am I.’

  She helped him make the coffee, despite his insistence that she shouldn’t and as they stood together in the kitchen it would have been so easy to seek out the sensual support of his touch. Those knotty, sensitive hands of his holding her, his forehead hard against her face as he whispered just the right words.

  She pushed the need away, and thought about the coffee instead, smelling the rich aroma as he ground beans in an electric grinder, then put them into a tiny cappuccino-maker. Aimee was impressed by it, and said so.

  ‘Oh, we’re very European here.’ He laughed. ‘Rebecca gave it to me for Christmas a couple of years ago, and I wish I had as good an excuse as this to use it more often.’

  The words created their own silence, and she couldn’t think of a safe reply. All she could do was murmur inanely after a few moments, ‘Mmm, the smell!’

  This time he was the one who didn’t answer.

  As soon as the movie was over Aimee told Marshall, ‘I must get back to the hospital. Bonnie will be out of surgery by now.’

  Just saying it aloud was enough to make her feel shaky and upset again, and when Marshall repeated his offer to drive her there she didn’t turn him down. His companionship and support would be so nice tonight, had been so nice for almost three hours already. She’d arrived here at about seven, and it was now almost ten.

  ‘I’ll take you home afterwards, too,’ he promised easily.

  At that, she froze inside but managed not to let it show, and excused herself to the bathroom, purely to buy some time. She didn’t want him to see her new home, the tiny flat in the ugly red-brick building, separated from a noisy main road by just a few metres of pale concrete pavement. It would jar completely with his expectations of the kind of place she’d have chosen. What had possessed her to agree to let him drive her? She hadn’t been thinking properly. Thinking with her heart, not her head.

  When Aimee came down from the bathroom again, she told him too brightly, ‘I’ve been thinking…’ If only I’d done it sooner! ‘It really doesn’t make sense for you to take me, and create all that nuisance about my car. I’ll be fine, really I will.’

  She could hardly have missed the sudden sharp glance that shot her way, or the short but telling pause before he spoke.

  ‘I really don’t mind, Aimee. I’d like to be there. It’s ridiculous to make a fuss about the car. We can take yours, and I’ll get a taxi back from your place.’

  Stupidly, she spoke her immediate thought aloud. ‘That’s a very practical solution, but—’

  ‘But it doesn’t address the real problem, does it?’ he finished for her.

  They were standing in the wide front hallway, and he was watching her, reading her. He wore his metal-framed glasses low on his nose so that they looked rakish and endearingly human. Yet ‘endearing’ wasn’t really the right word in the current context. Far too staid. Aimee didn’t feel that Marshall was dear, she felt he was devastating and dangerous and she wanted him so badly that it shocked her to the core.

  This? She had the capacity to feel this? So churned up, so sizzlingly sensitive in every nerve ending, so hungry, physically, for his touch. For the first time it struck her that he was still wearing his jogging clothes—a white knit shirt with a soft collar and black shorts in a rather stiff synthetic fabric. Why hadn’t he changed?

  Because he hadn’t thought of it. They’d both been too consumed with the simple fact of being together, talking, reading each other’s silences, thinking about the baby.

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ she answered his telling observation at last.

  He went on, spelling it out for both of them. ‘Because the real problem is that you’re terrified of what we feel for each other for some reason.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she denied, and it was partly the truth.

  Only partly, and he didn’t accept it. ‘For heaven’s sake, Aimee, whatever else you’re determined to deny me, don’t, at least, deny me the chance to talk about it openly. For two months, we’ve both tried to pretend that we’d forgotten what we started, but we haven’t, have we? It’s still there, stronger than ever, and I don’t understand what scares you so, why you’re denying it and hiding from it.’

  ‘I—It’s…’ She searched desperately for something, other than the truth, that would satisfy him. But, of course, it didn’t work. He knew too much about people, and too much about her.

  ‘Don’t!’ His voice was low, and vibrated with emotion. ‘Just don’t! If you can’t, or won’t, tell me the truth, then don’t say anything at all.’

  He stepped closer. Close enough to touch. He reached out a hand and let his fingers fall gently on her neck, tracing its warm contours, trailing up to her jawline and back into her hair, which had almost fallen completely from its clip at the back. He didn’t speak.

  Another step brought him close to take her in his arms, but he didn’t. Instead, he simply dropped his hand and touched his mouth to hers. No other contact between them, just that. The kiss was slow, slow, the pressure of his lips feather-light at first as her chin lifted instinctively to meet them. He was giving her every opportunity to turn away, to say or signal her rejection of him, but she couldn’t do it.

  Aimee kept her eyes open and saw his gaze boring into hers across the glinting barrier of his glasses, then he turned aside for just long enough to reach up and remove them. It was a very deliberate gesture, as if he was saying, there! I’m naked now, and I dare you to try and lie to me when I’ve stripped myself for you!

  He deepened his kiss, his hands on her shoulders and his body pressing against her so that they could both feel every contour—the places where they clashed, and the places where they could have joined, as they’d joined once before.

  Now, at last, he spoke, taking his mouth from hers as it formed each phrase, then swooping back to claim her once more.

  ‘Let me see,’ he said. ‘What are all the possibilities I’ve considered? That you don’t want me? I think we can cross that one off the list.’ His mouth
made a trail down her throat and paused to kiss the hollow at the base of it.

  ‘Marshall…!’

  ‘That you made a vow of some kind to Alan?’ He sighed. ‘Surely it can’t be that! It’s too Victorian! Could you have stayed married for twenty-six years to a man who would have asked that of you? And if you’d given such a vow freely, because you knew you could never love another man as much, surely you wouldn’t have let yourself respond to me as you did at first, so freely and happily. No, it’s not that!’

  He ploughed on, almost cruel in his insistence on saying it all, but kissing the cruelty away with lips that were utterly tender.

  ‘Are you afraid then?’ he suggested. ‘Was your marriage to Alan miserable, and you can’t imagine that I could make you happy as time went on? I could, Aimee!’

  ‘I know…’ The ragged confession was torn from her as his hands slid up her sides to touch her breasts through the soft linen of her blouse.

  ‘Then perhaps it’s that you’re too lazy. Because, of course, it would take work. There would be a lot of decisions to make, other people to consider and convince. But I didn’t think you were a lazy person, Aimee.’

  ‘This isn’t fair!’ she gasped, dragging herself from his arms at last. ‘It isn’t fair at all, Marsh! What do you want from me? I was wrong to turn to you tonight. I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t made that stupid mistake and found myself in your street. I was praying that I wouldn’t see you. Oh, I suppose it’s my fault for giving in to you. I hoped you’d respect…respect the boundaries we’d both put in place. Please, respect them!’

  ‘When you won’t give me any sort of a reason to?’ he demanded, unrepentant and angry now.

  ‘I can’t! Give me time!’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She let the familiar thoughts tumble helter-skelter through her mind. In time, when she’d made her new flat as nice as she could, worked out whether she was managing to save…

  No. She’d never regain the sense of equality she’d had with him before Peter’s news, and before she’d known about his inheritance. And Rebecca would always be on the scene as a reminder of the disparity between them, unsuccessfully trying to mask her suspicions and hostility, guarding her future legacy.