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But she didn’t want to tell Dylan Calford about any of that. He didn’t prompt her to finish, and she felt a small stirring of gratitude for the fact.
‘And there was no father around?’ he asked after a moment.
‘Not one that we could trace. Vic never even told Mum and me his last name. He didn’t know about Duncan and wouldn’t have cared, Vic said. It was a holiday romance. She travelled a lot.’
‘The adventurous type. Like her son.’
‘I’m starting to see that, yes, although at the end of a long day, I always blame his father for the high energy levels!’
‘How do you deal with it? How do you know that your full-time care will be better than a child-care centre?’ Evidently he remembered exactly what she’d said to him yesterday.
‘Because I love him. I…’ she searched for the right word ‘…champion him, in a way those very nice girls—really, they’re very nice—at child-care just don’t have time for, with their ratio of one adult to five kids.’
‘That high?’
‘It’s standard,’ she answered. ‘I believe in him, and know him well enough to bring out the best in him. I understand what he’s trying to tell me, which some people don’t. His speech isn’t very clear yet, and that frustrates him. I have the time and care to head off his difficult behaviour, and I know when he’s overdosed on other kids and needs some time to himself. We go to the park for hours, and just run each other down as if we were two little toys in one of those battery commercials on television. He sleeps well, if an hour or two less than most kids his age. And I’m pretty fit, as a result!’
‘Hmm,’ Dylan said. There was a pause. ‘And what will happen now?’
‘He’ll stay in child-care. Unless I can juggle my shifts at the hospital, which, of course, I’ll try to do.’
Which doesn’t deal with the mortgage. There must be some other areas where I can save. If I get an increase on my credit-card limit…
‘There’s no other choice? Your mother—’
‘Has emphysema, as you may have realised. She’s tired and breathless, gets asthma attacks quite often, and can’t do much for herself. She could sell her little unit and come and live here, yes, but she’s too ill to help with Duncan, other than overnight babysitting, and really too ill to live under the same roof as such an active little boy.’
‘Yes, I can understand that.’
‘She loves him, but she wouldn’t be happy here. Can you stop asking these questions, Dylan? Marrying Alex wasn’t just about solving my current family problems. There was a lot more. You mean well. I can see that. But you’re trivialising my life, and my choices. It’s not helping. Don’t try and help, please.’
She lifted her chin and met his gaze steadily, still far more conscious of their two bodies than she wanted to be. What was he thinking? She couldn’t tell. His dark eyes were clouded and thoughtful, and he was frowning.
At that moment, Duncan ran back out to the veranda, as expected, with his arms full of towels. One dangling end was dangerously close to tripping up his eager little feet. Turning away from Dylan, Annabelle took the bundle from Duncan quickly, and asked, ‘What about your cozzie? Know where that is?’
‘Onna line,’ he said confidently, and rushed off again, to the far corner of the crowded garden where the rotary clothesline stood, hung with pegged-up garments.
‘I should go,’ Dylan said, and Annabelle didn’t argue. ‘Please, think a little more about what I said.’
She laughed. ‘The marriage proposal? You didn’t mean it. I’m not going to think about it for a second.’
‘You’re right. I didn’t mean it. But think about it anyway.’ His dark gaze collided with hers again. It seemed to trap her, making her hot.
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ she told him.
‘Probably not,’ he agreed. ‘Although I wonder…Maybe one day we’ll both understand what it meant.’
Then he shrugged, smiled and stood up, looking long and strong and sturdy. Not at all the kind of man who should make whimsical marriage proposals that he admitted he didn’t mean but still wanted her to take seriously.
‘Enjoy the pool,’ he said, and touched her bare shoulder.
His hand left a warm imprint there, and was gone again in a second. Annabelle’s awareness of his touch was unsettling and unwanted. She took him quickly back through the house, and they got through a few last polite phrases, then she closed the door behind him and listened with relief to the confident sound of his feet as he loped down the twenty-seven steps.
She spent a shrieking half-hour in the pool with Duncan, got him dried and dressed and settled him with a video.
Then she phoned Alex.
‘I was wondering when you’d call,’ he said stiffly.
‘It’s just on eleven. I wasn’t sure whether to…’ She trailed off, feeling the phone line between them heavy with stony silence. She tried again, newly determined that there had to be a way to get through this. It was ridiculous to call off a marriage permanently because of one meaningless intrusion during the ceremony. They were both mature adults. Alex was almost forty, and she was thirty-two. ‘I really wanted to talk, Alex, but I thought we both needed to cool down after last night. I’m just as angry with Dylan as you are.’
Silence.
‘And if you still think I gave him any cause to make that idiotic objection, then I’m not sure what to do next, because I didn’t, and I’ve told you that, and he’s told you that…’ She paused expectantly.
Silence.
‘Which makes me start to wonder if you were just looking for an excuse.’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous.’
‘So we’ll get married. A small, discreet ceremony, with—’
‘That’s impossible. I’m not going to rehash it again.’
‘Tell me what you’re feeling, Alex!’ she begged him desperately. ‘Just blustering like this, stonewalling anything I say, it’s not telling me anything.’
Silence.
‘Shall I come over to your place, or do you want to come here?’ she suggested.
Silence.
‘Dylan wants to pay for the reception. I told him to talk to you about it.’
‘So you’ve seen him? When have you seen him?’
‘He came round just now. He obviously feels bad.’
‘I can’t believe you’re defending him, and that you talked to him before you talked to me.’
‘I’m not defending him.’ Am I? ‘I’m just letting you know that he’ll probably phone you, too. I don’t know why he came to me first.’
Silence.
‘So, should we talk about—?’
‘There’s absolutely nothing to talk about at all,’ Alex snapped. ‘It’s out of the question to have him pay for the reception.’
‘Well, yes, that’s what I thought, but since it was your money, I didn’t want to—’
‘And it’s out of the question to talk about scheduling another ceremony. I won’t get over this in a hurry, Annabelle. You’re the last person I would have thought the type to trail chaos and melodrama in your wake, but now I’m wondering how many other ex-boyfriends—’
‘Dylan Calford isn’t an—’
‘Or would-be boyfriends I can expect to crawl out of the woodwork. I was embarrassed to the core last night. People, no doubt, are already talking and making conjectures. And I don’t even think I could look at you at the moment, Annabelle.’
The reproachful crash of the slamming phone invaded Annabelle’s left ear, and stinging tears flooded her vision. Today, this hurt in a way it hadn’t hurt last night. Last night she’d been angry, and in shock. Now came the full realisation that Alex had dropped her like a hot coal, as if she were tainted in some way.
He’d almost said as much. He’d called her a ‘type’. Not the type to attract scandal. Not the type to compromise his reputation and his ambitions. Political ambitions. She knew he had them. President of the Australian Medical Association. Queensland State Minister for Health. But she’d believed herself to mean much more to Alex than a suitably well-bred and stain-resistant political wife, just as he meant more to her than a way out of her family problems.
Annabelle stuffed her knuckles into her mouth and sobbed wildly, until she remembered Duncan in the next room. He would be worried and confused if he saw her like this—red-eyed, swollen-nosed. He had a caring little heart, when he stood still long enough for it to show.
She heard the clatter of his feet as he bounced off the couch to come looking for her, and quickly turned to the kitchen sink to wash away the worst of the mess her face was in. By the time he appeared, she was wearing a smile.
CHAPTER THREE
ANNABELLE and Duncan reached Gumnut Playcare just as it opened, at six-thirty on Monday morning. Annabelle was rostered in Theatre with a seven o’clock start, and timing, as usual, was tight.
‘Got your backpack?’ she prompted Duncan, then watched as he dragged it slowly across the back seat of the car.
His little face looked sullen and closed and not at all cute.
She helped him put the backpack on, then took his hand and tried to lead him up the path to the front door, but he stalled, pulled out of her grasp and ran off to examine some interesting leaves on a nearby bush.
‘We can’t look at those now, love,’ she told him brightly, but he ignored her. ‘I’ll be late,’ she finished, knowing the concept—and the consequences—were meaningless to a little boy.
Since it was all too likely that either Alex or Dylan, or both of them, would be operating in Theatre Three today, she was doubly anxious to arrive on time.
‘’Eaves,’ Duncan said. His tone was stubborn.
‘I know, they’re lovely leaves, but we just can’t look at them now. This afternoon, OK?’
She hoped, guiltily, that he’d forget. It would be six or later before she got back here, as Mum had a doctor’s appointment. Annabelle had cleaned and done laundry for her yesterday, but today, in addition, they would need to stop at the shops on the way back from the doctor. If the doctor was running late, or if she herself was late off work…
A twelve-hour day was too long for a two-year-old.
‘’Eaves,’ he said again.
‘Not now, sweetie.’
She picked him up and carried him inside, ignoring the way he wriggled and kicked. He’d been a darling all weekend, sitting rapt and attentive on the couch yesterday afternoon while Mum read to him, ‘helping’ to hang out the laundry. Today, she already knew he was going to be a demon.
Inside the child-care centre, once she had put him down, he streaked off and began running noisily around the room, without responding to the overly cheerful greetings of Lauren and Carly, the two staff on duty. Annabelle signed him in, unsurprised to find that he was the first name on today’s page.
Just then a second child arrived—a four-year-old girl named Katie, prettily dressed and obediently holding her mother’s hand. As soon as she saw Duncan, she said in a loud voice, ‘That’s the naughty boy who bit me, Mummy.’
Annnabelle’s stomach flipped. She turned to Lauren. ‘You didn’t tell me…’
‘There’s a note in his pocket.’ Lauren gestured towards the bright row of cloth ‘pockets’ running along the wall, where children’s artwork and notes for parents were placed. Duncan’s was brimming with untidily folded paintings, and Annabelle thought guiltily, When did I last remember to check it? Wednesday?
When she picked him up, she was always so keen to get out of here quickly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ll speak to him about it.’
Which would be pointless with a two-year-old, when the incident had occurred several days earlier. Katie’s mother was glaring at Annabelle, however, and she felt obliged to act tough. Inside, she was crumbling.
‘And it’s not the first time either, I’ve heard,’ the mother said coldly.
She was right. It wasn’t.
But it only ever happened at child-care.
‘Can I make an appointment to talk to you?’ Annabelle asked Lauren desperately.
‘This afternoon?’
‘I can’t today. I have other commitments.’ And tomorrow wasn’t any better. ‘I’ll have to look at my diary. Duncan, Mummy has to go, OK?’
She had to say it twice to get his attention, but when she did, he rushed over and flung his arms around her legs.
‘No!’
‘You have a great day, OK?’
‘No. Don’t go.’
‘I’ll see you later.’ Aeons later. ‘And we’ll have spaghetti for dinner.’
Duncan burst into tears and clung to her legs as she dragged herself towards the door. Lauren intervened, picking him up and talking brightly about blocks and puzzles. He began to kick and struggle, and the brightness was more forced. ‘We don’t kick, Duncan,’ she said.
The little girl’s mother walked past, in the wake of a sweet-voiced and perfectly contented, ‘I love you, Mummy!’
‘I love you too, Katie, my sweetheart angel,’ she called back. Smugly, it seemed to Annabelle.
‘Just go, Annabelle. He’ll be fine in two seconds,’ Lauren said.
They both knew it wasn’t true.
‘Thanks,’ Annabelle answered.
Unlocking her car, she heard the little girl’s mother muttering pointedly about discipline and aggression and behaviour problems. She was still shaking and queasy as she drove out of the parking area and into the street.
The whole of today’s list in Theatre Three consisted of hips and knees, Annabelle discovered when she arrived at Coronation Hospital. Dr Shartles had two hip replacements, then Alex took over for two quite complex knee operations and another hip procedure sandwiched in between, with Dylan assisting. All three were private patients, which meant that Alex would involve himself more thoroughly than he did with public patients having the same surgery.
Dr Shartles’s hip replacements went without a hitch, which served as a necessary settling to Annabelle’s focus. She enjoyed this aspect of surgery—the fact that there was a standard framework to the whole thing, so that even when something went wrong the surgical staff still had procedures in place for dealing with it.
Today, however, she felt like the meat in a sandwich. As soon as she’d calmed down and dragged her mind away from Duncan, she had time to think about the encounter with Alex which lay ahead. Nice if Dylan hadn’t been part of the equation as well!
Dr Shartles left it to his registrar to complete the final procedure, the patient was wheeled out to Recovery and Annabelle and the other theatre nurse, Barb Thompson, prepped Theatre Three for the next operation. Annabelle was an experienced scrub nurse, gloved and sterile like the surgeons, and worked closely beside them.
Just beyond the swing doors, she heard Alex’s voice, and wasn’t surprised at the sharpness in it.
‘No, not yet. I have some calls to make first. When Calford gets off the phone.’
So they were both here.
Knots tightened in her temples, and she thought, I wish I was on a beach. With Duncan. I wish we lived on a beach. On a tropical island. Eating coconuts and mangoes and yams. I don’t want to be here.
‘Next patient just got cancelled,’ Barb reported. ‘Don Laycock. Dr Sturgess’s patient. Third time. He’s…’ She glanced over at Annabelle and quickly amended her sentence. ‘Not happy.’
‘No, he wouldn’t be,’ Annabelle agreed. She tried to speak calmly and casually, but it didn’t quite come off.
Everyone had already heard about the cancelled wedding when she’d got in this morning, although the hospital friends who’d been at the reception had all told her they wouldn’t say anything. She wasn’t surprised. It was the kind of news that travelled fast, and perhaps Alex himself had told people. Annabelle hadn’t had to deliver the little speech she’d prepared for this morning, and which she knew she’d have garbled despite the preparation.
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