Zo

by Leanne Owens

  ‘True,’ he stood and nodded at the doctor, completely unaware of the adoration in her eyes as she met his gaze, ‘I’m hoping that feeling the love from her friends will help her recover.’

  ‘We can hope,’ Gina replied noncommittedly, then added pointedly but without maliciousness. ‘You have tried to give her everything that love could provide these past weeks and it didn’t work, so don’t plan for miracles.’

  ‘I’m still here,’ Ally murmured, opening one eye to fix it on Gina, ‘so don’t give up on miracles, Doctor.’

  ‘I prefer clinically tested results.’

  ‘Of course, you do,’ Ally shut her eye, her lips quirking as she considered this very correct and efficient doctor whose eyes shone for Peter while she maintained the air of the complete professional. Her feelings for Peter probably had her desperate to get Ally better and gone from this place, or maybe she didn’t even realise the depth of her own feelings because she was so focused on being the perfect competent doctor. There was no point trying to match-make, though. Peter was a fool when it came to love. There had been no end of women who wanted to spend the night or their lives with him, and he had chosen the loneliness of waiting for her to return his love. It was one more thing to feel guilty about. Damn. There was so much guilt. She was sick of it. Perhaps she would unload it all on them and let them handle it. Just dump the lot on them and watch them scrabble about in the muck.

  Gina’s mouth tightened as she looked down at her patient. It was unfathomable how this faded, unexceptional shadow of a woman managed to entrance Peter Barker and draw those celebrities to her, but it wasn’t her job to understand that. While the woman was her patient, she would use her knowledge to find the right mix of prescription drugs to repair the imbalance of brain chemicals. At least, she conceded, Ally did look better after engaging in conversation with Peter, so she felt it was acceptable that her other friends visit her, briefly.

  ‘I’ll go and tell them to come in,’ Gina turned towards the door before glancing back at Peter and saying sternly, ‘but five minutes only. You can wait until this afternoon to have some more time - my patient needs rest.’ She emphasised my to remind Peter that it was her responsibility to make the decisions regarding Ally, for today at least, not his.

  After she had left, Ally looked sideways at Peter, ‘Bossy little thing, isn’t she?’

  ‘She’s an excellent doctor.’

  ‘I can see that. And she’s beautiful.’

  ‘Is she?’

  ‘You’re an oaf, Peter Barker,’ she shook her head and sighed in exasperation, ‘How can you possibly work with that Nordic blonde beauty and not even notice that she is gorgeous?’

  ‘I notice that she’s a good doctor,’ he shrugged, genuinely surprised that Ally found Gina’s looks worthy of discussion. ‘She’s an asset to Kamekura and is first rate with her diagnosis and treatments of mental illness. Whether she looks like a Victoria Secrets’ model or an ugly stepsister is irrelevant.’

  ‘You should marry her.’

  A hurt puppy look crossed his face and she immediately felt guilty again. He had dedicated so many years to loving her when she didn’t deserve it, and she couldn’t even suggest that he pursue a suitable woman, one who could bring him happiness, without him looking like she’d taken a stick to sweet little puppy. She was sick of feeling guilty.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Time for Ally to Talk

  Kamekura Private Hospital, Queensland. May, 2019

  ‘Hello,’ a tentative voice spoke from the door and Ally looked up to see Sandy standing there, looking as beautiful as the best screen shot of her, her lips slightly parted, a worried expression in her eyes.

  A million memories crashed over Ally in the instant she looked at that magnificent face. Primary school, high school, laughter, tears, plays, parties, talks, study, hair styles, perfumes, shopping, dreams, Eastern Beach, Queens Park, tennis, sunrises, movies, and love. So much love. In that moment, all other doubts about seeing her friends vanished in a tsunami of love as she looked first at Sandy’s face, then at the other two appearing behind her. She loved them so much and she could feel the force of their love coming at her like a tangible power that was there to protect her.

  ‘Hi,’ Lynette raised a hand and smiled, a little fearful of the reception.

  ‘Hey there,’ Andrew nodded, unable to smile.

  Ally realised that she was not the only one who had been suffering from guilt for too long. It tainted their expressions, too, the self-blame for things that had passed. Yes, she had suffered from their actions all those years ago, but she could see how much they grieved for what happened. Sometimes, words don’t need to be spoken for friends to understand what the others feel, and Ally knew their emotions, as surely as she knew her own.

  ‘My amazing friends!’ Ally’s smile illuminated her face, and she drew in a great breath, closing her eyes as though savouring the moment. They were back together and she knew this was right.

  They approached the bed and Lynette bent over to plant a gentle kiss on Ally’s cheek. She tried to be careful to not disturb those bandaged wrists and forearms, and leaned in without touching the bed, inhaling in the closeness of Ally. Sandy followed her lead, lightly placing a kiss on the same cheek once Lynette had moved aside.

  ‘You might be kissed out by now,’ Andrew smiled and moved in close as the girls stepped aside.

  ‘I could never have enough kisses from you, my gorgeous Andy-man,’ she turned her face towards him, feeling connected to their shared history when his lips reverently touched her skin.

  'It's like being a teen again,' he said, grinning at her. 'I'm having a time-warp moment.'

  His eyes told him that he was looking at a fifty-nine-year-old woman, but his heart was showing him the same Ally who had made him come alive in high school and validated his existence. He didn’t see the lines on her face, not that there were many, or the thinning of once plump lips. He saw the sixteen-year-old girl who burned with life, who laughed and gave him reasons to dream and believe in himself. Around him, the figures of the doctor, the actress, and the politician merged with his memories of them as teenagers, giving the strange sensation of time looped back on itself as they stood together now, as they’d stood together decades ago.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Lynette nodded ‘it’s like all the years since we were kids have put onion layers of life on us, but the essence remains the same. We look at each other and see that essence.’

  Sandy nodded and laid a hand on Ally’s shoulder, looking down at her fondly, the fear of rejection from minutes earlier almost forgotten.

  ‘Remember A Wrinkle in Time?’ Lynette asked, the mention of time reminding her of the book they had studied at school.

  ‘I loved that book!’ Andy exclaimed, his voice sounding as enthusiastic as his fifteen-year-old self who read the book five times. ‘Remember, I tried to start a fan club for it but you guys were the only ones who joined, and that was because you felt sorry for me. Oh, God, I was pathetic.’ He laughed at the memories of the young, intense Andrew who expected others to flock to his fan club for a book that they studied in English.

  ‘I liked the book,’ Peter conceded, ‘but, man, you were crazy about it. You could rabbit on for hours about wrinkles in time, bending space and time, time travel and other things like that. It really was a wonder you didn’t have your head shoved down a toilet.’

  ‘The bullies were too scared of Ally,’ Andrew grinned at his bedridden friend.

  ‘I didn’t mean by the bullies,’ Peter snorted. ‘I meant by one of us.’

  ‘We were too scared of Ally,’ Andrew winked at her. He had no doubt that she would recognise he was joking.

  ‘You were right to be scared,’ Ally agreed in a serious voice, her eyes shining with amusement, ‘I could have slapped you two nancy-boys down with one hand tied behind my back and a blindfold on.’

  Peter drew himself up and said huffily. ‘I would take offence at that,’ then he chuc
kled, ‘if it wasn’t perfectly true. You were a bit scary at times.’

  Ally shrugged and smiled as she drew the curtains down on her thoughts of long-ago events that proved how scary she truly was, far more so than they could ever guess, and she felt the demons pushing against the locked doors in her mind. This is not the time, she told herself, keep it light, keep it warm, keep the love going now. Maybe I’ll tell them later. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t.

  ‘He’s joking,’ Lynette sent a glare Peter’s way. She had seen the drapes pulled down over whatever memories those words stirred in Ally’s mind, and she wanted to move away from that area of thought. She looked around the Sunflower Room and winced, ‘I’ll tell you what’s scary, and that’s all this yellow. It’s like a sunflower and a lemon had sex and exploded in yellow happiness all over the walls, ceilings, and floors. Who decided to make everything so yellow, Peter?’

  ‘It is very yellow,’ Sandy muttered, looking about.

  ‘Yellow is a happy colour,’ Peter defended the room. ‘The designers are world leaders in using colour to improve health and mood.’

  ‘Still not doing it for me, old fella,’ Lynette pursed her lips and shook her head, ‘and the garden outside – more yellow. Yellow on yellow. Really?’ She turned to Ally, ‘If you have to stay here more than two days, I’ll buy you some tins of blue spray paint – I think blue goes perfectly well with yellow.’

  ‘I plan on getting out as soon as possible,’ Ally said with confidence. ‘Well, out of this room, anyway. Peter has me in a lovely suite of rooms that aren’t quite so yellow.’

  Sandy snorted, ‘Nothing is this yellow.’

  ‘Your five minutes are up,’ Gina looked in from the door. ‘More than up. My patient needs to rest and, after lunch, if Ally wishes, you can visit again.’

  ‘Can we?’ Sandy arched a perfect brow at Ally.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Ally winked at her. ‘Come back later and we’ll discuss the possibility.’

  Gina slipped between Ally and her friends, raised her arms by her sides and herded them out, telling them to move along, like a teacher with recalcitrant children. When Peter tried to slip under her arm to say something to Ally, Gina dropped her arm down and frowned at him disapprovingly.

  ‘Leave her be,’ she scolded him. ‘She needs rest.’

  ‘She’s a very bossy doctor,’ Ally grinned at Peter as Gina pushed him out the door.

  Peter gave her a thumbs up before Gina shut the door on him.

  ‘I’m efficient,’ Gina declared to Ally, ‘not bossy.’

  ‘Nup,’ Ally shook her head and chuckled, ‘you’re bossy. But that’s OK, they’re used to it. I was tyrannical when we were children, and they did fine.’

  ‘It’s hard to imagine the five of you as children,’ said Gina as she checked the machines that were monitoring her patient.

  ‘Is it?’ Ally sniffed in amusement. ‘Because we look like old people?’

  Gina gave her a droll look, ‘You don’t look old at all, none of you. I had assumed you were all in your forties, though you do seem to behave as though you are teenagers.’

  Ally smiled, ‘There are few things likely to please a fifty-nine-year-old woman more than being told she looks at least ten years younger than she is. Thank you, Gina, you don’t have to mean it, but saying it makes me feel good. Though, for future reference: no need to add that bit about us being immature.’

  ‘Do you want them to visit later? You don’t have to feel pressured into it just because they are here.’

  ‘There’s no pressure,’ Ally closed her eyes and sighed, feeling the love from her friends wrapping around her. ‘I have things to say. It will be good to say them. It’s time to talk.’

  When they returned after lunch, they brought Nick and Marcus with them so Ally managed to delay the moment when she would start talking of all the hidden things. She didn’t believe that they really wanted to hear and listen and know. There would be no possibility of her talking about it again if Zo hadn’t spoken to her yesterday as she drifted towards him from life. He had told her to speak to them, to tell them the whole story from the beginning. She would listen to him and she would tell them everything. Well, almost everything. No, everything, she imagined Zo’s voice in her head.

  Andrew approached her bed and took her hand, gazing into her violet eyes with an emotion akin to worship. ‘Ally, I want to introduce you to my husband, Marcus Kennedy.’

  ‘At last!’ Ally stretched a hand towards Marcus, who carefully took it in his own, mindful of the bandaged lower arms, and felt the power of this frail woman flow into him. ‘I am so happy to meet you, Marcus. Has anyone else married or settled with someone, or are you the only lucky one, Andrew?’

  ‘I’m still married to my work,’ Sandra said cheerily, avoiding looking at Peter to ensure her mask didn’t tilt sadly.

  ‘I’m still waiting for you,’ Peter said, half-jokingly and wholly in earnest.

  ‘And I met Nick two days ago, or three, whatever the right number is for the date line,’ Lynette grinned, ridiculously happy that Nick was holding on to her hand in front of everyone.

  ‘I guess I overplayed that hand about you all being whole people,’ Ally wrinkled up the corner of her mouth.

  ‘You did rabbit on about it a fair bit,’ Sandy sniffed.

  ‘Whole people?’ Nick asked, waiting for someone to explain the reference.

  ‘Ally was always ahead of her time,’ said Lynette. ‘When we were little, there was an expectation that everyone should aspire to getting married and being half of a couple. I think it’s even worse these days with all that commercial rubbish on television about getting married, falling in love, buying wedding dresses and everything else that guarantees profits for those who make money from the industry of getting married.’

  ‘Ally used to say to us,’ continued Sandy, ‘that we were to stop thinking of ourselves as an incomplete person waiting to become half of a couple. We had to focus on our lives, our interests, our studies, our careers, our dreams, our finances, our health, our friendships, and our futures, and stop dreaming about this Prince Charming or, in Pete’s case, Cinderella, who would complete our lives. Even when we were twelve, she was telling us that, although it would be wonderful to find the person who fitted in with our hopes and dreams and treated us as we deserved, if we didn’t find that person, we were still whole.’

  ‘Impressive,’ Nick looked at Ally with growing respect. ‘At twelve? Your parents must have been forward thinking people to teach you that.’

  Ally snorted, ‘My parents were…’ she hesitated and looked around at the faces standing over her and changed her mind. If she had to describe her parents with a single word, it would have been a word that was not polite to use in front of strangers like Nick and Marcus. ‘I’ll tell you more about that later if you really want to listen to the story. Suffice to say, my parents were not forward thinking.’

  ‘I want to hear more,' said Nick.

  ‘And you, Marcus?’ Ally turned to meet his eyes. ‘Et tu?’

  ‘When I married Andrew,’ he confided, ‘I felt I was also marrying you, as you are his family. So, I, too, want to hear your story from your side. You live in every part of Andrew’s life – your words are on his wall and in his heart, he has photos of you, and he talks about you.’

  ‘Really, Andrew?’ she threw him a look overflowing with love, then cast a cheeky look back at Marcus. ‘Though, I do hope I’m not in every part of Andrew’s life. It would be most inappropriate if I popped up in intimate moments.’

  They spent fifteen minutes with Ally, and she plied them with questions about their lives.

  ‘You really are a master of diversion,’ Peter scolded her as he plumped up a pillow under her head.

  ‘How is that, Peter?’ she asked, her eyes far shrewder than the innocent tone of her voice.

  ‘We had twenty minutes given to us by Gina…’

  ‘She’s bossy,’ Ally interrupted, looki
ng for another diversion.

  ‘..by Gina,’ Peter continued, frowning at her, ‘and it’s almost all gone with you asking us about our lives when we have made a group decision that we want to hear your story.’

  ‘I agree,’ Lynette perched on the edge of Ally’s bed and gently touched her hand. ‘We do want to hear it. We want to hear everything you kept hidden from us because you didn’t believe you could trust us.’

  Ally raised a sardonic eyebrow at her, her expression saying a thousand words about being correct in not trusting them.

  ‘Yes, you were right,’ Lynette admitted. ‘At the time, you were right. We were younger then. We weren’t even thirty. Compared to now, we were children still learning to walk through life, and we made a big mistake with how we handled that.’

  Another cynical eyebrow joined the first.

  ‘OK, we made a series of mistakes. And we paid for them. I know you paid the most, I’m not saying otherwise, but we have been living with the guilt of driving you away for almost thirty years. Half our lives. We will not do anything to hurt you again.’

  ‘You’ll try to listen to my story and see it from my side?’ Ally asked them, looking at each of their faces. ‘And not make the understandable assumption that I am mentally ill and should be fixed? Or, at least, not let me know that you think I’m mentally ill. And not take any actions based on that.’

  ‘Pinky promise,’ Lynette held up the little finger of her right hand in the unbreakable contract of agreement from their childhood.

  Ally crooked the little finger of her right hand and looked to the others.

  Sandy, Andrew, and Peter held up their right hands with the pinky promise sign. Looking at Marcus and Nick, Ally waited, clearly expecting them to join in on the unbreakable contract. They did.

  ‘Then, starting tomorrow, it will be story time, my lovelies,’ Ally sighed, closing her eyes, already sorting the story of her life into what she should tell, and what she should hide.