Dinner she could handle.
Living here she wasn’t so sure about.
‘Hi, Dad!’ He looked so small in the chair, her big strapping dad just this shadow now. His hair was still as black as hers, but it was limp and brushed back from his hollow face. Making her way over, she kissed him hello and with her good arm cuddled him, horrified at his frailty, that even in the couple of days since she’d seen him he seemed to have lost yet more weight. His cheeks were sunken, his wide shoulders rounded now, and she could feel tears welling in her eyes. But catching her mother’s warning look, Bonita blinked them back. ‘I’m sorry about all this, Dad.’
‘Never be sorry! It’s good you are home.’
He was so delighted to see her, delighted even that she’d had an accident if it meant that it brought her home, and it felt good to sit down, to sink into her regular spot on the comfy sofa, all the drama of the day catching up with her as the drugs wore off. Her shoulder was starting to hurt a bit now, and Bonita was touched when her mother made a bit of a fuss, brought her a mug of tea and insisted that she put her feet up, even helped her when it proved a bit difficult, nudging a few cushions behind Bonita, before giving her the brew.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, Bonita mused, relaxing into familiar surroundings. The cat jumped onto her lap and purred loudly. Surely this was way better than trying to recuperate at the flat and feeling like an unwelcome guest as Emily’s new boyfriend helped himself to the contents of the fridge. They’d shared a flat for a couple of years now and it had worked well till Emily had broken up with her long-term partner and Bonita had broken up with Bill.
No, a few weeks at home might be just the tonic she needed.
‘Hugh looked after her!” Carmel said proudly, wrapping a rug around Luigi’s knees and pouring out his medicine. With Bonita in her immobilizer, the front room resembled the dayroom at an old people’s home.
‘As he should!’ Luigi nodded.
‘No, he was off duty,’ Carmel explained. ‘On his way to a wedding reception and he stayed to make sure Bonita was OK. By the looks of things he’s back with that girl he used to date before he left Australia, that pretty radiographer…what’s her name, Bonny?’
‘Amber.’ Bonita tried to keep her voice light, but the single word seemed to catch in her throat.
‘That’s the one.’ Carmel nodded. ‘Maybe she’s the reason he came back.’
‘Maybe he just likes living here!’ Bonita retorted. ‘It’s not as if he’s got any family back in the UK.’
‘Poor pet!’ Carmel always fussed over Hugh, in a way she never did over Bonita. ‘We should ask him to eat with us more often—he can come and have a nice meal when he exercises Ramone.’
‘I’m sure he’s got other things to be getting on with,’ Bonita snapped as her mother shot her yet another warning look, but Bonita wasn’t about to be deflected, her own disappointment slipping out as she stated the obvious. ‘He didn’t even want to come to the barbeque.’
‘Hugh’s not coming?’ Her father frowned and instantly Bonita felt guilty for upsetting him, but, hell, what did they expect? As if Hugh was going to bring Amber to one of their get-togethers.
‘He’s working, darling,’ Carmel said, smiling at her husband while simultaneously freezing Bonita with a look! ‘You know how busy he is, but he did say he’d try to come.’
Why did they constantly make excuses for him? Bonita thought, more than a little rattled now.
It was as if the fact his mother had died when he was young and he’d been raised in a boarding school was excuse enough for Hugh to pick and choose when he turned up, excuse enough to bed half his fellow medical students and then work his way through the rest of the hospital personnel.
Every exploit, every broken heart, every late or non-arrival had been brushed off and forgiven by her brothers and parents.
Well, all bar one, Bonita thought, closing her eyes on the beginning of a thumping headache. She wondered how forgiving her father would be if he knew how badly the fabulous Hugh had treated his own daughter.
‘How long did Hugh say you’d be off work for?’ Carmel asked despite Bonita’s closed eyes.
‘I’ve got two weeks in this contraption, and then it all depends. Another two to four weeks…’ Bonita let out a weary sigh and opened her eyes as an impossible thought dawned. ‘After my knee last year and everything, I’ve only got five days’ sick leave left.’
‘Well, you can’t go back before you’re ready—they’ll understand that!’
‘I know,’ Bonita replied, ‘it’s just…’
‘And you don’t need to worry about money. It’s not as if you’re not going to be going out much or anything.’
‘I know!’ Bonita said, irritated, because her mother didn’t get it, thinking of the rent that would still have to be paid, half the electricity bill that was tucked behind the fridge, and the fact sick pay didn’t give shift allowance.
‘We’ll sort it out a bit later!’ Carmel broke into her thoughts, gave Bonita a tired smile that showed maybe she did get it after all, and that they’d talk about it away from her father.
‘You can do some work here,’ Luigi said later, when after a doze on the sofa they had dinner and, with far less gusto that Bonita, he tried to work his way through some home-made mushroom soup. ‘You can work on the till.’
‘She’s not going to be able to work the till and pack bags with one arm,’ Carmel huffed. ‘She can’t possibly work at the shop.’
‘She can answer the phone!’ Luigi said.
‘What—and tell them to hold while she puts down the receiver to write things down? A one-armed helper in this place is as useless as tits on a bull!’ Carmel said, in her usual manner. ‘And she can’t help with the wine-tasting, because she won’t be able to pour.’
‘I have got one arm!’ Bonita said indignantly. ‘I’m sure I can manage the wine-tasting!’
‘Are you going to call me down from the stables to pull a cork?’ Carmel snapped. ‘And, anyway, you don’t even like wine! The customers will know you have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘So you’re basically saying that I’m useless!’ Bonita bristled, hoping for a dash of guilt from her mother, not surprised when it never came.
‘Pretty much—yes!’ Carmel responded, then turned to her husband. ‘You’ll just have to keep her company, Luigi—stop her moping about the place.’
Taking another gulp of her soup, Bonita was about to give her mother another smart reply, another surly Sorry even, but her spoon paused midway, and it was there again, something in her mother’s eyes that she’d seen at the hospital.
What was it Hugh had said as she’d been going under?
Dipping buttered bread into the soup, Bonita tried to recall, but it was like chasing a dream, tiny little fragments of conversation, like scooping water with a net, the words slipping away…
‘It might help…The best thing that ever…’ She could hear those words again, hear his voice lulling her as she had drifted off.
Was her mother, in her no-nonsense way, letting them both off the hook?
Telling them both that there wasn’t a thing she could do?
Maybe just her being here with her father would be a help on its own….
‘Have you heard from your young man?’ Luigi asked, pushing away his nearly full plate.
‘He isn’t my “young man” any more.’ Bonita smiled. ‘It’s over between Bill and I, Dad.’
‘You’re sure about that?’ Luigi checked. ‘You were together a long time. Maybe he’ll change his mind.’
‘He’s not going to change his mind.’
‘Then he’s a fool,’ Luigi said darkly. ‘What sort of man would finish with his girlfriend at a time like this?’
‘Come on, Gig,’ Carmel interrupted, calling him by his pet name, ‘have a little bit more soup.’
It was the closest, Bonita realised, they’d ever come to admitting that her father was so ill and, yes,
it was a question that plagued her family and colleagues—how could Bill have even thought about breaking up with Bonita now, when she had so much going on in her life? Only Bill wasn’t the bastard they all made out. Bill, as it turned out, knew her almost better than she knew herself.
Bill, ending it when he had, had solved a massive dilemma for Bonita—just not one she could ever reveal.
‘Bill’s a nice guy, Dad. It just didn’t work out between us, we weren’t right for each other.’
‘And it took you three years to work that out!’ Luigi huffed. ‘He should have done the decent thing by you ages ago.’
‘Why don’t you have a bath?’ Carmel said, and this time Bonita was grateful for the interruption. According to her father’s rules she and Bill should have long since been married—that they had been dating for three years and there wasn’t even a ring to hurl at Bill was proving impossible for her father to understand. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’
Her mother bathing her was not an option, and Bonita immediately shook her head.
‘I’ll have a wash at the sink.’
‘Suit yourself,’ Carmel said, picking up the plates, trying hard to pretend it didn’t matter that Luigi had only managed two spoonfuls of soup. ‘But, I’m warning you, I won’t have time to help you in the morning. If you want to go for your appointment half-washed, then it’s up to you! Oh, and by the way, your hair smells of vomit!’
A farmer’s wife she may be, but Carmel would—Bonita realised as they headed to the hallowed sanctum of her parents’ room, which was on the other side of the house to the ‘children’s’ bedrooms—actually have made a very good nurse.
‘We’re all set up for it in here!’ Carmel smiled as she flicked on the light in her bathroom. There was a little stool perched in the bath and a hand-rail the occupational therapist had arranged to be inserted, along with a handheld shower. Even groggy from the day and with one arm out of action, Bonita, could, in fact, have a decent wash.
Carmel would have made a lovely nurse actually because when for the first time she could really remember Bonita had to strip in front of her mother, instead of saying it didn’t matter and she’d seen it all before, Carmel held up a towel. Then, once Bonita was seated, Carmel gave her a moment before she dealt with the practical and covered her daughter’s arm with a large garbage bag. Then she chatted away, wiping imaginary spots off the shower as her daughter washed.
‘Do you want me to wash your hair for you?’ Carmel offered.
‘It will dry all fluffy!’
‘If you rub it dry and don’t put some product in, it will.’ Carmel gave a half-smile. Bonita looked at her mum’s salt-and-pepper coloured corkscrew curls, as long and as wild as her own dark ones. ‘Curly hair is something I know about.’
‘OK, then,’ Bonita said, closing her eyes and letting the wretched day go as her mother massaged shampoo into her scalp.
And it did feel nice to be clean, nice to be wrapped in a big towel as her mother sorted out something for her to wear to bed.
‘This will do!’
‘It will not!’ Bonita baulked at the vast flannelette nightdress her mother held up. ‘It’s hideous.’
‘I know!’ Carmel agreed. ‘Ricky bought it me for Christmas.’
‘Yuk!’ Bonita pulled a face, wondering what on earth had possessed her elder brother.
‘What about this?’ Carmel proffered another creation, and Bonita was about to pull a face but realised it was one of her own gifts that she had given her mother a couple of birthdays ago.
‘Wait till you get to my age.’ Carmel grinned, popping it over her head and helping her pull through her good arm. ‘I’ve got a drawer full of nightdresses—I don’t even wear a nightdress.’
‘Mum! Too much information, thanks!’
Hideous nightdress or not, it was nice to sit in her mother’s room. Carmel didn’t rub her hair dry as she had when Bonita had been a child but instead patted it then put through half a bottle of anti-frizz. It was actually nice to talk to her mother.
‘Are you still upset about Bill?’
‘No.’ Even though she was pleating the nightdress with her good hand, even though she couldn’t look her mother in the eye as she spoke, Bonita’s answer was honest. ‘He was right to end it.’
‘Why did he?’ For the first time her mother pushed, but Bonita just couldn’t answer. ‘You two seemed so happy.’
‘We were.’
‘You still don’t want to talk about it?’ Carmel said. Then she changed the subject and promptly hit a very sensitive nerve that had nothing to do with Bonita’s shoulder!
‘How does it feel, seeing Hugh again after all this time?’
‘OK,’ Bonita said lightly. ‘It’s a bit weird working with him, though…’ She watched her mother’s eyes narrow a touch as she worked on her hair. ‘I mean, I knew him when he was a medical student—it’s strange now that he’s a registrar.’
‘I always thought that he’d come back,’ Carmel mused. ‘When he went back to England, of course, I worried, but he always kept in touch and he did love Australia so. I’m surprised he even went back!’
‘His father was dying,’ Bonita pointed out. Her lips tightened as she swallowed hard for a second, wondering, not for the first time, just how hard it must have been for Hugh—his mother had died when he was very young and he had no brothers and sisters. As much as her family drove Bonita crazy at times, she absolutely adored them. She couldn’t, for even a moment, imagine dealing with her father completely on her own.
‘I expected him to go back for a holiday perhaps,’ Carmel huffed, unmoved. ‘Not to live there. I mean, they hardly knew each other—imagine sending a five-year-old to boarding school! I’m sure that’s why he’s the way he is.’
‘What do you mean? Bonita asked, then wished she hadn’t, wished she hadn’t prolonged the conversation, her heart in her mouth when her mother spoke next.
‘With women,’ Carmel responded. ‘He’s good at flirting, good at dating, but he hasn’t got much staying power—first sign of commitment and he’s gone. I guess it’s hard to get close to someone if you’ve never actually been close to anyone…
‘You had a bit of a thing for him once, didn’t you?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous…’ Bonita attempted, and then gave in. After all, from the moment puberty had hit she’d blushed every time his name had been mentioned! ‘I was a teenager, Mum—hormones raging. I’m not exactly the first girl to have a crush on one of her brother’s friends.’
‘How about now?’
‘Please!’ Bonita scoffed. ‘I’ve seen how he goes through women. Good-looking he may be, but he knows it! And he’s so scathingly superior at work.’
‘Maybe,’ Carmel agreed, ‘but underneath all that he’s still a very nice man. He’s always kept in touch, and since he’s been back he’s been round plenty of times, not just to exercise Ramone but to see your father.’
‘I guess.’ Bonita attempted a shrug, but it hurt too much, and not just in her shoulder. ‘We’ll just have to agree to disagree about Hugh.’ Grateful for any distraction from this rather difficult subject, her eyes lit up a touch when she saw a heavy framed silver photo on her mother’s dressing-table.
‘Zia Lucia!’
Fondly Bonita traced the elegant figure of her favourite aunt. ‘I miss her.’
‘You adored her, didn’t you?’ Carmel smiled. ‘You wanted to be just like her!’
‘She was always so glamorous.’ Bonita grinned. ‘Dashing overseas, sending us lovely gifts…’
‘Giving your father an ulcer.’
Oh, and she had. Bonita could remember the tension whenever Zia Lucia had descended. Cooing like a bird of paradise, she’d swoop on the family, showering her favourite niece with shiny dresses and shoes, drinking too much wine with dinner and refusing to help with the dishes. The fact she’d never married had been a constant thorn in Luigi’s side, as if somehow he’d failed his sister, as if somehow, by staying sing
le, Lucia also had failed.
‘Poor Zia…’ Bonita sighed. ‘She was just so busy with her career.’
‘Career, my foot!’ her mother exclaimed. ‘She never worked a day in her life.’
‘She had a career in sales.’
‘Selling herself more like!’ Carmel tutted. ‘Off with that fancy MP. She was a kept woman—a mistress!’
‘Zia Lucia!’ Bonita gave a shocked laugh and after a moment Carmel laughed, too. ‘Does Dad know?’
‘Your dad didn’t want to know!’ Carmel winked. ‘So don’t waste any tears crying for your prematurely departed spinster aunt. She packed more into her life than anyone else I’ve met.’
‘Golly!’ Bonita blinked at the photo. ‘No wonder you used to get so cross when I said I wanted to grow up and be exactly like her.’
‘No wonder!’ Carmel rolled her eyes. ‘Bed!”
‘It’s eight o’clock,’ Bonita attempted, but she really wasn’t up to arguing. She headed to the lounge and kissed her dad goodnight then went happily to her old bedroom, slipped into her little single bed and just lay there.
Thought about Zia Lucia and her fancy man, which made her smile.
Then thought about Hugh, which made it fade.
Bill had been right to end it.
Oh, they had been happy, or at least chugging along, till Hugh had come back—till Hugh had ripped off the sticky plaster she’d applied to her heart when he’d left, and all the old hurt, the anger, the bitterness, the longing had started to seep out. And try as she had to hide it, Bill had sensed the shift, and had eventually ended it…just as she had been about to. How she’d cried, but her friends and family hadn’t understood. She hadn’t been crying over the ending—instead, she’d been crying at the reason it was over.
That Hugh was back and even though she couldn’t stand to admit it, even to herself, her feelings remained.
English Doctor, Italian Bride Page 3
