The Honourable Midwife

by Lilian Darcy

  ‘As long as it’s food!’

  ‘Sounds like you’re hungry already. Would you like a drink? Wine? We can have some biscuits and cheese to keep us going while I fire up the grill.’

  ‘Would the girls like a bath? They got much dirtier than we did, even though I’m quite sure we did more work!’

  ‘Happens with kids, for some reason. They’re dirt magnets. And they’d probably love a bath. Are you up to it? I read an article recently, quoting a study which claimed that bathing children uses up more calories than…Can’t remember…playing tennis, or something.’

  ‘More calories than planting a garden?’

  ‘Try it and see. Yell, if you need help. Their towels are on the rail, and you can put them straight in their jammies, because they’re going to bed early tonight. I’ll get the barbecue started.’

  The girls got themselves undressed while Emma ran the bath, pulled out some bath toys and got the water temperature right. She held their hands as they climbed in, afraid that the porcelain tub might be slippery. It was an awkward climb from the floor for little legs.

  They seemed quite happy to accept her help, and to be left for a moment, with the taps still running and clear instructions not to touch them, while Emma dashed across the corridor to the laundry to dump their dirt-stained clothing in the washing-machine.

  The laundry window was open, and she could hear the click-click-click of the barbecue’s automatic ignition outside as Pete got it going, while the sound of the bath water threatened to swamp the clicking noise from the other direction. They were two such domestic, family-oriented sounds, and they fed the dangerous needs that were growing inside her.

  Hearing a loud splash, Emma hurried back to the bathroom, knowing that she, rather than Jessie and Zoe, was the one who risked getting in way out of her depth.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IT WAS peaceful on the deck—that blessed peace so important to Pete at the moment, and which was sourced in such very simple things. He could smell the resinous aroma of the pine bark mulch he and Emma had spread thickly on top of the new garden beds, and the moist, peaty odour of the enriched soil.

  The barbecue grill plate had heated up to the right temperature, so he slid a little oil over it, covering it evenly, and tossed on the meat and the sliced onions. Their smell quickly vanquished the other scents in the air.

  The late sun fell on his back like a big, warm hand. It might be just light enough and mild enough for them to eat here on the deck tonight.

  Emma appeared.

  She had wet patches on her pink T-shirt, making it cling even more closely to her body’s very feminine curves, and there were some damp strands hanging in her silky hair.

  ‘Looks like you got at least half of a bath as well,’ he said.

  She laughed, a little breathless. ‘You weren’t kidding about burning up the calories,’ she said. ‘But it was fun. We had a pretend tea party, and I washed their hair.’

  ‘That’s always a major undertaking. How’s the floor?’

  ‘Awash. Should I mop it up?’

  ‘You’d better, if you don’t mind,’ he said. ‘Those big, smooth tiles are slippery when they’re wet. Jessie had a fall in there last week, and I’ve been pretty careful about it since. There are a couple of old towels in a box in the laundry cupboard. Use them to soak it up.’

  ‘This smells great, by the way. I’m starving!’ She grinned.

  ‘I don’t have a blow-drier for your hair. I’m sorry.’ He reached out and tucked the wet strands back behind her shoulders, out of the way.

  As usual, even such a tiny gesture at once seemed too personal, too significant. It cut immediately through the pretence that this was just a friendship—a pretence which, thankfully, she seemed to understand the need for just as he did. He dropped his hand again straight away.

  Let me…’ she took in a fluttery breath ‘…check on how they’re going with brushing their hair.’

  She turned and disappeared back inside, and he heard her calling, ‘Girls, do you need some help?’

  Pete liked Emma’s energy. It was positive, happy, productive. So different from Claire’s, he couldn’t help thinking. It wasn’t just Claire’s illness. For as long as he’d known her, she’d had a way of exhausting herself and the people around her.

  With Claire at the helm, Jessie’s and Zoe’s bathtimes had been fraught occasions, full of scolding about water on the floor and exaggerated fears about the hygiene of bath toys. Claire had flatly refused to wash their hair at all.

  ‘I can’t stand it!’ she’d said. ‘They cry, and if I give them a towel to put over their eyes, they drop it in the water. I don’t have the patience!’

  Pete had always done it. He hadn’t minded, hadn’t made a big deal of it, but it was a nice change to see Emma covered in water instead of himself, and she seemed so cheerful and relaxed about the whole thing.

  There was nothing relaxed in the way he felt about her. The issue was building to breaking point between them. He sensed this, but couldn’t do anything about it. He had no idea what the future held.

  And the sausages were starting to burn, he realised. He turned them over, tossed the onions around on the grill plate, then poured out two glasses of wine.

  ‘Sit down,’ he told Emma when she came back out. ‘You let me work you too hard today.’

  ‘If you like, I’ll let you send me home without my helping to clear up,’ she offered with her impish, Audrey Hepburn smile.

  He laughed and, Lord, it felt good!

  It felt so good that Pete began plotting the means to see Emma again as soon as she’d gone home that night. He knew that their meetings had to keep within certain boundaries for the foreseeable future, even though he very carefully never framed in his mind quite what those boundaries were.

  Who was he protecting? he occasionally asked himself.

  The answer always came with a groan and a roll of the eyes. Who wasn’t he protecting?

  Claire was too emotionally fragile to deal with a new woman in his life, when their divorce wasn’t yet finalised. Jessie and Zoe didn’t need any more confusion and uncertainty. They didn’t need to wake up thirsty one night and flit into his room, wanting a drink of water, only to find a new woman in their father’s bed…no matter how much their father might want to have her there.

  And Emma deserved better than to be merely an additional and ill-timed complexity in his already fraught schedule. She deserved to be offered his heart in a far more complete, unfractured and certain state than he could possibly offer it at the moment.

  All of this was obvious and true and sensible and right.

  But then a very male and ego-driven part of him would put in a powerful counter-argument to this scrupulous consideration of other people’s needs.

  What about me? When do I get a chance to have some needs—not to mention some fulfillment—of my own?

  So he constructed various rules to govern his conduct with Emma, and pretended to himself that he was doing the right thing.

  Seeing her in the hospital cafeteria was fine, for example. It was an attractive place, belying to a certain extent people’s cynical notions about hospital food. Its large windows, overlooking the river, definitely helped, and the menu had changed a lot since the place was opened ten years earlier. Curries were no longer a way of using up the leftover meat from yesterday’s roast, and sandwiches didn’t just come in the form of pre-sliced white bread or spongy, over-aerated rolls.

  Wasn’t it reasonable, he told himself, if he should stop for lunch or an evening meal there occasionally, if he’d had patients to see at the hospital, and if the girls were with his sister or at childcare?

  It wasn’t so reasonable that he only made up his mind to eat there once he saw that Emma was in her usual spot over by the windows, but to hell with such scruples! This way, he managed lunch with her on Tuesday and dinner on Thursday, and they talked quietly about the garden, the girls, the movies that were currently playing in tow
n.

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard that’s good,’ she said about a British film which had opened the previous week.

  ‘Could we fit it in on the weekend, do you think?’ he suggested.

  ‘Mmm, probably. I’ve got an early shift on Saturday.’

  ‘Saturday night, then. I’ll get Vicki from the childcare centre to babysit. Do you mind if it’s the late session? Ninish, I think it’ll be, once Jessie and Zoe are asleep. I want to spend as much time with them as I can.’

  ‘That’s fine. We can meet at the cinema.’

  ‘It’ll be my treat, of course.’

  Meeting at the cinema was pretty safe, Emma felt. It was crowded, a modern quadriplex, with different movies screening in each auditorium and staggered starting times. An American action film was just letting out when they arrived on Saturday night, flooding the foyer with teenagers and young couples, so she first caught sight of Pete across a sea of heads.

  ‘Got you!’ he said, when they finally reached each other. ‘For a moment, I thought you were going to get swept out with the tide.’

  ‘So did I.’

  He squeezed her hand, and she returned the pressure briefly. His palm was warm and dry, and her smaller hand was lost inside his. But they both let the contact drop almost at once. Breaking the rules. Pushing the boundaries. They didn’t need to talk about it. Talking about it would break the rules as well.

  A couple brushed past them, on the way out of a previous session, and the woman smiled and said hello to Pete. ‘Nice to run into you,’ she told him, and her glance flicked across at Emma, betraying her curiosity.

  Pete hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘Emma, this is Mandy and her husband, David. Mandy’s a friend of Claire’s. Mandy, this is Emma, a colleague from the hospital.’

  ‘Hi!’ Mandy’s smile was brittle and brief. ‘Are you a nurse?’

  ‘A nurse-midwife, yes.’ Emma felt an urge to explain further, like the point of a sharp stick prodding her in the back.

  We’re just seeing a movie. Nothing’s going on. You can phone Claire in Canberra and tell her, if you want, because there’s nothing to tell.

  But she resisted it. She was probably imagining Pete’s discomfort and Mandy’s suspicion. Still, she was relieved when Mandy and David continued toward the cinema exit. Pete watched them for a moment, then turned away, the movement decisive and deliberate.

  ‘I’ve got the tickets,’ he said. ‘Do you want something to eat or drink?’

  Not tonight. Her stomach would have rebelled. It felt far too fluttery. ‘No, thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You’re less expensive than the girls, then!’

  ‘We should go in. I hate finding a seat when it’s dark.’

  ‘There’ll be plenty of room. This crowd’s come for alien battles in Cinema Three, I think.’

  He didn’t tell her that she looked nice, in her flowing skirt and neat, long-sleeved pastel top, but, then, she hadn’t expected him to. A comment like that would have skirted the edge of safety. He looked nice, achingly so, in dark trousers and a casual cotton knit sweater over a paler collared shirt.

  The movie was good, and funny. Emma realised how little she’d heard Pete laugh, and never this thoroughly and freely. It was a rich sound, and it warmed her. He deserved to laugh this way more often. If he was having a good time tonight, she was happy. If he was only letting himself do this because he had her with him to keep him company and provide him with an excuse to let go, she was even happier.

  When he shifted in his seat, she could feel his movement, and sometimes the slight pressure of his arm. She wanted to lean closer, feel the strength and the warmth of his arm muscles, solid and relaxed against hers. She wanted to smell the reassuring scent that clung to him—a mix of soap and sun-dried clothes and male skin. But her awareness of the unspoken rules between them got in the way once again, and she stayed where she was.

  ‘Did you like it?’ he asked, when the credits rolled at the end and the lights came on.

  ‘Yes, I did. And you, I don’t need to ask. If you laughed as much as that, and then told me you didn’t like it, I’d think you were an ungrateful old grump.’

  ‘Promise I’m not that. First impressions notwithstanding.’

  ‘That wasn’t my first impression of you, Pete.’

  ‘What was your first impression?’ He paused, just before stepping into the aisle. There was no one behind them in this row, as the other couple further along had gone out the other end. ‘Just out of interest…’

  ‘Can’t remember,’ she answered him. ‘When did we first meet?’

  ‘Can’t remember either. It wasn’t when you came back from Sydney after you’d done your diploma in neonatal care?’

  ‘Earlier than that, I think. I’m sure we came across each other before that. Much earlier. Years before.’

  ‘I guess so. I’ve had visiting rights in the unit for close on seven years, although I stuck to very low-risk deliveries back then.’

  ‘Then I know we did. We must have.’

  ‘Remind me, then.’

  ‘No, I can’t.’ She laughed. ‘It’s not a definite memory. But I’ve been there eight years, on and off.’

  ‘There must be a moment,’ he insisted, a smile touching his mouth and warming his eyes. ‘A first moment.’ He looked down at her, and his voice teased. ‘I must have yelled at you…’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Or made you coffee.’

  ‘It’s nice that you do that. Lots of doctors don’t.’

  ‘Or discussed a news headline with you.’

  ‘If so, it hasn’t stuck.’

  ‘No, it hasn’t.’ Pete smiled again. ‘At some vague point, we just knew each other. No claps of thunder, or anything like that.’

  ‘How unmemorable of us!’

  ‘Maybe eventually we’ll pin it down.’

  ‘No, Pete, I think it’s lost for all eternity in the mists of time.’

  ‘Hypnosis might work.’

  ‘Not on your life!’

  Silly! Very silly! The credits had rolled through, and the cinema was empty but for themselves. They were just standing there, in the aisle, intrigued by how odd life was—that now, without admitting it in words, they could have become so important to each other, when there’d been no inkling of it for so many years before, nothing until her three months in Paris.

  They should have kissed.

  Before this.

  Now.

  Right at this moment, Pete should lean closer and sweetly touch her lips with his. He should say something soft and teasing about how it didn’t matter if their first impressions hadn’t been earth-shattering. Yes, they must have been blind before, but they weren’t now, and they were together, and that was all that counted.

  Emma could hardly breathe, and Pete hadn’t moved. There were no more screenings in this cinema tonight, and a pair of cleaners had arrived. The still, breathless silence in the air should shatter into a thousand brilliant stars with a kiss, he should squeeze her close and they should float out of here together, leaving the cleaning team to its work. They would both know that they were going to stay together all night long.

  But that would be so far beyond their boundaries and their unspoken rules that Emma didn’t even know how to break the moment some other way, and continued to stand there, lost in the depths of his brown eyes.

  ‘Ah, Emma,’ Pete said at last. ‘Ah, look! Let’s go, before…’

  He didn’t finish, just stepped aside to let her go first, then followed her in silence. He walked her to her car, and she was painfully aware of him all the way, knowing he wouldn’t kiss her when he said goodnight, hating herself for still hoping, despite everything, that he would.

  Knowing Claire Croft only by sight, Emma was astonished to see her at her front door just two days later. Dressed in a flowing skirt and a close-fitting strappy top, she looked attractive and smart, and she’d parked her car in the driveway as if she were a frequent visitor
.

  Emma had a cold. It had descended on her the day after the movie and was still making her miserable. With a damp tissue pressed to her face, she invited Pete’s wife—ex-wife?—to ‘cub id’, and thought immediately of Claire’s friend, Mandy, whom she and Pete had run into at the cinema.

  A report had obviously been made, and acted on.

  ‘You’ve got a cold, poor thing,’ Claire said, stepping forward into the front hall.

  ‘Sorry, yes.’ Emma led the way through to her small living room.

  ‘Try lemon, garlic, ginger, honey and cayenne pepper in boiling water.’

  ‘Uh, all right. I sometimes just drink hot lemon and honey.’

  But Claire had finished with the subject of Emma’s cold. ‘You must know why I’m here,’ she said.

  ‘Not quite.’ Emma paused, then added, ‘And anyway, I’d rather hear it from you.’

  ‘A friend saw you with Pete, and I made a few enquiries and found out who you were.’

  ‘Yes, I wondered,’ Emma murmured, but Claire didn’t react.

  ‘I’d been planning to cut short the Canberra visit anyway,’ she said. ‘Apparently, the two of you looked…’ Suddenly, she was crying, and begging Emma, ‘Don’t, OK? I realise I have no right in the world to ask this of you. Pete will be free soon. And you’re free already. But I need more time.’

  ‘Claire, please, would you like some tea, or—?’

  ‘No, no. I’m not staying.’ She sniffed, took a tissue from the box on the coffee-table and pulled herself together again. ‘The illness has been scary. You know about it…’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘I’m pretty sensible. I know this is likely to be for life, and I’m not going to get foolish and think I can keep in balance on my own. The medication is necessary, and it’s making a huge difference. But it’s scary to feel flawed like this.’

  ‘It can happen to anyone, Claire. It’s an illness as real and physical as flu or arthritis. You’re not flawed.’

  But Claire waved this reassurance aside. ‘It’s changed how I see my life. I do, seriously and simply, need the time. I’m not being catty. Pathetic, perhaps.’ She smiled crookedly. ‘But not catty. Pete and I haven’t made a final decision about the girls, and I don’t want him distracted by a new relationship and only too happy to park Jessie and Zoe with me so he can spend time with you.’