The Marriage Gamble

by Meredith Webber

  Bemused by both his unexpected appearance and her own reaction to it, she stood aside to let him in. He closed the door behind him, reached for her, then rested his back against the door while he kissed her with such ruthless intensity she had to bite back little cries of…

  Ecstasy? Surely not.

  Submission?

  Her?

  ‘You’re driving me mad, do you know that?’ Mike’s demand put her own problems out of her head. ‘I couldn’t wait until Saturday. Damn it! I couldn’t even get through a whole day. I have architectural plans to study, a backlog of financial papers so high I can’t see over them, decisions to make about the expansion, and all I can think about is a little brown mouse with lips that send me wild and a body I long to ravish so thoroughly we might have to stay in bed for a year.’

  He looked down at her, his eyes steely grey, alight with what she suspected might be passion, then growled, ‘Well, don’t you have anything to say for yourself?’

  ‘I’ve a patient waiting. We’re short-staffed, remember.’ Jacinta was pleased to hear that her voice was shaking only slightly. Boy, was she handling this well! Like a mature, sensible adult, in fact. ‘And while we’re on the subject—’ when on a roll one might as well keep going ‘—it would make more sense to cut back on the associated medical personnel—nurses—and the office staff, if you need the clinic to be more financially viable. Somewhere along the way, we were going to discuss this, but you keep letting the sex thing get in the way.’

  ‘I keep letting the sex thing get in the way?’ he growled. ‘You’re the one who keeps kissing me back.’

  ‘But only because you’re there—or should that be here?’ Uh-oh! She was losing it again. Perhaps because he was smiling at her, and the tip of his forefinger was running up and down the inner surface of her forearm and driving her to distraction.

  ‘I’ve a patient waiting,’ she repeated, only far more weakly, when the glint in his eyes told her he was about to kiss her again.

  ‘And I’ve got work to do. One last quick kiss, small mouse, then I’ll see you midday Saturday.’

  He stole the kiss before she could object again—stole her breath as well, so when she did re-emerge from her room, several minutes after Mike had departed, she could barely make the patient’s name heard above the hubbub of the waiting room.

  You didn’t tell him you wouldn’t go away for the weekend, Jacinta was thinking while Carol Speares, who worked with Ken and Pat in the building across the road, poured out her concerns about working in the contaminated building.

  ‘It’s a strange thing, but not everyone breathing the same air is affected,’ Jacinta explained, forcing herself to concentrate on her job. ‘I guess it’s like viral diseases that sweep through an office but only some people catch them. The tests the Health Department is organising for you to undergo will be conclusive, Carol. And they’ll be followed up after a month with retesting.’

  ‘But I want to have a baby,’ Carol told her. ‘We talked about it—about me going off the Pill—last time I was in, but with this hanging over my head…’

  ‘You don’t have any symptoms of Legionnaires’ disease, but you’ll know for sure when the test results come back—in about ten days maximum. You could put off the plans for getting pregnant for ten days, couldn’t you?’

  ‘But I’m already off the pill. We’ve been having sex and I might be pregnant already. And have the disease!’

  Carol was sufficiently distressed to totally distract Jacinta’s mind from thoughts of Mike—though she did tuck the word ‘Pill’, with a question mark behind it, to the back of her mind. To be retrieved and considered later.

  She unlocked the cabinet with her illicit supply of free samples and sorted through it.

  ‘Let’s start with a pregnancy test. Here’s a test kit—the instructions are on it. I’ll give you two, in fact, as it’s early days yet and it mightn’t be showing in your urine. In the meantime, until you’re cleared, use protection. I’m sure your husband will understand the need for it until you know for certain that you’re OK.’

  Carol took the test kits and thanked Jacinta, but she was still disturbed and Jacinta felt a niggling sense of doubt that, had she not had her own personal life on her mind, she might have provided a better service for her patient.

  Perhaps going away with Mike for the weekend was the answer. It would get the sex over and done with and she could then get back to normal.

  Brave thoughts indeed, but did she believe them?

  ‘Mr Warren?’

  A tall gangling youth rose from a chair and walked towards her. His pupils were so dilated that, except for a rim of colour at the very edge of the irises, his eyes looked black.

  She led him into her room, conscious, as she always was with addicts, that she had to be on full alert.

  Particularly today, when distraction came so easily.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ she asked him as he slumped into the chair.

  ‘Get me off the stuff. Do something, anything, but if I don’t get off, it’s going to kill me.’

  It was the voice of despair but sometimes, just sometimes, an addict meant it and was willing—or desperate enough—to go through the rigours of a detox programme.

  ‘Have you tried before?’ Jacinta asked, while she riffled through papers on her desk for the phone number of the nearest drug rehab centre.

  The young man nodded.

  ‘Been on meths, it didn’t work. Want naltrexone. Implants. That’s what’s working.’

  On some addicts, though it’s still not fully tested—not even legal, Jacinta thought, while she wondered what she could say that would keep him interested in seeking help.

  ‘We can’t do that here. You need a place where you can be treated and remain for a while after treatment. I can phone Freedom House, and ask someone to pick you up from here. They can offer you all the available options and look after you while you come off it.’

  Her patient shook his head.

  ‘I’ve been there, they don’t do it, but someone said the clinic does it.’

  A cold dread clutched at Jacinta’s heart. Could one of the other doctors in the clinic be illegally implanting naltrexone? If the practice was even suspected, the Medical Ethics Board would have reason to shut down the clinic.

  Mike Trent wanted the place shut down…

  Don’t go there, her head warned.

  ‘Well, I don’t,’ Jacinta said, when she realised she hadn’t answered Mr Warren’s assertion. Couldn’t keep calling him Mr Warren either. She checked his card. ‘Brad, I’m sorry, but until the implants have been properly tested, they are illegal. And if you find a doctor willing to do it, he’s practising beyond the law and there could be serious consequences for you as well as for him. It’s not yet approved because no one’s sure how it’s going to affect patients long term. As a drug, it affects the liver, so if you’ve a hepatitis infection, or any problems with your liver, it could kill you.’

  He leapt from his chair so suddenly that Jacinta felt a flicker of fear. She poised her knee just below the panic button on the underside of the desk, ready to press upward if she needed help.

  ‘Do you think this is better than being dead?’ Brad leaned across the desk, supporting his weight on hands bunched into fists.

  He thrust his face towards her.

  ‘Look at my eyes. What do you see? Emptiness. Nothing. That’s what you see. That’s my life. Nothing.’

  He stormed towards the door, but Jacinta followed him and caught at his arm.

  ‘But it doesn’t have to be that way, Brad. Give ordinary rehab another go. The programmes are better now, they’ve houses in other places where you can live while you’re recovering. You can get out of the cycle you’re stuck in. It can happen!’

  She spoke with all the passion that had brought her to work in this place, and something must have got through because he slumped against the door, where another man had leant so recently, and nodded at her.


  ‘Can you ring them? Ask them to pick me up here? I’ll wait in the waiting room. If I go back outside I’ll see someone I shouldn’t and before I know it I’ll be planning another score.’

  ‘I’ll arrange it for you,’ Jacinta told him, speaking gently so she didn’t frighten him away. ‘Sit down for a minute. I’ll get someone to take you into the treatment room and make you a cup of tea while you’re waiting.’

  She phoned Reception first and asked for Jenny, who was the most empathetic of the associated medical personnel, then phoned the rehab centre and quickly explained, knowing the time when an addict felt strongly about seeking help was limited. In another hour Brad might have lost the urge which, this time, might save his life.

  But the reminder of why she was so committed to Abbott Road stayed with her, blocking out her fantasies of making love with Mike, shutting memories of his kisses into a compartment way back in her mind.

  Where it had to stay if she was going to be an effective doctor, she told herself as she drove home, deliberately going out of her way so she could pass the Tivoli and remember their dinner together.

  So her head scoffed at her heart, and altogether she was more muddled than ever.

  ‘You look exhausted,’ her mother scolded, when she walked into the house and dropped her bag on the floor in the front entry.

  ‘I think I might be,’ she replied, ‘though a quick bath will revive me. I’ll be down in time to sample whatever delicious food it is I can smell.’

  Guilt hit her like an added weight on her shoulders.

  ‘It was my turn to cook last night, wasn’t it? I didn’t give it a thought.’

  ‘Fizzy and I managed on our own—went to the bistro down the road, in fact. But we were pleased to think you might be doing something nice for yourself for a change.’

  Boy! Wait until these well-meaning folk heard about the plans for the weekend!

  Now was the time to tell them.

  At least tell her mother.

  ‘I won’t be long in the bath,’ she said, shirking the revelation, mainly because she was still wondering if she could shirk the arrangement as well.

  And if it would be for the best if she did.

  ‘So what’s he like? Tell all,’ Fizzy prompted when, clad in her second-oldest jeans—the oldest being covered in paint—and a loose sloppy sweaty, wet hair clinging limply around her face, Jacinta came down to dinner.

  ‘What’s who like?’ she asked blandly, though she knew she wouldn’t get away with it.

  Couldn’t help but smile either, just thinking about Mike.

  Perhaps she wouldn’t cancel the weekend.

  ‘Good-looking, tall, we look stupid together, grey in his hair, he’s thirty-eight, divorced, twelve-year-old daughter I presume lives with her mother, and he won’t ever marry again so I shouldn’t get involved.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ her mother said. ‘You’ve fallen in love with him, haven’t you?’

  Jacinta eyed her with suspicion, mentally replaying what she’d said.

  ‘How on earth can you reach such a conclusion from that description? We look ridiculous together.’

  ‘There you go again,’ her mother said. ‘If you weren’t in love, you wouldn’t care how you looked with him.’

  Jacinta threw her hands up in the air.

  ‘I d-don’t b-believe this!’ she stuttered. Then she frowned at her mother. ‘And what makes you such an expert anyway?’ she asked. ‘You’ve had any number of men following you around like lovesick chooks—’

  ‘Roosters?’ Fizzy suggested helpfully.

  ‘Well, roosters, then—for years. Since Dad died, in fact. And have you ever looked at one of them? What do you know about love?’

  Her mother smiled.

  ‘I knew it with your father—right from our first meeting. I guess I’m just a “on love in a lifetime” person, though if it happened again at least I’d recognise it.’

  ‘You’re saying I wouldn’t?’ Jacinta demanded, unable to believe she was having this conversation but unwilling to let it drop.

  ‘I’m saying you’re often too committed to what you’re doing to give it a chance. Fire and passion are tremendous assets in any job, but they can also burn you if they’re not put to proper use. Maybe some of it could be channelled into a relationship.’

  Where it might totally consume me, Jacinta thought, remembering the volcano.

  ‘I’ll get our meals,’ Fizzy offered, while Jacinta reached out and took her mother’s hand.

  ‘I know what you’re saying, Mum,’ she whispered. ‘I guess what worries me is that I might also be a “one love in a lifetime” person as well.’

  ‘And you’re afraid of getting hurt? Anything worth having carries the risk of pain, Jacinta. From birth onwards. And you’ve never been one who stood fearfully on the sidelines of life. You’ve always plunged right in.’

  But into volcanoes?

  She shook away the question and smiled at her mother.

  ‘I’m going away with him for the weekend,’ she said, dismissing all her own doubts in that simple declaration. Then she tucked her mother’s hand into her arm and they walked through to the kitchen, where Fizzy was setting out their meals on the big central table.

  Fizzy demanded more information, but Jacinta turned the conversation to the new house and the furniture-shopping expedition.

  ‘I felt bad,’ Fizzy said, ‘buying all that stuff. I don’t think Mum ever had anything new.’

  Jacinta heard the loss and longing in her voice and hoped that one day Fizzy and her mother could be reconciled. As her own mother asked more questions about the house, Jacinta considered the bond that existed in families, even abusive ones.

  Then felt a momentary wave of guilt that she wouldn’t be around to help with the final preparations for the grand opening the following weekend.

  The loud demands of the phone interrupted both her thoughts and the conversation.

  ‘Do you want to get that, Fizz?’ Jacinta suggested, thinking she could delay standing up for another few minutes. Evening phone calls were usually for her, and usually a crisis of some kind.

  Fizzy returned with a huge grin plastered across her face.

  ‘It’s him!’ she announced, as if Jacinta had won the lottery with a personal phone call. She was waving the cordless receiver in her hand. ‘You will take it here, won’t you?’ she teased.

  Jacinta grabbed the phone from her and carried it with her out the back door.

  Her greeting was so tentative it was a wonder Mike heard it, but he must have for suddenly he was speaking, the deep voice sounding even deeper on the phone.

  ‘I did something I’ve never done before and pulled an employee’s personnel file to get your home number. Then, blow me, if you don’t live just two streets away from me. Do you want me to come over?’

  ‘To meet my family? Chat to Mum and Fizzy?’

  She heard his husky chuckle.

  ‘Not exactly what I had in mind but, yes, if it’s what I have to do to see you.’

  ‘You saw me earlier today,’ she reminded him, while her heartbeats rattled against her chest in excitement. Such silly behaviour could only be love. Couldn’t it?

  ‘It wasn’t enough,’ he was saying. ‘Look, I can walk over. Maybe we could sit in your garden and talk. I can’t picture the house. You do have a garden, don’t you?’

  ‘Sit in the garden and talk?’ Jacinta repeated, putting enough emphasis on the last word for him to get her drift.

  ‘Whatever! Shall I come?’

  She looked out across the garden, saw the moon coming up on the eastern horizon and sighed.

  ‘No. I’m really tired and need to get a good night’s sleep, and “talking” to you isn’t conducive to good nights’ sleeps.’

  There was silence—long enough for her to wonder if anyone had ever said no to Mike Trent before.

  ‘I’ll accept that excuse,’ he said at last, ‘pathetic though it is. But only on condition I can see
you tomorrow night.’

  ‘What about the piles of work you’re neglecting, the architect’s plans, the billion-dollar business?’

  ‘It’s going to hell in a handcart,’ he told her, ‘and it’s all your fault. But now that I’ve seen my dad and you’ve turned me down, I’ll scoot back to the office and put in a good few hours. I will see you tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m working late—the clinic’s open till eight on Fridays—and by the time I pack up, it’s always after nine and I’m always tired, cranky and terrible company.’

  ‘Then I’ll pick you up and spirit you away to somewhere special. Trust me.’

  Jacinta heard herself agreeing then, to make matters worse, indulging in the kind of silly conversations lovers had. And smiling as she did it.

  Her head had apparently given up on convincing her of the folly of this relationship. In fact, the way she was carrying on, her brain must have taken leave of absence.

  ‘You should have asked him over,’ her mother said, when she finished the conversation and walked back inside. ‘He lives not far from here.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Jacinta demanded. ‘You haven’t been checking up on him, have you?’

  Her mother smiled.

  ‘Of course not, but I see his father at the shops from time to time. Ted Trent. I didn’t put the two of them together until yesterday when Ted and I were talking about broccoli and he was saying how it had taken him years to get his son, Mike, to eat it.’

  ‘You talk to this man about broccoli?’

  Jacinta felt as if the world had suddenly tipped sideways, causing separate bits of her life to collide.

  ‘Not always about broccoli,’ her mother replied. ‘But we chat. He’s reading Aristotle at the moment and I did ancient Greek at school, so he was asking—’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Jacinta said. ‘I really don’t need any more confusion in my life. I’ll do the dishes as I didn’t cook, then I’m off to bed.’

  But sleep wouldn’t come, held at bay by thoughts she didn’t want to have. It was all very well to contemplate an affair with Mike—to be adult and mature about it because she knew it wasn’t going anywhere permanent. He’d made that clear from the start. No marriage—not even a long-term commitment, Jacinta suspected, as that could be as financially dicey as marriage.