The Road to Hope

by Rachael Johns

  ‘I’ll go get Ned and Alf ready,’ he said, tearing his eyes from hers for fear of what she might see.

  ‘That’d be great,’ Lauren replied brightly as she started towards Barbara’s room.

  They’d encouraged the residents to dress up in their best clothes for lunch. Most of these outfits hadn’t seen the light of day for years but they had all been dry-cleaned and ironed in readiness. Ned and Alf had both picked dinner suits—so old fashioned they could have been in a museum, but smart as you could get.

  Tom helped Alf dress and smiled as he finished the last button. ‘You scrub up well.’

  ‘Once upon a time I did. I was wearing an outfit not unlike this when I asked Nancy to marry me, you know?’

  ‘Is that right?’ Tom had heard a number of stories about Alf and Nancy’s courtship but he didn’t mind. ‘I wonder what Nancy is going to wear today?’

  Five minutes later they had their answer. Tom had Ned and Alf already seated at the decorated table when Lauren and the other nurse started bringing the women through. He heard Alf’s gasp of delight when he saw Nancy in a pretty pink shirt and skirt number, her hair puffed up with hair spray and bright nails to match. She looked a little bemused by it all. Barbara, who’d had more input into her outfit, looked amazing. A plethora of colour, an overdose of gold jewellery, too much eye shadow and a coiffed hairdo. Best of all, a smile that looked set to jump off her face.

  ‘Wow.’ Tom whistled and grinned at the residents as they were assisted into various chairs around the tables. ‘I feel a little underdressed.’

  Barbara clicked her teeth and looked him up and down, taking in his best navy cord trousers and the long-sleeved cotton shirt rolled up to his elbows. ‘Yes, well, maybe Alf or Ned can give you a few tips later. You young things don’t have the same sense of pride in what you wear.’

  ‘Right.’ Tom nodded, feeling more amused than put in his place. He made the mistake of looking across the table and saw Lauren smirking. Her lips quivered as she fought the urge to burst out laughing and he couldn’t help but think about how those lips had felt against his when he’d kissed her. How he longed to do so again.

  His stomach tightened at the thought, and a rush of desire caught him off guard. Realising he was in serious danger of embarrassing himself in front of colleagues and patients alike, he yanked out a chair and sat down at the table to cover the evidence of his arousal. He reached for a napkin and spread it over his lap. ‘When do we eat?’

  ‘What’s the hurry?’ Lauren asked, grinning in a way that made him nervous. Had she seen the way his body reacted?

  He shrugged, attempting nonchalance. ‘I’m hungry.’

  Before she had a chance to reply, Helen appeared in the doorway, pushing a trolley laden with steaming dishes. Lauren and the other nurse assisted in the distribution of plates around the table. Tom guessed they might think him rude for staying rooted to his seat but his damn erection had a mind of its own. He shifted uncomfortably, trying to think of anything that might help to deflate it, but no matter how hard he tried not to look, every time Lauren laid a plate in front of someone, she bent over slightly and her uniform gaped a little at the top.

  Beneath her crisp white blouse, he couldn’t help notice she was wearing a red lace bra—a realisation that robbed all the moisture from his mouth. Was she wearing panties to match? Once that question lodged in his head, he couldn’t think straight. He’d never had such inappropriate thoughts at a more inappropriate time or place. It was like thinking about sex while sitting next to your grandma.

  Thankfully no one appeared to notice. Lauren sat down opposite him to help Nancy with her lunch, while the agency nurse moved around the table helping the others. Despite dentures, shaky hands and Alf not having the use of one arm, they were determined to enjoy this lunch, which was as close to normality as some of them had had in years.

  ‘Hey, we almost forgot the crackers.’ Lauren put down the fork she’d been holding and grabbed the bonbon in front of her. ‘Come on Ned.’

  With an uncharacteristic chuckle, Ned also put down his cutlery and reached out to take the other end of Lauren’s cracker. They pulled hard and it snapped in half, spilling a tacky looking monster key ring, a pink paper hat and a tiny piece of paper—the joke—onto the table.

  Lauren handed Ned the hat and picked up the joke. ‘Hah, this one’s for you, Tom.’

  He raised an eyebrow as he waited for her to read it.

  ‘Why did Santa’s helper see the doctor?’

  ‘I don’t know… Why did Santa’s helper see the doctor?’

  ‘Because he had low elf esteem,’ Lauren announced with a grin.

  Tom shook his head, stifling a smile. ‘Why are Christmas cracker jokes always so dismal?’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Barbara said.

  Lauren laughed. ‘What’s everyone else got?’

  Most of the other residents didn’t have the strength to pull the cracker hard enough to break the snap, so Lauren and Tom ended up doing the honours. He tried not to look at her as they cracked bonbon after bonbon and then handed round the hats. He perched a green paper hat on his head and tried to focus on reading his pathetic jokes, anything to ignore the feelings for Lauren that were raging inside him.

  Then, he felt something nudge his calf under the table and he almost leapt out of his seat. His eyes boggled as he wondered if it was Lauren. Was she playing footsies with him? He looked over at her, wondering if the connection had been on purpose. Was she trying to get his attention?

  ‘Sorry Tom, just stretching my legs.’ She hit him with what looked like a seductive smile, but he told himself it had to be a figment of his overactive imagination. She didn’t want to flirt with him. She’d made that clear the night she’d told him she was leaving, but that conversation seemed forever ago and he struggled to remember why they’d decided not to jump each other’s bones. Sitting across from her, close enough that their legs could entwine, he was struggling to remember a lot of things.

  Somehow he made it through the rest of lunch, including a delicious dessert of traditional Christmas pudding and custard. He kept his feet firmly tucked under his seat and dared not move a muscle in case he somehow connected with Lauren again. Then when they were finished, he jumped at the chance to help Helen clean up. He piled crockery and cutlery onto the trolley and then pushed it all the way down the corridor into the kitchen, ignoring the protests that it wasn’t his job to clear up because he desperately needed a few moments away from Lauren. Scrubbing the dishes gave him something else to focus his pent-up energies on. All was going according to plan until he dropped a plate.

  As it crashed onto the hard linoleum floor, Helen scowled. ‘There’s a good reason I don’t usually let doctors into my kitchen.’ She lifted her hands and shooed him towards the door. ‘Now, be away with you.’

  Tom insisted she let him sweep up his mess first, and then he took a deep breath and headed back towards the residential wing. He heard the fifties music before he rounded the corridor into the old people’s living room. There, in a circle of recliners, the old dears sat bopping in their chairs.

  Lauren looked up as he joined them. ‘No one wanted to have their afternoon rest.’

  He nodded, looking around at the various wrinkled but joyful faces.

  ‘Can you dance, Dr Lewis?’ Barbara asked.

  ‘Me?’ Tom pressed his finger against his chest. ‘They tried to teach me in high school but I have what is called two left feet.’

  Suddenly Nancy gasped. All eyes snapped to her but it was pure happiness that shone on her face. ‘Alf,’ she said, turning her head to look at her husband. Tom couldn’t recall ever hearing her address him by name before. ‘This is our song.’

  Alf blinked, looking as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘Yes, sweetheart, it is.’ He reached across and took hold of her hand.

  ‘I want to dance,’ Nancy announced with zest. ‘Dance with me.’

  Tom turned to look at Lauren
in time to catch her raised eyebrows. Nancy generally walked okay, but walking and dancing were two entirely different things. Throw Alf’s broken right arm into the mix and this could be a recipe for disaster.

  ‘Could we?’ Alf looked up to Tom and then to Lauren.

  The desire that had been causing Tom a hell of a lot of discomfort the last couple of hours moved aside and made room for anxiety. Professionally he should probably have said no, but he didn’t want to rob Alf and Nancy of such a small joy.

  ‘We’ll be right here with them,’ Lauren said, looking pleadingly at him. ‘Didn’t we say we were going to give them the best day ever?’

  Her simple reminder made up his mind. ‘Okay. But not too fast, all right.’ They’d decided logistically that it wasn’t possible to bring Ginger for a visit, so this was the least they could do. ‘And not for long.’

  ‘Deal.’ Alf pushed himself out of his seat remarkably quickly for an old man with a broken arm, and then offered his good arm to his wife. She grinned up at him as he helped her to her feet. Tom and Lauren stepped close, not wanting to smother the elderly couple, but aware it would be their heads rolling if something went wrong.

  Nancy beamed as Alf held her in position and Lauren replayed their song. Although Tom and Lauren were less than a foot away, moving out of the way when necessary, Alf and Nancy vanished into a world of their own. It was easy to imagine them sixty years younger and falling in love.

  About halfway through the song, Nancy halted. She focused her attention on Tom and Lauren. ‘What are you two lovebirds doing just watching? Join in. Dance.’

  Tom looked to Lauren, horrified, and then back to Nancy. ‘No… We’re not… You see…’

  ‘Dance. Dance. Dance.’ Barbara clapped her hands and chanted from her chair. ‘If I was younger I’d dance with you myself. You’ll be old all too soon and then you’ll be stuck in a chair all day like me. Do it while you still have the legs for it.’

  When she put it that way… Tom looked to Lauren. ‘I’m a hopeless dancer,’ he apologised.

  ‘I don’t think anyone is going to care about that.’ She stepped up to him, holding out her hands.

  Tom’s breath hitched. He hoped he’d be able to control himself, but could no longer fight the alluring thought of drawing her against him. One step and they were in each other’s arms. He’d been dreaming about holding her in this position for what seemed like weeks, fighting such temptation. Her breath tickled the skin at his neck as, of course, the music changed to something slower. She didn’t appear any more in the know than him about traditional dance moves so he wrapped his arms around her waist and she slipped her hands up and hooked them around his neck as they swayed awkwardly.

  ‘You’re not so bad at this,’ Lauren whispered as she looked up into his eyes. The warmth he saw there tested his resolve.

  ‘Some people make it easy.’ He had to focus every cell in his body to resist the feelings flooding through him. It was all too simple to imagine what would happen if they were on their own.

  A war raged in his head. One side wanted to seduce the hell out of her—no matter the consequences—but the other didn’t want to use her for what could never be more than a roll in the hay.

  ‘I think that’s enough for me,’ he said suddenly, dropping his arms to his side and stepping back. There was only so much torture his hormones could take before they’d snap.

  ‘Boo!’ Barbara cried and Lauren grinned.

  ‘Thank you for the dance,’ she said, rubbing her arms as if plagued with goosebumps. She turned away from him and focused again on Alf and Nancy, who were still lost in their own little world.

  Tom wondered how long Nancy would stay with Alf before retreating again, and he hoped Alf would be able to handle the disappointment. Focusing on the old couple was easier than analysing his own thoughts, feelings and desires.

  Nancy eventually, reluctantly, announced her fatigue. ‘I think I’ll have to stop for a while.’

  ‘It’s all right, love.’ Alf did his best to assist her to her recliner with his good arm. On his face he wore the biggest smile Tom had ever seen. No matter how he felt, at least he knew he’d helped bring some kind of happiness to someone.

  When Alf and Nancy were back in their chairs, Lauren went off to help her colleague with their other duties. Tom spent the next hour or so sitting alongside the residents while they dozed in front of the television. He couldn’t concentrate on the various Christmas shows that took their turns on screen and almost wished for an emergency, something to occupy him and take his thoughts to a safer place. Time ticked slowly by. He tried to do the crossword from yesterday’s paper but grew more and more agitated when he could only answer half of the clues.

  Things didn’t get any better when Lauren and her sidekick arrived with a late afternoon tea. After a few hours of thinking about little else but how much he wanted her, he found himself unable to keep his eyes off her as she helped the old folks to lukewarm tea and Christmas cake. He polished off a couple of slices himself and asked if Alf wanted to play cards. Alf obliged, Ned joined in. Lauren kept busy with various tasks, treating him to the occasional smile as she glided past. But the afternoon and evening remained bizarrely quiet for a Christmas.

  When Dr Bates had departed, she’d warned him that Christmas and New Year might be his busiest times. Having worked in major hospitals during the silly season, he’d expected this as well, but fate had other ideas for today. When dinner was cleared, the nurses, the residents and Tom gathered around the television to hear the Queen’s annual speech, not that Tom could have recalled any of what she said. Who had time for the Queen when Lauren was perched on the arm of a chair only inches away from him?

  He didn’t know if he was imagining it, but it felt as if she’d been brushing up against him or touching him at every opportunity today. His body drank in every single interaction but his mind was tortured. It was getting harder and harder to be around her and hold onto his self-control.

  Finally Lauren’s shift ended. He’d already said goodbye to the residents and was waiting on the hospital’s front steps when she appeared. She hitched her shoulder bag up a little and then floated down the steps towards him, her smile lighting up her whole face and stabbing him right in the heart.

  ‘What a great day.’ She beamed as they started towards his ute.

  ‘Yep. Pretty much.’ If he set aside his feelings, it had been damn near perfect, the two of them bringing joy to the lives of people who saw precious little joy anymore.

  ‘We work well together.’ She smiled at him as they opened their doors.

  He swallowed, his torrid mind conjuring images of what else he reckoned they’d do well together. What was wrong with him? Why was he so damn affected today? He put it down to Christmas and the stress and guilt of not spending it with his family. It was wreaking havoc with his emotions.

  ‘I say we celebrate our success when we get home.’

  Tom stiffened as he shoved the key in the ignition and turned. He cleared his throat. ‘What did you have in mind?’

  ‘Kicking off these shoes, sitting back on the couch and having a couple of drinks. What do you say?’

  That offer had danger scrawled all over it. No would be the sensible answer. A polite decline and an early night in bed.

  ‘Yeah, sure, sounds good.’ He sounded like a lovesick teen. One beer, he told himself as drove. One beer and then he’d make some excuse about being tired. A solitary wank might not be the most pleasurable end to Christmas day, but it was a darn sight safer than what his libido had in mind.

  He’d barely killed the ignition before Lauren flung open her door and skipped towards the house. He took his time, locking the ute and steeling his mind for being alone inside with her. In his head he drafted a list of safe topics for conversation, yet when he entered a few moments later, there was only the blasted orange cat to greet him. Trying not to trip as he wound around his legs, he trekked into the kitchen and went straight to the fridge to
get his darn cream. While Ginger was lapping and purring at his bowl in the corner, Tom crossed to the fridge again, this time to retrieve two bottles of beer.

  But before he had a chance to crack open the bottles, Lauren reappeared. The white uniform had vanished, replaced by what could only be described as a rather skimpy sundress. Muscles all over his body quivered and quaked.

  The red straps of her lacy bra were visible beneath the thin straps of the white dress, taking his mind right back to the glimpse of décolletage he’d gotten earlier. She took one look at the beer bottles in his hand and wafted past him, stretching up on tiptoe to grab something from an overhead cupboard. His lower lip dropped and he felt his resolve slipping as her dress rode upwards in the process.

  ‘I was thinking more along the lines of this—’ she spun around to face him, holding up a bottle of Baileys Irish Cream ‘—with ice.’ Her eyes sparkled and he found himself putting the beers back in the fridge, despite alarm bells shrieking inside his head.

  ‘I can’t remember the last time I had Baileys,’ he said.

  ‘It’s my special occasions drink.’

  He watched as she threw ice in two glasses and then poured the cream over the top, almost filling the glasses. She filled a couple of small bowls, one with pretzels and the other with cashew nuts, and then said, ‘You bring the drinks. I’ll bring the food.’

  He picked up the drinks and proceeded into the lounge room. He put the glasses down on the coffee table in front of the main couch and then took a seat, realising his mistake two seconds later when she sat right down beside him. The gap between her thigh and his was so small he couldn’t have slid a ruler between them.

  She picked up the glasses and handed one to him, their fingers brushing again as he took it from her. She lifted her glass to her lips and took a sip. ‘Ahh…that’s good.’

  His glass remained frozen in his hand as he watched, mesmerised by the way her lips closed over the rim. Once again his damn erection sprang to life as his mind took a detour to the gutter and imagined all the other things her lips might close over. She finished her sip, lowered her glass slightly and caught him looking at the shiny drop of cream that remained on her bottom lip.