The Doctor’s Special Touch

by Marion Lennox

  Looking like what? He didn’t know.

  Looking like Ally.

  He gave himself a swift mental kick. Hell, where were his thoughts? Concentrate on medicine.

  ‘Robert’s not a priority public patient for transport,’ he told her, struggling back to medical imperatives. Somehow. ‘But his face is urgent and this will get him into the system fast. I couldn’t get him on the chopper with Marilyn this morning, but he can go by road with Will tomorrow. I’ll send Kevin as well. His throat’s fine but he needs urgent psychiatric care. He and Robert can keep each other company.’

  He gazed around at the tidy sitting room, and through to the bedrooms beyond. Only one bedroom was still lit, and there was a gentle murmur of a comforting voice coming from the dimly lit bedroom. Betty? ‘Tell me what’s happening here.’

  ‘Will’s safely in hospital?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. I brought him in half an hour ago and they told me I was needed here. I came as fast as I could.’

  ‘What, you? Needed?’ She seemed to abandon interest in him as she turned back to her scrubbing. ‘I can’t imagine why.’

  ‘Ally…’

  ‘Betty’s here,’ she told him. ‘As you can hear. She’s watching Marigold. I’ve given Marigold Maxolon but she’s still retching. I don’t want her left alone. She’s exhausted to the point where she’s almost unconscious, and I don’t want her choking.’

  ‘You’ve set up a drip?’ he asked cautiously, and she scrubbed a bit more before she answered.

  ‘A drip. Yes. A drip. Three drips, Dr Rochester. Two very sick kids, another mildly ill and Lorraine. Robert didn’t join in the feast and the others must have cast-iron stomachs. Tell me, was it your idea to send sick children home from hospital and give them a welcome-home feast of chocolate éclairs and lamingtons?’

  ‘Not a good idea, huh?’

  ‘Not.’

  ‘If it’s any consolation, I didn’t order the lamingtons.’

  ‘It’s not a consolation.’ She gave her floor a final swipe and then sat back and surveyed her work. ‘Finished. Darcy, haul that window wider. It stinks in here.’

  ‘You’ve only just noticed?’

  Her glare returned. ‘I haven’t only just noticed, as a matter of fact. And as well as this place stinking, I stink as well. Marigold was sick all over me.’

  ‘Why isn’t Cornelia scrubbing?’ he asked, and got a look that said he was thick.

  ‘The smell of vomit makes Cornelia retch,’ she told him. ‘Which is a lot of use, I don’t think. And scrubbing floors isn’t in Betty’s job description unless it’s in a hospital and it’s imperative, and even then she’d rather not. So she’s caring for the sick. Which leaves the massage therapist scrubbing.’

  ‘Good old massage therapist.’ He couldn’t help it. The corners of his mouth twitched all by themselves. ‘Did they train you in scrubbology in massage school?’

  ‘Where would you like this brush?’ she asked, and raised it.

  He laughed and stretched out a hand to help pull her up. ‘Hell, Ally, I’m sorry.’ And then his nose wrinkled.

  ‘Don’t say it.’ She heaved her bucket over to the sink. ‘Well, that’s it for me. Dr Rochester has arrived and I can go back to being a massage therapist.’ She wiped her hands on her trousers and took a deep breath. ‘Enough. I’m out of here. I’ve written up all medications on the chart I’ve left with Betty. Check what I’ve done. They’re your patients and I shouldn’t have interfered, but if you will hare round the country fixing broken fingers when you should be down here scrubbing floors…’

  ‘I wasn’t just fixing broken fingers.’

  ‘No?’ She turned back to him and raised her eyebrows. ‘If you’re about to tell me that you stopped for a while to admire the moon over the sea then I don’t want to know.’

  ‘I was organising accommodation.’

  She stared at him. And then she seemed to come to a decision. ‘This is nothing to do with me,’ she told him. ‘You need to check your patients. I need to slope off home and have a shower.’

  ‘Do I need to check the patients immediately?’

  ‘Unless you trust me.’

  ‘I do trust you.’

  She blinked. ‘I…’

  ‘Of course I trust you. You’re a fine doctor.’

  ‘I’m not a doctor.’

  He let that one slide. It was obviously ridiculous and both of them knew it.

  ‘I’ve been organising accommodation,’ he told her, cutting her off before she could figure out what to say next. ‘Long-term accommodation for everyone. Including accommodation for you and your mother.’

  She blinked again, owlish in astonishment. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You heard.’

  ‘You’ve been arranging accommodation for me and my mother?’

  ‘I assume that’s what you want,’ he told her, watching her face. ‘A furnished house where you can have your mother with you?’

  She was dumbfounded and it showed. ‘What do you know about my mother?’

  ‘A lot,’ he told her, his voice gentling. He was treading on eggshells here and he was aware of it. It behoved him to be very, very careful. ‘I talked to Sue today.’

  ‘Sue?’

  ‘Marilyn’s daughter. She was very fond of you when you were kids.’

  Ally’s suspicious face softened. ‘I… She was great. Sue and her mum and her dad. They were wonderful. That’s why…’

  ‘Why you outed yourself as a doctor to help Marilyn?’

  ‘It might have been.’ She hesitated, as if she was considering whether to talk or not. ‘What did Sue say?’

  ‘Not much. But enough. What she and Betty and you yourself told me made me make a few more enquiries.’

  ‘You have no right.’

  ‘No,’ he said seriously. ‘I don’t have any right. But it’s a hell of a story, Ally. Your mum had it so tough. Your grandfather washed his hands of her and abandoned her to Jerry. She couldn’t break away herself but she gave you into your grandfather’s keeping because she was afraid for your welfare. Her life must have been the pits.’

  ‘She let me go,’ Ally whispered. She turned away, ostensibly to lift the empty bucket from the sink but he knew in reality it was to give herself some space. Her voice was so low he could hardly hear it. ‘As a child, I didn’t realise what a sacrifice it must have been,’ she whispered. ‘The whole thing. Leaving my grandfather in the first place so I wasn’t aborted, and then swallowing her pride and bringing me back.’

  ‘She couldn’t break away, though, could she?’

  ‘Jerry was the only security she knew. My grandfather wouldn’t exactly have killed the fatted lamb when she reappeared with me. His anger was vicious and it’s a wonder he agreed to keep me at all.’ She swallowed. ‘And then…when I was small I was stupid enough to resent her. Stupid enough to hate her for sending me back to my grandfather. I even sided with my father.’

  ‘Your father wanted you?’

  ‘My father always wanted me to stay with them,’ she told him, scrubbing at the sink with a dishcloth. ‘It was only my mother who was afraid for me. I was sick when I was four-an infection that turned septic-and it frightened her. Apparently she threatened them. She said if they didn’t let her leave me with my grandfather, she’d go to the police. She’d tell them everything she knew about Jerry. But she went back. And by the time my grandfather died, my mother was ill.’

  ‘She’s been diagnosed with almost crippling depressive illness,’ he said gently-and waited.

  At the sink, Ally was pleating the dishcloth with care. ‘How did you find that out?’

  ‘The locals knew your mother was institutionalised-that’s why you were put into foster care when you were twelve. But now…’

  ‘She hasn’t been in an institution for six years,’ she whispered. ‘Not since I graduated as a doctor.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘How?’ The dishcloth was being folded into smaller and smaller pleats.<
br />
  ‘I have friends in the mental health services.’ He shrugged. ‘And in the police force. Sergeant Matheson obtained the case notes from Jerry’s arrest when you were twelve, and we went from there. And I know. It’s totally unprofessional, but when I made some tentative enquiries about your mother and added that I was worried about you, I got an earful. About how you’d taken her out of the institution the minute you started earning. You put everything into her care.’

  ‘I tried to give her a life,’ she whispered. ‘She gave me one.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘But nothing,’ she said, suddenly turning fierce. She turned on him then, her anger blazing. ‘Fifteen. Fifteen! Seduced by a man who was twenty years older than her. Kicked out of home by her father, forced to live with that…with that…’ Words failed her. She took a deep breath, fighting fury. ‘And then she gave me up. She gave up her little girl. I remember, you know. I remember her bringing me here and Grandpa being cold as ice and her sobbing and saying he had to take care of me, it was his duty. She said it was Grandpa’s duty to care for me but it was more than that. It was his duty to care for her.’

  ‘But it’s not your duty.’

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ she flashed. ‘Don’t.’

  He hesitated. He was pushing too hard, he decided. Change tack.

  ‘Tell me about you and medicine,’ he said, and waited.

  There was a long silence. It stretched on and on. She wasn’t going to answer him, he thought, but then…

  ‘I decided it was the only way,’ she told him. She was leaning against the bench, her hands clenching and reclenching at her sides. He felt an almost overwhelming urge to walk forward and take those clenching hands in his, but he didn’t. There was a look on her face that told him she’d run a mile.

  ‘From the time I was little, I was taught that medicine was the answer,’ she said dully. ‘My mother said Grandpa could look after me because he was a doctor. She couldn’t look after me but Grandpa could. So I figured the way I could look after us was to be a doctor, too. Maybe I was naïve. But Grandpa… He kept saying Mum could have been a success. She could have been a doctor. It was like all our problems wouldn’t exist if only she’d studied medicine. Stupid, isn’t it? But it was something I held onto through the whole nightmare of childhood. When I was with Grandpa and I was miserable, I read his textbooks. When I went into foster care, I studied and studied. If I could just get to be a doctor, I thought, it’d solve all our problems. I could take care of my mother like no one ever had. I could take care of both of us.’

  ‘But…it didn’t work?’

  ‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘Of course it didn’t. It was a child’s dream. It was my grandfather’s horrid legacy and it backfired.’

  ‘What went wrong?’

  ‘Mum came to live with me,’ she said drearily, as if it was old history that had long lost interest through retelling. ‘Yeah, I was a hot-shot medical intern. I worked hard and I earned more than enough to keep us both and it was all supposed to be good. But I couldn’t get close to her. She’d look at me like she was seeing something else. She sat in my gorgeous apartment, day after day, and she did nothing. She just sat. Like she was already dead. And then…’

  She faltered, but somehow she forced herself to go on.

  ‘I passed my obstetric exam,’ she told him. ‘By that time I was starting to treat her as part of the furniture. I was hardly trying to reach her any more. Anyway, the night of my exam results, I came home jubilant, bringing champagne and lobster and chocolates. The guy I was dating came with me. He was a neurosurgeon and I was an obstetrician. Two fantastic success stories. Still Mum just sat there. Just…looking. And that night…’ Her voice hushed almost to a whisper. ‘That night she attempted suicide.’

  ‘Ally…’ He made a move toward her but she flinched. As if she was afraid. He stilled. He mustn’t push. He mustn’t. This was far too important.

  ‘She left a note.’ Ally swallowed and stared down at her hands. ‘She said that I had a life now, just like Grandpa’s, and she was proud of me. But my life had nothing to do with her. Nothing had anything to do with her. I was a success and I didn’t need her. I’d never needed her. She’d stuffed everything.’

  ‘Hell, Ally.’

  ‘I didn’t know what to do,’ she whispered. ‘All the reasons I’d done medicine… Suddenly they didn’t mean anything. She took an overdose of aspirin-hardly an inspired choice for a suicide. She went into kidney failure and for a week I thought I’d lost her. My boyfriend told me if she lived then I should walk away. Get her committed back to that awful place she’d been in. It would have been so easy. But I sat through that awful week and I thought of all the people who’d walked away from her in the past. And I couldn’t.’

  ‘Of course you couldn’t,’ he said gently, and she flashed a suspicious look at him as if she thought he was humouring a child. But she continued, her voice full of remembered pain.

  ‘Anyway… One of the nurses in the birth unit I was working in was a trained massage therapist,’ she told him. ‘I used to watch her rubbing the babies and massaging the mothers who were traumatised by the births and couldn’t sleep. Liselle did her massages in her own time, but she loved doing them and so did the mothers and babies. When I’d been sitting in Intensive Care for three days, waiting to see if Mum would live, Liselle came to see me. I was exhausted past reason. So she just sat there, and she rubbed my hands and my shoulders and I felt myself relax. It gave me a tiny time out, but I so needed it. It was like a window out of a nightmare. And then I went in and I gently massaged Mum’s face and neck-and she opened her eyes and she smiled at me. It was the best moment.’

  ‘But…’ He was trying to understand. ‘Your medicine…’

  ‘My medicine wasn’t as important as my mother,’ she told him. ‘I took myself out and bought a massage book and I sat with her and I tried to reach her through touch. All the pills she was taking were useless. Touch reached her when nothing else would.’

  ‘Medicine-’

  ‘Oh, medicine works,’ she told him, with a flash of something that might almost be humour. ‘I’m not saying you’re not needed, Dr Rochester. There’s not a lot of call for massage when you’re treating squashed fingers or obstructed labour. But for me, for now, massage works. Over the last couple of years I’ve sold everything I could to keep us afloat, and I’ve been back to college, learning massage as a professional.’ She smiled then, a faint half-smile that was suddenly almost embarrassed.

  ‘This time it was different,’ she told him. ‘It was something I could talk to my mother about. I came home every night and we discussed what was happening. I practised on her. Do you know how good that felt? It was wonderful. And the miracle is that she started learning, too. Just a little. Slowly. I practised on her and she practised on me. And by the time I qualified as a full remedial therapist, she had a certificate as well. She’s a relaxation masseuse. Qualified. It may not seem very much to you, but I can’t tell you…’ Her voice broke. ‘I can’t tell you…’

  She didn’t have to tell him anything. He gazed at her face, and he saw a mixed-up combination of happiness and uncertainty and hope. Hope for a future she was working desperately hard to embrace.

  No. She didn’t need to tell him anything, he thought. He already knew.

  He was falling in love.

  Wrong.

  He’d fallen in love.

  When had it happened? He didn’t know. He only knew that it had.

  After Rachel had died, he’d thought it could never happen again-and maybe it hadn’t. Because what he was feeling for Ally was a far, far different thing than the emotions he’d felt for Rachel.

  Different but the same?

  Two wonderful women. Two wonderful loves.

  One who’d died six long years ago, and one who was gloriously, wonderfully alive.

  And this was Ally. Ally, who’d pitted herself against the world and who was still fighting. Who stood there looking
bereft and defiant and filthy and workworn and exhausted-and the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. The most beautiful woman in the world.

  Ally.

  What he really wanted to do was to walk forward and take her into his arms. Right now. The sensation was almost overpowering and he had to physically haul himself back. She wasn’t ready. He knew she wasn’t ready.

  ‘How’s your mother now?’ he asked, carefully, as if he might break something infinitely precious.

  ‘She’s with friends. But she’s happy. She’s cut right back on her medication. She smiles. She’s cooking a little. She’s seeing massage clients.’

  ‘My friend told me that she’s changed unbelievably.’

  ‘Your friend?’

  ‘Harry Rubenstein at Lawry Hospital.’

  Her eyes lit. ‘You talked to Harry?’

  ‘Harry’s a friend from way back. I tracked your mum through the institution records and they said she’d been discharged into Harry’s care.’

  ‘Harry’s been wonderful,’ she told him. ‘It was Harry who suggested we might come back here. My mother was happy here once, and Harry thought it might help her even more.’

  ‘Did Harry advise you to give up medicine?’ he asked incredulously, and she shook her head.

  ‘Of course he didn’t. But I figured it out for myself. Like someone slapping you over the face with a wet fish-finally you get the obvious. Sure, make my mother better by recreating my grandfather. By flaunting what she could have been in her face. I don’t think so.’

  ‘You’re never your grandfather.’

  ‘I tried to be.’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, that’s my story. It’s why I’m here. My mother’s being cared for by friends for the first few weeks while I get myself settled.’

  ‘Until you can offer your mother stability again.’

  ‘Harry told you that?’ Her anger flashed out. ‘He takes a lot on himself.’

  ‘He’s no longer your mother’s treating psychiatrist,’ Darcy said gently. ‘But he cares about you both. Deeply. And I don’t blame him.’ He hesitated. ‘Can we go somewhere to talk?’