‘I caught the bus.’ Then, at Ally’s increased look of astonishment, she explained some more. ‘I read the papers this morning.’
‘You read about Jerry’s arrest.’
‘I certainly did. They finally have him behind bars.’
Ally hesitated. Seventeen years ago, when Ally had gone to the police and had Jerry arrested, her mother had disintegrated.
‘You don’t mind?’
‘Of course I don’t mind.’ Her mother was still smiling. ‘You’re doing what I should have done when you were four years old but I didn’t have the courage. I still thought I loved your father.’
‘But…’
‘Yeah, I collapsed last time,’ she said. ‘I’d made such stupid decisions. I’d lost so much. I was a different person then. But not now, Ally.’ She sighed, held out her hands for Ally to help pull her to her feet and then hugged her. ‘It’s only taken me thirty years to figure out that I can get over Jerry-that damage can be cured.’
‘Mum?’ Ally hugged her back, then pulled away to stare at her as if she didn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘How…how did you hear?’
‘I told you. I read the papers. And then I was massaging Esther Hardy this morning and we talked about it. Esther heard an in-depth radio interview with a Sergeant Matheson. She knew everything.’
‘Yeah?’ Ally glanced at her mother with caution. She’d never heard her like this. Lit up. Excited. She moved across to the sink and filled the kettle. Buying herself some thinking time. ‘So what did Esther say?’
‘She said that Jerry had been arrested here, and there were children who were really ill. She said there are arrest warrants out for him from everywhere. And she also said there’s a whole community of people here that he’s been controlling. Apparently one of the kids almost died and there’s been a death in the past.’
‘So you decided to come.’
‘Esther got me thinking,’ she said, and she prepared coffee mugs. For Ally’s normally apathetic mother, preparing mugs was a pretty astounding thing to happen all by itself. ‘Did you know Esther was deaf for thirty years?’
Ally frowned. The apartment they’d had in Melbourne was one of eight and the neighbours were friendly. During the last two years as they’d practised their massage, almost every one of their neighbours had volunteered to be massage guineapigs. Esther, especially, loved their massages. But until now she’d been quiet and not forthcoming about herself at all.
‘I didn’t know she’d been deaf.’
‘She has one of those new cochlear implants,’ her mother said. ‘She’s had it in for the last three years and she said it’s like her life just started again. When she was sixty she started to hear again. Can you believe that?’
Cochlear implants were amazing, Ally knew. But where was this going?
‘Anyway, I thought,’ Elizabeth told her, reaching over for the kettle which Ally had forgotten to switch on, ‘that if Esther could be brave enough to start again at sixty, surely I could do the same at forty-five. You know what Esther does now? She teaches at the deaf school. She teaches sign language to parents of kids who are deaf. She makes bridges, Ally.’
‘Um… That’s great.’
‘Yeah, but I thought it’s what I could do,’ her mother said, in a tone she’d have used if Ally was slightly stupid. Which maybe she was. ‘All these people Jerry’s hurt… Maybe I could talk to them. Maybe I could even teach them a bit of massage. Maybe I could help.’ She gave Ally the beginnings of an excited smile. ‘You and I have created ourselves a life. Maybe I could show them that it’s possible for them to do it, too.’
Maybe it was possible.
Ally lay and stared at the ceiling. By her side her mother was deeply asleep, worn out by the day’s excitement. And exertions.
‘How did you get in?’ Ally had asked her, and her mother had actually giggled.
‘I can get into every single building in this town. Remember, this is where I grew up. I shinnied up the oak. Someone I know taught me to pick locks and I climbed in the window.’
‘Mum!’
‘I have all sorts of useful skills,’ her mother said with mock primness. ‘Now it’s time for me to start using them.’
So her mother was here. Her mother was excited. Her mother was really, really pleased to be back in the town where she’d been born.
And in the morning…
In the morning her mother would meet Darcy.
Ally stared up into the darkness and tried to figure out what on earth was going to happen. She stared up into the darkness some more.
And she kept on staring.
And then the phone rang.
It was well after midnight. If she’d been alone maybe she wouldn’t have answered it, but Elizabeth stirred and Ally grabbed the receiver before it woke her mother.
‘Ally?’
‘Darcy.’
‘That’s the one,’ he said, and his voice was almost cheerful. ‘I was hoping you’d guess. Doctors get patients calling at midnight, but massage therapists don’t much, hey?’
‘What are you doing, ringing me here?’
‘Where else would I ring you?’
‘Go away.’
‘I’m not going to go away, Ally,’ he told her, and his voice became all at once serious. ‘I know I rushed you.’
‘No.’
‘Yeah, I did,’ he said ruefully. ‘Telling you I loved you. The thing is that I’d just figured it out for myself and I got all excited.’
‘Well, get unexcited. It’s not going to happen.’
‘It already has happened. I love you. And the way you responded… Hell, Ally, you’re feeling it, too.’
‘I’m not feeling anything,’ she snapped, and there was desperation in her voice. ‘I can’t.’
‘You can.’
‘My mother’s here.’
There was a moment’s silence. ‘Elizabeth’s here?’
‘She caught the bus. She climbed up the oak tree and picked the lock of my window.’
He whistled. ‘Well, well. Bully for Elizabeth.’ He thought about it for a moment. ‘So she’s started saving herself, then. That’ll take a load off your shoulders.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘No.’ He hesitated. ‘Or maybe I do. You’re so afraid of the past.’
‘I’m not afraid of the past,’ she managed. ‘I’m afraid of the future.’
‘Now, that’s just silly,’ he said reasonably. ‘You don’t even know what the future holds. Except…me?’
He broke off on a crazy note of pathos, appeal and laughter, and it was all she could do not to slam the phone down. She should slam the phone down.
Why didn’t she slam the phone down?
‘We’ll leave,’ she whispered.
‘Why would you leave? You’ve only just got here.’
‘My mother… How do you suppose she’d feel if I fell in love with the local doctor? If I moved into my grandfather’s house, made toast on my grandfather’s wood stove…’
‘Patted my dogs. Rocked on your grandmother’s chair. Maybe, if you wanted…maybe even had our children?’
Had our children.
The words made her lose what little breath she had left. She was so shocked she held the receiver away from her and stared at it as if she was holding a scorpion.
Why didn’t she hang up?
But Darcy was still talking.
‘Ally, are you sure this is all about your mother?’
‘What?’ She replaced the receiver at her ear and put her spare hand up to rake her hair, distracted beyond belief.
‘Is it about you?’ he was asking.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ But maybe she did. She could almost hear the smile in his voice and she knew that if he was near, he’d be laughing. And maybe reaching to touch her.
‘I love you, Ally,’ he said softly. ‘I love you. But, unlike you, I know what love is.’
‘I-’
‘I loved Rachel,’ he said, overriding her interruption, and his voice was urgent. ‘I loved her, Ally. We were part of each other. And when she died, part of me died, too. It hurt like hell.’
‘I’m sorry, but-’
‘The thing is,’ he said, almost apologetically, ‘that all you’re seeing is the hurt. The men in your life-your grandfather, your father and Jerry-they’re a hell of a bunch. They’ve let you down over and over. The townspeople here didn’t protect you. Your mother wasn’t able to. So you’ve built yourself this cocoon. If you love, then you get hurt.’
‘Oh, please,’ she whispered, staring down at her sleeping mother. ‘What’s with the psychoanalysis?’
‘I did it as a minor during med,’ he said, suddenly cheerful. ‘I knew it’d come in handy some day, and what do you know? It has.’
‘I’m not your patient.’
‘No,’ he said, and his voice was serious again. ‘You’re my love. You’re my Ally. You’re a wonderful doctor and a wonderful massage therapist and a wonderful daughter and karate expert and gun-blazer and toast-maker and floor-scrubber. But most of all you’re you. I love you, Ally. Whatever you are. Whatever you do. If anything happens to you, I’ll hurt like hell. If you hurt then I hurt and I’m exposed, come what may. Because I’ve made that commitment.’
‘You’re crazy.’
‘I’m not crazy,’ he said, ‘because I know what’s on the other side of loving. Sure, love can hurt, so much you almost break apart. But without love I’m nothing. Ally, these last six years without Rachel have been lonely, but they would have been so much worse-so much emptier-if I’d never loved Rachel at all. Rachel’s love is part of me. It’s part of who I am and it’s part of why I can love again. Her love for me was a gift, but because I’ve been hurt I’m not about to walk away from love again. Love’s the most precious thing. And now… tonight…’
His voice softened. ‘Well, that’s all I rang to tell you. That I’m sure I’m right. I’ve fallen in love with you and you have that love whether you want it or not. Come what may. For ever. Don’t use your mother as a shield, Ally. Let’s work it out. Let us work it out. Everyone. You, your mother, me, the people of this town… You’re not on your own any more. You’ve come home to Tambrine Creek. You’ve come home. This is your home, Ally. Now and for ever.’
And before she could say a word-if she could have thought of a word to say, which she couldn’t-the receiver went dead.
She was standing in the middle of the darkened room by herself.
‘It’s not true,’ she whispered. ‘None of it’s true.’
He loved her. The thought was insidious in its sweetness. If she could just take that step forward…
She wasn’t alone.
Darcy was right. She wasn’t alone. Her mother was asleep on the mattress on the floor. And outside, somewhere, was Darcy.
Darcy.
Her love?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BY THE time she fell into an uneasy doze it must have been past three, and when she woke the clock said eight-thirty.
Her mother was cooking bacon. The smell was all around the little room and Ally stared up in astonishment. Then she stared at the clock. She yelped.
‘Help!’ What had happened to her alarm? ‘I have clients booked at nine.’
‘I know,’ her mother said serenely. ‘I looked at your appointment book. It’s almost full.’ She beamed down at her daughter. ‘You’ve done really well.’
Ally blinked. This was so unlike her mother that she could hardly believe it.
‘I’ll cancel them,’ she said, and Elizabeth shook her head.
‘Why should you? You have half an hour. I’ve cooked breakfast. Eat, shower, massage. In that order. There’s no problem.’
‘But you-’
‘I have things to do, too,’ she said serenely. ‘If you’ll tell me where Jerry’s people are…’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘Why should you come with me?’ Elizabeth asked, as if such an action was ridiculous.
‘I could introduce-’
‘I’ll introduce myself. Now, one egg or two?’
Eggs. She had eggs, thanks to Darcy. Ally’s thoughts were wildly tangential and they swung now to Darcy. Darcy had brought far too much breakfast for one morning.
Darcy loved her?
‘Um…one.’
‘You know, if you intend to start work at a reasonable hour, maybe you shouldn’t stay on the telephone at all hours,’ Elizabeth said, and Ally stared. She’d heard?
‘I’m asking no questions,’ her mother said, and a tiny smile hovered around the corners of her mouth. ‘Not a question at all. But that’s why I turned off the alarm. You had to sleep some time. And…did you know, when I tried to wake you just now, you called me Darcy?’
Work started dead on nine.
This was why she’d come, Ally reminded herself as she welcomed her first client. Setting up as a massage therapist anywhere but here would have entailed a long wait while the locals came to trust her. Here there was curiosity and good-will-and eagerness to beat neighbours in saying they’d been to have a massage with ‘our Ally’.
Our Ally.
She couldn’t be our Ally, she thought, and her tangential thoughts were becoming desperate. Not if it involved medicine. Medicine had propelled her mother to suicide. How could she go back and risk that again?
‘Can you give my neck a bit of an extra rub?’ Doris Kerr was her first client for the morning. She’d come in for her own massage and was practically purring on the table. ‘Don’t bother with my legs. Legs are good but, oh, my neck…’
‘You’ve got real tension knots,’ Ally told her, kneading gently through the layers of tight muscles. ‘You said you damaged a disc?’
‘I fell over my dog,’ Doris told her. ‘Ten years back. We didn’t have a doctor here then and I was in such trouble. I lay in bed for a week before my husband finally took me to the city. Then they put me in the orthopaedic ward. I lay in traction for three weeks with all these people who’d had car crashes or diving injuries or skiing accidents. Everyone kept asking what I’d done and I’d fallen over the dog. My poodle! Talk about humiliating.’
‘I’ve seen people in real trouble with damaged discs after they sneezed too hard,’ Ally told her, and Doris sighed again and sank into the kneading process with pleasure.
‘That’s what Dr Rochester said. He’s been so comforting. For a while I travelled up to Sydney to see a physiotherapist, but now…’
‘There are many things physiotherapists can do that I can’t,’ Ally told her.
‘Yes, dear, that’s what Dr Rochester told me when I asked if I should come to you.’
‘Did he?’ Ally asked slowly, and she had to force herself not to interrupt the gentle rhythm of her kneading.
‘But he still said I should come,’ she told her. ‘He said it’d do my neck good to get the muscles warmed and mobile. I do tend to get a stiff neck. If it hurts then I don’t move it, and it makes it worse.’
‘He said I could help?’
‘Well, of course he did,’ Doris told her, as if the suggestion that he wouldn’t have was astonishing. ‘I mean, you’re two professionals, aren’t you? If you can’t support each other, who can?’ She wiggled on the table and gave another sigh of pleasure. ‘Oh, my dear, that feels so good. Now…Henry says your mother arrived on the bus last night. Is that right?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, isn’t that just perfect?’ Doris gave another happy wiggle. ‘And they’re saying you can have Elspeth’s wee house, and then…’ She stilled as if wondering whether she dared say something and then decided to go ahead anyway. ‘They’re also saying Dr Rochester is sweet on you. Already. Now, wouldn’t that be something? If you could all live happily ever after.’
More of the same.
Followed by more of the same and more of the same.
The locals knew everything.
Betty must have over
heard their conversation back at the refuge last night, Ally decided, and Betty had talked. As the morning wore on, more of her clients disclosed more about what was happening until she was almost ready to scream.
And then the phone rang.
While she’d been massaging she’d turned her phone over to the answering-machine. Now it was almost one and she’d finished for the morning. She washed the oil from her hands, listened to her messages and was just about to turn the machine back on so she could find some lunch-and find her mother!-when it rang.
‘Ally.’
It was Elizabeth, and with that first word Ally knew something was dreadfully wrong.
‘Mum…’
‘You need to go to the police station.’ Her mother was almost incoherent, and without thinking Ally switched into doctor mode. How to get information from someone who was panicking.
‘Three deep breaths,’ she ordered. ‘Now.’
‘I-’
‘Breathe. Calm yourself down and then talk to me.’
There was a tiny hesitation and Ally could hear the breaths being taken. ‘Sorry.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘It’s Jerry.’
‘Jerry?’
‘Kevin stabbed him.’
Ally was already shoving her feet into her outside shoes and was reaching for her keys with her spare hand. Now she paused, shocked into stillness. ‘But Kevin’s in hospital. Jerry’s in jail.’
‘That’s just it,’ he mother wailed. ‘We’re at the refuge. Dr Rochester was here. Ally, he’s so nice. But someone just ran in from the police station next door. The policeman’s wife. She’s still here. She’s so upset. She rang the hospital and they said the doctor was here and she just ran.’
This wasn’t making sense.
‘Is Jerry dead?’ Ally demanded, and it was a learned shock tactic that worked.
‘I don’t know,’ her mother whispered.
‘So what’s happened?’
‘Kevin’s supposed to be going by ambulance to Melbourne this afternoon.’
‘I know that.’
‘Yeah.’ Her mother choked and Ally could hear the sound of a woman sobbing in the background. ‘I… Anyway, while Dr Rochester was here looking after the kids, Kevin apparently headed over to the jail and said he desperately wanted to say goodbye to Jerry. The sergeant was out, but his wife let him into the cells. Just…to stand on the other side of the bars, she said. But as soon as Kevin got close he produced a knife and he started stabbing. Ally, the policeman’s wife says Jerry’s bleeding to death. Dr Rochester’s gone to help, but by the sound of it he’s got more than one stab wound. You have to go, too. You have to do something.’
The Doctor’s Special Touch Page 16
