A Proposal Worth Waiting For

by Lilian Darcy

  ‘Getting there. They’ve set the fracture but she’s still in hospital. Anna’s still negotiating with her sisters about them coming down. I don’t want to ask her opinion on the beach bonfire, I just want him to be there. I’m in a rebellious mood, or something. He’s having such a great time here. And so am I.’

  ‘Is he nagging you about it?’

  ‘I wish! No, just one tentative little question over breakfast. Am I going, Dad? But every time the subject comes up, I can see his ears pricking and his agitation rising.’

  ‘Smoke is a very obvious trigger for most asthmatics,’ Miranda said slowly. She had the open plastic bottle of sun-screen still in her hand, but Nick’s question had distracted her from the task of putting it on. Now she felt another prickle of burning on her shoulders and poured some of the white cream into her palm. It was warm and runny from the sun’s heat shining on her beach bag.

  ‘If there’s a steady breeze, I can keep him away from the smoke,’ Nick said. ‘But if the air is still, or the wind keeps changing direction, it’d be tougher.’

  ‘In any case, you’d have to be pretty careful.’

  ‘I would. As careful as I possibly could be without cramping Josh’s style. Hell, I’m not sure if the kid even has a style, with the way—’ He stopped, and Miranda could guess what he’d been about to say.

  With the way he spent so much time wrapped in cotton wool.

  ‘He has a style, Nick,’ she said. ‘Believe it or not, I’ve actually seen him being quite naughty in hospital a couple of times.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He grinned, pleased. ‘Like…how naughty?’

  ‘Well, he had several other kids collapsing in giggles both times, but we didn’t need to file an incident report or press criminal charges or anything.’

  ‘That’s…that’s really good to know, actually.’ He gave another grin.

  Miranda looked at him, letting her understanding and all the resurgent attraction she’d begun to feel show way too clearly in her face, despite her best intentions. Where was her resolve? Totally elbowed aside by her wilful heart, that was where. Holding back went so much against her nature.

  In a moment of insight she saw that she and Ian could never have made a success of their relationship, even if he’d asked her to go to New Zealand with him, when his career had taken him there three years into their relationship, and even if she’d said yes. She’d been chiding herself lately about holding back from him in order to protect herself, but in reality she hadn’t loved him with real depth—not the depth she was capable of.

  That was why it hadn’t worked. That was the only reason it had even been possible for her to hold back in the first place. If she’d really loved him, holding back would have been unthinkable, she’d have been dragged helplessly onward by her heart.

  Where did that leave her now?

  Nick’s body had dried after his swim, leaving a residue of fine salt against his darkening holiday tan. He was sitting too close, and he was just plain gorgeous. She didn’t want to be within reach of his body, within sight of the silky hairs on his forearms and the salt on his lips.

  Lazily he asked her, ‘Want some help with that?’ He gestured at the cream Miranda had just smeared on her shoulder. It was awkward trying to reach around and hard to know if she was covering all the right places, so she’d given up for the moment, while Nick was talking to her.

  ‘Um, OK,’ she said, wondering about the implications of a woman letting a man put sunscreen on her naked back.

  And about the implications of a man asking to.

  But they were both more concerned, right now, with the issue of Josh and the bonfire night.

  Nick moved to sit behind her. ‘I think what I want,’ he said slowly, as his hand made creamy circles on her skin, ‘is your permission as Josh’s doctor for me to at least bring him down here tonight, rather than exiling ourselves to the dining room without even trying. And if you have the slightest doubt about the wind direction or the intensity of the smoke or the way I’m handling it, anything, I want you to tell me very bluntly to take him away.’

  ‘You’re a doctor yourself, Nick.’

  ‘I’m a bloody father first!’

  The heel of his hand pushed against her spine in unconscious emphasis. He took the sunscreen bottle from her as if he almost hadn’t noticed he was doing it, and Miranda heard a squelching sound as he squirted more cream into his hand.

  ‘I don’t trust my own instincts with Josh’s asthma.’

  ‘You should, Nick. So far this week you’ve done everything right.’

  ‘Even this thing about the bonfire?’ He rubbed the sun-screen into her shoulders and down the backs of her arms.

  She could smell the beachy fragrance of it, taking her back through a lifetime of holidays by the water, with her parents sitting sedately beneath umbrellas on folding chairs and Miranda herself soon finding a group of other kids to join in with. She remembered how wistfully she’d wished for the ready-made playmates that siblings had in each other. Josh seemed to be reacting the same way this week.

  ‘You haven’t given him an answer yet,’ she told Nick. ‘You’ve shared your concerns with me, as his doctor, which was the right first step.’

  ‘Not just as a doctor,’ he said. His hands stopped moving but didn’t leave her skin. His touch on her shoulders was cooler than the sun and heavy with meaning. ‘More than that. As someone I trust and want to get to—’

  She half turned. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘You’re not even going to let me finish?’

  ‘You’re…you’re confusing me with this.’

  His voice dropped lower. ‘I thought I was getting increasingly clear.’

  ‘I mean it, Nick, just don’t. I don’t want it. I can’t handle it.’

  She played with those kids on the beach like their brand-new sister, but then it came time to leave and they went off in a big family group, still laughing and talking, while she was alone with Mum and Dad…

  Nick took his hands away, pushed his sunglasses up into his hair and they looked at each other. As he didn’t speak, she made the classic mistake of jumping in to fill the gap, her heart right out there on view.

  Not particularly nice about it either.

  ‘You never phoned. We had the most wonderful night of my life. We discovered that we knew each other so well. Or that’s what I thought. I told you I loved you! And I wasn’t the only one who said those words. I really thought you meant them. I walked on air for about twenty-four hours before the first doubt kicked in. I really thought you’d be bursting to pick up the phone. And then you just never did. I even—why am I telling you this?—asked around, in case you’d had some crisis. I was all ready to rush to your hospital bedside, or hop on a plane, or something.’

  ‘Miranda—’

  ‘But, no, you were still in town. You’d taken a job in a restaurant while we waited for our results. And it’s ten years later, but you’re putting sunscreen on my back and telling me I’m not just your son’s doctor, and the fact that you never phoned does actually still matter, if you’re going to start saying things like that, and doing things like that.’

  ‘I’m not good at talking about this stuff.’ It came out as a growl. ‘The sunscreen’s clear enough, isn’t it?’ His gaze flicked to her mouth and the look almost felt like a kiss.

  ‘The sunscreen is very, very superficial. And wouldn’t I be a fool to trust someone who once hurt me so much?’

  She never learned her lesson about the kids on the beach. Day after day, she found friends to play with—sometimes the same ones, sometimes a new group—and every time they said a cheery goodbye—Maybe we’ll see you tomorrow—and forgot about her as soon as they went home.

  ‘You wanted me to phone? Even after everything I’d said?’

  ‘Because of everything you’d said! What had you said? Something terrible? No! You’d shown me your heart!’ Far too late, she tried to make light of it. ‘Don’t you know what that does to a woman?’<
br />
  ‘I thought you’d run a mile.’

  ‘Because you showed that you were human?’

  ‘Human is often a euphemism for weak, in my experience,’ he drawled.

  She lowered her voice. Even humour seemed like too much of a game. ‘That’s not what I saw in you that night, Nick. It’s what I saw in myself, though, after you didn’t phone. I lost sleep over it for months, if you want the truth. It took me eighteen months to find someone new, and then that didn’t work either, even though we were together for six years.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now? In Melbourne? No one.’ In the two and a half years since she and Ian had broken up, she’d been out with a few men, a few times, but nothing had gone very far.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Irrelevant! Nick, if I have a holiday fling over these next two weeks, I’m sorry, but it’s not going to be with you.’ She sounded more emphatic about it than she felt.

  He flinched. ‘That’s telling it straight, I guess.’

  ‘You’d prefer mixed signals?’

  ‘No, but the not with you part is conjuring up some pictures I don’t want to think about.’

  She closed her eyes, because she didn’t want to see his face. ‘I think that’s your problem, not mine,’ she said, and was pretty sure that she was lying.

  Silence.

  Opening her eyes, she discovered he was looking at Josh, who’d left the other kids and was coming over to speak to his dad. His breathing had been nice and clear since yesterday morning, and his way of relating to his father was growing perceptibly more comfortable and natural. He even smiled as he said, ‘Come and see my castle, Dad.’

  She and Nick should both be feeling great, Miranda thought, and yet they weren’t. There was an awkwardness now, a sense of disappointment in the air as real as the smell of the sunscreen.

  ‘I need to cool off,’ she said, and stood up ready to go into the water.

  They avoided each other for the rest of the afternoon. Miranda made an informal round of her patients, listened to several chests and tweaked some medication. She ate the barbecue dinner with the group in the dining room to swell their numbers because, despite the catering staff’s best efforts, the kids knew that the beach bonfire was where the action would be tonight.

  They were just finishing their meal when Nick appeared in the open doorway and came straight up to Miranda. ‘Look, I think these kids could come down,’ he said. ‘The fire is just a big heap of glowing coals now. It’s died right down, and there’s no smoke. Josh’s chest sounds perfectly clear. I really can’t see that they’d have any problems. And we’re going to toast marshmallows for dipping in chocolate sauce.’

  ‘We’ll try it, then,’ Miranda agreed.

  A couple of the younger kids and their parents chose to go back to their cabins, because one or two heads were practically falling onto the table with fatigue, but the rest of the dining-room group were eager to join the party.

  It was a fantastic sight as they reached the beach. Night had fallen with its usual tropical speed and the pit of coals glowed in the middle of the sand. Miranda could still smell sausages and onions. An older man who seemed to be called Grubby was loading an electric beach buggy with barbecue equipment and coolers of leftovers, while someone else crouched over a wire rack set on the edge of the coals, stirring the chocolate sauce in a thick pot. Its rich aroma soon drowned out the more down-to-earth barbecue smells.

  ‘Charles has turned this into a major event,’ said Susie, coming up to Miranda. She was officially off duty and looked relaxed in cool tropical colours that set off her blonde hair. ‘I’m sure there are people here that you don’t know…’

  ‘There’s hardly anyone I do know!’

  ‘I’ll run through a few of them.’ Susie began a dizzying series of potted biographies and introductions on the hop. ‘That’s Grace Blake. Oh, right, you do know her, from the medical centre. That’s her husband Harry, our local arm of the law, helping Grubby load the barbecue grill. This is Emily and her husband Mike, they’re with the hospital on the mainland.’

  ‘Hi, Emily, hi, Mike.’

  ‘And Gina and Cal, too, over there, both doctors, recently married, and that’s their little boy, CJ, playing with Josh. Gina’s our heart specialist and we’re very lucky to have her. There was a bit of a blip in their past, which brought CJ into the picture well before they worked out what they wanted with each other. Oh, and Luke Bresciano and Janey Stafford. Janey blew in with the cyclone and never left. People seem to do that kind of thing around here. Me, I’m supposed to be having a night off and doing my grocery shopping at home on the mainland, but Beth has—’ She broke off. ‘You know Beth.’

  ‘Dr Stuart. From the medical centre.’

  ‘Of course you know Beth. She offered me her spare bed in the cabin for tonight, and this sounded like much more fun.’

  Someone grabbed Susie’s attention at that moment, leaving Miranda trying to fix at least a couple of those Crocodile Creek names and relationships in her head. Which one was Janey again? Which one was Cal? She soon gave up on keeping everyone straight.

  She saw Nick keeping a close eye on Josh, chocolate sauce getting dripped on the sand from the squishy caramelised marshmallows, Stella actually laughing as she put a marshmallow into her mouth, and one of Benita’s cancer kids being carried sleepily off to bed. Lauren arrived with her parents from their five-star-hotel meal. She watched the scene from her wheelchair, her expression disdainful…then she turned to her parents and asked if she could join in.

  Not quite clear about her own role, Miranda hung back a little.

  Don’t get too close to the kids on the beach, because they’ll soon be gone, no matter how much you want to play…

  Watching Nick again, and remembering what he’d said about talking—that he wasn’t good at it—she wondered if the two of them had more issues in that area than she’d realised. Odd, contradictory things in common. Not knowing how much it was safe to give. Holding back at the wrong times. They both had uneasy relationships with their own passionate hearts.

  She and Ian had met through medicine. They’d always struggled for time together due to their long hours of specialised training, and had spent the final three years of their six-year relationship an ocean apart.

  Not a huge ocean, just the Tasman Sea because he’d gone to work in New Zealand on what was supposed to be a one-year appointment. But it had been extended, then extended again. Miranda had flown across whenever she could, or Ian had flown to Melbourne, but when he’d finally announced that he’d accepted the position in Christchurch on a permanent basis…

  She’d waited for him to ask her to come with him, because she’d had a rule with Ian all along. Don’t be the first one to give. Don’t be the first one to say I love you. Play the cards-to-your-chest game, because you can get hurt if you don’t.

  He hadn’t asked.

  ‘So…’ he’d said instead, vaguely, and they’d looked at each other and just known without question that it was over. A few more minutes of conversation had sealed the fact.

  Why am I thinking about Ian so much this week?

  Because she couldn’t help watching Nick, even though she knew she shouldn’t. To him, she’d given her whole heart without question, and maybe she’d never really managed to grab all of it back again…

  The frisbee game was in full swing. Harry and Grubby shooed everyone away from the dying coals and shovelled sand over the fire, ending up with a big, warm heap that they warned wouldn’t be safe to go near for hours yet. ‘The tide’ll come in, cool it down and wash it away.’

  Charles sat in his wheelchair with a mobile phone pressed to his ear, struggling to keep out the beach noise so he could manage a conversation. ‘I wouldn’t be a very good one,’ Miranda heard him say, although so far the impression she had from people like Beth and Susie was that, despite the wheelchair, he was good at almost everything.

  His phone call seemed to launch a whole concert
of mobile phone ringtones. The island had good coverage from a couple of discreetly placed towers. Stella had received a text message. Lauren was talking into her phone. ‘There’s no one cool. Well, maybe one guy…’ Susie grabbed hers from her pocket as it began to ring, and when she heard the voice at the other end, her face lit up and she went off into the darkness with a hand pressed over her free ear to shut out the noise from the beach.

  But when Miranda went to check on Kathryn Rabey in the medical centre a few minutes later, she found Susie huddled on a bench at the side of the path, in tears which she at once realised she couldn’t hide.

  She dredged up a wobbly smile and waved her on instead. ‘Don’t mind me, Miranda. I’m fine. I’m being very silly.’

  ‘You don’t look fine.’

  ‘How tactful of you to point that out.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m going. I am. Just thought you might want to talk.’

  Once again, was this a case of not knowing when to walk away from the kids playing on the beach? They got on well, she and Susie, but as a friendship, it was very new and very temporary.

  Playing it safe, she began to walk on, but then Susie said, ‘Maybe I should. If you think I’m awful, I can deal with it! So-o-o much easier to talk to near-strangers sometimes than to sisters and best friends!’ She clapped her fingers against her mouth. ‘Oh, the near-stranger thing sounded rude, didn’t it? See, I’m a catty witch.’

  ‘No,’ said Miranda. ‘You’re just upset.’

  ‘No, I’m a catty witch. Sit!’ Susie patted the seat beside her, the way Nick had been patting the seat beside him in the dining room at each meal.

  Miranda sat, then said, ‘So tell me. The phone call wasn’t announcing that you’d won the lottery, I’m guessing.’

  ‘My sister’s pregnant. I told her I was thrilled. And I am. But…’

  ‘Ah…yeah, OK.’ Miranda sighed.

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘You think?’ She made a tick-tock sound with her tongue. ‘I’m single, female, childless and thirty-four.’

  Susie laughed, eyelashes still wet. ‘Well, hon, you got it in one. Not just the clock, though.’