‘Yes, of course,’ Joanne said slowly, raising her glance to the majestic Table Mountain as it towered over the city, and wishing her heart could have been carved out of such indestructible rock. ‘Did he ... did he say anything about ...’
‘About the two of you breaking up?’ Bruce finished for her when she faltered to a halt, and she nodded silently. ‘Just that your marriage had been a mistake he would regret all his life.’
‘Oh,’ she said feebly. What had she expected? she wondered as the hand about her heart became a claw with sharp talons. Their marriage had been a mistake; a mistake he would regret all his life. How he must hate her, she decided unhappily. ‘When does he leave?’
‘He left last night,’ Bruce informed her, his words like a douche of cold water in her face.
‘I ... see.’
‘There’s no need for you to leave Cape Town now, is there?’ Bruce asked after a lengthy pause as he watched the sunlight glinting on her hair and casting shadows beneath her eyes.
‘I’m afraid it’s too late. I accepted a post as theatre Sister at a surgical clinic in a place called Willowmead.’
‘That’s about a hundred and fifty kilometres from here. ’
‘I know,’ she sighed, forcing a smile to her lips, ‘but as soon as I’m able, I’ll buy a small second-hand car, then I can at least come and see you occasionally when I have time off. ’
Bruce accepted this in silence, then, shooing away the pigeons, he leaned towards her across the table. ‘Jo ...
about Daniel. ’
‘Please!’ Her fingers tightened on her handbag. ‘That’s an episode that’s all over and done with.’
‘Not quite,’ Bruce insisted stubbornly. ‘You still love him, don’t you.’
It was a statement, not a query, but with Bruce obviously in such close contact with Daniel, she could not admit the truth.
‘I shall always admire him as a surgeon.’
‘Is that all?’ Bruce asked, and Joanne lowered her lashes to avoid his probing glance.
‘That’s all I’m prepared to say at this moment.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Joanne lowered herself wearily into the chair behind her desk, welcoming the cup of tea her assistant placed before her after the gruelling hours spent in the theatre. Everyone had been unusually tense that morning, from the surgeons down to the junior nurse, and Joanne had found herself in the middle of it all when tempers had become frayed.
‘I wonder when Dr. Ellis’s new partner will arrive,’ Alice Fraser voiced the thought which had been the cause of all the trouble. ‘There’s been such a mystery surrounding this new man that I’m dying to know who he is. ’
‘According to the grapevine he’s already moved into Dr. van Amstel’s old house, so we should know soon enough,’ Joanne replied without particular interest as she studied the theatre list for that day over the rim of her cup and noticed that only one more operation was scheduled for later that afternoon. She glanced at the watch pinned to the front of her spotlessly white uniform, and mentally calculated that she would have enough time to get her log book up to date before returning to the theatre to check that everything was
in readiness.
‘Aren’t you at all curious, Sister Webster?’ Alice asked, envying Joanne her slenderness when she herself was so inclined to be on the plump side: ‘Dr. van Amstel was such an old darling to work for, and the new man might turn out to be a tyrant.’
‘A surgeon becomes a tyrant only when the theatre staff are incompetent,’ Joanne replied coolly. ‘No one can accuse us of incompetence.’
‘Not with you as theatre Sister, they can’t.’
Joanne smiled briefly, but her heavily lashed green eyes remained cool. She was aware of the compliment, but aware also of the curiosity in Alice’s glance which she had no intention of satisfying.
After a little more than a year as theatre Sister at the Willowmead Clinic, Joanne still remained coldly aloof from the other members of the staff, preferring to spend her free time alone in the flat she had acquired so cheaply, reading, or listening to records, and spending the occasional week-end with Bruce in Cape Town. Men seldom featured in her life, yet she never lacked escorts to the functions she unavoidably had to attend, and the few who unwisely wished for a closer relationship were put firmly in their place. Life was far less complicated without a member of the opposite sex in the background, she believed adamantly.
‘Everyone thought Dr. van der Merwe would become Dr. Ellis’s new partner,’ Alice remarked. ‘Including Dr. van der Merwe.’
This much Joanne had deduced from Dr. van der Merwe’s irritability since it became known that a surgeon was coming out from Europe to take Dr. van Amstel’s place. As Dr. van der Merwe had worked so closely with Dr. van Amstel for so many years, it had come as a surprise to everyone to learn that Dr. van Amstel, who had died just recently, should have left it to Dr Ellis to sell his shares in the Clinic without giving Dr. van der Merwe the opportunity to step into his place.
‘Dr. van der Merwe will just have to get used to the idea,’ Joanne replied casually, drawing the log book closer and picking up her pen, but her thoughts lingered on the subject. Dr. Ellis, now in semi-retirement, would naturally choose someone whom he considered capable of taking over from him.
‘I wonder if he’s young or old. ’
Joanne smiled inwardly at Alice’s dreamy speculations, recalling her own curiosity when she was a young student nurse, but that was long before ... She severed the thread of her thoughts instantly, and forced herself to concentrate on the information she was penning in the log book.
Some hours later, after another difficult session in the theatre, Joanne slipped the strap of her bag on to her shoulder and drew the folds of her dark blue cape about her. It was August, and it was still cold in the valley this time of year before the advent of spring.
Tall cypress trees cast long shadows across the well-kept lawns in the late afternoon sun, while the benches beneath the shady oak and chestnut trees were deserted by the patients at this hour of the day. The Clinic, a single-storeyed yellow brick building, had been built on the rise of the mountain that formed part of this valley, and Joanne paused for a moment on her way to the parking area to allow her appreciative glance to dwell on the vineyards stretched out before her further down the valley.
The Willowmead Clinic had been established for patients who needed advanced treatment and surgery to their disfigured, badly scarred bodies, and the beautiful gardens surrounding the Clinic, as well as the valley below, where the vines stood acre upon acre changing colour with the seasons, made an ideal place for them to spend time in during the post-operative period.
The breeze lifted Joanne’s cape and, shivering, she drew it more firmly about her as she made her way hastily towards the small blue Austin parked in the staff parking area. It was a ten-minute drive down to Willowmead itself, and she was in a hurry. She had the week-end off, as well as the Monday, and she intended spending it at a small holiday resort about thirty kilometres further north where she could take a horse and go riding along the mountain pass, or bask lazily in the sun if she chose to.
The engine sprang to life at the first touch of the starter, and a few seconds later she was driving as swiftly as she could along the winding road down to the village where the shops would be closing for the night, and the only activity after dark would be at the local cinema and hotel.
Joanne turned off the main street, and a few blocks further she parked her car in front of an old but well-preserved building which had been altered and transformed into four spacious flats. Hurrying up the steps to the first floor, she unlocked her door and went inside, closing it again quickly to shut out the cold.
It was a more spacious flat than the one she had had in Cape Town, and this time she had not stinted herself with the furnishings. The green velvet of the curtains matched the coverings of the small but comfortable sofa and chairs, and the pale gold carpet was soft beneath her fe
et as she kicked off her shoes to walk on stockinged feet to her room. Dropping her cape and bag on to her bed beside the ready packed suitcase, she turned to face herself in the mirror.
The starched white cap still perched on her head and, raising her hands, she removed it, at the same time extracting the pins from her hair to let it tumble down to her shoulders, healthy and as soft and shiny as silk without the confining pins as she pushed her fingers through it. The face that stared back at her was subtly different now than from the one seen by her colleagues. Golden-brown hair framed her face, softening the lines of her prominent cheekbones with the hollows beneath, and accentuating the vulnerable curve of her perfectly shaped lips. The eyes, too, were unmasked; no longer coldly aloof, but with a definite hint of suffering in their depths.
‘You have a whole week-end ahead of just being yourself,’ she told her image with a slight smile. ‘And it’s going to be heaven!’
After a quick bath she packed the few remaining items she wished to take with her, and a little over an hour after arriving at her flat she was speeding on her way to the fulfilment of the relaxing week-end she had planned for herself. Her week-ends away from Willowmead had become a form of escape; an escape from the woman she had become in her desire to avoid involvements of any nature. Friendships usually led to the exchanging of confidences, and this she was not prepared to do. Her life before she came to Willowmead was private, and concerned no one except herself and ... yes, Daniel. She had awakened many nights with his name on her lips, only to cry herself to sleep again, but that, too, was in the past. She was beginning to forget, she told herself as the lights of her car penetrated the darkness ahead, but she had to clamp down on that little voice inside that reminded her so cruelly of the times her heart had nearly ceased its regular beat at the sight of someone tall, lean and dark.
‘Daniel,’ she whispered his name. How futile the efforts of the mind when the heart was so totally enslaved. Where was he? she wondered. Could he still be in Europe, or had he returned to Cape Town? His name was seldom mentioned between Bruce and herself, but she knew that
Bruce had kept up a correspondence with him since his departure, and it was only with the utmost difficulty that she had refrained from asking for news of Daniel. Bruce never proffered any information either, and her hungry heart had remained unsatisfied.
‘Oh, stop it!’ she told herself fiercely as she turned off the main road and headed towards the mountains. ‘Stop dwelling on a subject that should remain dead and buried in the past.’
Joanne walked into her office on the Tuesday morning and hung her cape and bag on the peg against the wall. The lazy week-end had left her feeling slightly lethargic, but work would soon remedy that, she realised as she glanced at the watch pinned to her uniform. Seven-fifteen. She was a little early, but it would give her the opportunity to look through the list of operations scheduled for the day before Alice reported for duty.
‘Good morning, Sister Webster.’
That voice! It couldn't be, she thought wildly as she swung round to face its owner and, for a few earth-shattering seconds, it felt as though the walls were about to cave in on her before she froze, her years of training coming to her rescue as she found herself staring up into a pair of cold, piercing blue eyes that were as achingly familiar as the tall, lean frame wearing the long white hospital coat. Daniel Grant—the one man who had it in his power to ruin her career and jeopardise her carefully built future at Willowmead if he chose to do so. She had hoped never to see him again, but by some cruel twist of fate he was here at the Clinic, and obviously a member of the staff, judging by his appearance.
The time which had elapsed since their last meeting seemed to fall away as if it had never existed, and she saw again his face, dark with passionate anger, and felt again the touch of his hands, cruel and intent upon punishing.
‘I would like to see the list of scheduled operations,’ he was saying, his voice dragging her back to the present, and, except for the barely noticeable tremor of her hand as she gave him the list, there was nothing to reveal the frightening thoughts which raced through her mind in that terrifying moment of coming face to face with her past. But, to her intense relief, his glance was impersonal, as if he, too, wished to forget what had once occurred.
‘What are you doing here?’ she managed after what seemed an eternity.
He glanced up from his scrutiny of the list, his glance berating as it flicked over her. ‘I work here.’
‘That’s obvious,’ she remarked with touch of sarcasm, ‘but why here?’
‘Why not here?’ His lips twisted into a semblance of a smile that she recalled so well. ‘This is where my kind of surgery is done, and it seemed an obvious choice. ’
‘There are other places,’ she argued in a lowered voice, angered by the treacherous behaviour of her heart.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said with lazy insolence. ‘I liked the sound of the Willowmead Clinic, and what I’ve seen of the surrounding countryside appeals to me. I think I could settle here quite comfortably.’
Joanne caught her breath sharply. ‘Are you—have you taken over from Dr. van Amstel?’
‘Yes, I have ... Sister Webster,’ he added her name derisively.
Footsteps outside the door forced them to discontinue their conversation, and Alice Fraser walked in, her cheerful face brightening even further as she noticed Joanne’s companion.
‘Good morning, Dr. Grant. Have you and Sister Webster
introduced yourselves?’
‘We have,’ Daniel said abruptly, returning the list to Joanne who stood tense and erect as she waited for the blow to fall, but it did not. Daniel afforded Alice one of his brief, all-embracing smiles before inclining his head with polite indifference in Joanne’s direction, and striding from her office.
‘Isn’t he the most gorgeous man you’ve ever seen, Sister Webster?’ Alice wanted to know as she subsided into a chair and clasped her hands to her breast. ‘When he looks at me with those blue eyes of his, my knees turn to water and I’m ready to swoon at his feet!’
Joanne’s eyebrows rose, indicating her irritation. ‘You’d better pull yourself together, Alice. We can’t have you passing out in the theatre each time Dr. Grant looks your way.’
‘Don’t men interest you at all?’ Alice asked incredulously. ‘I mean, take Dr. Grant. He’s the best-looking man ever to cross the threshold of this Clinic. Doesn’t the sight of him make your heart flutter just the teeniest bit?’
‘I can’t say that I’ve noticed,’ Joanne said coldly, denying her heart the opportunity to speak for itself. ‘Let’s get to work. The first operation is scheduled for eight o’clock.’
‘Work!’ said Alice with mock disgust as she rose to her feet. ‘That’s all you ever think of.’
‘That’s all that’s of importance at the moment,’ Joanne smiled briefly. ‘Come on.’
Joanne spent the rest of the day feeling as though she was walking through a minefield. Just one word from Daniel was all that was needed to send the world rocking beneath her feet. There was no earthly reason for him not to speak, and several ethical reasons why he should, but he chose to remain silent, and it was this very silence that she
found so unnerving.
Fortunately she had only to work with him once that morning, but it was a three-hour operation. In his green theatre gown, cap and mask, he could have been anyone, she told herself in an effort to calm her nerves, but as she watched those skilful hands repairing the badly damaged skin tissue of the patient on the table, she became as fascinated as she had always been in the past. The other surgeons were excellent at their jobs, but Daniel reminded her of an artist at work, displaying delicacy and care in his effort to create a masterpiece.
He had her deepest admiration; he would always have that. But nothing more! Not ever again!
It was with a sigh of relief that Joanne allowed the theatre door to swing shut behind her just after five that afternoon, but she felt inexplica
bly tense when she arrived at her flat some time later. She looked about her a little sadly, realizing that, under the circumstances, she would have to leave. She could not endure another day such as the one she had just gone through.
Shortly after seven that evening when her doorbell rang shrilly, she found it no surprise at all to see Daniel standing on her doorstep.
‘Come in. I’ve been expecting you.’
‘Have you?’ he asked with mild surprise as he stepped past her into the lounge. ‘Do you also know why I’m here?’
‘I can guess,’ she replied stiffly, ‘but I think I can save you the trouble by just giving you this. ’
He stared at the envelope in her extended hand, his eyebrows raised enquiringly. ‘What is it?’
‘My resignation. ’ He accepted the envelope from her as his glance slid derisively down the length of her, taking in
her slacks and warm woollen sweater. ‘Why?’
‘I can’t continue working at the Clinic.’ She gestured expressively with her hands. ‘Not now. ’
A sardonic expression flashed across his face. ‘What you are actually saying is that you don’t want to work with me. Is that it?’
‘Yes,’ she replied, clasping her hands behind her back.
‘I’m afraid, Sister ... Webster,’ he smiled cynically as he lowered himself into a chair and stared up at her with his eyes narrowed, ‘I’m not going to accept your resignation.’ He paused reflectively. ‘Either you continue working as theatre Sister at the Clinic, or I make it known that you’re actually Mrs. Daniel Grant. ’
Joanne drew her breath in sharply, her glance lingering on the short dark hair brushed back so severely from his broad forehead, the aristocratic nose, the stern mouth with the sensuous lower lip, and the firm, arrogant chin. He had not changed much, she decided, except for the faint suggestion of crows’ feet beneath eyes that held no laughter at that moment.
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