She obviously didn’t see, probably wasn’t even listening.
He changed tack.
‘Do you know Vanuatu? It’s a great place—not only the islands themselves but the people. Originally settled by the French, so many people still speak that language, although they speak English as well—tourism has made sure of that.’
He reached the battered vehicle and immediately wished it was more impressive—a limo perhaps.
Because she looked like a woman who’d drive in limos rather than battered four-wheel drives?
But some demon of uncertainty had set up home in his mind, and he heard himself apologising.
‘Sorry it’s not a limo, but the budget is always tight and I’d rather spend money on the clinic.’
‘Sounds reasonable to me,’ she said coolly.
He lifted the silver case into the rear, and came around to open the door for her, but she was already climbing in. Elegantly.
He held the door while she settled herself, then held out his hand.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t even know what to call you. It’s been a strange morning.’
She offered a cool smile but did take his hand in a firm clasp.
‘Francesca,’ she said. ‘But just call me Fran.’
He forcibly withdrew his hand, which had wanted to linger in hers, and closed the door.
But not before noticing that her hair was coming just slightly loose from its restraints, a golden-brown strand curling around to touch her chin.
The sun would streak it paler still. And suddenly he pictured this woman on one of the island’s deserted beaches, a sarong wrapped around her bikini, sun streaks in the hair blowing back from her face as she walked beside him.
His body stirred and he shook his head at the fantasy. For a start she was a colleague, and just looking at her he could see she was hardly the ‘strolling on the beach in a sarong’ type, not that that stopped the stirring.
‘Have you been to the islands before?’ he asked, as he settled behind the wheel, coaxed a muted grumble from the engine, and drove towards the exit gates.
‘No, although I know many Australians holiday here.’
‘I hope you’ll like it. The climate’s great, although it can get a trifle hot at times, and the people are wonderful.’
She turned towards him, the blue-green eyes taking in his bright shirt and, no doubt, the stubble on his unshaven chin.
The pelican again...
‘Did you holiday here? Is that why you’ve come back here to work?’
He smiled, remembering his co-workers’ disbelief when he’d told them of his plans to start the clinic.
‘No, but we had a couple—Vanuatuans—who came to my clinic in Sydney. They were so desperate to have a child they had sold everything they had, including the fishing boat that was their livelihood, to fund their trip.’
The words pierced the armour Fran had built around her heart and she felt again the pain of not conceiving. Of not having the child she’d so wanted.
You’re over this, she reminded herself, and concentrated on Steve’s explanation.
‘But to sell their boat—their livelihood?’
He turned more fully to her now, and the compassion she read in his face warmed her to the man with whom she would work—a scruffy, unshaven, slightly smelly, yet still a darkly attractive man.
Attractive?
What was she thinking?
But he was speaking, explaining.
‘Why not sell the boat if they had no child to inherit it?’ he said softly, and she felt the barb go deeper into her heart.
She nodded, thinking of the couple.
‘Few people consider the side-effects of infertility,’ she said softly, remembering. ‘The loss of self-esteem, the feelings of pointlessness, the loss of libido that failure can cause, which must be devastating for any man, but would, I imagine, be even worse for people of proud warrior races like the islanders.’
He glanced her way, questions in his eyes, and she realised she’d spoken too passionately—come too close to giving herself away.
Talk work—that was the answer.
‘So you came here? But not permanently? How does that work?’
He smiled.
‘You’ll see, but for now you should be looking about you, not talking work. This is Vila, capital of the island nation. You can still see a lot of the old buildings that have survived from the days the French ran the country.’
Fran looked around obediently and was soon charmed by the riot of colour in the gardens around all the buildings, from small huts to old colonial buildings, no longer white but grey with age, some in a state of disrepair, but all boasting trailing bougainvillea in rich red or purple, and white lilies running riot in unkempt garden beds. Ferns and big-leafed plants provided lush greenery, so altogether Fran’s immediate impression was one of colour.
They drove up a hill, the buildings becoming smaller and more suburban, and right at the top sat what could only be a mansion with another large building further along the ridge.
They turned that way and an ambulance streaking towards it told her it was the hospital.
‘Is the clinic at the hospital?’ she asked.
‘Not quite—but we’re around the back here. A kind of adjunct to it,’ her chauffeur told her. ‘Our building used to be nurses’ quarters but the hospital doesn’t have live-in nurses any more.’
He pulled up in a driveway beside an enormous red bougainvillea that had wound its way up a tall tree.
Colour everywhere!
And warmth, she realised as she stepped out of the vehicle.
A warmth that wrapped, blanket-like, around her.
They had stopped beside a run-down building that seemed to ramble down the hill behind the hospital. It had cracks in the once white walls, and dark, damp-looking patches where plaster had fallen off. Vines seemed to be growing out of the top of it, and the overall impression was of desertion and decay.
A tall local man came out to greet the car, holding out his hand to Fran.
‘I am Akila. I am the caretaker here and will also take care of you,’ he said, pride deepening an already deep voice. ‘We are very pleased to have you come and work with us.’
He waved his hand towards the building.
‘Outside this must look bad to you, but wait until you see inside,’ Akila told her, obviously aware of strangers’ first impressions.
And he was right.
The foyer was painted bright yellow, making it seem as if the sunshine from outside had penetrated the gloomy walls. A huge urn of flowers—long stems of something sweet-scented and vividly red—stood against the far wall, grabbing Fran’s attention the moment she came through the door.
A cheerful young woman appeared in a brightly flowered long flowing dress Fran recognised as a muumuu. Zoe hugged Fran as Steve introduced her.
‘This is where we live when we’re here. Zoe will show you our quarters. Both she and Akila live locally and work at the hospital, but come down to help out when we are working on the island,’ Steve said. ‘Zoe keeps the place tidy for us and makes sure there is always food in the cupboards and refrigerator so we don’t starve to death, while Akila is on call for any emergencies—of which we get plenty—power outages, et cetera. But don’t worry we have generators which kick in to keep your incubator warm.’
Fran felt a niggle of apprehension, and for a moment longed to be back in her nice, safe, big, anonymous lab. These people were all too friendly. They were a team, but clearly friends as well. Why hadn’t she considered that it would be a small and intimate staff in this island clinic?
Friendly!
A queasy feeling in her stomach reminded her just how long it had been since she’d done friendly! At first, the pain
of the IVF failures had made her curl into herself, erecting a cool polite barrier that outsiders saw.
Then the divorce and the humiliating knowledge that Nigel and Clarissa had been involved for months had made her draw away from the few friends she hadn’t shut out earlier. The only good thing that had come out of the whole mess was a better understanding of her mother, who had also built a protective shell around herself when her husband had departed. At last she now understood her mother’s detached behaviour during her childhood years.
Hurt prevention...
Fran had drifted across the hall to touch the leaves and flowers in the big display while these thoughts tumbled through her head.
‘I will show you your room,’ Zoe said, bringing Fran abruptly back to the present.
‘And I’ve got to check on something but I’ll be over later and will take you through the whole facility then,’ Steve added.
Fran felt a new wave of...not panic perhaps but definite uncertainty. Did she really need to see the whole facility? Of course she wanted to see the laboratory—it was where she would be working—and seeing how the place was set up would be interesting, but...
Something about the warm friendliness of the people was beginning to unsettle her—the realisation that they were all one big happy family, with Steve at the centre of it. It was threatening to cause cracks in barriers she had carefully erected between herself and others.
And all because they were welcoming her, were friendly? She could hardly resent that...
It had to be the heat, she decided, following Zoe across a courtyard filled with rioting plants, most with broad leaves and drooping fronds of flowers, and the same sweet, indefinable perfume.
‘Ginger,’ Zoe explained when Fran asked, and she looked more closely at the plants, not exactly surprised but trying to relate the small, bulbous roots she bought at the greengrocer to these exuberant, leafy plants.
The living quarters were adequate, freshly painted and clean, two bedrooms, a shared bathroom—she could live with that—and a combined living, dining, kitchen area.
‘Steve, he barbecues,’ Zoe told her, leading Fran out the back door onto a beautiful, shaded deck area, with a barbecue bigger and more complex than the kitchen back at her flat. ‘He brought the barbecue here but it is for everyone who stays. Patients bring fish and chicken and he says they are best on barbecue.’
Fran smiled. It was obvious the giant barbecue was the subject of much conversation among the staff at the clinic.
Zoe then indicated which bedroom would be hers and left her to unpack. It was a spacious room, with two beds—king singles or small doubles, she couldn’t tell—two wooden dressers with drawers, and a built-in cupboard. A vase filled with wide leaves and bright flowers stood on one of the dressers, welcoming her.
Uncertain of what lay ahead, Fran opted not to shower but simply to freshen up. She unclipped her hair, then made her way to the bathroom. She’d washed her face and was brushing out her hair when Steve arrived, calling hello from the front door.
She came out of her room, hairbrush still in her hand, anxious to tell him she’d only be a moment.
Steve stood in the doorway. Okay, so he’d assumed she’d be a very attractive woman with her hair waving softly around her face, but this attractive? She was smiling, saying something, but all he could do was stand and gawp.
Fortunately for his peace of mind she disappeared back into her room, returning seconds later with her hair neatly restrained, though this time more casually in a low ponytail at the base of her skull, one tail of the scarf that held it dangling forward over her white shirt, drawing his attention to—
No, his attention wasn’t going there.
‘I’ll show you our set-up,’ he said, aware his voice sounded rough. And why wouldn’t it because his mouth, for surely the first time in his life, had gone dry.
But his pride in the little clinic diverted his mind away from Fran as a very attractive woman—or almost diverted it—while he showed her around the rooms.
‘It’s very well set out, and far more complex than I’d imagined. You spoke about the couple who came to you in Sydney for IVF, and wanting to have something here, but this is impressive—it’s got everything you need, just on a smaller scale.’
‘I wanted to set up a place where couples can come and have their infertility investigated right from the start,’ he explained. ‘I can’t help feeling people are sometimes prey to exploitation. As you know, the most common cause of women not ovulating is PCO, and polycystic ovary syndrome can be treated with drugs. I believe, before IVF is even mentioned, ethical specialists must determine the underlying cause of the problem, and if possible treat it.’
Fran gave a little shake of her head. These were thoughts she’d had herself. Not that any of the specialists she’d seen had been unethical, but it had often seemed to her that they rushed towards IVF as an answer without considering alternatives.
‘I imagine drugs like clomiphene are a case in point,’ she said, seeing the way his mind worked. ‘With very little in the way of side-effects they can encourage the production of follicle-stimulating hormone, so the ovaries are better able to produce follicles. That in itself can lead to a previously infertile couple conceiving.’
‘Or, unfortunately, it could sometimes lead to cysts in the ovaries, which means the patient needs to be checked regularly. That’s why we employ a full-time O and G specialist who works at the hospital as well as here at the clinic. We want to be able to take a patient right through any treatment available, even Fallopian tube repairs, before resorting to IVF.’
‘So you need a specialist on the ground, so to speak?’ Fran said, following the conversation with increasing interest.
‘Exactly! He does regular obstetric and gynae work at the hospital but he’s also available for all the preliminary IVF checks and organises the counselling all couples need, as well as supervising the weeks of injections for any woman who will be using IVF.’
‘Wow!’ Fran muttered, unable to believe so much was happening from this small, run-down-looking building.
She looked again at the scruffily dressed man, and shook her head.
‘Did you achieve all of this on your own?’ she asked, and he smiled at her.
The smile surprised her. She’d seen versions of it before and thought it a nice smile, but this one set his whole face alight, shining in his dark eyes and wrinkling his cheeks with the width of his grin.
‘Not quite,’ he admitted. ‘The partners back at my clinic in Sydney have given a lot in that they cover for me two or three times a year when I’m over here, and various patients I’ve had have talked to me about what they’d like in a clinic.’
She nodded, knowing exactly what she’d have liked in the places she’d seen so much of, but Steve was still talking.
‘Then there are the people here. They are laid-back, casual and very family-oriented so something like an inability to have a child can cause them tremendous pain. I knew I had to set things up to make it as relaxed as possible for them. After all, they are the prime concern.’
‘And you fund it all yourself?’
The question was out before she realised how rude it was.
Not that it appeared to bother him—he just ignored it.
‘And here’s the laboratory, such as it is,’ Steve announced,
He’d left it until last, hoping she’d want to stay on and have a look around, check out where things were kept and see from the case notes, both written and on the computer, how things were done. Then he could go back to their quarters and, no, he refused to consider the cliché of a cold shower, but he could get away from her for a while and regroup.
Work out why this unlikely attraction was happening.
Attraction should be something that grew as you got to know someone—grew out of lik
ing and respect...
Forget attraction, getting rid of the fish smell and doing something about the stubble on his chin were far more important issues right now.
Oh, and catching up with Alex to find out whether their new equipment had arrived...
But still he looked at Fran, bent over the boxes of coloured tags she’d pulled from one of the cupboards. She poked around in the contents for a while, then glanced up at him and smiled.
So much for his thoughts on attraction...
‘You’ll probably laugh at me,’ she was saying, ‘but I brought a whole heap of these things with me in my luggage, thinking maybe you wouldn’t have the ones I’ve always used, but someone whose mind runs along the same lines as mine does has set up a basic identification system.’
‘That someone was me.’
She looked surprised, and, probably because he was already off balance with the attraction business, he spoke more sharply than he need have.
‘Lab staff aren’t the only ones afraid of making a mistake, of giving a woman someone else’s embryo. It’s always in the back of my mind, even in the clinic back home where everything is computerised to the nth degree and ID is made with bar codes.’
Now she was taken aback, frowning at him.
‘Of course you must worry, it’s everyone’s biggest concern, but usually it’s left to the lab staff to make sure mistakes don’t happen.’ She grinned at him, defusing his mild annoyance but aggravating the attraction. ‘It’s certainly the lab staff who get blamed when things go wrong.’
She lifted a red wristband, a red marking pen, a roll of red plastic tape and a card of small red spots.
‘How many patients are you expecting? I know you said earlier, but I can’t recall the number,’ she said. ‘I’ll make up packs of what we need for each of them—that way I won’t be fishing in boxes later and will be less likely to make a mistake.’
She was here to work and she was making that abundantly clear, which was good as he could forget all the weirdness he’d been experiencing and get on with his job.
‘Five, or maybe six,’ he told her. ‘I’ve just heard that there’s one couple we’re not sure about. Apparently it took longer than expected to shut down her ovaries and then to begin the stimulation so she may not be ovulating yet.’
A Miracle for the Baby Doctor Page 2
