To Dr Cartwright, A Daughter

by Meredith Webber

  'Well, it's your turn to talk, Katy.'

  She tried to think of something they could talk about—a conversation which wouldn't stray onto dangerous ground.

  'I've started on the list of objections Mr Forbes might have,' she said stiffly, and heard his sigh filter through the airwaves to linger in her ear.

  'That's work,' he objected. 'I've had enough of work!'

  She knew his voice well enough to know he was smiling as he spoke, although he was pretending petulance. 'Talk to me, Katy, I'm bored' or 'Talk to me, Katy, I'm lonely'. They'd both been common refrains during those other goodnight calls.

  The memories were weakening her, and strength was what she needed to deal with Jake.

  'We've only work in common,' she told him, hoping she sounded more positive than she felt.

  'Not some sharing of the past?' he argued. 'Not memories I haven't forgotten even if you have. What about Freshwater Cove?'

  Her stomach shifted uneasily, but she knew she had to make a stand.

  'The past is dead and buried, Jake. It died the day you sent me away, but I didn't bury it until my letters were returned.'

  There was a silence, then she heard him mutter something indistinguishable.

  'I understand how you must feel, how deeply hurt you must have been,' he said more clearly, 'but I don't believe you when you say there's nothing left, Katy. I don't believe it's quite that clear-cut. And I don't believe you believe it either,' he added. 'Goodnight, my love.'

  She dropped the phone back into its cradle, blotting the endearment from her mind, turning instead to the puzzle of those indistinct words. She remembered him saying, 'I had my reasons,' yesterday, but she couldn't conceive of a reason with enough validity for him to have cut himself off from her with such deadly precision.

  She thought about her own feelings at the time. 'Deeply hurt' didn't begin to cover it! She'd been physically sick, which had added to her devastation, and after the letter telling him she was pregnant had been returned she had told herself she hated him.

  But she'd found she couldn't make herself believe it—that she couldn't nurture hate for him at the same time as she was nurturing his baby.

  Which didn't mean she'd ever trust him again—whatever he might be trying to make her believe.

  She switched out the light and settled down in bed, willing herself to shut out the memories he'd evoked. Willing herself to sleep—not dream of passionate pasts or impossible futures.

  The birth of the quintuplets dominated the morning news. Katy turned on the television and saw the pack of photographers camped outside the main entrance to the hospital. Would the security guards have deflected them from the back entrance or would she have to battle through them there as well?

  'Can I see the new babies at your hospital, Mum?' Julia asked, tugging at Katy's hand as they left the house.

  "They're too little for visitors,' Katy told her, guiding her hopping, skipping daughter safely across the road.

  'Someone's waiting under our trees, Mum.'

  Julia's remark made Katy pause, clinging to her daughter's hand. They were just inside the boundary of the park, and the avenue of trees was directly ahead of them. In daylight it was a cool green tunnel, and she squinted against the morning glare as she probed the shadows beneath the trees.

  He was leaning against the third one along, so still he might have been a part of it. Her lungs felt as if giant hands had squeezed the air from them and she gripped Julia's hand so tightly the little girl cried out.

  'Is he a bad man, Mum?' Julia asked, and Katy heard the beginning of panic in her voice. She dropped to her knees and hugged her daughter close.

  'No, love, it's a new doctor at the hospital. I didn't see him at first and was startled. How did you know he was there?'

  She straightened up, pretending to a normality she didn't feel. She wanted to reassure Julia, not transmit more tension to her.

  'He smells like the lemon grass you planted in the back yard.'

  Katy sniffed the air. She knew this was another manifestation of Julia's ability to absorb her environment, but she always hoped she might learn to be as proficient with her senses:

  There was no trace of lemon grass that she could discern!

  'Come on, Mum, we'll be late!'

  Julia tugged at her hand and Katy peered warily along the path. Jake hadn't moved—but then, if he'd walked this way to meet up with her, he was probably as shocked as she had been. For the first time since Julia's birth she was glad her daughter was small for her age. At least he wouldn't suspect...

  She forced her feet to move, and as she drew closer she even fixed a smile on her lips.

  'Good morning, Dr Cartwright,' she said formally. 'This is my daughter, Julia.'

  His face looked grey, and she told herself it was the effect of the light beneath the trees. She found she didn't want Jake hurting, no matter what he'd done to her. She turned away, pretending to be looking at the lake, unable to meet whatever emotion might be lurking in his eyes.

  Julia reached out and found his hand.

  'We're late, Dr Cartwright,,' she said, leading them both along the path. 'I told Mum you were under the trees and she thought you might be a bad man.'

  Realising she now had two supports, she swung between them while Katy battled the tumult in her body, trying to will herself to behave as if this was a perfectly normal morning. She remembered the major news event with relief!

  'How are the new arrivals?' she asked, glancing his way very briefly, then concentrating on the path as if it might have thrown up horrendous obstacles overnight.

  'Two are battling—the others should be okay,' Jake replied, and she knew from the strain in his voice that his conversational effort was as forced as her own.

  'You've seen the new babies?' Julia asked him, swinging again so suddenly that Katy snapped at her to stop.

  'I have,' Jake replied. 'They are very, very small.'

  'I was very small,' Julia confided, and Katy's heart stopped beating. 'But I was only very small, not very, very—wasn't I, Mum?'

  'A bit small,' Katy agreed, as casually as she could. She might not be looking at Jake but his tension was transmitting itself in almost visible waves across the top of Julia's blonde head.

  'That's why I'm blind,' the child added chirpily.

  Katy heard the gasp as it escaped her lips. She knew Jake's footsteps had faltered but she still couldn't look at him. To see pity in his eyes would destroy the last shreds of her composure, and she couldn't let Julia realise how distraite she was.

  'It was oxy—stuff to help me breathe that hurt my eyes,' Julia added, prattling on as if oblivious to the forces arcing through the air above her head.

  'Oxygen?'

  Jake offered the word gravely and Julia turned and smiled up at him.

  "That's it!' she told him with transparent delight. 'Oxygen!'

  But was she so oblivious? Or could she be carrying this conversation to help her mother out of what she sensed was an awkward encounter?

  Katy shook her head, unable to think rationally about anything at the moment.

  'It's this way,' she muttered when they reached the end of the lake. They turned towards the crossing that led to the road behind the hospital.

  'These lights make a noise when it's safe to walk,' Julia confided to Jake. 'First you listen for the cars to stop, then you hear the noise that tells you when to cross.'

  She let go of Katy's hand but kept hold of Jake's as she reached out for the smooth metal pole and felt for the button that would stop the traffic. Katy felt a pang of jealousy and told herself she was being ridiculous. Julia had a warm, open, loving nature. She adopted everyone she met as her friend.

  'Come on, Mum,' she urged, and Katy took her hand again, scolded her for swinging on the road, then stopped when they'd made the safety of the opposite footpath.

  'We go around the back,' she said to Jake, looking directly at him for the first time since they'd met beneath the trees.
She hoped her face was as expressionless as his!

  'Then you might show me the back way into this place,' he suggested. 'I had to pretend I was a cleaner to get safely through the crowd at the front door. I walked out with a fellow carrying a fearsome polishing machine and tried to look as, if I knew exactly how it worked.'

  Katy's lips twitched as she imagined the scene and she felt her muscles begin to relax, although she knew their relationship had taken yet another twist. Jake might have spoken lightly but there had been an edge to the words.

  'Come on, then.' She led the way along the path towards the back of the old hospital building, where the crèche was situated.

  'You mentioned fighting for the crèche,' Jake said as they walked into the brightly decorated yard and Julia was welcomed by her friends and whisked away from them. 'I didn't think!'

  He stopped and looked around, and she knew his mood had darkened with the swiftness of a sudden summer storm.

  'I should have figured it out then! Talk about single-minded! Talk about not taking hints! I'm sorry, Katy!'

  He sounded angry and upset, yet the apology was genuine.

  But for what?

  'Sorry, Jake?' she asked, and saw pain and a rueful kind of self-mockery in his eyes.

  'Sorry for marching back into your life like this,' he pointed out. 'I assumed—'

  He gave a bark of laughter and turned to walk away, but she caught his arm and stopped him.

  'Assumed what?' she demanded. He'd already spoilt her morning, tied her nerves in knots and destroyed the fragile web of protection she'd woven around herself and Julia. She wasn't going to let him get away with more.

  'Assumed because you weren't married you'd still be single! Stupid, wasn't I? I actually tracked you down, Katy. I phoned the General first and you weren't there. I tried St Christopher's, and then Lake Shore North. I was starting with the places close to your home—and, of course, I was looking for a nurse.'

  He paused, but she knew he hadn't finished and she waited, bemused by the passion she could sense in him.

  'When I learnt there was an admin assistant named Katy Turner here, I could have cried with relief, and then, when I found which department you worked for, I decided it was meant to be—that maybe I would be granted a second chance. I practically begged Dan Petersen to take that scholarship, and mortgaged my soul to get away from my other job. And all the time I had this weird idea that if I could only see you again, spend time with you, talk to you and try to explain, then maybe...'

  Another hesitation, but this time Katy battled hope. If they talked...? If he could explain...?

  'But of course marriage isn't everything these days. You found another man, you had a child—no wonder you didn't finish nursing! I assume he's still around, Katy? Assume the flowers were from him? What a bloody fool you must have thought me!'

  He spun away again and this time she let him go, not bothering to remind him that he'd wanted to learn the back way into the hospital.

  She found Julia and said goodbye to her. Jake had handed her a solution to her problem—a mythical man in her life. She doubted if this ghost would provide the buffer zone she needed between his body and hers, but it would stop his teasing comments and the remarks which suggested he was aware of her reaction to him.

  She made her way up to the fourth floor, pausing in the foyer to speak to the security man on duty.

  'We're managing,' he assured her. 'One woman reporter sneaked in in a nurse's uniform during the night, but Sister dealt with her. Pretended she thought she was a new nurse on the roster. She took her to the store cupboard, got out an enema tube and bowl and told her to do all the patients in 'C'. The silly nit nearly had a heart attack!'

  He chuckled as he related the story, which must have spread through the hospital like wildfire. 'Even I know you don't give enemas any more—well, not after the baby's born, anyway.'

  Katy smiled at his delight, then turned and made her way reluctantly towards her office.

  You have to face him some time, she told herself. So he thinks you've got a lover! So what?

  But she didn't have to face him. The room was empty and a note on her desk told her he was doing a postnatal clinic. She frowned at the note. Ron Spencer usually did the public postnatal clinics while private patients saw their own specialists. She made a mental note to ask about it, then attacked the day's work—beginning with a call to the nursery to check on staffing.

  'We could do with someone willing to work split shifts,' Sue told her. 'Six to ten in the morning, and four to eight in the evenings. I can take an extra nurse off the wards from ten till four. Could you try Joe Cameron? He's worked with most of these nurses before and I'd like another male voice in the nursery.'

  Katy smiled. Sue was adamant babies needed to hear and feel men as well as women tending them. Joe was a most unlikely nurse—a husky six-footer with a deep and unmistakably masculine voice. He was studying for a doctorate in nursing and took casual work to pay his bills.

  'I'll try him first,' she promised Sue.

  She contacted Joe and arranged for him to start that afternoon then left the office to check the cleaners had begun work in 'A'. She was tempted towards the nursery, but knew there was no real reason for her to go and peer at the new arrivals. And Mrs Carstairs had generated too much fuss for Katy to want to see her.

  She spoke to Jenny, who was trying to keep the cleaners' noise to a minimum, then walked back to her office. Still no Jake!

  It set the pattern for the days to come. He was out of the office more than he was in it and he treated her with a polite detachment when they were forced to speak about their work. She suspected he was feeling as much strain as she was, and was sometimes tempted to say, There's no one else. But that would lead her back into the limbo of doubt—the 'Should I? Shouldn't I?' state of indecision that was as dangerous as an unexploded bomb.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  They kept up the pretence of a normal working relationship, helped by the chaos still erupting every day as a result of Mrs Carstairs and her hunger for publicity. As soon as she sensed interest in herself or the babies was dying down, she pulled a new stunt—for example she and Mr Carstairs, drawn together by this great event, reconfirming their marriage vows in the hospital suite, with television cameras and a viewing audience of millions.

  'And she had the hide to ask Stewart Anderson to be a witness,' Jake fumed when he passed on this information to Katy.

  Katy chuckled, but she was upset the chief medical officer at the hospital hadn't stepped in to stop these wilder examples of excess.

  'It's the old story,' Jake said, once again plucking her thoughts out of the air. 'Any publicity is good publicity.'

  'Not when it interferes with the running of the hospital and the comfort and security of other patients,' Katy objected. 'This is where private ownership of hospitals breaks down—the situation where service clashes with the profits.'

  Jake shrugged.

  'I agree, but it's hard to get that point across to the powers-that-be when the name of Lake Shore North is blazoned across the headlines each morning.'

  But things did quieten a little after that, and she wondered if Jake had spoken to someone.

  On Friday afternoon she handed him the list of objections she predicted Mr Forbes might raise.

  'I'll go through them over the weekend,' he promised her, and her heart clenched at the sincerity in his voice. He might be regretting the wild impulse that had led him back to the past, but he would do his best for her.

  'Thank you, Jake,' she said quietly, then turned away. She'd have liked to say something else, but Friday afternoons were always hurried. By the time she and Julia had walked home, discussing the day's happenings, then had a play, a bath and dinner, it would be time for Katy to get ready for her other job.

  Besides, what was there she could say? Have a good weekend? When she knew he was practically a stranger here. He'd studied in Perth, coming east to do his residency—and back then the
y'd been a twosome, each to each other, all the friends either of them had wanted or needed.

  She left him sitting at his desk, reading through her list. Would he work here for a few hours, then go upstairs to his room and order over-cooked steak from the canteen?

  It's not your business what he does, she told herself as she left to collect Julia. Yet her heart ached to think he might be lonely. She thought of what he'd said about a school in holiday time and felt a similar emptiness, like hunger, hollowing out her body.

  Julia was asleep by the time Katy said goodbye to Marie, her regular babysitter, and left to catch the bus into town. Leaving her daughter asleep soothed her conscience about working the two nights a week—at least Julia wasn't missing her!

  The Baron's Table hadn't changed much in the ten years Katy had worked there. She'd gone south when she was pregnant, needing to get away from both acquaintances and memories, but when she'd returned to Lake Shore her job had been waiting for her, and she'd found a babysitter and slipped easily back into her old routine.

  Tonight it was quiet, barely half-full, and she had time to talk to her customers, catching up with the regulars' news and fending off questions about the 'big event' at the hospital.

  At nine o'clock a group of eight came in and she was suddenly busy. She had delivered one half of their order and was heading back towards the kitchen for the remainder when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

  'Any chance of a medium rare steak in this place?'

  She spun around and stared at Jake in disbelief.

  'Well?' he prompted.

  'Sit down and I'll get someone to take your order,' she gabbled, unable to stop the rapid beating of her pulse or a strange light-headed excitement.

  Had he come on the off-chance that she might still work at the same place? Or for nostalgic reasons? Or simply because the restaurant was noted for its quality food?

  She sent a young waitress to his table, finished serving her customers, then raced out to the office to find Ben Logan, her boss, and one of the few people who knew Jake was Julia's father.

  'He doesn't know,' she told Ben, after explaining about Jake's sudden re-emergence in her life, 'and I'm not going to tell him.'