Dr Graham's Marriage

by Meredith Webber

  'Is everything all right?' Alex's voice sounded anxiously in her ear. 'You sound a little stressed.'

  'I am not a little stressed. I am enormously stressed,' Gabi informed him. 'I just hope it wasn't your idea that I mind the twins, because if I find it was you'll be looking for alternative accommodation.'

  Alex chuckled, the sound bringing far too much warmth in its wake.

  Damn the man, even over the phone he could affect her.

  'Did you want something in particular?' Gabi muttered, as the twin under her arm began to drum his heels against her legs and the other began to cry for Ingrid.

  'Madeleine asked me to check you were OK. Will I tell her yes?'

  'If lying through your teeth sits well with you, then yes,' Gabi told him. 'Otherwise you can relay the message that both are still alive, though if the one under my arm doesn't stop kicking this may only be temporary.'

  Alex chuckled again, then assured her he'd be there to help just as soon as he could.

  'I'll go by the flat and bring up our meals. We can reheat them in the microwave. You're probably crabby because you haven't eaten.'

  It was fortunate he hung up so quickly as her reply to that remark wasn't at all ladylike. Though the idea of food was good. She'd just tie the kids to their beds first!

  Much to her surprise, physical restraint proved unnecessary. Once in bed, the pair resumed their angel guise, and as she read about Bob the Builder and his friends all working to repair a road, they both drifted off to sleep, leaving Gabi to finish the story on her own.

  Just to see how it ended.

  She was still sitting in their bedroom, in a chair between the two little beds, when the doorbell rang. She reached out and brushed her hand over the soft cheek of the little boy nearest to her, and wondered what life might have been like now if her child had lived.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Alex raised his eyebrows at the silence in the house.

  'Did you gag them as well as tie them to their beds?'

  Gabi grinned at him.

  'No need to do either. They reverted to their angel act and went quietly off to sleep while I was reading the story.'

  She felt Alex's eyes studying her face and hoped he wouldn't read the remnants of the longing the sleeping children had reawoken in her.

  Apparently not, for he carried the tray on which he'd put their dinner plates, the glasses and the bottle of wine through to the kitchen and, after studying the microwave for a moment, set it to heating first one plate of food, then the other.

  But as they sat, at a table this time, to finish their meal, Gabi realised his ability to read her mood hadn't been diminished by a year apart.

  'I lost that baby too,' he said, touching his glass to hers in a silent salute. 'I know I'd been unhappy over the timing of it, but it was still my child as well.'

  Gabi put her glass down on the table, afraid her fingers might lose the ability to hold it, in the same way as her lungs had lost their ability to breathe. And the air trapped in her chest was causing pain behind her sternum.

  In the end, she nodded and, as her body slowly resumed normal duties, even managed to speak.

  'I suppose I did know that, but I shut you out, didn't I? I told myself you hadn't wanted the baby so couldn't possibly have felt the same way. In a way, I guess I almost blamed you, though that was an emotional reaction, Alex, not a rational one.'

  He smiled, but with a sadness that added heartache to the trouble in Gabi's chest.

  'I can understand that, because I felt the same way, felt guilt because I hadn't wanted a baby—not right then,' he said quietly. 'At the time you were flat out, coping with your own emotions, and I wasn't much help there, so why should you have helped me, or even reached out for me? Though maybe if we could have mourned together it would have helped us both...'

  'Instead of finally splitting us apart,' Gabi finished for him. 'So many maybes,' she added, as something of the closeness they'd shared for so long wrapped around her like an old, familiar blanket.

  An old, familiar blanket full of holes, her head scoffed, while her ever-hopeful heart was banging away in her chest, as if this mild rapport and understanding meant something.

  Which it doesn't, Gabi told it, trying desperately to think of a less personal topic of conversation. It was the shock of seeing Alex again that was causing the physical and emotional reactions. She was a doctor, and she knew shock did funny things to people, so she'd be a fool to read too much into them.

  'I'm doing the rescue training course at the weekend.' The new topic had come to her in a flash and, grateful for any conversational crumb, she'd leapt on it before considering the consequences.

  'You're doing the rescue training course?'

  'You don't have to sound so incredulous!' she grumbled. 'A "Good on you, Gabi" would have been a far better reaction.'

  'But you'll have to abseil over a cliff. You hate heights.

  And it's only for people who intend to volunteer for the rescue chopper. You won't do that.'

  It was his certainty that infuriated Gabi. She pushed her plate away and rose to her feet, jammed her fists onto her hips and glared at him as she said, 'Oh, won't I, now? Well, that just shows how little you know me, Alex Graham. Because I'm not only doing the course, I've also been added to the chopper's roster so, providing I pass this weekend, I could be doing rescues within a fortnight.'

  She doubted whether he'd have looked more surprised— shocked, flabbergasted, take your pick—if she'd turned into a green and purple striped alien on the spot.

  Still infuriated, she swiped her empty plate off the table, took it into the kitchen, where she washed and dried both it and the fork, then dumped them on the tray ready to take back to her flat.

  Alex watched her storm away. Watched the way her body moved as if to a tune only she could hear. It was so familiar his body stirred in response, yet he was becoming less and less certain that he really knew this woman. Which, in its own way, was even more physically tantalising!

  But setting sex aside—and what was new in that—he needed to figure out what had caused the changes. Something must have triggered a sudden decision to not only change her looks and her entire wardrobe but to take such positive steps to overcome her phobia of heights.

  Heaven knew he'd tried to help her over it often enough. When they'd first shifted into the apartment building it had been weeks before she'd ventured near the door leading onto the balcony, and, from the dismal look of the plants out there, she still had trouble walking further than the door.

  Why did people change?

  Because they were dissatisfied with their old selves?

  Maybe over a period of time that would be true, but all at once?

  'Hello-o? Earth to Alex! I've asked you three times if you want a cup of coffee.'

  He hadn't even seen her come back to the table, but she was definitely there, leaning towards him so he couldn't help but notice the way her breasts pushed against the splashy flower on her T-shirt.

  It had to be a man. Nothing else could explain such extreme changes of image and of self all at once.

  Josh Phillips!

  'Yes, thank you,' he said, pleased the words sounded civilised enough, even though they'd been forced out through clenched teeth.

  Maybe it wasn't Josh Phillips. If Gabi was determined to get over her fear of heights and flying, maybe it was an airline pilot.

  But where would Gabi meet an airline pilot?

  He realised he had no idea—not just about where she'd meet an airline pilot, but where she'd been going and what she'd been doing for the past twelve months. In his mind, she'd been wrapped in a time warp—living in the flat, going to work and returning home, and in her free time keeping in touch, as Gabi always did, with both her family and his.

  He watched her progress as she carried two cups of coffee over to the table, and once again the familiar-unfamiliar dichotomy struck him.

  But doing the rescue training course—that was so fa
r beyond unfamiliar he still couldn't comprehend it.

  Or was the instructor the attraction? Not an airline pilot but a helicopter pilot? The rescue pilots led the training courses because they needed to know the capabilities of all the medical staff they took on board.

  'I'm off this weekend. I could come with you, do the course—be there for you.'

  'Be there for me, or be there to laugh when I faint from terror at the top of the cliff?'

  She was stirring the sugar in her coffee, watching the spoon swirl the dark liquid round and round, as if the action required all her concentration.

  'So you acknowledge that's a likely scenario?'

  She looked up, her gold-flecked hazel eyes meeting his fearlessly.

  'Of course it's a likely scenario. But once I've recovered the cliff will still be there, and I'll still have to go down it if I want to go on to the next stage of the training. So, if you want a good laugh, by all means, come along.'

  Couldn't be the helicopter pilot. She'd hardly have wanted the new love interest meeting the old.

  Hell! Was that really what he was? Gabi's old love interest?

  'I think I'll watch some television.' She was carrying her coffee into the living room, her comment interrupting his inner debate. 'Now the kids are asleep there's no need for you to stay. You can probably scowl just as easily down in my flat as up here.'

  He knew his scowl deepened—couldn't stop it—but she was right, he'd be better off somewhere else. Maybe somewhere else he'd stop being so obsessed with the changes he couldn't help but notice. Even little things like now, when she had more or less ordered him to go.

  Contrariness made him want to stay, but then he remembered what Gabi had been doing before they'd started their interrupted dinner. She'd been shifting her gear down to Alana's. Because Alana was going away. Tomorrow!

  But if anyone knew what was happening in Gabi's life it would be Alana, and wasn't this the ideal opportunity to ask her? He'd carry some of Gabi's stuff down to Alana's flat and bring up the conversation very casually.

  'I will go,' he said. Then, as Gabi turned a bemused look on him, he realised there must have been a long gap between her suggestion and his response. So he added, 'Now I've finished my coffee,' so it didn't sound as if he'd completely lost his mind.

  *

  Bringing up the subject of the change in Gabi conversationally didn't work, so in the end he asked Alana outright.

  'What's got into Gabi with all these changes?'

  Alana shrugged her slim, elegant shoulders.

  'Beats me, but it's about time.' She studied Alex for a couple of seconds then added, 'I thought at first it might be your return but she assured me it wasn't anything to do with you, and it's not like Gabi to lie about something like that. She mightn't answer, but she'd cut her tongue out rather than tell an outright lie.'

  Alex's moody slouch around Alana's living room had brought him up against the parrot's cage, and he lifted a corner of the night-blanket and peered at the unattractive bird.

  'I'd have said she'd cut her tongue out—or a leg off— before she abseiled down a cliff, but she tells me she's doing that on Saturday.'

  'She's doing what?' Alana shrieked. 'Gabi? I don't believe you.'

  'Believe me!' Alex said glumly, though he was pleased Alana's reaction mirrored his own.

  'Well, the change thing only started on Saturday,' Alana told him, after she'd done a bit of pacing herself. 'Maybe someone died in A and E—someone our age—and it jolted her. It mightn't have been specifically' Friday night—it could have been any night that week—but because she was working nights all week she couldn't put her plans into action until the weekend.'

  'I guess!' Alex said, and although he definitely regretted the death of anyone as young as he considered he, Gabi and Alana to be, he infinitely preferred that option to a new man in Gabi's life. 'Though she's seen plenty of young people die in A and E over the years.'

  'And plenty younger than us,' Alana agreed, but she didn't seem inclined to throw any further light on the matter, or to offer him coffee, so he said goodbye and went back to the fourth floor where he sat at Gabi's desk and, mindful of her privacy, only looked at the top layer of papers strewn across it.

  There wasn't a note saying 'Met a great new man' anywhere that he could see! And by now he was feeling thoroughly ashamed of himself as well as confused. He found a clean piece of paper and wrote Gabi a note explaining he'd taken her clothes down to Alana's, put it on the chair where the bags had been and went to bed. Maybe the remnants of jet-lag were making things so confusing.

  Gabi returned to find the note. It was late and she was tired—lack of sleep over the weekend catching up with her—so she phoned Alana and promised she'd be down for orders first thing in the morning, then showered in her own bathroom and went to bed.

  But tonight an awareness of Alex in the flat, and the memory of Alex, scowling at his coffee, made sleep impossible. She thought back to what he'd said, about mourning their baby, and regret as thick as dust clogged her throat.

  If only, as he'd said, they'd been able to share the pain— to grieve together and offer comfort to each other. Wouldn't that have healed the breach?

  Or was it only hindsight that made such things seem possible?

  And now?

  She turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling, silently acknowledging the dark shadow lurking behind all that was bright and new in her life.

  Now it was good that she and Alex were estranged, because if, like the lotto, her number came up in the draw for HIV, she could cope with it on her own, without the pity and distress she knew it would cause those she loved—and would have caused Alex if they'd still been married.

  If they'd still been married she wouldn't have been able—or willing—to hide the incident and its attendant risks from him, so their estrangement was a plus.

  And if her heart still leapt when she heard his voice, and her body still heated whenever he was near, and her lips still hungered for his so-familiar kisses, that was for her alone to know, because now was not the time to be getting involved in a relationship—with anyone!

  Except perhaps a four-hundred-year-old featherless parrot!

  'Ouch!' Gabi withdrew her finger from the parrot's cage and sucked it. 'And to think I finally fell asleep determined to like you!' she told it.

  'You don't have to like him, just feed him,' Alana reminded her, bustling into the living room with a list that looked like a small book. 'Madeleine's taking the joey,' she said, waving her hand to where a makeshift pouch hung over a chair. 'So you can ignore the instructions on feeding it. The guinea-pig nuts are in the brown tin and the cat food's in the blue one. I put an extra bowl of cat food on the balcony—will you be all right on the balcony? There's a stray somewhere in the neighbourhood and I'm worried it's not getting enough to eat.'

  Gabi took the notes, assured Alana she'd manage, then kissed her friend goodbye. But before she could move away Alana caught her arm and drew her back, looking into Gabi's eyes as she asked, 'Are you OK? Is something bothering you? Do you want to talk about it?'

  'What is this? Last-minute guilt about leaving me to feed your brood? Don't I look OK?'

  Alana's gaze skimmed over her, taking in the green shirt and white skirt that had been Gabi's favourite purchase the previous Saturday.

  'You look more than OK. You look brilliant,' Alana admitted, 'but Alex said something about the rescue training course. You abseiling down a cliff?'

  Gabi grinned at her.

  'I'm changing my life,' she said, 'but hopefully not my friends. Not unless they start questioning what I'm doing and nagging at me for reasons.'

  'Hey, I don't nag,' Alana reminded her. 'I'm your original "live and let live" girl.'

  Gabi hugged her.

  'I know you are. Have a great time in Melbourne, send a postcard and I'll see you when you get back.'

  She paused and frowned at her friend.

  'Which is when, by the way? H
ave you ever said? Is it on the list?'

  She waved the papers at Alana, who was smiling with excitement.

  'Three weeks—isn't it wonderful? Three whole weeks away from the stresses of Ward Eight B.'

  Gabi knew her answering smile wasn't quite good enough, though she managed to stay cheerful while she said goodbye, but by the time she reached the lift she was muttering to herself about people who deliberately didn't mention the length of time when asking, casually, if you'd take care of their pets.

  You wanted to get out of your flat, she reminded herself, but the reminder didn't soothe her agitation. If anything, it made her feel even crabbier.

  The lift failed to arrive, so she took the stairs to the ground floor, hoping to walk off her mood. But if it had happened to improve with the exercise, it blackened again when she emerged into the foyer to see Alex standing there—holding the lift door open—with Kirsten clinging to his arm, both of them laughing like hyenas!

  'Oh, Gabi, fancy preferring the company of Alana's awful strays to this gorgeous man's. I got my heel caught in the lift and, look, like the Prince in Cinderella, he not only rescued my shoe but insisted on putting it back on.'

  Gabi forced a smile to her lips, though inwardly acknowledged that while she could probably—just—cope with the knowledge that Alex was no longer hers, there was no way she could handle him being someone else's— not if that someone else was a friend and she'd have to see them together.

  Laughing!

  She fell in behind them, surprised Kirsten could walk so smoothly in the spike-heeled shoes, infuriated because Alex seemed to be fitting his stride to hers, something he'd rarely remembered to do for Gabi in all the years they'd walked to work together.