Dr Graham's Marriage

by Meredith Webber

  Thinking spiteful thoughts will give you wrinkles. She reminded herself of her mother's adage, repeated since Gabi's childhood.

  But it was hard not to think spiteful thoughts when the two of them were chattering and chuckling as if they were old friends, while she, Gabi, was the outsider.

  'Come on, slowcoach,' Kirsten called back to her when the pair stopped before crossing the road. And once again Gabi had to force a smile, only this time she had to swallow the bitter gall of jealousy as well. She added a second or two to her pace, coming abreast of them as the traffic cleared. And Alex took her arm as well as Kirsten's, hurrying them both across then stepping back so it was he who walked behind.

  'He's gorgeous,' Kirsten whispered.

  He's mine! Gabi wanted to shout, but he wasn't any more and that was that.

  'You're judging by looks again,' she said instead, reminding Kirsten of her disastrous habit of falling for handsome men.

  'Not entirely,' Kirsten said with great dignity.

  'No! I forgot!' Gabi muttered. 'You rode down in the lift together—a trip as long as a lifetime.'

  'Hey! Don't get miffed with me!' Kirsten told her in a whisper that was probably still loud enough to reach Alex. 'If you're still interested, just say so. You know I'd never poach another woman's man. But you did shift down to Alana's. I thought you couldn't bear to be near him. And you've never, in all the time I've lived near you, talked about him, so I kind of assumed your relationship really was dead and buried.'

  So did I, Gabi thought—until he came back.

  But she couldn't admit this to Kirsten so she apologised for snapping and agreed to meet in the canteen at one, if Kirsten was free from her occupational therapy duties and Gabi herself could also get away. With this arranged, she headed for A and E where, hopefully, she'd be so busy she'd have no time to think about all the confusing things happening in her life right now.

  At least that wish came true. It was after seven in the evening before Gabi finally felt justified in leaving the department. The day had begun with a group of pre-school children brought in after a gas leak near their kindergarten had triggered not only a full-scale emergency in the inner city suburb but a lot of breathing difficulties.

  Not to mention hysteria on the part of the majority of parents who'd been alerted by the news flashed from radio and television newsrooms and who, in some cases, had beaten the ambulances to the hospital.

  Now, following Nat Bell, the young intern from her team, into the tearoom, she collapsed into a chair.

  'I don't think I've got the energy to go home,' she moaned, kicking off her shoes and leaning forward to massage her toes.

  'I'll drive you,' he said eagerly. 'It's not out of my way, and if you like we could stop for something to eat so you don't have to cook.'

  Gabi smiled at him, knowing the offer was one of kindness rather than, interest.

  'She can't be going out to dinner when the parrot and cats and guinea pigs are starving,' a deeper voice said, and Gabi turned to see Alex, like herself, collapsed in another chair.

  He grinned at her in surprise, then added, 'Great day, wasn't it?'

  'I can't believe those parents behaving the way they did,' Nat said. 'Some of them were far worse than the children, and seeing their mother or father hysterical made the kids worse.'

  'I liked the little girl who bit her mother. Did you hear about it?' Gabi included Alex in the conversation. 'I was at the stage of biting the woman myself, she was going on so much, when the little one—she couldn't have been any older than the twins—sank her teeth into a perfectly manicured finger.'

  Alex chuckled and moved his chair to sit in front of Gabi as Nat added, 'And I don't think it was the first time it had happened, because the woman shut up immediately.'

  'Lie back and relax.' This from Alex, but the suggestion was so sensible Gabi didn't argue, though the last thing she'd expected was for Alex to pick up her feet and take over the toe massage she'd been giving herself.

  'It's OK,' he said to Nat, who was watching this liberty with a frown. 'When Gabi and I were married I did this all the time. I know just how she likes it.'

  Was it the suggestiveness in his voice or the ecstasy of his fingers pressing deep into the soles of her feet that sent heat ricocheting through Gabi's body? She should sit up, retrieve her appendages and get right away from the man, but it was so good...so relaxing...so very, very sensual... only a masochist would have moved, or ordered him to stop.

  And only an idiot would let it go on.

  The idiot won.

  In the end she was so relaxed she had to force herself to stay awake.

  'I've got to go,' she said, reluctantly removing her feet from Alex's magic touch. 'If I don't go home right now I'll fall asleep in this chair, and Alana's birds and animals will start e-mailing her to come home because she's left them with a feeding failure.'

  She struggled to her feet, surprised to see by the time— eight-fifteen—that she must already have been asleep.

  'Have you been here all the time?' she demanded of Alex, when she realised they were the only two left in the room.

  'I was watching over you,' he said with a teasing grin. 'You still sleep like the dead. That poor young man on your team was talking to you for at least five minutes before he realised you were out of it.'

  'That poor young man?' Gabi queried, as she followed Alex out the door into the cool night air. 'What makes you sorry for him?'

  'I'm sorry for anyone suffering the pangs of unrequited love. Fellow feeling and all that.'

  'There was nothing unrequited about our love,' Gabi reminded him, 'so don't pull that pathetic act on me. There might be lots of reasons why our marriage didn't last, but me not loving you was never one of them.'

  They were walking along the footpath into patches of light thrown by streetlamps then dark shadows before the next light illuminated the scene, so when Alex stopped and, by the simple expedient of grasping her elbow, stopped her as well, she turned to him but couldn't see his expression.

  'And now?' he demanded, his voice as hoarse as if he'd been running to catch up with her. 'Can you say that now? Can you say not loving me will stop us getting back together?'

  'You can't ask me that,' Gabi said, the pain in her chest rendering the words as breathless as his had been. 'There's been no talk of getting back together! We're divorced— aren't we? And you came back to see your mother, not me.'

  'Ah, but did I, or was I just looking for an excuse?' he murmured, then he eased his head down towards hers and brushed his lips across her mouth—a silent, question this time.

  Gabi felt the fire that oh, so-light contact caused, and panic took over from all other emotions. She'd checked on HIV infection before she'd left the hospital on Saturday morning. What had the latest info said?

  Apart from the point five per cent, there were transmission details. Use a condom, but you can't get HIV from normal social contact, or from dancing together, or from kissing.

  Kissing was OK?

  She closed her eyes and saw the printed words she'd read, confirming her desperate recollection. Then she sighed and pressed her lips to his, realising how quickly all the jostling thoughts must have raced through her head because Alex's lips had remained in place, awaiting the answer she was now offering.

  You know where kissing leads, her head reminded her, but kissing Alex was like coming home after a long and weary journey, so she kept on doing it.

  She'd think about the consequences tomorrow.

  The blaring of a car horn, followed by raucous cheers and yells of 'Go for it' from the car's passengers, woke her up to the fact that she was standing on the footpath of a very busy road, kissing her ex-husband.

  'I've got to get home to feed the animals!' she muttered as she broke away from him.

  Alex made no comment, simply falling in beside her, and because she was striding out—hurrying away from what had happened?—he did match his pace to hers.

  They reached t
he building and its well-lit foyer and she glanced towards him, wondering if she'd read any reaction to the kiss in his face.

  It told her nothing. Typical! He might be able to read her like a TV guide, but when had she ever been able to read what Alex was thinking or feeling?

  'If you like, I can fix us something to eat while you do your duties at Alana's, then you could come up and have dinner in your own home.'

  Gabi looked properly this time—taking his face feature by feature—but still failed to come up with any clue as to what might be behind this invitation.

  More kissing?

  Uh-uh!

  'I don't think so,' she said, and, deciding she too could do the mysterious thing, she didn't elaborate.

  Not that the refusal fazed Alex. He simply nodded, then said, 'OK. In that case, I might walk back and visit Mum. Goodnight.'

  And with that he was gone. No goodbye kiss, no nothing.

  'You didn't want a goodnight kiss,' Gabi reminded herself as the lift arrived and she stepped in.

  'No?'

  The question startled her, then she saw who'd asked it and chuckled.

  'No!' she said firmly, acknowledging Daisy's presence with a smile. 'Though if I keep talking to myself I might need to see you professionally. Do you offer advice and counselling to adults—about adults, I mean—or do you only do children? And can I come or would I have to phone in to your talk-back show or visit your website?'

  The lift had stopped on the second floor and as Daisy stepped out Gabi remembered she, too, had to get out.

  'I'm staying at Alana's. Minding the pets,' she explained.

  'And keeping out of your ex-husband's way?' Daisy guessed.

  'That too,' Gabi acknowledged, at the same time wondering for the umpteenth time how information filtered its way into Daisy's flat. The woman rarely appeared in daylight hours, she barely socialised, and after a year in the building no one really knew her.

  Yet every time Gabi did see her Daisy seemed to know exactly what was going on in her life.

  And everyone else's.

  'Is it osmosis?' she asked, when she realised Daisy was still in the foyer, fumbling through a great bunch of keys to find the one to open her door.

  Daisy turned, eyebrows raised, and Gabi explained.

  'That you always seem to know everything.'

  Daisy laughed.

  'I know you all think I'm a hermit, but I do get around, you know. But because I kind of fade into the background, people talk about all kinds of things in front of me.'

  'Maybe you should have been a psychic or a medium, instead of a psychologist,' Gabi suggested. 'You'd know all the questions as well as the answers.'

  'I doubt anyone knows them all, Gabi,' Daisy said, and, finding the right key, she unlocked her door, said goodnight and disappeared—still the mystery woman of the building.

  Gabi, following Alana's instructions, fed and watered the menagerie, carefully noting down on a calendar above the fish tank that she'd fed the fish. No need to do them for another couple of days—she'd killed off Alana's fish in the past through over-zealous feeding.

  By the time she finished the cleaning part of the routine it was after ten and, not wanting the bother of cooking, she pulled a couple of slices of frozen bread out of a packet in the freezer, dropped them into the toaster and with a packet of soup mix from the pantry made herself a cup of soup.

  Soup and toast. What would Alex have cooked?

  Alex?

  Much as she didn't want to think about him she knew the kiss had shifted the goal posts of their present relationship.

  What present relationship?

  Exactly! She had to think about it.

  There is no relationship, she told the voices in her head. It died back with the baby, if not before that.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It seemed the rest of the week was determined to follow the pattern set on the Monday, and busy days followed busy days. So by Friday Gabi was regretting her decision to do the rescue course. Though, on the other hand, maybe being thoroughly exhausted would lessen her fear.

  After refusing—see point number six on her list—to accompany Kirsten out raging on Friday night, she went to bed early, but that didn't stop her cursing the alarm when it went off at six on Saturday morning. Grumpy with tiredness, she forced down a bowl of cereal, then realised she'd probably be bringing it up again in the not too distant future.

  'Great!' she muttered to herself, walking down the stairs to the basement in the hope the exercise might make her feel better. She was in baggily stretched jeans and an old T-shirt that had been in the laundry basket last weekend and had thus escaped the fate of the rest of her old clothes. Though the clothes felt familiar and comfortable, they did nothing to stop the butterflies doing sambas with the cereal flakes in her stomach.

  'Oh, no! I don't believe it. Didn't I tell you I didn't need any onlookers on this exercise? Why aren't you in bed? You've had as busy a week as I have, so why not sleep in today? You've already done this rescue course so you could only be coming along to laugh at me. Well, if you think I'm giving you a lift, think again.'

  Alex straightened up from where he'd been leaning against her car, but that was his only reaction to her furious outburst. Until she got closer, still grumbling under her breath, and he plucked the keys from her fingers and unlocked the car.

  'It's an hour's drive to Mount McConran, so you can have another hour's sleep on the way. In you get.'

  He'd kind of herded her towards the passenger door and was now holding it open.

  She gave him a look she hoped held enough fury for even someone as insensitive as Alex to get the message, but as her preferred alternative, knocking him out with a punch to the jaw, probably wasn't realistic, or even possible, she climbed into the passenger side of the car.

  'Don't think I'm giving in,' she told him, when he slid into the driver's seat. 'I'm just too tired to argue with you right now.'

  'I realise that,' he said, his face as deadpan as ever as he started the engine and reversed out of her parking space. 'And I'll be only too pleased to let you yell at me later.'

  She thought about kicking him, but that might cause an accident, and it would also mean lifting her leg, and right now both of them were still heavy with sleep—and it was so nice to be driven for a change that she might just close her eyes for a few minutes.

  Alex revelled in the feeling of being behind the wheel of a car again, though he'd have preferred something with more power than Gabi's baby VW, especially as the long haul up the mountain began. He glanced her way, wondering how on earth she was going to handle being at a cliff edge, let alone abseiling down it. No matter that the cliffs they started on were small, and the instructors had them double-harnessed to make sure there'd be no accidents. Gabi's fear lay in the nothingness beyond the level ground.

  But though his gut knotted at the thought of her terror, he knew nothing would persuade her not to do it once she'd set her mind on it. Which brought him back to why? Why would a woman so terrified of heights decide, after five years working in A and E, that she wanted to be part of the rescue-team roster? After talking to Alana, he'd intended checking back through the previous week's A and E reports to see if perhaps a young woman had died, giving Gabi a jolt about her own mortality.

  At thirty?

  He shook his head, admitting to himself that nothing made any sense, and going over and over it wasn't helping. And he wouldn't think about kissing Gabi either as mental arguments about that—why he'd done it, why she'd responded, whether that achingly familiar, fiery response meant anything—had kept him awake most of the previous night.

  The road narrowed, and the car was enveloped in a green gloom. He'd reached the high land, where tropical rainforest nurtured the land with leaf mould, and the thick, lush growth crowded close to the car as if threatening to reclaim the road.

  Was it the coolness or a sense of a journey almost completed that woke Gabi? She sat up suddenly, and looked aroun
d.

  'I remember coming here when you did your course,' she said, sounding almost surprised that the memory had lingered. 'I know I chickened out and went nowhere near the cliff edge, but I always thought we should come back some time, perhaps spend a weekend in the mountains.'

  'We still could,' Alex suggested quietly, slowing down so he could turn to see her reaction to his words.

  But the shift of emotions was too swift for him to analyse, though he was sure he'd seen excitement before wariness and then a sadness so deep it caused a hitch in his breathing.

  'We're not a "we" any more, Alex,' she reminded him, then turned her head and stared out at the wild jungle, isolating him as effectively as a cattle dog cutting a beast from a herd.

  Gabi saw the vine-entwined palms, the broad-leafed ferns and vivid green of moss-encrusted rocks, but her brain processed none of these things, too busy trying to calm a heart in double jeopardy—with Alex and the task ahead of her.

  Then, as suddenly as if someone had turned on a light, they left the cool darkness of the forest for a field of green, and ahead of them a parking and picnic area, built to take advantage of a spectacular view. Able to admire such beauty from a distance, Gabi stared at the wide sweep of land spread before them.

  'Great, isn't it?' Alex said, and she agreed, though now they were pulling into the parking area and she could see the small group of doctors and nurses clustered around a man in a safety harness.

  The butterflies in her stomach, dormant while she'd slept on the journey up, resumed their activity, though now it was more a wild Scottish reel than a samba.

  'It's a big group,' Alex remarked.

  'Change Of rotation for the interns next week. I've never worked out when and how the nurses change jobs but 1 know the younger ones in A and E seem to be constantly on the move. So much so I never learn the names of some of them. Not so I could call them by name with any certainty.'

  And how someone about to make a total fool of herself can chatter on about nurses' names, I don't know, Gabi's head voice muttered at her, but chattering on about anything was better than cringing in her seat and making little whimpering noises, which was what she'd really have preferred to be doing.