Christmas at Jimmie's Children's Unit

by Meredith Webber

  She made her way to the PICU, wishing she hadn’t thought about teenage-type reactions because now her heart was aching with the remembered love she’d had for Oliver—love that she’d thought would last for ever…

  There was a restaurant set on a cliff top just along the ocean-side walk north of Coogee, Oliver remembered. It would be quieter there than a sidewalk café. He tried to remember the name of it, but drew a blank. However, it was unlikely it would be busy on a Wednesday night so they could take a chance on getting in.

  And why did he want to take Clare somewhere quieter than a sidewalk café?

  The question was an obvious one, but no easy answer came to mind.

  ‘We’re going where?’ she asked when, once she was settled in the car, he tried to explain about this particular place.

  ‘Just along the cliffs from Coogee,’ he told her, ‘but the problem is, I walked there when I went before and, while I assume you can drive, I don’t know the name of the place, so I can’t look up the address. Do you mind a walk?’

  ‘What kind of a walk?’ she demanded, and he turned to smile at her.

  ‘Maybe a mile at the most—you know me, hardly the walking type. In fact, I remember you nearly killing me walking up and down the hills at your farm. My feet were made for pushing accelerators and brake pedals, not for tramping around sodden paddocks with grass a foot high.’

  She laughed and it seemed to Oliver as if his chest had filled with helium, so light did he feel.

  Clare’s laughter, one of the first things he’d learned to—

  To love about her?

  Had he loved her? Loved her and not wanted to admit it because he was determined not to be undermined by some indefinable emotion?

  Is that why losing her had been so painful?

  ‘What’s wrong? Are we lost?’

  He slid the car into a parking spot close to where the ocean-front walk began, and turned to look at her.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he said, but he wasn’t so sure because his mind was still stuttering around over the possibility that maybe what he’d felt for Clare all those years ago had been love, and that he’d just not known it because love wasn’t something that had featured in his life up to that point.

  ‘Come on, we walk from here,’ he told her, hurrying to open her car door, but she was already out, still frowning slightly at him, as if she’d read something in his face earlier and wasn’t at all convinced by his answer to her questions.

  Why had laughing at the memory of a happy time they’d had together made him frown?

  Clare joined him on the path that led up a grassy slope towards the cliff top at the northern end of the lovely curved beach.

  And was he still annoyed at whatever made him frown that he was striding out now as if they needed to reach the top in record time?

  Not that she couldn’t match his strides. She’d kept her fitness up in Chicago, loving the walks she and Emily would take around the lake. The freedom of movement and fresh air had relaxed and invigorated her after long, and often tense, sessions in Theatre, but as well as that, the walks had been a special bonding time with her daughter.

  But in the present, in the fraught and nervous now, as Clare fell into step beside Oliver, she regretted agreeing to this outing. She might know it wasn’t a date but her body wasn’t convinced, reacting when their arms brushed, heating when he touched her shoulder and pointed out to sea.

  ‘Are those dolphins out there?’

  She stopped and stood beside him, her eyes following the direction of his finger, and after a few seconds three sleek forms broke the surface of the water, way out beyond the breakers—three dolphins frolicking in the sea.

  ‘They’re beautiful, aren’t they?’ she breathed, speaking quietly because she’d always loved these lissom creatures, feeling some kind of kinship with them, although why she didn’t know.

  ‘You told me once you thought you’d been a dolphin in a previous life,’ Oliver said. He’d spoken just as quietly as she had, yet a strange excitement ripped through her body.

  No, no, no, no, no! You can’t go all gooey just because he remembered a chance remark. We were together five years—more if you took in the courting time before she moved in with him. He had to remember some bits of it.

  But the excitement refused to be dampened, so as they moved on Clare made sure she walked just slightly behind him, so they couldn’t brush arms, or accidentally touch in any way.

  The view from the top of the path was brilliant, the sea at dusk an inky blue, contrasting with the white of the plumes of water that flew into the air where the waves battered endlessly against the cliff.

  ‘I do love the smell of the sea,’ Clare murmured, stopping to take the salty air deep into her lungs, but as Oliver stopped beside her, her nerves grew taut and a deep yearning to be held—and hold—hollowed out her body.

  Or maybe it was hunger.

  It had better be hunger. Holding and being held had ended in disaster, she reminded herself.

  She moved, heading along the path, berating herself for her stupidity in agreeing to have dinner with Oliver, because being with him was just too confusing.

  They followed the path to where the sea had gained purchase in the land, hollowing out a deep inlet, and perched above it the restaurant, blending in with the rocky landscape, only visible because it was well lit.

  ‘Inside, or on the verandah?’ the waiter asked when they entered the building.

  ‘Verandah!’

  They answered together and Clare had to smile at their reaction, remembering they’d always preferred outdoor dining when there was an option. The waiter led them to a table on a deck cantilevered out over the water below, water that surged and retreated, moving restlessly but without the fury of the waves that broke against the cliffs.

  Restless? Was that how she felt? Did that explain the hollow feeling?

  Of course it didn’t…

  Then what did?

  ‘A glass of wine or something soft?’

  Oliver looked at her over the wine list he was studying, but his eyes seemed to be asking a different question, a thousand questions—how was she, where had she been, what had been happening in her life…?

  As if eyes could convey that much.

  ‘Lime and soda, thanks,’ she said, adding, ‘I’m starving,’ as she opened the menu and started to read the choices.

  ‘Balmain bugs with chilli sauce.’

  The waiter had returned for their drinks order but Clare felt he might as well take the food one at the same time; that way they’d be served more quickly. They could eat and leave and she could sort out all the confusion inside her once she got home.

  She was wondering where the conversation should go when Oliver spoke.

  ‘I’ve spent the past few years in the UK, then I went to Italy before I came back to Australia.’ Oliver wasn’t sure why he’d come out with this in the pause following the waiter’s departure with their orders. There’d certainly been no conversational lead into it, but suddenly the words were out there.

  Because they’d come to talk about their daughter?

  Because subconsciously it was disturbing him that Emily shared his unhappy heritage?

  Clare appeared startled by the conversation, then she frowned.

  ‘Holiday or more than that?’

  ‘I went to the village where my mother grew up. Ever since Owen told me I wasn’t his son—and you’d remember that fun time in my life—I’ve been torn between wanting to know more about my father and denying him completely.’

  ‘Denial was winning when I knew you,’ Clare reminded him, but gently because she remembered how shattered Oliver had been at the time.

  Oliver shrugged.

  ‘I probably should have stuck to it,’ he said, sorry now that he’d brought it up. Surely he could have made conversation about their patients, or the weather, or the ocean—anything!

  ‘Bad stuff?’

  The dark eyes still studied
him, assessing—familiar.

  ‘Not that bad. Pretty average really, although not as bad as Owen had made out when he told me. His version was that my father could have been any one of a dozen young local men. He claimed it was because of my mother’s reputation in the village that her family sent her to the relatives in Australia.’

  He paused; then, with his eyes fixed firmly on Clare’s lovely face, he added, ‘Do you wonder I didn’t want children? Didn’t want to pass on that kind of legacy?’

  She shook her head, her eyes almost black in the shadowy light, dark with sympathy.

  ‘So, did you find your father?’

  He heard her empathy in the words and remembered how supportive she’d been when he’d found out about Owen. She’d wrapped him in her love and then, within months, he’d rejected her.

  Damn it all, the conversation was bringing back too many memories.

  Still, he could hardly stop now—hardly not answer her question.

  ‘I found out who he was—meeting him was something else altogether. Neither he, nor anyone in the village, not even my grandparents who are still alive, wanted anything to do with me.’

  ‘I’m sorry it was a bad experience,’ Clare said, pain for him so acute she was having trouble breathing. Oliver had suffered one rejection when he’d learned Owen wasn’t his father; for this to happen…

  ‘You hear so many good stories about people finding their birth parents that you forget it doesn’t work out for everyone,’ she added. ‘Can you put it behind you now? Go forward rather than looking back?’

  He didn’t reply, studying her instead, surely not trying to read anything behind the words.

  ‘I mean it, Oliver,’ she added. ‘That wasn’t a trite remark but genuine sympathy because I know how much that part of your past worried you.’

  Still no response, so she ploughed on. ‘But the past is past. Now, let’s not spoil a good meal by dwelling on it. Look forward, go forward.’

  He smiled at her, and for the first time in her life she understood the phrase the world stood still, for it happened to her right then and there. It was a smile, no more, but although she tried her best not to respond to it, her body ignored her, sending waves of heat simmering along her nerves, twitching at her muscles and tightening her lungs.

  No!

  It won’t work.

  You learned that last night.

  Get over it.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘and I’m sorry for burdening you with that business, but you were there when I first found out that I wasn’t Owen’s son, so it seemed natural to tell you.’

  Natural?

  Forget heat and twitching muscles, woman, and get with the situation here.

  Fortunately the waiter arrived, giving her an excuse to stop considering anything but food. She turned her attention to the plate in front of her.

  ‘It looks and smells delicious.’

  She glanced up at Oliver as she spoke and, because he was so familiar, even ten years on, she began to relax.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘for suggesting this, for bringing me here. It’s a magical place. I lived near the lake in Chicago and Em and I walked there often, but it’s not like being near the sea.’

  Oliver watched as she used the silver tweezers to pull the flesh out of the bug’s case. She was concentrating on the task, the corner of her bottom lip caught between her teeth. ‘Look forward, go forward,’ she’d said, but could anyone completely wipe away the past?

  Could she, whatever it was?

  Successfully removing the meat, she cut a chunk off and popped it in her mouth, sighing blissfully when she chewed and swallowed.

  ‘Aren’t you going to eat?’ she demanded when she caught him watching her. She waved her cutlery towards his plate where a thick slice of rare Wagyu beef shared a plate with chargrilled vegetables. ‘It looks good.’

  ‘I’ll eat,’ he assured her, cutting into the beef. ‘But tell me about you. Where is “forward” for Clare Jackson? Where are you looking to go?’

  Dark eyes flicked towards him, unreadable, then she concentrated on sorting another mouthful of food.

  ‘Strange question, when I’ve just begun a new job, but since you ask, I aim to be the top paediatric perfusionist in Australia. That’s where I’m going. I’m going to be on the board of the Australasian Society of Cardio-Vascular Perfusionists, and I’m going to train and examine and be involved with the development of the career path for future perfusionists.’

  He had to laugh, shaking his head at the same time, because she sounded so totally convinced that this would all happen.

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ he teased and watched a faint colour rise in her cheeks.

  ‘It’s been my plan for some time now,’ she said quietly, and he wondered just what had happened in her life that she’d needed to define herself again—to find a new career path, however unusual, and to aim for the top in it.

  The marriage that was a mistake?

  Whatever had generated her reaction last night?

  He cut some more steak and chewed on it, wondering at the same time, thinking…

  The past is past, she’d said, and while Oliver was willing to let their shared past lie where it was, he couldn’t help but wonder about the past he hadn’t shared with her.

  ‘And you?’

  Because he was still thinking of Clare’s past, the words made little sense until she added, ‘Where are you going? You’ve this fellowship with Alex—that’s, what, a year? And after that?’

  After that?

  He hadn’t thought that far.

  Well, he had. Originally he’d hoped to work with Alex, then, as the dutiful only child of a mother who was getting older, move back to Melbourne, taking up a senior position in one of the paediatric cardiac surgical units there—

  ‘Hey, you’re supposed to be telling me, not just thinking about it,’ Clare reminded him. ‘This is regular dinner conversation—you ask a question, I reply, then I ask one and you reply, remember?’

  ‘Who knows?’ he replied, dodging the issue, because his feelings towards his mother, a woman who had lied so often to him, were far too complex to go into over dinner. Too complex for him to think about most of the time, which is why he considered duty rather than love when he thought about her. ‘Things happen, plans change. We’ve the perfect example of that with Emily. Obviously now I’ve got to factor her in, factor you in.’

  Had his voice sounded strained that Clare reached out her hand and caught at his fingers, squeezing them lightly?

  ‘We’ll work it out,’ she said quietly.

  And suddenly he realised just how good it was to sit with Clare like this, doing nothing more exciting than eating dinner in a special place. He even found himself relaxing.

  ‘Your family?’ he asked. ‘They’re well?’

  ‘They’re all in Queensland now,’ Clare told him, but he sensed the question had been ill-timed, for suddenly her voice sounded strained and tight. But as he watched he saw her rally, her spine straightening and colour returning to her cheeks. ‘My dad died and we sold the farm. My brothers bought a property on the Darling Downs in Queensland—they do some cropping and raise Black Angus. They’re lovely beasts, the Black Angus, docile and really good doers, and best of all, as far as my brothers are concerned, there’s no twice-daily milking.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear about your father. I know how close you were.’

  It was his turn to offer comfort, turning her hand in his to gently press her fingers.

  She took back her hand and shrugged.

  ‘These things happen,’ she said, but her voice told him she wasn’t over her father’s death, that it still hurt her more than she would admit. He looked around, seeking distraction, wanting to regain the mood of pleasant companionship he’d felt earlier.

  ‘During the day you can sometimes see big kingfish in this inlet,’ he said, apropos of nothing.

  ‘You’ll have to show me some time. We could bring
Em,’ she replied, and though that, too, was probably nothing more than a throwaway line, the thought of coming here again with Clare sent a surge of excitement through him.

  Though the ‘bringing Emily’ part brought back all the fears and insecurities that had been nagging at him since he’d learnt he had a daughter.

  He called for the bill, paid it and they left, Emily not discussed at all, and an uncomfortable silence stretching between them.

  Was Clare, too, feeling discomfort in the silence that she chatted on about their patients and the operations, sticking solely to work talk the whole way home? Then, as he drove into the garage and stopped the car, she was out in a flash, thanking him and taking off through the shadowed garden as if chased by demons.

  By the time he reached their shared landing, she was gone, her door shut and the muted sound of a radio or television coming from behind it.

  Chapter Six

  NO OPERATIONS, just patients to see—regular check-ups, query patients referred from GPs, patients in for various tests. Oliver found the change refreshing, enjoying again the interaction between the children and their parents.

  His final patient of the day was, by chance—there it was again—a nine-year-old girl, a little charmer who’d been born with a partial AVSD which had been repaired when she was twelve months old.

  ‘I really don’t need to be still seeing a specialist,’ she told him with the utmost confidence, ‘but it makes Mum feel better so I do it.’

  She talked on, seeming to know a great deal about her operation, explaining, when he mentioned this, ‘Oh, I’m in a chat room with some other kids who’ve had heart surgery. We talk about all kinds of things, compare scars and stories of how nearly we were to dying, although I think most of us exaggerate that part.’

  Did all nine-year-olds use the word exaggerate with such confidence? Oliver wondered, upgrading his image of his daughter from a just-past-starting-school stage to an almost teen.

  I’ll never cope. The panic-stricken thought rendered him momentarily speechless, but fortunately his new young friend was now telling him about a boy on the chat list that she thought fancied her, though meeting him might be difficult as he lived in England.