Christmas at Jimmie's Children's Unit

by Meredith Webber

  ‘Dr Rankin worked in England—he might know him.’ Was the nine-year-old’s mother trying to stem the flow of conversation?

  And how likely was that in a country of more than forty million people? He was about to point out the impossibility when another panic struck him. This nine-year-old girl—a child—had a boy who fancied her.

  Not his daughter! he decided savagely, but now the child was telling him the name of her boy friend—two separate words, Oliver told himself, not one—and the name was ringing a bell.

  ‘Is he from Leeds?’ he asked, getting back into the conversation with some difficulty.

  ‘Yes, he is,’ the delighted child replied. ‘Do you know him?’

  Oliver shook his head. This was taking coincidence too far. He refused to believe in Fates that pushed human lives around on some kind of cosmic chessboard, but—

  ‘I actually operated on him a few years ago,’ he admitted. ‘Like you, he had an AVSD when he was an infant, but he had a full separation, not a partial like yours, and he needed another op a year or so ago to stop his mitral valve leaking.’

  ‘What’s he like?’ the excited girl demanded. ‘Is he as good-looking as his picture? Does he really have a tattoo?’

  Oliver closed his eyes. Nine-year-old girls could not possibly be turned on by boys with tattoos. He refused to believe it.

  ‘I don’t remember a tattoo,’ he managed to reply, then he turned the conversation off the boy in Leeds

  by reminding his patient he had to examine her, and keeping the talk to purely professional matters.

  ‘I’ll tell him you’re my new doctor. He’ll be so excited,’ the girl told him as she left, while her mother, waiting until her daughter was out of earshot, smiled at Oliver in a harried kind of way.

  ‘She’s got two older brothers and, believe me, driving them around to sporting practice and games is a small price to pay for having boys. The elder one is thirteen now, and I swear he’s not even aware girls exist, except for the ones who play soccer with him.’

  Oliver went back into the office, sank down into his chair and rested his head on the desk. He thought of banging it against it, but he’d done that one other afternoon and knew it didn’t help.

  How could he possibly be a father to a nine-year-old girl? He didn’t know the first thing about fatherhood and, never having had a sister, knew even less about young girls. Images he had of pretty little things playing quietly in a corner with their dolls or perhaps doing scales on a piano were obviously so out-of-date he needed a crash course of some kind.

  He’d start with Clare. Forget marriage, forget attraction; they had to concentrate on Emily. Having kept his daughter from him all this time, Clare owed him, and she could begin repayment by bringing him up-to-date on what his daughter loved and hated, thought about, dreamed of and generally believed in as far as nine-year-old life was concerned.

  He found Clare sitting on Becky’s desk, chatting away about something—clothes probably. Hell, did the clothes thing begin in childhood with women? Would he have to learn about child fashion as well? He’d have to make a list.

  No, Clare would have to make a list. Emily’s likes and dislikes—that kind of thing.

  ‘Are you heading home?’ he asked her, then added in a very firm voice before she had a chance to refuse, ‘We could walk together.’

  ‘Very masterful,’ Clare murmured to Becky, and the two women smiled, further raising the aggravation he was feeling towards the whole female sex. But Clare had slid off the desk and showed every sign of being willing to walk with him, for which he should be pleased.

  Not so. Walking with her, even in a reasonably crowded hospital corridor, reminded him of the other aggravating aspect of the female species—the fact that they could give out some kind of emanations that made the coolest of men feel warmth building in their bodies, and carnal thoughts slipping into their minds.

  He forced himself to think of the purpose of this walk.

  ‘Does Emily think boys with tattoos are cool?’ he asked, or maybe demanded, for Clare stopped walking and turned to him with so much astonishment on her face he felt totally stupid.

  ‘I can explain,’ he said as the elevator doors opened and they stepped into the crowd inside.

  ‘I’m sure you can,’ Clare told him quietly, ‘but perhaps not here.’

  So they rode down in silence, which wasn’t good for the emanation thing, but at least battling it took his mind off Emily for a few minutes.

  Should she apologise for her behaviour last night? But how could she apologise without some explanation? And how could she explain that telling Oliver of her father’s death had brought back so many bad memories she’d barely been able to breathe?

  Clare stood beside him, trying to convince herself that guilt over her abrupt departure last night was making her feel so fidgety. It couldn’t possibly be desire—not when she knew anything between them would be impossible.

  And Oliver only wanted to walk with her to talk about Emily.

  She took the lead in case the conversation didn’t go that way.

  ‘What’s this about boys with tattoos?’ she asked as they left the hospital and headed through the grounds towards the traffic lights at the corner of their street.

  ‘I’ve been talking to a nine-year-old girl,’ he replied, his voice so laden with doom she had to hide a smile as she turned towards him, relaxed now that the conversation was about Em.

  ‘Ah! A nine-year-old girl who fancies a boy with tattoos?’

  The lights changed and they crossed, jostled to and fro by the mass of people, so it wasn’t until they were alone on their street that Oliver answered her.

  ‘She thinks he fancies her! Please tell me our daughter isn’t into boys! I realise fancying boys or them fancying her will come into the picture sometime and I don’t know how the hell a father handles things like that, but I thought I’d have a kind of breaking-in period.’

  ‘I think you’re safe with Em,’ Clare told him, her heart filled with joy at this evidence that Oliver was actually considering himself a father, before he’d even met his daughter. ‘At the moment she’s horse obsessed and I’ve encouraged that because to me it’s better than being clothes obsessed, and believe me, some nine-year-olds are. They know the cool brands, all of which are expensive, and won’t be seen dead in anything else.’

  ‘I think I need a list,’ he announced.

  He thinks he needs a list? Clare muddled over it for a while, then had to ask.

  ‘What kind of list?’

  ‘An Emily list—what she likes and doesn’t like. Food and games and stuff, then perhaps another list of things she does, and hopes and dreams…’

  ‘And pop stars and TV stars and boy bands and clothes,’ Clare added, smiling now at the thought of the endless lists she could make out. ‘It won’t work,’ she added, although the warm feeling inside her grew stronger, because Oliver cared enough to ask for lists. ‘Nine-year-old girls don’t have strong allegiances. What or who she likes this week could be completely different next week. It makes buying presents very tricky because you might think she’s still reading school stories and she’s decided they’re old hat—that is not a nine-year-old’s expression but one of mine—and she’s wanting some other book altogether.’

  ‘I’ll never be able to do it,’ Oliver said, so much despair in his voice Clare had to touch him. She reached out to pat his arm, feeling the muscle beneath his shirt, feeling all the things she still felt when she touched Oliver, no matter how unbelievable that might be.

  ‘Of course you will—you’re good with children.’

  ‘Other people’s children,’ he reminded her as they turned in through their gate. ‘What if I cook dinner and you write lists. Or if you don’t like the thought of lists you could just sit there and talk about what she thinks and does and talks about so I can get a sense of her.’

  He was following her up the stairs as he made the dinner suggestion, and whether it was the ide
a of sitting in Oliver’s kitchen while he cooked dinner, or his presence behind her on the stairs, she didn’t know, but a shiver of apprehension had slithered up her spine and left the nerves in her back tingling.

  To be honest, other nerves were tingling as well—deep-seated nerves—so relief flooded through her when he added, ‘Oh, no, I can’t do that. I haven’t shopped, and although Alex’s wife left the basics in the flat for me, they certainly don’t run to cooking dinner.’

  Clare had reached the landing at the top of the steps and was unlocking her door when he joined her.

  ‘Is there somewhere close by that we can eat?’ he asked. ‘Actually, that’s a better idea. You can talk and I can make the lists—or take notes—about whatever I might need to think about later.’

  He took her arm and turned her back towards the stairs.

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘Right now? Forget it. I am going inside. I’m going to kick off my shoes and have a long cold drink and then a long cool shower. Besides, you bought dinner for me last night.’

  ‘Well, tonight we can go Dutch—and you’re right, if we shower and change we’ll be fresher. I noticed in the notes Annie—that’s her name, isn’t it?—left for me that there are a couple of restaurants within walking distance, casual places with good food, she said. I’ll pick the closest, is that all right?’

  Oliver knew he was pushing Clare, but for all that he believed she’d tried to contact him about Emily, he still felt he was the injured party here. After all, she’d left him, and he deserved a little consideration.

  ‘You have to eat,’ he reminded her, ‘and you can’t deny me the opportunity to learn as much as I can about Emily before I meet her, now can you?’

  She studied him for a moment, her hand still on the key in the door.

  ‘As long as that’s all it’s about, Oliver,’ she said sternly. ‘No more kisses. Emily’s future is far too important to me to risk disturbing it with muddled thinking.’

  Oliver was about to smile but caught it just in time. Best not to look triumphant, but he couldn’t help but comment on her words.

  ‘You’re saying our kisses muddle your thinking?’

  ‘Of course they muddle my thinking,’ she said crossly. ‘They always have, and now you’re back, it’s even more disturbing. I mean, we hardly know each other, and there’s other stuff—a lot of other stuff. It’s impossible…’

  With that she flung open her door and stepped inside, her back to him so he could afford to smile, for if her words weren’t confirmation of the fact that she was still as much attracted to him as he was to her, what were they?

  ‘How long do you need to get ready?’ he called after her. ‘Shall I knock in half an hour?’

  ‘Okay’ came the reply as the door closed between them, and although it had all the enthusiasm of someone agreeing to an enema, Oliver felt a lurch of excitement.

  He’d rushed Clare with the marriage suggestion, but it was the perfect solution. She’d obviously suffered some trauma in their years apart—either in her marriage or maybe in childbirth—but together they could sort it out, especially as the attraction between them was as strong as ever.

  They’d put the past with all its hurts behind them, and begin again. Married! That way, he could be part of his daughter’s life, taking up his rightful place as her father, and Clare could continue to handle the main parenting stuff, just as she’d been doing for nine years.

  He ignored a slight qualm of conscience about this imagined arrangement, assuring himself that in time he’d grow into the parenting role and all would be well. In the meantime, he was going out to dinner with Clare, and if he remembered the map Annie had drawn, their route would take them through the park, and if walking through a park in the moonlight didn’t soften Clare’s attitude to kissing, he didn’t know what would.

  He’s doing it again, Clare admitted to herself as she kicked off her shoes, then dropped into an armchair, leaning back against the headrest and letting the tensions of the day ease from her body. Rushing me headlong into something without giving me time to think. That’s how we got together in the first place—attraction, bed, let’s move in together.

  Yes, he needed and deserved to learn more of Emily, but she knew him well enough to realise he hadn’t given up on the marriage idea. Obviously there would have to be a relationship of some kind between them—they shared a daughter—but knowing Oliver he’d use that as an excuse to push or pull her somewhere she didn’t want to go.

  Couldn’t go.

  The thought caused an ache in her heart. She’d reached out and touched him earlier and, touching him, had known she loved him. It had been as simple as that. No need to question whether it had never gone away, her love for Oliver, or whether this was new love. It didn’t matter because it was simply there, deep in her heart, and there it would stay no matter what.

  She almost sighed, then realised she seemed to be spending a lot of time sighing these days, so shut it off and straightened in the chair. Loving Oliver might be a fact, but it was an irrelevant one—a secret she had to keep to herself.

  It was also a secret she couldn’t allow to have any bearing on the decisions she would make about Emily’s future.

  Right now she had to think clearly of the future, not the past, and of practical matters, not love. For Emily’s sake she had to set aside her personal issues and concentrate on the best outcome for her daughter.

  She nodded acknowledgement of this decision and rose out of the chair. Time to shower and dress for dinner, to arm herself against whatever seductive wiles Oliver might choose to use. Though to be fair, it probably wasn’t his fault that his body held such a powerful attraction to hers.

  Nor were her memories his fault.

  Perhaps if she remembered those two things, she could have a normal, adult conversation with him.

  ‘You look great!’

  Three words, a conventional, probably meaningless compliment, and her resolution about the seductive wiles of his body dissolved like sugar in hot water. And so much for deciding not to put on any make-up. Given the limited time and the decision to ignore attraction, all she’d done was shower, pull on a long cool summer dress, then whip her hair up into a clasp on the top of her head, again for coolness.

  ‘You clean up okay yourself.’

  She returned the compliment, but made sure he knew it was nothing more than polite conversation by turning from him to lock her door.

  In fact, he’d cleaned up so far ahead of okay that for a moment he’d stolen her breath—and her resolve. He was wearing a dark blue shirt that for some perverse reason made his eyes seem greener, and stone-washed jeans that hugged his hips like a lover, revealing the swell of his butt and thick muscled thighs.

  ‘So…Emily, horses, you say. Does she have a horse?’

  They were across the road and on the path leading through the park, the lights already on, although it was barely dusk.

  Great, Emily conversation. Clare knew she could handle this, although she now realised that any time she was with Oliver, especially alone with Oliver, was like walking across a floor littered with broken glass—shards of broken dreams?—so she was always aware of having to tread especially carefully.

  What was the question?

  Horses.

  ‘Does she have a horse? Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how much the care and feeding of a horse costs? Different in the country, where a horse can live out in a paddock and eat grass, but in a city? They have to be stabled and exercised and brushed and combed and fed, daily tasks beyond the ability of a nine-year-old who also has to go to school.’

  Oliver listened to the words, but part of his brain was considering his companion—how beautiful she looked in the long, swishing dress with its fitted top cupping her full breasts, and the thin shoulder straps revealing the smooth golden skin of her shoulders and the pure, taut lines of her neck.

  Emily. They were talking about Emily.

  ‘How much?’ he
asked, and Clare stopped in midstride to turn and face him.

  ‘How much what?’ she asked, her dark eyes shadowed to almost black, and genuinely puzzled.

  ‘How much does it cost to keep a horse in the city?’

  She frowned at him, then shook her head.

  ‘I’ve no idea—not in actual, up-to-date figures—but I know it’s a lot. But the reality isn’t the cost of keeping the horse, but a nine-year-old’s forever changing goals and passions. Next year—forget that, next week—it might be swimming or hang gliding or who knows what. For the moment, the school provides an adequate outlet for the horse mania. Students who are interested ride one afternoon a week, and there’s the horse camp in the holidays. If she keeps riding, and does well at it, proving she’s committed to it, then later on I’ll think about a horse.’

  ‘We’ll think about a horse,’ Oliver corrected, but the conversation had puzzled him enough for him to ask, ‘How do you know these things about changing goals and passions and nine-year-olds? Are there books?’

  Clare smiled, such an open, delighted smile it made something stir inside Oliver’s chest. He hoped he wasn’t back to ectopic heartbeats.

  ‘There are books—hundreds of books—but I was a girl myself, and though at nine a horse would have been an acceptable passion for someone who lived on a farm, I wanted to be a surfer like my brothers. I nagged and nagged for a surfboard for my birthday but Mum and Dad had enough sense to start me off on an old one of Steve’s. I was still learning to stand on it when a friend got a pair of hamsters and surfing was forgotten in the bid to become a hamster tycoon. I’ve forgotten what came next, but Mum no doubt remembers every one of my enthusiasms—all the things I’d absolutely die if I didn’t get, have, try.’

  Had his face betrayed his reaction that she reached out and grasped his arm?

  ‘Oh, Oliver, I’m sorry. I forgot what a miserable excuse for a childhood you had.’

  He stepped towards her and slipped his free arm around her shoulders.