Marriage Miracle in Swallowbrook

by Abigail Gordon

  Now was the moment to tell him she wished she hadn’t said that, even though she’d meant it during the few seconds that the words had fallen from her lips, but almost immediately had regretted them. How could she face a life without Gabriel?

  He was turning away to take bread out of the toaster and they were alone, Sophie and Josh had gone into the sitting room to watch TV so the opportunity was there to tell Gabriel that the last thing she wanted was a divorce.

  But he’d just been commenting on his proposed departure from the London oncology scene and might think that her change of mind was connected with coaxing him back into cancer care, when all she had ever wanted had been a lighter workload where she and the children saw more of him, where their life was how it used to be, with him holding her close in the night and sharing the occasional meal with them.

  With Sophie and Joshua a continual joy, they had planned to have another child, but that idea had been put to one side because Gabriel had always been too tired, and as she had been beginning to feel more and more like a single mother, the thought had lost its appeal.

  * * *

  Hugo’s wife, Ruby, sought Laura out in the middle of the morning at the surgery and said laughingly, ‘You are a dark horse, a husband who is a London consultant, and Gabriel Armitage of all people.’

  Laura smiled back at her. She liked the slender young doctor with the short, chestnut-coloured hair and ivory skin. It was plain to see that she was much cherished by her new husband, but sometimes she picked up on melancholy in Ruby, though it always disappeared when Hugo came into view.

  The two of them, husband and wife, did the weekly antenatal clinic at the surgery and once when someone had asked Ruby jokingly how she would feel when she was pregnant and was doctor and patient at the same time, Laura had seen her turn away as if she hadn’t heard the question.

  ‘I just stopped by to remind you that it’s Swallowbrook’s Summer Fayre on Saturday,’ Ruby said. ‘Weather permitting, it will be on the village green, otherwise in the church hall. Everyone turns out for it, and as you and your family are newly resident here I thought I would make sure that you knew about it.’

  ‘Thanks for that,’ Laura told her. ‘We will certainly be there. Sophie and Josh will love it.’ Whether Gabriel would want to go she didn’t know, but that was up to him.

  * * *

  Saturday dawned bright and clear with a summer sun high in the sky, and Laura’s spirits lifted. When she’d told Gabriel about the coming event after her chat with Ruby he had shown more interest than she’d expected, commenting that there was something to be said for country life, especially when a beautiful lake was part of the package.

  Having always been a city dweller and recently having spent some time in exceptionally depressing surroundings, he was realising just how much he had needed a change of scene from the pressures of what had been his life before this. But always there was the knowledge that he was paying a high price for it and so was Laura. Even relinquishing the career that had been so fulfilling and worthwhile hadn’t brought her back into his arms.

  He wanted to talk it through with her, clear away the cobwebs and start afresh, but it would seem that the void between them had grown too wide for that. He wanted to talk but she didn’t, and the spectre of divorce hung over him like a black cloud.

  Yet no one seeing the four of them amongst village folk and visitors on the village green would have guessed that all was not well between the two parents.

  Laura’s light mood persisted as they wandered amongst carousels and ducking stools, watched Morris dancers, and browsed around stalls selling food and goods made by local people.

  Libby and Nathan were there with Toby and when introductions had been made the two young boys stayed together as their parents strolled along, but Sophie didn’t leave Gabriel’s side, clinging onto his hand tightly. Laura thought that never again must their children be separated from their father, no matter how flat and lifeless their marriage had become.

  Meals were being served in the village hall by members of Swallowbrook’s Community Association with the vicar’s wife in charge, while her husband wandered amongst his parishioners from table to table, chatting and smiling benignly upon them.

  When he stopped to have a word beside where they were sitting Laura saw that Gabriel was listening to him intently, and when the vicar had moved on he said, ‘Is his voice always so hoarse, Laura?’

  ‘Having only just got to know him I haven’t spoken to him very often,’ she replied, ‘but when I have, yes, it has been like that.’

  He was rising from his seat. ‘Maybe I should have a word with him,’ he murmured, and followed the other man, who, having welcomed all those present, had found himself a quiet spot to have some refreshment of his own.

  ‘My name is Gabriel Armitage,’ Gabriel said when he drew level. ‘I am an oncologist and would suggest that you make an appointment to see someone about your voice box, just to be on the safe side.’ As the vicar observed him in surprise, he added, ‘I hope that I’m mistaken, but there could be a problem with the larynx that is making your voice so hoarse. How long has it been like that?’

  ‘Er, quite a while,’ came the reply, ‘but I have put it down to my doing so much talking. It goes with the job, I’m afraid. Please accept my thanks for your concern. I will most certainly do what you have suggested. There will be a clinic opening soon here in the village that will be treating that sort of thing. Maybe I could see someone there when it is functioning.’

  Gabriel shook his head. ‘Don’t wait. See someone now.’ And leaving the vicar looking stunned, he went back to join Laura and the children.

  ‘What did you tell him?’ she asked.

  ‘Just that it would be wise to have the hoarseness checked and to do it now. The vicar suggested waiting until the new clinic opens, so he had tuned in to what I was hinting at, although neither of us mentioned the “C” word.

  ‘But I’ve heard that kind of hoarseness before. In many cases that is what it has been, and everyone knows that early diagnosis can save lives.’

  As they looked across to where the vicar’s wife was listening open-mouthed to what her husband had to say, she knew that it wasn’t likely that Gabriel would be wrong.

  For the rest of the afternoon the four of them strolled amongst the crowds and stopped from time to time while the children went on the various rides and gazed at the sideshows, and Laura thought this was what they’d all been short of, family outings, time together.

  But the cost for this to come about had been high for all of them, and they had paid dearly for it. She had asked for just a little of his time and now was getting all of it.

  Walking beside her, Gabriel was aware of her every mood swing, every smile, every frown, and asked, ‘What is wrong? Do you want to go home?’

  ‘No, I’m fine,’ she assured him quickly, and observing Sophie and Josh, who were consuming toffee apples with great relish, she said, ‘And I don’t think the children are ready to go yet.’

  ‘Not even if we go down to the lake and have our evening meal at one of the restaurants there?’

  ‘Well, maybe if we go for a sail first. Why don’t we ask them?’

  ‘Yes,’ the two of them chorused when the boat trip was mentioned, so shortly afterwards, with farewells to the surgery crowd, they left the village green and made their way to the lake.

  As they boarded the Swallow, one of the larger passenger launches, Gabriel observed the fells that encircled the lake, bleak in winter, but on a bright summer day displaying a rugged sort of magnificence that would account for the many who were walking and climbing on their steep slopes and high ledges.

  ‘They are something else, aren’t they?’ he said. ‘A challenge that lots of people won’t be able to resist, whether they are experienced enough to go up there or not.’

&nb
sp; ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Both Nathan and Hugo are involved as doctors with the mountain rescue team when it is called out.’ Having mentioned them, she chose the moment to ask, ‘Do you think they know about what happened to us? No one has said anything.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean that they aren’t thinking a lot,’ he said dryly. ‘But I don’t mind people knowing I’ve been in prison. It’s in the past, Laura. When are you and I going to talk about the future?’

  The children broke into her thoughts at that moment, pointing to the island where they’d had the picnic, and for the rest of the sail and during the meal at the hotel on the lakeside, the happy family charade continued until they were back at Swallows Barn and the children were in bed.

  When she came downstairs after their bathtime Gabriel had taken drinks out into the garden and was waiting for her on the patio. As she lowered herself onto a chair opposite him he said, ‘We can’t go on like this, with you clamming up every time I want to talk.

  ‘I know that our thought processes are not exactly in harmony at the present time, but never discussing our problems isn’t going to make them go away. Surely you understand that.’

  ‘The workings of your mind seem to have become very shallow since you’ve been away from me,’ she said soberly. ‘You say that we never talk, but what has happened to us making decisions together about the important things in our lives? That is how it has always been until recently.

  ‘So did you come out of medicine to show me how much you love me, or to teach me a lesson? That you had your priorities right when I had to make an appointment to see you, and I hadn’t?’

  ‘I can’t believe you could think that,’ he told her, ‘but I suppose I’ve asked for it, like everything else.’ He had risen from his chair and was looking down at her, and as she raised her eyes to his he asked, ‘Do you still want a divorce?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. It might be the best thing for us, Gabriel, but it wouldn’t be for the children, Sophie especially. I watched her holding your hand ever so tightly at the Summer Fayre and can’t count the number of times she asked for you while you were shut away from us. They need you in their lives all the time, not as a part-time father with visiting rights.’

  ‘But not you? You don’t need me in your life any more?’

  ‘I think we’ve just about exhausted that topic of conversation,’ she told him, standing to face him. ‘It has run its course.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he agreed, ‘but this hasn’t.’ And the next moment he was holding her close, pressing the soft curves of her against the hardness of his chest, and with his hand under her chin he raised her mouth to his and kissed her with a hunger that came from long nights without her in a prison cell and the heavy, reproachful burden of regret that weighed him down.

  Laura’s legs had gone weak at the sudden onslaught of his passion upon her own yearnings. Any thoughts of resisting were disappearing. It was only when reality with its calm common sense took hold of the moment that she found the will to push him away and tell him breathlessly, ‘We’re not going to resolve our problems this way, Gabriel.’

  As his arms fell away she turned and went back into the house and when he followed without speaking she wished him a frail goodnight and disappeared once more into the room that was beginning to feel like a cloistered cell, knowing that the only man she would ever love would be sleeping just across the landing, and if her passion was at a low level, it would seem that his wasn’t.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SUNDAY brought with it showers and sunny spells so Laura was content to spend the day indoors with her family. Apart from the weather there were chores to be done and preparations for the coming week to deal with for her and the children.

  What Gabriel’s plans were for the days ahead in the limbo he had created job-wise, Laura didn’t know. He hadn’t mentioned looking for any other kind of employment and remembering his comments about the attractions of Swallowbrook, maybe he intended to spend what to him would be a summer idyll in the place. And if he did that, couldn’t she be less critical of the decision he’d made about his work with cancer? He’d had little enough opportunity to unwind in the past.

  The children loved having him around and his help with the domestic side of things was a relief from having to juggle the position of practice manager with all the other responsibilities that had been hers while he hadn’t been with them. It made the job so much more enjoyable and fulfilling.

  Whether Gabriel was achieving the same amount of pleasure from his switch from well-known oncologist to stay-at-home husband she didn’t know, but he seemed happy enough with the present circumstances in spite of having given up the job she would have thought he would have wanted to do for ever.

  If they had been communicating the way they used to in the early days of their marriage she would have been aware of what it was costing him to be shut off from his life’s work, but that sort of closeness was missing, and sleeping in separate beds in separate rooms wasn’t going to bring it back.

  There had been no news from James over recent days and her experience of hospital administration at that level had taught her that committees and that sort of gathering often did what they had to do at snail’s pace.

  But didn’t Gabriel realise that by giving up his consultancy she was being made to feel that she was to blame for all that had happened to them? She would be seen as shallow and selfish, the wife who had felt she should come before his work, when that had not been the case.

  When she looked out into the garden he was seated on the patio, reading the Sunday papers in the very same spot where he’d wanted to make love to her the night before, and she felt the sting of tears. That part of their lives had been wonderful once, but not any more, because it had gradually disappeared.

  Now there was all the time in the world to make up for it, but on what basis when the foundation of their marriage was crumbling? No way could she face the thought of what had been a magical coming together of tenderness and desire being replaced by lust.

  As if he sensed her watching him, Gabriel looked up and the children, who were playing near him, waved. She waved back, and through the open window called to him, ‘I’m going to go for a stroll.’

  ‘Do you want us to come with you?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she told him with a smile to take away the sting of the refusal. ‘I need some time on my own for a change. Ever since the children and I moved to Swallowbrook it is something that has been in short supply, what with caring for them, starting a new job, the renovating of this place, and so forth.’

  ‘Yes, I can imagine,’ he said bleakly, with the agonising memory of long nights when he’d imagined her alone with the children and no one to protect her, should the need arise. Yet he hadn’t exactly been around that much before then, had he?

  Sometimes the night had been almost over before he’d wearily climbed the stairs with sleep the only thing on his mind. So Laura must feel that a vacant place in the bed here in Swallowbrook wasn’t all that different from how it had been before.

  She was waiting for anything else he had to say before she went for the stroll she’d mentioned and he didn’t disappoint her. ‘Being alone is the last thing I would crave,’ he told her. ‘I’ve spent enough time under those conditions to last a lifetime.’

  ‘Yes. I know,’ she told him wretchedly.

  What he had endured because of her would be engraved upon her heart for ever, and instead of leaving Gabriel and the children for a while with a light step, her feet felt heavy and leaden as she left the house.

  When the lake came into view she walked alongside it until she was away from the bustle of the boat terminal, and perching on a dry stone wall that separated the lakeside from one of the many farms in the area she let the quiet of the place wash over her. Maybe here with no one to make any demands of her, or to confuse her further
, she would be able to get a clearer perspective of the future, she decided, but it didn’t happen. She just sat gazing blankly into space, letting time drift by.

  * * *

  Back at the house Gabriel was doing the opposite, watching the clock. Laura was taking some stroll, he was thinking. The amount of time she’d been gone indicated a much longer exercise than that. He’d given the children their evening meal and they would soon be ready for bed, but not before their mother came back. If she didn’t come soon, he would go and look for her and it would mean him having to take them with him.

  When the doorbell rang he wasn’t expecting it to be her, she would have a key, and neither was he prepared to see Ruby and Hugo Lawrence standing in the porch.

  ‘Hello, Gabriel,’ Hugo said. ‘We just stopped by to ask if Laura is here with you. We’ve just been for a sail on one of the passenger launches and we thought we saw her sitting by the lakeside as we passed. It is so rarely that she is alone when out and about, so we thought that if we found her at home with you we were mistaken.’

  ‘Come in,’ he said, and they stepped into the hallway. ‘No, she isn’t here. Laura went for a stroll ages ago, saying she wanted some breathing space, some time to herself, and hasn’t returned, so I was just about to go in search of her. If you could describe exactly where you saw her I’ll go and bring her back. It could be that she’s walked too far, or maybe hurt her foot or something, and she hasn’t got her phone with her. She left it on the kitchen table.’

  The children had heard Hugo’s voice and were coming running at the sound of it, and Ruby said, ‘You go, Dr Armitage. We’ll stay with Sophie and Josh until you get back.’

  ‘Thanks, I appreciate the offer,’ he told her, and was behind the driving seat of the car in seconds, praying that he would find Laura where they’d said, or even nearer home if possible.

  She’d been pushed too far, he thought grimly as the lake came into view, and he was to blame. He’d thought that by giving her all of his time she would understand how much he regretted what had happened to them, but again he’d miscalculated her love for him, and the sacrifice he’d made felt hollow when memories of the satisfaction that came from his kind of work came back to haunt him.