Doctors in Flight

by Meredith Webber

  Then it’s back to business and, instead of having lunch with the beautiful Caitlin, we perform a hysterectomy on Mrs Russell. Then, once again, GR and I find ourselves in a changing room together, flinging Theatre gear off and fielding the inevitable currents of excitement that nothing seems to dispel.

  ‘Are you OK? Did you sleep?’

  I realise he hasn’t mentioned the drama of my father in front of Michael or Dave.

  In case I change my mind about acknowledging him? Or because he’s naturally discreet?

  ‘I’m OK and I slept,’ I tell him, which is nowhere near the truth, and as I realise that I add, in a very small voice, ‘But I could do with a hug.’

  He folds his arms around me and holds me close. It’s as asexual an embrace as we have ever shared but it works wonders, allowing me to straighten up and think ahead to the afternoon’s work.

  Caitlin and her doctor fiancé, Connor, are waiting for us in the consulting room.

  ‘You couldn’t come to us so we brought sandwiches to you,’ Caitlin explains, introducing Connor and glowing at him with that peculiar radiance of love. ‘Mike’s taking some to Michael and he’ll watch Mrs Russell while Michael eats.’

  GR’s explaining to Connor what we’ve done and I’m watching him—GR, that is—instead of listening to Caitlin.

  Then she stops talking and I turn to her and see her smile.

  ‘I haven’t known him very long but he seems a lovely man,’ she says softly, and I realise I must have been mooning or in some other way betraying how I feel.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ she adds in a husky whisper. ‘I think when you’re newly in love, like me, you’re sensitised to love in other people. Look at the shine in Anne’s eyes when you see her later. An unhappy love affair looks as if it’s finally coming right for her.’

  I nod to Caitlin, acknowledging her prescience, but don’t mention the larger problem that’s just arrived in my life.

  The Argentinian.

  We finally head for home. It’s late and I’m exhausted, so heaven knows how GR must feel after operating all day.

  ‘We can put off tonight’s dinner,’ he tells me, tucking me into his car with unusual solicitude for the drive back to the quarters.

  ‘And have another sleepless night worrying about meeting him?’ I demand. ‘No way. This is something both Gran and I need to get done.’

  He starts the car and speaks without looking at me.

  ‘Would you rather I wasn’t there?’

  Jeepers—what’s that mean? He doesn’t want to be there?

  The thought panics me so much I blurt out, ‘You don’t have to be there if you don’t want, but I thought—I mean, you said—’

  He reaches out and takes my hand, still looking at the road.

  ‘I’d like to be there for you,’ he says quietly. ‘I would like that in whatever capacity you might consider me. As your boss, your colleague, your friend or your lover, Blue. Any or all of those things.’

  ‘You’ll make my eyes leak if you say things like that,’ I tell him crossly. ‘And I’ll have to meet my father with red eyes and blotchy skin. It’s the curse of the redhead.’

  He grins.

  ‘I think he’ll understand that part at least,’ he says, and I stare at him.

  ‘He’s got red hair? My father’s got red hair?’

  ‘Well, it’s more grey than red now, but you can tell it was red,’ GR says, now sufficiently diverted to glance towards me. ‘Does that matter?’

  I don’t know why, but it does. But I can’t explain so I just nod.

  Naturally, by the time we make it to the motel I’m a nervous wreck. I’ve told GR we’ll meet him there, and his appreciative whistle when I turn up in the shimmery blue Bliss dress I bought in Creamunna raises my confidence a couple of notches. Which brings it from about subterranean level to almost ground level.

  Alex Costas is a grey-haired man of medium height. GR introduces us, Alex takes my hand, and both our eyes leak. I’m glad GR’s there because after what seems like about five hours of this hand-holding, eyes-leaking stuff I still can’t find my voice, and GR kind of pulls us apart, introduces Gran then steers us all into the dining room where he—I assume it was he—has arranged a private alcove for us. Not that anyone else is dining in the Buckjumper’s dining room this late at night. Country people tend to eat earlier than nine-thirty.

  GR also steers the conversation ably, asking Alex how long he will be in Australia, what parts he’s seen, what his first impressions are.

  We order meals and drinks—GR handles most of this as well but I must have indicated some preference as I find I’m sipping white wine.

  Alex recovers far more quickly than I do. He makes all the right noises in response to GR’s questions—he flew into Sydney, stayed there some days, enquiring about my mother, loved the harbour and liked the friendly people. He then explains that he can only be away a month on this visit as important business guests are flying in from Europe to stay with him.

  He turns to me and takes my hand in his.

  ‘I would very much like you to accompany me back to Argentina, so I can introduce my daughter to her family.’ He pauses, and I know my eyes are going to leak again because his are moist already with whatever he’s going to say.

  ‘You are my only child, and although, through not knowing of you, and to my eternal shame, I have done nothing for you these past long years, eventually you will, naturally, be my heir. In the meantime, I would beg you give me time to get to know you better—and for you to learn to know me.’

  GR hands me a handkerchief, but I’m too shocked to need it. I can’t believe I haven’t, at any stage in the past twenty-four hours, given thought to what might happen after this meeting. You might not believe anyone could be so dumb but, honestly, it never occurred to me to think past tonight.

  Alex is talking to Gran, including her in his invitation to visit Argentina, telling her he has much to make up to her for what happened to her daughter. Then he gets angry.

  ‘I cannot believe she didn’t tell me. That she just took herself away, leaving me a letter saying she no longer loved me. I could not make my heart believe it. I was her first—her only lover. I adored her and she, I thought, felt the same way about me, then, poof, she’s gone, leaving me just that silly note.’

  ‘But you couldn’t have married her,’ Gran reminds him, and he shakes his head.

  ‘No, you are right, and what I did was wrong, loving her as I did, accepting love from her. But I promise you, I would have cared for her and for Hillary. They would never have wanted for anything.’

  Gran nods but I know she isn’t completely satisfied. Then, as the meals are delivered to the table, Alex blows us all away.

  ‘Did you name her Hillary? Choose her name?’ he asks, turning to Gran, who shakes her head.

  ‘Nell left a note. It said, “I’m sorry Mum. If it’s a girl, would you call her Hillary?” She spelt it that way, with two “l”s, which is unusual.’

  ‘It is my second name,’ Alex says. ‘After my mother, who was English.’

  I push away my meal and stand up.

  ‘I’m sorry, Alex. I can’t stay here right now. I need to get away and think. I’m sorry, and I’ll see you again. We’ll talk some other time, but I can’t talk, or eat, or even breathe properly right now.’

  GR stands with me, glances at Gran to check she’s OK on her own, then walks around the table, puts his arm around my shoulders and steadies me as we leave the dining room.

  ‘I’m named after a grandmother I didn’t know I had? I can’t handle this, Gregor.’

  He gives my shoulders a squeeze, then drops a kiss on the top of my head.

  ‘I think that’s the first time you’ve ever called me Gregor,’ he says, his smile warming the words.

  I turn towards him and offer the best I can in the way of a smile of my own. ‘I suppose now I need to keep all the distance stuff for Alex,’ I admit, and he hugs me again.
<
br />   ‘I’m taking you home to my place,’ he says. ‘Tonight’s not a good night for you to be on your own—not when you’re in shock.’

  ‘What about Gran?’ I ask. ‘She’s in just as much shock as I am.’

  ‘Then she’ll probably go to Charles’s place, not back to the old nurses’ quarters anyway.’

  I decide I’m too confused to worry about Gran and drop the subject. Besides, I’ve never been to Gregor’s place, and the way he’s talking, we’re about to get to spend the whole night together. He might even have a decent-sized bed.

  He does, and we use it to advantage, but with a slow and gentle love-making that warms every cell in my body and makes me, for an hour at least, forget I have a father.

  Then Gregor props himself on his side and runs his fingers through my hair.

  ‘You should go back with him,’ he says quietly, but the effect of the words is like a pistol shot and I shoot up in the bed and glare at him.

  ‘What? What are you saying? Do you want me to go so you can say “I told you so” about women O and G specialists? Is that it, or is an easy way out of this affair for you—so you’ll be free to propose to the dustbin?’

  I’m ranting and I know it, but we’ve just made wonderful, beautiful, magnificent love and he’s telling me to go to Argentina. I carry on ranting, and rave a little as well, and he lets me, waiting until I run out of steam to remind me, very calmly, that it’s what I’ve always wanted—to find my father, meet some family.

  ‘You told me that,’ he reminds me, which makes me angrier, so I clamber out of bed, gathering my clothes, scrambling in the darkness of this unfamiliar room.

  ‘Stop that,’ GR orders, but I’m beyond calming, pulling on the dress, cursing its slinky lines which make it difficult to drag on quickly, searching for my sandals, finding one, and my undies, and my handbag…

  He stops trying to stop me and dresses himself. I hear the clunk as he picks up his car keys. He drives me home, silent and brooding—well, he’s silent, I’m brooding and occasionally giving off huffs of anger. I can understand why dragons breathe fire.

  ‘Do you want some time off to spend with your father?’ he asks as we pull up outside the old quarters.

  ‘No, he’s here for a while, I can see him in the evenings.’

  I open the car door and climb out, and he meets me halfway around the bonnet.

  ‘Blue?’

  He says it softly, and the silly nickname makes my heart skitter with delight, but I brush past him, clomping up the steps and into the old building.

  He doesn’t follow, and I’m left with my own thoughts for company. Gran, as GR supposed, is not home.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  GR ARRIVES the following morning and it’s as if nothing ever happened—and I mean nothing! He’s as cool and noncommittal as he was the first week I was working with him, talking about patients and operations and plans for the day and week.

  And it’s killing me.

  It’s not that we’ve been kissing and canoodling all the way to work recently, but there was a warmth in the car, and a teasing kind of tension as if a lot of lovely secrets lay between us, like parcels waiting to be unwrapped.

  This morning the air is cool enough for me to grow icicles on my ears. I tell myself this is good—that a breakup was inevitable and at least with Alex here I’ll have other things to worry about apart from heartbreak.

  But GR’s been kind and I behaved badly last night, so as we pull up at the roadhouse I reach out and touch his arm.

  ‘I’m sorry if I said things that upset you last night. I was a bit overwrought.’

  ‘Just a bit,’ he teases, the ice melting in an instant. He covers my hand with his. ‘You’ve a tough time ahead, Blue,’ he adds, turning so he can look into my eyes. ‘And a heap of emotional stuff to sort out with Alex. What worries me most is that I might have inadvertently made that hard for you, saying things about women O and G specialists, which were purely personal opinions. Going back to Argentina with your father makes sense. It’s not for ever—you can slot back into the O and G programme when you get return.’

  He sighs, then adds, ‘The trouble is, Blue, you’re so darned stubborn you’d turn down an opportunity like that just to prove me wrong.’

  I feel like biting him, but make do with words instead.

  ‘I might be stubborn, but you’re so darned stupid you can’t see that I’m in love with you! That I turned down the opportunity not because of a stupid job but because I didn’t want to be parted from you! I know you don’t feel the same way and that it’s too soon, and not the way love should happen but, there, now you know.’

  I get out of the car and almost slam the buckling metal but remember just in time. I stride into the roadhouse—I’d have stalked, only you need high heels for a really good stalk and I’m back in elastic-sided boots—and order bacon, eggs, tomatoes and hot chocolate for breakfast.

  Michael, who’s already at a table, looks nauseous. Unfortunately the plane incident hasn’t helped his motion sickness at all.

  ‘You’ve got to be joking!’ he says. ‘Hot chocolate with all that grease.’

  ‘Grease is good,’ I tell him, as GR joins us in time to give the waitress his order.

  But he doesn’t comment on my breakfast when it arrives, and we eat in silence, Michael sipping at his coffee and making occasional comments about the other early morning customers.

  I try to read GR’s face. In fact, for the rest of the day, whenever we’re together, I attempt that impossible task. He’s back to bland—no emotion whatsoever, so if he’s horrified by my impassioned declaration of love, he’s not showing it.

  I spend the day in limbo—love declared but not acknowledged. GR has to go out to his property from the airport so Michael drives me back to the nurses’ quarters. I borrow Gran’s car and visit Alex that night. He seems a nice man, and more and more I come to realise that he genuinely loved my mother.

  And more and more I have to think what I’d have done under the same circumstances. Loving GR as I do, I can put myself in my mother’s place. So would I have left, knowing I was pregnant with a child who could cause problems in my loved one’s life?

  I can’t answer that, but feel closer to my mother than I ever have before.

  ‘Now I know about you, I am sure she said what she did—about not loving me—to protect me,’ Alex says as we sit over coffee in the dining room. ‘Love is such a strong emotion, it confuses us at times.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ I tell him, and he looks a little confused. Spanish is his first language so some of our clichés might not translate.

  ‘You are saying you’re confused? About Gregor?’

  I nod, and suddenly I’m having a father-daughter conversation with a father I hadn’t known I had, pouring out my heart to a man I barely know.

  ‘I am going there this weekend,’ Alex says, when I finish my tale of woe. ‘You will also be at his ranch?’

  This is news to me, though GR did say something yesterday about showing Alex his cattle.

  Gran’s back at the quarters when I return, and she knows about this as well. Apparently we’re all to go out there—Alex, Charles, Gran, me—all playing happy families.

  ‘It would have been nice if someone had asked me,’ I grouch at GR when we meet for lunch after the morning consultations in his Bilbarra rooms.

  ‘I did and you said yes,’ GR tells me, ‘but as you’ve been inhabiting a world of your own the last few days, it probably didn’t sink in.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to go.’ I’m still grouching, and sulking, too, most probably. Wouldn’t anyone who’d declared their love on Thursday morning—very early!—if by Friday lunchtime the recipient of the declaration was still ignoring it?

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ GR says soothingly, then he adds, with just a hint of a quirk, ‘But you will, because otherwise you won’t know what might be going on and it’ll drive you mad.’

  He can’t know me that
well in such a short time! I wail to myself, while delivering a really good glare in his direction.

  So we all go out to the property on Saturday morning, and GR takes Alex on a tour. As I haven’t seen much more than the lily pool, I tag along in the back seat of the vehicle. Which also gives me a chance to gaze longingly at the back of GR’s head.

  Love is really strange, isn’t it? That even the back of a perfectly normal head could be the focus of such attention?

  We return a little after two, and Elizabeth feeds us a magnificent—if slightly late—lunch, after which the older members of the party retire to squatters’ chairs on the veranda.

  ‘Come for a ride, Blue?’

  GR’s frowning, though he must know I’ll say yes. I told him last time how much I missed riding.

  We head off in a different direction to the one we took last time, but eventually end up at the same pool. The sun’s sinking behind low mountains to the west and the vivid purple and orange of the sunset is reflected in the water.

  We dismount for the horses to have a drink, then tie them up and sit down on the grass, hands linked around our knees. I want him so badly I feel as if I’m on fire, but there’s so much unresolved.

  My mother ran from the man she loved, sacrificing herself for him. I don’t think I’m that noble—in fact, I know I’m not—but Alex loved my mother and how GR feels is a mystery.

  ‘I spoke to Alex yesterday afternoon, and I think we’ve worked things out.’ GR breaks the silence. He’s not touching me but I can feel the shimmery heat our bodies generate vibrating in the air between us.

  But his statement is confusing so I can’t let myself be distracted by shimmery heat.

  ‘What kind of things did you have to work out with Alex?’ I ask, genuinely puzzled.

  GR turns to me and smiles.

  ‘Practical things, Blue,’ he says gently, and he leans forward and kisses me on the lips. ‘Like how you can get to know him better without going back with him now, and when we can both get away to Argentina so you can see whatever it is you’re likely to inherit and decide what you want to do about it.’

  He touches my hair, my cheek and draws a finger about the line of my lips. ‘I was wrong to think you could do all that on your own.’