by Rebecca Lang
‘I also want to talk to you about Dominic Fraser,’ he said coolly, unexpectedly, ‘because this appears to be the time and the place, since we’re alone and not likely to be interrupted. We may not get another chance, and I want to get it out of the way. Perhaps…’ his eyes went over her pointedly again ‘…you would prefer to get dressed before we discuss it.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, standing up, gearing herself up mentally, honing her dislike.
Less than five minutes later, when she was dressed, her hair neat and sitting in a chair holding a mug of hot chocolate, Dan came and sat in another chair near her, though not near enough to make her feel that he was invading her personal space in any way. That was an odd thought, she mused, while commending him for what she perceived as his sensitivity. The thought also came to her that basically he probably didn’t like her any more than she liked him.
‘First, let me see if I have the facts straight,’ he said, starting right into the topic. ‘I want to get this over with before I get called into the hospital for something. And, by the way, Dr Crowley will be dropping by some time later for a drink because we have work issues to discuss. Would you like to join us?’
‘Oh, no…thanks,’ Signy said. ‘I shall read and then sleep…or try to sleep.’
‘Easier to sleep during the day on a sofa than it is at night?’ he queried.
‘Mmm.’ She nodded.
‘Let’s see…you worked with Dr Fraser for about three months,’ Dan said, ‘then he and two other workers were taken hostage by a rebel group when they were away from the medical station in an area where they weren’t supposed to be, an area that was considered unsafe by World Aid Doctors. They were exploring—for the adventure, I believe?’
Signy bit her lip, saying nothing. What he’d said was true.
‘They were, fortunately, released unharmed about a week later,’ he went on, fixing her with a shrewd glance. The matter-of-fact delivery was putting past events into perspective for her, even though she could feel herself fighting against any change in her own perceptions, having struggled for so long to sort it all out in her mind, to come to terms with it, with Dominic’s actions.
‘A month later, some UN workers were in the same general area,’ Dan said. ‘Dr Fraser took it upon himself to seek out these people in an attempt to see if he could get them to track down the rebels who had taken them hostage, even though the organization, the WAD, was doing all it could to get to the bottom of it. There wasn’t much chance of success as they were most likely long gone. Dr Fraser left the medical station at a time when they could ill afford to be without one of their doctors. That was the last anyone at the station saw of him. Am I right so far?’
Signy nodded, feeling tears prick her eyes at the unemotional delivery of the facts. ‘You’ve got it,’ she said, refusing to be goaded by the implied criticism.
Giving her a hard stare, he went on. ‘About a week later, WAD decided that the area of the medical station had become too dangerous and it was time to pull out, so they sent a truck to pick up the staff and take them out to a place of safety. Is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘When the truck arrived, without prior notice—which was difficult to give, communications being what they were—all the staff from WAD and WAN agreed to leave, except you, Ms Clover,’ Dan said, his voice flat. ‘Right?’
‘Yes,’ she said, returning his regard coolly. ‘I didn’t want to go without Dom—Dr Fraser, leaving him with no way to get out. I talked to the driver of the truck, who said he would send someone back in three or four days’ time for me, and for…for Dr Fraser, if he’d returned by then.’
‘So,’ Dan went on relentlessly, ‘one of our workers went there on a motorbike to get you, having an accident on the way. If Dr Fraser had been there, how do you think that three people could have got onto one motorbike?’
‘Joachim said that he was prepared to stay at the medical station, with the African nurse there, that she would find a way for him to get out or to hide him if necessary. He was African, he knew the terrain, he knew the area.’ Even to Signy’s ears it sounded risky, rather lame. ‘At the time,’ she tried to explain, ‘in a time of desperation, it seemed as good a solution as any. It’s easy for us to sit here in cold blood and pull it all apart…as though we had a lot of options.’
‘I’m just trying to elicit the facts,’ he said unemotionally.
‘It’s not my way to abandon people,’ she said.
‘Even if your actions endanger others?’
‘It was a risk I was willing to take. I didn’t have time to ponder it,’ she said.
He just sat and looked at her, his expression giving nothing away.
‘I think I hate you,’ she said calmly, not having planned to say that, watching his eyebrows rise sardonically above his shrewd eyes that seemed to read everything about her. ‘It wasn’t all cut and dried like that. We had to make decisions on the spur of the moment in that primitive place, and hope that we’d made the right ones.’ There was no way she was going to let him get away with sitting there as judge and jury. ‘And what, Dr Blake, was your part in all this?’
‘I simply passed on the directive to get out—I didn’t make it,’ he said. ‘I put it in writing, I arranged for the truck and driver, as I was directed to do. I didn’t hear till later that one person hadn’t come out and one was missing. I wasn’t responsible for sorting it all out.’
With her hands clenched on the mug, Signy faced him. ‘It was a calculated risk that I stayed behind,’ she said. ‘Like so many other things in life.’
A few tears had fallen from her eyes and run down her cheeks. They were tears for Dominic. ‘I loved Dominic,’ she said. ‘He was a good person. I could no more leave him behind than I could leave a brother.’
His loaded silence seemed calculated to bring home to her that Dominic was gone for ever.
‘You make Dr Fraser sound like a naughty boy who went off on an adventure that he shouldn’t have gone on. He’d been taken hostage, he wanted justice done for that,’ she said.
‘Justice?’ Dan gave a dry laugh. ‘There are no such things as justice and human rights in a place where order has broken down, where the infrastructure isn’t in place to mete out justice. It’s just an empty word.’
‘All the more reason why we have to look after our own,’ she countered.
‘Yes…but the key is appropriate behaviour. In many ways he behaved like a boy,’ Dan went on relentlessly. ‘As though he were on an adventure or something, going out of the designated safe area, instead of being a member of a team sent there for a designated purpose.’
Signy didn’t reply.
‘A few days after you left, the medical station was set on fire and burned to the ground by the so-called rebels,’ he said, stating a fact.
‘Yes,’ she said, as tears dripped onto her clenched hands. ‘But that’s not the end of the story, Dr Blake.’ She looked up at him. ‘The mourning goes on.’
There was an unreadable expression on his face as they stared at each other.
‘I don’t care if you think I was wrong, if you think I’m weak…I don’t care what you think,’ she said quietly. ‘Who are you to judge me? I think you would agree that you can’t go on second-guessing yourself. I did what I thought was right at the time. And I don’t care if you put in a bad report about me to the WAN headquarters. As you said yourself, sometimes you don’t have very long in which to make a decision.’
The fire crackled comfortingly, while outside the wind stirred the branches of trees. They sat and looked at each other. Signy vowed that she wouldn’t be the first to avert her eyes.
The sound of quick footsteps on the wooden verandah, followed by a sharp ring of the doorbell, cut across the mesmerizing silence. Signy jumped, almost dropping the mug which she still held tightly in her lap. Dan slowly got up, seeming to unfold himself, and walked towards the door. Apparently he wasn’t fast enough for the person who stood outside because the bel
l pealed again twice, impatiently, imperiously. That would be Marianne Crowley.
Swiftly Signy made her escape, heading for the sanctuary of the small guest room, where she closed the door.
CHAPTER SIX
SIGNY sat on the bed, then got up again agitatedly and began to pace the room, passing a hand over her forehead repeatedly.
Dan’s words had disturbed her, his bald reiteration of the story. Yet at the same time, in the core of her being, a sense of hard, sobering reality was taking shape, as though she was at last seeing the past as the past, unchangeable. There was a sense of placing it where it belonged, rather than have it dominating the present as it had done for so long. She supposed this was what was called coming to terms with something.
She was going to stand by what she had just said, that she’d made the decisions she had because to her there had been no alternative. As she’d said, she wasn’t going to second-guess herself. There was no point. In a similar situation, she would make a decision in light of the circumstances of that time.
The room seemed claustrophobic, she wanted to get out. Quickly she pulled on a sweater that she had in her overnight bag, then put the rain jacket over it. It would be nice to get out for some air, to walk while she sorted out her thoughts.
Listening at the door, not wanting to butt into the meeting between Dan and his former girlfriend, she waited. There had been animated conversation and short bursts of laughter coming from the sitting room. Marianne had a loud voice, seemed to be one of those forceful women who thought she had to constantly keep her end up, otherwise some man would get the better of her. Maybe that wasn’t fair, Signy conceded. She didn’t really know the woman. Not loud and pushy herself, she was mystified by those who were, assuming it came from a basic lack of self-assurance, not its opposite.
When she judged that they had moved to the study or kitchen…or perhaps the bedroom…she left her room and crossed the sitting room to let herself out the main door.
The evening was pleasantly cool, a gentle wind blowing, bringing the scents of the north with it. Signy began to walk, going along the narrow road towards the hospital, having a vague idea that she would stay within the confines of the small town, where she wasn’t likely to encounter any dangerous wild animals. The physical activity would tire her out, help her to sleep later. Walking always helped her to clear her head. There seemed to be no one else about and she welcomed the solitude as she walked under the tall cedar trees that lined the streets between the houses.
After about fifteen minutes a light rain began to fall.
A sound must have woken her later in the night, as her eyelids sprang open and she found herself wide awake and alert. For two or three seconds she didn’t know where she was then, as the dim outline of the room took shape, the emotions associated with the evening before came flooding over her. Forcing herself to relax, she lay there to think about all that had happened in the short time that she’d been in this part of the world. Her bedside clock told her that it was 3 a.m.
Knowing that she would probably not fall asleep again, she decided to get up and read, maybe make herself a hot drink. This was better than having bad dreams, she thought wryly as she got up and put on her own dressing-gown.
The floor creaked a bit as she crept across the sitting room to get to the kitchen, where she put on a side light rather than the main light. Dan needed sleep more than she did. Trying not to make much noise, she got together the things she needed to make a cup of tea.
Waking early, persistently, was a sign of clinical depression, she mused. Well, she didn’t think she was suffering from that, even though her spirits had been low. Stress, with the anxiety that it produced, could bring about the same effect, she presumed.
Perhaps talking to Dan had, after all, started the healing process, because now the sense continued that things were very slowly beginning to move on. She was reluctant to concede that he might have helped her. Really, she hated him…the sooner she could get back to Kelp Island and away from his house, the better. Friday couldn’t come soon enough for her. From now on she could avoid him a lot of the time if she really wanted to. As Terri had said, he did seem to arrange things so that they were together, so that he could watch her. Well, she would speak to Max about spending more time with him.
As was often the case when you were trying to be careful, she dropped the metal lid of the teapot into the stainless-steel sink with a loud clatter. ‘Oh, hell!’ she muttered, picking it up quickly. Then she hastily poured boiling water onto a teabag in the pot.
The last thing she wanted was to wake up Dan. Perhaps Dr Crowley was with him. The thought came to her, un-bidden. She didn’t suppose that he led a celibate life. That prospect exasperated her inexplicably, perhaps because it made her feel like an interloper in his house.
While she waited for the tea to steep for a few minutes, with her arms folded across her chest in an unconsciously protective gesture, Dan walked silently into the room.
‘Oh…oh,’ Signy said, taking a step back. ‘Did I wake you? I hope not. I…woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I’ve made tea. I hope that’s all right.’ She backed away from him so that she was up against the work counter.
‘It’s quite all right,’ he said, coming into the centre of the small room, looking rumpled in his dressing-gown, as though he might have slept in it. ‘No, you didn’t exactly wake me, I was having trouble sleeping anyway. I heard you moving about.’
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘Would you like some tea? It’s just about ready.’
‘Thanks,’ he said.
Simultaneously they moved to get another mug out of the cupboard above the sink and their shoulders touched. ‘Oh,’ she said again, recoiling. ‘Um…do you prefer a mug or a cup?’ At any other time she might have laughed hysterically at the mundane nature of their verbal exchange.
Dan ran a hand through his hair. With his hair untidy, he looked somehow more human, she thought; less of a judgmental doctor, more of a man…just a man.
‘Let me get it, Signy,’ he said, turning to her. Somehow the use of her name made her sort of melt inside and become vulnerable, as though she would cry at the drop of a hat. She wanted to move away from him but felt oddly leaden, as though her legs wouldn’t work. They looked at each other and she tried to put all the dislike she felt for him into her eyes.
He reached up a hand to take a mug out of the cupboard, then stilled. Instead of grasping it, he put his hand around the back of her neck, the warm fingers moving into her hair.
Signy held her breath and felt her whole body stiffen as his touch seemed like a current of electricity moving through her. His gaze held hers for a moment and he frowned slightly, as though puzzled by her, then his eyes moved down to rest on her mouth. Involuntarily her lips parted slightly.
As though in slow motion, his head came down to her, giving her plenty of opportunity to get away, and his lips covered hers. A small moan formed deep in her throat. She didn’t know whether it was a sound of protest or one of acknowledgement of something…something that she needed. All she knew then was that her eyes closed of their own volition and her awareness excluded everything else but the warmth of Dan’s firm mouth on hers, the surge of recognition throughout her body…the recognition that he was an attractive man…and the unmistakable response of sexual desire like a tide sweeping over her. It was one that she could no more control than the actual tide.
Very slowly but inevitably, Dan turned completely round to her, his mouth still on hers, and drew her into his arms, the length of his firm, lean body pressing warmly against hers. Signy thought she might faint with the unexpectedness of it, the revelation of her own response. Her heart was pounding, as though someone were banging a drum in her ear. Although she didn’t put her arms around him, she wanted to…she wanted to.
All she could do was stand there as though paralysed, like an idiot, she thought wildly. It was too ridiculous! She didn’t even like him. They had little in common, even though they
came essentially from the same country and background, shared jobs in the same profession, belonged to the same organization.
He took his mouth from hers and gently kissed her neck, her ear, her cheek. ‘Signy…’ He murmured her name, and to her horror she felt herself literally go weak at the knees, something she had only read about in stories, something she hadn’t even experienced with Simon, whom she had loved.
She ought to push him away, she told herself, but instead she put her arms around his waist as she felt herself become unsteady. Again he kissed her on the mouth. This was utter madness. His hand touched the back of her neck, his fingers in her hair, holding her to him so that he could kiss her more deeply. She was, in a moment, completely lost in him.
Simultaneously they pulled apart. Signy swallowed convulsively, her whole body tingling with nervous tension as they looked at each other. To her, he looked somewhat stunned, while she knew that she must have an expression of muted shock, bordering on horror, on her face. A few hours ago she’d told him that she hated him, while he’d looked as though he couldn’t have cared less.
Letting out a pent-up breath on a sigh, he said, ‘I didn’t intend that to happen.’
Struggling for control and an appearance of sophistication, she said, ‘No, I don’t suppose you did. Neither did I.’
Distractedly, Dan reached for another mug, then carefully poured them both tea, while she stood trying to compose herself. She couldn’t think of what to say next and it appeared that he couldn’t either. Silently he pushed the sugar bowl a few inches along the counter in her direction and handed her the tea. She nodded her thanks.
When he sighed again and leaned against the counter, she took it to be a gesture of abject regret. The tiny room, with him in it, became as claustrophobic as her bedroom had been, so she took her tea and walked out to the sitting room, where the fire still glowed red. Desperate for a distracting task, she busied herself putting more kindling on the embers, then a small log. Then she sat hunched in the semi-darkness on the sofa, her hands cupping the hot mug. The immediacy of this man, his touch, his kiss, had pushed Simon and Dominic out of the forefront of her mind.
