The Doctor's Destiny

by Meredith Webber

  She managed to get as far as the seat next to hers before she finally trod on someone’s toe—Mrs Schnitzerling’s toe, in fact. Mrs had shifted Mr to the other side of their pair of seats very early on in the season.

  Apologising quietly, Alana sank down into her own padded chair, grateful for the darkness that had covered her floundering arrival. She reached out automatically to dump her handbag on the seat next to hers—a seat that had been vacant for the entire season.

  But not tonight.

  Her handbag struck a solid block she assumed was a body. A large-sized body, which a quick embarrassed glance proved to be male. Panic skittered through her, though why she’d be panicking over someone finally taking that seat she had no idea.

  Perhaps it was embarrassment, not panic.

  She murmured another apology, then, because she didn’t want creases in the new suit, leant forward to tuck her handbag under her seat instead. But she missed the space somehow and in the confusion managed to grab the man’s leg, which led to the third apology in as many minutes.

  And more panic and/or embarrassment.

  The arrival of the conductor and the loud applause which greeted him should have settled things down, but though she tried to relax and let the music do its work, freeing her from the everyday world, her muscles refused to oblige, remaining tense—all her nerves standing to attention, as if aware of some imminent danger.

  Refusing to believe it could have anything to do with the man in the seat beside her, she nonetheless decided she needed to get a better look at him. Not easy to do while keeping her head turned towards the stage so he didn’t know she was looking.

  Squinting sideways didn’t help much, though her olfactory senses picked up on a faint hint of masculine aftershave—an undertone of citrus blended with something fresh like gum leaves—while her other senses offered a general impression of height and solidity.

  Male solidity.

  Very male solidity.

  She grinned to herself in the darkness.

  Because the seat had been empty since the beginning of the season, she and her friends had joked about the possibility of the man of her dreams turning up in it one night.

  Not that she had a dream man—not one defined by height or looks or colouring, or even profession or nature. If asked to clarify this vagueness, she’d explain that she was sure she’d know if he did turn up, because he’d be a friend first and friendship would develop into love. Then, to stop the nonsense the others might indulge in, she’d add, firmly, that in the meantime she was happy with her life as it was.

  Except that she wasn’t, was she?

  But surely that was to do with work?

  Loud applause from the audience reminded her she was here to listen to music, not worry about perfect men—should such animals exist—or her job. The prelude was over, and the concert was under way.

  As the music swelled and ran with a variation, finally lifting her out of herself into the rarefied air of the senses, she felt the tension slide out of her nerves and her body relax.

  But not slump! She mustn’t slump into Mrs S., who could sleep through half a concert without slumping, or against the man in the spare seat. Slumping on him would be worse than hitting him with her handbag and grabbing at his leg.

  She squinted his way again, this time turning her head far enough to see the straight, strong profile of a man not young but certainly not old.

  Distracting, though—possibly because she’d become used to the spare seat.

  Definitely not because he was a man, and as such was exuding masculine vibrations into the air around him—her air in fact.

  But as the music soared, violins chasing the flutes up the scale, lifting and lifting until all the instruments joined in a wildly enthusiastic repetition of the theme, crashing to a whisper before rising again to a triumphant conclusion, her awareness of the man failed to diminish. In fact, it expanded, as if in tandem with the symphony, so, far from slumping, Alana felt her body growing more and more rigid.

  Because of a man’s presence by her side?

  Impossible!

  Because a straight, almost severe profile had affected her?

  Doubly impossible.

  She sneaked another look as the audience applauded then, shamed and confused by the way her mind was working—it had to be due to the fact she and her friends had joked about the seat—she turned away from him, leaning towards Mr and Mrs Schnitzerling, to ask, as she always did, if they’d enjoyed the first part of the concert.

  By the time the couple had given their opinions of the visiting conductor—excellent but flashy—the guest first violin—knows her stuff—and the programme in general—better than last month—most of the audience had departed, including the newcomer who’d been sitting on the other side of Alana.

  He must have headed for the far aisle rather than interrupt by walking past them.

  She felt a twinge of regret that she hadn’t seen him in the light, but there’d be another chance later, when he returned to his seat.

  Muscles which had relaxed—slightly—during her conversation with her concert neighbours tensed again at the thought.

  Maybe if she saw him in the light—went out to the foyer and had a good look—she’d be able to settle down. But would she find him? Surely there couldn’t be all that many tall, solid men with straight strong profiles at the concert tonight…

  ‘Aren’t you coming out to stretch your legs?’ Mrs Schnitzerling asked, and Alana shook her head.

  Searching the foyer for a man?

  She must be out of her mind!

  She’d stay right where she was, breathe deeply and get over whatever it was that had affected her during the first session.

  Besides, if she remained in her seat, she’d get a good view of him when he returned. Seeing him as a person, not just a profile, should cure whatever ailed her. He probably had deep frown lines, betraying a fearsome temper, and wore a wedding ring, keeping him off-limits even if he didn’t have a fearsome temper.

  Just thinking such thoughts made her sigh.

  It had to be the problems she was having—or anticipating having—at work which had her so uptight and had her entertaining such ridiculous thoughts.

  But she would look at him when he returned to his seat. After all, she could hardly avoid it.

  If he’d returned to his seat!

  ‘You’re sure you’d remembered deodorant?’ Kirsten asked, when she, Daisy and Alana had met for breakfast at a local coffee-shop next morning and Alana was explaining the mystery man’s appearance then disappearance.

  ‘Deodorant and a little designer perfume,’ Alana replied. ‘Though maybe that was it. Maybe he was allergic to perfume. People are, you know.’

  ‘Then they shouldn’t go to concerts where other people are sure to be wearing it,’ Kirsten retorted, while Alana remembered a certain aftershave and decided it couldn’t have been an allergy to her perfume that had caused the disappearance of her fellow concert-lover.

  ‘I don’t think it was the aftershave,’ she muttered to herself—or not quite to herself if the others’ reaction was any guide.

  ‘What wasn’t the aftershave?’ Kirsten demanded, while Daisy merely echoed the final word.

  ‘The—I suppose awareness is the word I’m after, but it’s not strong enough to explain how conscious I was of him. It was weird. Still is, because I can close my eyes and see his profile, and feel whatever it was I felt then.’

  She turned to Daisy with an embarrassed grin.

  ‘Please, assure me I’m not going mad—or entering some disastrous phase of a woman’s life where she’s turned on by profiles.’

  Daisy offered her usual calming smile.

  ‘You know, if the aftershave wasn’t strong, it could be that the man’s natural scent came through. I was reading an article where, in a properly constituted scientific study, a group of men were asked to wear the same T-shirt for four days. These were then put into plastic bags, and women were
asked to choose a man on the basis of the smell.’

  ‘Oh, gross!’ Kirsten cried, holding her hand across her nose at the thought. ‘Though I guess socks would be worse.’

  They all laughed but the idea intrigued Alana, who was desperate for a rational explanation for her reaction, so when things settled down again, she asked, ‘And what did this prove? Did the winner of the smelly T-shirt competition get the girl? It doesn’t sound very scientific to me.’

  Daisy chuckled.

  ‘It was, and all the women chose a different man, then when the men and women were tested, it showed that in every case the women, based solely on smell, had chosen the man with the immunity system most different to theirs. The researchers argued that this made mate selection more effective as the couples would have the widest possible range of genetic difference to pass on to their children.’

  ‘I bet he was wearing a suit,’ Kirsten said, and Alana, who was still thinking about mate selection, raised her eyebrows at her friend.

  ‘Well,’ Kirsten explained, ‘men wear suits more than once between dry-cleaning, so maybe their natural scent gets caught in the fibres and enough of that remains to overcome things like aftershave.’

  ‘Given they also wear shirts and underwear next to their bodies, it’s more likely to be dry-cleaning fluid caught in the fibres.’ Alana squashed this theory, then she sighed. ‘So I’m attracted to men who smell like dry-cleaning fluid. Great!’

  The others laughed but her concern remained. Not long ago, Kirsten had admitted to feeling something Alana had heartlessly put down to ‘nesting syndrome’. Surely she wasn’t suffering the same thing!

  And why?

  Because a stranger had sat beside her at the concert?

  Maybe it was time she agreed to meet Jeremy, the man she’d first spoken to in an internet chat room, and with whom, from the frequent emails they’d exchanged, she seemed to have a lot in common. Maybe a normal relationship would put a stop to whatever subconscious stuff was going on.

  Yet the scent of the aftershave seemed to have lodged in her senses so she could smell it now, and she was recalling the autocratic profile to her visual memory when she realised Kirsten was speaking again. Something about a problem in the building. Fire brigade?

  ‘Why was the fire brigade called?’ she asked, needing clarification before she could follow the story.

  ‘Because of the cat. I thought it was your cat—not Stubby but the stray you feed—but apparently it belonged to the new people on the third floor, in the unit under Gabi’s, and when it got out the boy tried to get it off the ledge between the balconies and he got stuck. Hence the fire brigade who brought ladders.’

  ‘Did they get the cat? Was the cat all right?’ Alana asked, and Daisy laughed.

  ‘We might have known you’d be more interested in the cat. It was fine. It came down long before the fire engines arrived.’

  Daisy seemed about to say something more when Kirsten spoke again, telling them about a cat who’d adopted Mrs Phillips, her fiancé’s mother, which hissed and spat whenever a man came near it.

  ‘But what I want to know,’ Kirsten finished, ‘is how the cat knows the difference between human sexes. I mean, I can go out there in jeans and a T-shirt and it rubs against my legs. Josh appears in identical clothing, and the hissing stuff begins.’

  ‘We’re back on the scents we humans give off,’ Daisy suggested. ‘I imagine a sense of smell is far more highly developed in animals and that’s how the cat tells.’

  Alana nodded her agreement, adding, ‘Yes, intelligent as cats are, I doubt they realise one human sex generally has long hair and the other short. A lot of the time these days even I can’t tell at first glance. So it has to be some other sense.’

  The conversation lingered in Alana’s mind when she returned home, and she found herself wondering if it had only been the aftershave that had made her so certain—right from the start—that the person next to her at the concert was a man. Or had she subconsciously picked up a masculine scent?

  A masculine scent that was attractive to her immune system?

  No way! The only time she ever gave her immune system even a passing thought was on the rare occasions she picked up a cold—and then she’d give it a talking to for letting her down.

  ‘At least I didn’t hiss or spit!’ she joked to herself, as she put food out on the balcony for the stray who hadn’t caused the problem the previous night. Thinking of that story—anything was better than thinking about ‘the man’—she peered upwards, wondering who’d shifted in above her. The flat had been vacant for ages, leased, though not inhabited for some reason neither of the Frosts had been willing to share.

  Had the boy involved in the previous night’s drama been her tennis partner?

  Was that where he’d come from?

  The flats on her side of the building were all two-bedroomed, which would allow enough room for a couple and one child, two children if they were small and shared. On the other side were single-bedroom dwellings, the space for the stairwell and lift taken from where the second bedroom would have been.

  But children?

  Was Near West changing its image? Going for family tenants now?

  Would she eventually have to leave her home as well as her job?

  She shook away the stupid train of thought. There was no reason on earth why she should leave Near West.

  She stared out over the roofs of neighbouring houses, looking towards the hospital.

  Or leave her job!

  A sudden clatter from the balcony above made her move back towards the sliding glass doors, then a slim, elegant Siamese sprang down onto her balcony railing, studied her with incurious blue eyes for a moment, then leapt again—either to its death or to the balcony below.

  ‘Damn you!’ someone yelled, then legs appeared, feet feeling for the same railing, finding it, steadying, then dropping lightly onto the floor in front of her.

  ‘Couldn’t find the door, Jason?’ she said, and saw his start of surprise when he realised she was standing watching him.

  ‘It’s the cat!’ he told her, anger emanating from him like heat waves from the bitumen on a hot day. ‘The vet said to keep her inside for three days, but the moment I open the door she’s out.’

  He looked anxiously around, so obviously worried that Alana felt a reluctant sympathy for him.

  ‘Cats can make their way back to their old homes across thousands of miles,’ he added, voicing the fear and uncertainty she could see in his eyes. ‘I saw a movie about it once. A true movie. I don’t want it to do that.’

  ‘Maybe she’s just checking out her new territory. Being shut in might make her feel there’s something out there she’s missing, and she wants to look around. How long have you been here?’

  ‘Three days,’ he mumbled, turning his back to her to peer down into the garden. ‘But I let her out last night too, and the Dungeon Master didn’t half go off his block.’

  ‘The Dungeon Master?’ Alana echoed, but Jason wasn’t listening. He was whistling softly to the cat which had appeared on the path that encircled the building.

  ‘She’s just there,’ he said, ignoring her query. ‘Do you mind if I go through your place to the lift so I can get her?’

  ‘I’d far rather you did that than tried the balcony trick again,’ Alana said. ‘Think of the blood on the path if you missed your footing. But before you go, I’ll give you some cookies which cats just love. Darren, at the local pet shop, makes them to a secret recipe.’

  She led the way into her flat but, though Jason followed, he didn’t come far, stopped first by the sight of her featherless parrot, then further distracted by the guinea-pig cage, fish tank and large box that currently housed an injured rabbit.

  ‘Look at all these pets. How come you’re allowed to have them in a flat? I thought I was lucky being allowed to keep my cat. But I guess that was the Dungeon Master’s decree, not the flat owner’s.’

  He was offering his finger to t
he guinea pigs, trying to coax the babies out of their box.

  ‘It was my mother’s cat,’ he added, almost in an undertone, and once again Alana was struck by a vulnerability beneath the cocky veneer of the young teenager. ‘I suppose that’s why he let me keep it.’

  Was ‘he’ the man Jason had called the Dungeon Master?

  His father?

  And did the unflattering nickname mean he kept the kid on a tight rein?

  ‘Why don’t you get your cat then come back to check out the animals?’ Alana suggested. ‘She can meet my cat, Stubby.’

  At the sound of his name, Stubby emerged from under a chair, blinked sleepily at Alana, then leapt lightly up onto the chair, apparently so he could get into better sniffing distance of Jason.

  More olfactory senses getting a workout!

  ‘No tail—is that why he’s called Stubby?’ Jason stroked the broad, butting head. ‘Is he a Manx cat?’

  ‘No, just a fighter! Or he was. That’s how he lost his tail. He had it torn in a fight and infection set in. The vet had to remove it. Then his owners thought he looked so odd he should be put down, which is how I got to have him.’

  Jason shook his head, gave Stubby one last pat, then, taking the small biscuit Alana offered, he left the flat.

  Alana moved back onto the balcony, hoping to spot the Siamese for him. Not hard, when it was sitting grooming itself in the sun, immediately below her balcony.

  Jason appeared and approached with caution then held out the biscuit. The cat yawned to show she really wasn’t interested, then stood up and picked her way delicately towards him, condescending to nibble on the biscuit but refusing to show any affection or closeness.

  ‘Cats!’ Jason said, grinning up at her. Then his grin faded and as a mutinous expression took its place, she wondered what she’d done to upset him. Until she realised he was looking beyond her—higher.

  ‘The DM,’ he mouthed at her, scooping up the cat and disappearing from view.

  Moments later, he knocked on her front door.

  ‘I’ve got to go, but thanks for the biscuit, and if it’s OK with you, I’d like to come back and look at your animals some other time.’