The Surgeon’s Gift

by Carol Marinelli

  Hugh Connell standing in the doorway was earth-shattering.

  Disturbingly so.

  ‘Hugh!’

  ‘Rachael.’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you—anyone, actually.’

  ‘I thought you could maybe use a friend.’ He held up an ice-cream tub. ‘I remembered how much you liked coffee ice cream—looks like you beat me to it.’

  With a laugh she pulled open the front door and gestured for him to come inside. ‘Ah, but this is chocolate, and a girl can never have too much ice cream. Come in.’

  ‘Or too many friends,’ Hugh said, hesitating for a second before following her inside. The guarded look she had first noticed in Theatre was still there, but at least he was here and holding if not an olive branch then the next best thing. ‘I just thought I’d see how you were doing tonight, after Sheila and everything.’

  ‘I’m fine, Hugh.’ When he didn’t look convinced she repeated it, this time with a wide smile on her face as he followed her into the living room. ‘Honestly, Hugh, I’m fine. I’m not so emotionally volatile that I’m going to collapse in a heap every time something sad happens at work. It was a bad morning, that’s all, and nothing I can’t deal with.’

  ‘So you don’t need ice cream?’

  Rachael snatched it off the coffee-table. ‘I always need ice cream.’ Aware all of a sudden that her attire was displaying rather too much leg and Hugh looked anything but comfortable, she padded out to the kitchen and popped the ice cream in the freezer. ‘I’ll just go upstairs and get changed,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Have you eaten?’

  Her question was left hanging in the air as she darted up the stairs and dressed at lightning speed. It was way too late to do a salvage job with make-up, given how Hugh had just found her, but it didn’t stop her running a brush through her hair and putting on the subtlest slick of neutral lipstick. A pair of navy shorts was casual enough for an evening at home, but in honour of such a divine male in her house Rachael bypassed her jumble of T-shirts, settling instead on a sheer lilac top that showed a bit too much bra through its flimsy fabric but at least gave her a bit of shape.

  ‘That’s better.’

  Her bare feet meant that Hugh didn’t hear her coming. He didn’t jump exactly when she found him in the kitchen, looking through the endless takeaway menus stuck with magnets to her fridge, but he certainly seemed on edge. ‘You haven’t eaten, then?’

  ‘No.’ He looked up then looked away again, taking great care to read the curry selection as Rachael questioned her motives for wearing a black bra under her very sheer top. ‘Do you want to send out for something?’

  ‘Sure.’

  It was like sitting in the dentist’s waiting room, waiting for the delivery. Worse, actually. Conversation was strained to say the least as they took it in turns to stand and hover by the window, as if somehow they could speed up the food by mental telepathy. For something to do, Rachael opened a bottle of wine and poured two glasses, which killed about two minutes flat.

  ‘Hugh, you didn’t have to come,’ Rachael said finally when the ticking of the clock became deafening and she realised her hand was straying to a magazine. ‘If I’d needed company, I’d have called my sister. I’m honestly OK.’

  ‘I was just worried,’ he admitted. ‘And you didn’t call your sister,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Because I’m fine.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Hugh said, obviously far from convinced with her acting. ‘I saw how upset you looked during the resuscitation. I know that Sheila’s death hit you hard. It upset me …’

  ‘It’s part of my job, Hugh,’ she sighed. ‘I can’t afford to fall in a heap every time I lose a patient. Maybe I should come and work with you in plastics when the new ward opens.’

  She had meant it as a joke, something to lighten the moment, but from the rather shocked look on Hugh’s face Rachael knew he had misinterpreted her. ‘I’m not going to stalk you,’ she said irritably, ‘if that’s what’s worrying you.’

  He laughed, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘Of course you’re not. Look, Rachael, we’re friends …’ His voice trailed off and it was Rachael that filled the distinctly uncomfortable silence that followed.

  ‘I get the message, Hugh,’ she said softly.

  ‘What message?’

  ‘Well, at every available opportunity tonight, plus a few others you’ve somehow managed to conjure up, you’ve been very careful to point out the fact that you’re here just as a ‘‘friend’’.’ She watched Hugh cringe as she carefully put the quotation marks around the offending word.

  ‘Subtlety never was my strong point.’

  ‘I worked that one out from your aftershave.’ She was trying to be nice, trying to put on a brave face, yet all Rachael really wanted to do was cover her ears and hum loudly—anything to avoid what was coming next.

  He forced a half-smile, did his best to look her in the eye. ‘I just don’t want you getting the wrong idea, thinking that I’m after something else.’

  ‘I don’t,’ she said firmly.

  ‘I like you, Rachael, it’s just—’

  ‘Just not in that way.’ Rachael finished the sentence for him as the doorbell rang loudly, pathetically pleased at the diversion the arrival of the curry gave them both, all too aware she was blushing furiously. ‘Would it help if I told you that I feel exactly the same?’ she added lightly, half expecting her nose to spout another couple of inches as she lied through her teeth, pointedly ignoring the fifty-dollar note Hugh was holding out to her as Rachael rummaged through her purse. ‘The very last thing I need right now is a relationship.’ She took the note with an apologetic shrug. ‘You’ll have to pay after all. I haven’t had a chance to go the cash machine. I’ll get it next time, friend.’ She gave a cheeky wink as she took the money.

  ‘So you’re fine with it?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’ve got lots of male friends.’ She tried to think of an example but the only male that popped into mind was Trevor and, given where his sexual preferences lay, Rachael wasn’t too sure that Trevor counted for much. ‘There’s no reason that men and women can’t be friends,’ Rachael called over her shoulder as she pulled open the door. ‘Everyone says so.’

  Rubbish.

  Absolute rubbish.

  Whoever had come up with that little gem deserved to be taken out and shot at dawn, Rachael thought angrily as she paid Rajid and banged about in the kitchen, finding cutlery and plates.

  Whoever had said that obviously didn’t have to put up with the Hugh Connells of the world. They should have, at the very least, put in an exclusion clause for men like Hugh. How could you possibly be ‘friends’ with someone who quite simply oozed sexuality? How could an evening with someone as divine as Hugh possibly be described as pleasant if it didn’t end up in bed?

  Bed!

  Taking a huge slug of wine as she knelt down at the table, Rachael acknowledged, perhaps for the first time since she had met him, that bed was exactly what she wanted from Hugh—bed and then breakfast, lunch and dinner, and hopefully bed all over again. But it wasn’t just bed that she wanted him for. She wanted him for all the other bits in between as well—the laughs, the tears, the ‘Honey, I’m home’, no matter how corny it sounded. She wanted to see him smile. Not the doctor smile, not the friendly smile he imparted so readily, but the Hugh smile, the one that held her entranced, the private, exclusive one Rachael was convinced she had seen at the restaurant.

  She wanted to be there when he put on his aftershave in the morning.

  Wanted to be there when he showered it off at night.

  Rachael wanted the lot.

  But Hugh, for whatever reason, had decided against taking things further. In fact, he wanted to do a rewind. To take out all the tension that had crackled in the air since the day they had met, to somehow erase all the gentle flirting and heady little undertones that had been so much a part of them, and revert instead to a pat-on-the-back, share-a-joke-and-a-laugh type of th
ing.

  Perhaps she could do it, Rachael mused. Maybe a couple of months from now they’d be ringing each other up and panicking about what to wear for their hot dates that weekend, or gossiping long and hard into the night about the subplot of ER and the terrible food in the hospital canteen.

  Fat chance, Rachael thought, tearing her naan bread and smiling at Hugh across the table, her face not for a second betraying the jumble of thoughts racing through her mind.

  But it was friends or nothing.

  And nothing of Hugh was more than Rachael could deal with right now.

  ‘How about the movies at the weekend?’ She saw the tiniest frown on his brow. ‘If something better comes up, and by that I mean a very hot date, you’re allowed to cancel.’ She popped the bread into her mouth. And because Hugh was out of bounds, because that sort of thing wasn’t supposed to matter any more, Rachael didn’t bother to stop talking. ‘Friends understand that sort of thing.’

  ‘Sounds great,’ Hugh said with almost as much reluctance as Rachael felt.

  But great it wasn’t.

  Friends shared their popcorn and sweets without having to ask, friends didn’t jump a mile if their knees touched or their elbows clashed when they sat down, and friends didn’t have to apologise when the movie turned out to be the worst possible choice of films, given what Rachael had been through.

  ‘Sorry.’ Hugh grimaced, finally turning to face her. ‘I didn’t realise it was going to be a weepy.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ Popping a sweet into her mouth, Rachael tried to pay attention to the faces on the screen, tried to work up some interest in the movie, but it might just as well have been in Japanese for all the attention she was paying it, her mind utterly sidetracked, her skin so aware of who sat just inches away. She felt like a gauche teenager, waiting for him to cough and slip his arm around her or for his hand to work its way over and ‘accidentally’ end up in hers.

  But it didn’t. Not even when some of the audience broke into noisy sobs did he as much as press a handkerchief into her hand.

  ‘The newspaper never said that it was so tragic.’ Hugh turned, his eyes looking distinctly glassy. ‘How come you’re not crying? I thought girls were supposed to break up at this sort of thing.’

  ‘It’s just a movie,’ Rachael said out of the corner of her mouth, wondering how someone as large as Hugh could shrink so far back into his seat just to avoid touching her. ‘And I’m hardly a girl.’ Turning, she faced him, trying to read his face in the darkness, occasionally illuminated by the flickering screen. ‘I’m a woman, actually.’ He turned back to the film, grabbing a handful of popcorn as he did so, totally immersed in the film, not listening as Rachael slid down in her seat, muttering furiously under her breath, ‘Just in case you haven’t noticed.’

  ‘But why does he just want to be friends?’

  They were sitting in Rachael’s living room, face masks cracking, their toes separated by wads of cotton wool, diligently pushing back cuticles.

  It was nice to have Helen back in her life, nice to be having a girls’ night in after so long.

  ‘I don’t know, he obviously just doesn’t fancy me,’ Rachael answered, trying not to move her lips too much. ‘Men and women can be friends,’ Rachel went on as authoritatively as she could with a face full of clay. ‘There’s far more to a relationship than just sex. Can I wash this mask off yet?’

  ‘Not for another ten minutes.’ Handing Rachael a bottle of red nail varnish, Helen’s face mask crumpled under the strain as she started to laugh. ‘Just who are you trying to kid, Rachael? Hugh and I are friends, good friends at that, and I’m telling you now, the way he looks at me doesn’t compare to the way he looks at you. Of course he fancies you, he’s crazy about you.’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t act it,’ Rachael sighed. ‘We’ve done the movies, the casual meals, he’s even been shopping with me and it always ends up the same way—an awkward goodbye and a whole heap of frustration. We’re not even that good at being friends really, we’re either arguing or apologising half the time, and I can hardly imagine him sitting here now, watching me in a face mask and choosing between Racy Red nail varnish or Classic Coral. Maybe he’s gay!’ Rachael added hopefully. ‘Maybe that’s why he’s not interested.’

  ‘Hugh Connell’s definitely not gay,’ Helen said in an assured voice. ‘You might think I’m past it, but I can tell a hot-blooded male when I see one. Anyway, he briefly dated Helga in Theatre.’

  ‘Helga?’

  ‘The pretty little blonde one,’ Helen said, absolutely unnecessarily. ‘I think she’s from Scandinavia or something—at least, she’s got an accent and those gorgeous Nordic looks.’

  ‘I get the picture,’ Rachael snapped.

  ‘You need to seduce him.’

  ‘I think I’ve humiliated myself enough where Hugh Connell’s concerned, don’t you?’ Rachael retorted smartly. But Helen’s words had hit a nerve. In fact, seducing Hugh was something she’d actually thought about, to find out once and for all if all the sexual awareness, which she was so sure was present that she could almost taste it, really was, in fact, just a product of her imagination. And if it wasn’t, if Hugh’s feelings for her were far more then he was admitting to, then it was time to find out. Despite her surly answer, despite pretending to concentrate on her toenails, she held her breath, hoping that Helen would elaborate.

  And in a style that was so much Helen, Rachael didn’t have to wait for long. ‘The trick is not to let him think you’re trying so if nothing comes of it, if it doesn’t work, then you’ll have lost nothing.’

  ‘Except my self-pride,’ Rachael muttered.

  ‘He’ll have no idea,’ Helen insisted. ‘You can use my old going-to-the-beach trick. It worked on my Jack, that’s how I got him to finally admit he was crazy about me. Take it from me, it’s foolproof.’

  ‘But is it Hugh-proof?’ Ten minutes were up, she had every reason to get up and wash the mask off, every reason to end this ridiculous conversation right here and now, but desperate times called for desperate measures and by the time Helen had told her down to the last detail how to find out once and for all just how Hugh felt, their face packs had practically evaporated.

  ‘The manufacturer lied, I’ve still got lines,’ Helen said dispiritedly as she came back into the living room a few minutes later, patting her face with a bath towel. ‘What are you grinning about?’

  ‘I’m going to make a call.’ Rachael laughed as Helen gave a whoop of delight. ‘The news just said it’s going to be in the high thirties tomorrow, just the weather for a day at the beach with a friend.’

  For once the weather report was right. Beach day dawned with not a cloud in the sky, the air was hot and sultry, just the sort of day you could get burnt if you weren’t very careful. A vast picnic basket took up most of her tiny hallway and when Hugh arrived, bang on time as usual, Rachael had to be careful not to trip over it as she answered the door.

  ‘You’re early.’ She grinned.

  ‘You said ten.’

  ‘Did I? I thought I said ten-thirty. It doesn’t matter,’ Rachael lied easily. ‘Come in, I’m nearly ready.’

  Dressed in nothing but a tiny red bikini, she should have felt awkward, but amazingly she didn’t, she felt empowered, in control. Today she was finally going to find out just what Hugh felt for her. Find out once and for all if the attraction she felt was mutual.

  ‘What’s in the basket?’ Hugh was taking a great interest in the wicker basket as Rachael made her way into the lounge.

  ‘Oh, just some chicken pieces, cheese and wine, that sort of thing. Did you bring a towel?’

  ‘Yep, it’s in the car. I’ll go and load this while you, er …’ he gave a small cough as he bent to pick up the basket ‘… get dressed.’

  ‘Leave the basket,’ Rachael yelped, dragging him, despite his reluctance, into the living room. ‘Sit down for ten minutes, I shan’t be long.’

  Hugh sat, it wasn’t as if he had much choi
ce. And as Rachael reached for the sunscreen strategically, but very casually placed on the coffee-table, Hugh picked up the remote and flicked on the television.

  ‘It might even hit forty degrees today,’ Rachael said casually, popping open the lid and squeezing a generous dollop in to her hands then offering him the tube. ‘You’d better put some sun block on.’

  ‘I already did,’ Hugh replied not bothering to look up. ‘Back home.’

  She oiled her arms, her face, her calves as he sat unmoved, staring at a football show. It might just as well have been Helen sitting there, watching television, for all the impact Rachael was having. Lifting her leg, she placed her foot on the coffee-table, squeezing the tube directly this time onto her thigh and working the cream into her legs in slow circular motions as Hugh furiously worked the remote.

  ‘The cricket’s just starting, I really wanted to see this.’

  Resisting the urge to hurl the bottle of sunscreen at the television, Rachael instead handed it to Hugh. ‘Do you mind doing my back? I always end up missing a bit.’ Turning, she lifted her hair, moving the shoestring strap of her bikini just an inch sideways.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit hot for the beach?’ She could feel his warm breath on her shoulder, hear him squeezing the liquid into his palm, and she waited, waited for his fingers on her back, waited for him to suggest they give the beach a miss and head upstairs instead.

  ‘Maybe,’ she whispered, her voice expectant, her skin tingling in anticipation.

  ‘I could nip out to the bottle shop and get some beers. We could watch the cricket and ring out for pizza.’

  ‘Ring for pizza?’ She swung round, much too fast for someone in such a small bikini, and had to deal with the indignity of an escaping right breast as he stood there, staring fixedly at the television then thumping a fist in the air as one of the Aussies took a particularly spectacular catch. ‘I hate pizza.’