It was only a small flat but the light-painted walls and the large windows made it seem larger. And she had to admit that the furnishings were minimal but very comfortable. Someone’s taste was very similar to her own. Ben’s taste—he had chosen the furniture. Another indication that they had so much in common…
Yes, she knew she was going to be happy here.
‘Sorry things have taken longer than I thought,’ Henry the builder had said, ‘but I wanted to get things just right, try to get rid of the smell of paint.’ He had pressed a card into her hand. ‘Any problem, night or day, give me a call.’
‘Thanks Henry, I will.’
He had done a good job. Secretly, she had wondered if Ben had talked him into slowing down a little. It had been a fortnight and there hadn’t seemed to be too much work to do. But what did she know about building? And why would Ben want her to stay longer at his home?
She had really enjoyed staying with him and felt that he had enjoyed her company too. But after that first welcoming kiss on the quayside there had been no further advances. Of course, he was an honourable man, he might have felt that it was wrong even to try to kiss her when she was a guest in his house. It would have been taking advantage of her. But she felt he might at least have given her a goodnight kiss. She had to admit being envious when he took Fiona in his arms and hugged her. And she thought that once or twice she had caught him looking at her as if he wanted to… Foolish thoughts!
She had to admit to herself that although she was so happy to be moving here into her own place, she still very much regretted having to leave Taighean dhe Gaoithe. ‘You will come and see us?’ Mrs McCann had asked anxiously. ‘Wee Fiona will miss you.’
‘I’ll miss her and I’ll miss your cooking, Mrs McCann. But I really need to be living nearer the job. And what would people say if they knew that my flat was finished and that I was still staying with Dr Cavendish?’
‘True,’ Mrs McCann said judiciously. ‘But…’
She never finished the sentence so Alice didn’t know what the ‘but’ meant.
She was here and she was happy.
The bath was nearly full and Alice was just deciding which of the lined-up bath oils to squirt in. Her doorbell rang and when she went down to answer it there was a delivery man with a large bouquet of flowers. Delighted, she took them inside. It had been years since someone had given her flowers.
There was a note inside. ‘Welcome to your new home. We hope you’ll be happy in it. Love from Ben, Fiona and Mrs McCann.’ The flowers were lilies, her favourites. Overwhelmed, Alice took them upstairs, put them straight in water. They looked so good!
Lilies. She was astonished that Ben had remembered that they were her favourite flower—he had bought her a bunch for her seventeenth birthday. For a while she sat just looking at them. Then she made her tea and went to get into her bath.
Her bath. As she sat there surrounded by tendrils of steam, the smell of lavender from the bath oil calming her, she felt at home. Although she had loved living with Ben, she now felt that she had her own roots. She wasn’t a guest, not obliged to anyone, she was her own mistress. This flat, even though the furnishings had been ordered by Ben, was not in his gift. It had come to her from the trust. And because of this she felt she could approach Ben more as an equal. She could make her own decision about living. Which meant she could invite him to dinner. Invite Ben to dinner? What a good idea! What a courteous thing to do after she had lived with him for a fortnight! She turned the hot tap on with her big toe.
Later, she sat in her dressing-gown and rather apprehensively phoned him at home. It had only been a few hours since she had last seen him. But when she heard his voice over the telephone, it still thrilled her. ‘Ben? Alice here. I’m phoning you to thank you for the flowers. They are truly lovely. And you remembered they are my favourites.’
‘I love lilies myself. Can you remember how I cunningly found out they were your favourites? All those years ago?’
She giggled. ‘Yes. You didn’t know me all that well, we’d only just…just got together. We were at school and I was sketching and you asked me what my favourite colour was. And what colour flower. Then I was a bit miffed because you said you couldn’t spend Saturday with me. It turned out that you’d taken the ferry to the mainland and then come straight back ’cos there were no lilies in the shop here. I thought that was wonderful.’
‘Things are different here now, more complicated. We’ve all moved on. There was no difficulty in buying lilies locally and we’re not seventeen any more. Everything is more complicated.’
‘Isn’t it just?’ she said. ‘Now I’m settled in the flat and I know I’m going to be very happy here. But I’ll still miss Fiona and Mrs McCann and you. I had a wonderful stay with you and I’d like to say thank you. Would you like to come to dinner one night?’
‘What? All three of us?’
She laughed. ‘No, it will have to be well after Fiona’s bedtime. I thought just you. A supper to thank you for all of Mrs McCann’s dinners. No big thing, we both have to work the next day.’
‘And I’d love to come. When?’
She made a snap decision. Why hang about? ‘Tomorrow night?’ she asked, hoping he couldn’t detect the nervousness in her voice.
‘I’m looking forward to it.’
She had been working full time for a week now, had organised her clinics, her home visits, had delivered her first baby in the new birthing unit. There was plenty of work—and she guessed there soon would be more. It was all enjoyable.
Sometimes she would see a lot of Ben during the day, sometimes she would hardly see him at all. Twice she had called him over for a second opinion—each time he had agreed with her diagnosis. Today she hadn’t seen him once. A busy day for both of them.
He was coming at eight. She had spent most of her spare time since she’d phoned him on planning and replanning the menu. And there had to be another visit to the supermarket. But she was ready when he came.
She had decided that this was going to be more than just a little supper—this was going to be an almost formal event. She had managed to finish the cooking and lay the table an hour before he was due to arrive. There was time to have a quick shower, shampoo her hair, put on a dress that had only just arrived—sleeveless, in dark blue silk. It wasn’t exactly an evening dress but it looked a bit special. She took extra care with her hair and make-up and reminded herself to ask around for the best hairdresser.
Then she sat and waited. It was necessary to be calm when he arrived. She wondered why her heart was beating so quickly and told herself that it was because she had not prepared for this kind of an occasion for quite a while. But he was just an old friend, nothing more. He had helped her, she was saying thank you. That was all.
But when she heard the car draw up outside her heart started beating quickly again.
She opened the door, smiled. She could see that he too had made an effort to dress suitably. And he had got it just right, half casual, half formal. He was wearing dark trousers and a white silk shirt. The white silk set off his slightly weatherbeaten skin. He looked gorgeous. For a moment they looked at each other, Alice wondered if he was feeling the same as she was.
He handed her a bottle. ‘Not more flowers but champagne,’ he said. ‘For a beautiful lady.’
‘Champagne! What are we celebrating?’
‘The island’s good luck in having a new midwife and children’s nurse. And my good luck as having you as a…partner?’
‘Right,’ she said, blushing slightly. ‘Well, do come in.’
He looked round approvingly as they entered her living room. ‘What a difference! You’ve made this a real home. It’s you.’
‘It’s just as much you,’ she told him. ‘I gather you had a large hand in picking the paint and the furnishings.’
He shrugged. ‘I did what I could.’
She had to agree that the room did look particularly attractive. She had put candles on the little table
but the evening sun was still shining through the window, making the cutlery and the glassware glint.
‘I bought some wine but since you’ve brought it, shall we start on the champagne?’ she asked. ‘Will you open it?’ She felt a little uneasy. This was now her home, he was her guest. Would things be different between them?
Expertly, he opened the champagne, filled two glasses. He handed one to her. She accepted it and then waved a hand, indicating that he sit on the couch. Then she sat in her easy chair, opposite him not next to him.
Perhaps he felt her unease. He started to talk, easily, interestingly, about his day’s work, about the island and how it had changed in the past fifteen years. So Alice quickly relaxed. He was an old friend, they were talking as old friends did who were interested in each other. She also felt better after she had finished her glass of champagne. It went to her head. She realised that in the rush to prepare for this evening she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Whatever the reason, after fifteen minutes she felt more confident.
Later, she wondered if she had been over-confident. Perhaps the champagne had affected her more than she’d known. But they were old friends and so she said, ‘Ben, you know most of my secret life and now I want to know yours. You know things about me that no other people here know. And I feel a bit vulnerable. So I want to know about you. Please, will you tell me about your divorce?’ Then she realised what she had said, gulped and muttered, ‘Sorry, I’m a bit overtired and I must have—’
He laughed. ‘Like you said, we’re old friends. And there’s no one I’d more happily tell than you.’ But she noticed that he filled their glasses again before he started to talk. She thought this was going to be an ordeal for him.
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ she said. ‘I want this evening to be something that you really enjoy.’
His voice was gentle. ‘Alice, I intend to enjoy it.’
But it still took him some time to start. ‘Fiona’s birth was…well, it would be wrong to say it was an accident, ’cos the result has been so marvellous. But it wasn’t exactly planned—at least, not by me. Melissa, Fiona’s mother, tricked me. The oldest trick in the world. She said she was on the Pill—but she wasn’t. And I didn’t know that she was pregnant until it was far too late.’
He was quiet a moment. ‘You don’t seem too angry about it now,’ Alice ventured. ‘You seem quite calm.’
‘I’ve made myself be calm. I’ve learned my lesson, even though it was a hard one.’
He sipped his drink and went on, ‘She was quite a senior nurse. We had met in Edinburgh when I was a medical student and then we met again when I was back in the city on a medical refresher course a few years ago. We got on together and…’ He shrugged. ‘I found she was pregnant and eventually we got married. I brought her back to Soalay and she hated it. I had told her what life was like here, even brought her to look around. But once we got here she just wasn’t having it.’
‘Why didn’t she realise what it was like when she came the first time?’
‘I suspect that she thought that I wouldn’t marry her if she refused to live here with me. The trouble was, she knew I’d been offered a partnership in a practice in Edinburgh. A firm I’d worked with before, I’d been a GP registrar there. Plenty of private work. I could have doubled, even trebled my NHS salary. We’d be rich, she said. She wouldn’t have to work again. And she told me she hated this house.’
When she’d first known him Ben had been a calm, controlled person. He hadn’t lost his temper easily, he’d managed to convey what he’d felt forcefully but somehow quietly. But Alice had always known what he’d been feeling. There would be a glint in his eyes, his speech became more clipped. She knew that the story he was telling now had hurt him.
‘What about when Fiona was born?’ she asked. ‘I’ve seen it before, you must have too. A woman might not be too keen on having a baby, but when it finally comes everything changes.’
‘Not Melissa.’ Alice was shocked at the bitterness in his tone. ‘Melissa tried to use the baby to blackmail me, make me move back to Edinburgh. She said she’d go herself and take Fiona with her… The hardest thing I ever did in my life was call her bluff. I said I wouldn’t move.’
He shook his head. For a moment he was again the eighteen-year-old boy Alice had known, and her heart went out to him in a wave of sympathy that was astonishing in its strength.
‘So what happened?’
‘It was nothing I did, I was just lucky. Melissa had gone to Edinburgh—she said to see old friends. Leaving Fiona behind, of course. The so-called old friends persuaded her to stay. I was happy with her away. I had Fiona. And after a while I had a letter saying that she had met a man, a South African surgeon who would really look after her. The kind of man she had thought I was going to be.’
‘What kind of man was that?’
‘A rich man,’ Ben said with a sardonic smile. ‘But he was the kind of man that suited me. He wanted Melissa—but not a baby. So I got to keep Fiona but lose Melissa. It was better than winning the lottery. I had the best advocates in Edinburgh to organize the divorce, ensure that Fiona was legally and entirely mine. Her mother now has no claim on her at all. And I am happy. In fact, everyone’s happy, even Melissa.’
There was just one question Alice had to ask. ‘Has all this…altered you at all?’ she asked.
‘It’s taught me that I don’t need a wife to be happy. Fiona is all I need.’
‘I see,’ Alice said. She thought she saw all too well. She managed to mutter, ‘I’ll just go and see how things are doing in the kitchen.’
As she well knew, everything was fine in the kitchen. But she pottered about in there for five minutes. She needed to calm down. She had been looking forward so much to this evening, it had to be a success. Which meant she had to be in the right mood. What Ben had just said had upset her. Had upset her a lot! But she was going to get over it!
When she was ready she called out, ‘Would you like to eat now?’
‘I would indeed.’
‘It’ll be different from Mrs McCann’s cooking.’
‘I love Mrs McCann’s cooking but an occasional change would be no bad thing.’
Alice giggled. ‘I have to confess, I put on two pounds while staying with you.’
‘You look better for it,’ he said. ‘Alice, that’s not meant as a compliment, it’s an observation. I think you look less…less distracted than you did when you got off the ferry.’
‘That’s certainly due to Mrs McCann’s cooking. Now, you must try my cooking.’ She did not want to talk about how she had looked when she first came to the island.
The first course was OK, unexceptionable. Grilled, herbed chicken breast with a simple salad of tomatoes and rocket. They talked happily as they ate, she knew it was all right. But the next course was something else.
She fetched in two warmed plates and then placed a large earthenware pot in the centre of the table. In a strained voice she said, ‘This is my signature dish. I’ve made it often—but I try to make it a bit different each time. It’s simple but it’s…well, it means a lot to me. Help yourself while I fetch the garlic bread.’
She lifted the lid and passed him a serving spoon. But she didn’t go into the kitchen.
He leaned forward, smelled. Alice had to admit it smelled good. It was basically a peasant dish. There was fried rice, a variety of chopped vegetables and two cut-up sirloin steaks. But the secret was in the herbs and spices.
He looked at her, she looked back, there was a moment of communion between them. Both of them remembered. ‘You cooked this dish for me before,’ he said. ‘It was the night of the school dance. Your parents were away on the mainland so you invited me over. You got the recipe out of a book because you’d never cooked anything like this before. And I had bought a bottle of wine. Not a very expensive one, I’m afraid but it was all the shop had.’
‘To me it was lovely. It might have cost just a tenth the price of this bottle of champagne—but t
o me it tasted just as good.’
‘To me as well.’
Alice wondered if smells were more efficient in calling back memories than anything else. As so often before since she had returned to the island, memories came flooding back. ‘We drank it all. Then we… I took you to my bedroom and for the first time we…’
‘We went to sleep afterwards,’ he said softly. ‘Then I had to wake up in a panic to go home. My parents knew I’d be late—but if I didn’t get home at all I thought they would worry.’
Another moment of shared reflections. Then she rose and said, ‘Well, I didn’t cook it to let it go cold. I’ll fetch the bread while you help yourself.’
‘And I’ll fill your glass.’ He reached for the champagne bottle. ‘I’m really looking forward to this.’
In the kitchen she bent to slide the warming bread out of the oven. She knew he’d enjoy the dish she had prepared. Everyone did. Everyone except Sean, that was. He didn’t like it because it didn’t have potatoes. He thought rice belonged only in puddings. He had attended a good boarding school.
She sat opposite Ben and ate, and mysteriously she was seventeen again, having cooked for the man in her life. The man now sitting with her. She didn’t ask what he was thinking, feeling—she thought she knew. And he said little, too.
To follow there was a simple fruit salad and she had bought some tremendously expensive coffee for after that. But in the middle of eating the salad, his mobile rang.
‘I should have switched it off,’ he said. He took out the phone, looked at it gloomily, let it ring.
‘You’ve got to answer it, you’re a doctor. In fact, you’re the doctor.’
‘I know I am and I know I’ve got to answer.’ he looked at the screen and sighed. ‘And this is important—it’s Sergeant Cullen.’
‘Hi, Sergeant, Dr Cavendish here… How long ago? How many? Do you think we need to send for a helicopter? OK, I’m in town and I’m on my way.’
The Midwife And The Single Dad Page 7
