by Rebecca Lang
‘When I was in front of Stanton Memorial this afternoon,’ she heard herself saying, not having planned it, ‘I saw that some positions for nurses were advertised. Specifically, operating room nurses. Do you…would you… perhaps know anything about that?’
‘Well, I do know that the situation has changed in the time since you were laid off, mostly in the last six months. Most hospitals are looking for specialized nurses now. Many of the nurses who were laid off have gone to jobs in the United States, I suspect,’ he said. ‘They are just not there to be called back. Are you thinking of coming back?’
‘Well, I…would like to. I haven’t actually done anything about it,’ she said carefully, not wanting to alarm Fleur and Mungo. ‘I’m just thinking about how I could possibly do it.’
‘Yes,’ he said, understanding that she could not talk freely in front of the children. ‘I could find out for you, if you would like me to. I know there’s a shortage of nurses at Stanton. I operate there three days a week.’
‘Thank you, I’d appreciate that,’ she said. That would mean she would hear from him again, and even work with him if she got a job, if somehow she could combine being a mother to the children with a very demanding job in an operating suite. The idea of that lifted her spirits a few notches. It meant that she could go into the hospital and see a familiar face. Not that seeing him was the motivating factor—that would be an added bonus because he seemed like someone who would be good to work with. She had to get out from under.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said, just as Fleur and Mungo had taken their attention from the food they were eating and were looking at her and Shay with a quiet, speculative air. After being with them for two and a half years, Deirdre was attuned to the signals of their anxiety.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, smiling at them, ‘I’m not about to take off. Just thinking, perhaps, of getting a part-time job back in nursing, if there are any going.’
‘That’s a relief,’ Fleur said. ‘I think you should go for it, Dee. As long as you can still be with us.’
‘I won’t do anything without discussing it with you,’ she said.
‘Have you got kids?’ Mungo chipped in, directing his attention to the man who sat opposite him. For some reason, Deirdre felt herself holding her breath. Mungo had an uncanny habit of asking pertinent questions at opportune moments.
‘I have a fourteen-year-old son,’ Shay said quietly. ‘His name’s Mark.’ As he said that, there was a seriousness about him, Deirdre thought, a hesitancy. Quite suddenly there were vibes that she could not interpret. Perhaps he didn’t like talking about his private life with strangers, even to the extent of telling them how many children he had—not like her, who had blurted out her problems. Well, he had invited her to do so, she defended herself. She was not secretive or stand-offish when it came to being honest about herself, although she was selective and careful about who heard her confidences.
So he was married. That was really a foregone conclusion, she thought. Such a pleasant, attractive man would be spoken for. He must be in his mid-thirties, she estimated, an established surgeon, it seemed.
For some reason she felt sad, a strange feeling like mourning, which she knew was part of her overall mental state of the moment. She felt herself slip back into that lonely world she had been in when she had sat on the bus and her body had refused to move.
‘I could show you around the hospital, if you would like me to, Deirdre,’ he said to her. ‘And I could get permission from the head nurse of the operating suite and show you around there, too. She’s a good person.’
‘That would be very nice,’ she managed to say. ‘Thank you.’
‘Give me your phone number before we leave here and I’ll call you within the next few days,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ she said again, knowing that he was feeling sorry for her. So often men said they would call, and never did. Her sadness did not lift. If only her parents were there. They would not be back from Australia for at least another three months. Abruptly, she longed to see them.
Meanwhile, the invitation of this man seemed like a lifeline that she could cling to temporarily.
CHAPTER TWO
‘WHERE THE HELL have you been?’
Jerry confronted them in the front hall of the house as they came in, having retrieved the four bags of groceries from the garage and then been dropped off at the front gate by Shay. They were in good spirits, having enjoyed the meal, until they saw Jerry, every inch the evil stepfather, Deirdre thought as she looked at him. Some of her sadness had gone, cheered by a single glass of house wine and the company of a good man. Now, looking at Jerry’s red, thunderous face, some of it came back.
He was of medium height, broad and swarthy, with dark hair and eyes, with a certain primal attractiveness that some women found very attractive. Deirdre did not, although it had been his obvious expectation when they first met that she would find him so.
‘We were invited out to eat,’ she said, forcing calmness. ‘Mungo left you a note, I think.’ She was trying hard not to sound defensive or show her apprehension. Over the two and a half years that she had been with the family, she had vacillated between a rather low-key apprehension where he was concerned and a more or less indifferent tolerance. Always she was wary. That in itself had added to the strain. Now she was coming round to the idea that she wanted nothing more to do with him, something that was difficult when she was the substitute mother to his former wife’s children.
‘I got the note,’ he said sharply, sarcastically. ‘That may have been convenient for you, but I had colleagues in for drinks and they wanted something to eat.’
‘I’ve decided,’ Deirdre said, standing up straight to the extent of her five-foot-four frame, ‘that I’m not going to cook for you any more, or your guests. It’s too much for me. I was hired to look after the children, to cook for them, and that’s what I’m going to do.’
‘Bloody hell,’ he said, his face suffusing even more with colour, ‘you’re getting above yourself. I could just fire you for that.’
Afterwards, Deirdre did not know how she mustered the courage to stand up to him. Her courage was of the quiet kind, which was slow to come but steely when roused.
‘You do that, if it pleases you,’ she said. ‘I was hired by Mrs McGregor, so I don’t think you are actually in a position to fire me. I’ve also decided to seek work as a nurse in a hospital, which is what I’m trained for. I’ll still be a mother to the children, as I am now, but not with all the other work thrown in. It’s time for me to go back to my real profession.’
It was as though she were still split into two people and the protective half was speaking for her, sounding firm, as though her mind had really been made up. It was amazing how her spirits lifted then, bringing such a rush of relief that she could almost have laughed aloud at the comic expression of fury on Jerry’s face.
‘Come on, kids,’ she said to Mungo and Fleur. ‘Please, help me to put the groceries away.’ The three of them marched into the kitchen, with the children’s stepfather coming after them. Quickly, they began to put things away.
Jerry moved close to Deirdre and with two fingers extended used them to push her shoulder, push her back against a wall.
‘You little bitch,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a good job here and a home, and you can’t do a bit of cooking for me.’
‘I have a home of my own,’ she said, referring to her parents’ modest bungalow, which was also her permanent home, that she was taking care of while they were out of the country. Not for the first time she was overwhelmingly grateful that she had it. ‘I also have a profession that I can return to. I’ve no intention of giving up the children. I’m sure that Mrs McGregor and I can come to some arrangement that is to our mutual benefit.’ It was as though her mind had made itself up, without any obvious conscious input. What a relief that all this was coming out, even though her heart was beating fast in the knowledge that she might have to take flight. ‘A
nd don’t touch me, don’t threaten me.’
Mungo and Fleur moved closer to her, as though both to seek protection and to offer it.
‘Don’t talk to me like that,’ he shouted at her, ‘as though I don’t figure in the equation. I have a say about who comes into this house. I can get another nanny, maybe someone who would be only too happy to marry me, have this house as a home, be more grateful than you are.’
‘That was never part of the arrangement where I was concerned,’ Deirdre said calmly, through the familiar sick fear. It was possible that if he married, he could fight the grandmother for custody of the children. After all, she was elderly, did not have the energy to take on the children herself, to move them into her own home, which was why she had hired a nanny in the first place. Deirdre did not doubt that Fiona McGregor would do so if the threat became real. First thing in the morning she would call her and ask to talk with her about her desire to return to nursing.
Again, Jerry stabbed at her with his fingers, to emphasize each word. ‘Don’t think that you’re indispensable, Miss High-and-Mighty. People like you are two a penny.’
‘I think not,’ she said, with admirable dignity. ‘In fact, it’s the other way round. People like me are rare. It’s not trendy to do what I’m doing, not cool, far from the limelight.’
‘No, they’re not!’ Fleur chipped in, her thin face pale. ‘She’s special. We want Dee with us.’
‘And don’t you threaten her,’ Mungo said, gaining courage from his sister. ‘I’ll talk to the social worker at school and tell her that you’ve been verbally abusive, that you pushed Dee. That won’t go down very well with the authorities. We’re old enough to have a say about who we live with, who our legal guardians are.’
‘You two get upstairs and get on with your homework!’ Jerry shouted at them, pointing out to the staircase in the hall.
‘We’re not going anywhere until we know that Dee’s all right,’ Mungo said, his voice quavering a little, and Deirdre felt a rush of love for both the children. Although she was close to tears, there was no way that she would give this man the satisfaction of seeing it.
‘That’s right. You leave her alone,’ Fleur said. She linked her hand through Deirdre’s. ‘Come upstairs with us, Dee. I need some help with something.’
The three of them went out of the kitchen and began to go up the staircase.
‘As far as I’m concerned, you’re fired,’ Jerry shouted after them.
‘No, she’s not,’ Mungo said. ‘We want her with us.’
In Fleur’s bedroom, with the door locked, they all sat on the bed. ‘What are we going to do?’ Fleur whispered, sounding close to tears. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you weren’t with us, Dee.’
‘I shall be with you,’ Deirdre said as firmly as she could manage. ‘I’m going to call your granny and talk to her about it, see if I can meet her tomorrow. You can discuss things better with people face to face. I’ll do it tonight, not wait until tomorrow. I’ll see her in the morning. It’s time to get very serious. If Jerry gets too much, you can live with her, or with me in my house. Granny has plenty of space. Also, I’m going to talk to a lawyer about the fact that Jerry pushed me—I know someone—so that it’s on record, in case I need that.’ At that moment she was not sure exactly how she would need it, but an instinct told her that it was a good thing to have a record of what had happened between them. Her situation was odd. She really had no claim on the children, she was simply an employee, yet she knew that Jerry Parks was not good for them.
‘We’re going to talk to the social worker at school tomorrow,’ Fleur said, ‘so that’s on record there, too.’
‘Yes. Why did you suddenly think about going back to work as a nurse, Dee?’ Mungo asked. ‘I mean, why today? Has something happened?’
‘Not specifically,’ Deirdre said slowly, searching for words. ‘It’s something I’ve been thinking about for some time, because what has happened here is that I’ve taken on more and more of the job of housekeeper and hostess, when I don’t want to be that, instead of just taking care of you. I’ve stuck it out because I thought he might ask me to go…and I think you need me.’
There, it was out. The breakdown that she feared still threatened her, yet somehow it seemed less acute because she had articulated her thoughts and needs, had had a showdown of sorts. Inside, she felt as though she were trembling. What she could not say to them at this time was that one day she hoped to have a husband and children of her own, and who would take her on if she were the mother of two children who were not her own? If she were to wait until Mungo and Fleur were old enough to go to university, and off her hands, she would be in her early thirties, which seemed impossibly in the future. At the moment she could only project herself forward for the next six months or so.
Fleur began to weep. ‘We do need you,’ she managed to get out, between sobs. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you went.’
‘Don’t go, Dee,’ Mungo said.
Deirdre’s own eyes pricked with tears and she swallowed, her throat tight with emotion. ‘I’m not going,’ she said. ‘We’re going to work it all out. Sometimes you come to a point in your life when you have to make changes, and there’s no sense in putting it off because it will just go on nagging and nagging you. I would prefer not to have anything whatsoever to do with Jerry Parks, don’t want to see him even.’
They sat together, their arms around each other. They could hear Jerry down below, crashing about as though he were throwing cooking pots. Maybe he was, Deirdre speculated, and found that she didn’t care.
‘Look,’ she said at length, ‘you two get on with your homework. I’m going to phone Granny. I’ll come in a little while to help you, Fleur. Try not to worry. We are going to work something out, and I’m not going to accept a job in nursing until everything with us is working well…if I ever get offered anything, that is.’
‘Will you sleep here tonight, Dee?’ Fleur asked.
‘Yes,’ she said. Quite often she slept at her parents’ home, a modest place that was a relatively short distance away on the edge of a less affluent area.
In the bedroom that was hers in this house, she locked the door, a habit that she had acquired ever since the unwanted encounter with a semi-drunk Jerry when she had first come to the house, when he had entered her room one night and tried to force himself on her. Then and there she had almost left, almost thrown her few belongings into her suitcase and rushed out. Only the images of the two young, unhappy faces had prevented her.
Using her mobile phone, she called Fiona McGregor, having decided not to wait until the morning. A sense of urgency made her edgy. ‘Hello, Mrs McGregor. This is Deirdre.’
‘Oh, hello, Deirdre, my dear. How are you? Now, you are supposed to call me Fiona.’ The good-natured voice came back. Granny McGregor could be tart when annoyed, but never mean or unfair.
‘I know,’ Deirdre said, smiling, not wanting to tell her employer that she always thought of her as ‘Granny McGregor’. ‘I’m calling to ask if I could possibly come to see you tomorrow, Fiona. I’ve been thinking of going back to nursing, and I want to work out with you how I might do that and continue to look after the children.’
‘Well, my dear, I’m not really surprised. I’ve seen this coming on for some time, but I didn’t want to say anything until you had worked it out in your own mind. It seems you have done so now. I just hope that you won’t leave us, because the children love you so and would be lost without you. So would I.’
For the second time that evening, the relief of having unburdened herself to someone who could understand was overwhelming. It began to seem very odd to Deirdre now that she had not sought out this help before. Somehow she had got it into her head that she had to do it all herself. Fiona, she knew, was still mourning for her daughter. Meeting Shay had had something to do with this surge of courage as well.
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have waited to say something,’ Fiona was going on. ‘I think you’re upset. Am I right?’
‘Yes,’ Deirdre said, her voice low.
‘I suspect that you’ve had just about as much of Jerry Parks as you can stand. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘Well, we’ll do something about it. Come tomorrow, at any time that’s convenient to you, dear,’ Fiona said. ‘There are one or two things I want to clear up with you as well, things that perhaps I should have told you before, but which I wanted to leave until we had all tested you out, myself and the children, then they got put off indefinitely. You’ve been a wonderful mother to the children, you’ve brought some sanity and stability to their lives. If my daughter were alive, she’d be the first to say that, so I want to thank you, Deirdre.’
Deirdre wanted to cry. By a supreme effort she found her voice. ‘I’ll come at eleven o’clock, if that’s all right?’ she said.
‘That’s perfect. I’ll give you something to think about before you come. You’ll remember that I told you my daughter had won some money in a lottery, just before she got sick? The irony of it! Well, it’s much more than I gave you to believe. She got sixteen million dollars. That’s why friend Jerry is hanging around. He would have been up and out long ago, believe me. The last thing he wanted was to look after children that were not even his own, although I suspect that he would be the same with his own children.’
‘That makes it clearer,’ Deirdre said. ‘I understand more now.’ It had long been a mystery to her why Jerry, impatient and ill at ease with the children, should make a pretence of being there for them.
‘There’s a court case on to prevent him getting his hands on the money, because Moira had filed for divorce from Jerry before she knew she had won the money, and he had signed the papers agreeing to the divorce,’ Fiona went on, somewhat wearily. ‘That’s crucial, you see. Otherwise she would automatically have had to share the money equally with her husband. She couldn’t stand to be with him any longer. He used to hit her, you know. I think he envied her because she was a successful artist, that she could do something good with her own talent.’
