by Rebecca Lang
‘I…I didn’t know, of course,’ Deirdre said. ‘But I’m not surprised.’
‘That’s the only reason he’s hanging about,’ Fiona McGregor repeated bitterly, ‘pretending to be a father to the children.’
‘So the divorce was finalized?’ Deirdre asked hesitantly, not knowing the ins and out of divorce.
‘Yes…just. But she won the money before it was finalized, so Jerry is saying that he should have half of it. Then Moira became too ill, and deteriorated very quickly, before actually getting around to selling the house and other assets or trying to fight him.’
‘I see,’ Deirdre said, although it all sounded very convoluted and complicated, and she was not sure that she wanted to know all that.
‘She didn’t have the energy to do anything else, but her intentions were certainly known to her lawyer,’ Fiona went on sadly. ‘She had a will, leaving most of her estate to the children and something to me. Jerry has been trying to get it ever since, and doesn’t want to let go of the children for that reason.’ She gave a derisive laugh. ‘Otherwise, with no money, he would have been out of there before you could say “knife”. Certainly he would have left before she died…he didn’t want to have anything to do with her illness. All these legal things pending are the only reasons that he hasn’t brought a woman into the home, someone to live with him, not just as a nanny to the children. He wants to present a good image.’
‘I see.’
‘Thank God I’m their legal guardian under Moira’s will. Jerry owns half that house, so he’s pretty well off in his own right. I’ll fill you in on more of the details tomorrow,’ Fiona promised.
‘Do the children know how much money there is?’ Deirdre asked.
‘No, I thought it better not to tell them the amount yet. It might make them think that they don’t have to make an effort in life. Though they’re pretty good kids, work hard at school.’
‘Yes…’ she said.
‘Where were you thinking of applying for a nursing job?’
‘Well, I just walked by the Stanton Memorial Hospital today and saw a notice that they need operating room nurses. I thought maybe I would try there,’ Deirdre said. ‘It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing, but I’ve been thinking for some time that I ought to take some action.’
‘You’re right, dear. We’ll talk tomorrow about that as well, shall we? We should have done this a while ago.’
‘Yes.’
‘You have to be quite sure that you can cope with it, dear…taking on a job in nursing and wanting to stay with the children, too. Of course, I’ll do more. I should have done more from the beginning. Are you sure it won’t be too much for you?’
‘I’m not sure, but I want both. The nursing job would be part of my individual life. Don’t you see?’
‘Yes, dear, I think I do. I blame myself for not seeing it coming. Perhaps I’ve taken you too much for granted, although I’ve tried not to.’
‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Deirdre said. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow.’
‘Goodnight, then, dear. Keep your mobile phone with you at all times. You call me right away if there’s any trouble with you-know-who, and I’ll come round there, with the police in tow if necessary. It’s a good idea to get an official report if you get threatened.’
‘Thank you. Goodnight.’ It had been good for her to talk to Fiona, who had suffered the loss of her only daughter whom she had loved desperately, so she had said. That event must be something that was always on her mind. Between them they would sort out something that was good for her daughter’s children.
Thoughtfully Deirdre sat on her bed and stared at the locked door. Things were falling into place. It had long puzzled her why a self-centred, impatient man like Jerry would go through the motions of being a father when his heart and his talents were very obviously not in that direction. As for herself, she had only been able to tolerate the situation because he was away a lot, travelling overseas in connection with his work, mostly to Third World countries, involved in sweat-shop manufacturing, she thought. The house was just sort of a hotel to him, where he expected service and comfort, rather than a home to which he should contribute something.
She wondered how Moira could ever have got involved with someone like Jerry. Perhaps he had offered her material things at a time when her own profession had been precarious and she had had the two children to support. Those children were the products of Moira’s idealistic student days, it seemed, when love and attraction had taken precedence over birth control and common sense.
What irony that Moira had won millions in a lottery just before she had contracted a terminal illness.
Deirdre’s mobile phone, on the bed beside her, shrilled.
‘Hi! This is Shay Melburne,’ the now familiar voice said. ‘I decided to give you a call because I’ve been wondering if you are all right, in view of the fact that you didn’t want to enter the house earlier in the evening.’
‘Oh, hello,’ Deirdre said, blushing and absurdly pleased to hear his voice, even though she knew that he was forbidden to her, so to speak, being married. ‘That’s kind of you. I… well…there has been a showdown of sorts, but it’s going to be all right, I think. I’m going to see the children’s grandmother tomorrow, who’s my real employer.’
‘And that will be all right, you think?’ his pleasant, calm voice enquired.
‘I think it will clarify the situation for me,’ she said.
‘My second reason for calling,’ he said, his tone light, ‘is from a morbid curiosity to find out if Basil the rat got into your groceries in the garage.’
As he had, no doubt, intended, she laughed. ‘No, everything was intact,’ she said. ‘Sweet of you to ask, though.’
‘I’m also calling to see if you would like to come to the hospital tomorrow, maybe at lunchtime. I could meet you in the main lobby, we could have lunch in the hospital cafeteria, maybe, and then I could show you the operating suite…with the permission of the head nurse. I’m not actually operating tomorrow, but I do have to see some patients in the outpatients department in the morning.’
The glow of pleasure that suffused her made it plain that there was no way she would refuse such a wonderful opportunity. Things were moving quickly. Perhaps getting to breaking point and then taking action always moved things along in this way when you found yourself at an impasse. ‘Well…I have to see my employer at eleven o’clock tomorrow,’ she said hesitantly, ‘and expect to be with her for at least an hour…’
‘Would one o’clock be all right?’
‘Yes. Thank you, I really appreciate that.’
‘My pleasure. See you tomorrow, then. Are you sure that everything’s all right?’ Even though he scarcely knew her, he was obviously picking up vibes or something, she thought, from the tone of her voice.
‘There’s nothing I can’t cope with,’ she said, lying, forcing a lightness to her voice. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight.’ It seemed to her that he sounded reluctant to hang up.
Perhaps the act of nearly running her over was on his conscience, so that he felt an exaggerated responsibility for her, she speculated. It was good that he did. She sat there on the bed glowing with an unaccustomed sense of being cared for. Having had to stand on her own two feet for so long had made her feel like a wary, hunted animal a lot of the time when things went wrong. Partly, she suspected, because she didn’t always know how to ask for help, where to go, whom she could trust.
In her experience, so many people backed off from real need. It frightened them, even some individuals whose job it was to help in the ‘caring professions’. It was so much easier to give at a distance, to give money to famine relief in distant lands, for instance, than to help a friend, neighbour or acquaintance who was suffering from depression and slowly going under. That was something she had observed frequently in her young life, all the more amazing to her because she jumped into the fray herself, got her hands dirty, so to speak.
The euphori
c glow was short-lived as she heard the heavy tread of Jerry on the stairs. His bedroom, thank God, was not on the second floor. He had his own suite at ground level. Life would not have been bearable otherwise, for herself or for the children. He thumped on the door with a fist. Then the knob turned. Thank God she had got into the habit of always keeping it locked.
‘I want to talk to you,’ he said.
‘I’ll see you in the morning, early. Half past seven,’ she said.
He was swearing, loud enough for her to hear. Then she heard him going down the stairs. Perhaps tomorrow he would try to fire her again. Well, it was not the end of the world. She would move back home, she had very few clothes or other things here, and the children would go to their grandmother, while she, Deirdre, would continue to be a mother to them. Then Jerry would go away again on one of his trips that could last for several weeks.
Breathing deeply to calm herself and slow her rapidly beating heart, she planned her next moves. Now she would help the children with their homework, if needed, supervise their bedtime, then have a bath herself, put out her clothes for the next day and then go to bed.
* * *
Deirdre had known that she would not sleep well. Too much had happened that day for her to attain peace of mind, yet it was a sleeplessness of a different sort now, because it had the excitement of possibility in it, a hope of better things.
Lying there, she was haunted by the image of Jerry coming into the room when she had been new to the job, when she had been in the house for only two weeks. He had come in late at night and flung himself onto the bed, partially on top of her, smelling of alcohol, grinning at her in the expectation that she would welcome him.
The look of horror on her face had got through to him, inebriated as he had been, and she had easily drawn up her knees and kicked him off her. She had run from the room, managing to snatch up her handbag with her cellphone in it, then her coat and outdoor shoes from by the front door as she had run out of the house. Out in the front garden where she could yell for help to the neighbours, she had told Jerry, who had come after her eventually, that she would not come back into the house until he had gone to his own quarters. She had had her phone in her hand, had threatened to call the police. Now she knew that he had not persisted because he could not risk being known to the police when he wanted to get his hands on the money that Moira had left.
How mixed up and sordid it all seemed. Yet in spite of all that, what shone through was the innate sweetness of the children, their desperate need and appreciation of her. As though they were her own flesh and blood, that was what anchored her in this place.
Deirdre closed her eyes, willing herself to think of other things. The image of another man came to mind, a man with grey, curious eyes, who looked at her as though he saw her as she was, fully human, as well as an attractive woman. He had looked at her in the way she saw herself when she felt herself to be at her best—not Deirdre of the Sorrows, but Deirdre of the joy. That had been reflected in him. Even though he was married and had a son, could not be anything to her other than, at best, a casual friend and perhaps professional colleague, his advent in her life had left her with something very positive. It made her smile.
CHAPTER THREE
THE HOSPITAL FRONT lobby of the main building of Stanton Memorial was smaller and on a more human scale than the main lobby at University Hospital in downtown Prospect Bay, Deirdre thought as she entered and looked around her.
Taking off her hat, scarf and gloves and unbuttoning her warm raincoat, she looked quickly for Shay, as she ran a hand through her hair. It was a raw, wet day, one of those days when it was difficult to look smartly dressed, and she had come by bus. There was no sign of him. It was shortly before one o’clock.
There was a gift shop off to one side, with the usual teddy bears, other toys and useful items that individuals might need when they were patients in a hospital, as well as the usual buckets of fresh flowers on the floor outside. It was nice to be in a hospital again, provided that you were there to work, were not sick yourself or visiting someone who was sick. When you or your family needed the services of a hospital, it was a different story. You saw things and were sensitive to nuances of attitude that you seldom, if ever, noticed when you simply worked there. Deirdre knew that well, since her father has been sick.
‘Can I be of any help to you?’ a voice enquired, and Deirdre looked at the elderly woman in a pale blue overall who had asked the question. Pinned to the front of her uniform she had a large, round badge with the words PLEASE ASK ME. I’M A VOLUNTEER. RUTH.
Deirdre smiled in answer to the other woman’s smile, well appreciating the value of volunteers in a setting that could be impersonal and bewildering. ‘I’m supposed to meet someone here in the lobby,’ she said. ‘A Dr Melburne. Is there somewhere I could sit? He should be here very soon.’
‘There’s a bench over there, at the side of the gift shop,’ the woman pointed. ‘And if you’d like a coffee, there’s a little refreshment booth over there.’
Deirdre seated herself on the bench and looked around her keenly. Already the ambience of the place had given her a favourable impression. It was amazing how much you could tell about a place in a short while, whether it was going to be cold and impersonal, or more patient-centred and warm on a human scale. The very fact that they used volunteers up front told her something positive.
She saw Shay before he saw her, as he came into the lobby from a side corridor. He was wearing the uniform of the operating room, a two-piece green scrub suit, with a white lab coat over the top, which made him look even more attractive than he had seemed to her yesterday in street clothes, yet at the same time more remote. His short, simply cut hair looked smooth and glossy with health.
Looking at him now, unaware of her as he was, she wondered how she could have abandoned herself to pouring out most of her troubles to him, a complete stranger. Surely he would not be the slightest bit interested in her troubles, even though he had listened to her attentively. At the thought, her cheeks warmed with a certain embarrassment. Yet he had asked her…had seemed very sincere in his desire to help. And he had called her last night. The subsequent relief had been so wonderful. Embarrassed or not, there was no point in regretting that, she told herself, her internal dialogue chattering away in full swing.
The jolt of recognition that she felt when she saw him sent her heart beating faster and she chastised herself for being so attracted to him, a man who was not free. If he had been free, she told herself, he would most likely not be interested in her anyway, a young woman who was the mother of someone else’s children, who had painted herself into a corner, as he had put it, who had been out of nursing for two and a half years and was out of touch with the professional world that she had once inhabited.
It was more clear to her now that when she had taken the job to look after the children she had not had any idea that Jerry would prove to be such an inadequate, reluctant, more or less non-existent father. She had assumed at the time that she would not be taking on the role of single parent, which it had turned out to be. She had simply assumed that her job would be temporary and that she would go back to her profession and perhaps remain a friend of the family so that Mungo and Fleur had some continuity in their lives. Maybe Fiona should have told her that…if she had known the full extent of his neglect herself.
The moral of that story was not to assume…
As Deirdre stared at the man, she thought that there was not much she could offer a sophisticated, accomplished man like Shay Melburne—except her sincerity, honesty, all the positive attributes of character and personality that she thought she possessed. She was for the most part a quiet and modest person, she thought, one not given to blowing her own trumpet. Now, of course, she knew more or less all there was to know about running a home efficiently, and she had become a very good cook as well. She wasn’t a bad mother either. Those were not accomplishments to be sneezed at, although she knew that society in general did not
put a high premium on those skills because they were often taken for granted, behind the scenes as they were, yet they were becoming rarer by the year, it seemed to her. Not that she would be in a position to offer him anything…
Smiling wryly to herself, she pushed those thoughts out of her mind. As she half rose to go forward to greet him, another man, a colleague attired in the same professional garb, came from another direction and accosted him. ‘Hi, Shay! How are you? Good to see you.’
‘Hi, Tom. I’m pretty good. Haven’t seen you for a while.’
‘I was in Prague for the conference. Lynne came with me and we decided to make a vacation out of it. We stayed for a month. I thought you might have been there.’
‘Couldn’t make it this time.’
‘Pity. It was great. How is Mark?’
‘He’s improving, I’m relieved to say.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Well, I’ll see you upstairs, no doubt.’
‘No doubt, Tom.’
Deirdre had sat down again on the bench, not wanting to appear to be privy to the conversation which had been private. But because surgeons often tended to speak in loud, booming voices—and Shay Melburne’s colleague was no exception—it had been accessible to anyone who had cared to take note of it, although Shay’s contribution had been more subdued. As she looked around her, she could not see anyone else who might have been interested. They were all hurrying about their business. Mark, she knew, was the name of his fourteen-year-old son. Was he ill? She did not know Shay well enough to ask, and although she had unburdened herself to him, it was not likely that he needed to do the same where she was concerned.
