by Rebecca Lang
‘Perhaps I don’t know much,’ he said.
‘I can’t not say it, I can’t pretend that I don’t care,’ she said, ‘that it’s all just physical.’
Shay pulled her head against his neck and stroked her hair. ‘Don’t try to analyse it,’ he said. ‘Just let it be for now.’
‘All right,’ she said softly, enjoying the closeness and the feel of him in her arms.
‘I’m obsessed with you, my love,’ he said. ‘It must have been fate that brought you across my path.’
‘Maybe it was,’ she whispered back, not wanting to question out loud why he called her ‘my love’, when he did not love her. Perhaps it was just another expression to him, like ‘sweetheart’. As he said, why try to analyse it? What she did know was that something marvellous and remarkable had happened to her in knowing him.
‘Let’s just live for the moment,’ he said. ‘Don’t question it.’
‘I still love you, all the same,’ she murmured. ‘Don’t forget that.’
When he had gone and she lay curled up cosily in her bed, missing him, she thought of everything they had said. It was unsettling that he had said ‘I wish you wouldn’t’ when she had told him that she loved him. It seemed cold and matter-of-fact somehow, even though she knew he was not a cold person but a warm and loving one. Now she wanted to cry, yet fought back the feeling. For now she would just accept the situation as it was. The need to explain herself to him had prevented her from keeping silent. Now that she had explained herself, perhaps they could just accept each other for what they were for the moment.
Perhaps he was right, that they should just live for the moment. After all, one could not force the future. And she did not have much idea of what the future held for her. That he did not love her in the way that she loved him was perhaps not important. He wanted to be with her, was obsessed by her, as he put it. With that thought, she drifted into sleep.
CHAPTER NINE
THE NEXT DAYS, and then the weeks, seemed to go by like greased lightning for Deirdre. With work, her home life, looking after the children, being with Shay as much as possible, trying to have a social life, going to see the counsellor, she felt like a juggler who was keeping a lot of balls in the air. Sometimes she felt that if she were to drop one of them, all the others would come tumbling down as well. Yet her mental state was lifting.
Jerry came and went in the course of his business, while she kept a low profile where he was concerned and did not breathe a word about Fiona’s business and the question of the future custody of the children. Most of the time she, Deirdre, hoped that the situation would not arise in which she would have to take over custody of the children before they reached the age of eighteen. Since children of sixteen could leave home of their own free will, and a parent was not legally obliged to support a child over the age of sixteen, perhaps a nasty confrontation with Jerry would never arise.
Their cleaning lady, Alice Brenner, who had been with them for years, did a lot to keep the two homes in order to make it possible for Deirdre to work without being too anxious about the home front.
Nonetheless, Fiona continued to hope that Deirdre would marry, and that she would marry Shay. At this, Deirdre merely smiled and did not, of course, breathe a word to Shay or to the children. Fiona stated flatly that she was going to put Deirdre in her will as the guardian of Mungo and Fleur, even without official consent. No doubt Jerry would go on trying to get his hands on some of the money that Moira had left to the children. That was nothing to do with her, Deirdre felt. She didn’t even want to know about it. That was something between Fiona and Jerry and their respective lawyers. Jerry’s neglect of the children made life easier for all of them, in a perverse way.
As the days went by, Mungo and Fleur saw quite a lot of Mark, who often visited with Shay, and gradually it seemed that they were all one family, although no one said anything to that effect. The last thing Deirdre wanted was for Shay and Mark to feel that she wanted to take them over in some way. The cues had to come from them. Certainly, they got along well together and liked each other’s company very much. They went snowshoeing and skiing together in the mountains, as well as to concerts and events in the city. Very gradually, it seemed to her, the Melburnes were coming to like her a lot and to trust her. Mark had as much reason to distrust love as his father did.
Deirdre got into the habit of talking and listening to Mark, drawing him out about his concerns. ‘I’ve written to my mother,’ he told her one day, rather shyly, ‘and told her how much I miss her and wish she would come back here.’
‘Did she…did she reply?’ Deirdre asked, feeling an odd sensation of fear, even though she had suggested to him that he should write such a letter. If Antonia came back, what would that do to her relationship with Shay, if anything? It was impossible to think that the beautiful Antonia did not still mean something to Shay, in spite of his remarks that there was nothing left of his feelings for her. Perhaps that was the best thing that could happen, because it would give him a better idea of what he wanted, what he really felt about her, Deirdre.
‘She hasn’t actually sent me a letter back yet,’ Mark said. ‘She tends to send me little presents a lot, and just puts a card inside. I’m waiting for a proper letter.’
Deirdre swallowed to try to dispel the nervous lump in her throat. Since she had advised Mark on that course of action, she had fallen more and more deeply in love with his father, had become involved in his life in such a way that she was beginning not to be able to remember what her life had been like without him in it.
‘It’s good to be honest, I think,’ she said to Mark. ‘You’ve told her what you really feel.’
‘If she comes,’ Mark said, blushing, ‘I don’t think it will make a difference to you and Dad, because I think he loves you, Deirdre. She will really be coming for me.’
‘I don’t know whether he loves me,’ she said, realizing as she uttered the words that a certain sadness had come through in her voice. ‘He doesn’t say so.’
‘Oh, you could say that Dad’s a dark horse,’ he said.
Deirdre had to laugh. ‘I’ll take your word for it, Mark. You’ve known him longer than I have.’
‘I’ll let you know if she’s coming,’ he said.
She wanted to hug him. There was again a certain wistfulness in his voice. ‘I hope for your sake that she does come, Mark,’ she said truthfully. Whatever it did to her and Shay, it was something that had to be confronted.
Towards the end of February, which was raw, wet and dark, as was common on the west coast of Canada, Deirdre found herself working with Shay on a Friday.
‘Can you come for a quick drink?’ he asked her at the end of the operating list, as he removed his face mask and his cotton operating cap outside the operating room where she was washing her hands at the scrub sinks.
‘I’d like to,’ she said, desperate to spend some time alone with him. ‘I’ll have to call Mungo and Fleur to let them know what I’m doing.’
‘We won’t take long,’ he said. ‘I have something I want to discuss with you.’
‘All right,’ she agreed, sensing a tension in him, an odd note in his voice. Perhaps he had heard from Antonia. Maybe she had set a definite date for coming back. Trying to hide her alarm, she smiled tentatively.
‘Meet me down in the lobby,’ he said. ‘I know a little bar where there won’t be many other people at this time.’
Deirdre nodded. ‘Give me twenty minutes,’ she said.
It was raining when they emerged from the hospital into the street. Shay put up a large black umbrella and drew her in beside him, keeping his arm around her shoulders. ‘The bar’s in a side street, within walking distance, if you don’t mind walking.’
‘No, I need the fresh air,’ she said. Indeed, it was good to feel the cold, moist air on her face after spending the day in the artificial atmosphere of the operating suite where the incoming air was carefully filtered and warmed, before being sucked out again by the
powerful ventilation system.
Resisting the urge to ask him what he wanted to talk to her about, she relaxed and enjoyed the feel of his arm around her, his warm closeness, like a bulwark against the chill of the late afternoon. It still seemed like a miracle that he should be with her, that she was with a man she loved. Sometimes in the near past she had thought that it would never happen to her, that she was not destined to find that sort of love. At that moment, the fact that he did not love her did not seem as important as the fact that she loved him.
The bar/café was cosy and warm, the sort of place with nooks and crannies where one could be private.
‘Hello, Dr Melburne,’ the bartender called out. ‘Nice to see you again. How are you?’ He was middle-aged, welcoming as he wiped the already spotless oak bar. ‘Rotten day, eh?’
‘Sure is.’
‘How about a nice hot toddy, Dr Melburne? I make a good one with brandy and a bit of honey. Or you can have whiskey.’
‘That sounds good,’ Shay said, smiling at him as they both shrugged out of their coats and put the dripping umbrella into the can provided for the purpose. ‘Deirdre?’
‘Brandy would be good,’ she agreed. ‘Please, go easy on the spirits, as we’re both driving.’
‘Sure,’ the barman said. ‘It will be mostly hot water. Don’t want any accidents, especially in rush hour. You find yourselves some seats and I’ll bring it to you.’
‘Thanks,’ Shay said, taking Deirdre’s arm and steering her to a corner near a window, where they were out of sight of the bar and could look out to the street where the rain sparkled in the light from streetlamps that were already on against the winter gloom. There was a small table and two chairs. There were no other customers. Soft music played in the background, enough to drown out their murmured conversation.
‘Did you get through to the kids?’ Shay asked. Sensitive to nuance, Deirdre sensed a tension in him and felt herself tense up as well.
‘Yes. They’ll go to my place from school, then I’ll meet them there.’
‘Good,’ he said.
‘What did you want to talk to me about?’ she asked, unable to bear the tension any longer.
‘I’ll explain when we’ve got out drinks,’ he said. ‘Don’t want to be interrupted.’
‘Oh, dear,’ she said, looking at him fully in the face, ‘that sounds rather ominous.’
At that moment their drinks arrived, in glasses with handles. ‘Enjoy!’ the bartender said.
‘Mmm, this is delicious,’ Deirdre said, after sipping the hot liquid that was delicately flavoured with brandy and honey. ‘I could get seriously addicted to this.’
‘It is good,’ he said, drinking a little then placing his glass carefully on the table in front of him. ‘Deirdre…you know that Mark has written to his mother, asking her to come home? Mark said something about having told you.’
‘Yes, he did say something…’ Her heart gave a lurch, signalling her fear. Perhaps he was going to tell her that Antonia was back, that they had decided to get together again, to try to make a family life for the sake of their son. She looked down at the table, at her hand cupped around the glass of hot liquid, realizing again at that moment that although Shay had become a central part of her life, he could easily be out of it, that she had no claim on him. How would she manage without him? That thought came to her as though the words had been spoken aloud.
‘I doubt that she’ll come,’ he said, the words making Deirdre realize that she had been holding her breath, waiting to hear what he would say next. Slowly, deliberately she took another sip from her glass.
‘Why wouldn’t she come?’ she said at length. ‘I understand that she wanted Mark with her…that she loves him.’
‘That’s true,’ Shay said carefully. ‘But she is with that guy, the sheep farmer. Presumably she loves him, too. I have custody of Mark, so if she wants to be in his life she has to be here. Mark could visit her out there, but so far he’s declined.’
There was a silence that became uncomfortable. She took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh, trying to find the courage to say something that was appropriate. ‘And you?’ Deirdre asked, not looking at him, fiddling with her glass as it sat on the table. ‘What will that mean to you?’
And what will it mean for me? she wanted to ask, but found that she could not utter those words, because he had always made it clear that he could not promise her anything.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘For Mark’s sake I would be glad, I think, if she were to come, because he needs to see her, to sort out how he feels about her, what he wants to do in relation to her. It’s between the two of them. For myself, I really don’t want to have to deal with her in my life again, even on the periphery. If she were to have any sort of relationship with Mark, I would, of course, have to deal with her, if only on a superficial level. I’ve never denigrated her in Mark’s eyes, and I won’t in the future.’
Deirdre swallowed to dispel the tightness in her throat. ‘Mmm. I see,’ she said.
For a while they sipped their drinks in silence, glad of the hot liquid, while Deirdre thought about what he had said and they both looked out of the window at the rain that pelted down on the tarmac of the road. It provided a diversion. Deirdre felt slightly sick with tension.
‘Do you…still care for her?’ She forced the words out. Although she had asked him that before, she felt that things had shifted enough to warrant a repeat of the question. ‘Because if you do, I don’t think I should be seeing you in the way that we are…’
‘No, I don’t care for her,’ he said.
The warming effect of the drink, coupled with his emphatic assertion, had a calming effect on Deirdre, yet the underlying anxiety and longing were still there. There was nothing she could do, she decided, except to wait and see what happened. Antonia might never come, although she hoped for Mark’s sake that she would. It was all mixed up in her mind.
‘There’s something else I want to say to you…ask you,’ Shay said, fixing her with his intent grey stare, so that she could not look away. ‘To perhaps solve the dilemma of what would happen to Fleur and Mungo if Fiona were to die before they reach the age of independence. I’ve thought that we could marry, to increase, perhaps, your chances of getting custody. And Mark needs a mother because I doubt that Antonia would leave her man in New Zealand, even if she were to come here for a visit.’
They stared at each other across the narrow expanse of the table, Deirdre’s eyes wide with shock. ‘You mean…’ she managed, ‘a sort of… marriage of convenience?’
‘If you want to put it that way,’ he said evenly.
‘I…I don’t know how else to put it,’ she said. ‘You don’t love me.’
‘No. But I do enjoy your company very much, and I want you more than I could possibly say. You’re more attractive to me than any other woman has ever been.’
‘That’s a sort of backhanded compliment,’ she said, astounded.
‘Honest,’ he said.
‘But you don’t love me,’ she found herself repeating. ‘And marriage is a very serious business. I don’t have to tell you that.’
‘No, you don’t,’ he said.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ she said, twisting her hands together tightly under the table, while a strange kind of happiness gripped her as she stared at him, met his unwavering regard. Yet he did not love her…
‘It would be for the children…and for us. I want to be with you,’ he said. ‘That’s something I’m sure of.’
‘I would like to say yes, Shay, but I don’t know…I don’t know,’ she said uncertainly. ‘It’s so unexpected…’
‘Don’t wring your hands,’ he said, reaching forward across the table. ‘Hey, give me your hands.’
Warmly he held her restless hands in his.
‘There’s so much to consider…other people…’ she said. ‘If I had just myself to think of, I would say yes. But perhaps then you wouldn’t be asking me. I’m not sure abou
t that.’
‘As I said, I want to be with you. As for love,’ he said quietly, ‘I have a very good and wise colleague at the hospital, whom I also count as a friend, who’s East Indian, from a culture where marriages are arranged. He told me once, when I asked his advice about something personal, that in his culture you do not marry the person you love, you love the person you marry. I liked that. That’s at least as good as the other way.’
‘There’s no guarantee that it would happen,’ she said, still holding his gaze, feeling that someone had winded her. ‘And…you might meet someone else whom you fall in love with.’
‘There are no guarantees about anything,’ he said. ‘That’s something I’ve found out.’
Deirdre did not have anything to say to that, because she knew it was true. Realizing it, though, left a feeling of something like apprehension. How good it would be if one could be absolutely certain of another person. Things changed, time moved on.
‘Perhaps it’s a measure of our maturity when we realize there are no guarantees, but that doesn’t mean that you cannot work for something you want, something good with another person, something that you can commit to and do your damnedest to make work,’ he said, gripping her hands and looking into her eyes.
The bartender came back. ‘Can I get you anything else?’ he asked.
‘I’d like a cup of coffee, please,’ Deirdre said, feeling in need of some caffeine to make sure that the alcohol had not affected her judgement.
‘Sure thing. And for you, Dr Melburne?’
‘Yes, the same, please, Joe.’
‘Does Mark know about this?’ she whispered, when the waiter had gone.
‘No.’
‘And what about you being the twenty-four-seven man?’ she asked.
‘I’m trying very hard not to be that,’ he said soberly. ‘I hate that term.’
They sat at the table silently, waiting for the coffee. Deirdre’s heart was pounding. Whatever she had been expecting, it had not been this.
The coffee was good and Deirdre gulped at hers, wanting to counter any effect of the brandy.
