The Elusive Doctor Page 12

  If she sought the comfort of his arms again they would be waiting for her. But there was no way he was going to use her present vulnerability for his own ends.

  Fortunately, practice matters were there to keep him from brooding, and on the Tuesday morning of that week he had a phone call asking him to make a home visit to Dorothy Desmond, the ninety-nine-year-old he’d sent to hospital for X-rays after a fall.

  Her daughter opened the door to him, her face creased with anxiety. ‘My mother is in an awful lot of pain, Doctor,’ she told him as he stepped into the hallway.

  ‘What did they say at the hospital?’ he enquired.

  She smiled tiredly. ‘She’s broken her pelvis in three places. Can you believe it? I leave her for a couple of weeks and we end up with this.’

  ‘Is that the doctor?’ the old lady called from the other room.

  ‘Yes, it is, Mrs Desmond,’ Rob replied as he proceeded into her small sitting room.

  ‘Has Pauline told you what I’ve done?’ she asked. He nodded. ‘They’ve told me I’ve just got to let the fractures heal naturally. That it’s like broken ribs. There’s nothing they can do. But in the meantime I’m in a lot of pain and wondered if you could give me something for it.’

  ‘Of course, and I must say that you’re a very brave lady, coping with something like this at your age.’

  Bright eyes were twinkling up at him from a sunken face. ‘I’m ready to go, you know, Doctor. I keep telling the nurse when she comes to change the bandages on my legs that I’m in favour of euthanasia, but she doesn’t take any notice.’

  When he was leaving, after making out a prescription for painkillers, Pauline Desmond said, ‘She doesn’t mean it, you know…about the euthanasia. Mum has got all her cards and presents for Christmas and is looking forward to going to a family wedding. It’s just her little joke.’

  As Rob made his way back to the practice he wasn’t to know that Nina was thinking along the same lines as him. The job was saving her sanity, she thought frequently.

  Apart from its many other duties, dealing with her share of the patients in the morning and afternoon surgeries was a constant reminder that Eloise wasn’t the only one with serious medical problems.

  Brian Benyon, the local butcher, was a case in point. He’d been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in his early twenties. Blurred vision and tingling of the hands and feet had prodded him towards his GP, and tests had shown that MS was present.

  The original symptoms had cleared up with drugs, and for a few years he’d been almost free of discomfort. There’d been the odd hiccup but nothing to be alarmed about until now, and Reception had passed him on to her on a cold, grey morning.

  His wife was with him, and Nina could almost feel the tension in them as they came into her consulting room. ‘I might have known I was doing too well,’ the butcher mumbled as he lowered himself into one of the chairs opposite her desk. ‘What’s going to happen to the business? That’s what I want to know!’

  With a feeling that she was missing something, Nina said, ‘Let’s start at the beginning shall we, Mr Benyon? What’s the problem?’

  He stared at her. ‘Haven’t you read my notes, then?’

  ‘Yes. I have. I see that you have MS. Is that what you’ve come about?’

  ‘What else?’

  She was tempted to say that it could have been an ingrowing toenail, but restrained herself. The man was obviously in a state, and MS was no joke in anyone’s book.

  ‘It’s his arms, Doctor,’ his wife said. ‘The use keeps going out of them…and he’s got a business to run. He can hardly hold a knife, and as for a cleaver…no chance!’

  This was the old story of multiple sclerosis, Nina thought. In most cases there were long periods when the disease was dormant. Then suddenly it would flare up in a mild or more virulent form, as if to remind the sufferer that it was still a force to be reckoned with.

  From this man’s notes it was obvious that he’d had a clear run for many years, and now it looked as if it was reminder time.

  As she examined him Nina saw that there was weakness, especially in the upper arms. She’d also noticed that he’d been limping when he’d come in.

  ‘What about your leg? Is that bothering you, too?’ she questioned.

  ‘Aye, it is,’ he grunted, ‘but I don’t cut the meat up with me legs.’

  She ignored that remark and commented, ‘I see from your notes that you have twice-yearly appointments with the hospital and that the last one was three months ago. Were you having this trouble then?’

  He shook his head. ‘Naw. It only started last week.’

  ‘I see. Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to refer you back to them, Mr Benyon. It looks as if the MS has flared up again. They’ll probably prescribe corticosteroid drugs, but first they’ll check the progression of the disease with magnetic resonance imaging.’

  ‘They’ve done that before,’ Brian’s wife said. He looked at her blankly. ‘When they put you in that tube. Don’t you remember?’

  ‘Oh, aye. I didn’t like it either. I’m too claustrophobic for that sort of thing.’

  ‘I’ll ask them to give you an early appointment,’ Nina told him. ‘And, in the meantime, try not to worry. The symptoms of MS often die down just as quickly as they’ve flared up.’

  ‘If you say so, Doctor,’ he agreed doubtfully, and off they went, back to the sides of beef and sausages, with the future a grey area and the past something that he’d taken for granted and was only now beginning to be grateful for.

  When Nina got home that night she was amazed to find that Eloise and her father had been shopping. In the other woman’s weakened state it was incredible that she’d found the strength, but she had, and the dining table was strewn with parcels.

  ‘I’ve been doing my Christmas shopping,’ she said with a tired smile as Nina goggled at the array.

  There was a choking feeling in her throat. Eloise was full of doubts about the future, but she’d still made the effort. If her stepmother could do it, then she should throw off her melancholy and do the same.

  ‘It’s late-night shopping in town tomorrow night,’ she said to Rob the following morning. ‘I’m going to get some Christmas shopping done before Eloise has her ordeal on Friday.’

  Why she was telling him she really didn’t know, unless she’d been hoping that he might suggest going with her, but there was no immediate offer.

  ‘Good for you,’ he said, giving her a quick sideways glance.

  ‘Eloise has done hers,’ she explained, ‘which makes me feel that I must do mine.’

  He smiled. ‘That lady is something else.’

  ‘Isn’t she just? Have you done your shopping?’ she asked, apparently in all innocence.

  ‘Sort of. I buy gifts for the staff, usually chocolates or wine that come straight from the wholesalers, and with regard to personal gifts I’ve only one to concern myself with and it’s all organised.’

  She eyed him curiously, ‘Haven’t you got any family, Rob?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. My father died during a dreadful flu epidemic when I was quite small and I lost my mother last year. Before you ask, it was cancer.’

  ‘Oh, Rob!’ she breathed as tenderness welled up inside her. ‘I didn’t know.’

  He smiled. ‘Well, of course you didn’t. There was no reason you should.’

  ‘Yes, but you’ve been there for me all the time I’ve been agonising over Eloise. I hope there was someone there for you. Bettine maybe?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. At that time she’d only just joined the practice. I coped, Nina. I am a GP, you know.’

  ‘So am I, but it doesn’t make it any easier.’

  ‘That’s true, it doesn’t. But what I went through has helped me to understand how you’re feeling.’

  ‘I can’t bear to think of you being all alone in the world,’ she said softly. ‘Yet you’re so self-sufficient. You never seem as if you need anyone else in your life.’<
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  ‘Don’t you believe it. I’m as weak as the next man,’ he said laughingly.

  ‘That statement is a complete fabrication. You have a will of iron.’

  He took a step towards her. ‘Shall I prove you wrong? Or do you think it’s a little too public here for that kind of demonstration?’

  Nina could have told him that she didn’t care if half the village were watching as long as he wanted her, but that kind of approach belonged to her old image. The new one had more restraint. So she said nothing.

  Rob didn’t pursue the matter and there was still laughter in him as he said, ‘I haven’t any urgent shopping to do, but I suppose I could go with you. I don’t like to think of you being alone with all that you have on your mind. We could take my car and travel in together.’

  A few weeks ago she would have been saying yes before he’d got the words out, but she felt as if she’d aged a hundred years since the night they’d been marooned on the big wheel.

  Therefore, it was with apparently casual acceptance that she took him up on his suggestion. It was only when she got home that she allowed herself to dwell on the pleasure ahead. At the same time berating herself for not allowing that moment in the surgery to develop as it might have done.

  ‘I’m thinking of going late-night shopping with Rob tonight, straight from the practice,’ she told Eloise next morning. ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course I will,’ her stepmother said firmly when she saw Nina’s indecision. ‘Go and do your shopping…and don’t rush back. If you’ve got the chance to spend some time with Rob Carslake…don’t pass it by.’

  ‘So, are we all set to buy up the town?’ Rob asked as they pulled off the practice forecourt that evening. Dark eyes in the face that was never out of her mind were looking her over approvingly, ‘You look stunning, Dr Lombard.’

  Nina smiled. In a short black jacket with a fur collar, tight leather pants and a white poloneck sweater that clung to her slender throat and the globes of her breasts, she was making a fashion statement, and it was gratifying that it hadn’t gone unnoticed.

  ‘You don’t look so bad yourself,’ she said in return, but when had his appearance not made her heart beat faster? Whether in the business suits that he wore at the practice, or in the jeans and casual shirt he’d worn on the night of the fair, the effect was always impressive.

  Rob’s sheepskin coat sat comfortably across his broad shoulders and the shirt and tie beneath it were a smart match for tailored worsted trousers. Today the moth and the butterfly were absent. It was the country squire and the city girl venturing forth.

  For Eloise Nina bought the prettiest nightgown and matching bed jacket she could find, and for her father a set of bowls as he’d recently taken a fancy to the game.

  There was one other gift she wanted to buy, but as its recipient was strolling along beside her in the town’s biggest shopping mall it wasn’t going to be easy unless he had somewhere else to go. He’d said the previous day that his Christmas shopping was organised, so the odds were that he was going to be with her all the time.

  However, almost as if he’d read her thoughts Rob said suddenly, ‘I have some business to attend to that will take me about half an hour. Where shall we meet?’

  ‘In the coffee-shop across the way,’ she suggested, and off he went, standing out in the jostling throng like the bright beacon in her life that he was.

  Once he’d gone came the next problem. What to get him? Something for his spartan flat would be a good idea. It wouldn’t be seen as too personal, but she hadn’t been in the place long enough to get any ideas.

  Clothes? Most men found them boring as a gift. There was a craft shop across the way and, knowing he would soon be back, she hurried inside.

  Canvases, paints and brushes were put to one side for her with the arrangement that they would be delivered to her address some time during the next few days, and Nina emerged with the satisfaction of knowing that her gift to Rob would at least be something that appealed to him.

  As she waited in the coffee-shop she was making plans. Providing that Eloise was no worse, would Rob share Christmas Day with them? she wondered. She’d been appalled to discover that he had no close family.

  Obviously, he had friends. He was too popular in the village not to have, and he might have already been invited out for the day, but if she didn’t ask she would never know.

  He had the look on his face of a job well done when he came back and she eyed him curiously, but wherever he’d been he wasn’t saying and she wasn’t going to ask.

  As the waitress put a coffee in front of him Nina voiced the thoughts that had been racing through her mind. ‘Would you like to spend Christmas Day with us, Rob?’

  He eyed her unsmilingly and her enthusiasm began to diminish. ‘It’s nice of you to ask, but do you think it a good idea, with Eloise’s problems?’

  ‘I think it would be a good idea no matter what,’ she persisted.

  His smile was gentle. ‘In that case I’m delighted to accept…just as long as you let me help with the preparations.’

  ‘No need,’ she told him, her face lightening. ‘Dad always cooks the turkey and I can do the rest as long as Eloise is there to keep an eye on me.’

  As they drove home Rob’s thoughts were sombre. Nina was clutching at straws. Desperate for a normal Christmas, she’d invited him to join them. He hoped that it would work out as she wanted.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said challengingly. ‘That I’m playing at happy families.’

  ‘Only because I hate to see you miserable.’

  ‘I’m miserable about a few things.’

  ‘Yes. Don’t think I’m not aware of that, but nothing is ever as simple as we would like it to be.’

  ‘Only if we make it complicated,’ she retaliated. ‘But don’t let’s spoil the evening, Rob. It’s been nice to get away from everyone and everything.’

  ‘Except me,’ he said with a quizzical smile, and waited for a reply. But there was none forthcoming. Nina’s eyelids were drooping and he thought that a combination of sleepless nights and the warmth of the car were sending his vibrant young assistant into slumberland.

  Eloise’s appointment at the oncology unit was for early Friday afternoon and so Nina had been there for morning surgery.

  Rob had come into her consulting room as she was about to leave for home in the lunch-hour, and because the other doctors were hovering his voice was low as he said, ‘Remember, Nina, whatever the news is, good or bad, I’m here.’

  Her heart leapt at the words but it was only for a moment as he went on to say, ‘The same applies to Eloise. Tell her, will you?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll tell her,’ she said stiffly, and went on her way, wishing that the men in her life were more flexible.

  The late surgery was over. The staff had all dispersed and Rob was about to go up to the flat when the phone on his desk rang. He knew it would be Nina, and he found himself tensing.

  As she said his name she sounded out of breath and he said warily, ‘Yes, Nina?’ But when she spoke again he could tell that it was happy laughter coming over the line and her next words explained the reason for it.

  ‘It’s working!’ she cried. ‘The chemo is working, Rob! Eloise is in remission!’

  ‘So the frailty and general depression were from the treatment rather than the illness,’ he breathed as relief swept over him.

  ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ Nina chanted joyfully in his ear.

  ‘And what does she have to say to that?’

  ‘She’s stunned. I don’t think she’s taken it in yet.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘Pretending he knew all along that this would happen.’

  ‘Why don’t I take you all out for a celebratory meal?’

  ‘Eloise is asleep. She went straight to bed when we got in and was out like a light within seconds. The relief for her must be exquisite…and Dad won’t come without her.’

  ‘Whi
ch leaves you?’

  ‘Yes, just me…and I can’t think of anything I’d like better than to spend the evening with you. For the first time in months I’m free of dread, Rob!’

  ‘I’ll pick you up in a couple of hours, and in the meantime I’ll book us in for a meal somewhere,’ Rob said buoyantly, with his own gloom lifting and a crazy urge inside him to forget all about surgery ethics and a bad relationship.

  The sparkle was back. Rob could tell the moment Nina got into the car. He said laughingly, ‘I’d have thought that you’d have been ready to collapse into bed, too, after all the stress you’ve been under.’

  She laughed across at him, her green eyes shining, her mouth curving invitingly, and it took him all his time not to stop the car and take her into his arms.

  But tonight he didn’t want any hole-in-the-corner embraces. He wanted to wine her and dine her first, and then…

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked, snuggling down in the seat like a contented cat.

  ‘I’ve made a reservation at an hotel way up in the hills,’ Rob said, ‘but if you’d rather we went into town I can ring through on the mobile and cancel it.’

  Nina shook her head. ‘No. I’ve grown accustomed to this place. I find the town too noisy these days.’ She chuckled happily. ‘I must be getting old.’

  It was one of the happiest evenings of her life. The hotel was a converted manor house, ivy-covered and elegant, and the food and service were in keeping with the structure.

  But what mattered most was that they were at ease with each other. There was harmony between them and Nina sensed that the night would take its course to an ending that would be a beginning, too. The start of a love affair that would last for ever.

  As they drove back beneath the light of a winter moon Nina felt that her heart would burst with happiness. Rob hadn’t said anything to make her think things were going to be any different between them, but she could tell by the way he looked at her that he was ready to forget the limitations he’d set upon himself and as for herself there was no limit to her joy.

  For one thing Eloise had at worst got a reprieve, and at best a cure, and Rob was here beside her, driving her through the velvet night. She was almost tempted to pinch herself to see if she was awake.