The beautiful baby boy was lying contentedly in his mother’s arms and Aaron said, ‘Your son doesn’t seem to be in any discomfort so I don’t advise surgery at present. But I would like to see him every three months, and if any problems do occur don’t hesitate to get back to me.’
‘And so we’ve got to put up with him looking like this for years,’ the father persisted.
‘Leave it, Peter,’ his wife said. ‘At least we know that the birthmark is going to go eventually, and I don’t want our baby to be operated on just to satisfy your male pride.’
When they’d gone Aaron thought he could see both their points of view. The young husband was no different to a lot of parents who couldn’t cope with their child being different. His wife was only concerned about the baby, and rightly so.
The clinic was over. It had been the usual mixture of serious and small paediatric problems. Several of the children he’d seen today would need surgery. Annabel came to mind again and he had to tell himself that Charles and Mark were back. She wasn’t going to find new zest if he started passing all his sick children to her to be operated on.
Like teenager Oliver Thomas, for instance, who was going to need brain surgery in an attempt to alleviate severe epilepsy. He would need a team of doctors for the operation that Aaron felt necessary in his case. Then there was nine-year-old James Leech. He’d seen him that morning and had suggested an operation to straighten his protruding ears.
He might have a chat with her about them on Friday night, but then thought better of it. She would think he was some bore if all he could talk about was work over dinner.
* * *
The moment Aaron stopped the car in front of the accommodation block on Friday night, Annabel appeared in the entrance. When he saw her he blinked.
She was wearing a cream cashmere jacket over a long black dress, with high-heeled shoes the same colour as the jacket, and carrying a matching bag.
Her hair was swept off her face and hung down her back in a shining coil, and as she drew nearer he saw in the light from the streetlamps that the pallor that worried him had been covered with light make-up.
Was this the same understated paediatric surgeon who had entered his life at the time of Lucy’s accident? he asked himself as she opened the passenger door and slid into the seat beside him.
‘Hello, there,’ he said as she smiled across at him. ‘You look...er...’
He wanted to tell her she looked wonderful, but suddenly felt she might think he was making too much out of an invitation to dinner.
She laughed. ‘Not as grotty as usual, were you about to say?’
‘Of course not,’ he protested. ‘I wouldn’t be so rude.’
‘But you might think it?’
‘Nothing of the kind. But I’ll tell you what I do think.’
‘And what is that?’
‘I think that you’re hurting for some reason. I saw you this afternoon when I was examining the baby with the dislocated hips.’
He watched her face close up and knew he’d hit a nerve.
‘You’ve no right.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘To be watching me.’
‘I can’t help it. I’m curious about you. For one thing you seem so alone.’
‘That’s because I am.’
‘And is that how you want it to be.’
‘Not particularly,’ she said in a casual tone that he found irritating. ‘But circumstances alter cases, just as broken noses alter faces.’
Aaron frowned.
‘Obviously it doesn’t bother you all that much or you wouldn’t be so flippant about it.’
She was serious now. ‘It’s more a case of having to accept what life hands out to us, Aaron.’
‘And what has it handed out to you?’
‘Nothing good of late.’
‘So I’m right. There is something troubling you.’
Annabel could have told him that it was there in the form of a great big lump of misery, but for some strange reason she wanted her acquaintance with Aaron Lewis to be free of past encumbrances. She didn’t want him to see her as someone with poor judgement so she didn’t answer.
‘What about family?’ he persisted, knowing he was being intrusive but unable to conceal his curiosity.
Within minutes they would be at the house. This brief moment of closeness in the car would be over and for some reason it was important to know what was going on in Annabel’s life. She already knew most of what there was to know about him, but he knew nothing about her past, present or future expectations.
He was about to find out...some of it.
‘My parents were archaeologists, more interested in old relics than a small child, I was fobbed off on relatives for most of my childhood and the moment I was old enough I cut free and enrolled in medical school. Not long after that they were on a dig in India when there was an earthquake. They died there, along with many others. I was almost nineteen at the time. So, you see, you are the fortunate one. You have your mother and Lucy, both of them delightful. I envy you.’
‘Yes, I am fortunate,’ he agreed, bemused by Annabel’s condensed description of what must have been a miserable childhood. But he didn’t feel so ‘fortunate’ at night in his lonely double bed.
The house was looming up in front of them and Annabel said, ‘Wow! What a lovely place you’ve got. The flat will seem like a rabbit hutch after this.’
He smiled. ‘I’m sure that you could do better. Is there a reason why you’re in hospital accommodation?’
‘It’s only because I couldn’t be bothered to go house-hunting when I got the job at Barnaby’s.’ As he drove onto a wide paved drive beside an immaculate garden she added, ‘But after tonight I might be spurred on to greater things.’
His mother and Lucy were coming out to meet them and Annabel thought, This is unreal. What am I doing here? Aaron is doing the polite thing, showing his gratitude by inviting me to eat with them. He didn’t have to do it.
When she glanced across at him there was a look on his face that she couldn’t fathom, but there were other things to claim her attention. Lucy was saying shyly, ‘Hello, Dr Swain.’ His mother was beaming her welcome and for the first time in months Annabel was beginning to unwind.
Bending down to the little girl, she said softly. ‘My name is Annabel, Lucy. No need to call me Dr Swain. That’s just my hospital name.’ She turned to a smiling Mary. ‘It’s so nice to meet you again, Mrs Lewis. I’ve just been telling Aaron how lucky he is to have you with him.’
Mary’s smile was slipping as her glance went to her son, and Annabel sensed undercurrents. But the comment had been innocent enough and if she’d been barging in where she shouldn’t, it hadn’t been intentional. There was the missing wife and mother, of course. Maybe it was to do with that.
The inside of the house was just as imposing as the outside. Someone who had a feel for colour and style had been responsible, and when she commented on it, almost as if it was the opening she’d been waiting for, Mary said, ‘My daughter-in-law was an interior designer. She had a feel for those sorts of things.’
‘Have you got a mummy, Annabel?’ Lucy asked suddenly.
‘Er...no,