‘And our consultant surgeons are terrific,’ Bill continued, leading him towards the surgical ward. ‘Top class.’
Were they following some hospital round routine that meant Megan was in front of him at every turn? She was bending over the desk, her hair, a darker, richer red than it had been when she’d been young, falling forward so it cast a shadow on her rather stern profile, her tall, lean figure curved towards the girl behind the computer, her long, slim legs bare of stockings and as white as Meg’s skin always was.
As kids they’d stretch out on the beach and she’d rest her leg against his so they could marvel at the contrast of her whiteness against his tanned brown skin.
‘Put more sunscreen on!’ he’d order, and she’d mimic his order to annoy him, but obey, knowing just how burnt she’d get if she didn’t cover up all the time.
‘It goes red then blisters, then peels and we’re back to white!’ she’d complained. ‘Red, white, red, white!’ And for some reason he thought of the tiny panties he’d swung on his finger the previous afternoon.
Meg in a sexy thong?
In his experience women only wore such things for a man.
‘So we can do it.’
He had no idea what Bill had been talking about, and at some stage, while he’d been lost in his memories, Meg had whisked away again.
Bill was called to the phone so Sam continued on his own, wandering into what was obviously the children’s ward. Meg again! Sitting on the edge of a bed, talking to a young lad who had his left leg and right arm hooked up in traction.
Sam paused by the desk.
‘That’s Brad Crosby,’ a nurse who introduced herself as Sue explained to him. ‘Broke both legs and one arm trying to fly off the veranda of his house. He’s always in trouble, that boy. Single p—’
‘Sue!’
Meg’s voice made them both turn, whatever Sue was about to say cut off.
‘Is the physio due to see Brad today?’
Sue checked on her computer as Meg came across to the desk, while Sam moved across to talk to the boy.
‘Flying, huh?’ he said as he drew closer. ‘What did you use for wings?’
‘Garbage bags,’ Brad said with a sigh. ‘The packet said they were extra-tough but they ripped right through the moment they took my weight. Not at the Velcro where I’d stuck them on my clothes but the plastic itself tore.’
‘Tough luck, eh?’ Sam said. ‘Guess you have to rethink the whole idea.’
‘No way!’ Brad told him. ‘My mum’d kill me if I did it again. Besides, Meg said to wait until I was a bit older when I get a bit heavier then I can try kite surfing. You know, on a small board at the edge of the water when a strong wind is blowing. Meg says it’s just like flying.’
‘Meg told you all this?’ Sam turned towards the woman in question, who was now bent over Sue’s shoulder looking at the computer screen.
‘Meg’s cool,’ Brad replied, a hint of hero-worship in his voice. ‘And she doesn’t nag. Not that Mum nags much, and when she does it’s only ’cos she worries about me—that’s something else Meg told me.’
Sam sat with the boy a little longer, learning more of the original uses to which Brad had put his apparently endless supply of Velcro, but when Meg left the ward he said farewell to his new young friend and followed her, catching up with her near an alcove that housed a public phone.
‘Did you cut Sue off to spare my feelings?’ he asked, looking down into a face that was both familiar yet extraordinarily new to him.
‘Cut Sue off?’
The slight flush in her cheeks told him she was prevaricating.
‘When she was about to make a remark about Brad being the product of a single-parent family,’ Sam persisted.
‘I cut her off because I don’t like the staff making judgements about patients, and they all know it.’ Defiant emerald eyes met his. ‘I hate the way a label can be slapped on someone and judgement made because of that label. As if people are nothing more than varieties of tomato sauce.’
Sam felt a smile twitching at his lips. This was definitely a Meg he knew, standing up for the rights of others—ready to take on the world if necessary. That hadn’t changed!
‘And Brad’s brand of tomato sauce had “single parent family” on the label?’
Meg grinned at him.
‘Same as yours—Bad Boy Brand!’ she said, but the words slipped in one ear and out the other, his mind too occupied with the jolt he’d felt inside his chest when Meg’s face had lit up with that cheeky smile.
‘I don’t know how to be with you.’ The words blurted from his lips, and a frown chased Meg’s smile away.
‘How to be with me?’
Sam knew the smile he offered was a foolish one, and shrugged his confusion away.
‘That came out wrong, but this is so weird, Megan. I feel I know you yet I don’t know you. The old Meg—well, we usually picked up right where we left off…’
Wrong analogy. Right where they’d left off last time had been a disaster—a hurtful, painful, unmitigated disaster.
Was Meg remembering?
‘It’s been thirteen years, Sam,’ she reminded him, revealing nothing beneath an ultra cool and controlled exterior and a polite smile he knew was false. ‘We’ve both changed.’
‘Have we?’
He shouldn’t be persisting with this conversation but couldn’t stop himself.
‘Of course we have. We were kids thirteen years ago—now we’re adults.’
‘Are we?’ He caught himself just in time. ‘Dumb question! Of course we are, although do you really feel different—feel like an adult—all the time?’
Meg’s cool façade cracked and she smiled again, enthusiasm bubbling back to the surface with the memories.
‘Right now I feel fifteen again—or thirteen—or eleven—having one of those earnest, interminable discussions we used to have. About evolution or religion or morality or—’
‘Friendship,’ Sam reminded her, taken back himself. ‘Would you lie for a friend? Die for a friend?’
‘No to both—wasn’t that always my stand? That there had to be another way around the problem?’
‘Oh, Meg, there you are.’ A nurse Sam hadn’t met came hurrying towards them. ‘Ben Richards is on his way in by ambulance—heart pains. Jenny phoned, asked if you could meet him.’
‘Ben Richards? The Ben Richards I—’
‘Put in hospital,’ Meg finished for him, but she said it softly so the nurse, who was walking away from them, didn’t hear her.
‘Damn!’ she continued as she hurried down the corridor, Sam following in her wake. ‘His father died from heart disease and Jenny’s been warning him this would happen. Ben’s overweight and he drinks too much.’
‘Then he hasn’t changed,’ Sam muttered, uncertain how to tackle this new challenge in the ‘returning home’ scenario.
‘He’s a patient and whatever that was all about—it was a long time ago,’ Meg reminded him, although she’d have given her eye teeth and probably a couple of front ones as well to know what had happened.
‘I should be able to manage, Sister Anstey,’ Sam told her, coolly polite, the