He was just about to slip away unnoticed when Ruby came downstairs.
Whatever had been upsetting her had clearly been taken care of because there was no evidence of tears and she was back to happy now. She turned up the music and started dancing, and Cort was determined to leave, except she really was lovely to watch, all sort of loose limbed and free, and what’s more she was dancing her way over to him.
‘You look how I feel,’ Ruby said, because if ever someone didn’t want to be there it was Cort Mason. He belonged in that suit, Ruby had decided before their encounter today. He belonged behind a stethoscope, or peering down his nose at minions, except he hadn’t been like that today and she’d revised her judgement. Though she loathed Emergency and most of the staff that came with it, Cort wasn’t like the others, he was just aloof.
‘You look like I never would,’ Cort said in return, and he wasn’t sure if that made sense, but even without the hellish last five years, even a decade ago, when he had belonged at student parties, he’d been the boring one. He would never stand in a room and dance alone with others watching, had never been as free as she appeared tonight. She must have caught his words because she smiled up at him.
‘Takes practice,’ Ruby said, and she picked up one of the many little bowls that Tilly was dotting about the place and offered it to him. He should have just said no, should have made no comment, or just taken a handful, but he screwed his nose up at the Bombay mix, and maybe her attitude was somehow catching because a teeny, tiny corner of it seemed to have worked its way over to him.
‘I’d rather have some pistachios,’ Cort said, which told her he’d noticed her when he’d walked in.
‘Ah, no.’ Ruby shook her head. ‘They’re not to be put out for the general public, you get the Bombay mix. I’ve hidden my pistachios.’
‘Sensible girl,’ Cort said, and he wanted to pause time for a moment, have a little conversation with himself to ask himself if he was flirting. But he wasn’t, he quickly told himself, because, well, he just didn’t do that and certainly not with student nurses.
‘Not generally.’
‘Sorry?’ He was too busy thinking to keep track of the conversation.
‘I’m not generally considered sensible.’
‘So why?’ Cort asked, when really he shouldn’t, when really he should just leave. ‘Do you feel how I look?’
‘You first,’ Ruby said. ‘Why do you look like you’re about to head off?’
Cort didn’t answer.
‘Why should I tell you what’s upsetting me, only to have you leave five minutes later?’
‘Fair enough,’ Cort said, because what right did he have to ask her what was on her mind when soon he’d be out of there? Anyway, he knew she was in trouble with work, but would that really matter to a flighty little thing like her?
‘How was your holiday?’ It was Ruby’s turn to probe, but she’d been in Emergency for four weeks now and he’d just been there for only one of them.
‘It wasn’t really a holiday,’ Cort said.
‘Oh.’
‘Family.’ Cort certainly wasn’t about to tell her the truth. Hardly anyone at work knew, just his direct boss and a couple of people in Admin, but he had always been private and in this he was intensely so, not just for his sake but for Beth’s.
There really wasn’t that much to talk about anyway. It didn’t feel quite right that he was even here, except he was and he asked her something now about her family, if she was local, but didn’t quite catch her answer and had to lower his head a bit to hear.
‘At Whale Beach,’ Ruby said. ‘About an hour or so from here.’
And he could have lifted his head then—after all, he’d heard now what she had said—except he was terribly aware of the sensation of her face close to his, just as he had been in the suture room.
Something tightened inside Ruby as she inhaled the scent of his hair again, and she was sure, quite, quite sure that if she just stayed still, if she did not move, if she could somehow now not breathe, whatever was in the air between them would turn his mouth those few inches to hers—and she wanted it to.
‘I think I should go.’ Strange that he didn’t lift his head, strange that still he lingered.
‘Hey, Cort …’ He heard his name and turned to see that another mob from Emergency was arriving and he couldn’t believe how close he’d come, how very careless he had almost been, especially as there was motor-mouth Siobhan too, so for Ruby’s sake he was relieved when she quickly excused herself and slipped away.
Ruby, too, had seen them arriving and a busman’s holiday she did not need, so as they blocked the stairs, talking, Ruby stepped out onto the veranda, her heart hammering just a little bit harder than normal, her lips regretting the absence of Cort’s, and her problems, which she’d momentarily escaped from, caught up with her all over again. She could hear the noise and the throb of the party and decided she would pop over next door tomorrow morning just to check that Mrs. Bennett wasn’t upset about the party. The old lady insisted she didn’t mind a bit, but it was always nice to have a reason to pop over.
Maybe she could talk to her a little, Ruby mused. Mrs. Bennett was so lovely and wise, except … Ruby closed her eyes … nothing any one might say could actually change things. Quite simply, she was terrified to go back to work and terrified of failing too. Sheila’s ominous warning replayed in her mind for perhaps the two hundred and fifty-second time that night.
‘It’s a pass or fail unit, Ruby.’ Sheila was immutable. ‘If you don’t pass, you’ll have to repeat.’
Six more weeks of Emergency was something she could not do. Six more shifts, six more hours, six more minutes was bad enough, but six more weeks was nigh on impossible.
She thought about telling her friends, but she was so embarrassed. They all seemed to be breezing through. Tilly just loved midwifery and Ellie and Jess were loving their studies and placements too. How could she explain that she could very easily chuck it in this minute rather than face going back there tomorrow, let alone having to repeat?
She glanced down towards the beach and thought of the little shop she had worked in for a couple of years, selling jewellery and crystals and candles, and how much safer that had been, yet it hadn’t been quite enough.
She wanted so desperately to do mental health, wanted just to scrape through her emergency rotation so she could go on and study what she truly loved.
And then she saw it.
Hope hung in the sky in the shape of a new moon and Ruby smiled in relief.
‘Please.’ She made her wish. ‘Please get me through A and E. Please find a way for me to get through it.’
Cort walked out and found her standing talking to the sky and not remotely embarrassed at being caught.
‘I was just making my new-moon wishes.’
‘As you do,’ was Cort’s rather dry response, because it would never even have entered his head that as he’d walked along his own beach, just that very morning, he’d made, if not a wish, a promise. ‘‘Night, then. I’m off.’
He walked down the path and opened a squeaking gate and had every intention of heading down Hill Street and seeing if there was a taxi—it was his absolute intention, but he found himself turning around. ‘What did you wish for?’
‘You’re not supposed to tell anyone,’ Ruby explained, ‘or it won’t happen …’ She saw his brief nod, knew he would turn to go again, but she also knew that she didn’t want him to. ‘It was a sensible wish, though.’