The Midwife And The Single Dad (8 page)

There was just one question Alice had to ask. ‘Has all this…altered you at all?’ she asked.

‘It’s taught me that I don’t need a wife to be happy. Fiona is all I need.’

‘I see,’ Alice said. She thought she saw all too well. She managed to mutter, ‘I’ll just go and see how things are doing in the kitchen.’

As she well knew, everything was fine in the kitchen. But she pottered about in there for five minutes. She needed to calm down. She had been looking forward so much to this evening, it had to be a success. Which
meant she had to be in the right mood. What Ben had just said had upset her. Had upset her a lot! But she was going to get over it!

When she was ready she called out, ‘Would you like to eat now?’

‘I would indeed.’

‘It’ll be different from Mrs McCann’s cooking.’

‘I love Mrs McCann’s cooking but an occasional change would be no bad thing.’

Alice giggled. ‘I have to confess, I put on two pounds while staying with you.’

‘You look better for it,’ he said. ‘Alice, that’s not meant as a compliment, it’s an observation. I think you look less…less distracted than you did when you got off the ferry.’

‘That’s certainly due to Mrs McCann’s cooking. Now, you must try my cooking.’ She did not want to talk about how she had looked when she first came to the island.

The first course was OK, unexceptionable. Grilled, herbed chicken breast with a simple salad of tomatoes and rocket. They talked happily as they ate, she knew it was all right. But the next course was something else.

She fetched in two warmed plates and then placed a large earthenware pot in the centre of the table. In a strained voice she said, ‘This is my signature dish. I’ve made it often—but I try to make it a bit different each time. It’s simple but it’s…well, it means a lot to me. Help yourself while I fetch the garlic bread.’

She lifted the lid and passed him a serving spoon. But she didn’t go into the kitchen.

He leaned forward, smelled. Alice had to admit it
smelled good. It was basically a peasant dish. There was fried rice, a variety of chopped vegetables and two cut-up sirloin steaks. But the secret was in the herbs and spices.

He looked at her, she looked back, there was a moment of communion between them. Both of them remembered. ‘You cooked this dish for me before,’ he said. ‘It was the night of the school dance. Your parents were away on the mainland so you invited me over. You got the recipe out of a book because you’d never cooked anything like this before. And I had bought a bottle of wine. Not a very expensive one, I’m afraid but it was all the shop had.’

‘To me it was lovely. It might have cost just a tenth the price of this bottle of champagne—but to me it tasted just as good.’

‘To me as well.’

Alice wondered if smells were more efficient in calling back memories than anything else. As so often before since she had returned to the island, memories came flooding back. ‘We drank it all. Then we… I took you to my bedroom and for the first time we…’

‘We went to sleep afterwards,’ he said softly. ‘Then I had to wake up in a panic to go home. My parents knew I’d be late—but if I didn’t get home at all I thought they would worry.’

Another moment of shared reflections. Then she rose and said, ‘Well, I didn’t cook it to let it go cold. I’ll fetch the bread while you help yourself.’

‘And I’ll fill your glass.’ He reached for the champagne bottle. ‘I’m really looking forward to this.’

In the kitchen she bent to slide the warming bread out
of the oven. She knew he’d enjoy the dish she had prepared. Everyone did. Everyone except Sean, that was. He didn’t like it because it didn’t have potatoes. He thought rice belonged only in puddings. He had attended a good boarding school.

She sat opposite Ben and ate, and mysteriously she was seventeen again, having cooked for the man in her life. The man now sitting with her. She didn’t ask what he was thinking, feeling—she thought she knew. And he said little, too.

To follow there was a simple fruit salad and she had bought some tremendously expensive coffee for after that. But in the middle of eating the salad, his mobile rang.

‘I should have switched it off,’ he said. He took out the phone, looked at it gloomily, let it ring.

‘You’ve got to answer it, you’re a doctor. In fact, you’re
the
doctor.’

‘I know I am and I know I’ve got to answer.’ he looked at the screen and sighed. ‘And this is important—it’s Sergeant Cullen.’

‘Hi, Sergeant, Dr Cavendish here… How long ago? How many? Do you think we need to send for a helicopter? OK, I’m in town and I’m on my way.’

He clicked his phone shut. ‘Accident in the docks,’ he said. ‘Two men caught between the dockside and their ship, bodies partly crushed. I’ve got to go. It sounds like a long job.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’

‘No. I might call out Morag but you’ll be needed to hold the fort here tomorrow.’

‘Do you want to go next door and pick up a medical kit?’

But even as she asked, she knew the answer. ‘No. There’s one in the car, I never drive anywhere without it. Alice, this is the worst ending to the evening. I was enjoying myself so much and things were going so well between us.’

‘Off you go,’ she said. ‘Shall I phone Mrs McCann to say you’re going to be late?’

‘Thanks, that would be a good idea.’

She could tell how torn he was—which meant that he felt the same as she did. ‘Don’t worry. You can come again some time—some time soon. Now, let’s get you off.’

She accompanied him down to the front door, thinking that their evening was over. Certainly she wasn’t expecting what happened next.

He kissed her. Not a friendly kiss or the dutiful kiss from a guest to a host but a real kiss. For a moment she was wrapped up in the wonder of it and when he let her go she stared up at him as if dazed. Feelings only vaguely remembered came crashing back. He used to kiss her like that and she…

Slowly, sadly, he took his lips from hers but still held her. ‘It may not be much,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Perhaps I can come back and have coffee.’

She pushed him away gently. ‘Don’t hope, don’t even think about it,’ she said. ‘If it’s possible then I’d love you to…but you’re a doctor, you know what’s going to happen.’

For a moment she thought he was going to add something. But instead he just nodded. ‘True.’ Then he
turned and was gone. Alice watched his car drive away and sighed.

She went back to her living room, looked at the remnants of their meal. They looked sad, deserted. This wasn’t the way this evening was meant to end, she thought. But end this way it had. Still…it hadn’t been a complete disaster. Or had it? It had restarted ideas, thoughts that had been only idly buzzing around in her head. And how had she wanted, expected the evening to end? She realised that she hadn’t even thought about that. She had thought about the beginning…but the rest she had never even contemplated.

What to do now? Well, she had cooked this meal—there was no way she was going not to enjoy it to its full. He wasn’t with her, she would imagine that he was. So she sat, ate the rest of her fruit salad. Then she went to percolate her expensive coffee, and while it was bubbling through the machine she picked out a CD and put it in her player. Another joke. It was a CD that they had enjoyed together all those years before.

She drank her coffee, it was good. The CD came to an end and she sighed. She already did know but…there was no way he was going to come back now.

She changed out of her blue party dress and started to clear away. As she did so her phone rang. Her heart started to pound. There were few people who knew her number, not many people would phone her, he might be… It was Sergeant Cullen. ‘Dr Cavendish asked me to phone you. Apparently we dragged him away while the two of you were checking some of your new equipment.’

Well, you could call it that, Alice thought. But she said, ‘No problem, Sergeant. We can do it again another time.’

‘Good. Well, his message is that we’re taking one of the injured men over to the mainland by boat. We don’t want the expense of a helicopter. The doctor wants to stay with the man. He’ll be back early tomorrow morning.’

‘I’ll see that his family is told. Thank you, Sergeant.’ She replaced the receiver and sighed. Well, it had been a vain hope.

Mechanically she put some dishes away, pushed others into the dishwasher. Simple domestic jobs stopped her thinking, she needed the discipline. But eventually her flat was as spotless as it had been when she’d first entered it and it was still not time for bed.

She had a shower, put on her nightgown. Another CD and a book? Then she remembered the champagne in the fridge. She’d have a last glass. There was no way she would go to sleep now. Not after the unfinished way the evening had ended. But there had been the kiss! It had been the kiss of a lover, she was sure. Certainly she had responded as a lover. Or had it just been the kiss of a man who had been angry at being interrupted in the middle of a pleasant evening? She didn’t know. Had the kiss been meant to tell her something or had it just been a kiss? She didn’t know.

So she sat, sipped her champagne and remembered the first time she had cooked that very same dish for Ben.

It had been after the school summer dance. Alice had felt beautiful, she’d had that inner glow that came from knowing she’d been wanted, the sole object of Ben’s desire. The evening had retained the summer heat,
so she had worn a simple strapless summer dress. The gossamer, sea-coloured fabric had shown off her skin and revealed the tops of her breasts, tanned a light gold. Her mother had grown out of the dress and had been glad to see how lovely Alice had looked in it. She’d said, ‘You look like a sea nymph, all energy and big eyes.’

The dress had been perfect for the summer dance. He’d held her close all night, stroking the bare skin of her shoulders, lightly kissing her forehead and resting his head against hers. She had been so happy, filled with the renewed knowledge of her power over him. At the last dance, they’d clung tightly to each other, Alice breathing in the warm smell of his body, revelling in being held in his arms. She’d nestled under his chin, sensing the echo of his voice as her head had rested against his chest. She had been living just for the sensations of the moment, no thought about future or past, no worries or cares.

That had been then. She smiled to remember the carefree girl she had been. Ben too had been an innocent, a boy, sincere and honest and full of desire for her. Not like Sean…

They set off back to Alice’s house. Earlier she’d prepared a supper for him and left it ready, knowing they’d be starving after the dance. Her parents were away, and Alice wanted Ben to admire the first proper meal she’d cooked for him. Then she meant to send him home, after they’d kissed and perhaps explored each other a little. Just playing as usual, nothing really serious. She knew they would stop before doing anything she might regret.

She’d shied away from thinking about what Ben might really want to do, what part of her wanted him to do. But she was a good island girl. She knew too much would change too soon if they slept together now.

Now the adult Alice realised that the heightened emotions they’d felt that night had meant that what had followed had been inevitable.

The supper had been wonderful—just a casserole, one dish in case they were hungry when they came back from the dance. The idea had been to cook something simple, something she could pass off as being a dish she had hastily thrown together while preparing for the dance. In fact, she had spent hours scouring cookery books for a suitable recipe. Then there had been buying, or sending off for, the ingredients. She had spent as much time preparing this so-called simple dish as she had making herself ready for the dance. But it had been worth it. And they had drunk the bottle of wine he had brought.

Afterwards she sat by him on the couch, and he stroked the slopes of her breasts, the swell of her stomach. She wanted the ache, the fevered warmth that infused her skin to continue, wanted the urgent kisses he was showering on her. He was clumsy with need, almost hurting with his passion. She kissed him back, harder and more urgently than she’d thought she was capable of. She didn’t mind the roughness of his chin, loved the feeling of being carried away on a tide of feelings, the feel of unfamiliar skin-to-skin contact. She knew that she could stop him, knew that she might regret her decision, knew that she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life.

‘Ben, Ben, I want you,’ she said softly, somehow knowing that he needed her to say it was all right, needed her permission. She wriggled down the couch and pulled him towards her. His body was rigid, trembling with the tension and excitement of this moment.

‘Alice,’ he said, ‘Alice, show me your bedroom.’

‘Why?’ She knew it was a stupid question.

‘I want to be able to imagine you in it when I’m alone and lonely in mine,’ he said. ‘But most of all I want to lie with you and tell you how you make me feel…’

So she showed him her bedroom.

He had obviously thought about this, he had precautions ready, she wouldn’t get pregnant. Knowing this made her love him more than ever. But then the first time was over so quickly. Afterwards Ben seemed a little guilty or ashamed, but mainly full of pride, satisfaction and most of all tender gratitude and wonderment at Alice.

She had wondered how she’d feel. Other girls had said that the first time usually wasn’t so good, but she had felt full of love, and had taken her pleasure in his pleasure. It didn’t seem to matter that she still felt that warm ache. She was happy, happy in the moment, wanted nothing except for this night to continue for ever.

She wanted to tell him that it had been amazing, that how she felt had been so special, that he had been everything she could have wanted of him, but she couldn’t find the words, was oddly shy with him.

He seemed to sense her doubts. ‘Alice, are you all right? What we’ve just done, it was so… I mean, are you…?’

‘Ben, it was what I wanted and you’ve made me so happy. Now lie here with me for a while longer.’

So they lay together. But after a while he reached for her with new confidence and what they did together then made the ache in her body grow and then explode in a cascade of feelings that she had never thought possible.