A Nurse In Crisis

Only, he remembered, she hadn’t been asking about his feelings for Aimee Hilliard at all. He’d made the wrong assumption because of the direction in which his own thoughts had been moving, and as a result he now found himself having to talk about their relationship—which wasn’t a word he liked these days because people always said it as if it had such a very significant capital R at the beginning of it—long before he was remotely ready to. So perhaps it was himself he was irritated at?

Yes, undoubtedly.

‘Yet you haven’t said anything,’ Rebecca was now accusing him gently.

‘Because there isn’t anything to say,’ he burst out, goaded beyond endurance.

Unfairly, of course. This was his own fault! Rashly, he ploughed on. That was the danger when you were reserved by inner nature and upbringing. Once you did open your mouth, you didn’t know when to stop!

‘Rebecca, please, don’t put this under that mental microscope of yours!’

‘Microscope?’

He ignored her. ‘I wish the subject hadn’t come up. I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know how she feels. I’m very rusty at this—’

‘What did you mean, “microscope”?’ Ominous. Her voice wasn’t quite steady.

‘Bad word choice.’

‘You think I—’

‘No! No, Rebecca.’

‘You know that all I care about is your—’

‘Yes, yes, I do know that.’ Marsh steadied himself, remembering too late that her pregnancy, which wasn’t making her nauseous or even particularly fatigued, was making her rather fragile and volatile emotionally at the moment. Both he and Harry, his son-in-law, had been trying unsuccessfully to get her to slow down just a little.

‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised. ‘This is all completely my fault. Can you accept that I’m not ready to talk about it yet, and that when I am—if I am, if there’s anything concrete to say—you’ll be the first to know?’

She nodded brightly. ‘Of course, Dad.’

But the straight line of her mouth seconds later told him that she hadn’t quite forgiven him for the microscope thing, or…perhaps more importantly…for the fact that something new and potentially important was going on in his life and he hadn’t said a word.

‘I’d better head off now,’ she said, a little too abruptly. ‘Harry was going to see a patient on his way home, and I told him I’d get there first and get dinner on. He’ll be worried if I’m not in evidence.’

‘Don’t tire yourself out with elaborate cooking, Becca.’

‘Frozen quiche and garlic bread, and a bag of salad greens,’ she summarised dryly.

‘Good girl!’

‘See you tomorrow.’

A smile came and went too quickly, leaving a frown in its place, and then she’d gone. He could hear her youthful, energetic footsteps scraping on the half-dozen concrete steps that led down to the street. He listened until they faded.

She was too protective of him, that was the trouble. It had been that way for years, since her mother had died when Rebecca had been just fifteen years old. That was thirteen years ago now. Thirteen years…

For a long time, his grief for Joy had been overwhelming, and it had been Rebecca who’d held the family together, helped him to cater for ten-year-old Simon’s needs, nurtured both of them in a hundred different ways.

Three years ago, he’d finally felt ready to consider marriage again, but his choice—made more as a matter of expediency than love, he could now see—had been disastrous. He’d proposed to his live-in housekeeper, who was ten years his junior, but, instead of politely turning him down, she’d acted as if it had been a case of sexual harassment and he’d been badly shaken by his misreading of her.

Rebecca had been furious on his behalf. At one point he’d had to talk her out of storming around to Tanya’s new flat and demanding back the jewellery he’d given the woman.

‘The jewellery isn’t the issue, Rebecca!’ he’d had to argue urgently. ‘She’s more than welcome to it as some sort of compensation if my behaviour was really so offensive.’

‘Oh, of course it wasn’t!’

‘It’s my own judgement that I’m doubting.’

‘You should be doubting the mental state of the entire female sex over the age of thirty,’ Rebecca had muttered darkly. ‘I am!’

Marshall sighed. He loved his daughter’s passion, and her strong responses, and he knew that his son-in-law had fallen for those same qualities. There were times, however, when it might have been more…convenient…if Rebecca bore less of a resemblance to an angry lioness protecting the pride.

Absently, he looked down at the pathology reports still resting beneath his fingers. That was where this had all started a few minutes ago. Rebecca had wanted to know if Mrs Deutschkron’s prognosis was serious. He picked up the sheet of paper and studied the details, and had the answer to his daughter’s question a moment later—an answer which suddenly dwarfed his concern over Rebecca’s attitude towards his blossoming new relationship with Aimee Hilliard.

It was serious. Far more serious than he’d thought it would be. Hilde Deutschkron had had exploratory surgery last Thursday for suspected cancer, but prior to that she’d seemed relatively fit and with few complaints about her symptoms. He’d had every expectation that any growth found by the surgeons would turn out to be localised and easy to deal with, effectively meaning a permanent cure.

Yet the results provided by Southshore Hospital’s pathology department were unequivocal—cancer of the liver, with the primary tumour not located, which meant a spread of cancer throughout her system. No hope of a cure or of long-term survival. At best, the possibility of chemotherapy, which would prolong the patient’s life for several months. Many people, in these circumstances, made the choice to have no treatment at all.

As yet, she wouldn’t have been told any of this. Usually, it was the surgeon’s job, but since he’d known this patient for such a long time he would do what he’d done once or twice before and phone the surgeon to suggest that he tell Mrs Deutschkron himself. It wasn’t something any doctor looked forward to, but Marshall felt that it would come best from him.

And he couldn’t shake it off, as he usually managed to. Hilde Deutschkron had been a patient at this practice since long before he’d started here, and that had been over twenty years ago. Her three children had been delivered by old Dr Rattigan, who was now retired. Her husband had been a patient here, too, until his death of heart failure six years ago.

Still, perhaps he might have shaken it off more easily if it hadn’t come as such a surprise…

At home, an hour later, the big house where he now lived alone seemed too big, ridiculously big for one man. Simon was still studying in the United States. He’d met an American girl and they were now seriously involved. It seemed all too likely that he’d make his home there permanently.

Rebecca and Harry lived just a short drive away in Surry Hills, but even with the prospect of overnight visits from darling little grandchildren in the not too distant future—and, good heavens, it was difficult to adjust to the idea that he’d be a grandfather soon—he didn’t need all this space. Should he sell and move somewhere smaller?

One of life’s big chances, a decision to make, as Hilde Deutschkron would have to do soon, only her decision was much more grave.

He picked up the phone and dialled Aimee’s number. What would she say if she knew that he could key in the eight digits off by heart now? Would she be pleased? Did she know his number, by any chance?

She answered on the first ring. Her voice was as cool and fluid and sweet as ever, but he hadn’t expected to hear it quite so soon, and was startled into speaking more abruptly than he’d intended.

‘Aimee? It’s Marshall. I’m sorry, I was going to suggest we go out for a coffee later on. We talked about something like that on Sunday, didn’t we? But I wouldn’t be good company tonight, I’m afraid. The news on Hilde Deutschkron wasn’t good…’

‘Oh, no!’

He gave her the details, then added, ‘And, well, as I said, I just wouldn’t be good company.’

‘That’s fine. Of course. I understand completely. Perhaps you should go for a walk or a jog or something.’

‘Good idea,’ he agreed, and a few moments later he’d put down the phone.

‘Or, Marshall, would it help if I—?’ Aimee began.

Too late. She heard a click in her ear, and then the metallic trill of the dial tone. He’d hung up without hearing her belated addition. She took the receiver from her ear and just sat there in her silent house for several long minutes, trying to argue herself out of an absurd disappointment, trying to take herself back to the mood of the weekend they’d just spent together at the ski resort of Perisher in the Snowy Mountains.