A Country Affair (16 page)

“You must be on the mend.” Joy blew him a kiss as she disappeared through the cubicle curtains. She returned, grinning wickedly. “There’s a line of nurses forming at the ward door to attend to you. Make the most of it; Duncan’s not nearly so appealing. Au revoir.”

D
UNCAN
was proving to be an excellent nurse. He had the instinct to know that Scott didn’t want to be mollycoddled but that he did need caring for. The shock of the accident had to some extent at first masked the pain of the cracked ribs and the bruising, but now Scott was grateful for painkillers and even looked forward to the next dose when the relief they gave him was wearing off. Consequently, he slept a lot and Duncan left him to it.

By Friday afternoon Scott was downstairs and sitting in Duncan’s study in front of the fire, with Tiger snuggly cuddled on his knee while Duncan worked at his computer. It was very companionable being with Duncan. His long silences were not isolating but comforting, rather, and Scott found himself relaxing more and more. He’d be back at work on Monday, though. A chap could get too used to this kind of life. No soaking-wet days, no mud, no filth, no cold, no missed meals, only warmth and solace. Yes, he could quite take to it. He stretched a little, but it disturbed Tiger, so he stopped halfway through the stretch. In any case, it would have been definitely uncomfortable to do it properly. Scott glanced at the clock. Past lunchtime. Should he offer . . . no, he’d wait for Duncan. He dozed and only came to when he heard Duncan coming in with lunch.

“Tomato and basil soup. That sound all right?”

“Excellent.” Scott released Tiger and she jumped down and went to her little basket that Duncan had placed close to the fire. “Thank you. This kitten will be getting soft.”

“Never mind. Bread?”

“Yes, please. Her sister will be out rat catching before she’s much older.”

“Good luck to her, that’s what I say.”

“Looks cold out.”

“It is. Been out to feed the chickens. Much too cold for either man or beast. Don’t you sometimes long for the sun and the heat? How long is it since you left home?”

“Eighteen months or thereabouts. I do today, funnily enough.”

Duncan fell silent and concentrated on his soup. He cut himself another slice of bread from the loaf he’d balanced on the end of the bookshelf and continued eating in silence.

Scott drank up the last of his soup, spread a little more butter on the remains of his bread and munched on it. A big log on the fire slipped and rolled over so that its bright-burning red face turned toward him. The sudden increase in warmth reminded him of home, of the shimmering heat hitting him in the face the moment he stepped out of the air-conditioned house onto the veranda. The endless vista of land stretching and stretching away to the far horizon. The hot, hustling reek and clatter of the shearing sheds and the relentless day-in, day-out back pain at shearing time. The leathery aroma of his saddle and the stink of his sweat after a day’s riding. Best of all he remembered the startling ice-cold shiver of the first beer when the heat had reached a hundred and you thought you’d die if you didn’t get it all down in one long pull. But he’d had to get his wanderlust out of his system, otherwise he’d have been restless the whole of his life. Maybe now was the time . . .

Duncan took hold of Scott’s soup mug and wrested it from his fingers. He took the remains of the bread into the kitchen and left Scott and Tiger to sleep.

Defrosting on the worktable was a chicken whose neck he’d wrung, and which he’d plucked and cleaned and put in the freezer along with three of its sisters some weeks before. Duncan tested it to see if it was ready for the oven. While he prepared the casserole he thought about Scott. There’d been a very wistful tone to his reply when he’d asked him about home. He’d better warn Joy that Scott could be getting itchy feet, as they all did. Though why anyone should prefer to burn up in the intense heat of Australia he couldn’t begin to imagine. Give him a hill to walk up, a summit to reach on a crisp, bright, frosty day. For enriching the soul it couldn’t be improved upon. He looked out of the window at the hills. Not today, though; the air was damp, and the sky full of clouds. Even so, it would be better than scrambling his brains into oblivion working out his current computer problem.

Scott came to stand in the doorway. “Has Joy told you about Kate’s problem?”

“She has.”

“Do you have any ideas? She’s being stalked, you know, and it’s beginning to eat away at her.”

“At the moment, no.”

“Her parents are making sure she never goes out by herself, but what more can they do?”

“Nothing. They’ll have to hope his problem goes away.”

“Gerry blames his mother.”

“Mothers get the blame for most things that happen to us, especially the bad things.”

Scott laughed. “I wish in a way he would do something we could report to the police, then at least they might put the fear of God into him and he would stop. He’s obsessed.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“Are we? Are you?”

“My obsession is myself, though I’m working on that at the moment.” He gestured to the chicken and the casserole dish. “Hence all this effort.”

“Tell me, what’s mine, then?”

“Scott Spencer.”

“Hold it there, mate! Is that how I seem to you?”

“To everyone. Obsessed with your sexuality, with your macho image, with the admiration of women, with your need for approval, with being an Australian male and living up to it . . .”

“Hell, Duncan!”

“You did ask.”

“You don’t pull any punches, do you, mate?”

“You did ask.”

Scott began to get angry. “Are you always like this? Because how the hell Joy puts up with you I do not know.”

Duncan wiped down the worktable and ignored Scott.

“Well, how does she?”

“None of your business.”

“I’m fond of Joy. She’s great and she’s helped me a lot. But I feel sorry for her, coping with your kind of person day in day out.”

“
She
chose
me
.”

“Not the best day’s work she’s done.”

“You would think like that, Scott.”

The pain Scott was suffering added malice to the tone of his voice. “Have you absolutely no consideration for other people’s feelings? Time someone shook you out of your little cocoon and you entered the real world. Joy’s a treasure, though obviously you don’t appreciate that.” Scott hitched himself against the doorjamb to ease his pain and sensed that as a guest in the house he’d gone too far.

Duncan turned to look at him properly for the first time since their conversation had begun; his eyes bored into Scott’s with an unnerving intensity. “Being a guest in our house does not give you the right to poke about dissecting our marriage, so kindly put your scalpel away, if you please. You’ve no God-given right to be so judgmental.”

“Huh!” It was the cold, unemotional way that Duncan went about his attack that angered Scott. It made it more calculated, more cruel. “Don’t know what I’ve said to bring all that malice out of you. If you feel like that, I think it better if I leave.”

Duncan shrugged his shoulders. “Your choice.”

“You’re damn right there. I’ll be off, then.”

“Fine. Be seeing you.” Duncan put the chicken casserole in the oven, walked out of the kitchen and returned to his computer.

Scott slowly climbed the stairs. He hadn’t intended their conversation to end with his leaving. He’d only asked for a different angle on Kate’s problem and then he’d brought all that down on his head. Intellectuals irritated him; you never knew where you were with them. Give him a straightforward fella like Phil Parsons; you knew where you were with him even on one of his belligerent clays.

Duncan’s analysis of his personality had touched him on the raw and angered him. Who the hell did Duncan think he was? He’d damn well order a taxi and be gone before Joy got back. He looked at his watch. One of Joy’s perks was never having to work the late shift on Fridays, so she’d be home in an hour. Best be gone before she arrived. His Land Rover would be back at the practice and he always carried spare keys, so he’d collect it, go and shop for food and then go home and see to himself all weekend—and stuff the lot of them.

He scribbled a thank-you note for Joy on the back of an envelope he found in one of his pockets, left it on the bedside table, flung his belongings in his bag and went downstairs to order his taxi, the weight of his bag reawakening his pain.

The taxi pulled into the practice car park and there, waiting with its doors wide open, was an ambulance. Scott gingerly heaved himself out of the backseat, paid the driver and went to put his bag in his Land Rover. He was going to drive off without making contact with anyone, but the unusual sight of an ambulance at the practice stopped him. He walked across to the back door to find Bunty being wheeled out, eyes closed, ashen faced. He stood back so as not to get in the way. The ambulance doors shut and someone he took to be Bunty’s mother came out and got into her car to follow the ambulance.

Scott stood for a moment, weighing what to do. It most certainly was not the best week he’d had. What to do? The only right thing was to go in and find out.

Joy was standing at her desk, her hands resting on it, her head bowed.

Scott tapped lightly on the door. “Joy?”

She looked up, her eyes unfocused and weary with anxiety. “What are you doing here?”

“On my way home, but that’s another story. I saw Bunty.”

“So you did. Close that door. Better sit down.”

“I’ll stand, thanks.”

Joy pulled up her chair and sat on it. “I’ve had some difficult afternoons in my life, but this one has capped all.” She drew in a deep breath. “Unfortunately or fortunately, it depends where you’re coming from, Bunty is having a miscarriage. Something tells me you might be responsible.”

“God! Has she said so?”

“No.”

“Why should it be me?”

“A glance here, a laugh there. I’m not blind and I know what you’re like; you love the buzz of being attractive to women. I can’t doubt you get carried away with only the slightest encouragement.”

Scott wished she hadn’t said that. It reminded him of the scene in her kitchen and what she would learn when she got home. Truth, he’d always stood by the truth; lies got you nowhere. Wasn’t it Walter Scott who said, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave / When first we practice to deceive”? Today, it seemed, was a day for truth. “It could be, but I asked her and she said, no, she wasn’t pregnant.”

Joy shook her head in despair. “Well, she is, was, rather. Poor girl.”

“Indeed, poor girl. If I am responsible . . . well . . . it takes two.”

“That’s your vindication, is it?”

“I’ll sit down.”

Joy looked at him and saw the lines of pain in his white face as he seated himself. “Not your week, is it?”

“No, and I’ve fallen out with Duncan and left.”

“That’s not difficult. He could pick an argument with a saint.”

“I’ve really upset him.”

“Let’s not go into that right now.”

“If it is me . . . Will you find out for me?”

“I’ll try, but girls can be very funny about babies and such. There are all sorts of complicated reasons and emotions for not coming up with the truth.”

“I see.” Scott eased himself up out of the chair. “I’ll be here Monday if it kills me.”

“Sorry things have gone badly for you. I’ll make things right with Duncan.”

“Thanks. See you Monday. I
did
ask her and she said no she wasn’t, so what can a chap do?”

“Not do it in the first place, young man.”

Scott allowed himself a rueful smile.

The tone of Joy’s voice hardened as she said, “None of my business, but I warn you, take care of Kate or else.” She wagged her finger at him. “I mean it.”

Scott didn’t answer, but he paused for a moment, saluted her with a single finger to his head and a nod, and left.

He’d intended spending the entire weekend by himself, pottering about, sorting his washing and generally pulling himself together after his disastrous week, but at about eight o’clock on Saturday evening he heard a car pull up outside. The entry phone buzzed and when he answered, to his delight he found it was Kate.

“It’s me. I’ve come to cheer you up. Can I come up?”

“Kate! Of course you can.”

“Mia dropped me off. Open up. It’s cold.”

He pressed the entry button. “Third door on the left, first floor. Number eight.”

“I’ll be there.”

“See you.”

He was so thrilled to see her he held his arms wide open and she went into them and they kissed. Kate hugged him as close as she dared, given his cracked ribs, and he responded by showering her face with kisses. “You’ve no idea how glad I am to see you. My self-imposed isolation was beginning to drag. Sit down. Drink?”

“Yes, please. I’ve heard all about your walkout from Joy’s. Why ever? I find Duncan so easy to get on with.”

“I trespassed on his married life and he objected. He told me a few home truths that got me annoyed and we suddenly didn’t hit it off.”

Kate asked what the home truths were, but he wouldn’t tell her. “Not likely. You might agree.”

“He’s very perceptive.”

“In a twisted kind of way.”

“Was he right?” Kate had a grin on her face, which began to irritate Scott.

“Look, subject closed.”

“Oh, dear! He has touched you on the raw. OK. I won’t ask anymore.” Almost as an afterthought she added, “I’ve been with Joy to see Bunty this afternoon.”

Scott looked her straight in the eye. “How is she?”

“Home tomorrow. Rather low. None too happy. Despondent, only to be expected. Asked how you were, after your argument with Sunny Boy, you know.”

“Did she?” Scott fiddled with his glass, downed half his lager in one go and inquired, “Anything else?”

“Oh, nothing, really. Joy seems to think . . .”

“I’m responsible.”

“Something like that.” Kate had to ask. “Were you?”

“It was before you came and yes, I could have been, but I asked and she said no.”

Kate nodded. “I see.”