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'The good news is that on the right-hand side you have a healthy tube and ovary, all you need for starting off again once you're fit and well.'

'Thanks, I'm relieved—' she plucked at her sheet '—although at the moment I feel completely anti the idea; it's my husband who wants a child.'

'Yes, well, you've had a rough time,' Simon said guardedly, 'and you've still got a little more blood to make up, you know. The transfusion has given you a good kick-start. Eating up your greens and good nursing care is bound to do the rest.' He smiled at her and she smiled back but, then, thought Anna, who wouldn't? Who could help responding to his charms, even if your h.b. level was still two points down and even if your insides grated like teeth every time you breathed?

He went off to see the D and C patient who was being kept in for further tests and investigations and possible surgery. Jean Ross chaperoned him this time, as Anna was called to the phone to deal with an anxious relative, who would speak to no one else but her. The call took some time and when she'd finished Simon had left the ward. 'You'll no be seeing him till Monday,' Meg said, putting her head round the door. 'He seldom comes in at weekends unless there's an emairgency.'

'I dare say I'll live,' Anna laughed, feeling relief— spiked with an annoying disappointment—wash over her.

* * *

As it happened, though—or as fate decreed it—she was to see him on Sunday, and not at the hospital either but down on the beach.

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision that sent Anna down there for a swim at eight in the morning before starting her 'lates' shift at twelve. It was the first Sunday in July, and a hot one, so why not make the most of it before the hospital walls enclosed her again? Slipping a sun-dress over her bikini and collecting a towel, a Mars bar and her beach-bag, she walked down the road to the sea.

If she had anticipated having the beach to herself she couldn't have been more wrong. It wasn't crowded and it wouldn't be for another hour, she knew, but there were several bobbing heads in the water, and little bundles of towels and discarded clothes were lying around on the stones. There was a family having breakfast, complete with spread cloth. One or two of the promenade shops were pulling out their awnings and beach chalets were being unlocked. The day was unfolding itself.

Stripping off her dress and standing for a minute in her black and white bikini enjoying the kiss of the sun on her skin, Anna stepped over the shingle and plunged into the water, gasping at its chill. But once submerged it was blissful; heaven to be lifted like a feather-weight by the incoming swell, then swept down into its valley of glass-mountain smoothness and up on the other side.

How lucky she was to be living on the coast; how lucky she was to be able to relax like this; to have the sea practically on her doorstep—a mere distance of two roads away.

She struck out away from the shore, then turned and swam parallel with it. From so far away the people on the beach looked like marionettes. Exhausted at last, she turned on her back, letting the water take her, floating
and staring up into blueness and emptying her mind of everything but the here and now—the sun, and sea, and the sky.

Some fifteen minutes later she turned for the shore and swam in, scrambling quickly upright before her knees hit the sand. It was when she was wading through the surf that she spotted the man sitting by her beach-bag—a long-limbed man in denim shorts and T-shirt, a man who got to his feet in one light springing movement as he saw her approach.

With a feeling of shock she recognised Simon and was immediately conscious of the way she must look to him as she emerged from the sea, half-naked and streaming with water with her hair plastered down like a cap. 'Fancy meeting here!' was all she seemed capable of saying.

'Why so surprised?' He came forward to help her over the bank of shingle. 'It's the nearest bathing beach for both of us, and if we both like an early dip, which clearly we do...' He smiled at her easily, watching her pick up her towel.

'It's heaven in the water.'

'I know; I've been in. I rent one of the chalets.' He gestured back to the line of little 'houses' with their green roofs and red front doors. 'I was just getting dressed when I spotted you striking out for Dieppe!'

'I'm a strong swimmer.'

'I could see that.'

Her face emerged from the towel, dry now and slightly flushed, her hair already beginning to shade to its' customary red-gold and arrange itself in curves.

'Is this your weekend off?' he asked, and she shook her head.

'No, it's not. I'm on duty at twelve; I'd better go and get dressed.'

'Join the contortionists, you mean?' He glanced over towards the breakwater, where one or two bathers were trying to dress beneath towels which kept slicing off.

'Well, at least I shan't be alone,' Anna laughed, and was about to say goodbye and walk away when he thrust a hand in his shorts and pulled out a key.

'Look I've just thought,' he exclaimed, 'why not use my chalet? Come with me and I'll unlock it for you— it's a little stiff to turn.'

She hesitated and was about to refuse, for she didn't want to get closer to him, did she? Then she thought how stupid that was. Borrowing his chalet was innocuous enough, and far more dignified than wriggling under an inadequate towel. It would be downright rude to refuse. So, 'Thanks,' she said, 'that's very kind.'

'Not at all; it makes sense.' His tone was brisk. They began to walk up the beach, clish-clashing over the shingle to the lower promenade, where he unlocked the door of chalet nine, and left her to. go inside. 'I'll wait for you here, by the sea wall,' he told her, 'but don't rush; you've got plenty of time.'

The chalet smelled of wood and sand, and faintly of seaweed. It was very tidy, with two folding chairs stacked under a bench. There was a square of mirror above the bench and a high strip of window over the door, which she could only see through by standing on tiptoe. When she did so—when she reached up—she could see Simon by the wall, lean and long in his shorts and T-shirt, sandals on his feet, his hair lion-coloured and thick, lying close to his head.

She looked away quickly, drying herself, pulling on briefs and sundress and combing her hair in front of the mirror with a hand that trembled slightly. Of all people to run into down here—just when she had resolved to meet him only as Mr Easter-the-Consultant and never as Simon-the-man.

'Damn and damn,' she muttered to herself, but that wasn't how she felt. What she was feeling was anticipation, and she cursed herself for a fool.

When she opened the door he came forward to lock it, taking the key from her hand. 'All right?' he enquired.

'Very much so; thank you again.' She started to move away from him more determinedly this time, even managing to get her tongue round the sensible word 'goodbye'. But perhaps she didn't say it loudly enough, or perhaps he wasn't listening, or was resolved not to take any heed, for the next thing she knew he was saying that he'd see her to her car.

'I expect, like me, you've left it in The Lion yard,' he said.

As he bent to pick up a ball and lob it back to a boy on the beach, he heard Anna say, 'I've not brought the car—it seemed a good idea to walk.'

'In that case...' he dusted sand from his hands '.. .I'll' drive you home.'

'Oh no, there's no need!' She felt a pang of alarm. 'There's no need; I've got oceans of time!'

'Splendid, then we'll take in coffee as well. I know just the place,' he said pleasantly, beginning to turn towards the ramp.

'But there won't be anywhere decent open; it's still not nine o'clock!' She had walked right into that one, she realised.. .talking about oceans of time.

'I said I knew just the place, Anna.' His hand came warmly round her arm. 'I meant my place, Andover Square; that's decent enough, I think. We could have coffee in the garden and then I'll whisk you home afterwards.'

He was taking charge, and with a suddenness that surprised her she let him carry on. It would be pretty silly, anyway, to turn his invitation down. It would only amuse him, or amaze him—or both—and what possible harm would it do to have coffee with him in his garden? 'It sounds a lovely idea,' she said, and they continued up the ramp.

The car was the same as she remembered it from Tuesday—deep and luxurious. It was he who was different—casually dressed, the sun showing up a dusting of fine gold hairs on his arms as he reversed out of the yard.

She was intensely, disturbingly aware of him, so much so she could hardly draw breath. And under it all she despised her own weakness for what on earth was she doing, allowing herself to stay in his company when she should have been walking home—increasing the distance between them and not running the risk of getting to know him better, which she knew was dangerous?

Simon's
house, as he'd said, was very like Prae's, Anna saw as they stopped at the kerb. It had iron railings, though, instead of a hedge, and no front lawn—just a paved run-in for the convenience of his patients who would need somewhere to park.

She noticed the gleaming brass plate to the right of the front door—
Simon
V.
Easter, frcs. frcog
. 'Mrs Gill,' he said, locking the car, 'polishes that plate with metal polish and TLC every single day.' He opened the door, letting loose an elderly terrier with a rough brindle coat, who ran to Simon, making whining sounds in his throat.

He bent to fondle the dog.

'Have you eaten this morning?' he asked.

Anna shook her head.

'Then you can manage some toast. I can't eat alone, and I happen to be ravenous.'

'Well, in that case, thank you.' Her hair hid her face as she looked down at the dog, who growled at her and backed away, showing his teeth.

'Mind your manners, Buzz!' Simon told him off. 'He takes time to get used to strangers,' he explained. 'He's one of the wary kind.'

Simon shut the dog back in the house before escorting Anna up the sideway and into the back garden, which was a surprise when compared with the front.

'Do you approve?' he asked, his eyes on her face.

'I certainly do!' From the patio on which he seated her, she looked down at the sloping lawn, at the herbaceous borders flaring with colour, at the rose-beds and lily pond. The enclosing lichened stone walls, which were pleasing to the eye, were of just the right height and stoutness to afford protection against the gales.

'I'll show you round properly when we've eaten.' Simon disappeared to get the tray of food before coming back to say, after pouring the coffee and passing Anna toast, 'I inherited from my predecessor John Duran his private patients, his nurse/secretary, and Buzz.'

'Buzz? Oh, of course, the dog. But fancy leaving him behind!'

'I suppose it was understandable in the circumstances, you know. John and his wife were emigrating, and as Buzz was elderly they didn't think it fair to transport him to the other side of the world. They arranged for James Petersen, the ENT surgeon, and his wife to take him in. They live just opposite here, and they dote on dogs.

'So over the Square went a perplexed little dog but he was very soon back again, barking at the kitchen door until someone let him in. After a month of this the Petersens and I did a deal—Buzz became mine and came back to his home, which had been his plan all along! He's fourteen now; we're used to one another, and he's not alone all that much. My daily, Mrs Gill is here every weekday until five, and I'm home very soon after that.'

'I hope he doesn't growl at your patients.' Anna spread honey on her toast.

'He's not allowed near the front door, nor up in the consulting-rooms. He knows his place; he's been well trained. Miss Benson, my secretary, would throw a fit if he so much as breathed up the stairs.'

'Did you mind having a built-in secretary?' Anna asked, after a pause.

'If I'd minded seriously we'd have had to part,' Simon grunted. 'I wouldn't say we're the perfect team but Amy knows the work from A to Z and she's loyal too, if a trifle condescending. After working for John, who was in his late sixties, she looks upon me as a learner consultant which, in some respects, I am.'

'Medical people learn all the time, however young or old they are,' Anna said stoutly, thinking what a cheek the Benson woman had.

'True.' Simon refilled her cup, and a little silence fell, but not an uneasy one. Sitting there, looking down on the garden in the company of this man whom she'd once thought resembled Daniel, Anna was aware of an inexplicable warmth that was nothing to do with the sun.

'Tell me,' he spoke so suddenly that she gave a little jump, 'last Tuesday, when I barged into your office, why were you so shocked? I don't usually make
quite
such an impact—' his grey eyes twinkled '—so am I right in thinking that you mistook me for someone else?'

'Yes, I did... For my.. .for Daniel.' Anna set down her cup. 'I'd been thinking about him a few minutes earlier, then you came in and although you're not like him, not feature by feature, you're the same physical type—tall and fairish—and for a second or two I thought I'd conjured him up!' She laughed as she spoke, but not very naturally. He remained serious.

'I'm so sorry.'

'Not your fault.'

'You must miss him.'

'Yes.'

Another silence fell between them, a far less comfortable one—twanging with unasked questions on his part, and determination on Anna's not to divulge or let slip one single thing more. She wished she hadn't lied about Daniel—about saying that she missed him—for she didn't, not any longer, not in the way that Simon assumed. She drank her coffee, draining her cup, and even that tasted bitter. Desperate to break the silence, she enquired about his parents. 'Did your parents get off all right—on holiday, I mean?'

'They did, yes.' He sat back in his chair, folding his arms. 'I ran them to Gatwick last night, both of them thrilled at the thought of three weeks' idleness in one another's company. They'll be celebrating their ruby wedding in Corfu.'