Christmas at Jimmie's Children's Unit Read online

  ‘Then let’s sit down. I have to tell it from the beginning or you won’t understand.’

  She threw him a half-smile before adding, ‘Actually, you might not understand anyway. Most of the time I don’t myself.’

  Clare watched Oliver sink down into the comfortable armchair, then seated herself on the couch, drawing up her legs under her, almost unconsciously making herself as small as possible.

  Less of her to hurt?

  ‘When I left you, I went home to the farm. It was only a week before Christmas, you remember. Everything was fine. I mean, I was miserable, but the family were all kind and supportive and I pretended to be okay. Both my brothers were still living at home, and my sister, who’d shifted to Queensland, was down for the festive season, and life went on. Then one day Dad fell down.’

  ‘Fell down?’

  Clare paused, recalling so vividly that day in the dairy when her father had seemed to trip and fall, but then had failed to get up.

  ‘Apparently he’d been feeling lousy for a while, but being Dad hadn’t said anything. Mum had noticed he was dragging one foot but when she asked him about it he brushed her off. It was Christmas—everyone was busy, but cows still had to be milked. With Dad only half there we all dug in and got through, then in the New Year, Mum insisted he see the doctor.’

  This was where the telling became difficult, Oliver realised, and knowing how much Clare had loved her father, he got out of the chair and came to sit beside her, not touching, just being there.

  ‘Eventually,’ she said, nodding as if accepting his move, ‘he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease—right about the time I diagnosed myself as being pregnant.’

  Clare had told him this bit looking down at her lap, toying with a button on her skirt. Now she looked directly at him.

  ‘You’d know about MND. In most cases it progresses very rapidly. We all wanted Dad at home because we knew he’d be happiest there, so although Liz went back to Queensland, I stayed on at the farm to help out. Steve’s mate Barry used to come three or four days a week to give a hand with the milking. He’d changed to beef cattle so was free. I contacted you and didn’t hear, but there was so much emotion flowing around the place, Oliver, that not hearing from you was just one more thing to set at the door of unkind Fates.’

  She offered him a smile, but he could hear the pain of those days in the huskiness of her voice and see it in her tortured dark eyes. He ached to touch her, to hold her, but something in her stillness warned him off. The glass wall was there, and though he suspected it was fragile, he didn’t want to shatter it right now.

  ‘We moved Dad into a hospice the week before I gave birth to Emily. Mum was staying there with him, and while by then I wasn’t much use to the boys around the farm, I could still help out by shopping and cooking. When my waters broke, four weeks early, Barry was there, having called at the house to drop off a couple of casseroles his mother had made for us. He took me to the hospital and he stayed there with me. Mum couldn’t leave Dad, and my brothers were busy at the farm, so Barry stuck around. He was wonderful. Just having someone there when I was told about Em’s PDA, just having someone to lean on—I was so grateful to him.’

  Oliver stood and strode across to the window, aware he should have been the one supporting Clare, so aware of it the awareness hurt.

  Yet how could he have been there? How could he have known?

  He stopped himself grinding his teeth just before he did damage to his tooth enamel, but the anger and frustration inside him was almost too much to bear—especially as Saint Barry was now front and centre in Clare’s thoughts.

  ‘So you married him?’ Oliver found himself growling. Better that he ground his teeth but he couldn’t stop the words from bursting forth.

  Huge dark eyes studied him—unreadable in their intensity.

  ‘Not then,’ she finally whispered. ‘First I tried to find you, then Dad died. Mum was devastated—lost. Em had her op, and the boys sold the farm. I had to stay in Victoria as Em was still seeing specialists and then I married Barry.’

  Oliver assimilated the words. Really assimilated, for they seemed more to seep through his skin and into his blood than enter through his ears. And with them came the pain Clare must have suffered, the gut-wrenching loss of a beloved father, the fearful news that her newborn daughter had a heart problem, the isolation when her family moved away.

  Damn the wall! He reached for her and drew her close, holding her as he would hold a hurt child, offering comfort, nothing more.

  Clare melted against him, the tension of the telling of the story draining out, the warmth of Oliver’s body so seductive that for a few seconds she imagined maybe everything would be all right.

  Could she pretend that was the end of things?

  Would Oliver accept that one failed marriage was enough to put her off the institution for life?

  Probably not, but she was all talked out for one evening, and sitting like this, with Oliver’s arms around her, was so close to heaven she didn’t want to move, or think, or do anything much at all.

  Just sit and let the bliss of it wash over her.

  Just sit and not think at all.

  But life didn’t allow time for such luxuries. Oliver was turning her in his arms, slipping his fingers beneath her chin, turning her head, so she had to look at him.

  Or so he could kiss her?

  A deep shudder ran through her body, quickly relieved when his lips moved to speak, not to kiss.

  ‘The marriage didn’t work?’

  She considered shaking her head, then knew she needed to say the words.

  ‘The marriage didn’t work,’ she repeated, and this time knew he must have felt the shudder for his arms tightened around her and his head lowered so he could drop soft kisses on her hair.

  So comforting. So very, very comforting.

  But unacceptable! She was probably giving Oliver false hope about the marriage idea.

  She eased herself away from him, pushed her hair back off her face, pulling it into a bundle and knotting it out of the way.

  ‘I’m sorry, but getting rid of all that pent-up emotion has exhausted me,’ she said, and watched his face, wanting to see some reaction, but reading nothing in it, or in his green eyes.

  All he did was nod, then he stood up off the couch and walked towards the door, pausing there to ask, ‘I take it we can go together to collect Emily in the morning. We can go in my car? What time?’

  Clare frowned at him, unable to believe she’d been towed so far back into the past that the present—including her daughter—had gone completely from her mind.

  ‘We can collect her at nine, which means leaving here about a quarter to.’

  She knew she was still frowning, but that was because she realised she needed some time away from Oliver, the intimacy of telling him about the past now weighing heavily on her.

  But she’d tried avoiding him last week and avoidance hadn’t achieved a thing. They had to forge a way forward together, to find a life that would be stable and enriching for their daughter.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, still hesitating in the doorway. ‘Do you want me to stay?’

  He smiled at her.

  ‘Even to stay as a friend, not a lover?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she lied as love for this man she was turning away swept through her, shaking her so badly she needed him to leave so she could sit down alone and put herself together again.

  Emily was tired and cranky. A rainy afternoon during the week had meant she’d missed her riding lesson; the party had been gross.

  ‘That’s terrible,’ Clare translated for Oliver’s benefit.

  ‘The music was really lame,’ Emily’s plaint continued. ‘Dad, can I have a guitar?’

  As Em was sitting in the front seat next to Oliver, Clare had no chance to send a silent signal to him that guitar ownership had already been discussed and knocked back.

  ‘I’ll have to talk to your mother about it,’ Olive
r replied, and Clare gave him a tick of approval.

  Emily produced a theatrical groan.

  ‘Mum’ll say no, I know she will. She’ll say I’m already having riding lessons and I’m playing soccer and when would I have time to practise and what’s the point of having one if I don’t practise?’

  She mimicked Clare’s voice so well Clare had to hide a smile. They were driving down the back lane, the garage door sliding up in response to the remote, so Oliver had an excuse not to reply, though he did say, ‘Ah!’ in a thoughtful voice.

  ‘I’ve got an old guitar back home in Melbourne, hardly used,’ he said to Clare while Emily had found Rod sitting in the garden and was telling him about her week—sounding far more excited about it than she had when telling her parents.

  ‘Should I get it sent up for her?’ Oliver finished.

  Clare shook her head.

  ‘Let’s wait and see,’ she suggested. ‘She might want a flute next week.’

  Then she smiled at him.

  ‘Got a flute tucked away at home?’

  Oliver looked at this woman who had been through so much, yet could still smile and joke and carry on as if life was the great adventure she’d always thought it. Something quivered inside his chest—not attraction for sure—something far more subtle than that.

  Something he didn’t want to think about.

  Emily had joined them, bouncing up and down with excitement.

  ‘I asked Rod if he’d come and talk to my class at school about being a writer and he said yes,’ she announced.

  Oliver looked across at Rod, who nodded and smiled.

  ‘I love talking to kids about writing,’ he admitted. ‘They’re so full of enthusiasm. Clare, can you organise a time with the school, perhaps check they really want an old man like me coming to visit?’

  Clare moved towards their landlord and bent to kiss his cheek.

  ‘Of course I will and thank you,’ she said, then she straightened and looked at her daughter. ‘Em, you’ve got your key? How about you take your things upstairs, then get a cup of tea going for Oliver. I’ll be up shortly and we’ll sit down and plan our weekend.’

  Emily stood her ground.

  ‘Are you going to tell Rod about Dad?’ she asked, and Oliver wondered by what intuition a nine-year-old could fathom such a thing. He’d guessed that’s why Clare was lingering in the garden, believing it was only right that Rod should know what was going on with his tenants.

  ‘Come on,’ he said to his daughter. ‘What your mother wants to talk to Rod about is none of our business.’

  The green eyes flashed towards him, rolling in a manner that said, Not you too, without the words, but Emily led the way around the side of the house, dug her key out of her overnight bag and opened the doors.

  ‘The girls at school thought it was weird that I suddenly had a father,’ she told him as she stomped up the stairs. ‘They wondered if I’d change my name.’

  She reached the landing and turned towards him, face-to-face as he was still a few steps behind her.

  ‘Will you and Mum get married?’ she added, the simple innocence of the question stealing Oliver’s breath.

  ‘Let’s get that cup of tea going,’ he told her eventually, ‘and work out what we want to do over the weekend. Have you ever seen horse races? I thought we might go this afternoon, not so much to see who wins the races but so you can check out the thoroughbreds as they parade around the ring. Would you like that?’

  ‘Could I have a bet?’

  It was the last question Oliver had expected and he frowned at this apparently knowledgeable small person who’d come into his life.

  ‘What do you know about betting?’ he demanded, and was rewarded with a cheeky grin.

  ‘Melbourne Cup of course. Everyone knows about the Melbourne Cup! The teachers even let us watch it on the television because they say it’s part of the Australian culture.’

  Put firmly in his place, Oliver repeated the question. Would going to the races interest her?

  ‘I’d like to see the horses,’ she told him, heading for the kitchen and lifting the electric kettle to fill it with water. ‘Because they brush them somehow so they have patterns on their rumps and I’d like to learn to do that for when I have my own horse.’

  Oliver rather doubted she could get horse-grooming lessons at the races, but he liked the idea that he’d thought of something that might interest her—that he, not Clare, had come up with the outing.

  Clare.

  He took the kettle from his daughter and filled it for her, although she assured him she could manage.

  Was he fiddling around in the kitchen so he didn’t have to think about the trauma of Clare’s life in that year after they’d parted, so that he didn’t have to feel, well, guilt that he hadn’t been there for her?

  The story had spun around in his head as he tried to sleep the previous night, and snippets of it—things he wanted to ask about—kept coming back to him.

  ‘I’m going to change. Mum has her tea black,’ Emily announced, apparently happy to leave him in charge in the kitchen, though she’d no sooner left the room than she reappeared. ‘Do I wear going-out clothes to the races?’

  ‘Perhaps we’d better consult your mother before we decide definitely that’s what we’ll do,’ he told her, and she frowned ferociously at him.

  ‘I thought a man could decide things like that on his own,’ she said. ‘Anyway, Mum won’t mind. She likes horses too. She used to live on a farm, you know.’

  Before Oliver could work out a reply to this conversation, Clare appeared.

  ‘I explained to Rod,’ she said briefly, then she turned to Emily. ‘You’re not changed yet?’

  Emily heaved a theatrical sigh.

  ‘Dad says we can go to the races, but we have to ask you first, so I don’t know if I should put on going-out clothes, or beach clothes or what.’

  ‘Go to the races?” Clare echoed faintly. Bad enough that she had to give their landlord a brief explanation of their convoluted relationship, but now, apparently, she had to make a decision about going to the races.

  ‘It’ll be fun,’ Oliver said. ‘Here, I’ve made the tea, and I’ve told Emily we won’t be betting, just going to look at the horses and we needn’t stay long.’

  Unable to think of a valid reason for not going to the races when it was put like that, Clare nodded at her daughter.

  ‘Going-out clothes, something cool, and the hat Gran gave you for your birthday.’

  Emily skipped off into her bedroom and Clare sank down onto the stool in front of the kitchen bench.

  ‘The races?’ she said, looking at Oliver across the tea things.

  ‘She likes horses,’ he said, though he looked so embarrassed Clare had to smile.

  ‘Have you been thinking all week of outings you could offer her?’ she asked. ‘We don’t have to go out, you know. She can just as easily spend the weekend at home, with a high treat being a walk across the park for a pizza at Scoozi for dinner.’

  Oliver nodded, but still looked put out.

  ‘I suppose it’s because I’ve missed so much of her,’ he said, ‘that I feel I should be making up to her all the time.’

  He paused, then he reached across the bench and touched Clare lightly on the cheek.

  ‘Making up to you as well,’ he added softly.

  Clare felt the touch. It felt like love, although she knew it was sympathy and understanding. She wanted to grasp his fingers and hold them to her cheek, but his hand had moved away already, and besides, it would have been unwise.

  ‘I’ll go and put on some going-out clothes,’ he said. ‘I imagine we can get lunch out there. Shall we say leaving here at eleven-thirty?’

  Clare nodded, her mind already scooting off touches and love and delving feverishly into her wardrobe.

  Going-out clothes?

  She didn’t go out.

  She had one kind of all-purpose black dress she’d worn the previous evening, su
itable for everything from dinner parties, to hospital functions, to funerals. But going-to-the-races clothes?

  She dashed across the landing, banging on Oliver’s door.

  ‘I haven’t got any going-out clothes.’ She all but wailed the words, catching herself in time and trying to sound like a reasonable adult. ‘I don’t want to disappoint Emily, so how about you take her?’

  Oliver looked at Clare for a moment, then shook his head. He left her on his doorstep while he walked across into her flat, knocking on Emily’s door.

  ‘You decent?’ he asked, and the door opened to reveal Emily already dressed in a pretty but simple sun frock that had been part of her birthday present from Gran.

  ‘Your mother hasn’t anything to wear,’ Oliver told the child. ‘Where’s the nearest place we can buy going-out clothes for her?’

  ‘Ooh, can I come too? Can I help you choose? The shopping centre just up the road has a boutique with some super grown-up women’s clothes. I’ve been telling Mum for ages she needs to buy some decent gear. She came to the school my first week in jeans and a jacket she bought in Chicago—can you imagine?’

  Clare slumped against the doorjamb and shook her head in bemusement. Between them, her daughter and her daughter’s father were disrupting her life so much she wondered if she’d ever get it back on track.

  But within minutes she’d been swept off between the two of them, and hustled into a boutique, where Emily darted around pointing to clothes she thought her mother should buy, while Oliver sat down in an armchair obviously provided for male companions, and gave every indication that he was ready for a show of some kind.

  Not that Clare intended parading in front of him, although once she had a pretty patterned skirt and top on, she was so unsure of how she looked—so unused to seeing herself in going-out clothes—she did actually go out of the changing room to ask him what he thought.

  She looked so nervous and uncertain Oliver’s first instinct was to take her in his arms, but knowing that would be disastrous in a shop, and in front of Emily, he studied the outfit.

  ‘You look fantastic in anything,’ he told her, ‘and those colours look great on you. Are you happy with the two pieces or would a dress be easier?’