The Heart Surgeon's Secret Child Page 5

  Was Theo right? Did she fancy the new surgeon?

  If only she could remember what fancying someone felt like! Had her nerves tingled and her skin thrilled to her lover’s touch? Had her knees gone weak and wobbly? Was that how Joe’s father had made her feel?

  Or was her reaction to Jean-Luc nothing more than her apprehension about what she might or might not learn from him—and into what dark depths that information might lead her?

  Grace joined them at the table, leaving Jean-Luc fiddling with a silver coffee-pot, spooning aromatic coffee grounds into it, but most of his attention was on the unexpected visitor. She looked pale—ill almost—certainly stressed.

  He wondered if bad things had happened in her life in the last ten years.

  Could things have been so bad she could no longer remember happy times? For they had been happy times that he and she had shared. Blissful times when love had blossomed in such unexpected circumstances they’d both decided it was their own special St Catherine miracle.

  Until the letter.

  ‘Is French coffee-making always such a ritual?’

  Grace’s question cut through his memories and he hurriedly put the pot on the stove to heat and busied himself finding cups, milk and sugar, then setting out biscuits for his guests.

  But as he placed the plate of biscuits on the table, Lauren stood up, more carefully this time so her chair remained upright.

  ‘I’m sorry, I really can’t stay,’ she said. ‘Perhaps another time!’

  And she rushed out the door, her sandals slapping against the parquet flooring in the hall, the opening and closing of the front door finalising her departure.

  ‘Is there something wrong with that woman?’ Grace asked, turning her attention to Theo.

  ‘No, there’s nothing wrong with Lauren but you’ll find the other members of the unit are protective of her. Apparently she had quite a severe head injury when she was younger,’ Theo responded. ‘I don’t know the full story but she was in her early twenties when it happened and she was in a coma for some months. Although it left no permanent brain damage she still suffers headaches and some memory loss, I believe, and she changed her career path from medicine to nursing because it would be less stressful.’

  Head injury!

  Coma?

  Amnesia?

  It was as he had guessed.

  The coffee-pot was spluttering on the stove, the liquid hissing as it overflowed onto the hot plate, but Jean-Luc was lost in the past. He’d shepherded Lauren and a lot of the younger children into the church before the worst of the winds had struck, thinking the brick building would be the most solid place for them to wait out the typhoon. Only later, when he had been in hospital half a world away, surgeons piecing his leg back together, had he learnt that the church had been destroyed. And all this time he’d believed Lauren was dead, for how could anyone have survived the collapse of such a building?

  No survivors, he’d been told, and he’d grieved for his lost love.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said, knowing he had to speak to her again to sort this out. He hurried from the room, Grace’s protests joining the sizzle of the spilling coffee as he strode along the passage to the front door.

  But once there he hesitated, again aware of the dilemma that faced him. If Lauren was happily married, or even in a relationship. Joe had mentioned a mum, Gran, Russ or Bill being at home. He remembered that Russ was Lauren’s brother’s name, so Bill? Children did sometimes call their fathers by their first names.

  And if she was married—no doubt happily—what right had some stray Frenchman to burst into her life, forcing memories she might not want to resurface in her mind?

  Although she had come to visit him.

  It had to be to ask him about the time they’d met before.

  If he had lost his memory of a part of his life, he would want to know…

  He opened the front door then shut it again, wondering if he could go back to the kitchen and ask Theo for more information about Lauren. Though he couldn’t as that would amount to gossiping about a colleague, something he hated.

  Besides, he could hear Grace’s clear voice coming from that direction, complaining about volatile Frenchmen who never seemed to know what they were doing. Going back into the kitchen would confirm her statement. He opened the door again and this time he walked through it, closing it behind him. He looked up at the night sky, pleased the darkness of the park across the road meant he could see the stars, although these were different constellations here in the southern hemisphere, unfamiliar shapes and patterns in the brightness.

  And Lauren?

  Once, for six short weeks, she’d been the brightness in his life—his moon and stars. They’d made promises and shared dreams but now were strangers. Must they remain that way?

  Must they meet as nothing more than colleagues?

  He had to find out more—find out, for a start, about her marriage and her child.

  If she already had to carry the burdens associated with a child with heart problems, did she need whatever chaos his reminding her of the past might cause?

  But who to ask?

  He took a walk around the block, passing number 30, then went back inside 26, to find Grace and Theo no longer there, his flat deserted. A note informed him they’d gone across the park to get some decent—underlined—coffee from the café.

  Relieved to be alone, he took out his laptop, searching for articles on amnesia. He knew the clinical details of it, but wanted specialist psychiatric opinions and papers—did sufferers benefit from filling in the blank spaces in their memory, or could the knowledge they learned be harmful?

  Opinion, as ever in medical fields, was divided. More often than not, he discovered, most people, over time, recovered most of their memories. The parts that remained missing were usually only the actual details of the trauma they’d suffered and the events immediately preceding them. But for Lauren to not remember him meant she must have a blank of at least six weeks…

  And if she was married…

  He sighed with frustration, as the more he learned the less he seemed to know.

  Although she had come to visit, and he was fairly certain she hadn’t come to repeat her offer of neighbourliness.

  The following morning he took up his position by the window yet again, telling himself he wasn’t spying, or watching for Lauren so he could walk to work with her.

  But he was.

  It had struck him in the middle of a restless night that walking to work with her—meeting her casually on the way—could prove the best way to talk alone with her.

  The little bus pulled up and Joe, floppy hat crammed down on his head, came out the gate of 30 and boarded it, then the front door opened once more and a tall man Jean-Luc had noticed the previous day emerged.

  Russ or Bill?

  Studying him more closely, Jean-Luc noticed that the sun had brought out red highlights in the man’s dark hair.

  Russ?

  Perhaps talking to Lauren’s brother would be better than talking to her—at this stage, anyway. He might be able to find out about her current situation and so gauge whether or not his revelations would be harmful to Lauren.

  He hurried to the gate, nodding a greeting to the tall man with Lauren’s colouring.

  ‘You’re one of the new surgeons,’ the stranger said, holding out his hand in the friendly fashion Jean-Luc was coming to accept was the Australian way. ‘I’m Russ Henderson. My sister Lauren is a nurse in your PICU.’

  Jean-Luc introduced himself and fell into step beside the man he wished to interrogate. Although he had to be careful it didn’t sound like an interrogation, or even a probe. Somehow he had to find out as much as possible about Lauren without appearing obvious.

  And he had absolutely no idea how to go about it!

  ‘You’re French, I hear,’ Russ was saying. ‘Never been to France—well, not what you could call going to France. I spent some time in the UK and did the obligatory weekend trips acr
oss the Channel, but that was in my student days and apart from the inside of bars I saw very little and remember even less.’

  ‘It is expensive for Australians to travel, given that your country is so far away from other continents, yet I see and hear of Australians travelling all over the world. It is hard to comprehend.’

  Russ laughed.

  ‘I think perhaps it’s because we are so far away from other places that we have the urge to travel. And in my family, my mother always encouraged us to travel. I spent a year in the US when I was still at school as an exchange student and Lauren spent some months in Japan, then, when she finished university she went to India, wanting to work with people she felt were less privileged than she was. By that time I was in the UK, although I came home when…’

  He stopped and turned towards Jean-Luc.

  ‘But you don’t want to hear the history of our family. Tell me about yourself. What brought you to Australia—was it just the opportunity to work under Alexander the Great or something more?’

  Or something more?

  The phrase rang in Jean-Luc’s head.

  He’d tried to tell himself it wasn’t something more, yet deep within he’d always felt it was something he had to do.

  Not that he could tell this man that he’d come to lay his sister’s ghost to rest.

  Especially when that sister wasn’t dead!

  ‘Alexander the Great—you call him that?’

  ‘People who work with him tease him with the accolade. Being the modest man he is, Alex hates it.’

  ‘I imagine he would,’ Jean-Luc said politely, while his mind ran through things he might have said.

  Your sister worked in India?

  I worked in India.

  I knew you sister in India.

  All were far too intrusive—he’d never make a spy. Talking to Russ had been a stupid idea. He would have to restrict himself to politeness.

  ‘You work at the hospital, too?’

  From then on it was easy, Russ talking about the challenges of caring for people in intensive care, Jean-Luc discussing his experiences in the French equivalent.

  ‘You must come to dinner one day,’ Russ said, as they crossed the road to the hospital. ‘I’d like to learn more about the way they do things over there. You can never know too much in my caper—although I guess it’s the same with you. That’s why you’re here.’

  It was a throw-away remark, and Jean-Luc ignored it, although he suspected memories of Lauren’s descriptions of her home city had subconsciously helped him choose.

  ‘See you later,’ Russ said, as they parted at the lifts.

  The words brought Jean-Luc back to the present and he smiled at the man who was Lauren’s brother.

  ‘We say “à bientôt” which is much the same, but now I will speak Australian. See you later,’ he said, and, still smiling, he entered the lift, pressing the button for the floor that housed the PICU.

  Lauren wasn’t there, but he refused to let that bother him. He had come to see the babies before he began his day. Lauren would contact him again—he was sure of that. Just as he was certain she didn’t want to discuss the past in front of others—which was understandable given she was undoubtedly in a relationship and had a child.

  ‘Theatre meeting in ten minutes—do you know where to go?’ Maggie Park, Phil’s wife and one of the anaesthetists on the two teams, was standing by the centre console in the unit, and greeted him as he came out of the big room.

  Jean-Luc nodded. Alex had explained the routine when he’d shown Jean-Luc through the operating theatres, emphasising the fact that their work in theatre went more smoothly when the whole team was in on the briefing. So, in ten minutes, they would all gather in the small lecture theatre and Alex would run through the operations scheduled for the day. A PDA first. Closing the ductus arteriosis that allowed flow of blood from the pulmonary artery to the aorta of a foetus, a simple operation and a good one to start the day.

  He was thinking about that—about why, in some newborns, the ducts didn’t close themselves—as he walked to the lift, and wondering why Alex had chosen to operate rather than close it through cardiac catheterisation, so he didn’t notice the lift doors open, or realise Lauren was among those who stepped out until she was right in front of him.

  ‘Jean-Luc,’ she said, his name so soft on her lips he barely heard it. ‘I wondered—Do you think—? Would it be all right…?’

  The unfinished phrases lost what little momentum they’d had and she just stared at him, a desperate plea in her ever-changing eyes.

  ‘Could we talk sometime?’ she finally managed.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, hurt by the measure of tension he could see in her eyes and feel in her body.

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Did you miss the lift or were you waiting for me?’

  Maggie came to stand beside him, and Jean-Luc touched Lauren on the arm.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I will get in touch with you.’

  He was trying to ease her concern but at the same time shield her from Maggie’s interest.

  ‘The Willis child,’ he said to Maggie, amazed to find the name of the patient coming into his head at precisely the right moment.

  But as Lauren departed, and he stepped aside to allow Maggie to enter the lift in front of him, Maggie sent him a look that suggested she’d seen right through his charade.

  ‘She’s a lovely woman,’ she said, and although she didn’t say any more about Lauren’s troubled life there was a warning implicit in the words.

  How could he possibly get in touch with her? He didn’t have her phone number, and the last thing she wanted was to draw attention to herself or him within the unit.

  Lauren pondered these problems as she returned to the unit, then switched her mind from personal matters to work. This was what she did—it was her life, or a major part of it—and the past, with its hidden secrets, had to be firmly put aside.

  But Jean-Luc had known her…

  She shook her head, thinking that might clear it, and settled in front of a computer to check the progress all her young charges had made during the night.

  He said he’d contact her, and something in the way he’d touched her arm—something in his dark blue eyes—had suggested he was telling the truth. So there was no point in her worrying about how he might achieve that, was there?

  Mollie Ashbury was due to be transferred to Special Care—good for Mollie, graduating so quickly. Lauren stood up. She’d check Mollie first, check out any special needs Alex might have written up, then arrange for her to leave their care.

  Work! It not only took her mind off imponderables but it brought her real pleasure.

  Alors! It was all very well telling Lauren he would contact her, but how?

  Ask her to have dinner with him at the Italian restaurant across the park?

  And what would her husband—Bill?—think of that?

  No, he had to arrange something private yet casual—a chance meeting. The canteen! No reason why she shouldn’t be eating at a table and he could join her—they were colleagues after all.

  He was deciding this as he walked home through the dusk after five hours in theatre, agreeably tired but excited that he’d actually felt like part of the team as they’d done the PDA, then a much longer operation to sort out a transposition of the great arteries on a six-month-old baby who had been flown in from one of the Pacific Islands. To his surprise, the parents had been French-speaking, so he had stayed on after the others left the hospital to talk to them and, hopefully, lessen their fears for the baby’s future.

  He arrived home and was considering what to have for dinner—would he cook or go across the park to a restaurant?—when the front doorbell rang. Remembering Lauren’s visit the previous evening, his heart gave a little leap. But when he opened the door he found Joe, not Lauren, standing there, smiling uncertainly, the dog called Lucy standing by his side, eyes fixed on Jean-Luc.

  I am the guard!

&
nbsp; ‘Hello again,’ Jean-Luc began, looking up the path and along the footpath, thinking, as it was getting dark, the child shouldn’t be out with only the dog for protection—although Lucy’s watchful eyes suggested she was all the protection Joe needed.

  ‘Hello,’ the boy replied, his thick tongue making the word clumsy but still easily recognisable. ‘I am Joe. I am a Cub!’

  He’d obviously learned this introduction and he pronounced it proudly. Jean-Luc felt a jab of sympathy for Lauren that she had the extra responsibility of bringing up a child with a disability—although, judging by Joe’s self-assurance, she was doing a wonderful job.

  Jean-Luc smiled at the little boy in his blue polo shirt with its yellow collar and yoke, the knotted scarf around his neck a give-away that it was the Cub uniform. Joe smiled back and handed him a plasticised sheet of paper.

  “‘I am Joe Henderson,’” Jean-Luc read aloud from the sheet. “‘My Cub group is having a sock drive.’”

  At the word ‘sock’ Joe produced a handful of socks from a satchel over his shoulder and tried to spread them across his chubby hands.

  ‘Socks,’ he said. ‘I am selling socks.’

  He beamed at Jean-Luc, proud and excited to be trusted with such an important enterprise.

  ‘Come in,’ Jean-Luc offered, thinking it might be easier to look at socks in a proper light. He had no doubts about buying socks—not only was this Lauren’s child but Joe, with his winning smile, was utterly charming.

  Joe shook his head.

  ‘I mustn’t go inside houses, that is rude,’ he told Jean-Luc. ‘Just outside and just these houses, and only with Lucy.’

  Lucy, hearing her name, bared her teeth in what might have been a smile but still held a suggestion of warning.

  Joe took back the card, which went on to explain about the sock drive to raise money for the local Cub group, and turned it over, pointing to a map drawn on the back, with some houses marked with red crosses.

  ‘Friends of Mum’s,’ he said. ‘From work. My mum’s a baby nurse.’ Joe’s tongue might have stumbled over some of his words but he radiated pride, his love for his mother shining in his blue eyes.