Neurosurgeon...and Mum! (8 page)

S
ENSIBLE
, Tom thought grimly, was overrated.

If he looked at things clearly, then of course he could see that it was sensible not to get involved with Amy. The little she’d said about her job—and the way he’d seen her throw herself into the task of transcribing Joseph’s casebook—made it obvious that her career had been the main focus of her life. Just as Eloise’s career had been her main focus of her life. At the end of her sabbatical, Amy would go back to London and sort things out and go back to her career—and a life that wouldn’t have space for him and Perdy.

His head knew it.

But could he get his body to accept it? No. It tortured him with memories. The softness of her skin. The warmth of her body. The curve of her mouth. Her soft, floral scent. The little noises of pleasure she’d made as he’d pushed deeper into her. The way he’d actually felt a kind of peace as he’d lost himself inside her.

It was driving him crazy.

Cold showers didn’t help. Neither did taking Buster for a run, even if he took his MP3 player and played classic rock at high volume through his headphones. It left him energised instead of exhausted. Worse still was sitting
down with her in the evenings, because he could barely take his eyes off Amy’s mouth. Every time she took a sip of wine, he found himself remembering the feel of her mouth against his and had to damp down the longing to put his glass down, take hers from her fingers and kiss her until they were both dizzy.

And he’d caught her staring at his mouth, too.

Was it the same for her? he wondered. Was she lying awake at in the middle of the night, thinking that there were only two closed doors and a landing between them? Remembering how good it had felt to be with each other, no barriers between them? Remembering the warmth of his skin against hers?

There was no respite at the weekend either, because even though Amy didn’t come on a trip out with them on the Saturday—she’d pleaded a headache that he was pretty sure was convenient rather than real—Perdy didn’t stop talking about her. And on Sunday Amy joined them for a walk on the beach, helping Perdy look for shells and interesting stones; seeing her walk barefoot on the sand stoked his desire higher still. She had beautiful feet, narrow and graceful. Her toenails were painted a silvery rose colour—nail polish that his daughter was also sporting on her toes, he noticed. And she wore a ring on the second toe of her right foot, in a complicated Celtic swirl design. It made him want to touch. Explore. Discover her sensitive spots, the places where she liked being touched and kissed, what made her eyes go unfocussed.

And if this went on for much longer, he’d go insane.

By Tuesday morning, tension was thrumming through him. And when he got back from the school run to discover a letter from Eloise’s parents—a letter that they’d sent to his house in London, despite the fact that he’d told them
where he and Perdy would be for the next few months—he started grinding his teeth.

The dictat that he should bring Perdy to visit them was the final straw. He banged his mug of coffee down on the table and swore. Loudly.

Buster came bounding into the kitchen and put his head on Tom’s knee, as if checking that he was all right.

And a few moments later Amy stood in the doorway, one eyebrow raised. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Eloise’s parents, that’s what!’ He dragged in a breath. ‘They’re so bloody high-handed, it’s untrue. They’re demanding I take Perdy to see them this weekend. As if it’s perfectly reasonable for them to expect me to drop everything, cancel any plans I’d made, and drag her off to Chester at a couple of days’ notice.’

‘Maybe they’d like to see their granddaughter,’ Amy suggested.

‘Yeah, right—which is why they never phone her, never write to her or send her a little card just to say hello and let her know they’re thinking about her. Do you know, they actually sent this to London instead of here?’ He shook his head in annoyance and frustration. ‘I gave them all our contact details well before we left London. And they have my mobile number. So why couldn’t they get in touch and talk to me like normal people, instead of issuing a bloody decree?’

Without comment, Amy took the cake tin out of the cupboard, cut a large slice of chocolate cake, put it on a plate and slid it in front of him.

‘What’s this?’

‘Anger management,’ she said. ‘Don’t say a word. Eat this and count to a hundred in your head. And then talk.’

‘I don’t need ang…’ He let the words trail away, and
sighed. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m ranting and raving, and

it’s not fair to dump this on you.’

‘It’s OK. Everyone has bad days.’

‘I’m just glad Perdy wasn’t here to see any of that. Or hear it. I’m not perfect, by any means, but I do try not to swear in front of her.’ He bit his lip. ‘Or anyone female, for that matter. It’s not how I was brought up. I owe you an apology for that.’

‘Maybe,’ Amy suggested, ‘talking about it might help.’

He was about to argue when she added, ‘How many patients do you tell not to bottle things up because it’s bad for their blood pressure?’

‘Point taken. I’m being a hypocrite.’

She smiled. ‘At least you know it. Eat your cake, count to a hundred, and I’ll make us both a coffee—seeing as half of yours ended up over the table.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s my mess. Give me a cloth and I’ll sort it.’

‘Just shut up and eat your cake,’ Amy said, and deftly removed all evidence of the spill before he could protest.

By the time he’d eaten the cake and counted silently to a hundred, she’d made coffee. She placed a fresh mug in front of him then sat opposite. ‘OK. Talk to me.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s not going to change anything.’

‘It won’t change the past,’ she said, ‘but it might help you see it differently so you can deal with it more easily.’

He was silent for so long that she thought he was going to refuse. Eventually, he nodded. ‘Just promise me you’re not going to pity me,’ he said. ‘I’ve had enough pity to last me for the rest of my life.’

‘I won’t pity you,’ Amy promised.

‘Thank you.’ Tom wrapped one of his hands round the mug of coffee. ‘Eloise’s parents were high flyers, so she
always felt she had to live up to them and do better than anyone else.’

Amy nodded. She knew exactly how Tom’s late wife had felt—that was one of the things that had driven her choice of career, too. Wanting to do what every generation of her family had done for nearly two hundred years. Wanting to be as good as her parents were.

‘I met her at university. She was top of our year.’ He smiled wryly. ‘I admit, she was vying with me for the top spot. That’s how we got together in the first place—I don’t think she would have noticed me otherwise. But when you want to be the best, you notice anyone who’s a potential rival.’

‘Women tend to notice men for other reasons, Tom. Trust me on that,’ she said. She’d definitely noticed him for other reasons than his mind—though that attracted her, too.

‘I wasn’t fishing.’ Colour stained his cheeks. ‘I suppose what I was trying to say is Eloise wanted to tell her parents that she’d graduated top of her year and was on a fast track to becoming a consultant. Perdy wasn’t planned; we’d only just both qualified when Eloise realised that she was pregnant.’ He bit his lip. ‘I was thrilled—I’d always expected that we’d have children, and as far as I was concerned it simply meant that we’d started our family a bit earlier than we’d planned. But Eloise was terrified that it meant the end of her career. I suppose it was hard for her: telling her parents that she was pregnant and getting married seemed like being a failure, in her eyes.’

Amy frowned. ‘Why? Why couldn’t she have a career and you and Perdy?’

‘That’s how I saw it,’ Tom said grimly. ‘But Eloise felt she’d failed. That was why I switched from paediatrics to training as a GP: it meant my hours would be more regular than if I worked on a ward, and I could take care of Perdy
while Eloise worked the hours she needed to get on in her career.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose you could say we switched roles. She was the one with the huge career, and I was the one who sorted out the family side of things.’

‘Has it occurred to you,’ Amy asked, ‘that that’s a strength? You were the one holding everything together. Like a human pyramid. Sure, there’s someone at the top—but without a strong base, the whole thing collapses.’

‘My point exactly. We collapsed because I couldn’t give her the base she needed. Before we qualified, she always planned to work for Doctors Without Borders, the way her parents had done when they’d first qualified. And I could see it was eating away at her that she hadn’t done it.’ His eyes were full of misery. ‘I thought maybe if she went out and spent maybe a couple of weeks a year working for them, it would make her feel that she made a difference and she’d stop resenting me for trapping her in domesticity.’

‘Did it?’

Tom shook his head. ‘It still wasn’t enough. And it’s my fault that she died. If I hadn’t suggested she did a stint every year, she wouldn’t have gone to Africa. If she hadn’t gone to Africa, she wouldn’t have caught a tropical fever. And if she hadn’t caught the fever, she wouldn’t have died.’ He ticked the points off on his fingers, and Amy could see the guilt and misery in his eyes.

‘There’s another way of looking at this,’ she said softly. ‘If you hadn’t let her go, she would’ve resented you for it. And she probably would have left you and Perdy anyway, gone out there full time. There’s always a risk when you’re working in an area with serious infectious diseases, and everyone who goes out there knows that and accepts that risk. It’s not your fault. It was her decision to go, Tom. You didn’t push her into it.’

‘Maybe not.’ He sighed, the sadness expanding inside him. ‘Ah, hell. It’s been a year, and I still can’t deal with it. I miss her—of course I miss her—and it’s so hard bringing up Perdy without having someone to talk to, someone who can help me sort out the problems before they get too huge. But I’m so angry with her at the same time. Perdy and I just weren’t enough for her, and I just can’t forgive her for that.’

‘How can you be so sure you weren’t enough for her?’

Tom sighed. ‘She wasn’t happy, right from when we found out she was pregnant. She had really bad morning sickness at the start—and as soon as that stopped, the indigestion started. She hated being pregnant. And during labour she told me she wished she’d never got pregnant.’

‘So I hear, a lot of women say that sort of thing during labour,’ Amy said. ‘Didn’t your midwife warn you not to take transition talk seriously?’

‘It went deeper than that,’ Tom said. ‘She never really bonded with Perdy. I did wonder at first if Eloise might have postnatal depression, but then I realised it wasn’t that. It was just how Eloise was, the way she’d been brought up. She just didn’t know how to love our baby. And I think Perdy knew it, too—she never talks about her mother. Ever.’ He bit his lip. ‘It worries me that she’s bottling it all up, but I don’t know how to get her to talk to me about it.’

‘People deal with things in different ways,’ Amy said softly. ‘Not talking about it to you doesn’t necessarily means she’s bottling it up. She might talk about it to someone else.’

‘Why not me? I’m her dad.’

Amy could see the hurt in his eyes. She kissed him lightly. ‘Maybe she thinks it hurts you too much to talk about her—and talking to someone else means that she won’t be hurting you.’

He sighed. ‘I just wish I could be sure that she’s OK.’

‘Hey. Parents are supposed to worry about their kids.’ Amy ruffled his hair.

‘Eloise never seemed to worry about her. Not the way I do.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose she was just following her parents’ lead. I could never quite understand them. I mean, I’m an only child too and my parents have always loved me to bits. They were so proud of me, and I always knew it didn’t matter if I didn’t come first, as long as I’d tried my hardest. I knew that coming second didn’t mean they wouldn’t love me. But Eloise…If she didn’t come top, her parents weren’t interested. And I never saw them show any affection towards her—all they were interested in was how she was doing at work, when she was going to get a chance for promotion.’

‘What about Perdy? She’s their only grandchild.’

‘Yes, and you’d think they’d have been thrilled about it. But even when they saw Perdy for the first time, they didn’t give Eloise a huge hug and tell her how gorgeous the baby was or any of the stuff normal grandparents would say, whereas my parents fell in love with Perdy from the very second they saw her. They always greeted us with a hug and a kiss, and before Dad’s arthritis got bad he always used to carry Perdy around on his shoulders and get down on the floor to play games with her. Eloise’s parents never did anything like that with her. They’ve never even read her a story or sat colouring a picture with her. They’re airkissers,’ he said, looking disgusted.

‘So are my parents,’ Amy said.

He blinked. ‘I would never have guessed. I mean, Joe and Cassie…’

‘Are incredibly warm,’ Amy agreed. ‘But I think Cassie changed Joe. She made him who he is today. My grandfather
had a real stiff upper lip, and Dad and Joe inherited it. Being the younger son, Dad felt he had to prove himself—don’t get me wrong, he and Joe love each other, but there’s a fair bit of sibling rivalry between them. I was a month early, meaning that I’m three days older than Beth, and I can just imagine how much Dad crowed that he’d produced the first grandchild. And my mother always said that there was a glass ceiling—she had to work twice as hard as Dad to get anywhere. So their work’s always been their focus in life.’

Tom frowned. ‘So your upbringing was pretty much like Eloise’s.’

‘Let’s leave it that what you told me rang a few bells,’ Amy said dryly.

‘But you’re not like Eloise was. I mean, the way you’ve spent time with Perdy—you’ve told her silly jokes, you’ve taught her skipping games, you’ve shown her how to make the dog do tricks. Eloise would never have done anything like that with her.’

Maybe that, Amy thought, was why Perdy hardly talked about her mother. Because Eloise had been as distant as her own parents had been. And Amy could so, so easily have turned out like that herself. ‘She might not have been comfortable playing games or doing messy stuff. Some people aren’t. But she did other things with Perdy, didn’t she?’