A Courageous Doctor

‘I heard the sirens.’ Joan lived in the tiny settlement of Frankton, between the hospital and Queenstown. ‘But that was hours ago.’

‘It took a while to tidy everything up,’ Hugo responded. ‘You know what those cases can be like. Then I had to duck home for a bit.’ Hugo sat down on a cream leather sofa with a relaxed sigh. Joan’s apartment, a small unit in a complex overlooking the holiday camp, was a space that Hugo was now quite familiar with. Not as relaxing as being at home but pleasant, nonetheless. Not that he was given much time to unwind. He had to stand up again almost immediately as Joan placed a steaming platter on the dining table.

‘We may as well eat this before it dries out any more.’

The continued reminder of being later than he had forecast was irritating. So was the ‘please explain’ expression on Joan’s face.

‘Why did you have to go home?’

‘I was expecting a visitor. I thought she might have arrived and found the house locked up.’

‘She?’

‘Maggie.’ Hugo watched as Joan served a portion of what looked like an exotic mix of steamed trout and herbs. ‘She wasn’t there so I just left the house unlocked and a note telling her to make herself at home. I said I had an important date I didn’t want to miss.’ Hopefully, sharing the inspired if somewhat inaccurate content of the note would improve Joan’s uncharacteristically reserved mood.

Joan added little bundles of carrot slivers and green beans tied up in some kind of plant material to their plates and then sat down.

‘Who’s Maggie?’

‘An old family friend. My mother asked me to put her up for a few days.’

‘Oh.’ Joan’s smile reappeared. ‘She’s a friend of your mother’s, then?’

‘Not exactly.’ Hugo tasted the fish. ‘This is great,’ he enthused. ‘What are those little green things?’

‘Capers.’

‘Taste bombs, aren’t they?’ Hugo took another mouthful. ‘Wish I could cook like you do.’

Joan was extracting bones from her fish with surgical precision. ‘What do you mean by “not exactly”?’

Hugo repressed a sigh. ‘Maggie is like a kid sister, I guess. She was my sister Felicity’s best mate. They were like twins growing up.’

‘I didn’t know you had a sister.’

‘I don’t.’ This time the sigh escaped. ‘Not any more. She was killed in a car accident when she was nineteen.’

‘Oh…I’m so sorry, Hugh. I didn’t know.’

‘No,’ Hugo agreed sombrely. ‘Of course you didn’t. I never talk about her.’

The silence grew and had the effect of highlighting the distance suddenly apparent between them. Why had Hugo never spoken of such a personal catastrophe? Joan glanced at him several times before speaking again.

‘It’ll be nice to see her again, then. Maggie, I mean,’ she finished awkwardly.

‘I’m not sure about that,’ Hugo said slowly. Maybe it was time to be more open with Joan. The friendship had ticked along at a snail’s pace for so long now. Maybe it was time to test the waters and see if it was ever going to come to anything really meaningful. Time to give more of himself than he’d ever been prepared to with any woman.

‘Actually,’ he said quietly, ‘I haven’t seen Maggie since she and Felicity headed off to Europe when they were eighteen. That’s twelve years ago.’

‘And the accident happened overseas?’

‘In Greece.’ Hugo nodded. ‘They were in a van and it got hit by a bus and rolled over a cliff.’

‘And Maggie was driving?’

‘No.’ Hugo raised an eyebrow. ‘What makes you think that?’

Joan frowned. ‘I just got the impression that maybe you blame Maggie for the accident and that’s why you’re not so keen to see her again.’

‘Maybe I do,’ Hugo admitted. ‘Felicity should have been off to university when she finished school. She was very bright and she had a passion for history which was what she intended to major in. Taking a year off to go traipsing around Europe seemed like a waste of time. It was Maggie’s idea, of course.’

‘Why of course?’

‘Because it was always Maggie who had the ideas. Felicity was only too happy to trail in her wake. Anything Maggie thought of doing was wildly exciting but she would never have gone to Europe by herself. She never had that kind of confidence.’

‘And has Maggie never even made contact with you since the accident?’ Joan sounded horrified. ‘Surely she realised how devastating it must have been for you?’

‘She was pretty devastated herself.’ Hugo had known at the time that keeping his distance had been harsh but it had been the only way he could possibly have coped. ‘She was quite badly hurt in the accident herself so she couldn’t travel back for the funeral. She wrote a couple of times but I never got round to answering and months turned into years and I suppose neither of us would have wanted to revisit that part of our lives.’

‘So why did you offer to let her stay with you?’

‘I didn’t. My mother offered on my behalf.’ Hugo shook his head as he smiled. ‘She’s another woman who can be rather persuasive.’ He took a deep breath. ‘But never mind. I’m sure I can cope with seeing Maggie. I moved on from all that a long time ago.’ Hugo’s smile was for Joan this time. ‘That’s probably why I never bothered mentioning it to you.’

‘I’m glad you have,’ Joan told him. ‘So I guess it’s a good thing that you’re getting this visitor. Let’s just hope she’s not intending to stay for too long.’ She reached for the silver serving spoon. ‘Would you like some more of this trout? It’s not so bad after all, is it?’

The house was softly lit. Warm, inviting and…empty. Well, almost empty. Maggie grinned at the three dogs who were circling her feet, sniffing suspiciously.

‘It’s OK, guys. I’m not a burglar and I’ve got permission, see?’ She waved the note she had taken down from the front door. ‘This says I can make myself at home, the blue bedroom’s mine, there’s soup on the stove and you lot don’t bite.’ She held out her hand to one of the rangy black and white dogs, who backed away warily.

Maggie smiled ruefully. ‘I hope your owner’s a bit friendlier than you are. Or is he the one who bites?’

Pretending she was not miffed by the wall of canine suspicion, Maggie quickly explored the house. The main room was not huge but it felt spacious due to its open-plan design, leading at one end to the kitchen and dining area and opening to a television den at the other end. French doors to the verandah were draped against the chill of the night but Maggie could imagine the view on an early summer’s morning, watching the sun rise over the lake. The bedrooms also had French doors opening to the long verandah and Maggie had already spotted the casual wicker furniture on the wide outdoor extension to the house. Service areas, including two bathrooms and a laundry, were on the side of the house away from the lake but basically the dwelling was single-room width, built on the lake’s edge like a holiday cottage.

It seemed ancient. The wide, wooden floorboards had the rich patina of age and matched hardwood beams latticed the plaster ceilings of most of the rooms. The bathrooms and kitchen were up to date, however, and the old coal range that was keeping some delicious-smelling soup hot looked as though it had been kept purely for its aesthetic value. Furnishings appeared to have been chosen for comfort rather than style and the huge leather chair beside the woodburner looked as inviting as the soup smelt.

Maggie was tired. She had started the long drive down from the ferry terminal at Picton yesterday and had stopped overnight in Christchurch. She thought she’d paced the journey well but the interruption of dealing with that accident had drained any remaining energy. She pulled only the bare essentials of her possessions from her car to put in the spare bedroom with the pale, blue walls and darker blue bed covering, and then went to explore more thoroughly what the kitchen had to offer. A loaf of bread topped a wooden board beside the stove and Maggie helped herself to a thick slice, breaking off a piece of crust to nibble as she hunted for a suitable mug to ladle soup into. She noticed the eyes then. Four of them, with another two lurking a little further back. She grinned.

‘Oh…I’m not so bad now that I’m holding food, is that the story?’

A tail thumped. Then another. Maggie could have sworn the dogs exchanged vaguely embarrassed glances before sidling closer. Maggie held out what was left of the crust. ‘So, who’s going to be brave enough to go first, then?’

She hoped Hugo wasn’t a big eater. If he’d intended that loaf of bread for his breakfast he might be annoyed to find that Maggie had shared so much of it with his pets as she’d bribed them into friendship.

‘Mind you, we don’t have to tell him, do we?’ Maggie put the empty soup mug down on top of the pile of medical journals covering the table beside the chair. She curled her legs up so that she could lean more comfortably into the lovely old leather cushions. She scratched the set of ears that stood out from the rest by having one black and one white. The dog closed its eyes wearily.

‘Come on, then.’ Maggie drew her legs into a tighter ball and patted the space she had created on the chair beside her. ‘You look like you need a rest as much as I do.’

It was later than Hugo had intended by the time he headed home but he hadn’t expected to have to spend his evening making amends. He still wasn’t quite sure what he had been trying to atone for. His lateness, initially, but then what? Not Joan’s suspicions about him having a female house guest. He had no reason to feel guilty about that. It was more likely to have been the revelation of how little they really knew each other that had made him feel so guilty.