Australian Affairs: Seduced: The Accidental Romeo

Harry didn’t look up as Abby slunk off, only for Kelly to take her place. ‘Er, Marnie…’ Kelly started. ‘I wrote in the request notes that I don’t do early shifts at the weekends, yet you’ve put me down for an early shift on Saturday next week and again a fortnight later.’

‘I saw that you had requested that, Kelly, but you didn’t write down a reason. I really am trying my best to accommodate everyone. Why can’t you do an early shift on a Saturday?’

‘Well, the thing is…’ Kelly attempted, and Harry listened to the discomfort in her voice as she tried to give a suitable reason. ‘I like to go out on a Friday night.’

‘Of course you do!’ Marnie answered calmly. ‘We all love to go out and get blethered on a Friday night—heaven knows, we need it after a week in this place—which is why we share around the pleasure of a lie-in on a Saturday. Everyone takes their turn.’

And with that she walked off.

‘I want to loathe her,’ Kelly said. ‘I have every reason to loathe her and yet…’

Harry glanced up. There was Marnie, catching the poor maintenance man before he escaped as she had plenty more jobs for him.

‘She’s efficient,’ Harry said.

‘She’s cold,’ Kelly corrected. ‘She’s been here for a couple of weeks and, do you know, nobody knows one single thing about her.’

Kelly was right and it was unusual. Emergency was a place that thrived on gossip, yet Marnie just didn’t partake. Yes, long before he’d noticed her beautiful hands he had noticed that there was no wedding or engagement ring. Not that that meant anything—after all, he still wore his. He’d also noticed a large bunch of flowers has been delivered on the day that she had arrived. But, as She had taken delivery and inhaled the fragrances of the bouquet, Marnie had offered no explanation as to the sender. She never spoke about last night or what her plans were for the weekend. All she really spoke about was work and yet, no matter how he tried to tell himself it didn’t matter, Harry kept finding himself wanting to know a little bit more.

She was intriguing.

It was as if she looked at the world through a different end of the telescope from everyone else—a case in point was Juan. All the staff raved about Juan and how lucky Cate was, how wonderful the wedding would be and what a great catch he was.

Marnie screwed up her nose.

‘He’s a fine doctor, but he’d drive me bonkers to live with,’ Marnie said. Everyone was trying really hard not to like her but sometimes she just lit up the department with her commentary. Just like the windows she insisted on opening, she made the drab suddenly brighter.

‘But he’s gorgeous,’ Abby said.

‘He’s a bit too New Age for me and I’d get tired of him being, oh, so understanding.’ Marnie seemed to think about it for a moment and then shook her head. ‘Imagine trying to have a row with that…’

‘So you like a good row?’ Harry asked.

‘Of course,’ Marnie said. ‘Can you imagine trying to row with Juan? “No, I don’t want my shoulders massaged…”’

Yet as funny and as intriguing as she could be, Marnie was also, as Harry had guessed she would be, completely immutable in certain areas.

‘Marnie…’ Harry approached her after taking a call. ‘Day care just rang and Adam’s not feeling too well. There’s still a bit of a backlog and I thought I might just pop him in the staffroom—’

‘Harry,’ Marnie interrupted, ‘the staffroom really isn’t the place for a child that is not feeling well.’

‘I know that but it will only be for an hour. I’m just asking if the nurse in the obs ward could pop her head in now and then.’

‘Sorry.’ Marnie didn’t look remotely sorry as she shook her head. ‘She’s got post-op patients to keep an eye on. If Adam is unwell, he needs to be at home.’

‘You know…’ Harry gritted his teeth and stopped the words from coming out as they reached the tip of his tongue.

‘Feel free to say it,’ Marnie invited.

Instead, he chose a different tack. ‘Fine, if no one can keep an eye out then I’ll ring my seventy-year-old babysitter and ask her to drive over…’

‘Grand.’

Except, when he rang Evelyn, Harry received the worrying news that she had just been to the doctor. The rash that she hadn’t told Harry about just happened to be shingles and she wouldn’t be able to help out with the children for a few days at least.

‘Don’t worry about the kids, you just get well, Evelyn,’ Harry said. He didn’t want to worry Evelyn with the places his mind had suddenly gone to—namely the twins contracting chickenpox. They had been immunised, surely? But, then, Jill had seen to all that. As both a doctor and a parent Harry’s mind was racing through several scenarios even as he put down the phone. ‘She can’t come,’ a rather distracted Harry told Marnie.

‘Then you’d better get Adam home.’

‘You know, you really are inflexible at times,’ Harry snapped.

‘Oh, but I’m very flexible, Harry,’ Marnie responded. ‘In fact, if twenty critically ill patients came pouring through that door at this very moment you’d see just how flexible I can be. I know exactly where my staff are and what they are doing, and I can call them at any given time because they are not keeping an eye out for a sick child.’

She made a very good point; unfortunately, Harry was in no mood to see it. He was trying to do the best by the department and do his best by his children too. He was worried that an unwell Adam might be in the early stages of chickenpox, which meant, if he was, no doubt any day Charlotte would be too. Marnie just didn’t seem to understand.

‘You just don’t get it,’ Harry said, picking up his jacket. ‘You’re not a mum.’

CHAPTER FIVE (#ub01c4e99-c18f-5a18-bea3-8d592f9bfbaf)

IT HURT.

And it still hurt as Marnie drove home but she did her best to push it aside when there was a knock at the door a little while later and it was her youngest brother, Ronan.

He’d just started work and was frantically saving up to move out from home, but every now and then he came and stayed for a couple of days with Marnie.

‘How’s the new job?’ Ronan asked.

‘Frustrating,’ Marnie said. ‘It would be a great department if there were enough staff and people didn’t keep using the place as a drop-in crèche…’ She stopped herself from elaborating. ‘Don’t mind me,’ Marnie said, but Harry’s words were still smarting and, in no mood to make dinner, she suggested that they eat out. ‘My treat,’ Marnie said. ‘On the condition that you have dinner waiting for me tomorrow when I get home.’

It was nice to get out. Marnie drove along the beach road and into the small town and they soon found a gorgeous pub and sat outside, overlooking the bay, in the late sunlight.

Ronan, who was permanently hungry, dived into a huge steak while Marnie had prawns and a mango salad and enjoyed just sitting back and relaxing in front of the view, as she had promised herself she would of an evening. She wouldn’t trade places with anyone. Watching a family on the next table, the mother spooning puréed pumpkin into a hungry baby’s mouth as the father tried to amuse an overtired toddler, Marnie was very glad to be able to simply linger over her meal with her brother. She listened as Ronan told her about his work, and then got to, perhaps, the real reason he had asked to visit.

‘You know what Mum’s like,’ Ronan said. ‘I’m just warning you that she was upset you didn’t come and visit at the weekend, or the last.’

‘She surely knows how busy I am with work,’ Marnie said. ‘And moving! She could’ve come and helped with the move, like you did—she knows she doesn’t need a written invitation to come and see me.’

‘I think that she’s just upset that you’ve moved so far.’

‘It’s not as if I’ve gone back home to Ireland.’ Marnie sighed. ‘I’m an hour’s drive away.’

‘She thinks you’re punishing her for us emigrating…’ Ronan attempted to make light of it but it was a bit of a dark subject and Marnie had to push out a smile.

‘I’ll try and get over one evening, but…’ Marnie shook her head; maybe she was avoiding her parents a bit at the moment but she just didn’t want to discuss it with Ronan. Or rather she simply couldn’t discuss it with anyone in her family. That time of the year was coming up. The time of year that no one in her family ever spoke about because no one in her family knew what to say.

Declan would soon have been thirteen.

She looked over to the little family at the next table—the toddler was eating ice cream now, the baby falling asleep on its mother’s lap, and sometimes, just sometimes, she would like to trade places.