Role Play

He turned a charming smile on the young woman. ‘My pleasure,’ he murmured, and he told her to book in with the receptionist for surgery the following day. ‘Dr Pearce will, of course, assist me and continue with your follow-up,’ he added, and the woman smiled gratefully at both of them and left.

Abbie turned to Leo. ‘Is it really necessary to remove it?’ she asked, her confidence shaken yet again.

He shrugged. ‘Probably not, but it’s the sort of blemish that could easily turn into melanoma, if not now then in the future, and it’s so dead easy to take them off and check. We have a set procedure, by the way, for follow-up of any mole or skin lesion removed in the surgery. All material excised is sent for histology, always, without exception, and the patient is always recalled automatically when the result comes back because if they’ve gone to the lengths of consulting their doctor they’re going to worry till they know the answer one way or the other. The only time we don’t do it ourselves is if we’re sure it’s gone too far for simple excision or in the case of a difficult site.’

‘Difficult as in cosmetically difficult?’

‘Or in one of the areas where nerves are likely to be implicated, like the anterior triangle of the neck, or eyelids, or over the flexor tendons of the fingers, for instance. Cheeks can be difficult, too, both cosmetically and because of the nerves and glands over the jaws. We do what we can, but it’s important to know your limitations. We aren’t plastic surgeons, and some procedures require other skills.’

‘What about this lady?’ Abbie asked doubtfully. ‘Won’t she have some scarring?’

He grinned wryly. ‘No faith, have you? I’m not a complete butcher, Abbie. She might have a tiny scar, but I won’t disfigure her for life, my love. Right, who’s next?’

Abbie, completely fazed by his endearment, floundered on with her surgery until all her patients had been dealt with and the computer had gobbled up Leo’s instructions, obediently spewed out various prescriptions and gone quietly back to sleep.

She glared at it. ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ she grumbled crossly. ‘Horrid thing.’

Leo grinned. ‘Think of the writer’s cramp it’s saved you.’

She snorted. ‘Yes, I’ve got cramp of the brain instead!’

‘All comes of being a simple-minded woman ——’

‘It’s nothing to do with ——’ she began, rising instantly to the bait, but then, seeing his dancing eyes, she subsided immediately. ‘Thank you so much for your help,’ she said instead, batting her lashes at him.

He laughed. ‘Come on, time for visits. Mary Tanner has gone home and I have to pop in and see her. Want to come?’

‘Sure. How’s her husband coping?’ she asked as she packed up her things.

‘I don’t know. That’s one of the things I want to find out.’

She followed him out, returning the patient envelopes to the office as she went.

Predictably, Peggy was waiting with a question. ‘Did you mean to send this urine off on a haematology form?’

‘Oh, hell,’ she muttered.

Behind her Leo tutted and gave a resigned sigh while she quickly filled in the correct form and gave it to the patient practice manager.

‘Sorry, Peggy,’ she said with an apologetic smile, and was greeted with an encouraging pat on the hand.

‘Don’t worry, it’ll come with time.’

‘I wish,’ she muttered under her breath, and then Leo was wheeling her out of the door and towards the car.

‘Now, do you need the loo before we go?’ he asked with heavy tolerance, and she glared at him.

‘No, thank you.’

‘Sure?’

‘Perfectly!’

‘Don’t get grotty with me ——’

‘I’m not getting grotty!’ she said, her voice rising steadily.

He tutted again. ‘You’ll be stamping your foot in a second.’ He hopped over the door and slid behind the wheel, watching with interest as Abbie struggled into the low bucket seat, her skirt riding up as she did so.

She shot him a furious glare. ‘Don’t leer,’ she told him crossly. ‘And anyway, where’s your Volvo? Isn’t it time you got it back?’

‘All in good time — anyway, I get a better view of your legs in Topsy.’

She glowered at him, and he chuckled. ‘God, you’re gorgeous when you’re angry, do you know that?’

She looked hastily away. ‘Where are we going?’

‘To see Mary Tanner, then an elderly lady with congestive heart failure who’s struggling for breath. I’ve put her on Bambuterol but I want to see if it’s doing the trick.’

‘I haven’t heard of it,’ Abbie said, and then could have kicked herself.

‘Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?’ he murmured. ‘In fact, I wouldn’t have expected you to, because it’s pretty new. It’s a bronchodilator like Ventolin, but oral, to give her more prophylactic cover over twenty-four hours. She’s been waking up breathless and in those circumstances an inhaler is a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Anyway, we’ll see if it’s working. Right, here we go.’

The engine purred smoothly to life, and Leo swung the car out on to the road and headed for the Tanners’ house while Abbie tried to appear nonchalant, hold her hair down and keep her knees out of reach all at once.

She failed — at least with the knees. As the car swerved round a corner, so she slid over the leather upholstery and fetched up against the gear lever just as Leo reached for it.

With a gasp she swivelled out of reach but not before the touch of his warm fingers had sent shivers down her spine. He threw her a teasing grin.

‘If you want me to touch you, Abbie, you only have to ask,’ he said softly, and his voice, deep and gravelly, turned her bones to jelly and her resolve to mush.

‘You should be so lucky,’ she mumbled, and let go of her hair to get a firmer grip on the seat. ‘Of course, if you weren’t going round the corners like a bat out of hell I wouldn’t slide around so much.’

‘Your bottom’s too small. If you had a few curves, you’d fit the seat better,’ he replied with a grin.

‘I have curves,’ she told him primly.

His eyes slid over her body and back to the road. ‘I’d noticed — but only on the front.’

Abbie’s top-heaviness had been the bane of her adolescence. All gangly legs and boyishly slim hips, the last thing she had expected or wanted was the lush fullness of her breasts, which had appeared as if by magic when she was thirteen and kept growing out of all proportion to her otherwise streamlined frame. Her brothers had ragged her to death about it, and so she had acquired a complex about a mile wide. As she grew older she had learned to deal with the leers of her male colleagues, and by wearing loose blouses and jackets she had managed to minimise the problem.

Not, apparently, enough to fool Leo. She felt the blush coming and turned away so that he wouldn’t see, but they were at the end of their journey and he pulled up outside the Tanners’ house and turned to her.

‘Coming in?’

‘Only if you’ll stop this endless sexual harassment,’ she told him grimly.

He stopped in the act of climbing out of the car and turned back to her, her face serious for once. ‘Abbie, I’m only teasing.’

‘Are you?’ She made herself look at him. ‘What about all this rubbish about an affair? Is that teasing, too?’

He met her eyes for a long time, the gold flecks gleaming in their blue surround, making his eyes almost green — like a lion, she thought, predatory but content to watch — for now. She licked her lips. ‘Well?’ she prompted.

‘No, that isn’t teasing. I’m more than ready for anything you want to offer. Just say the word. For the rest ——’ He shrugged. ‘You take youself too seriously.’

‘Damn it, Leo, someone has to! I’m sick of being treated like a bimbo just because I’ve got ——’ She floundered to a halt.

‘A chest like a page-three model?’

She flushed furiously and turned away. ‘Exactly. Female exploitation.’

He chuckled. ‘Oh, come on, Abbie — I’ve seen you looking at me. If you’d only admit it was mutual we’d maybe stand a chance.’

‘No way.’

He sighed and finished climbing out of the car. ‘Coming?’

She opened the door, grabbed her skirt and yanked it down as she squirmed out of the seat. As she straightened, she met his eyes and the blue and gold burned bright like a hot flame. The sun glinted on his tawny hair, and he stood quite still, watching her. She felt frozen by his eyes, pinned to the spot, unable to move or look away. He reminded her of a big cat, a lion, relaxed but ready to spring — on her.

She had the distinct feeling that with this particular lion, though, her time was running out. He wasn’t going to be content to watch for much longer — and she felt about as defenceless as a new-born lamb.

CHAPTER THREE

GERRY TANNER greeted them at the door, and Abbie thought his face seemed less drawn than the first time she had seen him.

‘Hi,’ he said with a smile. ‘Come in. Mary’s in the garden at the moment, sunning herself. Can I get you a drink?’

‘Something cold?’ Leo asked hopefully, and Mr Tanner nodded.

‘I made some fresh lemonade this morning for Mary — will that do?’

Abbie couldn’t think of anything more wonderful. It was another scorcher, with the August sun beating relentlessly down on them, and she was desperate for some cool retreat. She found it, moments later, when they left Gerry Tanner getting the drinks and Leo led her through the house and out of the patio doors at the back into the garden.

It was a lovely little oasis, cool and leafy, and they found Mary under a tree on a swinging hammock, fast asleep.

Leo touched her gently on the hand, and her eyes flew open.

She propped herself up on one elbow and smiled self-consciously. ‘Sorry — I must have dropped off.’

Leo returned the smile. ‘Don’t apologise. I’m not surprised you were asleep, it’s so peaceful here.’ He picked up the book that had fallen on to the lawn, and glanced at the cover. ‘It must be riveting,’ he said drily.

Mary laughed. ‘Actually, it is, but I’m finding it difficult to concentrate with the pain-killers.’

She was on a sustained release oral diamorphine, with Maxalon to alleviate the sickness she was suffering as a result, but at least she was kept relatively pain-free. Leo settled himself on a nearby garden chair and eyed his patient thoughtfully.

‘So, how do you feel?’

‘Physically?’

‘That’ll do for a start.’

Mary shrugged. ‘Oh, the pain’s better and I’m not feeling nearly so sick, but I still feel so weak — frustrated, really, sums it up. I just can’t seem to do anything, and I’ve never sat still in my life. The garden’s getting full of weeds, and there are some shrubs I meant to put in over there but I just haven’t got round to it.’

‘I don’t think you ought to flagellate yourself with guilt, Mary,’ Leo told her, his face grave. ‘There are more important things in life than whether a few pounds’ worth of shrubs get put in.’

Mary sighed raggedly. ‘Oh, it’s not just that. I wouldn’t see them flower anyway, so I can’t get excited about it, but I meant to decorate the girls’ rooms last summer, and I just didn’t get round to it. I don’t know — you always think you can do it tomorrow, and now it’s too late because there won’t be any tomorrows, and there just seems to be so much I’ve left undone. I thought I’d have more time …’

Abbie wanted to weep for her, for her frustration and anger, for her guilt, for all she left unsaid, but above all for the untimely end that drew ever nearer.

Leo, too, was clearly touched by her sorrow. He asked, very quietly, ‘How are you getting on with Gerry and the girls?’

‘Oh, not brilliantly, you know — he still doesn’t seem to want to accept the fact that I’m dying, and the girls just avoid the subject all the time. I just wish someone would acknowledge it so I could talk to them about their future!’

Leo shook his head. ‘Perhaps they just don’t know how to talk to you about it.’

She shrugged again. ‘I just feel — I don’t know — cut off, I suppose. As if it isn’t happening to me, and no one will give me the chance to talk about it, to say the things I need to say.’

‘Such as?’

‘Oh — well, that I’m sorry for the things I’ve done that have annoyed them over the years, that I’ve forgiven them for things they’ve done — that I love them. I don’t know. I want to give Gerry a foolproof list of instructions for bringing up the girls, and I want to answer all their questions before they even occur to them to ask, and I want to be sure that they’re equipped for the world. It’s such a ghastly place, and I don’t know how they’ll cope … Basically I think I just want to leave everything in order before I say goodbye, but I don’t know how to start.’

Leo leaned across and squeezed her hand. ‘Everyone’s different, but we all have our own way of coping. Some of us are just better at it than others, and at the moment Gerry’s way of coping is denial. Don’t worry, I’ll try and talk to him and see if I can help him come to terms with it so you can talk to each other and say all the things that need to be said.’

She sighed shakily. ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it — not when the crunch comes.’

‘You will,’ Leo assured her softly. ‘When the time comes, you’ll find the way — and if you still can’t there are plenty of people available who can help you to start talking to each other about it.’

Mary gazed wistfully across the garden for a while, then turned back to them with a sigh. ‘I think Gerry’s angry with me for leaving him.’

‘I expect he is. He doesn’t want to be a widower in his forties with the responsibility for bringing up two young girls.’

Mary gave a lop-sided grin. ‘I’m not exactly ecstatic about it myself!’

Leo’s mouth softened in a gentle smile of understanding. ‘No — no, I imagine you aren’t, but for you at least dying will be the end of the road. For them, in many ways, it’s just the beginning, and that’s bound to be frightening. Fear often makes us angry.’

Abbie watched as Mary’s face became pensive. ‘I don’t know how they’ll cope.’

‘We’ll be here for them — they can talk to the staff at the hospice, and all the staff at our practice are at their disposal. They know that. All of us are able to help with practical as well as emotional issues, and the social services are very good. What about your solicitor?’

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