She was a joy to treat, revelling in every new taste with a defenceless candour that went to his heart.
‘You aren’t eating,’ she challenged, looking up from the steak dressed with the chef’s ‘special’ sauce.
‘I’m enjoying watching you too much,’ he said, and was surprised at himself. Normally he avoided any remark, however trivial, that savoured of self-revelation. It was her, he decided. Her frankness demanded a response.
‘It’s yummy,’ she said blissfully.
‘And there’s even better to come.’
‘Ice cream?’
‘That’s right. We’ll have everything on the menu.’
‘Go on, I’m more grown up than that.’ She looked at him slyly. ‘Well, almost.’
He groaned. ‘Am I ever going to be forgiven for the things I said that time?’
‘Well, I guess you were right. Mind you, I’d die before admitting it.’
He grinned. She laughed back, and suddenly their first meeting became a shared joke.
‘I’m surprised you want to bother with a kids’ party,’ she said. ‘Don’t we all seem very juvenile to you?’
‘My mother wanted me to come, and I guess I did it to please her.’
‘That was kind of you. Like the soap.’
Again he knew the unfamiliar impulse to frankness. After resisting for a moment he yielded and found it unexpectedly easy. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Part of me’s trying to ease my conscience for being a bad son.’
‘A bad son? You? No way. Your mother’s terribly proud of you, all you’ve achieved-top marks in all your exams, really going places.’
‘But in a sense I’ve done it at her expense, or at the expense of the family, which is the same thing. You can only give all of yourself to one thing at a time. I’ve held back from my family and given myself to work, which is something that benefits me, first and most.’
‘But what about the people you heal? You benefit them. If you were only concerned about yourself you could be a banker or-or anything that makes a lot of money.’
‘But I’d have been a terrible banker and I’m a good doctor. It makes sense to play to my skills. And by the time I’ve finished I’ll have made a lot of money. But I have to be the best. And I will, whatever the cost.’
He’d gone further than he’d meant to. She was staring at him.
‘You really mean that, don’t you?’
‘Do I sound very cold-blooded? Should I have talked about my mission to do good?’
She shook her head. ‘People with missions to do good scare me. They always want to tell other people what to do. As long as you make sick people well, who cares about your reasons?’
‘That’s what I think,’ he said, feeling a load slip away from him at finding someone who understood.
Suddenly he was talking, telling her about the frustrations of his childhood when he’d dreamed of escaping this dull little town where his parents had lived their contented lives.
‘They’re happy, and that’s fine for them, but this place couldn’t be enough for me.’
‘What would be enough?’
‘The top.’
‘But which tree? You’re working in a hospital now, aren’t you?’
‘That’s right. Long hours, low pay. It’s back-breaking and you don’t get any sleep. No matter. It’s great. I’m learning, and I’ll get there.’
‘And what then?’
‘Then? Then I’ll have everything I want.’
He knew, even as he said it, that it couldn’t be true unless ‘everything’ included her. But he shied from the thought. It wasn’t in the plan.
‘I suppose we ought to put in an appearance at the funfair,’ he said.
‘Ooh, yes,’ she said, becoming young again.
They went on everything, the scenic railway, the dodgems, the carousel, the big wheel. The wheel scared her and he had to put his arm around her. Then she forgot her fear and laughed up into his face, so that everything vanished, leaving just the two of them high up above the world.
And that was when he kissed her, with the stars raining about them and the sound of fireworks all around. He didn’t know if the fireworks were real or inside himself, but they glittered and sparkled as she threw her arms about his neck and gave him back kiss for kiss.
‘I’ve been plotting for ages how to kiss you,’ he said when they freed their lips, gasping. ‘And I’m such a coward that I waited until now, when you can’t escape.’
‘I don’t want to escape,’ she said recklessly. ‘Kiss me-kiss me-’
He kissed her again and again, revelling in the response he could feel in her eager young body, and promising himself-chivalrous idiot that he was-not to abuse her trust.
Looking back down the years to that night, Andrew judged his young self harshly.
But sometimes he would sigh and murmur, ‘Just the same, I was a better man then than I am now.’
CHAPTER FOUR
AT SEVENTEEN Ellie reckoned life should be fun, and romance was part of that fun. You played the field, and if you won the man you’d set your heart on that was wonderful, but there were still other men in the world.
Of course she was crazy about Andrew-for the moment. They would date, and love each other; she would find a job in the same town as his hospital.
But she was startled to discover that his feelings were of a different order. He was a serious, dedicated man in his love as in his work. He offered her total commitment and he demanded the same in return.
Away from him Ellie made firm resolutions about cooling their relationship, refusing to let him make plans for their future. But with him her plans melted in the intensity of his adoration.
‘Darling, darling, Ellie, you do love me, don’t you?’
And as she looked into his glowing eyes the only possible answer was yes.
He never actually asked her to marry him, simply started talking about it as a foregone conclusion. Her mother was thrilled that she’d found ‘a nice, steady young man’ so soon, and she didn’t know how to tell Mum that Andrew’s steadiness was a point against him.
She was flattered, overwhelmed, confused, ecstatic, filled with love, longing and desire. The depth of his feelings touched her heart and made her tender towards him, which increased his love. It was all sweet and wonderful, but down the end of the rose strewn tunnel she saw dirty plates, dirty socks, dirty nappies.
‘What’s wrong with having children while we’re young?’ he asked when she managed to voice some doubts.
‘Because it’s not how I want to spend my youth,’ she flung back. ‘I want a career first.’
‘Darling, one day I’m going to be a top consultant. I don’t want my wife doing shampoos and sets.’
‘Why you-you dinosaur!’ she exploded.
Soon they were in the middle of a blazing row, their first. Ellie was upset, but Andrew was torn apart. His misery shocked her and she flung herself into his arms, longing only to comfort him. Making up was blissful, but afterwards she was more firmly tied to him than ever, and she was beginning to feel like a prisoner.
Yet she couldn’t break away. He filled her with bittersweet emotions that she’d never known before, so intense that it was like living in a new, glowing world. She could only cling on and hope for a miracle to make everything right.
His mother was appalled at the prospect of his early marriage to a girl who could bring him no advantages. ‘You could do a great deal better for yourself,’ she snapped in Ellie’s presence.
But Andrew slipped his arm about his beloved’s shoulder, drawing her close to his tall, strong body, and said gently, ‘She loves me, as much as I love her. Could I do better than that?’ Then his voice rose joyfully. ‘Mum, be
