‘I’d like you to come into hospital for a few days,’ Mike suggested as Stan hauled down his sweater. ‘Stan, there doesn’t seem anything wrong with your heart and the last three electrocardiographs have been normal, but if you’re still having the pain…well, something’s going on. Let’s have you in and do a full check-up.’
But Stan would have none of it.
‘Nope. I’m staying here. But you’ll come again next Saturday?’ His voice was anxious and Mike knew just how lonely the old man was.
‘Tell you what,’ Mike suggested. ‘How about if I get the district nurse to call? I’ll still come next week, but she’ll come every other day as well. Just until we’re sure everything’s right.’
But Stan wasn’t having that either. ‘I don’t want a fuss,’ he said definitely. He sighed. ‘Sometimes…well, yeah, I get chest pain and, yeah, I’m miserable but it’s nothing that having Cathy back wouldn’t fix.’ He sighed again and looked closely from Mike to Tess. ‘But look at the pair of you. Here’s me fretting about myself when I should be saying how glad I am to see you finally wrapped around a woman’s little finger, young Mike. You’re smelling of April and May if ever anyone was. So when are you two going to tie the knot?’
Tess blushed and Mike shook his head.
‘That’s for us to know and you to guess,’ he told Stan firmly-but the thought of what lay ahead was warm inside him. He glanced sideways at Tess and smiled-and she smiled straight back.
‘Don’t hang around too much, then,’ Stan begged. ‘It’s too bloody important. You grab her while she’s here. And hold on for dear life.’
The conversation in the Aston Martin on the way home was strained. Mike was trying to think about Stan, when all he wanted was to concentrate on Tess. They’d left Strop snoozing under Henry’s bed for the afternoon, and it was lovely to be able to see Tessa instead of liver and white spots whenever he glanced sideways, but the sight of Tess-and Tess’s leggings-wasn’t helping his concentration.
‘I’m still worried about Stan,’ he told her stiffly.
‘Mmm.’ Tess pulled her knees up to her chin and hugged them. She was wearing black leggings and a vast purple sweater that covered her from her knees right up. She looked smashing.
‘I don’t think he’s eating,’ she said.
‘Why do you think that?’
‘Well, when we went there last week, I prowled,’ she told him. ‘When you had Stan in the bedroom, giving him the complete once-over, I poked my nose into his kitchen cupboards and just had a look at things-like the level of cereal in his cornflakes packet and what groceries there were and where they were. And tonight-when Stan walked us out to the car and I dived back inside because I’d left my bag- I had a fast look again and nearly everything’s exactly the same. He hasn’t touched his cornflakes. There’s exactly the same number of eggs in the fridge as last week and when I picked one up and shook it, it sort of rattled-you know how really old eggs do? I reckon he’s eaten a few bowls of tinned tomato soup, and not a lot else. Even the packet of bread in the freezer is the same one as last week. I ripped a little edge off the packet last week so I’d know it-and it’s the same packet, only about six slices down.’
‘You’re a regular Sherlock Holmes.’
‘I am,’ she said smugly, but her smile faded. ‘Do you agree?’
‘It fits,’ Mike said slowly. ‘That’s one of the reasons I’d like to admit him to hospital. He’s losing a lot of weight.’
‘He’s missing his Cathy so much.’
‘Yeah,’ Mike said grimly. ‘Love’s like that. Once it hits, you can’t get over it.’
‘It’s a problem,’ Tess agreed, with a sideways glance at her love.
Silence. There seemed nothing else to say. The sleek Aston Martin ate up the miles between Jancourt and Bellanor and the silence stretched on and on.
Mike cast his own sideways glance. Tess was now looking straight ahead, peacefully contemplating the evening sky, and he came to an instant decision. This was impossible. He wanted her so much… Taking her in his arms each night, it was suddenly no longer enough.
‘Marry me, Tess,’ he said suddenly-urgently-and then held his breath.
‘Marry you?’
‘That’s what I said.’
Tess closed her eyes. He hesitated, and then pulled the car off the road so they were facing down the valley to the town below. A bellbird was calling from the bushland outside the car, high and sweet and lovely.
And Tess sat silent for longer than he had dreamed possible.
‘Tess?’
Surely there was only one answer here. Dear God, he loved her, and Henry had said she wanted marriage. She must love him.
But finally Tess opened her eyes, and as she did he knew what the answer was going to be. She turned to him and shook her head so her flaming curls flew free and her eyes were bleak.
‘I love you, Mike,’ she whispered. ‘But I’m not going to marry you. Not yet.’
He moistened lips that were suddenly dry. His eyes didn’t leave her face.
‘May I ask why not?’
She tilted her chin with that look of defiance and pride he’d first seen in her-a look he’d come to know and love.
‘Because you’re asking me to marry you against your better judgement, and that’s asking for trouble.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean you think you’re letting your mother down. By loving me, you’ve broken your vow. You’d marry me, and then you’d wait for the time when disaster happens. You know it’ll happen some time, and you’re right. Try as I may, if you marry me then some time in the future I’ll interfere with your medicine. Sure, I’ll help. Sure, I’ll be beside you and medicine here will be better because of me, but when I finally get in your way I doubt it’ll count on my part. You’ll hate yourself. And you may well hate me.’
‘You won’t interfere with my medicine,’ he said calmly, surely. ‘And there’s no way I can end up by hating you. Tess, I’ve thought this through.’
‘No, you haven’t. Not properly.’ Tess gave a lopsided grin and a shaky laugh. ‘Mike, life will interfere with your medicine. All sorts of things can happen. A tree could fall on your head and you won’t be effective as a doctor because you’re squashed flat. You’d forgive the tree-or you would if you weren’t squashed-because you haven’t made any vows about never going near trees, but if I alter your life plan one bit and something goes awry because of it, you won’t forgive me. Because when I interfere with your medicine you’ll think it’s because you broke your vow.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I love you, Mike, but I want more than that-and I’m prepared to wait.’
Mike stared straight ahead through the windscreen, trying to sort out her words. Dear God… He was trying to pretend she wasn’t saying exactly what he knew already-what he knew was the truth.
‘This is stupid,’ he said slowly.
‘It might be stupid but it’s how it is,’ she told him, and he knew she wouldn’t budge from her position. He’d been thinking things through, but so had Tess. He was prepared to risk problems because of his vow. What he hadn’t counted on was that Tess wasn’t.
She had it all figured out.
‘Mike, I love you,’ she repeated softly. ‘And I’m prepared to hang in for the long haul here. But I want this disaster to happen before you totally commit yourself to me. I want you to see what loving me is all about-that it means letting life run its course side by side.’
‘That’s what I want.’
‘No, you don’t. Not yet.’ Tess took a deep breath. ‘Look, Mike, let’s leave it. Believe it or not, I know what I’m doing here. I want you so much it hurts, but I’m not letting you make any more vows until you’ve come to terms with the last one you made. Until you let it go and accept that you can live with its release.’
She took his face in her hands and she kissed him gently on the lips. ‘And you don’t see what I mean yet, but I do. You need to wait. We both need to wait, Mike, to see what life throws at us. But no weddings. Just love… And let’s just see if that’s enough.’
