THEY did the Empire State Building. They had to queue for two hours but at the top she gasped and decreed the view was worth every minute. She produced a camera and took the shots every tourist took, but she insisted on having him front and centre.
‘This is your town,’ she said. ‘I’m visiting Jake’s Manhattan. This is Jake with the Statue of Liberty in the background. Very nice.’
A tourist offered to take a shot of them together and she beamed. ‘That’ll be good for later,’ she decreed, handing over her camera.
‘Later?’ He held her tightly as the German gentleman lined up the shot-because holding her close seemed the right thing to do. Also it was a good excuse to keep her near him. He hadn’t forgotten how good she felt. His body was reminding him every time she came within touching distance.
He could hardly understand her smile, he thought. She must be jet-lagged. She was facing an uncertain future alone and, here she was, cheerfully soaking up every minute of her two-day visit.
She was gorgeous.
But then… ‘This will be a shot of Mummy and Daddy for our baby’s first album,’ she told him as he held her-and desire gave way to something else entirely, a range of emotions he couldn’t begin to understand. But he kept her still, and when he saw the resulting picture he thought no one would know by his fixed smile that he felt as if he’d been punched.
But he did feel as though he’d been punched. No matter how many traffic fumes he’d inhaled last night, he didn’t have his head round this.
This lovely, vibrant woman was carrying his baby.
And she was only here until tomorrow.
Would he go to Australia for the birth? He must, he thought, as Tori went back to snapping views. And what if something happened early? A miscarriage. A problem later in the pregnancy? What sort of antenatal care would she get in Combadeen?
How could he let her go back to Australia?
But how could he not? He had no hold on her. They’d had, what, a two-day relationship. There was no way a future could be based on that.
But still…
Still, he didn’t know what to think.
Finally viewed out, Tori headed to the elevators. A big guy, overweight and overbearing, barged into the elevator beside Tori and pushed her backwards. He saw Tori’s hand instinctively move to protect a bump that wasn’t there yet, and he wanted to move his body in between them and thump the guy into the bargain.
He wanted to say, ‘That’s my kid in there. Watch it.’
More. He wanted to say, ‘That’s my woman, and I’ll thump anyone who touches her.’
Only, of course, he didn’t. He was civilised and careful; he was a senior medico with a responsible job; he was someone who taught nonaggressive solutions to his staff when patients were violent.
More. He was a guy who walked alone.
But he still wanted to punch the guy’s lights out.
His phone rang while he was thinking of it. He answered it as he always did.
‘Dr. Hunter?’
‘Speaking.’
‘Jancey Ian? Her intrathecal catheter’s packed up.’
He paused as the rest of the elevator streamed out around them. Swearing under his breath.
Jancey was a tiny African-American woman in her mid-seventies and she had advanced bone metastases. He’d inserted morphine and local anaesthetic via an intrathecal catheter to stop pain that had been almost unbearable.
But not only did Jancey have crumbling vertebrae from the cancer, she also had severe arthritis. It had taken skill, experience and luck to get the drugs flowing to just the right spot. It’d be a miracle if any of the junior doctors on duty could get the catheter back in.
‘Level of pain?’ he asked, knowing already what the answer would be.
‘Bad.’ Mardi Fry was the senior nurse on the ward. If she said
‘I can’t…’
‘You can.’ Tori was suddenly in front of him, facing him down. She’d only heard his side of the conversation, but obviously she’d guessed the rest. ‘I’m an unexpected and un-invited guest, and I’m a very happy tourist. Don’t you dare leave someone in pain because of me. I’ll take a cab to Central Park. Meet me there if you can.’
‘Tori…’
‘Strawberry Fields at two o’clock,’ she said, heading to the cab rank already and calling back over her shoulder. ‘That’s the bit I most want to see in Central Park. Or back at your apartment at six.’
And she was gone before he could even argue.
She was asleep when he found her, right where she’d said she’d be, in Central Park, snoozing on a bench in the weak autumn sunlight, with a bag of uneaten bagels on her knee. He touched her on the shoulder and she opened her eyes and smiled at him.
He thought back to the number of dates he’d had to interrupt for medical necessity. There’d always been reproof. But Tori was smiling at him as if this was a whole new date.
‘Hey, it’s only two o’clock,’ she said. ‘Well done. All fixed?’
‘Piece of cake,’ he said. ‘Catheter went in like a dream.’ In fact, it had been a nightmare, but it was okay now. Jancey was out of pain and asleep.
She searched his face, and he thought she saw the truth, but she said nothing. No recriminations. No questions
A woman in a million.
‘So what were you dreaming of?’ he asked.
‘Names.’
‘Names?’
‘Baby names,’ she said, as if he was a little bit thick. ‘For some reason now I’m in Strawberry Fields I’m thinking Jude. But I’m also thinking maybe Elizabeth for my mother?’
‘You don’t sound sure.’
‘And why would I be sure? This baby’s the size of a peanut, and do you know how many books there are on children’s names? If you help me we’ll barely get through them.’
‘Do you want me to help?’
There was a moment’s silence, and then, carefully, as if she was bestowing a huge honour on him, she broke her bagel in half.
‘Share,’ she said. ‘That’s why I’m here. Though I have to say if your mother was Gertie it’s not going to happen.’
‘It’s not, but I don’t think I want anyone called after my mother anyway.’
‘That’s right, she was a horror,’ Tori said cheerfully, bestowing his parentage the attention it deserved. Which in itself was strangely healing. ‘That makes life easier. Can we go to Tiffany’s now?’
So they went to Tiffany’s, a place Jake had never been to. Yes, it was famous, but it was definitely a girl place. He felt like waiting outside, only then he couldn’t watch Tori enjoy herself, which was growing more and more unthinkable.
So in he went. The doorman welcomed them and the unobtrusive staff watched with indulgent eyes. Of all the women in here Tori stood out. She was a woman with no rings on her fingers, nothing, no jewellery at all.
But Tori wasn’t looking at anything she might buy. She was intent on the fantasy.
‘Oh, wow,’ she breathed, as she reached a display case of tiaras that must be worth a king’s ransom. Or several kings’ ransoms, he thought, as he checked out the prices.
‘Aren’t they wonderful,’ Tori said, giggling. ‘What if you were wearing it and it fell off in the mud?’
