and Abbey was almost satisfied.
She gave herself one last critical look in the mirror before she went to answer the door. Maybe her soft white frock was a little worn but it was still pretty, with a low scooped neckline, no sleeves and a skirt that flared out into soft folds almost to her ankles. Abbey’s close-cropped curls were brushed until they shone and she’d even scrounged a little make-up from a store she hadn’t used since John died.
‘Your mummy looks pretty,’ she told Jack in a voice that sounded defiant. Jack was dressed in his newest pyjamas and was clearly not impressed. He had a new game. The chocolate bowl was now clean, but Jack had it permanently over his head. He staggered about like a flannelette and plastic robot, bumping into everything in sight and chuckling with glee. Now he hauled his bowl off his head, checked out the new version of his mother-and stuck his bowl back.
Abbey stuck her tongue out at her now blind son.
‘As a first comment, I’d have to say your appraisal stinks,’ she told her son, but she smiled and went to answer the door, feeling good.
That lasted a whole ten seconds. Abbey swung open the door and her feeling of satisfaction in her person, her little house and the evening in general faded to nothing.
Felicity was just gorgeous.
Of course she was. She was Ryan’s intended wife, after all, and Abbey might have known Ryan could never marry anyone second rate.
Felicity was tall-almost as tall as Ryan-and willowslim, with legs that seemed to go on for ever. Her dress must have cost a bomb and it was straight out of the New York collections. Elegant and understated, it was high at the neck and minimal everywhere else, sleekly black and hugging Felicity’s body as if it had been sewn on her. Felicity’s long blonde hair hung down freely, beautifully cut and silken smooth. Luminous blue eyes gazed at Abbey with lazy interest, and her perfectly painted mouth curved into a smile of greeting.
It was all Abbey could do not to slam the door shut again.
But Ryan was beside Felicity, looking so handsome he almost took Abbey’s breath away. His dark suit looked as expensive as Felicity’s gown, but the smile behind his eyes was infinitely warmer than Felicity’s. He smiled straight down at her and Abbey felt her heart turn to butter.
‘Boo,’ said Jack. He appeared from behind his mother’s skirts, lifted his bowl-and then saw the newcomers. Stunned by the power of his boo, he scuttled off toward the kitchen, his bowl back in place. He made it as far as the first wall, thumped against it hard, toppled over and started to wail.
After that, the evening went straight downhill.
The meal itself was fine.
Abbey’s cooking couldn’t be faulted. With Jack tucked safely in bed-still clutching his bowl ready for robotics in the morning-Abbey served and tried to take part in a conversation in which she felt increasingly uneasy. Felicity ate as if she hardly noticed what she was eating, making no comment on the trouble Abbey had gone to. She chatted brightly, with an air Abbey knew from long ago. Ryan’s mother had it down to an art form.
It was the air of a social superior putting the lower orders at their ease.
‘This house is charming, Abbey,’ Felicity said pleasantly. ‘It’s just so quaint. Almost an artwork in itself. If I could lift it up and take it back to New York it’d sell for a fortune.’
‘With or without the rising damp?’ Abbey managed a smile and then tried to at least make the conversation medical. When in doubt, work. ‘Ryan tells me you’re an oncologist. While you’re here I wonder if I could have a talk to you about one or two cancer patients and their treatment. I’d very much appreciate it.’
She would, too. It was hard sometimes to be an isolated family doctor, suspecting that the treatment she was giving was less than optimal but not sure. With simply no time to attend conferences and keep up to date, Abbey called for specialist advice often, but sometimes her patients refused to go to Cairns to see someone better qualified. If she had someone on the spot… a well-trained oncologist… she’d love to know what the latest treatments were.
But Felicity was holding her hands up in horror.
‘I’m in research,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t see actual patients any more. Ryan and I are heading for what we think of as ideal medical practices. Ones where we don’t handle grubby patients at all.’
‘Oh. Of course.’ Abbey cleared the dinner plates and counted to ten. Then she tried again. ‘Actually, I’d only like to talk to you about treatments. I am a bit out of touch here, and it’d be lovely if you could give me an hour or so of your time-just to answer a few questions that have been troubling me.’
‘That’s what journals are for,’ Felicity said lightly. ‘I think you’ve taken up enough of my honeymoon, don’t you, dear?’
It was the ‘dear’ that got her.
Abbey turned to find Ryan glowering, and she couldn’t figure out whether he was glowering at her for asking the question or glowering at Felicity for rebuffing her so well.
It didn’t matter. Ryan Henry was engaged to the cow and he was responsible. Abbey glowered right back at him. She glowered at the pair of them. She glowered at the kitchen in general.
‘There’s chocolate mousse,’ she said tightly, and dumped it on the table with a slap that would, if she’d been waitressing at the Ritz, have got her the sack before she could have blinked. Which was just what she wanted. She wanted to be dismissed. She felt young and country-bumpkin frumpish and she even wanted Ryan to go home. Just get them both out of here.
She ate one spoonful of chocolate mousse-funny that Jack liked it because as far as Abbey could tell it tasted like mud-and then the phone rang.
Thank heaven for phones. Only this time the thought was inappropriate.
Abbey lifted the receiver and it was Marg Miller.
‘
Chocolate mousse, Felicity-even Ryan-forgotten, Marg Miller suddenly had Abbey’s full attention. There was no mistaking the terror flooding down the line.
‘Marg, what is it? No! Marg, you need to stop crying. Take your time. Three deep breaths and then say what’s wrong.’
Abbey waited while the ragged breathing steadied. When Marg spoke again, at least Abbey could understand her.
‘Abbey, it’s Ian. He came home last night. From Sydney. Abbey, he looks just awful…’
‘He’s ill?’
‘Yes, but… Not ill… I mean… Abbey, he’s gone…’
‘Is he dead?’
The shock tactic worked. Marg gave a terrified gasp and then steadied. When she spoke again her voice was almost calm.
‘Abbey, I just don’t know.’
‘Is he there with you?’ Abbey had visions of a heart attack now. Ian dead on Marg’s kitchen floor. She cast an urgent glance at Ryan, who was rising to his feet. She had Ryan’s total attention, as Marg Miller had hers.
‘No. He’s not. Abbey, that’s just it. I don’t know…’
‘Marg, what is it that you’re afraid of?’ Abbey demanded harshly, making her voice as authoritative as she could. ‘Quickly. Just say. I can’t help unless you do.’
Silence.
And then Marg’s voice, breaking with sobs again.
‘Abbey, he came home just miserable. He’d hardly speak to me. Just went to bed and stayed there. Today he went out for a walk. He walked for ages and when he came home he seemed… well, odd. But he wouldn’t say what was wrong. Then tonight… I had to go out to a CWA dinner and Ian said just go. He said I mustn’t stay home because of him.
‘So I went but when I got there I started thinking-you know when you think there’s something really, awfully wrong but you don’t know what? And I came home. But he’s not here. Abbey, there’s a note on my bed, saying goodbye. And he’s sorry. And… and his car’s gone and… Abbey, I know this is stupid but so is the hose I keep by the kitchen door. Abbey, he wouldn’t… You don’t think…? He wouldn’t-’
‘What’s he driving?’ Abbey snapped.
‘A red Corolla.’
