‘Because he’s living with you.’
‘Hey!’
Enough. Lillian had eaten enough, and this conversation was getting entirely out of hand. She rose and rang the bell and managed an uncertain smile down at Lillian. Moving right on…
‘That was great, Lillian. You’ve eaten about half of what I intend to eat tonight. It was a really good dinner.’
‘Don’t ring the bell,’ Lillian told her. ‘I’ll be fine by myself. I won’t make myself sick.’
She would. Of course she would. Lizzie had succeeded in distracting her enough to make her eat, but that was the easy part. The hard bit was keeping it down.
‘Sorry, Lillian, but you know the deal.’
‘Don’t you trust me?’
‘No.’
Lillian gave her a reluctant smile. ‘Oh, well…’ She shrugged. ‘If you’re going to be picky.’
‘I’m going to be picky.’ She touched Lillian lightly on the cheek. ‘I can almost see dimples, my girl. We’re succeeding. So you’re going to keep right on eating-and holding it down-until you have boobs almost as cuddly as mine.’
Lillian sighed. ‘You can’t stay, can you?’ she asked wistfully. ‘I hate Mrs Pround.’
Mrs Pround was the ward assistant. She wasn’t an ideal companion for a fifteen-year-old, but she had the huge advantage of having eyes like a gimlet. Lillian would never get her fingers down her throat to make herself sick while Mrs Pround was in a half-mile radius. She wouldn’t dare.
But Lizzie was already backing out the door. ‘I’m sorry, Lillian, but I have a ward round to do before I find my own dinner,’ she told her. ‘I need to go.’
‘Will I do instead?’
The door swung wide and Harry McKay and his wheelchair rolled smoothly to the bedside.
‘Um…how long have you been outside the room?’
As a greeting it was a dead give-away, but it was all Lizzie could think of.
‘And why aren’t you on your crutches?’ she demanded, and he gave her a crooked grin.
‘The wheelchair is quieter. I can get places without being noticed.’
‘You heard?’
‘Obviously.’
‘But…I said that about your fiancee.’ Lillian had clearly replayed their conversation really fast and the teenager was already feeling mortified. She was looking at Harry and her fragile self-confidence was crumbling while they watched. ‘I said… Oh, I’m so sorry.’
‘Hey, I heard you two discussing what a hunk I was,’ Harry told her, and puffed out his chest. ‘Very nice.’
‘But we-’
‘And I also heard you discuss boob enlargement. Even nicer.’
‘Will you cut it out?’ Lizzie was laughing. She picked up a magazine from the tray top and swiped him over the ear. ‘Eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves.’
‘I’m not an eavesdropper,’ he said, wounded. ‘I just had to lean against the door to rest.’
‘Right. You sat in your wheelchair and leaned.’
‘My right shoulder still carries the dent. Want to see?’
‘I’d probably see the shape of the doorknob indented in your right ear,’ she retorted.
‘We said-’ Lillian whispered, but Lizzie was having none of it.
‘We were discussing how old he was,’ she said. ‘So old he’s practically incapable of getting himself married. Which is why he bumped into my car. His sight must be fading, poor dear.’
‘Say it louder, girlie,’ Harry flashed. ‘My ear trumpet seems to have been mislaid. And I’ve mislaid my leg. I’ll lose my nose any minute. Come to think of it…’ He squinted. ‘Where is my nose?’
‘Sticking into places it has no right to be,’ Lizzie told him, trying not to laugh. She glared and fixed him with a look that said she knew very well he’d heard everything and he’d better watch himself. ‘Are you intending to stay with Lillian?’
‘I brought the Monopoly board.’
‘What do you reckon, Lillian? Can you face playing Monopoly with a man in his dotage?’
And thankfully-blessedly-Lillian was chuckling.
‘Well, there you go, then.’ Lizzie left them to it, but as she made her way down the corridor to the patients who were waiting for her, she was aware of a sharp stab of regret.
Monopoly. It was a game she’d never enjoyed.
But tonight she really felt like playing.
There were three casseroles and an enormous trout on the kitchen table when Lizzie walked through to the doctor’s residence two hours later. Phoebe was right underneath, gazing upward with hope.
Harry was balancing on crutches. He was wearing a pink frilly apron and he was wielding a filleting knife.
She stopped dead.
‘Don’t move,’ she said faintly. ‘Don’t do it.’
He looked up from his trout, bemused. ‘Sorry?’
‘You’re not fit for surgery. The fish can keep his appendix. Put down the knife, Dr McKay, and move back from the table slowly.’
He grinned. ‘Are you implying I’m a lunatic?’
‘Implying? No. Saying you are? Definitely.’
‘I’m perfectly capable of filleting a fish.’
‘Right. Like you’re perfectly capable of standing upright. All you need to do is overbalance and Phoebe gets it.’
‘So it’s concern for your basset.’
‘Of course.’ She walked forward and lifted the knife from his fingers before he could protest. She moved out of range, holding the knife behind her back.
‘Give me back my knife,’ he told her, glowering. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re wearing a pink apron.’
‘That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m deranged.’
‘You’re a sick man, Dr McKay.’
He glared at her, baulked, and she laughed.
Where had this laughter come from? she thought. It had sprung up, unbidden, a constant in their relationship that refused to go away.
‘I’m warning you…’
‘Or what?’ Her eyes danced. From under the table Phoebe gazed from one to the other with an expression that said she was really confused. But hopeful.
So what was new? Phoebe was permanently confused-and hopeful. Where food was concerned. She barked and emerged from under the table, trying her best to jump up on Harry’s combination of legs and crutches. It didn’t work. Jumping up for Phoebe meant getting her front legs three inches above the ground.
‘You traitor,’ Lizzie told her. ‘Leave him alone. The man is a knife-wielder, Phoebe. Come to Mummy.’
‘The man doesn’t have a knife. Mummy has the knife.’
‘So she does.’
‘Give it back.’
‘Don’t be a dodo.’
‘Is that your very best crisis counselling skill?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’ll lead to a confrontation.’ With laughter deepening around his eyes, he leaned over and lifted the trout. ‘OK, Dr Darling, you asked for it.’ The trout was raised right over Phoebe’s head. ‘Give me my filleting knife or the puppy gets it.’
She choked on laughter at that-and at the expression of pure hope in Phoebe’s mournful basset eyes. ‘The puppy would love it.’
