‘Unlike you, I don’t need to be slowed down. I’m not a workaholic.’
‘Sam said you’re an adrenalin junkie. Which is just as bad as me.’
‘Sam doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’
‘He’s your friend.’
‘I don’t have friends.’
There was a silence at that. It stretched out into the night sky. Permeating everything.
‘We were friends,’ she said at last.
‘And now I find you’ve borne me a son without telling me. So much for friendship.’
‘You think it might have been something more, then?’ she demanded. He was standing before her, dressed for battle, and that was suddenly how she was feeling. Like she was geared up for battle as well. She hesitated, but the look on his face said he wasn’t even going to consider their relationship. OK, then, try another track. ‘Do you love Rosa and Doug?’ she asked, and his brows snapped down in confusion.
‘What sort of question is that?’
‘Just answer it. Do you?’
‘As much as I love anyone.’
‘That’s what I thought. Do you know Doug has angina? Or worse. Rosa’s terrified but she can’t persuade him to go near a doctor.’
‘Why didn’t she say?’
‘How can she say anything when your visits are so rare they make special dinners? They’d never dream of interrupting one of your visits with medical necessity.’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘It is,’ she retorted. ‘It’s because they love you.’
‘Hell, Lily…’
‘I’m tired,’ she said, pushing herself to her feet. ‘I wanted you to know about Doug, so if you leave tomorrow you’ll at least know there’s trouble here. He won’t take advice from me. It sounds like angina but it could be more serious. I can’t tell that unless I examine him and how can I?’
‘I’ll talk to him.’
‘Which will solve the problem this time. But after that?’
‘Hell, Lily, I’m not responsible for these people.’
‘Then you should be,’ she snapped. ‘They love you. Just like…’ She caught herself, drawing herself back, closing her mouth with a gasp. ‘No. That’s it. Leave it.’
‘Lily-’
‘Leave it!’
‘Fine,’ he said cautiously, and she made to push past him to go indoors. But his hand caught her shoulder and he turned her so she was facing him.
‘Lily, you don’t need to go back to the island.’
‘Of course I need to go back to the island.’
‘You don’t,’ he said heavily. ‘Sam and I have worked it through with Gualberto. We’ve set up an embryonic medical service that should be up and running within weeks.’
‘An embryonic medical service…’
‘Gualberto’s agreed,’ he told her, eager to move to a neutral, impersonal topic. ‘It’s time for the island to stop sitting on all its resources. We had a massive meeting last week. The consensus is that they’ll not exploit their oil for individual wealth but they’ll spend real money on education and medicine. Which is where you come in.’
‘I come in where?’
‘Everyone knows you’re overworked. The plan is to get at least two fully trained doctors plus interns working on the island-but that’s just for starters. We see a medical service that eventually serves all outlying islands, with you or someone like you as administrator, but with every specialty represented. We see a much bigger hospital. You need connections to Australian teaching schools so Kapua can become part of their remote training roster for young doctors. You need a helicopter service for outlying islands, and the oil money is more than enough to fund it for generations to come. It’ll be huge, Lily.’
She stared at him, dumbfounded, and ran her tongue over lips that were suddenly dry. ‘You’ve set all this up already.’
‘Yes. Gualberto-’
‘Gualberto never thought of this by himself.’
‘No. Sam and I-’
‘Have been on the island for little more than a month,’ she said blankly. ‘What do you know about what we need?’
‘We know what you need. Lily, this leaves you free to spend time away from the island.’
‘Why would I spend time away from the island?’
‘You could spend time with me,’ he said, suddenly uncertain. ‘Maybe we could spend a couple of weeks here a year. While I get to know Benjy.’
‘You’ll be a father two weeks a year?’
‘I can hardly do more.’
‘No,’ she said bleakly. ‘Of course you can’t.’
‘Lily, I don’t do family.’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘I told you-’
‘So many years ago. When we were kids. I’d hoped you’d change by now.’
He stared at her in the moonlight. ‘What more do want of me, Lily?’ he asked. ‘You tell me.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said wearily. ‘But I’m scared. Benjy knows you’re his dad, so now there’s two of us. Two of us spending months of every year not knowing where you are. What you’re doing. If Benjy get as attached to you as I am, how can I put him through that?’
‘You’re attached…’
‘Of course I’m attached.’ She sighed, ‘You know I am. I tried so hard to fall in love with Jacques-with anyone- but all I ever wanted was you. You’ve been in my heart every minute since the day I met you. But I’m not letting you destroy my life. I’m not letting you mess with Benjy’s life. Come here two weeks every year and fall in love with you all over again… How can I do that and survive?’
‘Lily, it’s what I am. It’s non-negotiable. I didn’t ask to be Benjy’s father.’
‘But that’s non-negotiable, too.’ She gulped for breath and regrouped. ‘I didn’t ask to be Benjy’s mother, but I am. I didn’t ask to fall in love with you, but I did. Ben, you’ve spent your entire life finding yourself a place where you didn’t have to get attached. You swing into a crisis situation, save lives, do good but you never visit them again. You never need to hear feedback from patients two years after the event. You don’t need to attach yourself to a community in any shape or form. Sam says you even hold yourself aloof from the crisis response team.’
‘I can’t help what I am.’
‘No, and neither can I,’ she said. ‘But seeing you for two weeks every year… It’d destroy me, Ben. So somehow you need to work out a relationship with Benjy that doesn’t include me, and don’t ask me how you can do that because I don’t know. I’ll support whatever you want but I can’t continue to be near you. I just…can’t.’
‘Lily…’
‘What?’ She sighed again and looked up into his face. Which was a mistake.
Because, regardless of anything else, this was Ben. Her Ben. The Ben she’d carried in her heart for all these years.
He wasn’t hers. She’d known that then and she knew it now. The scars of his childhood were too deeply etched. There was no place she could reach him.
‘I’m sorry, Ben,’ she whispered, and she reached up and touched his lips fleetingly with hers.
Which was a further mistake.
She backed away but as she did so she saw his eyes widen, flare.
‘Lily,’ he said, and it was the way he’d always said it. Like it was a caress.
‘Lily.’ It was a plea.
She didn’t move. She didn’t move and she didn’t see him move, but she had or he had or whatever, and
