Cruel Legacy (40 page)

'It was an accident... a mistake...' Philippa pressed on doggedly, ignoring what she could hear in his voice. 'We must both forget that it ever happened. It should never have happened.'

'No,' Joel argued tensely, 'it shouldn't, but as for forgetting ... do you know how long it's been since I felt like that... since I.. .?* He stopped abruptly and then told her, 'Have you any idea what it does to a man when a woman responds to him like that... needs him... makes him feel that she ?'

'Joel, you're married,' Philippa interrupted him desperately. 'You've got a wife... children. What happened between us... it must never happen again. We mustn't see each other again. I can't...' She stopped as she saw from the look in his eyes that a part of him was pleased by the knowledge that she feared his sexuality and her own responsiveness to it, and yet she couldn't blame or accuse him for it. She had felt an equally atavistic female thrill of pleasure as she'd dropped the duvet and watched as his eyes and his body responded to the sight of her.

'It was just sex,' she told him huskily. 'It doesn't mean anything. Just sex, that's all.' But she couldn't quite keep the forlorn note of loss out of her voice, and Joel, hearing it, leaned forward and touched her.

'No, it wasn't,' he corrected her gently, holding her.

'No,' Philippa agreed. 'But it still mustn't happen again— for all our sakes. If it does, I might not be able to stop myself becoming emotionally attached to you,' she told him with quiet honesty, 'and Sally—your wife—you love her...'

'Before today I thought I did,' Joel told her. 'But now...'

'It was a statement, not a question,' Philippa told him with a smile.

'It would be very easy for me to love you, Philippa,' Joel told her sombrely. 'In fact...'

'For a while,' Philippa conceded. 'And then it would be very, very hard... for both of us. We both know that if things were better for you at home you would never... Go home, Joel,' she told him softly. 'Go home and forget that this ever happened.'

'And if I can't...?'

'You must.'

She would cry later, when he had gone, because she already knew what she was turning her back on and rejecting, and how much she wished that things were different; that he were free.

What had happened between them was like a summer storm, intense and shocking when it happened, overshadowing everything else, but quickly forgotten once it had passed.

Easier to let him go now than to risk the heartache and pain that an affair with him was bound to bring.

Easier...? Easier than what? she asked herself grimly after he had gone.

Frowning
, Elizabeth surveyed the clothes she had laid out on the bed: trousers to travel in, the suit she planned to wear for the conference, underwear, tights, shoes, a sweater 'just in case', and a thin silky shirt she could wear in the evening with her black trousers just in case she needed to look a little bit more dressed up. Or ought she perhaps to take a dress?

'Richard, do you think I should put a dress in for the evening...?'

'It's a conference you're supposed to be going to, not a dinner party.'

The terseness of his reply startled her. He had been uncharacteristically irritable recently and she had put this dowrs^ to the fact that she knew he was anxious about the siting of the new Fast Response Accident Unit. Now, however, her frown deepened slightly. A little wifely tolerance to oil life's wheels was one thing; an irritable, bad-tempered husband venting those feelings on her without explaining what was causing them was another.

Firmly she checked through the items she had placed on the bed before turning round and asking quietly, 'Something's bothering you, Richard. What is it...?'

'Nothing,' Richard lied shortly, and then added betrayingly, 'For God's sake, Liz, it's only a two-day conference you're going on. With all the fuss you're making, anyone would think you're going to a world summit... When I went to conferences...'

Elizabeth had heard enough.

'When you went to conferences, you had me to organise this kind of thing for you,' she told him with a sweep of her hand, indicating the things laid out
neatly on the bed. 'Maybe I am over-reacting a little bit, but you see, this is all still very new to me, Richard... New and—yes, I admit it—exciting as well... No doubt when I've attended as many conferences as you have I'll be as blasŁ about them as you
are, but until then I'm afraid you'll just have to indulge me a little bit,' she told him tartly.

Ruefully Richard shook his head. 'Yes, you're right. I'm sorry, Liz,' he apologised.

'I know how worried you are about the Accident Unit,' Elizabeth told him gently, softening towards him. 'If you think it would help if we talked about it...'

'Save the counselling for your clients,' he suggested, his irritability returning.

When he saw the way Elizabeth folded her lips and quietly turned away from him he cursed himself under his breath. How could he explain to her how he felt? How could she possibly understand what it was like to feel as though you were constantly having to look over your shoulder to see how quickly younger men were catching up with you., .what it felt like to wake up in the middle of the night in a panic because all you could see in front of you was a dead end, a blank wall, where once there had been a dozen different avenues of possibility and promise?

Of course Liz was excited about this conference, about the new life opening out in front of her, but her excitement, her opportunity was in such direct contrast to his own fears that he felt that it would be impossible for her really to understand... And besides, he didn't want to burden her with his fears; he didn't want to spoil things for her.

'Barbara has her own key,' Elizabeth told him, referring to the young single mother who came in to clean for them twice a week. 'And when I shop I'll get in a couple of ready-made meals you can microwave...'

'For God's sake, Liz, I'm not a child. I can put together a meal if necessary, you know. Besides, you're only going away for a couple of days, not a couple of months... I'll probably eat at the hospital anyway...'

'The hospital? I thought you'd want to get some golf in...'

'I've got some paperwork to catch up on,' Richard told her.

The budgets. He had seen the tiny frown in Brian's eyes the last time he had mentioned them and he had made himself a vow that despite his aversion to the whole principle of turning the National Health Service into a cost-effective exercise he would prove to David Howarth that he was perfectly capable of running his department just as efficiently financially as anyone else.

Just so long as that efficiency didn't prejudice the health of his patients.

'In fact I might do a couple of hours' work this evening,' he added.

'Oh, Richard, no,' Elizabeth protested. 'We're supposed to be going over to see Sara this afternoon. You can't have forgotten... It's weeks since you last saw your grandchild.'

He
had
forgotten, and watching the expression on his face made Elizabeth suddenly feel illogically anxious. It wasn't like Richard to be so irritable and withdrawn.

'Are you sure there's nothing wrong?' she persisted.

For a moment Richard wavered, tempted to tell her, but what could Elizabeth say to him that he had not already said to himself?

'Nothing's wrong,' he repeated, turning to leave the bedroom.

Elizabeth frowned as she watched him go. Something was bothering him, she knew that. Why was it that all men, even the most mature and well-adjusted of them, insisted on retreating behind this wall of protective male silence? What was, after all, really so threatening about simply saying what was on their minds?

She saw it time and time again with her clients, and sympathised with their female partners in their baffled frustration at their men's refusal to accept that being open about their feelings made them and their relationships stronger, not weaker.

But she understood how important the new Fast Response Accident Unit was to Richard and how hard he had worked to try to ensure that it was sited at the General.

Thoughtfully she went downstairs. Richard was in the kitchen making them both a cup of tea. Quietly she accepted his peace offering.

'I forgot to tell you—Brian and his wife are giving a dinner party to welcome our new psychiatrist and introduce him to everyone.'

'Is he anyone you know?' Elizabeth asked him.

'No. From the sound of it working at the General is going to be a bit of a step down for him. According to Brian he's been working in the States for the last few years, although he is British, but now, for family reasons, he wants to come back and doesn't mind taking a drop in status and income in order to do so... Brian was full of the innovative measures he's implemented at Johns Hopkins; apparently he believes in the psychiatric department working alongside the medical and surgical departments where necessary, treating the patient as a whole, not as a separate collection of needs. It seems that he's very keen on ensuring that medical and surgical patients get proper counselling to help them overcome any trauma they might be suffering...'

'Mmm... well, the two of you should get on well, then. That's something you've been campaigning for for years. You're always complaining that far too many patients come to you totally unprepared mentally for the effects of their surgery.'

'Brian and David seem to have a very high opinion of him. He's only thirty-eight...'

Elizabeth put down her tea, puzzled by the note of resentment she could hear in Richard's voice. He had always been a man who was very open to other people, but now, for some reason, he sounded almost truculent.

'He's done very well, then,' she commented. 'He must...'

'Why is it that everyone today is so obsessed by youth? What is it about being on the thirty side of forty that earns a man praise while being on the fifty side of it condemns him to the scrap heap...?'

Elizabeth gave him a startled look. 'You were the one who brought up the subject of his age,' she pointed out.

'But as far as Brian and David are concerned you'd think it mattered more than his professional qualifications. There was a time when a surgeon wasn't even considered experienced enough for a senior post until he had been operating for at least twenty years; these days if you haven't made it by the time you're thirty you might as well forget it.

'Do you know what David's trying to get Brian to do now? Bring in obligatory medicals for anyone over fifty...'

'You've often said yourself that more than half the operations you do might not be necessary if only people would give the same time and care to having their bodies checked out as they do their cars,' Elizabeth reminded him gently.

'Taking sensible health precautions is one thing,' Richard told her fiercely. 'Deliberately trying to make out that anyone over fifty isn't fit...' He stopped abruptly, shaking his head.

Brian's memo advising him that from the end of the quarter he intended to institute a system whereby everyone over fifty would have to undergo an obligatory medical test to prove that they were fit to do their job had been sitting on his desk for the last three days unanswered.

The arrogance of David Howarth! Did he really think that Richard would dream of operating on anyone if he thought that he wasn't competent to do so?

And no matter what David might think, being a good surgeon involved more than perfect eyesight and a steady hand. Those assets, no matter how good, were merely physical, and could not compensate for lack of experience, for the awareness, the knowledge that came with time, for the sixth sense one developed only with age.

Elizabeth sighed under her breath. No matter what David did, Richard would dislike it, because he disliked the man himself. Not that she could blame him for that—she didn't like him very much herself.

'It's time we left,' she told Richard. 'I promised Sara we'd be there for five...'

'And with the new funding we've been able to set up our own X-ray unit and take on a couple of extra nurses so

that we can offer our female patients a specialised clinic, not just for routine smears, but for a variety of other aspects of their health as well, from a counselling service for teenagers wanting contraceptive advice right through to older women going through the menopause and wanting advice on HRT.

'Bernard's even talking about setting up a mini operating theatre. After all, we've got the space now that we've got this new purpose-built clinic up and running. You'll have to watch it,' Ian teased Richard. 'If you're not careful we're going to be putting you out of business altogether... You'll be able to take early retirement and spend all day on the golf course...

'Have
you thought about taking early retirement?' Ian asked him. 'I know
my
father is considering it. My mother says she wants them to have some time together while they're still both young enough and fit enough to enjoy themselves.'

'Oh, Mum won't want Daddy retiring yet,' Sara informed her husband. 'Not now that her own career is just starting to take off,.. How are you going to manage while she's at this conference?' she asked Richard with a grin.

'Oh, for God's,sake, Sara, I'm an adult, not a young child, and I'd appreciate it if you'd try to remember that...'

An uncomfortable silence fell over the table. Katie, Sara's four-year-old, looked at her mother unhappily, her bottom lip pouting as she lisped, 'Why is Grandpa croth...?'

'I'm not cross, Katie,' Richard assured her, giving his daughter an apologetic look. 'I'm sorry, Sara,' he apologised gruffly. 'I shouldn't have spoken to you like that...'

'It's OK, Dad. We all know how worried you are about the new unit. Have you any idea yet when you'll know who gets it...?'