Sunrise for Two (11 page)

Chris nodded, “I know
it’s hard to understand, I haven’t been able to regain my
equilibrium ever since I met her.”

“
Very hard to
understand,” Nicola said drily, “I can’t imagine what men would see
in a delicately built woman with amazing bone structure.” Chris
poured himself another glass of wine, knowing he would regret it in
the morning.

“
It’s not
even that she’s beautiful, it’s just that she wasn’t afraid of me,
she’s not afraid of anything.”

“
Then look
after her.” Jeff said gently.

“
I’d like
to.” Chris told them, and smiled at them, “thanks for your help
guys.” He said, and disappeared into his room to change into his
trainers, he realised that one advantage to his new state of mind
was that he was fit enough to run a marathon.

Harry spent longer than
usual choosing her clothes the following evening. She decided to
try a new skirt and dark shirt which was lower cut than her usual
taste. By the time she was reasonably pleased with her appearance,
the whole band had gathered on her sofa, and she smiled at them
slightly self-consciously and willed them not to say anything. Of
course they did, the man who had taken years to forgive her for not
reciprocating his rather dramatically expressed feelings, told that
she looked gorgeous and she smiled gratefully at him and reminded
herself that he was a fantastic base player. They navigated the
damp autumn streets, relishing the wood smoke and the dark green of
the leaves. Harry tried to take comfort in all the things she
usually loved, but all she could think about was the fact that his
distracting blue eyes would be watching her while she
sang.

Chris was trying to coax
Nicola into choosing her own outfit at a faster pace. He was
tempted to say that he didn’t really think anyone would notice what
she wore, but he thought that might slow things down further, and
in the end he sat in silence in the front room with Jeff, a
strategy that worked remarkably well, and they were out of the
house only five minutes after the band was due to start. The bar
was in the cluster of shops and restaurants between his house and
Harry. Chris tended to spend all his free time in the safety of the
rugby club, and he stepped into the noise and laughter and felt
slightly out of his depth.

Mismatched tables and
battered sofas clustered round a central raised stage. Chris looked
around at lean young couples in brightly coloured denims and men
drinking oddly flavoured beers, until the sight of Harry made him
catch his breath. She was sitting on the stage in a scruffy orange
chair, the gentle waves of her hair cascading over her shoulders
and her well cut blouse highlighting her sumptuous curves. A man
with a mass of curly red hair was looming rather possessively over
her and Julia was sitting on the arm of the chair holding a
saxophone. The familiar figure of Mike looked somewhat out of place
in the cluster of bohemian chic. He was standing next to the edge
of the stage, leaning against her empty wheelchair.

Jeff ordered them a round
of drinks, and they sat down at a table and watched the drummer
check his kit one final time. Chris couldn’t take his eyes off her,
she was still deep in conversation with the man who was invading
her personal space. He kept hoping that she would look around the
room to see if she was there, and felt crushingly disappointed when
she didn’t. “Aren’t you glad I asked her about her hobbies?” Nicola
said triumphantly and he smiled at her as convincingly as he could,
and felt an intense stab of jealously when she called Mike onto the
stage and he rushed off to get her glass of water.

The man with red hair
took a step back and issued last minute instructions to his band
mates, then he strode to the front of the stage and thanked the
people in the bar for listening. Chris felt his discomfort deepen,
the man was funny and self-deprecating and when he had finished his
introductions and had encouraged them to keep on with their own
conversations, he stood very close to Harry and she smiled at him
as though they had shared a private joke. Chris knew that he would
never be described as witty. He was serious and intense with a
passionate love of medicine, and he wondered why he was
embarrassing himself by crashing into her evening and her
life.

Of course her voice was
lovely, smoky and smooth with a note of longing that made him want
to lift her out of the orange monstrosity and tell her that she
never need feel lonely again. He decided with a note of desperation
that she wouldn’t be able to sing like that if she wasn’t feeling
that same empty space that he felt. She held him transfixed, and
all through Julia’s long awkward solos he tried to catch her eye
and he glowered at Nicola whenever she tried to talk to
him.

There was a crowd wanting
to talk to her at the end, he waited for a moment then stepped onto
the stage and planted himself rather firmly in her field of vision.
“Hello Harry,” he said, and felt ridiculously happy when she smiled
up at him. The man with the explosion of red hair introduced
himself as Rufus and made further conversation impossible.
Reluctantly he said goodbye and joined his friends in the damp
street outside.

“
Wow,” Jeff
said finally, “I could have listened to her all night.” Chris
nodded at him in unhappy silence, wondering how on earth he was
going to get her attention. Nicola looked at the two men that she
cared about and started to question the merit of her plan for them
to spend more time with Harry. “I mean,” Jeff continued
expansively, “it’s like there’s nothing she can’t do
well.”

“
She can’t
walk.” Nicola said, and then felt awful for the rest of the
night.

Chapter
seven

Chris left work on time
the following day, he felt almost guilty leaving the ward at the
same time as the trainees. He dropped his car at home and chose her
a present and after a long period of hesitation, a box of
chocolates. Then he followed the route he was starting to see in
his dreams and knocked on her door. She was lying on her sofa
eating an apple and Julia answered the door with the remote control
in her hand. “Is this a bad time?” Julia shook her head and handed
him a glass of wine.

He sat down on the sofa
and took a mouthful, he couldn't decide if he felt lightheaded
because of her or because of the alcohol. “Don’t lean back just
yet,” Harry said apologetically, “my glasses are behind
you.”

“
Why don’t
you just wear them Harry? The whole librarian look is a good one
for you.”

“
Shut up.”
Harry said mildly, and put on the dark rimmed frames.

“
I broke one
of my contacts yesterday morning, so I’ve spent the past twenty
four hours in soft focus,” Harry explained, and he felt his mood
lighten.

“
Are you
really short sighted?”

“
Astonishingly so,” she said comfortably, and settled back
again the sofa.

Julia returned to
describing the various challenges of her day as a psychiatrist. A
rather painful battle that she lost with a social worker, a very
depressed patient that she was worried about and of course her
ongoing feud with her weight. Chris found himself describing his
own day, he was having fun, and he felt listened to. They had
ordered pizza and he kept talking until Julia stood up and smiled
at him. “I’m having an early night,” she said, and touched Harry on
the arm.

Chris waved her goodbye
and felt the adrenaline rush when Harry smiled at him. “Hi,” he
said softly.

“
Hi
yourself,” she said and put down her piece of pizza.

“
Do you ever
eat?”

“
I usually
eat more than this,” she said, slightly awkwardly, “it’s just
rather difficult when you're around.”

“
Is that good
or bad?”

She looked at him and
arched an elegant eyebrow, “I'm not sure, I guess it depends on why
you're coming to see me.”

“
Do you have
any theories?”

“
None I'd
care to share,” she said, feeling a flush deepen on her
throat.

“
Shall I tell
you why I’m here?”

“
Please.” she
said softly.

He took a deep breath and
touched her hand. “Because I'm hugely attracted to you. I can't
stop thinking about you, and being with you makes me happy.” Harry
took a mouthful of wine. She had longed for this, longed for this
dark handsome man to tell her that he cared for her, but she
remembered the way he had reacted to her chair.

“
Can I ask
you something?” she said finally.

“
Anything.”

“
Why didn't
you tell your friends that I'm disabled?”

He realised it was the
first time that he heard her speak about her legs in such a formal
way. He put down his glass and said quietly. “I've never known
anyone socially who uses a wheelchair, I wasn't sure if you minded
people knowing.”

“
It's hard to
keep it a secret.” she said ruefully.

“
No I know,
it’s just that I don't think of you in terms of your
chair.”

Harry took a deep breath
and forced herself to say the words she dreaded. “Is that because
you don't like it, my paralysis I mean?”

“
Of course
not. It just doesn't seem a big part of who you are.”

Harry looked at him in
silence, and said finally. “It's a huge part Chris, I need you to
understand that. It affects how people see me, my career, my social
life, my holiday destinations, it affects everything.”

He sat in silence,
watching her graceful hands, the way she toyed with her now
completely empty wine glass, the careful way she maintained her
balance while she placed her glass on the table. He remembered the
tension he had felt in her delicate torso when he had helped into
his dining chair, and felt suddenly ashamed. He tried to imagine
the constant grind of her physical limitations and the constraints
of her paralysis. He thought about the challenge of meeting people
and trying to form relationships with gravity weighing her down,
always sitting in situations where people were standing over
her.

“
Are you
embarrassed by my chair?” she asked, unable to meet his
eyes.

For a moment he felt
almost angry, to think that she could doubt him in this way, to
think that she would even consider him capable of such superficial
behaviour. Then he remembered her mother’s behaviour, and the fact
that he had not told even his closest friends that she could not
walk. “No I don’t feel embarrassed,” he said gently, “I just
sometimes feel a bit out of my depth.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
Well how
should I describe your…” he cleared his throat and added clumsily,
“your disability?”

“
Well not
like that,” she said softly, “because then you really do sound
embarrassed. I use all the obvious descriptions, paralysed,
disabled, and if I’m feeling a bit political, wheelchair
user.”

“
Don’t you
feel limited by that?”

“
Chris I am
paralysed, I do use a wheelchair, that does limit me. I’ve tried to
accept that, what I need to understand is whether you can accept
that.”

“
I can accept
that.”

She looked at him, her
dark eyes still wary. “I really hope so,” she said
softly.

“
Also,” he
said tentatively, “I was wondering if we should talk about the fact
that you’re part of the royalty.

“
Not royalty,
that’s completely different, my mother is part of the
nobility.”

“
Doesn’t that
make you noble too?”

“
Well it’s a
bit embarrassing really, mother has always been a bit vague about
my bloodline, and it’s all a bit complicated and steeped in
tradition.”

“
Sorry, I’m
not very clear about those kinds of things, but I just thought you
might want to talk about it.”

Harry smiled ruefully at
him, “I’m not really keen on either of the topics you’ve raised
tonight, but in terms of our interaction I think my parentage is
less important that the limitations of my paralysis.”

“
It doesn’t
limit you when we’re alone on the sofa together.” He said with a
smile, trying to lighten the mood.

“
I think
that’s when it might limit me the most.” She replied awkwardly and
took a deep breath. Then she forced out the words that were almost
too painful to say. “In fact it's where my limitations are really
obvious.”

“
I can look
after you if you let me,” he said, and cleared his throat
again.

“
You're going
to ask me a personal question aren't you?” she asked, and he
watched the colour rise on the elegant bones of her
face.

“
Is that
ok?”

“
Well,” she
took a breath and looked up at him. “this is not information I hand
out easily, I guess it depends why you're asking.” He kissed her
then, feeling his arousal harden as she opened her lovely mouth and
kissed him back. “Well that does answer most of my questions,” she
said unsteadily, “there's just one more really.”

“
Ask me
anything Harry,” he said, smiling at the beautiful vulnerable woman
who dominated his thoughts.