Sunrise for Two (15 page)

The nurse nodded,
sympathy in her eyes, “why isn't she on the spinal
unit?”

“
It's an old
injury, she copes really well with it. Then some idiot hit the car
she was she was travelling in earlier tonight. Now she's got this
great big wound on her left arm, and that's the hand she uses for
everything. I just thought if we freed up her right arm, then she
could at least hold a cup of coffee.” He closed his eyes and added
unsteadily. “Do you mind if I make myself a drink? I'll be back in
ten minutes.” She was still asleep when he came back, delicate and
still, and he reluctantly borrowed a room in the doctor’s mess and
slept fitfully until morning.

He woke early and bought
himself some toast in the mess. Then he walked slowly up to the
ward where she slept. He acknowledged that he was frightened that
she would reject him, frightened that his thoughtless reaction to
her tentative advances had damaged their interaction. He walked
onto the surgical ward and nodded at the nurses, he realised that
they were different, warmer and more attentive, and it made him
really pleased to think that they supported his choice. He stepped
into the nurse’s office and leant on the wall, “How is she
doing?”

“
She’s doing
okay, she’s tougher than she looks,” the charge nurse told him
approvingly. She was awake when he walked out onto the ward, her
sister had pulled rank as a visiting dignitary and was breaking the
iron visiting hours rule. She was sitting next to a bunch of
flowers that would probably crush Harry if it fell on the bed, and
she explained that her parents had to send their apologies as they
were hosting an important party of guests. When he came back at
lunch time Julia and Mike were sitting together, and Mike smiled up
at him with the confidence of a man who hadn't gotten much sleep
for all the right reasons.

By the end of the day
there was a crowd around her bed. He stood in the doorway and
watched a particularly good looking man in a suit that probably
cost the same amount as his car make her laugh. “Hi.” he said
finally, looking only at her.

“
Chris,” she
said with a smile, her dark eyes unreadable, “meet Tim and Richard
and you know my sister.” He nodded, and sat down awkwardly on the
edge of the bed. Both of the men used wheelchairs, and they treated
him to a series of jokes that he didn't understand. When visiting
hours ended, the nurse threw them all out very firmly, and he
followed her sister into the corridor.

“
Any chance
of a lift Chris? I was going to ask Julia, but she seems to have
finally discovered boys.”

“
Of course,”
he smiled down at her and led the way to his old car.

“
Are you ok?”
she asked, “You looked a bit miserable in there.”

“
She's gone
all distant again, just when I thought I was getting to know
her.”

“
Of course
she has, she's back in bed with a whole lot of tubes that everyone
can see when they walk in the room. You've got no chance of talking
to her about anything that matters until she's back in her jeans
using her own chair.”

“
When you put
it like that it's perfectly reasonable.”

“
She's my
sister, I love her, of course I think she's reasonable.” she paused
then added more gently, “The night nurse told me that you got them
to move the drip out of her right arm. Thank you for
that.”

“
I really
care about her.” he said softly.

“
I'm glad to
hear it.” she told him.

“
Did she tell
you about the night I stayed over?”

“
Of course
she did.”

He sighed and looked at
the road. “What did she say?” he asked tentatively.

“
Well it
didn't make her feel good about herself.”

“
No I guess
not. I just had this silly notion about making it really good for
her.”

“
It's not
silly Chris. It's just that you have to see things from her
perspective.”

“
People keep
telling me that.”

“
So listen to
them, I know that her paralysis makes things much more complicated,
but if you really care about her, then I’ll think you’ll agree that
it’s worth it.”

“
I really
really care about her.”

“
Then start
thinking about what her life is like.” she said softly, he nodded,
and pulled up outside her sister’s house. “Thanks for the
lift.”

“
My
pleasure.” he said, and drove in lonely silence back to his
house.

Jeff and Nicola were
sitting in the lounge. He stretched out tiredly on the sofa and
looked at his oldest friends. “How’s she doing?” Jeff asked
him.

“
Okay I
think. She's had loads of visitors and she doesn't really give a
lot away.” He paused and smiled his thanks when Nicola poured him
out a cup of tea. “How bad was the cut on her arm?” he asked
finally.

“
It'll heal.”
Jeff said gently. “I must say she's got style, she let me suture
her without a whimper.”

Chris nodded. “She's
definitely got style.”

“
Are you
okay?” Jeff asked him.

“
I think so,”
he took a deep breath and said with a half embarrassed smile, “I’m
missing her.”

“
Does she
know that the story is all over the news?” Nicola asked
him.

“
I don’t
know, she’s not very forthcoming on the subject of her lineage.” He
ran across the streets of Manchester until it started to rain, then
he lay in bed and regretted the only night in the past week when he
had been able to sleep.

Chapter
ten

Chris went shopping
before he went into work. He tried to think of something more
original than chocolates, but failed miserably, so he bought the
biggest box he could find and a card that was hopefully romantic
and manly. He rehearsed the lines he was going to say, about how
beautiful she was, and how happy he would make her, then stepped
into the nurse’s office for an update and found one of his rugby
team mates reading her notes. “Hey,” Richard said, in his usual
jocular fashion, “don’t tell me you’re after this case as
well.”

Chris shook his head,
“She’s open to Jeff isn’t she?”

“
She was, he
contacted me in an oddly cryptic fashion, said something about a
conflict of interest.” He paused and looked at his old friend, “I
hope you’re okay with that, I know this is normally your ward, it’s
just that I did a post in a spinal injuries unit and I could do
with the update.”

Chris took a deep breath
in, he remembered her careful questions about him being ashamed of
her disability. He wasn’t ashamed, and if people had questions and
reactions, then he was going to face them. “It’s her that I’m
interested in.” he said softly.

Richard stared at him for
a moment, then smiled, “I’ll look after her mate”, he said
heartily, and Chris watched him leave the office.

Harry was reading when
Richard knocked on the door, she smiled at him and slowly pulled
herself into a sitting position. “Are you part of the surgical
team?” she said quizzically in a voice that he wanted to hear more
of.

“
Actually I’m
your new consultant, Jeff said that he was a friend of yours, he
thought it might be more comfortable if you saw me.”

“
Okay then,”
she said with another lovely smile. She put her book down and
tugged her arm out of her sling, “I’ll grit my teeth while you do
your usual poking.”

“
Thank you.”
He said softly, he peeled back the bandages and watched her bite
her lip. “Let me know if it gets too uncomfortable.” Afterwards
Richard sat in the nurse’s office and accepted a cup of
coffee.

“
How is she
doing?” the charge nurse asked.

“
She’s doing
well.” He wrote up his notes, and looked up at the nurse with a
smile. “I can see why Chris is going a bit mad”.

Chris went back after his
theatre list, he handed her the chocolates, and she smiled at him
and gestured to her bedside table. “Can you put them down for me?”
she asked, and he put them down awkwardly on top of a much larger
box of the same variety. He was about to ask her how she was when
he heard a voice in the doorway, He turned around to see a man in a
well cut suit with two cups of espresso.

“
Hi,” he
said, “I’m Police Constable Andrews, they sent me to apologise for
my colleague’s performance the other night and to see if this would
be convenient time to talk to you.”

“
Of course,”
she said, her smile widening as he held out one of the
coffees.

“
I broke my
leg a couple of years ago, and I spent a whole fortnight without a
decent drink.”

“
It’s driving
me wild,” she acknowledged, and took an appreciative
mouthful.

“
Well I’ll
come back later,” Chris told her, and she smiled at him as
unconvincingly as before.

PC Andrews was still
there when he went back at lunch time, he had procured sushi from
somewhere, and Harry was talking to him more animatedly than he had
seen her since before their disastrous night together. “I’ll come
back later.” He said again, annoyed to notice how comfortable the
policeman looked. His afternoon clinic overran and he was starving,
by the time he reached her room, there was already a crowd. He got
paged on the way to the mess and he had to start his night on call
on an empty stomach.

He went to see her the
next morning, although he knew it was probably a mistake. He was in
a bad mood and he was missing her, he wanted to tell her that, but
he didn’t know how to. She was reading a book when he went in, and
she smiled at him, a smile that didn’t really reach her eyes. “I
was half expecting to see your policeman friend here.” He said
casually. She arched an eyebrow at him and didn’t answer. “So he
took all your facts down?”

“
Yes,” she
said coolly, and he felt his irritation mount.

“
I didn’t
realise that flirting was part of their training.” He knew he’d
overstepped the mark, but he couldn’t stop, he had to make another
remark about her flirting back. He watched the colour rise in her
neck, and the silence grew long and tense.

“
Chris if I
possibly could then I would leave this room, can I ask you to at
least have the decency to go?” He left in silence and went to eat
breakfast in the comfortable chatter of the doctor’s mess. The
tomatoes and eggs were more overcooked than usual, and he replayed
the interaction in his mind and wondered how it had gone so badly
wrong. He wanted to tell her that she should be his. He would ride
in on a white charger in any situation, and all he wanted was for
her to be there waiting without another man already trying to
rescue her. He replayed all the situations that she had needed
rescuing from. He had embarrassed her horribly after the fund
raiser, he had left her to explain to his best friend that she
couldn’t walk, and he had turned her down when she had offered her
lovely body to him. He stopped pushing his food around his plate
and drove slowly home, he was an idiot and he didn’t deserve to be
liked by her or anybody.

Harry battled one handed
with her breakfast and re-read her magazines, she was too angry
with Chris to get upset, and she found herself missing the
comfortable routine of the portacabin and her friends. Mike was
missing her too, he slipped out of the IT suite carrying the latest
copy of her favourite magazine. He found his way up to the surgical
wards and waved his badge hopefully at the nurse near the door, she
pointed to a computer rather truculently displaying an error
message and he nodded and smiled. Harry was talking to a medical
student, he was presumably supposed to be practicing taking a
history, but he seemed to be talking about himself. “Hi,” he said
firmly and sat down opposite the young man. It worked, and the
student floated apologetically back to the nurses office. She
smiled at him, and he felt the old tingle. “I really am sorry about
Saturday.” he said softly.

“
Doesn’t
worry, we all find it unsettling when things change.”

“
Are you okay
with me and Julia?”

“
I’m really
pleased about you and Julia, you are two of my dearest
friends.”

“
She’s not as
beautiful as you,” he couldn’t help saying, “I don’t think anyone
is.”

“
Mike that’s
not true, and don’t say that to Julia.”

“
I won’t,” he
touched her hand, the only part of her body aside from her face
that wasn’t bandaged or sore. “But will we still be us?” he asked
softly, “Will we still do things just you and I?”

“
I hope so,”
She told him, affectionately, “otherwise I’d really miss
you.”

Mike walked back to the
IT suite feeling as though he was floating on air. He remembered
the day Harry had arrived in their scruffy little portacabin. She
had smiled at him when he had brought her a cup of coffee and he
hadn’t really ever recovered. The thing was that she had become his
friend, he loved his place in her life, the parties and the music.
It had opened up a world to him that he had really only seen on the
television before. Now he had been offered a way to stay in her
world, stay close to her, and also the chance to like someone who
seemed astonishingly ready to like him back. He made coffee for the
rest of the IT team and sympathetically helped a medical student
navigate the process of resetting the password for her email
account.