Water and Fire (6 page)

I nodded my thanks to her and
shivered in the wind, wishing I'd thought to bring warmer clothing.
I wondered if it was warmer in the water with the whale than in the
wind on the boat. If only I could slip into the water unseen to
find out.

Aidan was close behind me, but
I didn't mind his nearness. He blocked the wind from one direction,
if nothing else. I heard him unzip his coat and wondered why he'd
do such a thing in this wind. The answer came as he enclosed me in
tartan, his arms lightly around me.

I pulled away automatically,
but stopped at the sound of his voice. Now he sounded in control.
"You're turning blue. You can share my coat or you can go inside
and wrap up in the foil blanket from the boat's first aid kit. If
you stand out here much longer in your wet clothes, you'll get
hypothermia and I promise I'll get you admitted to hospital as soon
as the boat docks. Whatever you choose, I'm not going to let you
freeze. I'm not a very good one, but I am a doctor."

I couldn't be admitted to
hospital as a patient. I refused to sit inside when the whales were
out here. That left me one option that was less repugnant than I'd
thought. I struggled out of my own dripping coat and dropped it on
the deck. My sweater and shirt beneath it were merely damp. I sank
deeper into Aidan's coat, until my back touched his chest.

His breath tickled my ear as he
laughed. "I expected you to take the first aid option inside."

"The whales are out here," I
said.

As if on cue, the baby exhaled
into the air and flashed its fin and tail. The whale cow lifted her
back high, followed by a tail wider than the boat, as she dove deep
and headed out of the bay. I farewelled her with my eyes.

Aidan zipped up his coat again,
this time with me inside. He was so warm. I was surprisingly
comfortable in this strange man's arms, though a contributing
factor might have been how numb I felt from the freezing wind.

I didn't sing again and all we
saw for the remainder of the trip were smaller humpbacks, surfacing
and blowing, as they had before. I didn't mind. This was enough.
Now I wanted to go back to shore and find some dry clothes. As if
the skipper had heard me, it seemed like no time at all before the
boat tied up at the jetty again. Aidan slid out of his coat and put
it on me. He carried my wet coat as he extended a hand to help me
out of the boat. I stumbled, clumsier than I could ever remember
being before, as I found my feet and legs were numb. Somehow, with
his help, I made it to the car. I sat in the passenger seat, almost
too cold to shiver.

Aidan had to buckle up my seat
belt, before asking me again, in concern, "Home or the
hospital?"

"Home," I replied as loudly as
I could. "There's nothing they can do for hypothermia at the
hospital that you can't do at home."

"Right. Right," Aidan told
himself, as he drove off.

I tried to focus on the road,
but my vision wavered from blurred to clear. I felt the bumpy
surface of gravel and told myself we were almost home. A kangaroo
came out of nowhere, bursting from the bush on one side of the
road. It cleared the bonnet of the car and hightailed off into the
bush on the other side.

"There goes Lucky," Aidan
said.

I struggled to understand. "The
kangaroo's name is Lucky?"

Aidan laughed. "Any kangaroo I
don't hit is called Lucky."

I smiled, or I think I did, but
I was so cold I couldn't feel if my face was working correctly.

Aidan kept shooting glances in
my direction, his expression increasingly grim.

He parked his car so close to
the front door it was almost on the veranda encircling the walls.
He bundled me out of the car and into the house.

Once inside, he let go of me. I
sagged on my feet, but I remained standing.

His fingers manically combed
through his hair, so it fluffed out in all directions. "You
should…go get changed. Into some warm, dry clothes. I'll start the
fire and get the room heated, so you can sit out here on the sofa
to warm up." He looked at me, more than a little apprehensive. "Do
you need help getting changed, or will you be okay?"

I smiled, bemused. "I think I
can dress myself." I ambled toward the bedroom I'd claimed.
Changing my clothes was harder than I'd expected, because my hands
weren't as cooperative as I needed them to be. After some time, I
managed to take off my wet clothes and put on some pants and a
shirt. I decided I didn't need a bra, because it was pretty useless
when I couldn't fasten it. Today I was glad my breasts were much
smaller than Vanessa's, because if she chose not to wear a bra, it
hardly went without notice. Quite the opposite.

After some consideration, I
pulled Aidan's tartan coat on over my shirt. This would hide my
breasts, if such a thing was necessary.

I carefully picked my way
across the tiled floor on numb feet. In the time it had taken me to
get changed, Aidan had started a fire in the fireplace. The first
big chunk of wood was starting to burn, orange flame darting around
the edges, like small, nibbling fish.

I sat on the couch, focussing
on the flames. Aidan moved from his crouch in front of the fire to
the couch beside me. He helped me out of his damp coat, flinging a
fluffy rug over my shoulders instead.

He stood in front of me,
unconsciously washing his hands without water or soap, I noticed
with faint humour. Rubbing his hands from his forearms to his
fingertips, as if scrubbing up for some delicate surgical
procedure.

"So, I take it you're not going
whale watching again for a while?" Aidan's joke fell flat.

I looked up to his considerable
height, incredulous. Why would I avoid whales? It was the wind that
took my warmth, not the whale. I wished I could tell this man why
such a suggestion was so nonsensical, but I kept my mouth closed. I
turned my eyes to the flame-fish in the fire.

"Right." His voice was
uncertain, as he walked away from me and out of my sight. I heard
him moving around in the kitchen, but I concentrated on the fire,
my focus on its warmth.

Aidan returned with a bottle
and two glasses, clinking them down on the coffee table. He
carefully broke the seal and poured a small amount of kelp-coloured
liquid into the bottom of each glass.

He held onto the bottle, giving
a sigh. "I was keeping this for a special occasion. I guess
medicinal purposes qualify as an occasion." He didn't explain his
cryptic words, nor did I care for an explanation, so I waited for
him to hand me a glass. "Drink this. It'll help warm you a
bit."

I judged the quantity of liquid
to be a large mouthful, so I took it all in one gulp. A mouthful of
fire coral would have burned less. My eyes watered as if to put out
the flames in my throat, but the effort was futile.

I tried to
focus on the bottle's label. Blinking, it took me a few minutes
before I could see.
Limeburners Single
Malt Whisky Barrel Strength
, I read,
before I had the use of my voice. What lime was I didn't know, but
this drink would burn anything.

"What is it?" I rasped.

Aidan took a small sip of his
drink. He held it in his mouth, as if savouring the burning
sensation. "Whiskey," he answered.

He looked at the bottle
carefully. "Barrel strength. I'm sorry, I should have added some
water."

He placed his barely-touched
glass on the table and headed past me to the kitchen. He returned a
moment later with a small jug of water, a ridiculously small
quantity to extinguish the fire from my drink. He lifted the jug to
pour some water into my glass, but stopped before a drop
landed.

"You finished it all? You
shouldn't have too much, not before your body temperature goes back
to normal." Aidan looked worried, but poured more of the whiskey
into my glass, then a tiny trickle of water. He did the same for
his own glass. He handed mine back to me and carefully clinked the
two together.

"To your good health," he said
gravely, before taking a sip.

This time, I followed his
example, taking only a tiny sip of the whiskey I now regarded
warily.

It was as I suspected. The
water did nothing to stop the burn, but there was flavour amid the
hot sensation. I thought I tasted honey and warm chocolate. I took
another sip and ventured an opinion. "This would go well with warm
brownies and ice cream."

My words surprised him. He
looked like he was struggling to find a reply. "I'm not giving you
ice cream until you're warm again," he said finally. He set his
glass down and knelt on the floor to stoke the fire. He placed
several large chunks of wood in the fireplace, far more than I
considered necessary. Perhaps he felt the room was chilly, or that
I required additional warmth.

He unfolded to his full height
and crossed the floor to me. He placed a hand cautiously on my
chest at the base of my neck, where bare skin showed above the
collar of my t-shirt. I met his eyes with a question, but he didn't
answer it.

"You're still cold," he
murmured, concern creasing lines into his forehead beneath the
crest of orange curls.

I bit back the comment I wanted
to make, that I would always feel cold to his warm hands. There
were differences between us that I couldn't begin to
categorise.

After a considerable time,
Aidan seemed to make a decision. "Move over," he ordered, climbing
over me onto the couch. I shifted to the edge of the seat, not sure
where I was supposed to move to. Folding into the space behind me,
he took hold of the fluffy blanket. "Now, lean back." I shifted
back against him and he gave the rug a flick so it settled over me.
He rested his arms lightly on top of the grey fuzz.

I drowsed in the warmth from
him, the rug and the fire, until his voice interrupted my drift.
"You can't sleep yet, not 'til you're warm. I may be a bad doctor,
but I do know what I'm doing."

His words irritated me like the
brush of a jellyfish tentacle across my skin. "You're not a bad
doctor. You're doing fine right now," I mumbled. "I can feel my
feet already."

I'm not sure he heard. "I
should have taken you to hospital." His words were whispered with
regret.

I gave a snort and struggled to
sit up. "I wouldn't have let you. I'd have jumped into the water in
the bay first." I closed my mouth and gritted my teeth so I didn't
say anything else I shouldn't. I reached for my whiskey and drank
some more, hoping to burn my voice past redemption. If I couldn't
speak, then I couldn't say anything else stupid. This was precisely
the sort of situation I was supposed to studiously stay away from.
Oh, to be able to swim away. I stared at the fire, willing its
warmth into my very bones.

"But I can't swim," Aidan said,
sounding hurt.

Nor can I,
right now
. My frustration broke some
barrier inside me and I fell back against him, helpless with
hilarity. "You can't deal with a simple case of hypothermia because
you can't swim?"

The man behind me turned rigid
and his hands formed into fists. "No, I'm not a good doctor because
when I'm under pressure, I just freeze up and can't think. So I let
someone else help my patient, because I'm terrified of stuffing up
and making them worse."

I lifted my arm from beneath
the blanket and laid it across his arm, from his elbow to his
wrist. I dug my fingers between his and forced his fist open. My
hand was now warmer than his. "Today, you took care of a patient
with no help from anyone else. You know what to do. Maybe all you
need is the confidence to take charge."

I threw the blanket off and
surged to my feet. The whiskey swirled in my head, but I maintained
my balance. I headed for the kitchen and a large glass of water
without whiskey.

I downed the glass of water and
chased it with another. Holding tightly to the bench with one hand
to keep it from moving, I turned to face Aidan across the dining
table. "I'm hungry," I announced, "and I don't think I can drive
anywhere safely. What do you suggest?"

Dinner was the result of a
rummage through the freezer for anything we could throw on an oven
tray. I don't remember the food, because it wasn't memorable –
simply edible.

Dessert I remember, because
Aidan had brownies hidden in the back of the fridge and some ice
cream stashed in the freezer. Ably aided by the microwave, we
devoured warm brownies topped with vanilla ice cream, accompanied
by another glass of Aidan's burning whiskey.

When I stood up from the dining
table, I found I was unsteady, but I managed to stagger to the
couch before falling gracelessly onto it. I watched Aidan take the
plates from the dining table and dump them in the sink. His steps
were more coordinated than mine; the whiskey affected him far less
than it did me.

Irritated, I spat out the
question that burned in my mind. "Why did you choose to become a
doctor if you feel you're so bad at it?"

Aidan draped himself across the
couch opposite me. He didn't seem fazed. "I didn't. I chose to be
an engineer, but I couldn't get a job in Ireland. So, I went back
to university to study graduate medicine, like my dad wanted. The
study was easy and so was the practical stuff, at first. It's not
'til now, when people expect me to know what I'm doing and take
charge, that I don't want to."

Surprised, I didn't know what
to say. After a moment, I asked the next question. "So, how old are
you?"

"Thirty, last birthday," he
replied, his eyes on me. He looked as if he expected me to
contradict him.

I was surprised – I'd thought
he was younger – but he probably thought the same thing of me.

When I said nothing, he
surprised me for the third time, with a different question. "So,
why did you choose to be a midwife? Is it because you love
babies?"