without the mother, although Alexandra’s plight has been well publicised in local and interstate papers. The father may not have known the mother was pregnant. A man spends the night with a woman, and these days probably takes precautions, but there’s no sign that flashes up in the morning, reminding him to check back in a few weeks to see if she’s pregnant.’
There was no bitterness in the words and he doubted very much that her pregnancy had resulted from a chance encounter. Klutz she might be, but everything he’d read about her suggested she was very intelligent.
Though klutz?
‘What’s a klutz?’
Now she laughed, and something shifted in his chest.
Was it because the laughter changed her from a reasonably attractive woman to a beautiful one, lit from within by whatever delight the question had inspired?
Because the blue eyes he was drawn to behind the glasses were sparkling with humour?
He didn’t think so. No, it was more the laughter itself—so free and wholesome—so good to hear. Did people laugh out loud less these days or was it just around him they were serious?
‘It’s a word we use for a clumsy person. I’m forever dropping things—not babies, of course—or knocking stuff over, or running into people. Hence the really, really horrible glasses. Rimless ones, thin gold frames, fancy plastic—I kill them all. Bumping into a door, or dropping them, or sitting on them, I’ve broken glasses in ways not yet invented. I tried contact lenses for a while but kept losing them—usually just one, but always the same one. So I had five right eyes and no left, which would have been okay for a five-eyed monster, of course. Anyway, now I go for the heaviest, strongest, thickest frames available. I’m a typical klutz!’
She hesitated, as if waiting for his comment on klutz-dom, but he was still considering his reaction to her laughter and before he could murmur some polite assurance that she probably wasn’t that bad, she was speaking again.
‘Not that you need to worry about my work abilities, I’m always totally focussed when I’m on the job. In fact, that’s probably my problem outside it—in my head I’m still in the unit, worrying about one or other of our small charges.’
Yes, he could understand that, but what he couldn’t understand was how freely this woman chatted with a virtual stranger. Every instinct told him she wasn’t a chatterer, yet here she was, rattling on about her clumsiness and monsters and an abandoned baby.
Was she using words to hide something?
Talking to prevent him asking questions?
He had no idea, but he’d come to see the unit, not concern himself with this particular employee.
Which was why he was surprised to hear himself asking if there was somewhere other than this alcove off the passageway where they could sit down and talk.
‘Of course! We’ve got a canteen in the courtyard, really lovely, but I suppose you’ve seen it already. I’ll just let someone know where I’ll be.’
She stepped, carefully, around him and entered the unit, stopping to speak to one of the nurses then peering behind a screen and speaking to someone before joining him outside.
‘How much space do you have at this new hospital of yours?’ she asked, the little frown back between blue eyes that were now sombre.
He glanced back at the unit, measuring it in his mind.
‘I’ve set aside an area, maybe twice the size of what you have here,’ he told her, and was absurdly pleased when the frown disappeared.
‘That’s great,’ she declared, clearly delighted. ‘We can have decent, reclining armchairs for the visiting parents and a separate room where mothers can express milk or breastfeed instead of being stuck behind a tatty screen. Beginning breastfeeding is particularly hard for our mothers. The babies have been getting full tummies with absolutely no effort on their part because the milk comes down a tube. Then suddenly they’re expected to work for it, and it’s frustrating for both parties.’
She was leading him along a corridor, striding along and talking at the same time, her high-heeled strappy sandals making her nearly as tall as he was.
A pregnant woman in high-heeled strappy sandals?
A doctor at work in high-heeled strappy sandals?
Not that her legs didn’t look fantastic in them …
What was he thinking!
It was the pregnancy thing that had thrown him. Too close to home—too many memories surfacing. If only he’d been more involved with Zara and the pregnancy, if only he’d been home more often, if only …
‘Here,’ his guide declared, walking into the leafy courtyard hung with glorious flowering orchids. ‘This, as you can see, is a special place. Mr Giles, who left the bequest for the hospital, was a passionate orchid grower and these orchids are either survivors from his collection or have been bred from his plants.’
Khalifa looked around, then shook his head.
‘I did notice the courtyard on one of my tours of the hospital, but didn’t come into it. It’s like an oasis of peace and beauty in a place that is very busy and often, I imagine, very sombre. I should have thought of something similar. I have been considering practicality too much.’
His companion smiled at him.
‘Just don’t take space out of my unit to arrange a courtyard,’ she warned. ‘Now, would you like tea or coffee, or perhaps a cold drink?’
‘Let me get it, Dr Jones,’ he said, reaching into his pocket for his wallet. ‘You’ll have …?’
‘I’m limiting myself to one coffee a day so I make it a good one. Coffee, black and strong and two sugars, and it’s Liz,’ she replied, confusing him once again.
‘Liz?’ he repeated.
‘Short for Elizabeth—Liz, not Dr Jones.’
He turned away to buy the coffees, his mind repeating the short name, while some primitive instinct sprang to life inside him, warning him of something …
But what?
‘Two coffees, please. Strong, black and two sugars in both of them.’
He gave his order, and paid the money, but his mind was trying to grasp at the fleeting sensation that had tapped him on the shoulder.
Because of their nomadic lifestyle in an often hostile country, an instinct for danger was bred into him and all his tribal people, but this woman couldn’t represent a danger, so that couldn’t be it.
But as he took the coffees from the barista, the sensation came again.
It couldn’t be because they drank their coffee the same way! Superstition might be alive and well in his homeland, but he’d never believed in any of the tales his people told of mischievous djinns interfering in people’s lives, or of a conflagration of events foretelling disaster. Well, not entirely! And a lot of people probably drank their coffee
