‘Normally I would insist that your husband went to hospital, Mrs James. However, in view of the fact that he is so adamant that he doesn’t want to go, and that this isn’t the first time he has had malaria, I think it will be safe enough to allow him to remain here.’
‘Is there anything else I need to know?’ Katherine opened the door as the doctor picked up his bag. ‘I’ll make sure that he takes the medicine you’ve prescribed for him, of course.’
‘That’s the main thing.’ The doctor smiled reassuringly as he saw the concern in her eyes. ‘Your husband will be fine, Mrs James. It’s just a question of letting the illness run its course. There will be bouts of fever followed by periods when he will feel chilled, and he may even appear slightly confused at times. However, just make sure that he’s comfortable and he should be right as rain in a day or so.’
‘Thank you, Doctor.’
Katherine closed the door, then went back to the bedroom. Jordan was asleep again, lying quietly enough beneath the blanket now. She tried to decide if he looked any better but it was hard to tell. All she could do was wait for the illness to run its course, as the doctor had said, although she still couldn’t quite believe what was the matter with Jordan.
Malaria! Never in her wildest moment would she have suspected that was what was wrong. But the doctor had seemed in little doubt after Jordan had explained that he’d had it before. It made her wonder suddenly where he had caught it, but then there were so many things about him which she didn’t know. Their marriage hadn’t been founded on a mutual need to get to know one another, but on something far more basic. Maybe they had been foolish to imagine that it could have worked in the circumstances.
Katherine moved away from the bed and went to the window to stare out. The evening rush hour was almost over but there was still plenty of traffic moving along the street. Its sound was muted to a low hum which made a background for the thoughts humming inside her head.
Would either of them have gone into this marriage if they’d had any real idea of how it would turn out? She couldn’t speak for Jordan, and it was equally difficult to answer the question herself. Even with the benefit of hindsight she had trouble deciding.
She turned to glance at the man lying in the bed and sighed. There was a strange sense of déjà vu about everything which had happened in the past two days. Eighteen months ago there had also seemed little alternative but to ask Jordan for help...
When Katherine discovered that her home in Suffolk had been mortgaged to the hilt and that the bank was about to call in its loan, she realised that something had to be done. Carstairs Engineering had been losing money for years, and since her father’s heart attack six months previously affairs had gone from bad to worse.
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