your stay in Australia,’ he proposed, and Grace acknowledged the toast with a dip of her head. Tiny flowers fell forward onto the table and, realising they must be in her hair, she lifted a hand to brush them out.
‘Don’t,’ he said, reaching out his free hand to catch hers in mid-air. ‘They look so pretty.’
‘Pretty?’ she echoed, the despair finding voice in bitterness. ‘That’s the last thing anyone’s ever called me.’
Still holding her hand, he brought it down to the table, where he rested it, leaving his lying negligently on top of it.
‘The flowers are pretty—they’re pretty in your hair,’ he said, and her bitterness deepened. ‘But you, you’re way past pretty—you’re beautiful.’
He raised his glass again then took a sip of the wine, but she was too flabbergasted by what he’d said to even think about sipping hers.
Beautiful?
He must want something.
She was good-looking, she knew that, even attractive most of the time, but her mouth was too big and her nose too long for beauty and she was too tall…
She shook her head, denying his assertion, and sipped some wine, then wiggled her hand out from under his and tucked it under the table where she had hoped it would stop remembering the feel of the weight of his and the texture of his skin.
Eventually!
‘Eat!’ he ordered, and by now she was too confused to do anything but obey him.
The meal was delicious, the wine smooth and mellow, slipping down so easily he was filling her glass before she realised she’d emptied it. They talked of the hospital, of the genesis of the paediatric surgery unit at the hospital called Jimmie’s, its future, and the people in the team. Doctors and nurses, Theo classified them all for her, every one of them good in their own way but each with special talents.
‘And your future—after your time in Sydney?’ he asked as the waitress took her plate and she’d said no to dessert. She sat back to enjoy the rest of the wine in her glass, more relaxed than she could believe possible.
‘I’ll go back home. I’ve been offered a place on a similar team in Cape Town. My father lives there and as he’s not getting any younger I want to be near him.’
‘Family’s important,’ Theo agreed, and whether it was the wine, or that simple statement, or just that she really, really needed to find out if he was the one, she found herself explaining once again.
‘My father is to me,’ she said. ‘He brought me up. My mother died when I was too young to remember her, and though he was a busy man—he was an orthopaedic surgeon—he always had time for me, time to read me a story at bedtime, and to listen to my worries and concerns, and to encourage me to do better, and to help me with my studies.’
She paused, wondering what effect this sudden outpouring of information was having on her companion, but Theo was leaning back in his chair, sipping his wine, if not absorbed in her conversation at least listening politely.
So she barged on, anxious to get it said once and for all.
‘It’s because of him I want a child—well, partly because of him. He’s seventy at the end of the year and I know a grandchild isn’t a normal kind of birthday present, but you have to understand my father. He can trace his family back for generations—back to the Scottish Jacobite rebellions, and further, even to the Vikings who conquered parts of Scotland from time to time. His grandfather emigrated to South Africa, but my father has always been interested in his Scottish heritage—in family. But with my mother dying, and him not marrying again, he was left with an only child and one who, at the moment, looks like being the end of the line. I know he’s proud of all I’ve achieved, and he’d never think less of me for not having a child, but deep down I feel I’ve let him down by not producing one—not producing someone to carry on his bloodline.’
She sneaked another look at Theo but he hadn’t fallen asleep neither was he yawning with boredom.
‘As I said, I’m thirty-five so I haven’t got much time, quite apart from his milestone birthday being this year. Which is what I wanted to ask you—being single and not in a relationship and all. I considered IVF but I don’t really want an unknown donor and there’d be no responsibility on your part, of course, it would be like you gave at the sperm bank—’
‘Grace!’
He didn’t yell her name but he said it with enough force to stop her in mid-flight.
‘Yes?’
He’d abandoned his wineglass and his relaxed pose and was leaning forward across the table, frowning fiercely at her.
‘Are you for real? Are you honestly sitting there, asking a virtual stranger—we only met yesterday, after all—for some of his sperm? Why not ask some hobo out in the street? For a few dollars you’d probably get all you need. Better still, go down to the beach and ask some of the board-riders—they’re outdoors all day, healthy—’
‘Stop! What you’re saying is ridiculous. Of course, what I asked was ridiculous as well, but you’re a doctor, you should understand. If I know where it’s come from I have some idea of genetic qualities. Yes, I know it was stupid to ask you when we’ve only just met, but I’ve thought about—about getting, you know, into a kind of relationship with someone so I could do this, but I’m not good at flirting and I’m a disaster with relationships, and anyway going to bed with someone I didn’t like just to get pregnant seemed wrong somehow, quite apart from the fact that if I did get pregnant I’d feel guilty, as if I’d stolen something from him.’
‘And asking a man for some sperm over dinner seemed OK?’ His voice, crisp with disbelief, seemed to echo around the outdoor space. She knew she was blushing fiercely again and that made her even angrier—mostly with herself, but surely this man could have been just a little more understanding!
‘Of course it’s not ideal but when would be? Think about it—halfway through a team meeting can I say, “Would one of you guys mind obliging?” And, anyway, most of the team are married and having a biological child by someone other than their wife, even if they didn’t acknowledge it, could cause problems in their marriage. I’m not totally insensitive!’
‘No?’ He was smiling now, the rat! Taking absolute delight in her embarrassment. ‘I must say it would enliven team meetings no end for you to suddenly come out with a request for a sperm donor.’
‘It’s all very well for you to joke,’ Grace snapped, hating him more and more for she’d never found it easy to deal with teasing. ‘But this is a serious problem for me.’
She sank back in her chair, swigged down the rest of the wine, and sighed.
Theo looked at her, reading the dejection in her pose, the embarrassment that lay behind it, and seeing also, behind the façade of confidence, the motherless little girl who wanted nothing more than to please the father she obviously adored.
It was the little girl who sneaked through his defences, although when he replayed Grace’s rationale in his head he suspected there was more to her wanting a child than she’d said. Oh, it had sounded very sensible—but was she using her father’s desire to see the family
