style="font-size:15px;"> ‘So you’re just flirting, then!’ Elsie beamed. ‘Oh, you lucky, lucky girl. I loved flirting.’
‘We’re not flirting, Elsie,’ Annika said. ‘In fact we’re now ignoring each other.’
‘Why would you do that?’
‘Just leave it, Elsie.’
‘Flirt!’ Elsie insisted as Annika pulled her nightgown over her head. ‘Ask him out.’
‘Enough, Elsie,’ Annika attempted, but it was like pulling down a book and having the whole shelf toppling down on you. Elsie was on a roll, telling her exactly what she’d have done, how the worst thing she should do was play it cool.
On and on she went as Annika showered her, though thankfully, once Annika had popped in her teeth, Elsie’s train of thought drifted back to her beloved Bertie, to the sixty wonderful years they had shared, to shy kisses at the dance halls he had taken her to and the agony of him going to war. She talked about how you must never let the sun go down on a row, and she chatted away about Bertie, their wedding night and babies as Annika dressed her, combed her hair, and then wheeled her back to her room.
‘You must miss him,’ Annika said, arranging Elsie’s table, just as she did every morning she worked there, putting her glasses within reach, her little alarm clock, and then Elsie and Bertie’s wedding photo in pride of place.
‘Sometimes,’ Elsie said, and then her eyes were crystal-clear, ‘but only when I’m sane.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I get to relive our moments, over and over …’ Elsie smiled, and then she was gone, back to her own world, the moment of clarity over. She did not talk as Annika wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and put on her slippers.
‘Enjoy it,’ Annika said to her favourite resident.
He had his ticket booked, and four weeks’ unpaid leave reluctantly granted. They had wanted him to take paid leave but, as Ross had pointed out, that was all saved up for his trips to Russia. This hadn’t gone down too well, and Ross had sat through a thinly veiled warning from the Head of Paediatrics—there was no such thing as a part-time consultant and, while his work overseas was admirable, there were plenty of charities here in Australia he could support.
As he walked through the canteen that evening, the conversation played over in his mind. He could feel the tentacles of bureaucracy tightening around him. He wanted this day over, to be back at his farm, where there were no rules other than to make sure the animals were fed.
His intention had been to get some chocolate from the vending machine, but he saw Annika, and thought it would be far more sensible to keep on walking. Instead, he bought a questionable cup of coffee from another machine and, uninvited, went over.
‘Hi!’
He didn’t ask if he could join her; he simply sat down.
She was eating a Greek salad and had pushed all the olives to one side.
‘Hello.’
‘Nice apron.’ She was emblazoned with fairies and wands, and he could only laugh that she hated it so.
‘It was the only one left,’ Annika said. ‘Ross, if I do write my notice—if I do give up nursing—in my letter there will be a long paragraph devoted to being made to wear aprons.’
‘So you’re thinking of it?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I asked for a weekend off. There is a family function—there is no question that I don’t go. I requested it ages ago, when I found out that I would be on the children’s ward. I sent a memo, but it got lost, apparently.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Caroline has changed my late shift on Saturday to an early, and she has changed the early shift on Sunday to a late. She wasn’t pleased, though, and neither am I.’ She looked over to him. ‘I have to get ready….’ And then her voice trailed off, because it sounded ridiculous, and how could he possibly know just what getting ready for a family function entailed?
And he didn’t understand her, but he wanted to.
And, yes, he was sworn off women, and she had said no to dinner, and, yes, it could get very messy, but right now he didn’t care.
He should get up and go.
Yet he couldn’t.
Quiet simply, he couldn’t.
‘I told them I’m going to Spain.’
She looked at his grim face and guessed it hadn’t gone well. ‘It will be worth it when you’re there, I’m sure.’
‘Do you ever want to go to Russia?’ Ross asked. ‘To see where you are from.’
‘I was born here.’
‘But your roots …’
‘I might not like what I dig up.’
He glanced down at her plate, at the lovely ripe olives she had pushed aside. ‘May I?’
‘That’s bad manners.’
‘Not between friends.’
He would not have taken one unless she’d done what she did next and pushed the plate towards him. She watched as he took the ripe fruit and popped it in his mouth, and Annika had no idea how, but he even looked sexy as he retrieved the stone.
‘They’re too good to leave.’
‘I don’t like them,’ she said. ‘I tried them once …’ She pulled a face.
‘You were either too young to appreciate them or you got a poor effort.’
‘A poor effort?’
‘Olives,’ Ross said, ‘need to be prepared carefully. They take ages—rush them and they’re bitter. I grow them at my farm, and my grandmother knows how to make the best … She’s Spanish.’
‘I didn’t think you were Spanish, more like a pirate or a gypsy.’
It was the first real time she had opened the conversation, the first hint at an open door. It was a glimpse that she did think about him. ‘I am Spanish …’ Ross said ‘… and I prefer Romany. I am Romany—well, my father was. My real father.’
His eyes were black—not navy, and not jade; they were as black as the leather on his belt.
‘He had a brief affair with my mother when they were passing through. She was sixteen …’
‘It must have caused a stir.’
‘Apparently not,’ Ross said. ‘She was a wild thing back then—she’s a bit eccentric even now. But wise …’ Ross said reluctantly. ‘Extremely wise.’
She wanted
