Christmas At Willowmere. Abigail Gordon

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СКАЧАТЬ we say six o’clock? I always prepare the evening meal for the four of us and James comes up as soon as the late surgery is over. The children go to bed at half past seven, which gives time for their meal to settle.’

      ‘Six o’clock it is,’ he said trying to conceal the pleasure it was giving him in saying it.

      * * *

      There was a light on at Bracken House when she got back and she stopped off before going to her own place. She found James still up and told him, ‘I’ve done as you said and invited Glenn to eat with us tomorrow night.’

      ‘Good,’ he said, looking up from the paperwork in front of him. ‘I look forward to meeting him.’

      Now that she’d extended the invitation, Anna wasn’t sure that she’d done the right thing. Was it a good idea to get so chummy when he would be leaving so soon? Yet why not make the most of every moment? The time they spent together would be something to hold onto when he’d gone.

      The next morning at the surgery Beth said, ‘The bush telegraph has been buzzing. Who was the handsome guy you were with in The Pheasant last night?’

      Anna smiled. It was a fact that not much went unnoticed in Willowmere. It was a close-knit community. Some of the people had lived there all their lives, as their fathers had before them.

      ‘It was just a friend from my university days,’ she explained as they called in the first of those waiting to be seen.

      Sam Gibson had been passed on to them to have blood taken to assess sugar levels by Georgina Adams, the other full-time doctor in the practice, and he was not happy when he saw the needle.

      ‘It won’t take a second, Sam,’ Anna told him. ‘Look the other way.’

      He was a farmer from the outskirts of the village, a big burly fellow afraid of nothing except the needle, so it seemed.

      ‘Don’t tell my Dorothy that I was scared of the needle, will you?’ he said sheepishly as he rolled his sleeve back down. ‘I kid her about being afraid of spiders, so she’ll never let it drop if she finds out.’

      Smiling, she showed him out then ushered in her next patient, a young girl with a urine infection who James wanted a sample from. And so the morning progressed, though Anna was still gripped by the feeling of unreality that had been there ever since she’d seen Glenn outside the school.

      In a spare moment between patients she wondered wryly what people would think if they knew that she’d once been going to marry the man she’d been seen with in The Pheasant. That she’d been crazy not to?

      As Anna prepared the meal that evening she was acutely aware that Glenn was going to be seated across the table from her, with James and the children looking on curiously at the stranger in their midst.

      She was tempted to get out the best china and then decided not to as she didn’t want him to read anything into the invitation that wasn’t there. It was a Wednesday and they always had chicken casserole for first course and sticky toffee pudding for dessert, and knowing that the children would be disappointed if those things weren’t on offer, she stayed with the usual menu and hoped that it would appeal to their guest.

      When they’d met outside the school yesterday Glenn had been wearing a thick jacket over a black sweater and jeans, and she surmised that he might be feeling the cold after being in warmer climates for so long.

      But when he rang the doorbell at six o’clock and she opened the door to him with the children, one on either side of her, Anna saw that he’d changed into lighter clothing in the form of a smart suit with shirt and tie.

      At once she wished that she had got out the best china, that her face wasn’t flushed from the heat of the oven, and that she’d found time to dress in something that didn’t detract from her appearance of the night before. Yet did it matter? Glenn was going to be just a ship that passed in the night. It was amazing that he’d actually taken the trouble to seek her out.

      ‘Hello again,’ he said, and with a smile for the children as she stepped back to let him in, he added, ‘I hope I’m not too early.’

      ‘No, of course not,’ she told him. ‘James isn’t here yet, so can I offer you a drink before we eat?” He wasn’t looking so drawn, she thought as she showed him into the sitting room. Maybe he’d spent the day relaxing. She wasn’t to know that his less drawn expression was due more to the relief of having crossed the first hurdle in getting to know her again.

      While the children played with their toys and the two adults drank a pre-dinner sherry, Glenn said, with his gaze on Pollyanna and Jolyon, ‘We’ve both moved on since we last saw each other, haven’t we, Anna?’

      ‘I would describe my life more as moving sideways rather than on,’ she commented whimsically. To avoid getting into deep water again, she went on, ‘What are you going to do if you don’t go back to Africa straight away?’

      ‘I haven’t made up my mind yet,’ he told her, and was prevented from saying more by the appearance of James.

      When they’d been introduced Anna left the two men chatting while she went into the kitchen to serve the meal. The children followed and, remembering how she’d told them that the visitor was a friend of hers from when she was learning to be a nurse, Polly, who was usually the spokeswoman for the two of them, asked, ‘Is that why Dr. Hamilton has come to see us?’

      ‘Yes. He’s visiting people he used to know and I was one of them.’ Remembering their brief reunion outside the school the day before, when he hadn’t shown any reaction to her comment about the way they’d parted, she was wondering why he’d included her on his list.

      ‘Has he been where there are crocodiles?’ Jolyon wanted to know.

      He was the quieter of the two, and a solemn child, considering her pet name for him, but he usually came up with something imaginative when he made the effort.

      ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘Why don’t you ask him?’

      ‘Yes. I will,’ he promised.

      ‘You have two captivating children,’ Glenn told James as they seated themselves around the table. Jolyon had just asked his question and his eyes had widened as Glenn had explained that there had been crocodiles in some of the places where he’d worked, but as they spent a lot of time in the water he hadn’t seen much of them.

      ‘We think so, don’t we, Anna?’ James said with an affectionate glance at his sister. ‘When my wife died, leaving me with two young babies, Anna was a huge help, but it concerns me that she gets so little time to herself. And I’m sure that other people who know her feel the same.’

      ‘Don’t do this to me, James,’ Anna was begging silently. Don’t describe me as someone to be sorry for. Not in front of Glenn. He will soon be going back to where he came from and that is how it has to be.

      Silence had fallen over the room and after a moment she said, ‘How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t mind, James? The children are everything to me.’

      And if that isn’t telling me straight to go back to where I’ve come from, I don’t know what is, Glenn thought grimly.

      But James СКАЧАТЬ