Author’s Notes:
* A Word Of Warning: This is the London story. I’ve introduced a few new characters to this one, so if you like the focus to be solely on Doug and Carol, turn back now! Also, as some of you may possibly be a little confused by my rendering of British slang and the Cockney accent, I’m perfectly willing to answer any questions and explain as best I can…
* Most of these characters are not mine. They belong to Constant-C, Warner Brothers etc… I do this only for fun and gain no money from it.
* The song featured is ‘I Love You Always Forever’ by Donna Lewis. It’s taken from her ‘Now In A Minute’ album.
* Before you head further in, in Britain, the ER is called the A and E, standing for Accident and Emergency. Or, as the doctors who work in the London hospitals call it, the ‘Always and Everyone’.
* Love it, or hate it, I’d really like to hear from you. Many thanks also to everyone who contacted me to give me feedback. Your effort is always appreciated.
* Thank you once again to my editors and special friends, Leslie and Cari. Thanks also to Emily, the new girl on board!
****
‘It was the best of times; it was the worst of times…’
- Charles Dickens, taken from A Tale Of Two Cities -
****
Always and Everyone
By Jo
dynamojo26@hotmail.com
"Doug… there’s someone on the phone you might want to talk to…" Cindy’s elfin face appeared around the doorframe to Doug’s office. He looked up from behind his cluttered desk and grimaced,
"I’m kinda swamped, Cin. Tell them I’ll call them back later…" He dropped his head, returning to the mound of paperwork she had deposited on his desk earlier, but she stepped further into the room, pushing the door partially shut behind her and responded in a secretive, but firm whisper,
"No, I don’t think you understand, Doug. Maybe I’ll rephrase that…" She paused for effect, then added, "There’s someone on the phone you really do want to talk to. Someone you do not want to call back."
An uncertain frown replaced the look of confusion on his face and he sighed, rolling his eyes. "Cindy… this had better be good. There’s enough paperwork here to last me till Christmas. Who is it?" She strutted further into the room, head held high, eyes twinkling.
"Professor Daniel Birsey, chief of staff for Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, London, England…" Doug raised his eyebrows. The surprise in his voice was obvious when he spoke,
"Why does he want to speak to me?"
She shrugged her shoulders as reply to his question, then went back through to her office. He heard her speaking from the other room, transferring the call, and then his telephone rang. Clearing his throat beforehand, Doug picked the receiver up and greeted, "Doug Ross speaking…"
A precise, clipped English accent acknowledged him, then ploughed immediately into conversation. "Good morning, Doctor Ross. My name is Professor Dan Birsey, and I’m calling on behalf of Great Ormond Street Hospital." The voice on the end of the phone crackled, the transatlantic connection struggling momentarily. "I’ve been interested in what you’ve been doing with Paediatric ER’s in the States for a number of months, and just recently I read a fascinating, and may I say, highly praiseworthy article on your work in the British Medical Journal." Doug blinked in surprise, unaccustomed, as he was, to approval. He snagged the cord with his finger and began stretching it out nervously, then wound it around his thumb.
"Well, thank you, Doctor… I’m flattered."
"Flattery isn’t my aim, Doctor Ross, and please, call me Dan…" Doug looked over to the door, where Cindy was peering around the frame, blatantly listening in to the conversation. Beckoning her in silently, Doug switched the telephone onto loudspeaker and, in deference, she pushed the door shut but remained in the shadows. "My reason for making this call is purely selfish, I assure you. As chief of staff at Great Ormond Street, my job is to ensure we provide the most exemplary medical service to the children of Britain, and having read your article and spoken to my fellows in Washington and Boston, I feel that we could only benefit from your skills here…"
Doug cleared his throat again, taking in a breath, ill at ease with himself. "In what way?" he heard himself ask, his voice at least partially disconnected from his body.
"I’ve spoken to the relevant authorities, and we would like you to consider what we have to offer. Obviously, I don’t expect an answer immediately, but this is the deal… Great Ormond Street has been considering implementing our own A and E for some years, but the idea has never progressed beyond the theoretical, mostly because the necessary funds have been unavailable. However, we recently received a considerable grant from the government and can now afford to push the idea into the practical. And we feel that you are the man to take the reins." He paused, possibly waiting for some sort of question or interjection, but Doug, still too stunned to think straight, remained silent. "Now, we would like to offer you the post, however, we are aware that it would require you to be on the scene in order to oversee developments. So naturally, the salary would be handsome. We also appreciate that you may have a family to consider, but for the duration that you are in the country, possibly four weeks, we would provide you with suitable accommodation and a car for yourself and your family."
"That’s very kind, Doctor Birsey," Doug said quickly. "But my children are very young…"
"We understand completely if you choose to turn the offer down, but Doctor Ross, I ask you to not make a hasty decision. Please, take a little time, weigh up the pros and cons and then call me with your answer. Would you consider that?"
Doug readily agreed, "Definitely. I’ll have to speak to my boss, though."
"That’s taken care of. I’ve had a number of conversations with your Chief of Staff in the past week and he is willing to release you from your contract for up to six weeks. All that’s necessary is for you to consider whether you would like to accept." Doug swallowed, surprised that the plans had been discussed so thoroughly without his knowledge.
"Okay… I’ll do that…"
"Can I give you my contact number?"
"Sure, go ahead…" Doug dragged a notepad towards him from the edge of his desk and scribbled down the number the Englishman quoted. His mind still whirling, he added, "I’ll give it some thought then… thank you…"
"My pleasure, Doctor Ross… goodbye."
He hung up the phone and lifted his head to Cindy, whose face instantly split with an immense, luminous grin. "Hey, Mr. Popularity… what’re you gonna do?"
Shaking his head, Doug replied, "It’s a great offer, but I dunno… I’ll have to speak to Carol… it’s up to her…"
"Doug, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime!" Cindy exclaimed, bounding over to the desk and straddling the chair opposite him. He studied her jubilant expression. "Just think! He’s read about you in England… you’re a worldwide celebrity!"
He made a face, "Ah, no… I think you’re being a bit sensationalist, there…"
"Why?" Cindy bounced up again and paced eagerly around to him. "You’ve always said all you ever wanted was for someone to sit up and take notice, and what do you think that was, huh? I don’t think you could ask for someone to sit up straighter and take any more notice." She grinned at him mischievously, her head cocked on one side. "And just think what that Kerry Weaver will think when she hears of that."
Doug had to smile at that. Only Cindy would have voiced such a comment. "I said I’d think about it, okay… But, we’re just getting settled into the house. It’s been three weeks and I’m already going home to Carol to tell her to pack her bags again, cos we’re going to London… That’s a bit much for her to take in…"
"I’m sure she’d understand."
He shrugged. "Maybe…" Cindy considered him thoughtfully for a moment, knowing he was putting his head in the sand so he didn’t have to think about the possibility of Carol saying no. She knew damn well that he knew this was not an opportunity to be missed. But she also knew that no amount of persuasion on her behalf would help. It was Carol who held the cards now.
"Do you want coffee?" she offered instead, giving him his space and time to think. He looked up again and nodded.
"Sure… thanks,"
****
Thinking of the night ahead of him, Doug stopped at the florists on the way back from the hospital. "Lilies?" said the smoky woman with dyed blonde hair and pink feather slippers on behind the counter. "Who you tryin’ to sweet talk, darlin’?"
Doug tried not to be petulant, and handed over the cash immediately, picking up the bouquet and heading out of the door as quickly as he could, trying not to think about those words. He took the long way home, driving slowly, his mind clocking up still more miles dwelling on the decision he knew awaited him. He pulled the car into the driveway and climbed out, sliding the cellophane wrapped lilies onto his arm and zapping the alarm on the car with his free hand. A constellation of lights glowed out from the house into the sundown duskiness, and he looked around, wondering which of the rooms she was in. For the past three weeks, Carol had seemed to settle easily into being away from work. Naturally, the twins kept her busy, but she’d not once complained of the boredom she had anticipated. In fact, Doug had enjoyed coming home to a house with lights on and enticing smells coming from the kitchen, so much so that without even thinking about it, they’d fallen almost unknowingly into comfortable domesticity.
The door was unlocked and he stepped into the hallway, putting down his briefcase by the phone table but restraining his now customary ‘Anyone home?’ enquiry. In the kitchen, the radio could be heard chattering away, although from the lack of accompanying noise, he figured she more than likely wasn’t there. The lounge was in darkness, probably the only room in the house, but as he began to make his way up the stairs, he heard squeals and her voice coming from the bathroom. He smiled, realising she was giving the girls a bath.
He paused momentarily outside the door, wondering whether he’d chosen the right moment, or whether he should wait until she’d finished and return downstairs, but something regardless compelled him to open the door and step through. "Hey," he greeted in what he thought was a casual voice.
All three faces looked up at him from the tub. The girls stopped their splashing and Carol turned to him, her pale blue shirt soaked to transparency and bubbles decorating her nose and cheek. Her mouth smiled at him, noticing the pink stargazers in his arm. "Oh, Doug…" she sighed happily.
"For you…" he said, holding out the bundle. She reached up and took them from him.
"They’re beautiful," she murmured, pushing her nose up to the flowers and taking a deep breath of their heady scent. "And they smell gorgeous… thank you…"
Her smile was broad, but as he came to kneel beside her, leaning over to plant a kiss on each of the girls’ heads, she tilted her head questioningly. "I feel like I have to ask, though," she said. "What’s the occasion?"
He grinned back, flicking his head. "I have something to tell you… something to ask you really, but it can wait till you’ve finished." She didn’t question, and he brought his hand up to wipe the bubbles from her face. In the tub, the girls had taken up their splashing again, the bath toys being thrown hither and thither on the turbulent water. "Now, now…" he stuck his hand out and grabbed the little blue plastic sailing boat and tugged it in front of Tess to distract her. Immediately, she reached out and took it up in her fist, bringing it straight up to her mouth to chew on it. Doug chuckled, "It’s not to eat, you know…"
Carol shook her head. "It’s okay, a little soap won’t hurt her. I was gonna get in myself when I’d got them out, but now you’re home, I’ll sort dinner first."
"I’ll make something, Carol, don’t worry about that…" He asserted, not wanting to spoil her good mood. She tilted her head questioningly.
"What’s up with you?"
"Nothing," he shrugged and leaned over to pick Tess up out of the water. He selected a warm dark blue towel from the radiator and wrapped her up in it, fighting it around her kicking feet.
"Good day at work?"
"Mmm…" he barely answered, avoiding her question, instead holding Tess at arm’s length and spinning her around. She let out a wild giggle, her face mirthful, and reached out her hands to his face. Carol shook her head at him, but he didn’t notice. Instead, he took Tess out of the room and she heard him walk away, his voice getting steadily quieter, until it was just a hum through the wall. She picked Kate up and bundled her up in a towel, putting her against her chest.
"What’s happened at Daddy’s work, hey?" she said in a soft voice. Kate looked at her questioningly and gave her a toothy smile, making her smile too.
When she walked through to the girls’ bedroom, Doug had packaged Tess up in a clean diaper and one of the dozens of pastel coloured romper suits they had to sleep in. He’d set her down in the playpen and she was animatedly investigating the activity mat they’d bought last weekend. Meanwhile, Doug was sitting on the window seat, staring out through a gap in the sunshine yellow curtains, out onto the lake. Carol said nothing when she walked in, but busied herself with dressing Kate for bed. "Do you want me to sort something to eat, then?" he asked finally, standing up. Carol twisted from buttoning Kate’s romper suit and stared at him, still unable to fathom what he wasn’t telling her.
"I put baked potatoes in the oven an hour and a bit ago. They should be about ready now…" She looked at him squarely. "There’s fresh salad and coleslaw in the refrigerator and I think there’s some chilli leftover from last night. I don’t know what else you want to go on top… There’s loads of stuff in the cupboards."
For a moment, she thought he was going to say something, but he just nodded his head, replied, "Okay," and left without another word. When she went down to heat up the girls’ bedtime bottles, he wasn’t in the kitchen, but the table was set and the radio was still turned on. She absently switched it off while the kettle boiled, then waited, expecting him to hear her from the living room, where he no doubt was watching the early evening news, and come through, but he did not. When the bottles were sufficiently heated, she went back upstairs and fed them to the girls, methodically burping them and then switching on the nightlight and laying them down in the cribs. She kissed each one of them goodnight and then pulled the door slightly closed and went back down.
This time, he was in the kitchen, opening a can of sweetcorn and draining the water down the sink. He looked up and smiled at her, but she did not smile back. He tipped the yellow nuggets into a noodle bowl and then took it to the table. She pulled out a chair and sat down and he juggled the two potatoes out of the oven without oven gloves, scorching his fingers in the process. He ran them briefly under the faucet and then sat down opposite her, wiping the excess moisture off on his suit trousers. He split his potato with his knife and dropped a knob of butter into the centre. "Carol," he began, but then stopped. She looked up, a spoonful of chilli hovering over her plate. "When you asked me earlier, I didn’t tell you the whole truth…" he paused, and she set the spoon down, her elbows resting on the table. "I had a phone call this morning. A pretty important phone call."
Carol dipped her eyebrows, sensing this was what he’d been keeping from her. "And…" she prompted. "Who was it? What did they want?" Doug cleared his throat.
"Er, it was a professor from Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital… in London." Her eyes blinked in surprise and her brows now rose. "And they want me." He looked down, swallowing. "They want me to go to London to set up a Paeds ER for them…"
"Oh, God…" Carol couldn’t help herself, torn between pride and the flooding realisation that such a trip would inevitably take him away from her. "For how long?"
"A month…"
She said nothing, simply staring at him, waiting for him to say what she knew he was going to say; that he was going and he was sorry, but he couldn’t forsake the opportunity. Doug saw her blank expression and looked down, prodding at his potato with his fork. "And you’re gonna take the job?" she ventured finally.
"I don’t know… that’s what I was gonna ask you…"
"Ask me?" Carol frowned. "It’s your choice, Doug. You have to do what you think is best…"
"Well, under normal circumstances it would be my decision," he allowed, reaching out to pick up the bag of lettuce and tip some onto his plate. "But part of the offer is that my family can come with me… They’re gonna arrange a house and car for us. I," he smiled and flicked his head questioningly. "I just need to know if you’ll come with me." Her face registered surprise that slowly became a tentative smile.
"And this is all part of the deal? There’s no cost?"
"No, it’s all part of the package. I thought it was great… and I kinda got the impression I was wanted badly," he chuckled self-consciously. Carol smiled enigmatically and, Doug, not knowing quite how to read her, added, "So will you come with me?"
Her smile spread even wider. "I’d love to…" She looked towards the door, indicating the other members of the house. "We’d love to come with you." She stood up and walked over to him, reaching down to take his hands and pull him up. She kissed him, "Doug, it’s wonderful. I’m so proud of you…" He beamed with relief in her arms and kissed her back.
"You have no idea how great it is to hear that…" he murmured into her hair. "I’ve been tearing up about it all day. I thought you’d’ve said no… and then I wouldn’t have gone." He kissed her thankfully again. "I couldn’t have gone. Not for a whole month…"
"It’s a great opportunity, Doug. You can’t pass it by…"
"That’s what Cindy said,"
"And she’s right," she assured him, giving him a final hug. "Besides, it’ll be fun to see another country… I’ve never been abroad…" She paused, slipping back into her seat. "In fact, are you going to bring Cindy along too? She’s got friends in England…"
Doug chuckled, sitting back down at the table. "Yeah, it’s Nigel, her ex-husband’s parents…" He explained, adding French dressing, cucumber, a tomato and chopped chilli peppers to his plate, tossing them together, paused to grind some salt and pepper on, then tucked in with gusto. "Mmm… that’s good," he said. "I only managed to grab an apple and a coffee at dinner, cos I was so busy. But, yeah, Cindy persuaded me to take the call, so I don’t think she’d be too pleased if I left her here… and anyway, I’ll probably need her. She’s my third hand."
Carol listened to him, thinking to herself that by his confident tone, he’d probably been mulling the details over all day, regardless of whether he had work to do or not. "Do you know any more then?" she asked him, hoping he wouldn’t see the eagerness in her words.
"Nah," He barely even looked up, munching on the crunchy salad. "I’ll give them a call tomorrow. Let them know I’ll take the job… hopefully, they’ll let me know some more then…"
"That’s a good idea… maybe this Professor will let you know something about the house…" she hinted. Doug looked up, studying her expression, seeing behind her twinkling eyes that she was already making plans.
"Don’t get your hopes up, Carol. It’ll probably just be an apartment..." Carol looked at him oddly, then said slowly,
"I know, but I’ve never lived in a foreign country… even if it is only for a month." She grinned. "Aw, come on, Doug, can’t I be excited about this, too?"
"Sure you can, but I’d hold it off just a little while longer till we find out what the score really is."
****
Feels like
I’m standing in a timeless dream
Of light mists
Of pale amber rose
Feels like
I’m lost in the deep cloud
Of heavenly scent
Touching, discovering you
****
The following evening, Doug arrived home to find Carol packing a suitcase in the girls’ room. She glanced up guiltily as he walked in, trying her hardest not to smile. "What’s going on here, then?" he asked teasingly, knowing full well what she was doing. In their playpen, the twins babbled at him and he went over and picked them both out, one after the other, then sat down with them on the newly laid blue carpet. Kate toppled onto her side, but righted herself instantly, then busied herself picking at her father’s shoelace.
"I thought I’d get a head start…" Carol explained lamely. He chuckled at her.
"Now tell the truth…"
She fidgeted. "Okay, I couldn’t wait. I’m sorry, Doug, it’s just pretty exciting when the furthest you’ve ever been is the other side of Lake Michigan. It’s okay for you, your Dad took you all over the country. My parents couldn’t afford that sort of stuff. We were lucky if we had a vacation at all…" She went to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer, selected a handful of the girls’ socks then threw them one at a time across the room and into the open suitcase.
"Nice pitches…"
Carol looked down at him playing with the girls, tickling Tess’ bare feet so she wriggled and laughed out loud. "How about you help me out here…?"
He glanced up. "Nah… wouldn’t wanna spoil your fun…" Carol gave him a withering look and he chuckled, rolling onto his back and dragging Kate up onto his stomach, sitting her astride him. A minute passed while Carol opened the second drawer and took out some more of the girls’ clothes, little dungarees, t-shirts, sweaters and cotton all-in-ones. "So, what else have you done, hmm?" Doug piped up from the floor.
Carol stopped folding a sweater and smiled, "Packed my side of the suitcase…" she admitted. "And put some of your stuff in…"
"Oh yeah… anything else?"
"Doug," she objected. "Are you doing this for a reason, or are you just trying to make me wanna kill you?" He glanced up, rolled Kate off of him, then sat up, letting the girls roam around the room, Tess now having mastered a rudimentary crawl. He leaned back against the wall and grinned at her.
"How’s Friday morning sound for a flight out there…? 7:05 from the airport, arriving an hour later, accounting for the time difference, at Heathrow."
Carol’s face lit up instantly, immediately betraying her prior air of cultivated coolness. "Really?" Her grin widened and she paced over to him and announced gleefully, "I’ve got to go shopping. Tomorrow."
"Shopping?" Doug questioned. "Why?" She took in a quick breath, clapping her hands together in enthusiasm, frowning at his lack of it.
"Cos I have to…" She stared at him, bemusedly. "I have to get some new stuff. I’ll need a new dress in case we go out… and new stuff for the girls."
Doug stood up and dropped the twins back into their playpen, then went over to her. "Carol, what about London, hmm? Harrods… Selfridges… Don’t you wanna wait till you get there…?" he tempted, chuckling at her childish excitement. He put his hands on her upper arms and watched as she instantly brightened to the idea.
"Ooooh…" she allowed, then grinned. "That’s sounds great. Cindy’s been to London, hasn’t she? She could show me around."
"She’d love it."
"I have to call her," she said, heading out of the door. Her shout echoed back at him as he leaned over the playpen to pick Tess and Kate up, "It’s fend for yourself tonight, by the way. And the girls need their milk…"
****
Friday morning came all too slowly for Carol. She’d finished packing on Wednesday night, and spent most of Thursday in his office, talking to Cindy about England. Doug stayed well clear of them, knowing that the chatter he could hear through his false wall would instantly envelope him if he stepped out of the door. Cindy had bribed air tickets from their boss at the start of the week, on the grounds that Doug under-performed without her, and had arranged to stay with Nigel’s parents, an intriguing couple called Jude and Harry Austin.
Doug had gathered very little about them apart from that they lived in something called a semi-detached in Willesden, had no contact with their son and were retired. Nevertheless, their relationship with Cindy, the ex-wife of their son, was nothing short of curious. He’d heard her working up an international bill on the company line sporadically throughout the week, but had left the gossip to Carol.
Meanwhile, he’d called London to arrange a time to meet at Heathrow and had discovered that it would be an apartment belonging to one of the new staff members that would be loaned out to them and the car would be an Audi A4. But while he chastised and teased Carol for her over-enthusiastic packing, he wasn’t about to admit to anyone that he’d sat in the drive on Thursday night in the passenger seat of his car, trying to imagine he was driving a right hand drive car.
At present, the spare room resembled a bomb-site, with two suitcases lying out on the bed, stuffed to the gills with clothes, toiletries and the non-perishable food items Carol was convinced they wouldn’t be able to find in England. For the past three nights Doug had wandered into the room before bed and stared at the two suitcases, recalling with numbness the trips his father swept him away on as a kid. The spontaneous visits to Atlantic City, the wild rafting holiday in Colorado, the never-ending car journeys to L.A., when they’d be on the road for days at a time, stopping only to feed and water themselves. Since childhood, he’d not had much of a taste for travelling, regarding journeys as the limbo period before a too-often unpredictable end.
Back then, standing in front of the suitcases, he’d always pictured them as a couple of ravenous jaws, gaping wide and ready to devour him. He’d never forgotten the times he’d come home from school and found them waiting for him on his bed, knowing exactly what they meant. Packing, and the memories that came with it always made him nervous. But this time, he’d found that the phobia had weakened, and the wide mouths of the suitcases on the spare bed had seemed toothless and unthreatening. Harmless, and perhaps even inviting…
****
Carol was overjoyed to see green fields from the plane’s window. She passed a sleeping Tess to Doug and pressed her cheek up against the glass, staring out like an eager kid. "It’ll be the first time I’ve ever flown across an ocean…" she’d told Doug as they boarded the plane at the airport in Seattle. She’d barely been able to settle throughout the entire flight, nervously adjusting her position, jostling Tess as she did so, who grumbled her dislike. When the stewardesses brought breakfast to them, she fidgeted so much that the man in the seat in front of them leaned over and asked her to stop jabbing him in the back.
Everyone was relieved when they touched down at Heathrow and climbed, weak-legged, out of the plane and onto the jetway. Around them, planes were taking off and landing in different directions with tyres screeching and engines roaring. They were herded onto a transport bus and quickly found themselves coming through passport control. Doug held out their passports for inspection and they continued undisturbed onto the luggage carousel from where he plucked all of their suitcases and bags from and then bumped them all out of the crowds and into an open space so he could scan for Professor Birsey.
In the event, Dan Birsey was not difficult to spot among the waiting lines of friends, relatives and business partners, regardless of the fact that he was brandishing a large piece of cardboard with ‘Ross’ written on it in black marker pen. He stood slightly apart from the sea of suits and ties, baring a set of athletic limbs in soccer shorts and a bright yellow sleeveless running top. "Sorry," he apologised as Doug introduced them all. "I’ve just been on a fun-run… I only got back twenty minutes ago and I didn’t have time to change. I hope you can excuse the get-up," he said, glancing down at his attire.
"A fun-run?" Carol asked, moving to stand beside Doug.
"To raise funds," he explained over his shoulder, leading them through the crowds to a trolley and then helping Doug load it up with the suitcases and bags. "We do something every couple of months for GOSH’s charity, and I try to help out as much as I can. I’m not so fit as I used to be, but I can still manage a dozen miles or so." He looked around at Carol, who was trying not to look amazed that a man of approximately forty-five could manage to run twelve miles at all. "Why? Do you do charity work?" His expression displayed a sudden interest. Carol shook her head. "Not much, no. I had my own clinic, for a while, if that counts…"
"Oh, you did? You’re a doctor, too, then?"
"No, no, I’m a nurse…"
"Oh, right…" He stopped suddenly and then apologised profusely, "Oh God, I’m so terribly sorry. I don’t think I asked if you had a good flight?"
In the background, Cindy chuckled throatily and Doug cast her a puzzled frown. "Great, thanks. But I think the kids are tired…"
"They will be. If you like, we can go straight to the house…?" He started walking again, swiftly slaloming his way through the busy concourse, Hannah and Robbie jogging so they could keep up with him. He continued, shouting above the din of a thousand or more people, "Doug, we can unload your bags and then go to the hospital, if you like? There’s a tea-party going on this lunchtime for the runners and the families, so I thought you might like to come along to see us in action, so to speak."
"That sounds great, Doctor Birsey," Doug replied courteously, figuring Carol would want to put the girls down anyway.
"Call me Dan," he insisted with a smile. "Everyone else does."
****
Dan ordered Cindy a black cab to take her to Willesden, thrusting a couple of notes into the driver’s eager fists and then led Doug and Carol over to one of the endless car parks. Amongst the lines of vehicles, he located a dark green Range Rover. "This is mine, then," he said, bleeping the car’s alarm and swinging open the rear door. He effortlessly lifted their luggage into the trunk, positioning the stroller and one of the car seats so he could see out of the rear window and then shut the door again. "I’m sorry, I haven’t got enough room to put both their car seats in," he said, waving his hand at the girls. "So you’ll have to hide one of them under your coat and we’ll try to avoid the Boys in Blue."
But when they headed out of Heathrow and onto the road, Carol was more concerned that they would be stopped for careless driving rather than for having a child unstrapped in the car. Seated in the back, she gripped the edge of the seat with white knuckles as Dan cavalierly wound his way through the streams of London traffic, accelerating away from lights like a Formula One driver, swapping lanes at the dying moment and flying into openings that barely looked big enough for a Mini, let alone a boat of a Range Rover. Her plan to take in the strange country around her went swiftly out of the window as she gave up focusing on the constantly changing scenery. Brick houses. Black cabs. Double-decker buses. Red pillar-boxes. Roads that weren’t always straight. Driving on the wrong side of the road. Policemen with silver buttons and funny hats. Really, really old buildings. Buckingham Palace and the Queen of England just around the corner and out of sight. Tower Bridge. Westminster Abbey. All of it flew out of her mind as they skirted roundabouts and ploughed through endless traffic, driving deeper and deeper into somewhere that wasn’t America.
But, despite their apparent speed, the journey still took them the best part of forty minutes, and when Dan pulled into the hundredth side road of the trip and glided into a parking space, abandoning the car half on and half off the pavement, its ample rear only half an inch away from seriously disrupting the flow of traffic, Doug decided then and there that he wouldn’t be asking for a lift to work with this man.
And as Carol climbed, dazed, out of the car and thankfully set foot on solid, non-moving ground, Doug caught her relieved blink and murmured under his breath, "Did you say you liked roller-coasters?"
"I thought we were going to die," she whispered back. Dan overheard her quiet comment, turned back from unloading the luggage and grinned widely,
"Oh, sorry, I should have warned you. In London, it’s a requirement to drive like a maniac. Otherwise you’d spend four hours trying to get to your destination."
Doug chuckled. "Well, let’s just say that I didn’t get to see much of the sights." Dan laughed, fishing into the pocket of his shorts and bringing out a bunch of Yale lock keys.
"Concentrating too hard on staying alive, were you?"
"Something like that," Doug replied with another embarrassed chuckle.
"Oh, you’ll get used to it. Everyone does after a week or two."
He led them up half a dozen stone steps to the red door of a Victorian style three-storey house that faced directly onto the street. Opening the door with one of the keys in the bundle, he took them all into a tiled, but clearly communal, entrance hall and then wedged the door with a brick doorstop. With Doug’s help, he brought all the luggage in from the street, and then proceeded to carry it as effortlessly as he’d lifted it into his car, up two flights of polished wooden stairs. Carol, the girls in her arms, wide awake and looking all around them, followed them up the stairs.
Dan opened a door with a number ‘3’ on it and explained, "I hope this’ll be alright for you. I’m sorry about the climb, but this was the biggest apartment we could arrange for you. It belongs to one of the new doctors we’ve hired for setting up the A and E and he was happy to give it up for a while."
Carol stepped through the door and walked into an open-planned studio style apartment, divided out into a dining area, kitchen and lounge area. Leading off were three more doors, each of them pulled closed, but not shut tight. Carol set the girls down on the floor, where they began to crawl about investigating and made her own tour around their new residence, murmuring her appreciation, "This is really nice. Thank you so much."
"It’s a pleasure,"
It was all polished wood flooring and white walls, broken only by the placing of several brightly coloured modern art prints. The lounge area consisted of a pair of artfully distressed armchairs, a multicoloured rag-rug, an antique pine coffee table and an expensive looking home-entertainment system. Doug stepped over Tess, who was crawling steadily towards the kitchen and admired the television. "There’s a Sky digibox, I think…" Dan explained uncertainly, joining him and bemusedly handling one of the three remote controls. "Do you like sports?"
Doug nodded. "Sure do…"
"Well, there’ll be lots of football on Sky Sports…Live matches and reports and so on…" He glanced at his watch and put the remote control back where he’d picked it up from. "Shall we go, then?" Doug looked up, surprised.
"Now?"
"Well, the tea-party starts in an hour, and I was thinking I could get you all the papers you’ll need to get started before the crowds arrive… That way, we’ll have some spare time to pick your car up from the dealer’s before they shut."
"Okay," he agreed, turning back to Carol. "Will you be okay?" he asked her. She picked Tess up from the floor of the kitchen and nodded.
"Sure, I’ll be fine. Go do your stuff…" Dan walked into the hallway and in the moment of privacy, Doug went over and kissed her gently,
"See you later," And then he was gone, shutting the door behind him and leaving her alone. She set a wriggling Tess down with her sister on the rug in the lounge and then grinned at her luck, heading off on a real investigation of her surroundings.
The kitchen was brushed stainless steel from wall to wall, and was one of those ones where the appliances were disguised as cupboards. Even the equipment was stainless steel, the kitchen roll holder, the bread bin, the microwave and the kettle. She ran her fingertips over the cold surface and pulled open one of the cupboards, surprised to find that it was actually the refrigerator. Inside were a few simple provisions, two-thirds of a glass bottle of milk, a carton of orange juice, six eggs, some roast ham, on-the-vine tomatoes, a bottle of something called Heinz Salad Cream and four cans of draughtflow Guinness. She took a tomato from its cellophane packet and bit into it, then, with a glance to see that the girls were causing no trouble, opened one of the doors leading off the main living area.
It was the bathroom. Small and white, yet again, the only colour coming from a sea-blue-coloured carpet and a bale of bright yellow towels piled on top of the toilet seat. She backed out, knowing she’d have to do something about the very whiteness of the place else she’d be getting a headache before long, and opened the door next to the bathroom, revealing a bedroom.
There was a double bed, it’s navy blue bedspread folded back to show slightly less clinical cream sheets and pillows. The room was dark as the curtains had been pulled shut and she went to them and drew them back, using the tiebacks to keep them in position. Warm sunshine flooded immediately into the room and she looked out onto a grassy area of parkland, dotted with people and trees. Smiling, Carol turned back into the room and sighed appreciatively. Whosever home this was, she was certainly glad they’d had the kindness to lend it to them. Doug had warned her that they’d probably end up living in a cramped apartment ten floors up, as he thought it unlikely that they would provide anything that would cost a lot of money. As it was, neither of them had considered that they might just become tenants in someone else’s home.
She walked out into the living area and looked for the girls. They were playing contentedly with the rag-rug, dribbling all over it. Opening the remaining door, she stepped straight through, seeing that the single bed had been covered with a knitted blanket and pushed up against the wall and someone had set up two mix and matched cribs, both clearly borrowed. Behind her, the door swung closed of its own accord, but she didn’t notice as a plastic bag dropped on the floor by the foot of the wardrobe, spilling toys out onto the green carpet caught her attention. Smiling and kneeling to pick it up, thinking the girls would probably love to play with some unusual toys, Carol turned around to walk into the living area and almost jumped out of her skin when she was confronted with a spiny, scaly monster of a lizard staring out at her from a glass tank in the corner of the room. "Oh, my God," she uttered, putting a hand to her chest in a futile endeavour to stop her heart making its own way out of the ribcage. For a moment she stared, dumbfounded, at the animal as it studied her calmly with unblinking eyes.
"Now, staring is rude…"
Carol span around at the alien voice, her heart heading off on a second 100m sprint around her chest, and came face to face with a tall, muscular looking man, standing less than three feet away from her, leaning on the doorframe. "Oh, God," she couldn’t help herself from exclaiming again.
"No, not quite," said the man. "My name’s Will Kelly, actually. Though some would say your initial assessment was fairly accurate." He grinned at her with a set of even, pearl-coloured teeth, then stepped around her and took the plastic lid off the glass tank, reached in, and picked the lizard up with his bare hands. "I’m only joking there, by the way," he added, turning back to her, the lizard struggling vainly in his grasp. Carol took an instinctive step backwards. "This is Alfred. Touch him, he won’t bite…" He held out the wriggling lizard.
"Er, no thanks," Carol replied instantly, her face automatically contorting.
"Okay,"
"Who did you say you were?" she asked after a moment of further astonished staring.
"Will Kelly. I work at the hospital… well, I will shortly anyway…" He loosened his grip on the lizard and it climbed unsteadily onto his shoulder, its claws making a picking sound against the fabric of his shirt.
"You do?" Carol was trying not to stare, but finding herself doing so anyway as Alfred stuck out a fleshy tongue and licked his ear.
"I’m under George Truly at Guy’s at the moment… Though not literally, I might add, as I am wholly heterosexual…" Carol gave him a confused look.
"Guy’s?"
"Oh, sorry… St. Guy’s and St. Thomas’s… it’s a hospital…" He started out of the room and she followed him, into the kitchen, where he casually flung open one of the stainless steel cupboard doors and enquired, "Would you like a cuppa?" Carol continued to stare, but then, belatedly, figured it out.
"Oh, this is your apartment…"
Will Kelly looked at her oddly. "Er, yes…" A toothy grin flashed across his clean-shaven face. "Do you seriously think I’d have strolled in here, taken someone else’s lizard out of its tank and offered to make you tea if this wasn’t my flat, hmm?" He selected two large mugs from the cupboard, one bearing a Wallace and Gromit cartoon, the other a small character with a head, legs and pin-dot eyes and the word ‘pea-brain’ written beneath it. "I mean, that would be a little presumptuous… ne pas?" He set the mugs down on the counter. "Milk and sugar?"
Carol sliced her hands through the air. "Hang on a minute… tell me again, why are you here?"
"I’ll tell you, but not again, as I haven’t said anything of the sort previously…" Carol said nothing. "I’m here to show you around… Give you the Kelly Approved Tour Of The City…" he paused. "And to teach you how to feed Alfred."
Carol stared once again. This was going to be a long day.
****
It did not take long for Dan to show Doug around. Great Ormond Street Hospital was more impressive, more beautiful than either the brochure suggested or Doug had envisaged. Predominately centred in a tall, elegant 19th century building, it had practically usurped an entire street over the years, gathering in smaller, newer premises and other, equally beautiful pieces of architecture. Only the presence of white boards directing visitors to different departments and the sporadic sighting of white-coated members of staff lent the campus any sort of homogeneity. A thousand lights glowed from a thousand windows even at eleven thirty in the morning, and various famous names called out from ceremonial plaques. Charles Dickens. J.M Barrie. Princess Diana.
Once Dan had parked his Range Rover in the staff car park, warned Doug of the difficulty of getting a parking space and complained colourfully about a doctor who had abandoned his ‘fat-arsed’ Ford Focus across two spaces to the attendant, he took him inside through a set of giant automatic doors. With detailed precision, he toured Doug around the various departments, pointing out the ICU, the Activity Centre, all 25 of the specialised wards, the Research Unit and Outpatients and introduced him to practically everyone they passed. Doug absorbed names such as Hugo, Sanjeev, Duncan, Heysworth, Granger, Abigail, Felicity, Fergus and Allan and immediately forgot the majority, not to mention which were doctors, nurses or patients.
"This is me," Dan said, when the elevator doors opened and revealed an entire floor decorated in wallpaper and carpet tiles, rather than the white melamine and wipe-clean furnishings of every other department. "This is where us big-wigs hang out. Where we get our coffee made for us and our shoes polished…" He grinned. "Well, okay, maybe that’s not entirely true… As my memory serves me, you have to make your own coffee, but, as a note of warning, be sure you make friends with Mac. She’s been chosen to be your A and E consultant. She’s got her office up here and, trust me, you do not want to be crossing swords with that woman."
Doug raised his eyebrow, disbelieving that anyone could be more autocratic than Kerry Weaver and Dan laughed loudly at his expression. "She’s dynamite, our blessed Mac…" He headed off down the corridor, greeting everyone he passed with a smile and a nod of the head, then, apparently randomly, selected one of the many wood-stained doors on the corridor, kicked it open with his running shoe and shouted out, "Mac, hi, I’m back and look who I’ve brought…"
Inside the office, a rustling sound came from under the desk and then a muffled shout, "Mornin’, Dan. ‘ave a nice run…?" But, she barely got the final word out as she extricated herself from underneath the desk and hit her head soundly on the underside. "Ow, fuck," she cursed and sank to her knees again, rocking on the spot and rubbing her temple furiously. Dan walked up and leaned over the desk to look down at her.
"Did that hurt?"
She glanced up at him with a set of icy blue eyes and made a face. "Nooo… that didn’t ‘urt. I just screamed for the ‘elluvit…" Doug grinned at her cockney accent, half expecting her to rise up and burst into song, My Fair Lady style. Mac scowled across at Doug.
"Hey," he greeted.
"This is Doug Ross…" Dan introduced him, offering Mac a hand and pulling her to her feet.
She brought her hand away from her head and sighed. "That’s sweet and dandy, but right at this moment, I’m bleedin’… and there’s claret on my shirt."
"Come here, let me look…" Doug offered. "I’m an ER doc too…" Mac looked at him strangely and then tipped her head towards him. He parted her short brown hair and saw the wound. "Ah, that’s okay. You won’t need sutures." Mac nodded slowly, her brow creasing.
"Cheers, that’s very nice. What do I do now with it, smart arse? It’s spillin’ claret here, there and everywhere."
"Get some Kleenex and put some pressure on it," Doug said innocently.
Mac glared at him threateningly. "I’ve got a morning of work laid out for me and you fink I’m gonna walk round like a toffed up soddin’ nancy with a tissue stuck to my ‘ead. Not a chance, mate." Doug, taken aback, opened his mouth to say something, but then stopped himself, looking to Dan for intervention. Dan just smiled unhelpfully, shrugged and started to walk away.
"She’s all yours, Ross. Enjoy!"
****
When Doug finally managed to park his car on the same street as the apartment, but not without grinding the gears as he struggled with the different driving position, he felt a flood of relief seep through him. It was only five o’clock, but he felt like he’d been awake for days. Wearily, he climbed up the stairs to the apartment and opened the door.
He blinked in surprise. Carol was sitting in one of the armchairs, sipping a glass of red wine and talking animatedly. But, what really caught his eyes was the presence of another man in the remaining armchair. They both looked up as he walked inside and smiled invitingly. "Hey, there," Carol greeted casually. Doug flicked his head and smiled back. The dark-haired, athletic man sitting next to her reminded him immediately of Greg Powell.
"Well, I didn’t expect to see this…" he said and walked over to her, leaned over and kissed her, adding, "Should I be jealous?"
"Doug, this is Will Kelly… this is his apartment…"
"Yeah?" Doug turned around and Will stood up, holding out his hand. "Nice place."
"Nice to meet you,"
"Did you have a good day?" Carol asked him as he looked around.
"Where are the girls?"
"In bed… they were tired…"
"Oh," he said, disappointed. There was a short silence, and then Will moved away from the armchair, offering it to Doug, who gratefully fell into the cushions and sighed.
"Well, I think I’m gonna use this moment to take my leave. Hope you enjoyed yourself, Carol," he winked and Doug tilted his head questioningly. Will chuckled. "We’ll have to do it again sometime." Doug raised his eyebrows at Carol, who giggled quietly and stood, following Will to the door. He opened it and stepped out, but then paused in the doorway. "You know what we were talking about earlier?" he said. "I really don’t mind at all… and as for the other question… Quackers is good. In Soho. They do good British food and serve a couple of handpulled bitters… Marston’s Pedigree and Tim Taylor’s Landlord, I think." He nodded to Doug. "See ya, Doug. Have a good night."
And with that, he was gone. Carol shut the door and turned around to Doug, who was looking at her with inquiring eyes. She caught his expression and giggled. "Jealous, are we?" she asked as she sidled up to him and perched on his knee.
"Me? Never." Doug smiled. She studied him, carefully.
"You were, weren’t you? You were jealous!"
He made a sound in his throat and pulled her to him, kissing the bridge of her nose gently. "Yeah, I was jealous…" he admitted after a moment. "But can’t I be?" Carol nuzzled into his chest.
"There’s no reason to be jealous, Doug… I promise…"
He was quiet for a minute, kissing her face slowly. "I’ve always been a jealous guy… And always with you… I was jealous of Tag, and Shep and…" he paused. "That paramedic." She kissed him. "What’ve you been doing with him, then…?" Carol judged his mood and then replied,
"We went to the supermarket, he showed me how to feed his lizard, and then we had sex in the shower…"
"You did, hmm?"
"Yeah…" she sighed. "He’s very handsome…" Doug arched his eyebrow, a twinkle behind his eye.
"So, er, what was he like, huh? Was he… good for you?" Carol bit her lip, trying her hardest not to smile. She leaned back away from him.
"He was tender… and very… inventive…" A flicker of a smile crossed his face. "But I’ve had better…"
"You have?" He tucked his hand under the fabric of her shirt and burrowed upwards with tickling fingers, reaching her bra and then rubbing his thumb over her nipple, feeling it harden beneath the cloth.
"Mmm…" Carol murmured, eyes closed. He leaned forward and brushed his lips over hers, tugging gently against the skin, tracing up along her cheekbone to her hairline, breathing in her scent.
"Did he do that to you?"
"He did…"
In the darkness of her reverie, Carol felt him ease the zipper on her jeans and his hand course inside them, drawing them over her bottom and down her legs. Then she heard his voice, low and resonant in the quiet room, "Then I guess I’ll have to go one better…"
****
Those days of warm rains
Come rushing back to me
Miles of windless
Summer night air
Secret moments
Shared in the heat of the afternoon
Out of the stillness
Soft-spoken words
Say it, say it again
****
Quackers Bistro was unusually quiet for a Friday night, perhaps because of the ‘happy hour’ offer being broadcast in fluorescent letters from the neighbouring bar, but that hardly mattered to the American couple sitting in one of the low-lit booths, huddled between two dividing oak walls, leaning slightly forward, talking in muted voices to one another.
Doug was playing absently with the dripping candle in its holder, catching the hot wax with the tip of his forefinger then rolling it into a ball. "This is nice, hmm?" he asked her. Carol looked up from examining the patterns on the ancient table they were seated at and smiled,
"Yeah. It’s nice not to have the girls to think about… But I’m glad Cindy’s got them, and not that doctor from the hospital," she said, referring to Will Kelly and his offer to baby-sit for them. "He made me nervous."
Doug chuckled. "And you think he was bad? Just imagine Kerry Weaver spawned with Genghis Khan and only then will you come close to the woman I met today…" He blew air out quickly through his teeth, still amazed by his encounter with Maria MacLeod a few hours earlier. Carol raised her eyebrows.
"Woah… She must be some woman…"
"She sure is," he admonished. "And she’s gonna be my new ‘consultant’, they call it here. I think it translates roughly as a Chief."
"Oh, no,"
"Oh yes," he sighed, rubbing his face and hair with his hands. "Monday morning is not gonna be pretty." Carol chuckled.
"Who’d’ve thought, hmm? I mean, I know they say the English can be eccentric, but when this complete stranger walked right into the room and let a lizard lick his ear, I thought I was hallucinating or something…" She laughed at herself, and at the bizarreness of the situation. "You know, he’s living with his ex-girlfriend while we’re in his apartment."
"His ex-girlfriend?"
"Yep. They split up when she found out he’d been having sex with her manicurist. But, apparently," Carol grinned. "She still likes him, so he’s going to use it to his advantage while he can… Read into that what you will…"
"Sounds… curious…" Doug allowed.
"Sounds like someone I used to know…"
Raising his eyebrows, Doug smiled crookedly. "Who was that?" he asked innocently, knowing full well she meant himself.
"Now…" she played along. "His name was Doug Ross, I think. A doctor, too, if I’m not mistaken…" Doug chuckled, patting the table, as he did when he didn’t have a good answer to her.
"So, er, what did you really talk about?" He was genuinely interested, if only because of the way Will had ensconced himself so easily with Carol, getting her to drop her protective walls without even a fight. She shrugged. A young, blonde-haired waitress came to their table and delivered their meals, smiled and then departed wordlessly. Carol unfolded the serviette that was wrapped around her knife and fork and laid it on her lap, then picked her cutlery up and began eating.
"What were we talking about?" she prompted, cutting into her Welsh lamb cutlet.
"Will Kelly," Doug replied.
"Oh, yeah." She chuckled to herself. "I don’t know really, he’s just a funny guy, Doug… We didn’t really talk about anything. He spent most of the afternoon laughing at me. He kept imitating my voice and ‘taking the piss’, as he called it, whenever I said ‘sure’ or ‘gotten’. So I did it to him, too…" Doug smiled to himself. She’d clearly enjoyed herself, and he was glad. There’d been many moments when he’d thought of her and wondered whether she was managing with the girls in a strange apartment.
They talked sporadically throughout the rest of their meal, but both were ravenous after the long day, and when Carol looked at her watch, it was gone nine o’ clock. "It’s getting late, we should get back for Cindy…" she said as Doug cleared the last of his sauce from his plate with a chunk of French bread.
"She said not to rush back, Carol…" he explained. "She was gonna put Tess and Kate to bed as soon as we’d left, and she said there was no hurry because they were going to eat late as well." Carol looked at him uncertainly, not wishing to impose.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, don’t worry about it…" He picked up the dessert menu from behind the salt and pepper grinders and handed it over. "Do you want anything?"
She took it from him and studied it, smiling. "Ooh… listen to this, Doug…" Her voice took on a sumptuous lilt as she began to describe the dessert. "For two to share… a ‘Cool Britannia’… Layers of coarsely chopped fresh strawberries, crumbled Scottish shortbread, whipped cream and sticky chocolate sauce laced with a shot of Glenfiddich, all topped with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream and chocolate curls. What d’ya say? Does that not sound good enough to share…?" Doug chuckled at her dreamy expression.
"There’s gotta be enough calories in there for two, that’s for sure…" She grinned.
"Aw, go on… I haven’t had a good dessert for months…"
"But are you sure you’ve still got enough room left…?"
"I’m sure of it."
The dessert duly arrived five minutes later in a gigantic stemmed frosted glass bowl, looking sickeningly good. Carol almost jumped on it, digging her spoon straight down to the first layer of strawberries. Doug had ordered coffee as well, and that arrived a minute later, steaming furls of scented vapour into the air. He took a sip of his, then objected, "Hey, you’re eating all the strawberries. Get off." He clashed spoons with her and they both dug quickly down, laughing at each other.
Unsurprisingly, though, they didn’t manage to finish it, and Carol eventually pushed the bowl away, slumping back in her seat and letting out a defeated sigh. "I surrender. That thing has gotten the better of me…" Doug chuckled at her, laying down his spoon and taking another sip of coffee.
"Now that’s funny, hmm?" She eyeballed him and he grinned back. "So… anything else you feel you need to admit to me… while we’re on that theme…?"
Carol stared at him. "In what way?"
"Well, we were talking about other men, were we not…?" A smile briefly flashed across his face. "And I wondered whether there was anything else you wanted to tell me…"
"What is this, Doug? Total confession hour…?" she chuckled at his mock astonishment. "What about you, hmm? You’re the one with the shady past… Why don’t you answer a few of my questions?" He lowered his head, tugged his smile under control and replied,
"Go on then,"
Mildly surprised at his readiness, Carol stumbled for a moment, her mind blank. "Ahhh…" she smiled slyly when she had cornered an appropriately difficult subject area. Leaning forward, she whispered under her breath, "How many women have you… you know… been with…?"
She thought she caught him blush, but within a second, he’d reined himself in. "Ah, now that would be telling…" he drawled.
"And isn’t that the point?!"
"Well…" He paused and looked up at her, catching her eyes and gazing at her. "Perhaps you should change the question a little…"
"To what?" Doug glanced quickly around the room, then leaned in closer.
"To ‘How many of them were worth it?’…" he stared at her pointedly. She smiled at him, then realised what he was doing,
"Tell me the truth…" she warned. Chuckling, he answered,
"Okay… I can’t remember…"
"That’s the truth, is it?" she said, a little disappointed. He twisted uncomfortably in his seat and nodded,
"You know, I don’t remember a lot from that time… I, I was usually too drunk to remember…" He gave what sounded like an ashamed sigh. "Most of the women I slept with were just convenient, I guess… They were, they were just there when I needed them…" Carol was silent for a moment, examining him.
"Was I convenient?" He frowned.
"You were… something different…" he paused, looking away from her, down to the patterns on the table.
"Something different?"
"Yeah, you… you were there when I needed you… but when I was… with you… it was different from all the other ones. And I didn’t realise why till I started talking about it. Till someone told me why, why it was different…" He sighed, low in his chest. Carol waited for him to conclude. "I’d never had very good role models, Carol… I didn’t know what was going on in my head…" He looked up, and she thought she detected a hint of a smile, though his eyes were sad. "I didn’t know what it was supposed to feel like… and what you were supposed to do when you did feel it. All I knew was that every time…" He stalled, and she reached out her hand to encourage him. "Something kind of… grew… And it got pretty big pretty quickly, and the only way… the only way I could cut it down to something I could understand was to do what I did to you…"
Carol was fascinated by his honesty. "Were you scared of me?"
"Not of you… but I was scared of what I felt when we were together…"
"So what made you come to my house again, after Charlie ran away… after my date with Toby…?" she questioned. Doug smiled, a little self-conscious, and looked down.
"I had to come see if I still had a chance…" He blew air out of his nose quickly, tilting his head onto one side. "I wasn’t sure if you’d take me back. I wasn’t sure if I’d read the signals right… if you were just playing…" He chuckled uneasily.
"Playing?"
"Teasing me. When you’d rub up against me with your arm… or touch me…" He fingered the underside of her palm. "Or the way I thought I could see something in your eyes when you looked at me… I knew I was ready… I thought you were ready… but then seeing you there, get out of that car…" He shook his head. "I realised how easy it’d be to just… slip back to how it’d been before…"
"And you didn’t want that?" Carol asked. He was quiet for a moment, his expression unchanging, then she felt him squeeze her hand, hard and assertive.
"No. I wanted more than that…" His stare was impenetrable. "That’s why I wanted a commitment… I needed to know… If you wanted the same things…" She dazzled him with her smile, turning his hand over in her own to trace the lines on his palm, gazing down at the details that made the man.
"I do, Doug…"
****
I love you
Always forever
Near and far
Closer together
Everywhere
I will be with you
Everything
I will do for you
****
For Doug, the week couldn’t go any faster. Dan had told him how what he knew as an ER was called the A and E. In Britain, or amongst the London Boroughs, it was the Always and Everyone. In the light of his chaotic week, Doug thought that there couldn’t be a more appropriate saying. Even with Cindy’s help, it still seemed an insurmountable task to have everything up and running in the time allotted. He spent close to fourteen hours every day at the hospital, sorting through folders stuffed so full with documents, correspondence and insurance forms that they had burst open, giving dozens of briefings to different members of staff, overseeing the ordering of equipment and supplies, arguing with Maria MacLeod, working out Will Kelly’s eccentricities, having business lunches with Dan Birsey, and meeting the remainder of his staff.
Besides Mac and Will Kelly, there were Alex Arutti, an unbelievably tall man of Greek extraction who spoke with a confusing European twang in his voice, and Toby Jones, an Oxford-educated ‘toffee boy’ as Mac called him, who dressed immaculately and talked of friends called Tabitha and Hugo. And the nurses were another conundrum entirely. A middle-aged woman called Shirley May Watkins appeared to command more authority than the rest, but there was also Lucy Calloway, a blonde former model who had every red-blooded male in the building sniffing after her. Will Kelly had already got his eye on her but, much to his distress, was getting his ego bruised every time he came onto her. Then there was Rob Royce, who was really called Duncan Royce, but had been christened Rob because he was Scottish and fancied himself a Highland warrior, like the legendary hero. Just getting them all together in the same room had taken him all week.
"Where’s Will?" Doug asked as he strolled into the new staff-room and was greeted with a crowd of bored faces and crossed legs. Mac shrugged unhelpfully.
"Probably the same place as Lucy…" Alex chuckled, not even looking up from his magazine. Doug sighed.
"Okay… well is anyone gonna page him?" Mac rolled her eyes silently, pulled out her pager and bleeped Will. "Thank you," Doug said pointedly. "So, is everyone prepared for this…?"
There was a chorus of uninterested agreement. "Well, as it’s Saturday, I’m sure you’ll all wanna get on with this and get it done… Toby?" Doug asked, looking across to Toby Jones, who was absorbed in Gran Turismo 2 on the Playstation, clicking away at the joy-pad.
"Hmm?" he replied absently.
"Are you ready?"
"Mmm…"
Shirley stood up with a parental sigh and went over to the television, calmly bent at the waist and turned the power off at the mains. "Hey!" Toby yelled. "What did you do that for?"
"Cos you’re pissing the whole room off with your tapping, boy…" He glared up at Shirley’s plump figure, and then shirked away from her glower.
"But I was nearly finished on that level… I would have switched it off…" Shirley glared some more. "I would have done…" he protested weakly. As he stood up sheepishly and went to one of the empty seats, the door opened and Lucy barrelled straight inside, screaming, immediately followed by Will, a rugby ball held above his head and a mock roar coming from his throat.
"And he’s broken away, he’s gonna score!" Will jogged into the room and gently touched down with the ball. "32 – 18!" He proclaimed, standing with the rugby ball aloft, back arched as if he’d just drawn Excalibur and an irrepressible grin on his face. "We’re kicking shit, keds!" Lucy crawled to the back of the room, breathing hard and laughing.
Toby looked up, instantly interested. "Really? Is that the score?"
"Sure is, mate! Dan Luger’s just sealed it dry… you should have seen the faces of the Wallabies bench. It was fantastic!"
"You know, Will," Shirley began, crossing her legs authoritatively in her seat. "Has anyone ever told you that winning isn’t everything…?" Will simply shrugged and replied,
"Shirley, darling, if winning isn’t everything, then why do we bother to keep the score?" He grinned at Shirley’s open-mouthed silence. "Ah, you see… that line’s a load of bollocks…"
"There’s a game on, huh?" Doug asked, trying to hide his confusion and reassert his presence in the room.
"A game!?" Will exclaimed as he flopped down into a chair and ran his hands restlessly through his hair. "It’s the game of the year!"
"What’s the competition?"
"It’s not for any competition… it’s just a game…"
Doug was chuckling, looking at Will and Toby fidgeting in their seats, crossing their legs then uncrossing them. "Maybe we should do this on Monday…?" he suggested. Everyone looked up and agreed readily.
"Does that mean I can go back for the post-mortem?" Will asked with a broad grin. "Wicked!" He stood up and headed for the door. "Oh, by the way, lads and lasses… there’s gonna be a party in my building tonight. You’re all welcome to come along. It’s BYOB, though, so make sure you bring a bottle." Doug stared.
"There’s a party? What…?"
"Oh, I rang Carol yesterday… she said it’d be a good idea… I was gonna pick her up later and go booze shopping…" He shrugged casually, then walked out of the room, Doug following. "Wanna come and watch the post-mortem? I’ll explain the rules, if you like…"
Doug nodded. "Sure…" Will chuckled.
"There’s that word again… I love it… so… there’s fifteen players on a team, eight forwards and seven backs. No substitutions. If you get injured, you become a dead player… that is, you’re not allowed to return to the pitch. You play forty minutes each way, starting with a scrum. The aim is to get the ball out of the scrum and barrel down the pitch to score a try, which is worth five points. Then you’re allowed a conversion kick… I think that’s like American football… But rugby’s more brutal… Are you following me?" Doug frowned,
"You know, I think I might go call Carol instead…" Will mirrored the frown as Doug stopped in his tracks and started to back pedal down the corridor. "I’ll see you tonight…"
****
"So, come on, why don’t you come meet him…" Carol suggested into the phone. At the other end, Cindy gave a reluctant sigh.
"But I thought you said he was weird…?"
"He is weird," she allowed. "But he’s also pretty damn handsome… and he’s intelligent too… He’s into sport, and he’s got some lovely arms…"
"Carol… you’re tempting me…" Cindy admitted with a laugh in her voice.
"That’s the idea! Come on, we could take the kids with us… They’d always be a good distraction if we need one…" Cindy gave another sigh.
"Oh, okay… but it’ll just be your two, though. Mine have gone to London Zoo with Nanny and Granddad…"
"Great!" Carol exclaimed. "Where shall we meet you? Will said something about a shop called Oddbins in Notting Hill…" Cindy thought for a moment, trying to recall the area she meant and somewhere that was easy to find nearby.
"In the park… by the fountain. That’s nice and easy to find. And near the local shops too…"
"Okay. We’ll see you there, then. Take care. Bye…" She hung up the phone and clenched her fists together. Cindy would love Will, there was no doubt in her mind. She wheeled around and went into the girls’ room, where she had been in the process of dressing them in some smarter clothes. The door opened and she swung around to see Will enter, dressed in baggy cut-off jeans and a sleeveless navy blue t-shirt. "Hey…" she greeted.
"Afternoon… Are you ready then?"
"Can you give me a minute…? I’ve got to finish dressing the girls…"
"Certainly, darling. Can I help?" Carol looked at him, surprised at the offer.
"Sure,"
She went into the room and picked up Kate, who was sitting up in her crib, and laid her down on the spare bed. "Can you pass me her pants?" Will went to the dresser and stared at the little sets of clothes laid out on the surface.
"There aren’t any pants here, Carol…" he said, turning back to her. Carol sighed and murmured,
"I’m sure I put some out…" She walked over and located them. "They’re here…"
"Oh, you mean trousers… sorry… missed that one…" Will chuckled. "There’s something else for your catalogue of Weird Will Words, Carol."
Between them both, they fought the kicking and excited twins into their clothes and then bundled them into their stroller. "This is harder than I’d thought," he admitted as they hoisted the stroller down the stairs, Will bouncing the girls the whole way so that both laughed out loud.
"You’re good with them, though…"
He made a face. "Only when I know I can give them back. I’m not into making babies, it’s a bit too serious for me." They stepped out onto the pavement and he pushed the door shut so the latch clicked into place, locking itself.
"Relationships aren’t your thing either, then?" Carol found herself asking as they headed off down the road, Will walking in step beside her, his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
"Uh, uh," He shook his head emphatically. "Love ‘em and leave ‘em, that’s my philosophy…" Carol smiled and nodded. "I can’t handle romantic hassles…" he continued. "With sex, you just get what you want, and that’s all. No concealed explosives, know what I mean?" She arched an eyebrow, but said nothing. He glanced sideways at her and questioned,
"What?"
"Nothing… it’s just… you’re a little forward aren’t you?" Will smiled,
"Oh, don’t worry. I steer well clear of married women…" He looked at her slyly. "You are married aren’t you?"
Carol flicked her head, smiled, and lifted her left hand. "Ah…" Will grinned, his dark eyes darkening further with intent, and elbowed her gently. "So, could I take you out for a drink tonight?" She stared at him, giggling, but had to admit to herself that she was flattered by the attention.
"You know, if Doug’s your boss, that’s probably not a good idea." Will agreed with a rueful nod of his head, but then stepped in a little closer.
"So, if he weren’t around, you’re not ruling it out…" Carol laughed aloud, Doug’s initial tactless but dogged pursuit of her ringing loud in her memory.
"I thought you were seeing that woman you’re living with?" He looked across to her and screwed his face up in thinly veiled disdain.
"Faye? No way. She wants babies."
"Oh, okay,"
They reached the crossroads and headed aimlessly towards the park. Now that the afternoon was reaching maturity, the heat was stifling, somewhere in the late twenties but compounded still further by the humidity and the lack of any breeze. On the streets around them, fashion victims from every race were out in force in bikini tops, underwear-flashing mini-skirts and high-heeled sandals, their hair coloured and styled in every way imaginable. Straw sun-hats and handkerchiefs adorned other heads and from every angle, dark glasses glittered like flies eyes.
As they passed through the tall iron gates into the park, the sound of the thumping bass of a dozen stereos turned up to volume eleven hit their ears, and laid out on the grass were groups of people taking advantage of the Bank Holiday weekend, drinking warm Coke through straws and dripping Popsickle juice on their bare legs. Carol reached into her bag and pulled her own shades from the depths, then tugged the sunshade on the stroller further forward. "So, how do you feel about single moms?" she asked Will as they neared the fountain and she caught sight of Cindy sitting on the concrete rim of the pool in her bright yellow Capri pants and sliders, looking around the crowds.
Will shrugged. "Doesn’t bother me…" Carol grinned and walked up to Cindy.
"Hey! How are you? Did you get here okay?" she asked, embracing her enthusiastically. "Cindy, this is Will Kelly… Will, this is Cindy Barber…" Cindy tilted her sunglasses and glanced critically over their tops at the handsome man in front of her. Her wide smile rapidly filled her face.
"Pleased to meet you…" she said, a little too eagerly, and proffered her hand in a hearty shake.
"My pleasure, darling…" Their handshake was a little protracted. "Are you coming to the party tonight?" His smile was gracious, but Carol could swear there was the same predatory lilt in it as before. She took a step backwards so she could judge it more accurately.
"Well, I don’t know… I haven’t really been invited…"
"Oh, come… you’ll love it…" He gave a gentle nod of his head, his mahogany eyes sparkling and Carol smiled. The match-making was done.
****
"Whatever you do," Cindy growled as they headed out of the park and down the pedestrianised main road, dawdling a little behind the giant-paced Will so they could pass a few hurried whispers. "Don’t let on I’m not a natural blonde…" And to assert herself, gave a tug of her recently dyed hair at the roots. Carol chuckled.
"I don’t think he’s too much of a fool, Cin…" she warned her.
"Ah, maybe not, but let’s give it a shot, at least…"
"Are you two okay?" Will called back. "We’re nearly there… do you want a drink while we’re here?" He side-stepped a Rastafarian with a ghetto-blaster balanced on his shoulder and pulled closer to the shop-fronts, out of the way of the streams of people.
"That sounds great," Cindy replied with a sigh. "I’m sooo hot…" Will cast her a sideways glance and a small smile, but Cindy didn’t notice, although Carol did. He gathered them in under the awning of a butcher’s shop and made a point of standing closer to Cindy than to Carol.
"There’s the Lion and Lamb just down the road… there’ll serve beer and wine and soft drinks. Is that what you want?" Carol nodded emphatically.
"Definitely…"
Outside the Lion and Lamb, Carol grabbed the only remaining wooden picnic table with a parasol and sat down with relief, pulling the stroller into her side, under the shade. "What do you fancy?" Will asked, raising his hand to his face to shield the sun from his eyes. "Beer? Lager? Er, white wine?"
"Do they do spritzers?"
"Probably… you want one of those?" Carol nodded. "Cindy?" Will turned around to where Cindy was straddled across the seat. "What can I get you?" She thought for a moment.
"You know, I think I’ll have a beer…"
"Budweiser?"
"Nah, I mean a pint of bitter," Will raised his eyebrows, impressed, and leaned slightly forward, closer to her.
"Really? John Smiths or Pride?"
"Surprise me," she replied with a wink, whereupon Will’s grin became larger still and he answered,
"Always…"
When he was gone, Cindy turned back to Carol with a look of utter delight on her face. "Having a good time, huh?" she asked.
"Oh, Carol," Cindy sighed. "I haven’t flirted like this for years! It’s great!" She flicked her wraparound shades off, revealing that she’d had a good hard go at applying brown shadow to her lids and a little bronzer to her cheekbones. Carol smiled to herself. Cindy so rarely bothered to dress up, wore very little make-up and complained loudly whenever she was forced to change anything about her appearance. Today, she’d done it without a single word from Carol. "So, what do you think? Am I in with a chance?" she leaned forward, pursing her lips conspiratorially.
"Sure you are," Carol replied, "Didn’t you see the way he looked at you just then?"
"Really?!" Cindy was genuinely excited.
"Yeah, you should go for it… if you want it, that is…" She gave her a funny look as if to say, ‘Why wouldn’t I?’, then Will was standing above them, juggling three glasses from his hands onto the table, wiping the condensation and overflow on his jeans.
"Didn’t know whether you wanted a champagne spritzer or a white wine one, Carol, so I got you a champagne one…" Carol smiled, surprised, and took the glass from him. He swung into the seat next to Cindy and took a long swallow of his beer. "Ahh, that’s better…" He grinned. "So, ladies, what shall we talk about? Give me a starting point and I’ll take you just about anywhere."
Cindy giggled at him. "Okay, let’s talk politics… and get out of that, if you can," Will smiled wickedly, took another drink of beer, then began,
"Politics is a stage act for public school boys who can’t get jobs in the real world. It’s a sympathy strike for the incompetent, and why we let them run the country, God only knows. Having said that, I suppose you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to run a country. Absolutely anyone can run a country, provided they’ve got the right sort of people behind them. It takes no brains whatsoever." Cindy and Carol looked at each other and giggled.
And so, Will took Cindy at her word and weaved randomly through politics, Monty Python, the relative thrill-seeking dangers of motorcycles and fast cars and what makes a good malt whisky before settling on his own scale for orgasms, ranging from one, which was Roseanne in the buff, to five, which was blow your heels off, peel me off the ceiling rapture, as he succinctly put it. Exactly how they’d got onto the subject, Carol could never say, but after a while, Will turned to her and politely asked her opinion. She stumbled and blushed furiously, looking away from his intense gaze, ‘I guess there’s nothing like a slow hand," she admitted finally.
Will’s brown eyes burned sienna for a second. "Eric Clapton, hmm?"
"Oh, no," she replied in surety. "Paul McCartney, in his younger years…"
Cindy shook her head. "Uh, uh. Jagger. Think of the lips…" she giggled and Will twisted towards her with a sly smile.
"Really?" he said.
"Mmmm…"
****
You’ve got
The most unbelievable
Blue eyes
I’ve ever seen
You’ve got me
Almost melting away
As we lay there
Under a blue sky and pure white stars
Exotic sweetness
A magical time
****
Carol flung open the door of the apartment and hulked the stroller in through the door, the girls balanced precariously in her arms. She gently set them down on the floor and looked around, hoping Doug was home. But the apartment was empty, and the window she’d opened that morning was still wide open. He’d been late the past three nights in a row, working till all hours on the seemingly endless project at the hospital, and she was concerned that he was pushing himself too hard, perhaps worried that he wouldn’t shape up to the expectations of him. The girls crawled over to the rug and Carol pushed the door shut, sighing. It was five already, and Will had promised to come around at seven to help her organise for the party, and before then, she’d hoped to get the girls to bed and find a little time with Doug. Last night, she’d already been in bed when he’d come home, and although he had fought sleep initially, trying his hardest to listen to her tales of Madame Tussauds and The London Dungeon, he had fallen asleep after only a few minutes. When she woke at eight, he was showered and dressed already and eating toast in the kitchen. They exchanged a few words and a kiss and then he left for work, having spent barely fifteen minutes together.
She kicked her sandals from her aching feet and went into the kitchen, where she took the orange juice carton from the refrigerator and drank what remained straight down. On the rug, the girls had found their toys and were playing together happily, so she set the empty carton down on the counter and headed through to the bedroom, thinking she’d take a shower while they were quiet. She pushed open the door and was surprised to see Doug lying on the bed, asleep. He was lying on his side, in only his shorts, one arm flung off the side of the bed and hanging loose, and his legs pulled up into a vague foetal position. She walked further into the room, and noticed that on her side of the bed were a couple of folders, the phone book, and several medical supply brochures. He’d been working overtime again.
Creeping slowly around, hoping not to disturb him, she undressed and laid her clothes over the dresser. But, as she turned for the door again, a croaky voice murmured, "C’mere…" She turned quickly and saw him, now laid on his back, smiling at her through bleary eyes. She smiled back and walked over to where his arms spread and he welcomed her into an embrace. She crawled closer to him and whispered,
"You were asleep… I tried not to wake you…"
"It’s okay,"
His hands were travelling lazily along her body and he rolled her gently and kissed her face. Carol closed her eyes and sighed at the pleasant sensation. "I’m sorry…" he murmured in between kisses.
"About what?"
"For not being here… for spending all my time at work…" He sighed, and Carol took his face in his hands.
"No, no, Doug, don’t be sorry… it’s not your fault. I understand."
He stared at her deeply for a long minute, studying her honest expression and the smile on her lips, then glanced down at her naked form and smiled to himself, "I want you," he admitted. She gave a happy sigh and held his head, meeting his steady gaze.
"I want you back…" she said slowly. "C’mere, Doug…" And she kissed him, feeling his shoulders and the tautness under the skin. "Roll over,"
He obeyed and turned his head so he could look up at her. She straddled his hips and then pressed her hands into his back. He closed his eyes in blissful release and gave a little groan. "Oh, that’s good…" he said, his voice muffled by the pillow. Contented to please him, Carol worked her hands around his shoulders and then down his backbone, squeezing the muscles, feeling them relax underneath her touch. After a short while, he turned his head to the other side and murmured, "Let me do it for you now…"
She shook her head, working down the back of his legs now, on his hamstrings. "It’s okay, baby, I’m fine… You just stay still and let me…"
"No, Carol… I have to move…" He glanced up and chuckled at her, and she laughed, realising what he meant, and climbed off of him. He rolled over and she smiled at his erection.
"Sorry…" she said. He grinned,
"Now, don’t you ever say sorry for that…" He pulled her down on him and kissed her passionately, sliding her onto him and sinking inside, a long breath easing from his lungs… "Mmm, you feel good…"
Afterwards, cuddled together, he whispered, "You are amazing, you know?" Carol smiled and caressed his face, scratching her nails gently in his stubble.
"Amazing?"
"How do you do this, hmm?" He asked, gazing at her. "How do you make me forget it all?" She kissed his cheek and then his lips, breathing in his scent.
"Because I love you…"
****
Say you’ll love me, love me
Forever
Never stop, not for whatever
Near and far and always
And everywhere
And everything
****
They showered together with the door open, Carol concerned that the girls would have had enough and start demanding their dinner, but they did not, and so she let her hair down under the stream of hot water and he washed it for her, rubbing the foam through her curls. "You’re so beautiful," he said to her as she climbed out of the tub and wrapped herself in one of the towels she’d thrown over the radiator beforehand. She smiled at him and held out another towel for him. He took it, but dropped it on the floor and went instead to her, where he opened her towel and pulled her into his arms. She gave a contented sigh and they walked like a pair of crabs out of the bathroom, laughing at each other.
Still playing in the lounge, the girls were happy, so he tugged her into another kiss. "I don’t wanna ever let go, you know that?" he said as she dropped the towel and rubbed herself dry, knowing Doug was enjoying the way she touched her body so openly. She said nothing, merely smiled at him, then, while he laid naked on the bed, she selected a pair of black pants from the wardrobe and the strapless ruby red corset-top she’d spoiled herself with in Selfridges. "Oh, yes…" he murmured his approval with a sexy grin as she held the items up to herself. She went to the chest of drawers and took out a lacy strapless bra and a pair of sheer socks. "Wear just those, kiddo, and you’ll be hiding my front view all night…" He growled in his throat and she laughed out loud.
"Doug, you are so bad. Have a little self-control…"
"I’m a guy, I’m not supposed to have self-control…" He held out his arms to her as she pulled on her trousers, but she ignored him.
"Then get in touch with your feminine side," she giggled at him. He gave a pretend sigh and got up to dress.
"You are so cruel…"
"I know… so, so cruel…" She put on her bra and deodorant, then wrapped the top around herself. "Fasten this will you?" she said, and he came up behind her.
"Certainly," His hands crept along her collarbones and up her neck, lifting her wet hair, then he draped it over his arm and ran his fingers along her spine. She arched into him, and he slowly zipped the back up, making her breath in.
She turned around and slipped her kitten heels on then stood back from him. "How do I look?"
"Ravishing," he murmured, walking up to her with a steady, decisive step. She beamed at him but in the other room, Kate began to grumble. He got within reaching distance and she spun around,
"Gotta go… Later…"
Doug watched her walk into the lounge and pick Kate up, talking to her as she headed back for the kitchen, glancing over at him and flashing him a teasing smile. He sighed and went back into the room to put his slacks and shirt on. From the bedroom, he heard her clattering with some pans, no doubt heating the girls up their dinner, and decided to match the effort she’d made.
"What d’ya think? Will I do?" She looked up from feeding the girls when he pushed the bedroom shut and stepped out, immaculately dressed in grey slacks and a charcoal polo-shirt. He’d shaved and as he walked past her, she smelt a wave of her favourite aftershave, Hugo Boss. Giggling, she murmured,
"You smell good…"
"Well, I couldn’t look like the dimmer star…" He took the spoon from her and played food-planes with Tess, who opened her mouth eagerly, then drooled half of it immediately down her bib as she chortled at her father.
"Did you see the crate of Becks Will left in the lobby?" she asked, dropping the dirty bowls in the dishwasher.
"Mmm, looks good to me…" She raised her eyebrows.
"Or the bottle of vodka in the freezer?"
Doug flung open the door to the freezer and saw an enormous trade-sized bottle of Smirnoff Black resting atop a packet of frozen peas. He whistled in admiration as he picked it up, turning it over in his hands a couple of times. "He’s really going full-on, isn’t he?" He put the bottle back and shut the door then picked Tess up, bouncing her in his arms, and wiped her face with her bib.
"We’ll put these two to bed and shut their door," he suggested. "I can carry the baby monitor around with me, keep an ear out for them crying…"
Carol pulled a face, knowing the situation was far from ideal, but also aware that it was the only option. She picked Kate up and headed over to the rug. "I’ll tire them out now," she said, laying out on the rug and putting her daughter down beside her. "Then maybe they’ll sleep through it all…" Kate, thrilled by her new-found freedom, crawled unsteadily onto Carol’s legs and began pounding her calf. She twitched her leg and Kate flopped like a rag doll the two inches onto the floor. Carol stretched out her hand and helped her right herself, then curled up around her clambering daughter. A knock came at the door and she called out, "Doug, will you get that?"
"Mmm…" he said and flung it open, revealing Will Kelly, dressed in dark denims and a tight-fitting t-shirt bearing the slogan ‘F.C.U.K. Fashion’, juggling three plastic carrier bags and a bottle of whisky. Doug stepped aside and allowed him to enter.
"Evening, Doug, Carol…"
"Will? You knocked?" Carol rolled onto her back and tipped her head back to see an upside-down image of him. He grinned.
"Yes, I knocked, darling… and with all this in my hands… don’t you think that’s impressive?" Carol shrugged. "Drink, folks?" he asked, depositing the bags on the kitchen counter. Doug nodded and Will went to the corridor, dragged in the crate of Becks and slit the polythene covering them. "Heads up, Doug!" he called and threw one towards Doug, who, with a little stretch, caught the flying bottle. "Feel free to mess with the system, by the way. Put some songs on…" he added. "What can I get you, Carol?"
****
The doorbell started ringing at eight, and before long, the room was filled with people, the music was thumping from Will’s hi-fi, and the alcohol was flowing freely. Doug was on his fourth beer, and Carol on her third Bacardi and Coke when she dragged him to one side and whispered, "Look over there…"
It was Cindy, sitting up against the wall, with Will putting all his charms to full employment next to her. Doug flicked his head and grinned. "She’s having fun…"
"What about me, then?"
Doug’s grin widened and he turned to face her. "You aren’t?" She nodded her head.
"Oh, I’m having fun… just not as much as I’d bargained for…"
"Would you like another drink?"
"Doug Ross! Are you trying to ply me with alcohol?" He grinned and looped his arms around her, his eyes sparkling as she thrust her hips against him in time to the music playing.
"Why would I need that, hmm?"
****
Doug found himself at midnight in the bedroom, but the situation was not as he’d expected. He was sat up against the wall, and Will and Toby Jones were lounging across the bed. Some guy called Ben who was a friend of Will’s was handing shots glasses of vodka out and someone else whose name eluded him was sitting a few feet away. They were all merry from copious amounts of liquor and the conversation had meandered hopelessly into a kind of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? interrogation, the questions directed mostly at Toby, who, despite his intoxication, was managing to outguess them all.
"Okay, Toby Jones, I’ve got a question for this mighty brain of yours," Will leaned back onto the headboard, his face taking on a sudden seriousness. "It’s something I’ve always wondered about… you know, when I watched David Attenborough on the telly…"
"Go on, then, I’m waiting…" Toby smiled proudly. "I watch all his programmes, so I’m bound to know this one…" Will gave a predatory grin in return and then continued,
"Right… Which can fly faster? A Cormorant or a Shag?" Toby stared for a moment,
"I’m not sure… I would think they probably fly as fast as one another… after all, they’re both sea-birds…"
"So you don’t know?" Will sucked his lip condemningly. "Okay… well, could I run faster than a Shag could fly?" Toby gave Will a patronising look.
"I highly doubt it…" Will nodded non-committally and tapped his finger on the counter as if considering this new information in scientific wonder. "What about you, Doug, do you think I could run faster than a Shag could fly?"
Doug shrugged. "I dunno… probably not…"
"Hmm…" said Will. "Well, there you go, it’s conclusively proved then… you can’t beat a good Shag…" He chortled deep in his throat and the others, catching onto the thread of the joke, joined him.
"What’s going on in here?" Cindy’s head popped around the door to the bedroom and raised an eyebrow at the gathering of five men. "Or is that best left to the imagination...?"
"We were talking about Shags," Will informed her with a twinkle in his eye. Cindy raised both her eyebrows. "Do you have anything you’d like to add to our discussion?"
She opened the door fully and then put both hands up on the framework. "Talk, talk, talk, that’s all you men ever do these days…" She glanced over to Will. "You’re all talk and no action, that’s what I say."
"Is that so?" Will stood up and stepped over Alex’s legs. "All talk and no action, hmm? Let’s see about that, shall we?" He winked at her and then took her hand, leading her out of the room. In the corner, Doug chuckled. He got up and followed them outside, seeking Carol.
He found her talking animatedly with a complete stranger in the kitchen and sneaked up behind her, wrapping his arms around her and making her jump. "Doug!" she cried. "Don’t ever do that again!"
"Well, Cindy said I was all talk and no action…" he slurred, tickling her under her arms, where he knew she was susceptible. Carol wormed out of his grasp and chuckled, putting her hands on her hips in mock irritation.
"She does, does she? And how does she know this? Hmm?" Doug, realising she’d caught him, made a sound in his throat and flicked his head. He reached out to her with both arms and a pleading look.
"She knows no more than you know…" he teased. She arched her eyebrows.
"Now that does scare me…"
From the counter next to them, the telephone rang, a high-pitched series of digital bleeps. "Phone!" someone yelled from across the room.
"Where’s Will?" Carol said, looking around. The ring came again. Toby wandered past with a fresh beer in his hand and shouted above the music,
"He’s in the hall, snogging that friend of yours…" Carol grinned at Doug, who looked down and smiled to himself. "Pass me the phone, I’ll give it to him." Doug handed the portable receiver over to Toby, who immediately conveyed it, still ringing, into the hallway.
"She’s not gonna live that one down easily," Doug chuckled. Carol shook her head at him.
"Aren’t you happy for her?"
"Will Kelly’s not exactly the perfect choice…" he allowed.
"Maybe not, but I chose you and you were no different. So, don’t you go getting all righteous Mr. No-Strings-Attached," Carol admonished, coming up underneath his chin and glaring up at him playfully. Doug looked down at her and held her stare. He gave her a spontaneous kiss and as she pulled away, laughing, she bumped straight into Will. She span around and laughed at him as well, the alcohol making her giddy. He had a peculiar look on his face and he simply took her hand and said,
"Carol… it’s for you. I think you’ll find it’s quieter outside…"
Worried at the unusualness of the phone call, Carol took the handset quickly and went into the corridor to answer the call. Doug stayed where he was, and then turned to Will. "Who was it?"
"They didn’t say. It’s a man’s voice, though… sounds a little foreign…" Doug frowned, trying to think who would possibly want to speak to Carol at such a late hour. He shook his head, mystified, and took another swallow of his drink. Will was smiling,
"So, you work with Cindy, don’t you?"
"Yep," he chuckled. Will looked down at the floor. "Treat her well, okay…" he warned, half joking, half serious. Will gave an amused smile.
"Yes, sir," He glanced over to where Cindy was dancing with Lucy Calloway and grinned, "Please, sir… can I have some more…?" Doug chuckled and turned to look at Cindy too, but as his eyes travelled across the room, Carol appeared in the doorway, looking pale and ghostly, her eyes watery.
"Doug…" she said quietly. He sobered quickly and put down his drink, coming up in front of her.
"What’s wrong?" he asked, putting his hands on her shoulders. Carol took a deep, jagged breath.
"That was Javier," she paused, looking distractedly around at the people dancing. "I have to go back, Doug… It’s my Mom…"
To be continued…