Challenging Dr. Blake
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Rebecca Lang
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CHAPTER ONE
THE first thing she really noticed about the man she had come to meet, after the initial quick assessment, was that he had a broken nose. That is, he had at one time had a broken nose. The second thing she noticed was that in spite of the nose—or perhaps because of it—he was attractive.
Signy Clover averted her gaze, shifted her attention away from the two men who stood a few yards away from her, intent on their conversation. The view was spectacular from where she stood outside the small, private air terminus building. It was here that the float planes took off from Vancouver to some local destinations, along the coastline and to the various islands off the coast.
In front of her was the wide sheltered bay that led out to the Pacific Ocean, while to her right, to the north, were the mountains, those belonging to the coastal range, not the Rockies, so she had read. Even though she was tired and jet-lagged, Signy felt a rare thrill as she looked at them. The feeling of pleasure came as a welcome surprise. For a while she had thought that she might never be able to experience any sort of joy again or, at least, not for a long time. Her time in Africa seemed to have squeezed all capacity for pleasure out of her.
Below those mountains, below the densely forested areas of the lower slopes, as well as behind her, were the high-rise buildings of the city. Slowly she looked around her, marvelling at everything that was so new to her. Over to her left, on the other side of the wide bay, were hills that were covered with pale houses and vegetation in various shades of green, small in the distance.
The air was very clear, with a limpid quality to it that made objects seem closer than they were, like the float plane that was coming across the bay to touch down in the water. It seemed to move on the breeze, not powered at all, as it came slowly downwards to the blue water, like a toy, glowing white in the sunshine. Signy felt as though she could reach out and touch it.
The climate wasn’t always like this, so she had read in the training manual that had been sent to her before she had left England. Thick cloud could come down in a matter of moments, obscuring the mountains, the high-rise buildings of the downtown area, the freighters anchored out in the bay.
The two men appeared to be winding up their conversation, moving away from each other, so Signy’s attention was brought back to them, particularly to the man she had come to meet, the one with the broken nose. After lifting a laconic arm in farewell to the other man, he turned his attention to her, walking over to her where she stood on an expanse of concrete, surrounded by her few pieces of luggage. A taxi had deposited her there minutes before.
‘That’s him over there,’ the receptionist had informed her when she had enquired for Dan Blake at the squat, rather ramshackle terminus building with the flat roof. ‘He’s the tall one with the fair hair.’ Since then she had waited for him to finish his conversation, knowing that he had seen her and was expecting her.
‘You must be either Signy Glover,’ he said, coming to a stop about two feet away from her, ‘or Terri Carpenter. With World Aid Nurses?’ He had a pleasant voice, low and slightly clipped, a mixture, she thought, of English and Canadian accents.
Close up he looked a little older than she had at first thought him to be. There were fine lines fanning out from the corners of his grey-blue eyes as he squinted at her against the sun, lines of tiredness and exposure to the elements, she thought. He spoke slightly out of the corner of his mouth, like an actor in a gangster movie or a Western—the bad guy. Not my type, she found herself thinking cynically as they appraised each other quickly. Just as well, because I don’t want to get involved with any man, in any way, during this training and rest period. Dan Blake, she felt, was one man she could rule out in the crush stakes. Often in tense work situations it was only too easy to develop strong emotional bonds with someone, bonds which often did not hold up when the context changed. Nonetheless, she felt slightly nonplussed under his open and frank assessment.
All in all, she hadn’t been very lucky with men in her life so far, which wasn’t really saying much as she was only in her mid-twenties, but from time to time she felt a poignant angst that she no longer had a man to love, or to love her. Sometimes in quiet moments she felt the ticking of the internal clock.
For all she knew, Dan Blake might be married, with three or four children in tow. Somehow she didn’t think so, though. There was something about the way he looked at her, a very masculine perusal of controlled interest…
‘Clover,’ she said, ‘not Glover. I’m Signy Clover.’
‘As in the flower?’ he said, raising eyebrows that were dark in contrast to the straight fair hair that flopped to one side over his forehead. The hair didn’t make him look boyish, as it might have done on someone else. To her he looked completely adult, very experienced, hard, not a man to be crossed, she suspected.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Hey, that’s cute,’ he said, his very masculine mouth twisting slightly in a wry grin.
Signy thought that perhaps he was being a little sarcastic, and decided that she didn’t like him. Maybe I’m being paranoid, she told herself uncertainly. These days she didn’t always trust her own judgement where people were concerned. Usually she didn’t prejudge people, preferring to give them many chances, to give them the benefit of the doubt at first until they either proved themselves worthy, or confirmed her thoughts. Anyway, she didn’t have to like him. When this four-month retreat and training period was over she would almost certainly never see this man again.
‘I’m Dan Blake,’ he said, holding out a hand to her, then gripping hers firmly. ‘Welcome to Canada and to British Columbia. Sorry to have kept you waiting. I’m trying to organize about half a dozen things at once. I’m going to be flying you and Ms Carpenter—when she shows up—to the island.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It gave me a chance to look at the scenery.’
‘Let’s get ourselves a cup of coffee while we wait for Ms Carpenter,’ he said, lifting up her two larger bags effortlessly, leaving the small carry-on bag for her.
Under a calm exterior, Signy hid a nervous excitement as she followed him the few yards to the building. She was a long way from home, she knew no one in this country and she was haunted by memories of recent work experience that hadn’t been pleasant. This man she was with knew something about her past, she suspected, if he was with the organization, while she knew almost nothing about him. This imbalance left her feeling a little on edge, somehow at a disadvantage, defensive. She wasn’t sure at this point what position he held.
‘You haven’t been with World Aid Nurses very long, have you?’ he said.
‘No,’ she confirmed. If only he knew how green she’d been when she’d signed on with the organization in London, after she had broken up with Simon. Then she had wanted to get out of the country quickly, to have a change of scene, and had requested to go to Africa. London had become poignant with memories. They had trained her quickly and sent her out, taking her at her word. Her life had taken a complete about-face, from living cosily, obliviously, with the man she loved, going to work every day to a job she enjoyed in a teaching hospital, to a place where nothing could be taken for granted other than the fact of one’s mortality. She wasn’t about to tell this man, Dan Blake, how naïve she had been, how shattered by what she had witnessed there.
‘So you’re from England?’ he said, elbowing open the door for them.
‘Yes,’ Signy said, following him into a utilitarian, all-purpose room. As she glanced around her quickly, she could see that it was part reception, part waiting room, freight office, and area of relaxation for staff.
‘Hi, Dan. Good to see you,’ several people called to him, passing through, while he raised a casual arm to them in greeting.
Perhaps this guy was the embodiment of the term ‘laid back’, Signy thought, grinning to herself. The observation made her wonder, and hope, that perhaps her sense of humour was finally coming back, having thought over the past six months that she had lost it for ever. Once again she pushed those nagging memories and images from the forefront of her mind, where she didn’t want them to intrude during the day. It was bad enough that they plagued her nights…
‘We can leave the bags here,’ he said, putting them down by the door.
Signy followed him over to the corner of the room where two coffee-urns were set up on a utilitarian table, together with several trays of doughnuts and biscuits. Surreptitiously she eyed Dan Blake as he led the way, noting that he was very thin, albeit hard and muscular, as though he had, perhaps, been ill and lost weight. The light khaki-coloured trousers that he wore hung on him loosely, as did the shirt with the sleeves rolled up. As though to belie this observation, the thinness was contrasted by the tanned skin of his face and arms.
‘Help yourself to coffee, Signy,’ he said. ‘May I call you that?’
‘Yes…please,’ she said, softening a little towards him, warmed by his politeness. These days most men left her indifferent, as though her experiences in Africa, her failed loves, had wrung her out emotionally, had used up all her reserves. She didn’t pretend that she could understand it; for now, she was just going to go with the moment.
‘And I assume I can call you Dan?’ she asked.
‘Sure,’ he said, as he helped himself to coffee. ‘When did you get in from England?’
‘I came in yesterday,’ she said, recalling the long flight from London, after which she had recuperated in a downtown hotel. ‘I really needed that night’s sleep.’
‘I’m sure you did,’ he said, watching her as she helped herself to coffee. With a quick flick of his wrist he looked at his watch and added, ‘I trust that Ms Carpenter won’t keep us waiting much longer.’
‘I’m not sure exactly who you are,’ Signy said apologetically. ‘Are you our pilot? I was originally expecting a Dr Max Seaton…although I didn’t know exactly where I’d be meeting him. Then there was a message at the hotel to say that I would be meeting you.’
‘I’m the pilot this time,’ he said, his shrewd blue-grey eyes going over her features. ‘I’m also one of the medical guys who will be on Kelp Island, some of the time, with your group.’
‘Oh…you’re Dr Blake?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. You’ll be meeting Max Seaton later. Maybe he’s already on the island, I don’t know. We should all be there by lunchtime. As I expect you know, we’ll be using this weekend for rest and orientation to the surroundings.’
Signy digested this information, having taken him for something other than a medical man. Perhaps it was the broken nose, and the absence of any apparent ego that had made her jump to that conclusion. There was also something in his manner that hinted at a certain antipathy to Dr Max Seaton. Having worked for years with many different people of all types, in a wide variety of settings, she had become adept at picking up nuances and vibes from people, reading between the lines. She sensed that Dan could do the same.
‘We have at least a couple of things in common,’ he said. ‘I have an English mother…spent some of my childhood and schooling in Devon, where we still have a home. My father’s Canadian, which is why I’m in this part of the world. The other thing is that I was also in Africa.’
Something seemed to click into place with Signy. She’d had a sense that he’d been there, from the thinness, the ingrained, yellowish tan, the aura of exhaustion not quite left behind. Those were all the things that she had experienced, and a lot more besides.
‘With World Aid Doctors?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you work with them all the time?’
‘No, just once in a while, when they need me. I’m a working doctor here. I have to earn a living, maintain commitments here.’
‘I see,’ she said politely, knowing that most doctors who worked with World Aid Doctors did a certain number of weeks a year in their vacation time from regular jobs, or on leave of absence, to go where they were needed around the world. Others stayed longer, those who hadn’t settled on a permanent career pattern.
‘Did you get involved in any wars in Somalia?’ he asked.
‘Not directly,’ Signy said, hesitating, reluctant to talk about it now while outside the sun was shining with a pleasant, bearable heat, the ocean was very blue, the sky the same. It all felt very benign and safe, and she wanted to savour that. ‘We did have some…trouble, which meant that we had to…um…get out in a hurry.’ What an understatement that was, she thought with the usual pangs of regret and bitterness that came flooding back to disturb her spurious calm. ‘Otherwise…it was mostly disease, malnutrition and starvation.’
Dan was aware of her reluctance as he looked at her discerningly, his eyes narrowing slightly as he took in her stiff features, as though he was aware of the effort it took her to keep her equilibrium. Then he shifted his gaze through a window that looked out over the area where he had just greeted her. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘It looks as though the tardy Ms Carpenter has just arrived. Excuse me.’
As Signy stood, sipping coffee, glad that they had been interrupted and watching out of the window, he strode out to meet a young woman who was just scrambling from a taxi, dropping bags as she came. The taxi driver unloaded more bags. This must be Terri Carpenter, Signy surmised as she watched a tall, slim, blonde young woman with very short spiky hair gather her bags around her then turn to shake hands with Dan. She would be one of the other nurses with the organization who would be sharing the retreat-cum-training session with her on Kelp Island.
It was a very small island off the coast of British Columbia which had once been a military base, so Signy had read in the information that had been sent to her. In fact, World Aid Nurses and World Aid Doctors were using the buildings of this now disused base, which had been built during the Second World War and added to since. Signy expected the accommodation to be somewhat spartan but comfortable, with the necessary amenities of modern living.
She finished her coffee and went outside, shifting her baggage with her, one bag at a time. As she went through the motions automatically, she was aware of her own vulnerability, of feelings that had been stirred up by this man’s questions.
Dan Blake—Dr Blake—had seemed anxious to get going, so she didn’t want to be the one to hold him up now. She found that she was having difficulty in thinking of him as a doctor. Not that she had a stereotyped view of what a doctor should be like, she told herself. It was just that he looked like someone who made his living out of doors. He also had that unassuming air that she found slightly disconcerting, she wasn’t sure why.
In her experience so far, many doctors had at least a touch of arrogance, although World Aid Doctors tended to differ somewhat from the common mould. Perhaps some doctors were arrogant because they were making life-and-death decisions for other people, taking the initiative away from those people. Some of the best doctors she had known had acquired a degree of humility over the years, conscious that they could make and break lives, could make mistakes that could have dire consequences.
She sighed, once again pushing down images and memories that haunted her. With determination, she looked at the blue sky, the haze that hung over the water, the green mountains.
‘Meet Terri Carpenter,’ Dan Blake said to her when they came over.
‘Great to meet you,’ Terri said, extending a hand. Her pale hair, tanned skin and hazel eyes contrasted dramatically with Signy’s appearance, with her paler skin, chestnut-coloured hair cut in a neat bob and blue eyes. Beside her, Signy felt a little washed out, certainly not as overtly fit and athletic.
‘Signy Clover,’ she said, smiling. ‘Good to meet you, too.’
‘I’d like to get going now, if that’s all right with you,’ Dan said. Then we’ll be on the island in time for lunch. It will take us about twenty minutes to get there.’
‘Yeah, great!’ the Australian girl enthused. ‘I’m ready when you are. I’ll get my gear together.’
‘It’s just the three of us,’ Dan said. ‘If we can get the plane up in the air with all these bags.’ He grinned wryly to belie any implied criticism in his words.
‘Oh, have I got too much?’ Terri asked innocently, looking around her for the first time to see what Signy had with her, then realizing that she had considerably more luggage.
‘A little more than the stipulated maximum,’ Dan said crisply. Signy couldn’t tell whether he was really amused or annoyed.
‘My excuse is that I’m a long way from home,’ Terri said.
They all helped to stow the bags in the tiny plane that was waiting at the dock.
‘Has either one of you been on a float plane before?’ Dan asked after they had clambered inside the cabin and he had indicated the seats they should have. The aircraft would take no more than six people.
‘I have,’ Terri said, while Signy shook her head.
‘You might want to put these on,’ he said, handing them each a headset with earpieces, ‘just before we take off. It can be pretty noisy. Fasten your seats belts and keep them on.’
‘This looks like a great place,’ Terri said to Signy as she sat down behind her. ‘Maybe we’ll have a chance to look around some time.’
‘I hope so,’ Signy agreed, taking an instant liking to the other nurse. ‘I got in yesterday, so I didn’t see much…just had time for a walk around downtown, near the hotel.’
‘Same here. You’re English, eh?’
Signy nodded.
‘Are you on a retreat, as well as doing a bit more training?’
‘Yes. I’m really looking forward to the retreat part of it,’ Signy confirmed, smiling back.
‘I am, too,’ Terri said, a momentary shadow wiping the smile from her face. Signy knew from personal experience that such a remark, a casual understatement, masked the angst that came with the work they had to do, the sights they had seen.
‘Were you in Africa?’ Signy asked.
‘East Timor.’
‘Ah…’ She didn’t need to ask more at that moment. Immediately her mind’s eye flipped the pages of a mental map and focussed on that part of the world.
Dan was in the pilot’s seat, ready to go. ‘Buckled up?’ he said, looking over his shoulder at them. ‘Put on your mufflers now.’ With his own headset in place, he began a check of the controls.
Even with her hearing muffled, the roar of the engine sounded deafening to Signy. Facing front resolutely, never having liked flying very much, she clenched her hands over the armrests of her seat.
Soon they were skimming over the surface of the water, the floats sending up plumes of spray on either side. Then they were lifting up at a sharp angle, with a clear view of the mountains, the densely wooded slopes, the sparkling water of the Pacific Ocean as the sunlight struck the surface. Out there to the north was China.
Only when they had reached their desired altitude, as the land slid away and they turned south over the water, did Signy relax somewhat and release her grip. Over to her left the coast was clearly visible as they flew south. Soon they would go farther out into the ocean, over a series of small islands to Kelp Island, on the Canadian side of the border with the United States. She thought briefly of other journeys, less tranquil, that she’d made in the recent past, when she’d been in physical danger and had had to be constantly alert to what had been going on around her in case certain sights and happenings had meant danger.
To a certain extent she had thrived on it. Beyond that certain point, those moments of potential danger had put all other worries and concerns into perspective pretty quickly. That was the most positive thing that World Aid Nurses had done for her—it had all certainly been give and take, she mused now. Then she pushed the past from her mind, determined to enjoy the here and now.
Soon they were over the south end of Vancouver Island, a very large island, well populated, off Vancouver city. Signy remembered it from a map she had studied of the whole area. It was mid-September, sunny and warm. The weather would change soon, to become more unpredictable; it would be cooler, with quite a lot of rain, with low cloud and mist.
Just as she was getting used to the view of the ocean and small, densely wooded islands, the plane began to lose height. Craning in her seat, she saw an island dead ahead, a green, irregular spot, with no other islands immediately near it. That, she assumed, was Kelp Island.
Excitement gripped her as she anticipated the weeks ahead in this safe, tranquil place. Up to now she hadn’t allowed herself to think too much about her need to let go, to truly relax and recuperate—the promise of this island retreat had somehow seemed too unreal. Now, as they were losing height, the island began to take on a reality, and she could see forest, a shoreline.
Dan glanced briefly over his shoulder. ‘We’re going down,’ he shouted. ‘Buckle up, if you’re not already. Life vests under seats.’
His terse remarks jerked Signy to a more immediate reality. Looking behind her, she gave Terri a brief grin, before checking that she did indeed have a life vest under her seat.
The plane came down on the water quite far from the island, then taxied noisily towards a dock. As they got close they could see someone waiting, and two Jeep-like utilitarian vehicles. Because this place had been a military base there had to be at least one good road, Signy assumed, taking in as much as she could of the scene through the tiny window. How different it was from the dry brown of the small piece of Africa that she had known.
She unfastened her seat belt and stood up stiffly when the craft had come to a halt at the dock. On the seat in front of her Dan had deposited a small bag of his own, plus a pile of papers, and Signy’s eyes looked idly over these as she waited for the door to be opened. Something registered sharply on her consciousness, yet for a few moments she couldn’t exactly place what it was. On the top sheet of a pile of papers that were secured by an elastic band, a name had been typed in quite large letters: ‘R.D.H. Blake, MD’.
Something seemed to clench in her heart as she looked at that name, a sense of shock so intense that she felt momentarily faint and sick, actually felt the blood draining from her face. Quickly she sat back down in her seat, groping for her carry-on bag that she had put at her feet, taking her time about it so that she could keep her head bent down. She thought she might pass out.
That name! It hadn’t occurred to her that Dan Blake might be R.D.H. Blake, the same person who had made the decision in Africa that had led directly, in her opinion, to Dominic’s death. It was that person who had ordered them to leave the medical station while Dominic had still been missing out in the bush, to get out because the situation for them had become dangerous with the advent of rebels in the area where they had been working. The word ‘rebel’, she had discovered, was a catch-all name given to anyone who was willing to resort to violence to get what he, or his group, wanted. After a while it had become meaningless to her.
Blake was, after all, a quite common surname. Could this Dan Blake be the same Blake who had issued orders from a distance, where another World Aid group had been working, for them to get out, to leave the station and proceed immediately to a distant airstrip where they could be airlifted out? A truck had come for them with an order in writing, from him, for them to leave. No prior warning had been given in an area where communication was difficult.
As her mind took in all the possibilities, she somehow came to the conclusion that they were one and the same person.
Terri moved past her in the narrow aisle, encumbered with small bags. Dan had the door to the aircraft open. Sluggishly Signy moved forward with her own bag, her mind in overdrive.
‘Are you all right? You look pale.’ There he was, standing by the door, tall and very masculine in the confined space, looking at her with concern. As she came level with him he put a hand on her arm. Hypocrite! She wanted to hiss the word at him.
‘Just a bit of motion sickness,’ she said flatly, getting the words out with difficulty through lips that felt stiff. ‘I…I’ll be all right once I get out on land, get some fresh air.’
He nodded, looking beyond her out the door to the bright sunshine, still holding her arm. ‘Go carefully,’ he said.
Signy recoiled from him, steadying herself, pulling her arm out of his grasp. The ‘D’ of the middle initial of that doctor in Africa could be the ‘D’ for Daniel, she speculated as she moved forward. Again, that speculation hardened into certainty. Quite a lot of people she knew didn’t use the first name that had been given to them in babyhood by ambitious, facetious or otherwise misguided parents, but chose instead the more acceptable alternative, or had it chosen for them by friends.
They clambered out, to be met by a youngish man wearing overalls. Signy placed her feet carefully on the wooden dock and moved forward, feeling as she had when she’d heard about Dominic’s fate—sobered, intensely sad. After that first shock at the time, she’d felt long afterwards that she’d been sleep-walking, just going through the motions of being alive. Now the irony of the situation hit her…that she was here on a retreat with the very person who was in some way associated with her former mental trauma. It wasn’t surprising really. World Aid Doctors, and its associated nursing branch, constituted a small group.
‘Welcome to Kelp Island,’ the other man said, with a Scottish accent, to her and Terri. ‘I’m Jock McGregor.’
‘What’s a Scotsman doing here?’ Signy asked, forcing herself to speech and to smile at the same time, willing herself back to the moment, as she dumped her bag on the dock and looked around appreciatively. She had to take her time to decide what she should do about Dan Blake…if anything. In spite of her shock, there was no denying the overwhelming immediacy, the austere beauty, of this place, with its dark green towering forest, and the effect it had on one. It was good to be on land again.
‘Oh, we’re all over the world,’ he said. ‘Same as the English. I’m in what you might call general maintenance.’
‘I’m Terri Carpenter,’ said the other young woman, the first to extend her hand.
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘I’m Signy Clover. Nice to meet you,’ she said in turn. The first things that Signy noticed were the smells, predominantly the fresh sea air scented with the unfamiliar odour of cedar trees, and she took several deep, calming breaths. There was a moistness in the air that accentuated all the scents of nature, the soil itself, the vegetation.
‘Wow!’ Terri breathed the word softly. ‘Just look at those trees. Some of those must be several hundred years old. I wonder why the loggers didn’t get their hands on those.’
The forest rose above them on slopes, impenetrable, it seemed, apart from a narrow road that disappeared among them just beyond the dock area. All was pristine, fresh and silent, apart from the slap of water against the pilings of the dock.
Between the four of them they loaded the luggage and some other supplies into the two vehicles.
‘Ride with me, Signy,’ Dan said. ‘Terri, you go with Jock.’
‘Right,’ Terri said, getting into the front of the first vehicle.
Signy opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again, a strange, passive lethargy coming over her, like a cloak of fate. Before she jumped to conclusions, she had to find out more about him. Besides, she had to work with him. Nonetheless, she felt like a trapped animal, her antipathy feeling as though it would choke her. Strange how you felt emotion in your throat, and in the region of your heart. No one really understood the physiology of that.
‘Is the road OK, Jock?’ Dan asked. ‘Any washouts?’
‘It’s pretty good,’ Jock said, ‘apart from the inevitable potholes.’
The Scotsman, with Terri, went on ahead, disappearing slowly into the dense screen of trees. Soon there was silence again, giving Signy the opportunity to look around her at the rugged shoreline where narrow strips of sand edged the water below tumbled grey rocks. She felt uncomfortable now, alone with Dan, so much so that she thought he must sense it. Also she found herself uncommonly aware that she was a woman alone with a strange man in a very isolated spot. Irritated with herself, she forced herself to look at him as they stood together. She considered the slightly twisted nose, the thin, oddly attractive, exhausted face.
‘What do you think of the island so far?’ he said.
Signy swallowed. ‘It’s…it’s beautiful,’ she said, meaning it. ‘But…not benign, I think.’
At that he smiled slightly, looking at her perceptively. ‘Mmm,’ he agreed.
‘I assume the smell is the scent of cedar trees?’ she said.
‘Yes. On some other parts of the island there are some sandy beaches. Very wild, some of them, facing the ocean, with spectacular breakers. A lot of kelp gets washed up there. Hence the name.’
‘I hope we’ll get time to explore some of them,’ she said, picturing the wild, deserted beaches.
‘You will,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you some time, if you like.’
Immediately Signy was wary, withdrawing into herself, as she had done over the past weeks since she had come back from Africa.
‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly, knowing that her recoil had been obvious.
‘It’s part of the treatment,’ he said, a brusque note in his voice. ‘Lots of walks in the mist and rain, through the forest trails, on blustery beaches. Let the exertion of the body heal the mind.’
Signy’s cheeks slowly suffused with colour. He had immediately tuned in to her standoffishness and censure, and she felt a sharp regret. It wasn’t her custom to judge before she had all the facts, so she told herself to hold off. Her excuse was that she was still in love with Simon…or was it Dominic, whom she had met for the first time in Africa? Perhaps it hadn’t been love, but certainly she had formed a very strong bond with him and still mourned him acutely. She needed some time to be alone now on her walks, to think, to sort things out in her mind, so she told herself.
‘I didn’t mean…’ she began hesitantly.
‘No, neither did I,’ he said. ‘Let’s go. Do you have some sort of jacket you can put on? It can get quite cool in the woods.’
‘Yes.’ Glad of the diversion, she fumbled in her carry-on bag to pull out a knitted jacket. She had a lightweight rain jacket in there too, against the frequent falls of rain that were typical in the area.
In the forest much of the sunlight was shut out, putting them into a dim green light that seemed to Signy mysterious and unworldly, so that she shivered and pulled the jacket closely around her. Dan drove slowly and carefully. The scents of trees, ferns, moss and moist soil came in through the windows. The paved road, more of a lane, was narrow and uneven, bordered on either side by clumps of ferns, trees and other vegetation that she didn’t recognize. Sitting there beside this man, whom she was convinced had affected her life in the recent past, even though they had never met, it made her feel that, rather than getting away from the past, it was coming back to greet her, to encompass her once more.
‘You have a background in operating theatre work and emergency nursing, Signy, so I remember from my brief perusal of your CV,’ Dan said, breaking the slightly strained silence that had sprung up between them. Signy wondered whether it was all on her side. So far he had given no indication that her name meant anything to him. If it had, he wouldn’t have called her ‘Glover’.
He turned to look at her for a moment, his glance shrewd and appraising, before he turned back to view the road which had suddenly deteriorated slightly. They slowed down to go around some potholes, the vehicle climbing steadily away from the dock. ‘And you’ve done some midwifery training?’ he added.
‘Yes,’ she confirmed.
‘I’m surprised you got sent out to Africa,’ he said, ‘as your first assignment. That was rather throwing you in at the deep end.’ To her heightened awareness, his comment sounded like a criticism of her, perhaps implying that she couldn’t have been expected to cope.
‘I wanted to go there,’ she said tightly. ‘I could have refused, I had the option. At the time the place I was sent to was not considered particularly dangerous. At least, not any more dangerous than any other place. As you know, situations can change quickly, and unforeseen things happen. You don’t always have time to get out when perhaps you should.’
‘No…you’re quite right,’ he murmured, telling her nothing.
With tension rising in her beyond endurance, Signy decided to test him. ‘Some of my party were taken hostage by a rebel group. Fortunately they got away eventually, but for a while no one knew what the outcome would be…We expected the worst.’ At that moment she didn’t want to tell him that Dr Dominic Fraser, one of her three abducted colleagues, hadn’t come back to the medical station when he should have done, had decided—with misguided bravado, it seemed now—to link up with members of the UN forces in an attempt to track down his captors. He hadn’t made it back in time to be driven out when the others had been evacuated.
‘That’s pretty grim, and it happens quite commonly,’ Dan said. ‘The best thing is to get out when there’s the first hint of possible trouble. There’s no point in becoming a liability or a casualty yourself. I wouldn’t have thought you were the right person for that setting.’
‘Oh? Why not?’ she said.
‘Don’t take this wrong. You seem very…what shall I say? Fragile.’
Signy searched around for words, not knowing what to say. ‘Appearances can be deceptive,’ she said. The only way she was fragile at the moment, she found herself thinking, was emotionally, and she didn’t think he was referring to that.
‘What exactly is your role here on the island?’ she said, thinking it was time to shift attention away from herself, knowing that she sounded at least mildly belligerent. Determined not to show that his words had hurt her, after all she had been through, she stared blankly ahead. Obviously the scene in Africa, one of many for him, she suspected, hadn’t rung any particular bells in his memory, while for her it dominated her life. ‘Are you involved in the training course?’
‘Yes. I also work in some of the small community hospitals and clinics in some of the outlying areas, partly on a consultant basis, partly routine,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘It’s a hectic life. I sometimes take you, the nurses, with me. Mainly my role is to show you what it’s like to work in small communities that are isolated, or more or less so. The information you pick up is of help when you go on assignments. You learn to plan ahead in great detail, to rely on your own devices.’
‘I did learn that in Africa,’ she pointed out.
He gave her a quick glance and said nothing, while she chalked up one point to herself. He was being a bit over-bearing.
‘Are you a surgeon?’ she said.
‘I have done surgery,’ he said, ‘mainly trauma. Then I trained in obstetrics. I find myself doing a bit of everything, whatever’s needed. It became very obvious on my assignments abroad, in emergency and disaster situations, that there was a great need for someone to take care of pregnant women.’
Signy nodded, somewhat surprised, not having taken him for an obstetrician. Really, she didn’t know what to make of him. One minute Dan seemed overbearing, then the next he gave out glimpses of something else, a surprising sensitivity. Anyway, she made up her mind to be wary of him.
‘Can you fly a plane or drive a motorboat?’ he asked, peering ahead where the headlights of the car cast a yellow glow on the green gloom. Here and there shafts of sunlight slanted through tall trees, some of which appeared to be very old, tall and massive, with moss clinging to their trunks.
‘No,’ she said, beginning to feel a little alarmed again that this man might find her wanting in his estimation, perhaps useless in the training that lay ahead. She knew that fear was part of her problem, part of her need to rest, to be in a tranquil place. One doctor had told her that she was suffering from survivor’s guilt. ‘Do I need to?’
‘Not specifically. What can you do? Apart from your work, that is.’ He asked with what seemed to her subtle sarcasm.
‘I can swim,’ she said, ‘row or sail a small boat, drive a car, truck or tractor, ride a horse. I have ridden a motorbike.’ If only he knew about that last bit, she thought succinctly, some of her old confidence coming back. Well, she would save that for some other time, for when she needed to assert herself. That image of herself riding through scrubland on a motorbike with an injured man on the back, who clung to her like a dead weight, never left her. Yes, she would clobber Dan Blake with that when the need arose.
He turned to look at her, his eyebrows raised. ‘Can you ski?’ he said.
‘I have been skiing,’ she said carefully, ‘but I wouldn’t really say that I can ski. It seemed a pointless exercise at the time.’
‘Mmm.’
It appeared to Signy again, sensitive to criticism, that there was a wealth of meaning in that usually noncommittal sound—a meaning that was negative.
‘There were no planes or motorboats where I was in Somalia,’ she said tartly. ‘It was subsistence living…if you could call it living. Mostly it was starvation. And there was no snow.’ She added the last bit emphatically.
The words were out before she could help herself, because his questioning irritated her when she felt herself to be a seasoned person in the field. At the same time she knew that this man would be in a position to judge her throughout the training course. He would be one of the people to make pronouncements at the end. ‘I would have done almost anything for a bit of snow,’ she said.
He turned to her and laughed. ‘Point taken,’ he said.
Signy felt disarmed by his grin, also contrarily annoyed, conscious that she had been holding herself stiffly away from him, careful not to let her arm brush against his as the vehicle swayed and bounced over some of the rougher parts of the road. The amusement on his face made him look so much younger, attractive…
She looked away. ‘One thing I can do, Dr Blake,’ she said, ‘is take care of myself. I can also see a job through. I’ve done a lot. Now I’m mainly here because I need a rest.’
‘Yes,’ he said softly, agreeing. ‘I didn’t mean to goad you, Signy.’
‘Funny,’ she said, not particularly caring what he thought of her at that moment, ‘I could have sworn you did.’
‘Just want to know what you’re all about. There isn’t much time.’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘So long as it’s a two-way street. Some people like to ask a lot of personal questions, but they’re not so good at disclosing personal information about themselves. That always strikes me as being a bit flaky, as though knowing all the answers puts them in a one-up position. Are you one of those, Dr Blake?’
‘I like to think not,’ he said quietly. ‘I do need to know something about you…and if there’s anything you want to know about me, just ask away.’
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Well, to let you know more about me…let me see…I can respond to a crisis appropriately, I can hold together. In fact, I think I work better that way, which is probably why I like operating theatre and emergency work. People are different in a crisis.’ She was forcing herself to be polite, feeling as though she was making small-talk, when her sense of shock at seeing his name was still dominating her emotions.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘They show their true selves.’
They went on for a while in silence.
‘And how did you break your nose?’ she asked, out of the blue, since he was being very inquisitive. ‘I think I could picture you in a fight.’ That much was true. There was a hardness about him that contrasted with the suspected sensitivity, which made her sure that he would be able to make a decision quickly in a crisis and stick to it. Hadn’t he done that with Dominic?
Again he smiled. ‘Fell out of a tree,’ he said.
‘That mundane!’ Signy was disarmed.
‘Mmm. When I was sixteen. We were out in some remote place, a small group of us, hiking out here, when I was on holiday from England.’
‘And you never got it fixed?’ Signy said, looking sideways at his enigmatic profile. The Jeep bounced and swayed over more potholes.
‘There happened to be a doctor on hand to give me first aid,’ he said. ‘It hurt like hell, I was bleeding all over the place and I fainted. When we got back to civilization I didn’t bother to get further treatment, even though my mother was horrified and said it would ruin my beauty.’ Dan grinned. ‘I was too much of a coward.’
An odd sort of truce, if one could call it that when there wasn’t really a declared war, had occurred between them. It was a delicate balance. For purposes of his own he had been sounding her out. So far, she wasn’t ready to talk about details or divulge that she’d recognized his name.
They drove on without speaking for quite a while, the road taking them farther into the central part of the island. Beyond the military camp the road would continue to the other side of the island where there were some of the sandy beaches that he had mentioned earlier.
‘The camp is quite civilized,’ Dan said. ‘The barracks have been divided up into individual rooms. There are plenty of communal areas as well, even a bar.’
‘Sounds all right,’ she said.
At last they were there, coming out suddenly from the shade of the trees into a very large, cleared site, with narrow roads and paths crisscrossing between several single-storey buildings. From what Signy could see, it all looked very well tended and not too spartan at all.
‘There are no trees in the camp,’ Signy observed.
‘That’s right. It’s to guard against the effects of forest fires, so they can’t spread into the camp via trees, one hopes. Once in a while a tree is struck by lightning, and that can start a fire if everything’s dry, although here we usually get a fair amount of rain in the summer. Also, one less thing to fall on top of a building, or person, if there’s an earthquake.’
‘Earthquake?’ Signy said, looking at him in alarm. ‘Are you joking?’
‘No,’ he said lightly. ‘They seldom happen, but this is an earthquake zone. Don’t worry about it.’
Just as Signy was wondering how he could come out with something like that, then tell her not to worry about it, he brought the Jeep to a halt outside a small wooden building with a shingled roof, so she swallowed the questions that she wanted to ask. A sign stated RECEPTION: ALL VISITORS MUST REPORT HERE.
‘We’ll find out where your room is,’ Dan said. ‘That’s the mess building over there. That’s where they serve lunch.’ He indicated a building in the centre of the base.
Inside Reception they were greeted by a young woman with short hair, wearing military-style khaki shorts with many pockets, a shirt of the same colour with tabs on the shoulders and rolled-up sleeves. A sign on the desk indicated that she was called Sabrina.
‘Hi, Dan,’ she said.
‘Hi, Sabrina,’ he said.
‘Hi,’ she said to Signy. ‘What name?’
‘Signy Clover.’
‘Clover…’ She ran her finger down a list. ‘You’re in Moose Head.’
‘Um…’ Signy said uncertainly. Beside her she could feel rather than see Dan’s amusement.
‘That’s the name of the hut you’re in,’ he said lightly. ‘Don’t be put off by the name, it’s a comfortable place. Come on, I’ll help you with the bags.’
Outside Reception there were some luggage trolleys, one of which Dan grabbed to load their bags onto. ‘I’m over that way,’ he pointed. ‘I have a little hut to myself called Holly Berry. Feel free to call on me if you need anything.’
‘Is Sabrina one of us? I mean, one of the World Aid nurses?’
‘No, she works in the camp,’ he said. ‘Her domain is Kelp Island. There are twelve nurses—if they’ve all shown up. I’ve flown some of them here.’
The door was open to Moose Head, a long, squat building that had clearly been a barracks, and Terri was at the door. ‘Hello,’ she greeted them. ‘This place is absolutely wonderful. Not what I imagined at all. We’re in the same building.’
‘That’s great,’ Signy said, pleased, and they lugged her bags to her room. When Dan left she felt oddly relieved, so much so that she let out a sigh.
The room was painted in a pale yellow, with dark pink woodwork around the window, the door and the baseboards, making the whole place look charming, so that Signy found herself smiling. There were bright coloured curtains and a thick duvet with a cover in the same pattern on the bed, over blankets. The room was fully furnished, in a simple style, with all the basics that she could possibly need.
‘This is lovely,’ she said, looking round her. ‘Not quite what I expected.’
‘Hello!’ a masculine voice called from the main doorway, bringing them both out of Signy’s room.
The man who stood inside the threshold—in a small sitting-room area, which had a kitchenette off it—was tall, muscular, dark-haired, blue-eyed and very handsome. Terri and Signy stood looking at him silently. Even though he was casually dressed, he looked somehow out of place. There was a certain elegance and sophistication about him that didn’t seem to go well with a hut named Moose Head and the picture of a cartoon moose that someone had tacked to the inside wall just above the door.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to meet you, to introduce myself.’ He held out a hand. ‘I’m Max Seaton. The plan is that we’ll all meet for lunch in the mess at twelve-thirty, then afterwards I want to talk to you all about what to expect from the programme here.’
When he took Signy’s hand and held onto it a fraction longer than was strictly appropriate for a simple handshake, she uncharacteristically found herself melting, her mouth stretching into a warm smile. ‘How do you do?’ she said, the first thing that came into her head.
‘Ms Clover,’ he said, ‘I’m very much looking forward to getting to know you. And you, Ms Carpenter.’ When he turned his charm on Terri, holding out his hand, she stood with her mouth slightly open, looking at him. ‘See you in a short while.’
‘Now, he,’ Terri said, gazing after him from the open door as he strode away, ‘isn’t quite what I expected!’
