Читать книгу Summer in Sydney - Fiona McArthur - Страница 20

‘TELL me again!’ Ellie said.

‘I’ve told you four times.’ Ruby laughed. Jess and Ellie were home when she tumbled into the house, though Tilly, who was working that night, had left early to help with an antenatal class. ‘Once I’m finished in Emergency, once I’ve got through nights, well, it’s not written in stone, but I think we’ll be more open, able to show our faces together in public. I don’t know …’ she admitted, because at the time it had seemed obvious what the other was saying—that once they’d got through this bit, they had a future, but under the scrutiny of her friends, she wondered if she was clutching at straws, and she certainly wasn’t about to discuss the absence of condoms.

So she played it down instead, toned it down, tried to calm things down in her heart, and after a good gossip she wished her friends goodnight and headed for bed. Except despite a tired body her mind wouldn’t quieten down and Ruby found herself staring out of the window, knowing she had work tomorrow and wishing she could sleep. She eventually did, but only for a little while, she was quite sure of it, when at eight a.m. she staggered into the kitchen.

‘What are you doing up?’ Tilly was nursing a huge mug of tea. ‘I thought you’d have a lie-in.’

‘I heard the kettle.’ Ruby smiled. ‘I’m going back to bed soon.’

‘So where did you get to yesterday?’ Tilly asked, and Ruby told her, well, some of it, but even though she sounded upbeat and happy she could see the worry in her friend’s eyes.

‘You haven’t known him very long,’ Tilly gently pointed out.

‘I know.’ Ruby ran a hand through her hair and tried to apply logic to a heart that had made up its mind. ‘I’m not doing an Ellie—I’m not convincing myself this is “the one”. I just can’t believe how he makes me feel and I know he feels the same.’ She could see Tilly wasn’t completely mollified. ‘What?’ Ruby demanded, because she could do that with her best friend. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

‘Nothing.’ Tilly was honest. ‘I don’t know a single thing about him. I remember him when I did my emergency rotation and I don’t think I said two words to him in the time I was there. He was just “Call Paeds. Organise a social worker …”’

‘He’s actually not like that at all,’ Ruby said, ‘once you know him.’

‘Good,’ Tilly said, and she would never meddle, but she was concerned about Ruby, knew she was struggling at work and knew that her friend didn’t give her heart away easily.

‘Oh, I got your payslip … you said you were worried …’

Ruby peeled it open and groaned as she scanned the little slip.

‘I knew they’d paid me too much. I was hoping it was back pay or something.’ But instead they’d put her down as working on a night that her shift had been cancelled. ‘I’ll ring them later,’ Ruby said. ‘Right now I’m going back to bed.’ But she still couldn’t sleep. Tilly’s unvoiced concern had her thinking—what did she know about him? She knew that he had family in Melbourne, that he had worked with her brother, there hadn’t exactly been time to take a history. Still, as the morning stretched on, and sleep remained elusive, and as a couple of hundred dollars extra in her bank account niggled, a walk into work to clear her conscience seemed like a good idea. Though she’d held little hope of bumping into Cort, as the lift doors opened on the admin floor and she saw him standing there, it was certainly an added bonus.

‘Hi.’ She smiled and he remembered Sheila’s warning.

‘Hi.’ He stepped aside to let her out, as was the polite thing to do, but Ruby just stood there, temptation beckoning, and he stepped into the lift. ‘Shouldn’t you be in bed?’

‘I wish I was.’

So did Cort. He glanced to the lift panel, wished he knew how to stop the lift, but one push of the button and he’d no doubt get it wrong and they’d come up for air, to find half of security gathered and watching.

‘You okay?’ Cort checked, and she nodded, but then she changed her mind.

‘Cort …’ She wanted quiet for her mind, she wanted the assurance only he gave, she wanted supper at his place and the quiet confidence he imbued in her. Maybe if he came for dinner, or she went there … ‘Can we …?’ But she didn’t get to ask. The busy lift was soon in demand and instead she stepped out. But, still, she was all the better for seeing him, because when he was there, there was no doubt in her mind that they would work.

‘I think I’ve been overpaid.’ Still high from seeing him, Ruby spoke to one of the girls at the pay off ice.

‘People don’t normally complain about that. Let’s have a look.’ The woman whose name badge said ‘Ruth’ took Ruby’s slip and read through it.

‘I didn’t work that Saturday,’ Ruby explained. ‘I was down to work, but my shift got cancelled. You have to take it off me today …’ Ruby smiled ‘… or I’ll spend it.’

It was one of those messy problems. Ruby had signed her time sheet apparently, which she hadn’t, of course, and Ruby accepted Ruth’s offer to take a seat while she located the time sheet to see what had happened.

‘Marie?’ Ruth called to a colleague. ‘Can you take a look at this?’

‘One moment,’ came the response as Ruby sat reading through a pamphlet on superannuation and not really listening as the women chatted on.

‘So what part is annual leave?’

‘He had five weeks of annual leave owing,’ Ruth said, ‘then ten days’ paid carer’s leave, plus two days paid compassionate from the date his wife died.’

‘Do we need to see the death certificate?’

‘That’s what he just brought in,’ Ruth said. ‘I’ve taken a copy.’

They never said his name, and had she not seen him in the lift she would never have known. Even sitting there, Ruby couldn’t be absolutely sure.

She just was.

This was the family stuff he had been dealing with.

His wife had just died and he’d been in bed with her.

‘I have to go.’ Ruby stood.

‘I’ve just found your timesheet,’ Ruth said. Ruby wanted to run, but she was trying not to do that any more, so she waited and it was worked out that someone had used her sheet but signed their name and that it would be amended at the next pay cycle. She smiled and thanked them and then she left. Finally free, she didn’t take the bus but walked down the hill to her house. There was Mrs Bennett in her garden and she smiled and waved as Ruby went past and Ruby somehow managed to smile and wave back, but she couldn’t even force a smile as she saw Tilly on the stairs.

‘What on earth’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ Ruby brushed past.

‘Ruby …’ Tilly’s feet followed her.

‘I’ve got the worst headache,’ Ruby attempted. ‘I can’t sleep and I have to get to sleep—I’m working tonight.’

‘You’ve got hours till your shift starts,’ Tilly soothed, but the hours slipped away and all Ruby could think was that he hadn’t told her. She had slept with a man, glimpsed a future with a man she really knew very little about. She was embarrassed too, ashamed to share her problem with her friends. His wife had been dead just over a month after all.

She wasn’t sure whether it was nerves, exhaustion or humiliation, but when Tilly heard her retching in the toilet a few hours later, she knew her housemate’s plight was genuine.

‘I can’t go in,’ Ruby said. ‘I’ve hardly slept since …’ She tried to work it out. ‘In ages.’ It would, in fact, be irresponsible to go in with no sleep, but how could she not?

‘It’s okay,’ Tilly said. ‘You go back to bed. I’ll ring in for you.’ Ruby lay there and closed her eyes as she heard her friend on the landline.

‘Who did you speak to?’

‘The ward clerk,’ Tilly said. ‘She said she’d pass it on.’

‘Sheila’s going to be furious.’

‘You can’t help being sick,’ Tilly pointed out, and then she looked at her friend, saw the real trouble in her eyes and wasn’t sure what was going on. ‘Do you want me to go down tonight?’ Tilly offered. ‘I can explain to Sheila that you really are sick—ask if you can make it up over the weekend …’

‘I’ll speak to her myself,’ Ruby broke in. ‘Go on, you get ready for work.’

‘Ruby …’

‘Please, Tilly …’ Ruby said, because that was the good and the bad of sharing a house—there was always someone there when you needed them to be, but there was always someone there too when perhaps you just needed to be alone. ‘You’ve got to get ready for work.’

Cort found himself lingering in the staffroom as the night staff started to drift in.

‘We’re short tonight,’ Siobhan said. ‘We’ve got two from the bank.’

‘We don’t have a student either,’ Sheila said. ‘Ruby rang in sick.’

‘What a surprise!’ Siobhan smirked. ‘She must be worn out from all the agency shifts that she’s doing.’

Cort kept his face impassive, but he would have loved to tell Siobhan to shut up.

‘I’ve swapped her around so she can come in to do Thursday, Friday and Saturday.’

Which were the worst nights.

He couldn’t believe she’d throw it all in—then he thought about Ruby and actually he could. He thought back to the canteen where he’d seen her confident in her own environment, and she was like a butterfly, one who’d found herself fluttering around the coals of hell. This place was damaged and wounded.

Cort walked across the ambulance bay towards the car park, unsure what he could do. He could hardly turn up there, and then what? Insist that she go in?

‘Hi, there.’ It was Tilly who greeted him, walking towards Maternity.

‘Hi.’ Cort gave a brief nod, which was more than he usually did. ‘On nights?’ he asked, and she smiled and stopped.

‘Yep.’

Normally he’d have nodded and walked on, refused to acknowledge what they both knew.

‘How’s Ruby?’ Cort cleared his throat. ‘I heard she’d rung in sick.’

‘I don’t know how she is,’ Tilly said. ‘She’s not really talking to anyone.’

‘If she doesn’t do her nights, she’s going to have to repeat.’

‘I can’t see that happening.’ He was surprised at the thick sound to her voice, and it dawned on him that Tilly had been crying. ‘If she can’t do three nights, she’s hardly going to do another six weeks. I don’t know what to say to her.’

‘I’ll talk to her.’

‘Her phone’s off.’

‘I’ll go round,’ Cort said, because if she wasn’t going in again, there was nothing to keep things quiet for anyway.

‘Door for you,’ Ellie called up the stairs to Ruby. As Ellie was on her way out and left it wide open, it gave Ruby no choice but to haul herself out of bed, pull on a sarong and answer it.

‘Is everything okay?’

She looked at him.

‘Only I wondered …’

She blinked.

‘I heard you were sick. I bumped into Tilly. Is everything okay?’ Cort checked.

‘You tell me?’

‘I’m here to find out about you. Ruby, you know you have to do these nights.’

‘I don’t have to do anything.’

‘I know you’re having a difficult time. I know this week—’

‘How’s your week been, Cort?’ she interrupted.

‘I thought it was going well.’

‘How’s your month been? Anything happen that you might want to talk about?’

And then he got it—she knew.

She wanted to hop she was so angry. She wanted to shake him as she gave him every opportunity to explain things, to tell her, but he just stood there.

‘You bang on about support, about backing each other, helping each other through … being open.’

‘How do you know?’ Cort said, because to him it mattered. ‘Adam?’

‘Adam?’ Ruby’s voice was incredulous. ‘Of course it wasn’t Adam. Adam doesn’t talk about things that matter. I can see now why the two of you are friends.’

‘Then how do you know?’

‘It doesn’t matter how I know,’ Ruby said. ‘Actually, it does. Do you not think it should have been you who told me? Do you not think …?’ She was close to crying, just disgusted with herself and angry with him. ‘Six weeks?’ Ruby croaked. ‘She’s been dead six weeks.’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘I’ll never understand.’ She wouldn’t. ‘If it had been just that night …’ Ruby said. ‘But you came back, you took me out, we sat in the car …’ She jabbed her finger at the pavement behind. ‘And you took me to your home and you still didn’t tell me.’

‘I don’t talk about it with anyone,’ Cort said. ‘She suffered a brain injury, and for years she was in a home …’

‘So you were embarrassed by her?’ Ruby said. Sometimes she said things; the thoughts in her head popped out and this was one of those times.

That he didn’t deny it really did make her want to cry. ‘Maybe you’re right, maybe there is no point talking about it. As you said, we can never work.’

‘We might.’

‘No.’ Ruby shook her head. ‘We’re at different stages.’ There was so much against them. ‘You’re too closed off.’

‘That’s rich, coming from you.’ He looked at her and did the most bizarre thing—stood on her doorstep in his suit, threw his arms in the air and did a brief dance that looked a lot like the one Ruby had done the night of the party. ‘The life and soul …’ Cort said. ‘Happy Ruby …’ He turned away. ‘You’re the one closed off, Ruby, you can’t even tell your best friends how you’re really feeling.’ He walked down to the gate. ‘You do your happy-clappy dance rather than admit your true feelings. You just avoid everything—like you’re avoiding tonight, like you’re refusing to listen about Beth …’

‘You want true feelings …’ She could not stand that she had a name, that Beth was real and he hadn’t told her. ‘You’re too boring for me, Cort, too old and too staid …’ She pushed him away with words, because he was getting too close, not physically, just too close to the real her, and she didn’t want anyone to see that.

‘Well, at least I see things through,’ Cort said. ‘Just don’t blame me for not showing up.’ He tossed the comment over his shoulder. ‘To anything.’