WHEN the young actors came trooping onto the stage in the assembly hall, the two doctors exchanged smiles as Alex’s glance searched the audience until he found them a few rows from the front, and then he was smiling too.
As the story of the play unfolded, Kate and Daniel saw that not only was Alex a capable young artist, he could also act. Obviously their young charge was going to excel at the arts.
Daniel had taken his camera as Tom wasn’t able to see his son in the play, but at least when next they visited him they would have photographs to show him.
When it was over and the senior girls and teachers were bringing around refreshments, Graham, the headmaster, came to have a word with them.
‘Alex is doing fine,’ he said. ‘We’ll be sorry to lose him.’
‘So will we,’ Kate told him, ‘but it seems that he might be with us longer than we expected.’
‘It’s a difficult situation,’ Daniel explained. ‘Alex’s father is facing an uncertain future from shattered knee joints and may not be very mobile for a long time, but he’s anxious to be back with his son. He’s coming to Jasmine Cottage for a while when they discharge him from hospital, so we’re pleased that Alex won’t be leaving us yet.’
‘Can we take him back with us now to save one of us having to return later?’ Kate asked the headmaster.
He nodded. ‘Yes. School is over for today.’
It was the last Saturday of the month, the day of Sarah’s wedding to her childhood sweetheart, and as the organist began to play the wedding march to announce to the crowded village church that the bride had arrived, Daniel was observing Kate anxiously.
He wasn’t convinced that she could cope with this. Supposing she was intending putting on an act for Sarah’s sake, having told her where the wedding dress had come from. Many of those there were turning to see what the bride looked like, but Kate was sitting quite still beside him.
Until, holding tightly onto her father’s arm, Sarah drew level with them. It was then that Kate turned her head and as the glances of the bride-to-be and the bride-not-to-be met, she smiled her brilliant smile. Sarah beamed back at her, and he knew then that Kate really had moved on, and if he didn’t watch it, she might ‘move on’ straight past him.
Alex’s friend Scott and his parents were amongst the guests. Apparently they were related to Jenny’s husband, and when the ceremony was over and they were all making their way to the village hall for the reception, Alex said, ‘Scott has invited me to a sleepover at his house tonight. Can I go?’
‘What do you think, Kate?’ Daniel asked. ‘Do you think we should let him go? They seem a decent family, but Alex is in our care.’
She nodded. ‘Maybe you should check it out with his parents first, just to make sure it isn’t something that Scott has dreamed up himself.’
Daniel came back smiling. ‘The Thompsons know all about it. There won’t be a houseful, just the two boys, so I’ve said yes, much to Alex’s delight. They’ll take him home with them after the evening reception.’ And we will have Jasmine Cottage to ourselves he thought, but didn’t put it into words.
When they went home in the late afternoon to get changed for the evening ahead, Alex went upstairs to play with his games until it was time to go, and Daniel picked up the phone to ring Tom to confirm that the three of them would be visiting him the following day when they’d collected Alex from the sleepover.
While they were both involved with their own affairs, Kate planted herself on the sofa in the sitting room for a quiet moment.
There was a deep feeling of release inside her. She’d kept her promise to Sarah and had let her see clearly that she had no problems whatsoever at seeing her in the dress.
If she had found freedom from the past, how far off was Daniel from finding it? she wondered. His had been a much deeper commitment than hers and one that had been ended by circumstance rather than choice.
At that moment he appeared and when she heard what he had to say she understood the surprise in his expression.
‘Tom says he can come out tomorrow. I’ve arranged to go and fetch him, so we’ll need to change the bedrooms round and prepare for his arrival.’
‘That’s great news!’ she exclaimed. ‘And much, much sooner than we expected.’
‘The hospitals seem to be speeding up the process after surgery and discharging patients the moment they are fit to go,’ he commented dryly. ‘Tom isn’t complaining and Alex will be thrilled.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘All we need now is Mum back where she belongs.’
He nodded and then said in a low voice, ‘About Sarah’s wedding and the dress. I was proud of you. When she appeared I was panicking that you mightn’t be up to seeing her in it, but I should have known that, having given your word, you would carry it through.’
The wedding dress is my past, she thought, and you are my future, if only you would see it that way. But he only saw in part, and the part that he saw wasn’t why she’d coped so well at the church.
When she came downstairs in the long black dress that offset the honey gold of her hair, the two of them were waiting for her in the hall.
‘You look stunning,’ Daniel said as he opened the front door. ‘This is the first time we’ve been out together in the evening socially, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘and if the narrowboat guy is there, please don’t let him near me.’
‘That problem can be solved by you having every dance with me,’ he teased, but as the evening progressed she realised that he’d meant it. While Alex and the other young ones watched a conjuror in another room they danced every dance together. People were staring but Kate didn’t care. She was in Daniel’s arms and nothing else mattered.
After the Thompson family had left, taking Alex with them, Kate and Daniel said their goodbyes to Jenny and her husband and set off for home.
Sarah and Jason had left earlier to begin their honeymoon and as they had left, Sarah had whispered to Kate, ‘I haven’t been sick once in the last few days.’
‘Brilliant!’ she’d said as they’d exchanged conspiratorial smiles. ‘You’re going to be fine.’ And now as they drove away from the village hall the two doctors were both very much aware that they had the night ahead to themselves.
‘This must be how parents feel when they pass their children over to a relative, or some form of childminder for a while,’ Daniel said with a quirky smile, and Kate nodded dreamily.
She’d had a lovely evening in his arms on the dance floor and it had been made complete by Sarah’s news that she was fully recovered. Now it could only get better.
At that moment she wasn’t to know that her contentment was to be short-lived. To get to Jasmine Cottage they had to pass the end of the lane where Furzebank, the rest home for the elderly, was situated, and Daniel said, ‘Am I seeing things, or is something on fire down there?’
When Kate swivelled sideways in her seat she cried, ‘You aren’t seeing things and the only property down there is the rest home.’
Turning quickly off the main road, he drove in the direction of where flames and smoke were rising into the night sky, and when they pulled up outside the rest home, where thirty old folk were living out their remaining years, they saw that it was on fire.
As they flung themselves out of the car they could see Helen, the sister-in-charge, along with a couple of night staff, helping them out of the building in their night-clothes. When she saw them Helen cried hoarsely, ‘Saints be praised! Where have you two doctors appeared from?’
‘We were in the area and saw the blaze,’ Daniel said, ‘so what’s the situation? Is everybody out, and have you sent for the emergency services?’
She nodded. ‘Yes to ambulances and the fire services. They are on their way. No to everybody being out. Tommy Simpson has barricaded himself into his room and won’t come out, and the rest are going to die from pneumonia from the cold, or breathing difficulties from the smoke, if we don’t get them to somewhere warm and safe soon.’
Kate had picked up Daniel’s doctor’s bag as they’d leapt out of the car and was already busy amongst the residents, checking for cuts and bruises or signs of acute distress, and he called across, ‘Put as many as you can in my car, Kate, and in any other vehicles lying around, and I’ll go and get Tommy. What room is he in?’ he asked Helen urgently.
‘Number twenty-nine,’ she shrieked above the distressed cries of the old folk. ‘It’s at the other end of the building on the first floor. Furthest away from the staircase and the lift.’
Kate was beside him, her face ashen with fear. ‘Wait for the fire services, Daniel,’ she pleaded. ‘It’s too dangerous to go in there.’
‘There’s no sign of them so far,’ he said. ‘I have to, Kate.’
‘Then I’m coming with you.’
‘No! You are not! You can do more good out here. See to the others. I won’t be long.’
‘Don’t do this to me,’ she cried. ‘Help will be here any moment.’
‘It could be a moment too late,’ he told her, and throwing off her grasp he disappeared into the building…
Tommy’s room would be at the other end of the building, Daniel thought as he fought his way up the smoke-filled staircase, and as he ran along the upstairs corridor with his handkerchief over nose and mouth he wondered why on earth the old guy wouldn’t let them in. Maybe he was too frightened to come out.
‘Tommy!’ he yelled, banging on the door of number twenty nine. ‘It’s Dr Dreyfus. I’ve come to get you. Let me in!’
There was no reply and when he looked down smoke was seeping from under the door, so there was nothing else for it but to put his shoulder against it and hope that whatever was jamming it would give, as for obvious reasons none of the doors had locks.
It took a few attempts before it opened and the chair that the old man had jammed beneath the handle gave way. When he flung himself inside Daniel found Tommy in a heap in the middle of the floor. He was a small scrap of a man so he picked him up easily enough and then turned to make the return journey through the smoke and licking flames.
By the time he got to the top of the stairs he could hear the sound of a fire engine down below and almost in the same second the fire crew was in the building, running up the stairs towards him.
Tommy had stopped breathing by the time they got him outside, and the paramedics who’d arrived just before the fire crew rushed forward to give resuscitation. It took some minutes before his frail form responded to their efforts and, knowing that his heart and lungs might stop functioning again because of smoke inhalation, no time was wasted in lifting him on board for a fast transfer to A and E at the nearest hospital, with a second ambulance following behind with one of the old ladies who’d had a heart attack.
When Daniel had come out of the building, smoke blackened, breathless, but alive, Kate thought she would faint with relief as she ran towards him.
He had propped himself against the side of the fire engine and was coughing and gasping for breath, but he managed a smile, his teeth showing whitely in the grime on his face.
‘Don’t try to talk,’ she said gently, as the terror began to recede before a huge tide of thankfulness. ‘You really are quite something, you know.’
Ignoring her advice not to talk, he croaked, ‘ You would have done the same if I hadn’t been here.’
She shuddered. ‘I’m not so sure about that!’
‘I am,’ he wheezed, and she eyed him anxiously,
‘I think you need to be checked over in A and E.’
‘Maybe, but give me time for my airway to settle down and I’ll see how I am then.’ He looked around him. ‘What’s the situation with the rest of the old folk?’
She managed a smile. ‘Miraculously they seem to have come through the ordeal safely. The vicar and some of the villagers have arrived with hot-water bottles and blankets and are taking them in convoy to the village hall for the night until proper temporary accommodation can be found for them.’
‘How did the vicar and his flock know what was happening?’ he asked as his breathing improved.
‘Village grapevine, bush telegraph, or whatever you want to call it, and a blaze like that in the night sky is not to be missed.’
A couple of hours later the fire crew were satisfied that the blaze, which had been confined to the upper floor, was completely extinguished and now they were searching through the debris for anything that could have started it.
The residents had all been transferred safely with Helen and her assistants in charge, and satisfied that the emergency was over the paramedics had returned to base.
Which left just the two doctors, and once they were satisfied that all that could be done for the old folk had been done, Kate drove them back home.
She was relieved to see that Daniel was breathing more easily and as if reading her thoughts, he said, ‘I’m not as breathless now. I’ll see how am I in the morning but I don’t think it will be necessary to go to A and E. I was only in there a matter of minutes.’
She shuddered. ‘It seemed like an eternity to me.’
‘I’m sorry that I put you through that,’ he said gravely, taking in the pallor of her face and the crumpled black dress beneath her jacket. ‘But it was a no-choice situation, Kate, and I can’t think of anyone I would rather have had with me at that moment than you. We’re a good team, you and I.’
‘Like Batman and Robin to the rescue,’ she said with a tired smile.
‘Not exactly. But we’ll discuss that another time when you aren’t so tired and I don’t look as if I’ve just done a shift down the pit.’
The clock in the sitting room showed half past four as Kate went to make a pot of tea, and as she stood at the sink, watching the kettle fill, it seemed like a lifetime since they’d been driving contentedly home from the wedding reception, looking forward to some time to themselves.
Instead, they’d spent the last few hours with the residents and staff from the home, the emergency services and half the village, and now the only thought in her mind was to curl up in bed and go to sleep.
When they’d drunk the tea Daniel said, ‘I’m going up to wash the grime off me, Kate.’ He patted her cheek gently. ‘I hope you don’t have a nightmare after the happenings of the last few hours.’
‘I’ve had it already,’ she told him sombrely. ‘I don’t ever again want to have to live through a moment as terrifying as when you disappeared into the smoke and flames.’
He held her close for the briefest of moments. ‘It’s over. Forget it. Go and get some sleep while I remove the smell of the fire.’ And because she was exhausted she didn’t argue.
But sleep wasn’t quick in coming. She heard him come out of the bathroom, go downstairs and start opening cupboard doors. What on earth was he looking for? she wondered, and decided that the best thing to do was go downstairs and find out.
She didn’t need to ask. When Daniel turned round and she saw the blistered skin on his forearm, the answer was there.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I’m looking to see if we have a first-aid box.’
‘It’s on the top shelf in the pantry,’ she said. ‘And if there aren’t any antiseptic burn dressings in it, I’ve got some in my bag in the car.’
There weren’t, and as she opened the door to go outside he said, ‘I’ll go and get them, Kate. You aren’t dressed for being out in the cold night air.’
She turned slowly and fixed him with a steady blue gaze. ‘Why is it that you are always so ready to help everyone you meet, Daniel, but never want to be on the receiving end of the care and kindness of others?
‘Too much independence can be hurtful. I know where it stems from, of course. You live by the rule of no involvement, no hurt. I’m quite capable of going to get the burn dressings and I can’t believe that you didn’t ask me to dress it for you before.’
He sighed. ‘You’re right in all you say but, then, you usually are. I just didn’t want to disturb you after the night we’ve had, and it wasn’t until I’d washed off the grime that I saw the blisters.’
She hadn’t heard him. Kate had picked up her car keys off the hall table and was out on the drive, foraging in the back seat of her car for the case.
‘I can’t believe that you didn’t feel this hurting,’ she said gently as she dressed the burn a few minutes later.
‘I did, but I was so concerned about what was going on with Tommy and the old folk, there was no time to start fussing over it.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘If that sounds like another example of the independence that you described, I can’t help it.’
At that moment he’d never felt less independent in his life. He needed her like he needed to breathe. Her touch was like a touch he’d always known. Her nearness the promise of an end to loneliness.
He was ready to throw off the mantle of the independence she’d described, but there had to be a better time than this to tell her so. A time when they were not exhausted and traumatised at the end of a terrible night.
‘As your doctor I’m suggesting that you sleep on the opposite side to the burn,’ she said with assumed authority when she’d finished, ‘and that I fetch you a drink of water and then help you up to bed.’
‘Only if you are going to join me there,’ he said laughingly, putting his more serious thoughts to one side for the moment. ‘I’m quite capable of doing those other things myself, but it takes two for what I might have in mind.’
She didn’t join in the laughter. ‘You’re saying that because of what I said earlier. If our relationship ever becomes what I long for it to be, it will because you feel the same as I do, not because you are trying to be something you aren’t. Go to bed…on your own…you adorable man,’ she said softly, and planting a butterfly kiss on his cheek she went up the stairs before him, got into bed and slept.
The fire of the night before was the first thought in their minds when the two doctors woke up after just a few hours’ sleep the next morning, and after a phone call to the Thompson household to explain that they would be at the village hall during the morning if they wanted to drop Alex off there, they made their way to where the residents of Furzebank had spent the night.
Kate had put a fresh dressing on Daniel’s burn before they’d left and this time it had been an impersonal affair. They were about to put the needs of others before their closeness of the night before.
When they arrived at the village hall, Social Services staff were there organising temporary care for the homeless old folk, and while they were waiting to be moved, Kate and Daniel checked them over for bronchial and heart problems. Some were very frail and they were concerned that the smoke from the fire and being taken out into the cold the night before might have affected them.
On the face of it there seemed to be no cause for any of them to be hospitalised, but the thought was in both their minds that the situation could change at any time.
The sister had calmed down once she knew they were all safe, including Tommy, but the news on him wasn’t good. He was in Intensive Care and very poorly.
A photographer from the local paper was there wanting a picture of the hero of the hour, but Daniel said, ‘No, thanks. I only did what anyone else would have done.’
‘What did you do, Uncle Dan?’ Alex asked. He’d just been dropped off and was gazing around him wide-eyed.
‘Nothing,’ he told him, ruffling his dark locks,
‘I’ll tell you what Dr Dreyfus did,’ the sister said. ‘He went into the burning building and rescued one of my patients. The old man had locked himself in a smoke-filled room and he had to break down the door to get to him.’
When Daniel glanced at Kate there were tears on her lashes and he knew that she must have thought that he might not come out alive. It was humbling to know that someone could care for him so much
Alex was experiencing no such feelings but, then, he had no reason to. ‘Wait till I tell Scott!’ he cried, with visions of his playground credibility improving by leaps and bounds.
At last the hall was empty. The residents had been taken to their new homes and, bereft of their charges, the staff from Furzebank had gone back to view the damage.
The fire service was still inspecting the property for the cause of the blaze and were having discussions with council representatives who had been summoned to the scene, as it seemed as if the wiring of the building could be suspect.
Despite his exhaustion, Daniel still had to fetch Tom, and night was wrapped around the village as he drove along the main street in the direction of Jasmine Cottage. Tom, who had been dozing in the passenger seat, had woken up and was slowly stretching his legs and observing with interest the quaint shops and limestone cottages
‘They look more cheerful than that place of mine, don’t they?’ he said wryly, and although he didn’t comment Daniel had to agree. They’d gone to the tidy semi-detached where Tom lived with Alex in a quiet Gloucestershire street to pick up clothes and other necessities that he would need during the coming weeks, and there had been an unlived-in look about it.
It wasn’t surprising as it had been empty for weeks and now, by comparison, Tom’s first glimpse of the village was of glistening frost on the trees and grasses, and the lamplit windows of the houses.
‘I can see why you like living here,’ he said. ‘All this, and Kate, too.’
‘I wish,’ he told the man who he’d once thought would be his father-in-law. ‘The village asks nothing of me except that I look after the health of its inhabitants, but Kate is a different matter.
‘When we first met she was reeling from a broken engagement, and there has always been anxiety at the back of my mind that she might be on the rebound. Though she did ask me to take her wedding dress to the charity shop. But that worry has gone. A girl from the village was married in the dress yesterday and Kate was fine about it, quite pleased, in fact. But we have another ongoing problem that isn’t proving so easy to solve. When we first met I was still mourning Lucy, had never thought of putting anyone in her place, and I made it clear when Kate showed an interest in me.
‘Now I need to convince her that I’m ready to move on. That Lucy is my past, and she is my present. But I keep getting sidetracked and the fact that I allow that to happen makes me wonder if I’m being fair to her. In a nutshell, I think Kate could do better than me.’
Tom shook his head. ‘Never! I’m not going to let you say that! You had a raw deal when you lost Lucy and I’m delighted that you’ve found someone else to love. It doesn’t mean that because we’ve been getting on with our lives Alex and I loved Lucy any the less, and I’ve always wanted you to see it that way.
‘From what I’ve seen of Kate and heard of her mother, they are very special people. I’m looking forward to meeting Ruth and am sure that Kate’s generosity of spirit will allow for your memories of Lucy.’
Jasmine Cottage was in sight. There was no more time for giving voice to his innermost thoughts to the man by his side. He just wished that Kate was as easily convinced that he was ready to move on as Tom was.
As he stopped the car the cottage door was flung open and they were there. Alex jumping up and down with excitement as his father eased himself slowly out of the car and balanced himself on two crutches, and Kate beaming her welcome.
The driveway was displaying a fine film of ice and Daniel took Tom’s arm to give him extra support as he moved slowly towards them, and then they were all inside.
Leaving father and son to enjoy their special moment, the two doctors went into the kitchen where a casserole was waiting to be served and an apple crumble was browning nicely in the oven.
‘So getting Tom here safely is plan A accomplished,’ he said. ‘Are you happy about that?’
‘Yes, of course I am,’ she said brightly. ‘It’s great to see them together.’
‘And tomorrow plan B will fall into place. Your mother will be home at last. But what about plan C? You and I?’ he questioned carefully.
‘What about it?’ she said levelly, and went into the sitting room to announce that the meal was ready.
It was a light-hearted affair on everyone’s part except Daniel’s. Kate was going to give up on him, he thought. She was weary of all the affection being on her side and she wasn’t to know that if it hadn’t been for the fire at Furzebank the previous night, he’d been going to ask her to marry him.
But nothing had gone to plan and afterwards he had decided that before he proposed to her he was going to have a ring to put on her finger…if she said yes.
With that in mind he’d stopped off at a large jeweller’s in the town on his way to pick Tom up and now had a solitaire diamond in small box in his pocket, waiting for the moment when he had Kate to himself for once.
They’d had a rethink regarding rearranging the bedrooms to accommodate Tom. Instead, they’d cleared out the study at the end of the hall and turned it into a bedroom so that he would have no need to climb the stairs. There was a toilet and shower room next to it so he would be able to stay at ground level all the time he was with them.
After what must have been an exhausting day for him he’d gone to bed as soon as an excited Alex had finally drifted off, and once the two of them were alone Daniel said, ‘We need to talk, Kate.’
‘Is that so?’ she said coolly.
He sighed. Today had been his first chance to buy the ring. He hadn’t had a moment to spare from the surgery since then to go shopping and was about to explain when she had him groaning in dismay.
‘I’m afraid that my stay in the village is going to be short,’ she said. ‘I’m going to move on to somewhere where I can regain my sanity.’
He was appalled and now there was anger in him. ‘So you’re going to let us down at the practice, then,’ he said tightly, picking on the thing that mattered least. It was the thought of her disappearing from his life that was like a knife thrust.
‘Not until you’ve replaced me.’ Kate replied stiffly.
‘You’re crazy! This place is where you should be. Not in some other general practice or living in hospital accommodation somewhere.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you will. But I have a better idea. I’ll go and leave you where you belong.’
‘No! You can’t do that,’ she said hastily. ‘I don’t want to drive you away. What about your beautiful house, and Tom and Alex?’
‘There are “beautiful houses” in other places. With regard to Tom and Alex, I’m not their keeper. Tom is quite capable of managing his own affairs now that he’s becoming mobile again. He said in the car that his firm has offered him early retirement and he’s going to take them up on it. So that will make life less complicated for them both.’
‘But Alex loves it here,’ Kate reminded him.
‘Yes, I know, but it was never meant to be permanent. How could it be?’
Her world was falling apart around her, Kate was thinking. She’d mentioned leaving the village to see how Daniel would react and had obviously said the wrong thing.
‘I wanted to do some shopping before we talked again,’ he said, ‘and on my way to pick Tom up was the first opportunity.’
‘Shopping!’ she said incredulously. ‘What kind of shopping?’
‘This sort of shopping. Hold out your hand.’ He took the box with the ring in it out of his pocket and placed it on her open palm.
‘It’s meant to be worn on just one particular finger,’ he said evenly, ‘so don’t consider wearing it anywhere else just to please me, Kate. Only put it on if you mean it. I can’t believe that after all we’ve achieved together you would disappear from my life just like that. I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight.’
When he’d gone she stood motionless in anguished astonishment with the box still unopened on her palm, then followed him slowly up the stairs and didn’t open it until she was in her bedroom with the door shut.