скачать книгу бесплатно
‘Aisha came to us early in her pregnancy. She knew her delivery might be difficult and we discussed all options, including Caesarean.’
She took a sip of coffee and risked another look at the man, who was now sitting cautiously on the edge of a chair across the table from her. A table without mock orange flowers to brighten it or perfume the room.
‘You spoke to her in her own language. Do you know Somalia?’ she asked him, thinking she might have less to explain if he’d been in the country.
‘I worked there in a refugee camp for some years,’ he said, surprising her so much the coffee went down the wrong way and she coughed and snorted.
‘I am dressed for business today,’ he said, ultra-cool but reading the cause of her surprise with ease. ‘Neither should you judge by appearances!’
‘Of course,’ Gemma managed realising she’d been put firmly in her place. ‘But I asked because I wondered if you knew much of their customs and beliefs, which obviously you would. Perhaps not the women, though. They want big families, many children…’
‘And they worry that a Caesar will prevent them having as many as they want?’
Gemma nodded.
‘Not all of them, but some. Perhaps that’s why I’ve seen little of Aisha lately, why I feel I’ve failed her.’
‘She came to you when she needed help, that is not failure.’ He sounded so stern she had to look at him again, although she’d been trying to avoid doing that, as looking at him was causing some very strange reactions in her body.
‘I suppose so.’
‘Of course so. You cannot make patients come to you!’
‘You know this?’
‘I am a surgeon—or was a surgeon. Working with refugees, you try to help wherever you can and whoever you can, but you cannot help those who do not wish to be helped.’
The dark eyes held shadows of pain so deep Gemma wondered just what horrors he must have seen, but every instinct told her he was a very private man and she shouldn’t—couldn’t—pry.
‘Is it because of your work with the refugees that you have put so much money into our centre?’
‘That, and other reasons,’ he said, his voice suggesting he was still lost in memory.
Fortunately, Sahra appeared at that moment.
‘I will take Aisha and her baby home to my place. My mother will take care of them both and if they are there and either of them have problems I will take them to the hospital.’
‘Fantastic,’ Gemma told her, then turned to her visitor. This is Sahra. She, too, is from Somalia but has been here longer, going to school then university and getting her nursing and specialist midwifery qualifications, so as well as translating for those of us who find it hard to learn the language, she understands the best ways to help the women.’
The stranger stood up and held out his hand.
‘Sheikh Yusef Akkedi,’ he said, and to Gemma’s amazement, the usually undemonstrative Sahra simply took his hand, sank low into a curtsey and kissed his fingers.
‘But you are famous, Your Highness,’ she said, still on her knees. ‘My family get papers from home, we read of you and see your name, learn of your elevation to be the leader of your country. I did not recognise you immediately—you have no beard now.’
She released his hand and put her own hand to her cheek, then, even through her dark skin, Gemma saw her blush as the visitor helped her to her feet.
‘I am honoured to have met you,’ Sahra added, then hurried out the door, almost falling over herself in her confusion.
Confusion resounded in Gemma’s mind and body.
‘I’d better check on the couple and the baby but I’ll be right back,’ she told the man—a sheikh? A highness?
She’d heard of the incredible wealth of sheikhs, but Sahra curtseying like that—is that how she should have been treating him?
Gemma followed Sahra, needing time to sort out why this man’s status should come as such a shock to her. Surely she wasn’t worried about who donated money. It didn’t matter as long as the centre could continue its work.
Aisha was on her feet, cradling the swaddled baby in her arms, her husband proudly supporting his wife and child.
‘You are sure you don’t want to take her to the hospital so both of them can be checked out?’ Gemma asked the young man.
‘No hospital,’ he said, so firmly Gemma suspected they’d made the decision some time ago. ‘We go with Sahra, and Aisha’s mother will help Sahra’s mother care for the baby while Aisha rests.’
Gemma led them out but couldn’t let them go without having one more look at the tiny infant, so perfect in every way, his ebony skin shining, his dark eyes gazing unfocusedly at the world into which he had been born. Aisha let go of the swaddled bundle long enough for Gemma to hold him, and her arms felt the familiar heavy ache, not of loss but of dreams unfulfilled…
‘Definitely miraculous,’ she admitted to the sheikh, who had appeared at the back of the hall to see the little family off.
Yusef watched her as she handed back the baby, reluctantly it seemed to him, then opened the door to let the group out. What had made this woman, who could be earning big money as a specialist in a city practice, take on the frustrating and often, he imagined, impossible task, of providing medical care for immigrant women and their children?
That she also went beyond straight medical care, he knew from the reports he had read. She had a part-time psychologist on staff, and ran various clubs and get-togethers for the women who visited the centre. She had dragooned a dentist into service once a fortnight and a paediatrician visited once a month to see the children of the women who used the centre.
He studied her as she spoke to the nurse, seeing a profile with a high forehead beneath the red hair, a long thin nose, neatly curved lips and a chin with a small dimple that saved it from being downright stubborn. A handsome woman, not beautiful but attractive in the real sense of the word—attracting glances, he was sure, wherever she went.
Yet she made nothing of herself, scraping the vibrant hair back into a tight knot and swathing it with a scarf, although he doubted it stayed tidy long, and wearing no make-up to hide the little golden freckles most women he knew would consider blemishes.
She was back inside, shutting the door behind her, and she must have seen his visual check because she gave a shrug and said, ‘It is Sunday morning and I was in the centre, making sure all the paperwork was in order for your visit, and that the place was clean. I do have some decent clothes to change into if you’ve time to wait.’
Yusef had to smile.
‘Of course you mustn’t change for me. Was my study of you so obvious?’ he asked, as she led the way back to the kitchen.
‘Not as obvious as the look on your face when you were wondering why on earth I do the job I do,’ she said, and Yusef, who, like all his people, prided himself on keeping all his thoughts and emotions hidden behind a bland face, felt affronted.
And she read that emotion too, chuckling, more to herself than to him, then explaining.
‘I deal with women who are past masters at hiding their emotions behind the blankest of expressions. Reading their faces, the slightest changes in their expressions, helps me to know when I’ve pushed too far, or reached ground too delicate to tread.’
It was the simple truth, for he too could read people, but the mystery remained.
‘And why do you do the job you do?’
She slumped down in a chair and picked up her coffee, which by now must be lukewarm as well as revolting.
‘Because I love it?’
‘You make that a question. Are you not sure, or are you asking me if I’d believe that answer?’
She glanced his way then shrugged her shoulders.
‘I do love it, but it wasn’t because I doubted you’d believe me. I think the question you were asking was more than that, because how could I possibly have known how much pleasure it would give me before I began the centre?’
‘Yet it gives you grief, as well,’ Yusef persisted, although he was coming close to personal ground—ground he rarely trod with either men or women, particularly not with women he didn’t know. ‘I saw your face as you examined Aisha.’
Gemma studied him in silence and he could almost hear the debate going on inside her head. Would she answer him or brush him off? In the end, she did answer, but perhaps it was a brush-off as well.
‘Terrible things happen to innocent people, we all know that, our news broadcasts are full of it every day. A war here, a famine there, floods and earthquakes and tidal waves—these things we can’t control, but what we can do is help pick up the pieces. Some of those pieces wash up on the shores of my country, and it gives me more joy than grief if I can help them.’
Yusef heard the truth of what she said in every word and although what he wanted back at home was not someone to pick up scraps left by disasters, well, not entirely, he did want someone with the empathy this woman felt and the understanding she had for marginalised people. His country was changing, and many tribal groups that had once roamed freely over all the desert before those lands had had borders and names were now having to live within the boundaries of a particular country—many of them in his country.
These people saw the money flowing into his country, and the life it could provide, and wanted some of it for themselves, but their arrival was putting stresses on basic infrastructure like hospitals and clinics. This, in itself, was causing difficulties and unrest, something Yusef wanted to put a stop to as early as possible. He knew the tribal women made the decisions for the family, and that it would take someone special to help them settle comfortably in his land. He’d suspected, from the first time he’d heard of this women’s centre in Sydney that the woman who ran it might be the person he was seeking.
‘You are committed, but your staff? Do they also feel as you do?’
She smiled at him, and again it seemed as if a light had gone on behind the fine, pale skin of her face, illuminating all the tiny freckles so she shone like an oil lamp in the desert darkness. Something shifted in his chest, as if his heart had tugged at its moorings, but he knew such things didn’t happen—a momentary fibrillation, nothing more. Stress, no doubt, brought on by the task that lay ahead of him.
‘I could walk out of here tomorrow and nothing would change,’ she assured him proudly. ‘that is probably my greatest achievement. Although everyone likes to believe he or she is indispensable, it’s certainly not the case here. My staff believe, as I do, that we must treat the women who come here without judging them in any way, and that we must be sensitive to their cultural beliefs and customs and as far as possible always act in ways that won’t offend them.’
She paused then gave a rueful laugh.
‘oh, we make mistakes, and sometimes we let our feelings show—I must have today for you to have picked up on my anxiety when I examined Aisha. But generally we manage and the women have come to trust us.’
‘Except when it comes to a Caesarean birth?’
She gave a little shrug.
‘You’re right. No matter how hard we try to convince them that they can have more children after a Caesarean, they don’t believe us.’
She sighed.
‘There’s no perfect world.’
Yusef took a deep breath, thinking about all she had covered in not so many words. He knew the trauma many women suffered in the refugee camps. Of course this woman—Gemma Murray—would feel their pain, yet she continued to do her job.
He now reflected on the other thing she’d said. She could leave tomorrow and the centre’s work would continue.
Was this true?
What was he thinking now? Gemma wondered.
Had she made a fool of herself talking about the centre the way she had?
Been too emotional?
Gemma watched the man across the table, his gaze fixed on some point beyond her shoulder, obviously thinking but about what she had no clue for his face was totally impassive now.
‘Would you leave tomorrow?’ he asked.
Chapter Two
THE question was so totally unexpected, Gemma could only stare at him, and before she could formulate a reply, he spoke again.
‘And your second house, would you be equally confident leaving it?’
She could feel the frown deepening on her forehead but still couldn’t answer, although she knew she had to—knew there was something important going on here, even if she didn’t understand it.
Think, brain, think!
‘None of your money has gone into the second house,’ she said, then realised she’d sounded far too defensive and tried to laugh it off. ‘Sorry, but I wasn’t sure you knew about it.’
He had a stillness about him, this man who had virtually saved their service, and perhaps because he’d let emotion show earlier and had regretted it, his face was now impossible to read.
‘I know of its existence,’ her visitor said, ‘but not of how it came to be. It seems to me you had enough—is the expression “on your plate”?—without taking on more waifs and strays.’
Was it his stillness that made her fidget with the sugar basin on the table? She wasn’t usually a fidget, but pushing it around and rearranging the salt and pepper grinders seemed to ease her tension as she tried to explain. Actually, anything was preferable to looking at him as she answered, because looking at him was causing really weird sensations in her body.
She was finding him attractive?
Surely not, although he was undeniably attractive…
She moved the pepper grinder back to where it had been and concentrated on business.
‘The sign on our front door, although fairly discreet, does say Women’s Centre, and with our inner-city position, I suppose it was inevitable that some women who were not immigrants would turn up here. Not often, in the beginning, but one in particular, an insulin-dependent diabetic, began to come regularly, and sometimes bring a friend, or recommend us to another woman.’
‘These are women of the streets you talk of?’
The pepper grinder was in the wrong place again and Gemma shifted it, then looked up at her questioner.
‘I don’t know about your country—or even what country you call home—but here a lot of people with mental health problems or addictions end up living on the streets. The government, church and charity organisations all do what they can, and homeless people have the same access to free hospital care at public hospitals, but…’
What did she not want to say? Yusef watched her restless hands, moving things on the table, the tiny golden freckles on her long slim fingers fascinating him. Everything about this woman was fascinating him, which in itself should be a warning to find someone else. The last complication he needed in his life right now was to be attracted to a woman, particularly one he was intending to employ.
Yet his eyes kept straying to her vivid hair, her freckled skin, the way her pale lips moved as she spoke—which she was doing now so he should concentrate.
‘Sometimes there is an element of judgement in the treatment of these women, or if not judgement then a genuine desire to help them, but to help them by changing their way of life.’
She tucked her hands onto her lap where they couldn’t fiddle—and he could no longer see them—and looked directly at him.
‘I am not saying this is a bad thing. I am not saying that organisations dedicated to helping these people shouldn’t exist, it is just that sometimes all they want is a diagnosis of some small problem and, where necessary, a prescription. Sometimes they don’t want to be helped in other ways, or cured of an addiction, or to change their lives.’
Was she so naïve? Could she not see that a lot of the organisations set up for these people were funded on the basis that they did attempt to change lives? It was their duty to at least try!
‘But surely a drug addict should be helped to fight his or her addiction?’ he asked, and watched her closely, trying to fathom where her totally non-judgemental attitude had come from. Trying to focus on the discussion they were having, not on the effect she was having on his body.
‘Of course,’ she said, ‘and as I said there are plenty of places willing to help in that way. If someone asks for that kind of help we refer them on, but our—our charter, I suppose you could say, is purely medical. We are a medical centre for people who are intimidated by the public health system, or for some other reason do not wish to use it.’
‘And for that you bought a house?’
Defiance flashed in the pale eyes. Would desire heat them in the same way?
