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Yusef groaned, but inwardly. It had to be because he’d been so busy these last six months, too busy for anything but the briefest social encounters with women, that his body was behaving the way it was. Not only his body, but his mind, it seemed.
‘I live in that house,’ she said, the words carrying an icy edge. ‘It is my home. And if I choose to turn the upstairs into a flat and the downstairs into a surgery, then that is my business.’
Ah, so she had the fire that supposedly accompanied the colour of her hair—fire and ice…
‘I am not criticising. I think it is admirable, and that brings me back to my original question. Could you walk away from these services you have set up?’
Gemma studied him, suspicion coiling in her stomach, keeping company with the other stuff that was happening there every time she looked at this man. It couldn’t be attraction, for all that he was the best looking man she’d ever seen. She didn’t do attraction any more. Attraction led to such chaos it was easier to avoid it.
‘Why are you asking that?’ she demanded, probably too demandingly but he had her rattled. ‘Are you implying that if I left, the staff I’ve trained, the staff who work here because they hold the same beliefs I do, would turn the services into something else? And if so, would you withdraw your funding? Is that where your questions are leading?’
Fire! It was sparking from her now, but he had to concentrate—had to think whether now was the time to talk of the new venture. Probably not. She was too suspicious of him.
‘You may be sure of my contributions to your service continuing, even increasing,’ he said. ‘Though perhaps now would be a good time for me to look at more of the facilities than the treatment room you used for Aisha. Perhaps you can tell me what else is needed.’ He stood up, relieved to get off the uncomfortable and not totally, he suspected, clean chair. ‘Apart,’ he added with a smile, ‘from some new kitchen furniture.’
Gemma was sorry he’d smiled. She’d been okay denying the attraction right up until then, but the smile sneaked through a crack in her defences and weakened not only her resistance but the muscles in her chest so she found it hard to breathe normally and had to remind herself—in, out, in, out!
‘A tour, good,’ she said, standing up and all but running out of the kitchen—anything to escape the man’s presence. Although he’d still be with her, but surely explaining the use to which they put the various rooms would take her mind off the attraction.
She led him through the ground-floor rooms first, then up the stairs to where she’d had two small bedrooms altered to make a larger meeting room.
‘We have playgroups for the children here,’ she said. ‘It’s wonderful to see them all singing nursery rhymes in English, and chattering to each other in a medley of languages that they all seem to understand. In the beginning the mothers usually come along as well, but as they grow in confidence themselves, they will leave the children and go off for a coffee. And as they get to know each other, they make arrangements to meet at places other than the centre, in a park at weekends, with their extended families. The centre has become a kind of cultural crossroads, and that pleases me enormously.’
Talking about the centre was good—Gemma was so wholehearted about what the place had achieved that she didn’t have to pretend enthusiasm. Neither did she have to look at her visitor—well, not more than an occasional glance.
‘And the other rooms on this floor?’
‘A bedroom and bathroom for on-duty staff. I was on-duty last night and although I only live next door I do a night shift here once a month.’
Now she did look at him.
‘We need a doctor on hand for obstetric emergencies. It doesn’t seem to matter how careful we are in our antenatal clinics and how often we take pregnant women to the hospital and show them the birthing suites, nurseries and maternity wards, some, like Aisha, will not go to a hospital.’
He nodded as if he understood, and the haunted look was back on his face, as if he’d seen things in hospitals in other places that he’d rather not remember.
She wanted to reach out and touch his arm, to offer comfort, though for what she didn’t know, but she shrugged off the silly notion as he evidently shrugged off his memories, asking, ‘And is there someone on duty in the other house?’
Gemma shook her head.
‘The other house is strictly week-days, day and evening appointments although most of the patients who attend don’t bother with appointments. From time to time, someone turns up here late at night or on a weekend, but it’s rare. I think the women who use the service consider it a bit special so they are reluctant to abuse it.’
She had no sooner finished speaking than the doorbell peeled, echoing through the empty rooms downstairs.
‘Surely not another emergency birth,’ she muttered as she headed down the steps. She could hear her visitor coming down behind her but her focus was on the door, beyond which she could hear shrill wails.
Gemma flung open the door to find two women grappling on the doorstep. The air smelt of old wet wool and blood, which was liberally splattered over both of them. As Gemma moved closer she thought she saw the flash of a knife, then she was thrust aside by a powerful arm and the man who’d followed her stepped past her, putting his arms around one of the women and lifting her cleanly off the step.
‘Drop the knife,’ he ordered, not loudly but with such authority the woman in his arms obeyed instantly, a battered, rusty carving knife falling to the ground.
Gemma scooped it up and shoved it behind the umbrella stand in the foyer, temporarily out of harm’s way, then she turned her attention to the woman who had had collapsed onto the floor just inside the door—Jackie, one of the older women who used the medical services at the house next door.
The sheikh—after his authoritative intervention Gemma found herself thinking of him that way—was talking soothingly to the attacker, whom he had settled into a chair.
‘What happened, Jackie?’ Gemma asked as she bent over the woman on the floor. Jackie didn’t reply but Gemma could see blood oozing between the fingers of her left hand, which were clasped tightly on her upper right arm.
‘Touched my things. She touched my things,’ Bristow, the second woman, roared from the other side of the room.
‘Jackie wouldn’t do that,’ Gemma said, turning to face the attacker, who was huddled in the chair, her damp and wrinkled layers of cardigans and coats making her look like an insect that had sunk back into its chrysalis. The sheikh stood beside her, perhaps perplexed by her retreat. ‘She’s your friend,’ Gemma added. ‘She knows not to touch your things.’
Gemma helped Jackie back to her feet and half carried her into the treatment room, the sheikh joining her and lifting Jackie onto the examination table. This time the patient didn’t object and Gemma was able to unfasten Jackie’s fingers and move enough clothing to see the long, deep gash in Jackie’s arm.
‘She needs to go to hospital—it’s deep, there could be nerve and ligament damage.’
The sheikh was right behind her, and Gemma turned, puzzled by his instant diagnosis.
‘I told you I was a surgeon,’ he said, but his voice was drowned out by Jackie’s cries.
‘No hospital, no hospital. I can’t go to hospital,’ she wailed, and Gemma turned towards the visitor.
‘There are reasons,’ she said quietly.
‘Then I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘You can get me what I need—I assume you have sutures—and assist me. Her friend will be all right?’
Gemma didn’t know how to answer that. She’d known Bristow for over a year and never seen any signs of violence, but now this had happened, who knew what the little woman might do?
‘You’ll do it yourself?’
It didn’t seem right. The man was a benefactor—not to mention a sheikh and apparently a highness, although that really wasn’t the point. Surely sheikhs had as much right to be surgeons as anyone else. It just seemed…unseemly somehow that the man in the beautiful suit should be—
‘Shall I look for myself to see what’s available?’ Curt words! The man had tied his handkerchief around Jackie’s arm to slow the bleeding and was obviously getting impatient.
Gemma hurried towards the cabinet. Jackie’s tremors were getting stronger and though a quick glance had shown that Bristow was still sitting on a chair in the foyer; if she disappeared further into her coat she’d be nothing but a bundle of rags. And, Gemma knew from experience, she wouldn’t emerge to answer questions or even move from the chair for some considerable time.
‘Here,’ she told the visitor, unlocking the cabinet and piling all she thought he might need onto a tray. Local anaesthetic, a bottle of antiseptic liquid, swabs, sutures and dressings joined a couple of pairs of gloves.
‘A gown—there must be a plain gown,’ she muttered, but as hard as she flipped through the folded gowns on the bottom shelf there was nothing that was really suitable for such a man.
‘Anything will do,’ he said, calling to her from the sink at the corner where he’d stripped off his coat, rolled up his shirtsleeves and was now scrubbing his hands.
‘It’ll have to,’ Gemma muttered to herself but the largest gown she could find, one she often wore herself, had bunny rabbits hopping gleefully all over it.
Yusef grimaced as she held it up for him but, wanting to save his shirt and suit trousers, he slid his arms into it and let her tie it behind him, concentrating on the job ahead, not his awareness of the woman who’d slipped her arms around him to get the ties. He snapped on gloves and returned to his patient. She was trembling, but whether from nerves or from pain or from a pre-existing condition he had no idea.
All he could do was try to soothe her, talking quietly to her, knowing that the sound of a human voice was sometimes more important than the words it spoke. The gash on her arm was deep and he worried that it might be infected.
‘Will she take a course of antibiotics?’ He turned so he could quietly ask the question of Gemma without upsetting the patient.
‘Probably not, but if we give her a tetanus and antibiotic shot today, that might hold off any infection. We can try to get her back to have the stitches removed.’
Yusef understood what she was saying—that these women might not return to the surgery for months, but if Jackie could be convinced to come back for some reason then they might be able to give her more antibiotics.
He swabbed and stitched, talking all the time, feeling Jackie growing calmer under his prattle. And it was prattle. He talked of a wound he’d had as a young boy, out in the desert, a wound one of the women of the family had stitched with sewing thread. Then, for good measure, he told her of the infection that had set in and how his father had told him he’d lose his arm if he didn’t take some medicine. This last part wasn’t quite true, and he read disbelief in Gemma’s eyes, but she seemed to understand his motive and went along with it.
But having Gemma so close to him was accelerating all the physical impulses his body was experiencing, and adding to his belief that taking this woman to his country might not be the best of ideas.
Except that she was so exactly what he needed! What the service he hoped to set up needed.
‘I bet there’s no infection scar,’ she muttered to him, as they left Jackie, wound stitched and dressed, on the table and went to wash their hands.
‘You’re right, although the sewing thread part was true. In point of fact, my father was in the city at the time, but when he heard, he sent a helicopter and had me flown out, flying in a surgeon from Singapore of all places to ensure the wound would heal as cleanly as possible.’
Gemma shook her head. The man must inhabit a world so different from her own it seemed like another planet. But other planet or not, he had been extremely helpful, and still could be.
‘If you could help Jackie off the table, maybe offer her a cup of tea and something to eat, I’ll talk to Bristow.’
He looked startled, as if no one had ever asked him to make tea for a street-person before, but then he smiled and crossed to Jackie’s side, talking again—more stories?
Gemma found Bristow still huddled in the chair in the foyer. She squatted beside her.
‘Talk to me,’ she said, her voice quietly persuasive. ‘Tell me what happened.’
Bristow’s head inched out of the coat.
‘Medicine, she tried to take my medicine. She take that and she die. I tell her she die.’
Tears began rolling down Bristow’s cheeks, her rheumy eyes reddened by her anguish.
‘You’re right,’ Gemma told her, patting the bundle of rags. ‘It’s okay. I understand and Jackie’s going to be okay. Now, seeing you’re here, let’s go into my office and I’ll check you out.’
‘I need my knife.’
Gemma hesitated, then pulled the knife from behind the umbrella stand.
‘I can’t give it back to you,’ she said gently, touching Bristow on the cheek. ‘You must know that.’
Bristow’s head dropped deeper into the bundle of coats and rags and Gemma felt so guilty she added, ‘You don’t really need it, Bristow. Jackie won’t touch your things again.’
‘My things outside. Must get my things.’ Bristow had hopped off the chair and was bouncing up and down, her agitation increasing every second.
Gemma ushered her out, knowing the elderly woman wouldn’t be settled until she had her old pram full of plastic bags of treasure with her again. They retrieved the pram, then she led Bristow into a consulting room and talked quietly to her, although she’d have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the kitchen. All she could hear was the faint murmur of the man’s voice, but his presence in the old house unsettled Gemma as she talked Bristow out of her agitation, checked her blood sugar and assured her she’d done the right thing in not letting Jackie touch her insulin but gently chiding her for using the knife.
‘She had to understand,’ Bristow said, and Gemma shrugged, not wanting to agitate the woman again. Bristow was right, and even if her methods were a little extreme, Gemma was reasonably sure that Jackie would never touch the insulin again.
‘So maybe now we can talk.’
Gemma shut the door on the ill-assorted pair and turned to find her visitor right behind her. He’d taken off the happy, hopping bunny wrap but hadn’t put on his jacket, which he’d hung on the knob at the bottom of the stair banister. He’d also removed his tie and draped it over his coat, so, with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his collar unbuttoned, he looked a very different man from the one she’d met earlier that morning.
An even more attractive man!
And given the attraction, she should be seeing him off the premises as quickly as possible, but politeness—and his promise of even more donations—prevailed.
‘I’m sorry we keep being interrupted, but it’s lunchtime and Beth’s just arrived to relieve me. Can I offer you some lunch? We can go up to my flat where we won’t be disturbed, or do you have to be somewhere?’
Yusef thought of all the business he’d hoped to get done after his morning meeting at the centre, and all the reasons he shouldn’t be spending more time in this woman’s company, but so far he’d achieved nothing of his main purpose. He had to spend more time with her.
‘Lunch sounds good but can’t I take you somewhere?’
‘Tempting though that sounds, I think we should get down to business and we can hardly do that in a restaurant. Besides, I’m sure you’re already way beyond the time you scheduled for this meeting, so it will be quicker and easier to eat next door.’
She ducked into one of the consulting rooms to speak to someone, then returned, a bundle of keys dangling from her fingers.
‘Beth’s another of the doctors on staff. She’s done the O and G short course and hopes to go back to study next year to do a full specialty course. We’ve been lucky to get so many good quality staff, especially as the pay isn’t nearly as much as they’d earn in private practice.’
She led the way outside, Yusef pausing to grab his jacket and tie, then down the steps and up the steps of the adjacent house, unlocking the bright red front door.
‘The steps are a nuisance but we’ve a ramp at the side entrance next door, which makes it easier for mothers with prams and strollers.’
Was she nervous that her conversation sounded like anxious chatter? Yusef found himself wishing he knew her better so he could judge this reaction.
‘The house is a twin of the one next door?’ He was looking around a black and white tiled foyer, a wooden staircase curving up on the right, doors opening off the passageway on the left. He hung his discarded clothing on the banister again.
‘Exactly the same, except that I’ve only one consulting and treatment room downstairs, and upstairs I’ve converted all the space into a small flat. Come on up.’
Gemma felt a shiver start at the top of her spine and travel down to her toes as she uttered the invitation. But why? She’d been attracted to men before, not often, admittedly, but it had happened. And there’d been handsome men, and wealthy men, and very ordinary men that had stirred something in her—but attraction had never felt like this. Never so instant, so physical, so—hot?
She unlocked the door into her flat, mentally chiding herself for not accepting the man’s invitation to go out somewhere for lunch. Once he’d been into the flat, his image, she guessed, would haunt it.
Shaking her head at such fanciful thoughts, she waved him into the big room that was divided into functions by its furniture—living room, dining room and at the far end a small kitchen.
‘Compact and functional,’ he said, looking around but not taking an armchair in the living area, moving instead to the kitchen bench where he pulled out a stool and settled on it. ‘And a coffee machine! Thank heavens. Do you do a strong espresso?’
Gemma turned the machine on and programmed it, setting a small cup under the spout. She felt uncomfortable now that she had such a luxury in her own home yet the kitchen-cum-tearoom in the centre was so poorly furnished. Embarrassment curled her toes.
‘It was a present from a cousin,’ she said. ‘I could hardly give it away to the centre.’
Sheikh Yusef Akkedi, the highness, smiled at her.
‘So defensive,’ he teased, making the toe-curl far worse than it had been. ‘Believe me, in my tent in Mogadishu, I treasured little comforts myself. Not a coffee machine but a small coffee pot I could put over a flame, and coffee grounds I hoarded like a miser.’
Gemma turned from where she was digging lettuce and tomatoes out of her refrigerator and stared at him.
‘You mentioned Africa before, and I know of the wonderful work medical organisations do in such places, but—’
‘But me?’ he said, smiling again, although this time the sadness was back in his eyes. ‘You hear Sahra use the “highness” word and wonder what such a person is doing working with refugees?’
‘Well, yes,’ Gemma admitted, taking the little cup of espresso from the machine and passing it to him, being careful to set it down in front of him so their fingers didn’t touch. It was bad enough having him close, but touching him? ‘Even being a doctor,’ she added, pulling herself together.
‘The “highness” part is very recent,’ her visitor replied, unaware of the confusion he was causing in her body. ‘And totally unexpected. My oldest brother inherited the title from my father, but there are no strict guidelines of succession in my country. The current ruler chooses his successor, choosing someone he believes will follow in the way he has ruled. He might choose a brother or a cousin, although my father chose his eldest son. Unfortunately my brother didn’t want the task. He is an aesthete and prefers to spend his life in spiritual learning and contemplation. He could not tell our father this for it would have disappointed him, but when my father died my brother relinquished the crown.’
