Читать книгу: «His Housekeeper Bride»

PROLOGUE

St Agatha’s Hospice, Sydney, fifteen years ago

THERE she was again, standing just outside the window, giving him her sweet smile, her little encouraging wave. His friend with the sunny redgold curls, big brown eyes and brave, dimpled smile that made her look like Shirley Temple.

She was in the copse of trees and flowering shrubs in the middle of the hospice that she called the garden. The secret garden, she called it—named for her favourite book, which she read over and over to herself, as well as to her little brothers.

It was her escape from a reality and a future even grimmer than his.

She was his escape. They’d met only in the confines of this hospital during the times her mother’s and Chloe’s hospitalisations coincided, yet she saw, understood him, as his family no longer did. Sometimes he felt as if he was standing in a black and blinkered place, screaming for help, but surrounded by people who saw only Chloe’s needs, who were tuned only to Chloe’s voice.

Except for this thirteen-year-old girl who knew almost nothing about his life—a girl he never saw unless he was here. ‘Shirley Temple’ was his light and warmth in a dark, cold world, his colour and life. Everything had faded to black or white except for her.

Mark waved back at her, letting her know he’d join her soon. Their brief exchanges of maybe twenty minutes made her day bearable, just as they did his. They talked, or didn’t talk; it didn’t matter. It was the only time in the day when she wasn’t playing the adult, and when he actually felt like the kid he still was.

He glanced briefly back inside the room, but everything in there was a blur of white, a deathly shade of pale. The blankets, the walls, the gown Chloe wore, her face—even the blue oxygen tube going into Chloe’s nostrils—had somehow faded into the pale thinness of her. Beneath her knitted pink cap her hair was in a plait, roped over her shoulder, thin and dull. Even shining with lipgloss her mouth looked defeated, transparent. Her eyes were like a delicate cobweb on a winter morning, rimed with frost. Broken with a touch. She was sixteen, and she was dying….

He was seventeen, and he was watching his best friend die—just as he’d been watching it for five endless years. Chloe had turned from childhood pal to his lover and bride of four weeks, and, watching her, he wanted to scream, to punch holes in the walls, to bolt as far away from this place as he could.

Oh, help—that sounded so selfish when he’d loved her almost all his life! But part of him felt as if he’d begun to die too when she’d got cancer, or as if he was chained to a cage: he wasn’t in the cage but he couldn’t fly away, either—and the only person who understood how he felt was a thirteen-year-old kid.

Carrie and Jen would be here in five or ten minutes. Chloe’s best friends came every day after school, to tell them who was dating who, who’d broken up with who, and how ugly it had got. About the fight between Joe Morrow and Luke Martinez over who’d lost the opening game of the football season, and ‘—don’t choke—Principal Buckley is getting married—like, at forty. How gross is that? He’s so old.’

When Carrie and Jen came, Mark took off for a while. It was his time to breathe, to be. Chloe would fill him in on the Big News after. It gave them something to talk about.

Waiting for his escape time, he let his gaze touch all the reminders of life and normality. There was the massive Get Well card—as if she had a choice—signed by the whole school—even old Buckley and Miss Dragon-face Martin; the flowers-and-hearts and stick-figure finger paintings by Katie, his six-year-old sister, and Jon, Chloe’s eight-year-old brother; the flowers his other sisters Bren and Becky picked for Chloe every day…

There was also a photo of Chloe, Jen and Carrie in a group hug, from when their school year had gone to the Snowy Mountains. Clear-skinned, tanned and laughing, Chloe looked so beautiful and healthy—as if nothing could hurt her. He remembered her smell that day. Like wind and sunshine and smiles. To her, it had been as if taking a six-hour trip on a bus was Everest and she’d conquered it.

It was the last time she’d gone out with her class.

As he stood by the bed he kept trying to calculate when he’d last had a day not spent in hospital, or at a doctor’s office or thinking about illness and death. It was all a blur—as if he was a slow car stuck on a fast freeway. Everyone else around him rushed and flew, while he chugged along, unable to go faster. Just waiting.

It was a sunny day outside, a soft spring afternoon, perfect for testing the capabilities of his new motorised go-cart. But he was stuck in this room, watching the life drain out of Chloe, and there was nothing he could do about it.

‘Prof…? Prof?’

The pain lacing her voice tore at his guts, but Mark couldn’t make his head lift. The girl in the bed—strained, so thin, the hollows beneath her eyes the biggest and most colourful part of her—wasn’t his best friend. This girl had given up. Secondary cancer had gone from her bones to her lungs, and finally her brain. It was over—apart from the endless waiting.

‘Come on, Prof, look at me.’ Chloe’s thready voice gained strength by that hard-headed will of hers—the same will that had talked him into playing with her when they were four and he’d hated girls. The same stubborn faith that had made her believe he’d marry her one day—she’d been saying it since they were five—and had seen her become his research partner in the inventions he made in his backyard workshop. The same adorable persistence that had given him acceptance at school when the other kids had thought his flow of ideas strange and stupid. Because Chloe had believed in him, because beautiful, popular Chloe Hucknall had said she was going to marry Mark Hannaford, he’d become part of the inner circle.

‘I know you hate looking at me now, but I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.’

He didn’t hate it—or her—but he hated what she was about to ask, what he knew she’d say. Because she’d been asking the same thing for days—for weeks now. He felt like a sleepwalker bumping into the same wall over and over.

He’d turned seventeen five weeks ago. Last time he’d looked he’d been twelve, asking what osteosarcoma was and when was Chloe getting better, because he had this massive idea he needed to work on with her. Then the days and years had become like potatoes under a masher. Though he’d gone to school and found a part-time job, got his learner’s permit and his driver’s licence, had worked hard and passed all his exams, created things for her to marvel at or give ideas for improvement, this place, this pain, was all that was real.

‘Mark—please. I need you.’

I need you. The words he’d answered from the time she’d roped him into fixing her Barbie doll after Milo Brasevic had ripped its head off. He felt encased in darkness, with dark shutters fallen over his soul, yet he made himself look at her, and from somewhere deep inside he even forced a smile. It felt weak and hollow, but he managed it—for her, his best friend, the girl he’d loved ever since he could remember.

‘Yeah? Whaddya want, Slowy?’

Mark and Chloe—the Mad Professor and Slowy. Always had been, always would be.

Chloe’s answering grin was weak, but her thin, pale face was radiant with the love she’d never tried to deny in all the years they’d known each other. ‘You didn’t promise yet, George.’ For no reason he’d ever known, she called him George when she was trying to be funny. ‘I swear, I won’t die until you promise,’ she joked, her eyes glistening with tears of cheated wishing for all the years they’d never have together.

‘Then I’ll never do it,’ he replied huskily.

Chloe stopped smiling. ‘Stop it, Mark. It doesn’t help—and I’m so tired. I know you’re not gonna do so well without me, but you have to promise…’ She closed her eyes, but the tears kept squeezing through. ‘Don’t spend all your time going for a scholarship, or hanging out in your shed alone with your inventions. You—you have to find another girl to love when you grow up, have kids…’

What was he supposed to say to that? Yes, dear? He knew how much it cost her to keep on asking day after day, because he couldn’t stand to think of another guy touching her even if he’d been the one lying in that hospital bed.

Chloe was dying, and he had to live the rest of his life without her.

The bile rose hard and hot and fast, like a burning catapult. He turned and stumbled out of the ward—he wasn’t going make it to the bathroom.

He made it outside the swinging doors, past the metal garbage can, and ran through the first door—the one leading to the tiny walled-in garden—before the sickness hit.

His hands and legs shook so badly he couldn’t make his knees or his feet work. His breathing hurt, and there was a burning pain all the way up his chest and throat—but it was better than going back and having Chloe see him like this.

He knew that she’d try to force him to give the promise—or get their parents to talk to him again. Give her the promise, Mark. Do it for Chloe.

The same words he’d been responding to for five years—from going with her to her specialist appointments, to going back to school, to marrying her in a hasty backyard ceremony a few weeks ago.

Sometimes he just wished he’d had a choice to make. He’d like to know he’d have done all he had without the family’s persuasive tactics.

‘Here,’ came a sweet, piping voice from behind him.

Mark’s voice was croaky as he realised she was there. ‘Hey, Shirley Temple.’

He liked calling her that as much as he liked the fact that she never used his name. If they didn’t say Mark and Mary this wasn’t real, it wasn’t happening to them…and without names their shared time seemed a harmless dream, far from grim reality.

She was holding out a wet flannel to him. Crouching on the path beside him, she seemed luminous as the sun dipped behind the wire fencing at the end of the garden and framed her reddishblonde curls. He knew those big fox-brown eyes of hers would be filled with the silent understanding only she could give. ‘Put it on your face and your neck. It helps take the burning away.’

He took the cloth and wiped his face and throat. The pain eased a little. ‘Thanks.’

‘Keep it there.’ She handed him a glass of water. ‘Sip it slow.’

He nodded and sipped, and it eased the pain a little more. He felt it again—the unspoken connection. This pale, tired girl, looking so young until you looked in her eyes, felt like his only ally in a war he hadn’t signed up to fight. ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’ She reached out and touched his hand.

He could feel her hand shaking, could see her corkscrew curls bobbing with the effort to stay steady. ‘Bad day?’ he asked quietly.

She gave him a smile that wobbled. ‘The doctor told us to say goodbye. Mum told me to be a brave girl and look after the boys.’

Oh, God help him. God help them both in what they had to face when they left here.

‘Want to hit something with me?’he asked, to see what she’d do. Maybe she needed to lash out, to scream or yell, do something to let her suffering out.

She gave a gulping laugh, then two fat tears welled in her eyes. ‘I have to set a good example for the boys.’ Her slight body began to shake and lurch forward.

‘Come here.’ He held the trembling girl in his arms, feeling safe, at peace. She lived inside a similar cage to his, and she wasn’t asking anything from him but to hold her, to understand.

Weird how a girl barely out of childhood could become his only haven…even weirder how he’d become hers, too. But he sure couldn’t seem to make anyone else happy.

When she lay still against him, the only sound her hiccupping now and then, he wiped her tears with the cloth she’d brought for him. ‘Hey, you want a drink or something?’

A soft, catching double breath told him she hadn’t heard. Probably she’d spent the night caring for her youngest brother, who had croup.

Nobody knew the Brown family’s story, for none of them talked about themselves. They all knew ‘Shirley Temple’ was the oldest of four kids. Local gossip said that Mrs Brown shouldn’t have had the last of her children because she was too sick; she had something wrong with her heart that could threaten her life. She’d had him three years ago by C-section, and had been slowly dying since then, her heart too weak to pump. She’d been on the list for a transplant, but when one had finally come she’d been too sick for the operation.

So while Mr Brown was crying over the imminent loss of his wife, Shirley Temple was caring for the needs of her little brothers. It was the scandal of the hospital, but the girl did it all with a serene, defiant smile, neither complaining nor welcoming any sympathy. Social workers had come and gone, amazed by the strength of this girl who played a mother’s part with seeming ease, refusing to admit she needed any help from the networks.

But she had to sleep some time…someone had to let her sleep. Poor kid.

His back was aching from sitting up unsupported. Holding her awkwardly in his arms, he wriggled back until he found the trunk of a big, thick old pine tree in the centre of the garden. He rested against it and closed his eyes, feeling a deep sense of life and hope emanating from her. Peace enveloped him.

‘Mary! Mary!’

The panicked bellow woke them both with a start. Mark peered around the darkening garden with bleary eyes. The last thing he’d remembered was yawning. Now the sun was behind the western wall. Dusk had come and was almost gone.

‘Mary!’

‘Shirley Temple’ jumped in his arms; Mark let her go, and she scrambled to her feet, rubbing her eyes, still swaying with tiredness. ‘Da-Dad?’

A man was peering out of the slide-up aluminium window on the opposite ward to Chloe’s. He had that poleaxed look of grief that Mark had seen on too many faces in the past few years.

‘She’s gone.’ He didn’t even seem to notice that a strange boy was standing beside his daughter, had been holding her in his arms. ‘She’s gone, Mary.’

A child’s cough and a wail came from inside the room behind him.

Mark watched ‘Shirley Temple’—Mary—sway again, her lip tremble and her eyes blink. He waited for the tears to come. Then she squared her shoulders. ‘I’m coming.’

Mark turned to stare at Mary’s father. In disbelief he saw the man’s face crumple with relief. ‘You’re my good girl…’ He withdrew from the window.

Mark watched Mary walk away with a poise that seemed totally wrong. She was thirteen and she’d just lost her mother. How could she be so—so calm?

‘Mary?’ he said, using her real name for the first time.

Mary turned her head, looking over her shoulder at him. In that moment he saw not the girl but the woman she would become. No: there was a woman already inside her—a person of more courage and strength than he’d ever have. Her eyes were open windows to a beautiful soul—and Mark grieved for the maturing of this girl to a woman he’d want to know. Because this was the last moment he’d have with her. She was leaving—going to that unbearable future without him.

‘Will you be—all right?’ Inadequate words for all he wanted to say.

Her bottom lip was sucked under the top one, and tears were falling down her cheeks, but the delicate body was tight and straight. He saw the contours of her body in the silhouette of shadowy lights against the wall, the last light of the falling sun, and for the first time he saw a girl poised on the brink of womanhood. It was a reaction as physical as it was emotional, and guilt pierced him that he could even think that way when Chloe was in the room behind him, dying….

‘I promised,’ Mary said simply. ‘Goodbye, Mark. I have to go now.’

And then she was gone.

Mark stood in the garden until darkness filled it. Then he walked back into the ward, to Chloe’s room. The entire family was there, and each of them had identical expressions of grief and accusation on their faces as they looked at him—even Katie and Jon.

The tense, exhausted look on Chloe’s thin face broke him. It was obvious she’d spent most of the afternoon fighting her wasting body, summoning up all her reserves of courage and strength to continue her quest for his promise. It meant that much to her to believe that one day he’d find happiness again.

He waved the family out with the cold fierceness that was starting to feel like a second skin over his heart and soul. ‘I’ll do it,’ was all he said when they were alone.

Those cobweb-delicate eyes slowly closed; her face relaxed. She brought his hand to her cheek—the hand that had for four weeks borne his ring. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and drifted back into a ghost-like sleep, releasing his hand as her body unwound like a coil with its pressure released.

Mark’s hand moved over her limp hair. Even now Chloe was beautiful, yet all he could see at this moment was the face of the girl who’d just left him behind. Perhaps because he saw a mirror of Mary’s reflection in Chloe’s acceptance of death, the dignity, grace and courage to say goodbye, to make a promise and keep it.

Filled with hatred at the thought of what he’d promised, Mark clenched his free fist and sat on the chair beside his wife’s bed, watching her face. Waiting again…and already missing his only friend.