Summer in Sydney. Fiona McArthur
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Connor joked, ‘you’ve always got an excuse.’ He was just chatting and joking, he certainly wasn’t there to talk about work, or tell her off, except inadvertently he had echoed Sheila’s words. It seemed to have been noticed that any patient that needed to be taken to the ward, Ruby put her hand up. Any stores or laundry that needed to be put away, Ruby was already onto it and, yes, people had noticed.
‘So?’ Connor asked. ‘How was it?’
‘How was what?’ Ruby said, biting into her lemon.
‘Your assessment?’
‘Oh, you know …’ She forced a smile and rolled her eyes. ‘Must try harder.’
Her face was burning, but she certainly wasn’t going to share with Connor all that had been said and stupidly she felt as if she was going to start crying. God, Ruby thought, she should have had that walk on the beach before she’d come in. Her eyes darted for escape, for a reason to excuse herself, and suddenly there he was. Cort Mason was back in her line of vision. This time, though, his tie was loosened and he was sitting next to a doctor she vaguely recognised. He gave her a very brief nod, or did he? Ruby couldn’t be sure, and then he turned back to his conversation but, not that she could have known it, his mind was on her.
It had been since she’d walked into the bar and perhaps, Cort admitted to himself, for a while before that.
‘Hey, Ruby!’ He pretended not to be looking, except his eyes roamed the bar and his ears were certainly not on Geoff’s conversation as Ruby’s friend came over. ‘We’re supposed to be celebrating with Tilly …’
‘Sorry, Jess!’ Ruby smiled, glad they’d remembered to rescue her! ‘Just coming … See you, Connor.’ She glanced over to the table but everyone was busy with conversations of their own, but she did, Cort noticed, make an effort. ‘Catch you guys.’ She gave a brief unreturned wave that had the light reflecting off all her silver bracelets and then as she drifted off he saw her back and there was a lot of back because she was wearing a halter neck that showed her white shoulders and way down her spine. She was also wearing a small skirt and flat sandals and for the fist time in a very long time Cort noticed everything. Then he glanced across the table and saw Siobhan’s eyes on him, watching him watching Ruby, and Cort knew to be more careful than that. So very deliberately he didn’t look out for her again after that. Instead, he chatted to Geoff and the rest of the table, yet she was there in the background, laughing and happy, a blaze of colour in the middle of the bar. Though he tried not to notice, he still did, so much so that he was aware the minute she left.
‘Leaving?’ Siobhan asked as he drained his drink.
‘No,’ Cort said, even though it had been his intention. ‘Just getting another.’
And he headed for the bar rather than for home, but though still packed, the Stat Bar felt empty now. Well, not empty, Cort thought as he squeezed his way back to the table, it just felt pointless, he decided as he sat down to wait it out.
‘We’re going to Adam’s,’ Geoff said a little while later, when Cort really was about to head for home. ‘Are you coming?’
‘Adam?’ Cort asked.
‘Adam Carmichael.’
‘Oh!’ He’d worked with Adam in the past and even if they kept only loosely in touch as Cort commuted between Melbourne and Sydney and Adam roamed the globe, working for Operation New Faces, Cort considered him a friend. ‘Is he back?’
Geoff didn’t answer. Everyone was drifting off and Cort was about to do the same, but that morning, before he’d pulled on the brown suit and chosen a lighter tie, he’d walked along a beach just a couple of suburbs from here and he’d made a promise, not to his sister, but to Beth, to say yes.
To live this life.
Except, now that he was starting to, Cort so did not want to be doing this.
One drink and he’d be out of there, Cort decided as they turned into Hill Street.
It was a nice house, Cort thought as Geoff opened the creaking gate. Sure, it needed a bit of work, but it was a lovely older building and just a two-minute walk from the beach. Who cared if it was in need of a little TLC?
There was a small decked area and the front door was open. Suddenly the music was turned on and wafted out to greet them, and as he walked in through the hall Cort wanted to turn around and walk back out, because there was a dangerous vision walking towards him.
She looked the same from the waist up as she had in the pub, though instead of a beer she was holding a glass of milk and a bag of pistachio nuts and her auburn, or rather titian, hair was now loosely clipped up.
He noticed, he really noticed, because if he didn’t then his eyes would flick down and he really didn’t want to notice that her sandals and skirt were off, that she was wearing lilac boy pants and that there was a gap between the top of them and her top, which showed a soft, pale stomach.
She’d been crying—her eyes were red and the tip of her nose was too.
‘Are you okay?’ her friend asked.
‘I’m fine, Tilly, just watching a sad movie. I didn’t realise there’d be a home invasion tonight—I’ll go and get dressed.’
She slipped past him and up the stairs and Cort headed through to the lounge—a large area with lots of sofas and magazines and a little pile of tissues. Emergency registrars sometimes made good detectives, because for reasons that shouldn’t matter to him, as someone handed him a beer, Cort put his hand on the turned-off television and confirmed what he suspected—it was cold.
And why should it even matter to him that Ruby was sitting at home crying Cort would rather not explore, he had more than enough troubles of his own to be dealing with.
No, he didn’t, Cort told himself, at least, not any more.
‘Where’s Adam?’ Cort asked Ruby’s friend.
‘He’s away.’ She smiled. ‘He’s hardly ever here …’ She must have seen him frown, and she took a moment to explain. ‘I’m Tilly, there’s Jess.’ She pointed to a blonde and then to another one. ‘And that’s Ellie.’
‘And …’ Cort started and then stopped, because what business of his was it if there had been a redhead in her underwear in their lounge just a few moments ago?
‘Oh.’ Tilly smiled. ‘There’s also Ruby—she’s the one who’s just gone to get changed. We rent the house from Adam.’
He was at a student nurses’ party.
He so did not need this.
Okay, they weren’t all students. Tilly was telling him now that she was a graduate midwife and that she’d had her first breech today, and as he tried to stop his eyes from glazing over as she went into detail, Cort decided to excuse himself and leave just the second that he could—he’d done enough ‘must get out more’ for one night.
He was just about to slip away unnoticed when Ruby came downstairs.
Whatever had been upsetting her had clearly been taken care of because there was no evidence of tears and she was back to happy now. She turned up the music and started dancing, and Cort was determined to leave, except she really was lovely to watch, all sort of loose limbed and free, and what’s more she was dancing her way over to him.
‘You look how I feel,’ Ruby said, because if ever someone didn’t want to be there it was Cort Mason. He belonged in that suit, Ruby had decided before their encounter today. He belonged behind a stethoscope, or peering down his nose at minions, except he hadn’t been like that today and she’d revised her judgement. Though she loathed Emergency and most of the staff that came with it, Cort wasn’t like the others, he was just aloof.
‘You look like I never would,’ Cort said in return, and he wasn’t sure if that made sense, but even without the hellish last five years, even a decade ago,