‘Ally?’

‘Darcy.’

‘That’s the one,’ he said, and his voice was almost cheerful. ‘I was hoping you’d guess. Doctors get patients calling at midnight, but massage therapists don’t much, hey?’

‘What are you doing, ringing me here?’

‘Where else would I ring you?’

‘Go away.’

‘I’m not going to go away, Ally,’ he told her, and his voice became all at once serious. ‘I know I rushed you.’

‘No.’

‘Yeah, I did,’ he said ruefully. ‘Telling you I loved you. The thing is that I’d just figured it out for myself and I got all excited.’

‘Well, get unexcited. It’s not going to happen.’

‘It already has happened. I love you. And the way you responded… Hell, Ally, you’re feeling it, too.’

‘I’m not feeling anything,’ she snapped, and there was desperation in her voice. ‘I can’t.’

‘You can.’

‘My mother’s here.’

There was a moment’s silence. ‘Elizabeth’s here?’

‘She caught the bus. She climbed up the oak tree and picked the lock of my window.’

He whistled. ‘Well, well. Bully for Elizabeth.’ He thought about it for a moment. ‘So she’s started saving herself, then. That’ll take a load off your shoulders.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘No.’ He hesitated. ‘Or maybe I do. You’re so afraid of the past.’

‘I’m not afraid of the past,’ she managed. ‘I’m afraid of the future.’

‘Now, that’s just silly,’ he said reasonably. ‘You don’t even know what the future holds. Except…me?’

He broke off on a crazy note of pathos, appeal and laughter, and it was all she could do not to slam the phone down. She should slam the phone down.

Why didn’t she slam the phone down?

‘We’ll leave,’ she whispered.

‘Why would you leave? You’ve only just got here.’

‘My mother… How do you suppose she’d feel if I fell in love with the local doctor? If I moved into my grandfather’s house, made toast on my grandfather’s wood stove…’

‘Patted my dogs. Rocked on your grandmother’s chair. Maybe, if you wanted…maybe even had our children?’

Had our children.

The words made her lose what little breath she had left. She was so shocked she held the receiver away from her and stared at it as if she was holding a scorpion.

Why didn’t she hang up?

But Darcy was still talking.

‘Ally, are you sure this is all about your mother?’

‘What?’ She replaced the receiver at her ear and put her spare hand up to rake her hair, distracted beyond belief.

‘Is it about you?’ he was asking.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ But maybe she did. She could almost hear the smile in his voice and she knew that if he was near, he’d be laughing. And maybe reaching to touch her.

‘I love you, Ally,’ he said softly. ‘I love you. But, unlike you, I know what love is.’

‘I-’

‘I loved Rachel,’ he said, overriding her interruption, and his voice was urgent. ‘I loved her, Ally. We were part of each other. And when she died, part of me died, too. It hurt like hell.’

‘I’m sorry, but-’

‘The thing is,’ he said, almost apologetically, ‘that all you’re seeing is the hurt. The men in your life-your grandfather, your father and Jerry-they’re a hell of a bunch. They’ve let you down over and over. The townspeople here didn’t protect you. Your mother wasn’t able to. So you’ve built yourself this cocoon. If you love, then you get hurt.’

‘Oh, please,’ she whispered, staring down at her sleeping mother. ‘What’s with the psychoanalysis?’

‘I did it as a minor during med,’ he said, suddenly cheerful. ‘I knew it’d come in handy some day, and what do you know? It has.’

‘I’m not your patient.’

‘No,’ he said, and his voice was serious again. ‘You’re my love. You’re my Ally. You’re a wonderful doctor and a wonderful massage therapist and a wonderful daughter and karate expert and gun-blazer and toast-maker and floor-scrubber. But most of all you’re you. I love you, Ally. Whatever you are. Whatever you do. If anything happens to you, I’ll hurt like hell. If you hurt then I hurt and I’m exposed, come what may. Because I’ve made that commitment.’

‘You’re crazy.’

‘I’m not crazy,’ he said, ‘because I know what’s on the other side of loving. Sure, love can hurt, so much you almost break apart. But without love I’m nothing. Ally, these last six years without Rachel have been lonely, but they would have been so much worse-so much emptier-if I’d never loved Rachel at all. Rachel’s love is part of me. It’s part of who I am and it’s part of why I can love again. Her love for me was a gift, but because I’ve been hurt I’m not about to walk away from love again. Love’s the most precious thing. And now… tonight…’

His voice softened. ‘Well, that’s all I rang to tell you. That I’m sure I’m right. I’ve fallen in love with you and you have that love whether you want it or not. Come what may. For ever. Don’t use your mother as a shield, Ally. Let’s work it out. Let us work it out. Everyone. You, your mother, me, the people of this town… You’re not on your own any more. You’ve come home to Tambrine Creek. You’ve come home. This is your home, Ally. Now and for ever.’

And before she could say a word-if she could have thought of a word to say, which she couldn’t-the receiver went dead.

She was standing in the middle of the darkened room by herself.

‘It’s not true,’ she whispered. ‘None of it’s true.’

He loved her. The thought was insidious in its sweetness. If she could just take that step forward…

She wasn’t alone.

Darcy was right. She wasn’t alone. Her mother was asleep on the mattress on the floor. And outside, somewhere, was Darcy.

Darcy.

Her love?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

BY THE time she fell into an uneasy doze it must have been past three, and when she woke the clock said eight-thirty.

Her mother was cooking bacon. The smell was all around the little room and Ally stared up in astonishment. Then she stared at the clock. She yelped.

‘Help!’ What had happened to her alarm? ‘I have clients booked at nine.’

‘I know,’ her mother said serenely. ‘I looked at your appointment book. It’s almost full.’ She beamed down at her daughter. ‘You’ve done really well.’

Ally blinked. This was so unlike her mother that she could hardly believe it.

‘I’ll cancel them,’ she said, and Elizabeth shook her head.

‘Why should you? You have half an hour. I’ve cooked breakfast. Eat, shower, massage. In that order. There’s no problem.’

‘But you-’

‘I have things to do, too,’ she said serenely. ‘If you’ll tell me where Jerry’s people are…’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘Why should you come with me?’ Elizabeth asked, as if such an action was ridiculous.

‘I could introduce-’

‘I’ll introduce myself. Now, one egg or two?’

Eggs. She had eggs, thanks to Darcy. Ally’s thoughts were wildly tangential and they swung now to Darcy. Darcy had brought far too much breakfast for one morning.

Darcy loved her?

‘Um…one.’

‘You know, if you intend to start work at a reasonable hour, maybe you shouldn’t stay on the telephone at all hours,’ Elizabeth said, and Ally stared. She’d heard?

‘I’m asking no questions,’ her mother said, and a tiny smile hovered around the corners of her mouth. ‘Not a question at all. But that’s why I turned off the alarm. You had to sleep some time. And…did you know, when I tried to wake you just now, you called me Darcy?’


Work started dead on nine.

This was why she’d come, Ally reminded herself as she welcomed her first client. Setting up as a massage therapist anywhere but here would have entailed a long wait while the locals came to trust her. Here there was curiosity and good-will-and eagerness to beat neighbours in saying they’d been to have a massage with ‘our Ally’.

Our Ally.

She couldn’t be our Ally, she thought, and her tangential thoughts were becoming desperate. Not if it involved medicine. Medicine had propelled her mother to suicide. How could she go back and risk that again?

‘Can you give my neck a bit of an extra rub?’ Doris Kerr was her first client for the morning. She’d come in for her own massage and was practically purring on the table. ‘Don’t bother with my legs. Legs are good but, oh, my neck…’

‘You’ve got real tension knots,’ Ally told her, kneading gently through the layers of tight muscles. ‘You said you damaged a disc?’

‘I fell over my dog,’ Doris told her. ‘Ten years back. We didn’t have a doctor here then and I was in such trouble. I lay in bed for a week before my husband finally took me to the city. Then they put me in the orthopaedic ward. I lay in traction for three weeks with all these people who’d had car crashes or diving injuries or skiing accidents. Everyone kept asking what I’d done and I’d fallen over the dog. My poodle! Talk about humiliating.’

‘I’ve seen people in real trouble with damaged discs after they sneezed too hard,’ Ally told her, and Doris sighed again and sank into the kneading process with pleasure.

‘That’s what Dr Rochester said. He’s been so comforting. For a while I travelled up to Sydney to see a physiotherapist, but now…’

‘There are many things physiotherapists can do that I can’t,’ Ally told her.

‘Yes, dear, that’s what Dr Rochester told me when I asked if I should come to you.’

‘Did he?’ Ally asked slowly, and she had to force herself not to interrupt the gentle rhythm of her kneading.

‘But he still said I should come,’ she told her. ‘He said it’d do my neck good to get the muscles warmed and mobile. I do tend to get a stiff neck. If it hurts then I don’t move it, and it makes it worse.’

‘He said I could help?’

‘Well, of course he did,’ Doris told her, as if the suggestion that he wouldn’t have was astonishing. ‘I mean, you’re two professionals, aren’t you? If you can’t support each other, who can?’ She wiggled on the table and gave another sigh of pleasure. ‘Oh, my dear, that feels so good. Now…Henry says your mother arrived on the bus last night. Is that right?’