The Surgeon's Proposal. Lilian Darcy

smiled and stood up, looking long and strong and sturdy. Not at all the kind of man who should make whimsical marriage proposals that he admitted he didn’t mean but still wanted her to take seriously.

      ‘Enjoy the pool,’ he said, and touched her bare shoulder.

      His hand left a warm imprint there, and was gone again in a second. Annabelle’s awareness of his touch was unsettling and unwanted. She took him quickly back through the house, and they got through a few last polite phrases, then she closed the door behind him and listened with relief to the confident sound of his feet as he loped down the twenty-seven steps.

      She spent a shrieking half-hour in the pool with Duncan, got him dried and dressed and settled him with a video.

      Then she phoned Alex.

      ‘I was wondering when you’d call,’ he said stiffly.

      ‘It’s just on eleven. I wasn’t sure whether to…’ She trailed off, feeling the phone line between them heavy with stony silence. She tried again, newly determined that there had to be a way to get through this. It was ridiculous to call off a marriage permanently because of one meaningless intrusion during the ceremony. They were both mature adults. Alex was almost forty, and she was thirty-two. ‘I really wanted to talk, Alex, but I thought we both needed to cool down after last night. I’m just as angry with Dylan as you are.’

      Silence.

      ‘And if you still think I gave him any cause to make that idiotic objection, then I’m not sure what to do next, because I didn’t, and I’ve told you that, and he’s told you that…’ She paused expectantly.

      Silence.

      ‘Which makes me start to wonder if you were just looking for an excuse.’

      ‘Don’t be so ridiculous.’

      ‘So we’ll get married. A small, discreet ceremony, with—’

      ‘That’s impossible. I’m not going to rehash it again.’

      ‘Tell me what you’re feeling, Alex!’ she begged him desperately. ‘Just blustering like this, stonewalling anything I say, it’s not telling me anything.’

      Silence.

      ‘Shall I come over to your place, or do you want to come here?’ she suggested.

      Silence.

      ‘Dylan wants to pay for the reception. I told him to talk to you about it.’

      ‘So you’ve seen him? When have you seen him?’

      ‘He came round just now. He obviously feels bad.’

      ‘I can’t believe you’re defending him, and that you talked to him before you talked to me.’

      ‘I’m not defending him.’ Am I? ‘I’m just letting you know that he’ll probably phone you, too. I don’t know why he came to me first.’

      Silence.

      ‘So, should we talk about—?’

      ‘There’s absolutely nothing to talk about at all,’ Alex snapped. ‘It’s out of the question to have him pay for the reception.’

      ‘Well, yes, that’s what I thought, but since it was your money, I didn’t want to—’

      ‘And it’s out of the question to talk about scheduling another ceremony. I won’t get over this in a hurry, Annabelle. You’re the last person I would have thought the type to trail chaos and melodrama in your wake, but now I’m wondering how many other ex-boyfriends—’

      ‘Dylan Calford isn’t an—’

      ‘Or would-be boyfriends I can expect to crawl out of the woodwork. I was embarrassed to the core last night. People, no doubt, are already talking and making conjectures. And I don’t even think I could look at you at the moment, Annabelle.’

      The reproachful crash of the slamming phone invaded Annabelle’s left ear, and stinging tears flooded her vision. Today, this hurt in a way it hadn’t hurt last night. Last night she’d been angry, and in shock. Now came the full realisation that Alex had dropped her like a hot coal, as if she were tainted in some way.

      He’d almost said as much. He’d called her a ‘type’. Not the type to attract scandal. Not the type to compromise his reputation and his ambitions. Political ambitions. She knew he had them. President of the Australian Medical Association. Queensland State Minister for Health. But she’d believed herself to mean much more to Alex than a suitably well-bred and stain-resistant political wife, just as he meant more to her than a way out of her family problems.

      Annabelle stuffed her knuckles into her mouth and sobbed wildly, until she remembered Duncan in the next room. He would be worried and confused if he saw her like this—red-eyed, swollen-nosed. He had a caring little heart, when he stood still long enough for it to show.

      She heard the clatter of his feet as he bounced off the couch to come looking for her, and quickly turned to the kitchen sink to wash away the worst of the mess her face was in. By the time he appeared, she was wearing a smile.