‘Will you think very badly of me if I tell you that there were many many nights when I deliberately made extra work for myself rather than go home; that I preferred the quiet calm of my work to the noisy, untidy chaos of our home?’
‘No,’ Sally told him honestly, shaking her head. How could she say anything else, when she too knew what it was like to dread returning home, even if it was for different reasons?
‘We should never have married, of course. We weren’t suited; we didn’t even really like one another. I was never the kind of man she wanted, as she proved when she left me. Her lover was all the things I wasn’t and am not…’
Sally made a soft, sympathetic sound that made him stop and smile ruefully at her.
‘Oh, I don’t envy him… in any way. His type of competitive macho sexuality has never been something I’ve wanted to emulate. There, now I really have revealed my inner self to you,’ he told her.
Sally flushed a little as she looked away from him. He was so very different from Joel—in every way. Joel would never talk to her as openly as Kenneth was doing, never discuss his innermost feelings with anyone, never reveal any aspect of himself which might show him in a bad light. Like the man Kenneth’s wife had left him for, Joel too possessed a competitive male sexuality.
Kenneth’s nature was kinder… warmer. A small shadow touched her face, and, seeing it, Kenneth told her gently, ‘You are all the things a woman should be, Sally. All the things any man could possibly want in a woman…’
Sally made a small protesting sound beneath her breath, but he heard it and shook his head.
‘No, it’s true. And so is something else.’ He turned his head and looked at her. ‘I’m going to miss you and our conversations very, very much indeed…’
‘All patients miss their nurses when they first go home,’ Sally told him huskily.
‘Ah… I suppose that’s a tactful way of telling me that all male patients fall a little in love with their nurses,’ he retaliated. ‘Very true. Although in my case I suspect it’s rather more than a little. You must be very glad that you’re happily married, and that you’ve got a wisely protective husband to stand between you and the endless stream of smitten male patients who would probably make your life a misery with their protests of undying love.’
He was smiling at her with his mouth, but his eyes were unsmiling. His eyes… She caught her breath.
It was just as well he was going home, she told herself severely half an hour later when she went for her break.
* * *
Sally grimaced disgustedly as she walked into the kitchen and caught sight of the empty, unwashed milk bottle. Joel had left three used teabags in the sink and they had made a dirty brown stain on the surface she had left clean and shining when she went to work. His mug was on the worktop, unwashed. She scooped up the teabags with one hand and turned on the hot tap with the other, her mouth compressing. She could hear Joel coming downstairs, but she didn’t turn round.
‘Do you have to leave the place in such a mess, Joel?’ she demanded as he came into the kitchen.
She could tell from the sound of his feet that he was wearing his slippers, which meant that he wasn’t dressed… which meant … She could feel her stomach muscles tightening protestingly, resentfully, her whole body tensing when he came up behind her and slid his arms round her, trying to nuzzle his face into her neck as he told her, ‘It’s Saturday morning. Leave all that and come to bed. You must be worn out.’
‘Too worn out for what you’ve got in mind,’ she told him shortly, edging away from him, relieved when he abruptly let go of her.
‘For goodness’ sake, aren’t I allowed even to touch you now? What’s the matter with you?’
‘Nothing’s the matter with me,’ she denied, turning round. ‘And as for touching me… all you ever want these days is sex, sex, sex. Why don’t you think about what I might want for a change? Like not coming home to find the place looking like a tip…’
‘It’s an empty milk bottle, Sal, that’s all,’ Joel told her wearily. ‘OK, so I should have rinsed it out, but to be honest with you I had other things on my mind——’
‘Just as you had other things on your mind when you were supposed to come home early and take Paul fishing, I suppose,’ she interrupted him angrily. ‘You’re always accusing me of spending too much time with the kids, Joel, but whose fault is that? If you spent a bit more time with them yourself…’
‘They don’t want me… they…’
He stopped when he saw the stubborn look on her face.
‘I tried to ring, but the phone was engaged. Probably that sister of yours boasting about her new extension…’
Sally stared at him. ‘How do you know about that?’
‘Cathy told me. It seems this house isn’t good enough for her any more. She wants to live somewhere with a garden all t
he way round it. When you’re complaining to her, perhaps you ought to try explaining to her that if you’d got yourself a husband like your sister’s she might have been in with a chance,’ he added bitterly.
‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Joel, stop feeling so sorry for yourself,’ Sally protested. ‘If you could see some of the patients from the wards…’ She stopped abruptly, tensing inwardly as she recognised what she was doing. It was unfair of her to compare Joel to Kenneth Drummond. Unfair and unwise? ‘Look, it’s been a long night and I’m tired. If you go up and get dressed now you could do the supermarket shopping while it’s still quiet and then——’
‘Yeah… and pushing the trolley will give me something else to think about instead of sex, sex, sex—is that it?’