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Dr James was touching him lightly on the shoulder, indicating the waiting nurse. Lisa couldn’t bear to watch as Rorke followed her down the corridor, and she wasn’t even aware that Dr James had remained until he said gently, ‘Try not to worry. I promise you he’s going to be all right. It’s lucky for him that you brought him in for those boosters so quickly, Lisa, and that Rorke was on hand. What happened exactly?’
Now was her chance to implicate Helen by repeating what Robbie had said to her, but she found she just wasn’t able to do so. All her attention was concentrated on Robbie, willing him to get well. She simply told Dr James that Robbie had slipped on the coral and gashed his arm.
‘Yes, I thought that’s what must have happened. Robbie told me that Rorke hadn’t wanted to take him on to the reef, but that he had insisted on going. He’s a very lucky little boy,’ he added a trifle grimly. ‘Thank God Rorke kept a cool enough head to act quickly, otherwise…’
‘Please… when can I see Robbie?’ Lisa asked him urgently. Her throat muscles were taut with tension, she felt oddly lightheaded and yet strangely weak, almost as though she could float away. As she followed Dr James down the corridor she had the oddest sense of weightlessness, almost of not really being there at all, but separate from her body, watching its mechanical movements.
The ward Robbie was in was a small one; the other beds were empty apart from the one next to him where Rorke lay, watching the little boy, his arm brown and sinewy against the white of the bedclothes and the complication of the transfusion equipment.
Even as she watched Lisa could see a more natural colour returning to Robbie’s pale face. She had eyes only for her son, unaware of the pain etched into Rorke’s features as he watched.
Dr James’s light touch on her shoulder roused her. ‘Look,’ he said quietly, ‘Robbie’s starting to come round. We gave him a tranquillising shot when you brought him in. He’s a tough little character,’ he added for Rorke’s benefit, ‘and something tells me this isn’t the last time I’m going to see him here.’
‘In that case I’d better come in again and give you some more of this,’ Rorke told him, tapping the tube linking his arm to the transfusion equipment. ‘Another time I might not be on hand.’
‘Good idea,’ Dr James agreed, indicating to the nurse that Rorke could get up.
Robbie stirred and opened his eyes, and to Lisa’s anguish the first person he looked for was Rorke.
‘I’m sorry I went on the reef when you told me not to, Daddy,’ he said drowsily.
‘That’s all right, Robbie.’ Rorke swung himself off the bed and crouched down beside the little boy. ‘You’ve learned a painful lesson, and you know now why I was warning you not to climb on the coral.’
‘But Helen did it,’ Robbie objected sleepily.
‘Helen’s old enough to make her own mistakes,’ Lisa heard Rorke saying huskily. He saw Dr James glancing at him and added softly, ‘Now you’re going to go to sleep for a little while.’
‘Will you be here when I wake up?’
Across the bed Rorke’s eyes met Lisa’s.
‘We’ll both be here Robbie,’ he promised softly.
With a little sigh Robbie turned to Lisa, letting her kiss and cuddle him, telling her drowsily that he was all right.
They left the ward together, Lisa unable to forget that Robbie had turned first to his father. She was still in a numb daze when she stumbled against the wall. Instantly Rorke’s arm was supporting her and it seemed from the dream world she was suddenly inhabiting that there was pain as well as concern in the look he gave her. From a distance she heard Dr James’s voice answering Rorke’s sharply curt query, and then she was sliding into warm darkness, the voices of the two men dull echoes that couldn’t hurt or touch her.
‘Lisa!’
She recognised the voice and its implicit command and opened her eyes warily. She was lying in the bed she shared with Rorke, although she had no memory of getting there. Rorke himself was standing beside the bed, staring down at her, his face tautly bitter. Lisa’s hand crept up to the pulse beating erratically in her throat, encountering the soft silk of her nightgown. Who had undressed her and put her to bed? Rorke? Heated colour flooded her skin as she caught the elusive memory of gentle hands easing her out of her clothes, soothing her anguished protests.
‘Lisa, I know you’re awake. I want to talk to you.’
‘I know,’ she agreed huskily, ‘you’ve already told me.’
She looked up and saw that Rorke was frowning. ‘That was before…’
‘Before you found out that Robbie is your son?’
Strange how knowing that he now knew the truth had so little effect upon her. She ought to be exulting, but somehow it was too much of an effort. All she cared about was Robbie. Rorke had denied his child for too long for her to care that he knew the truth now. Where once she would have given anything to have him standing looking at her with the helpless anguish she could read plainly in his eyes, suddenly it meant less than nothing to her. It was almost as though she were incapable of feeling anything. It was a sensation not unlike the numbing anaesthetic administered by her dentist. She knew what was happening around her, she knew how she ought to react to it, but somehow the numbing effect of the anaethestic made it impossible for her to do anything more than be an onlooker.
‘Lisa, for God’s sake! I didn’t know…. I couldn’t believe…’
She turned away from him, her voice cool as she said quietly, ‘It really doesn’t matter any more, Rorke. Loving someone sometimes does require an act of faith. It isn’t your fault that you couldn’t believe me—not when you couldn’t remember what happened.’
‘Dr James says you’re suffering from shock and that you must rest, but we have to talk this whole thing out, Lisa, we can’t just leave it here.’
‘Why not?’ She was amazed that she could be so calm, so uncaring in what ought to have been her moment of triumph.
