I’ll get my secretary to put together a list of equipment we’ve bought recently and the suppliers’ brochures. Dr Jones will be able to tell you why she made the choices she did.’
He hurried out of the room.
Dr Jones … The name echoed in Khalifa’s head.
Something about the woman was bothering him, something that went beyond her apparent disregard for her pregnancy. Was it because she’d challenged him?
Not something Zara had ever done.
But Zara had been his wife, not his colleague, so it couldn’t be that …
Was it because Dr Jones running from something—the father of her baby?—that she’d leapt at his offer to come to Al Tinine? There had been no consultation with anyone, no consideration of family or friends, just how soon could she get away.
Yes, she was running from something, it had to be that, but did it matter? And why was he thinking about her when he had so much else he hoped to achieve in this short visit?
It had to be her pregnancy and the memories it had stirred.
The guilt …
He, too, left the room, making his way back to the neonatal ward, telling himself he wanted to inspect it more closely, telling himself it had nothing to do with Dr Jones.
She was bent over the crib she’d been called to earlier and as she straightened he could read the concern on her face. She left the unit, sliding open the door and almost knocking him over in her haste to get to the little alcove.
‘Sorry,’ she said automatically, then stopped as she realised whom she’d bumped into. ‘Oh, it’s you! I am sorry—I’m a klutz, always knocking things over or running into people. My family said it was because I live in my head, and I suppose that’s right at the moment. The baby in that crib was abandoned—found wrapped in newspaper in a park—and the police haven’t been able to trace the mother. We call her Alexandra, after the park.’
Liz heard her rush of words and wondered what it was about this man that turned her into a blithering idiot, admitting to her clumsiness, thrusting ancient family history at a total stranger.
‘The baby was found in a park?’
Despite the level of disbelief in the man’s voice, her toes curled again. This was ridiculous. It had to stop. Probably it was hormonal …
‘Last week,’ she told him, ‘and, really, there’s nothing much wrong with her—she was a little hypothermic, occasional apnoea, but now …’
‘Who will take her?’
Liz sighed.
‘That’s what’s worrying me,’ she admitted. ‘She’ll be taken into care. And while I know the people who care for babies and children are excellent, she won’t get a permanent placement because she obviously has a mother somewhere. And right now when she desperately needs to bond with someone, she’ll be going somewhere on a temporary basis.’
Why was she telling this stranger her worries? Liz wondered, frowning at the man as if he’d somehow drawn the words from her by …
Osmosis?
Magic?
She had no idea by what. Perhaps it was because he was here that she’d rattled on, because worrying about Alexandra was preferable to worrying about her own problems.
‘You think the mother might return to claim her? Is that why the placement is temporary?’
Liz shook her head.
‘I doubt she’ll return to claim her. If she’d wanted her, why leave her in the first place? But if the authorities find the mother, they will do what they can to help her should she decide to keep the baby. It’s a delicate situation but, whatever happens, until little Alexandra is officially given up for adoption, she’ll be in limbo.’
Like me, Liz thought, and almost patted her burgeoning belly.
The man was frowning at her.
‘You are concerned?’ he asked.
‘Of course I’m concerned,’ Liz told him. ‘This is a baby we’re talking about. She’s already had a rough start, so she deserves the very best.’
It didn’t add up, Khalifa decided. This woman’s attitude to a stranger’s child, and her apparent disregard for her own pregnancy, although perhaps he was reading her wrongly. Perhaps this was her work face, and at home she talked and sang to her unborn child as much as Zara had to hers.
She and her partner talked and sang—
‘Will the authorities also look for the baby’s father?’ he asked, and surprised a smile out of her.
‘Harder to do, especially without the mother, although Alexandra’s plight has been well publicised in local and interstate papers. The father may not have known the mother was pregnant. A man spends the night with a woman, and these days probably takes precautions, but there’s no sign that flashes up in the morning, reminding him to check back in a few weeks to see if she’s pregnant.’
There was no bitterness in the words and he doubted very much that her pregnancy had resulted from a chance encounter. Klutz she might be, but everything he’d read about her suggested she was very intelligent.
Though klutz?
‘What’s a klutz?’
Now she laughed, and something shifted in his chest.
Was it because the laughter changed her from a reasonably attractive woman to a beautiful one, lit from within by whatever delight the question had inspired?
Because the blue eyes he was drawn to behind the glasses were sparkling with humour?
He didn’t think so. No, it was more the laughter itself—so free and wholesome—so good to hear. Did people laugh out loud less these days or was it just around him they were serious?
‘It’s a word we use for a clumsy person. I’m forever dropping things—not babies, of course—or knocking stuff over, or running into people. Hence the really, really horrible glasses. Rimless ones, thin gold frames, fancy plastic—I kill them all. Bumping into a door, or dropping them, or sitting on them, I’ve broken glasses in ways not yet invented. I tried contact lenses for a while but kept losing them—usually just one, but always the same one. So I had five right eyes and no left, which would have been okay for a five-eyed monster, of course. Anyway, now I go for the heaviest, strongest, thickest frames available. I’m a typical klutz!’
She hesitated, as if waiting for his comment on klutz-dom, but he was still considering his reaction to her laughter and before he could murmur some polite assurance that she probably wasn’t that bad, she was speaking again.
‘Not that you need to worry about my work abilities, I’m always totally focussed when I’m on the job. In fact, that’s probably my problem outside it—in my head I’m still in the unit, worrying about one or other of our small charges.’
Yes, he could understand that, but what he couldn’t understand was how freely this woman chatted with a virtual stranger. Every instinct told him she wasn’t a chatterer, yet here she was, rattling on about her clumsiness and monsters and an abandoned baby.
Was she using words to hide something?
Talking to prevent him asking questions?
He had no idea, but he’d come to see the unit, not concern himself with this particular employee.
Which was why he was surprised to hear himself asking if there was somewhere other than this alcove off the passageway where they could sit down and talk.
‘Of course! We’ve got a canteen in the courtyard, really lovely, but I suppose you’ve seen it already. I’ll just let someone know where I’ll be.’
She stepped,