our meal hasn’t arrived,’ he told her, speaking quietly and gently for he could see she was genuinely upset. Somehow she’d convinced herself that whatever it was she wanted to ask was OK, yet when it came to saying it, she’d baulked.
What could have been so outrageous?
He tried to remember what she’d said, but the words, spoken so quickly in her crisp South African voice, had all run together and he’d been more interested in watching her face and seeing her mounting embarrassment to really listen.
‘Moussaka?’
‘Mine,’ he told the waitress, then watched as she placed the lamb dish in front of Grace.
‘Perhaps a bottle of wine, the Newnhams Shiraz,’ he suggested, more to the waitress than Grace. Neither of them would be involved in Theatre the following day, and the alcohol might help Grace relax.
Though why he was worrying about her, he didn’t know. She was a self-confident, thoroughly together woman—and very capable of getting her own way. His presence in this restaurant right now was evidence of that.
Had he ordered the wine to dull the impact of dinner with her? Grace wondered, thinking how idiotic she must have sounded, words somersaulting out of her mouth, tumbling over each other and making no sense at all. She couldn’t even remember how far she’d got, her embarrassment so acute her cheeks had been burning!
She tried to concentrate on her meal, which looked and smelled delicious, but she was afraid her hands would shake when she picked up her knife and fork.
‘Ah, wine. Try this. It’s not well known—in fact, the restaurant gets it from a small producer so you won’t find it in bottle shops. You do drink wine?’
Even if she’d been a lifelong and committed teetotaller she’d have agreed to try it. Anything to stop this man thinking she was a complete klutz!
She nodded and watched as he poured the ruby-coloured wine into her glass, then she picked the glass up and lifted it towards him, trying desperately to behave normally, although despair had taken over every cell in her body as she’d finally realised just how stupid her idea had been.
‘To your stay in Australia,’ he proposed, and Grace acknowledged the toast with a dip of her head. Tiny flowers fell forward onto the table and, realising they must be in her hair, she lifted a hand to brush them out.
‘Don’t,’ he said, reaching out his free hand to catch hers in mid-air. ‘They look so pretty.’
‘Pretty?’ she echoed, the despair finding voice in bitterness. ‘That’s the last thing anyone’s ever called me.’
Still holding her hand, he brought it down to the table, where he rested it, leaving his lying negligently on top of it.
‘The flowers are pretty—they’re pretty in your hair,’ he said, and her bitterness deepened. ‘But you, you’re way past pretty—you’re beautiful.’
He raised his glass again then took a sip of the wine, but she was too flabbergasted by what he’d said to even think about sipping hers.
Beautiful?
He must want something.
She was good-looking, she knew that, even attractive most of the time, but her mouth was too big and her nose too long for beauty and she was too tall…
She shook her head, denying his assertion, and sipped some wine, then wiggled her hand out from under his and tucked it under the table where she had hoped it would stop remembering the feel of the weight of his and the texture of his skin.
Eventually!
‘Eat!’ he ordered, and by now she was too confused to do anything but obey him.
The meal was delicious, the wine smooth and mellow, slipping down so easily he was filling her glass before she realised she’d emptied it. They talked of the hospital, of the genesis of the paediatric surgery unit at the hospital called Jimmie’s, its future, and the people in the team. Doctors and nurses, Theo classified them all for her, every one of them good in their own way but each with special talents.
‘And your future—after your time in Sydney?’ he asked as the waitress took her plate and she’d said no to dessert. She sat back to enjoy the rest of the wine in her glass, more relaxed than she could believe possible.
‘I’ll go back home. I’ve been offered a place on a similar team in Cape Town. My father lives there and as he’s not getting any younger I want to be near him.’
‘Family’s important,’ Theo agreed, and whether it was the wine, or that simple statement, or just that she really, really needed to find out if he was the one, she found herself explaining once again.
‘My father is to me,’ she said. ‘He brought me up. My mother died when I was too young to remember her, and though he was a busy man—he was an orthopaedic surgeon—he always had time for me, time to read me a story at bedtime, and to listen to my worries and concerns, and to encourage me to do better, and to help me with my studies.’
She paused, wondering what effect this sudden outpouring of information was having on her companion, but Theo was leaning back in his chair, sipping his wine, if not absorbed in her conversation at least listening politely.
So she barged on, anxious to get it said once and for all.
‘It’s because of him I want a child—well, partly because of him. He’s seventy at the end of the year and I know a grandchild isn’t a normal kind of birthday present, but you have to understand my father. He can trace his family back for generations—back to the Scottish Jacobite rebellions, and further, even to the Vikings who conquered parts of Scotland from time to time. His grandfather emigrated to South Africa, but my father has always been interested in his Scottish heritage—in family. But with my mother dying, and him not marrying again, he was left with an only child and one who, at the moment, looks like being the end of the line. I know he’s proud of all I’ve achieved, and he’d never think less of me for not having a child, but deep down I feel I’ve let him down by not producing one—not producing someone to carry on his bloodline.’
She sneaked another look at Theo but he hadn’t fallen asleep neither was he yawning with boredom.
‘As I said, I’m thirty-five so I haven’t got much time, quite apart from his milestone birthday being this year. Which is what I wanted to ask you—being single and not in a relationship and all. I considered IVF but I don’t really want an unknown donor and there’d be no responsibility on your part, of course, it would be like you gave at the sperm bank—’
‘Grace!’
He didn’t yell her name but he said it with enough force to stop her in mid-flight.
‘Yes?’
He’d abandoned his wineglass and his relaxed pose and was leaning forward across the table, frowning fiercely at her.
‘Are you for real? Are you honestly sitting there, asking a virtual stranger—we only met yesterday, after all—for some of his sperm? Why not ask some hobo out in the street? For a few dollars you’d probably get all you need. Better still, go down to the beach and ask some of the board-riders—they’re outdoors all day, healthy—’
‘Stop! What you’re saying is ridiculous. Of course, what I asked was ridiculous as well, but you’re a doctor, you should understand. If I know where it’s come from I have some idea of genetic qualities. Yes, I know it was stupid to ask you when we’ve only just met, but I’ve thought about—about getting, you know, into a kind of relationship with someone so I could do this, but I’m not good at flirting and I’m a disaster with relationships, and anyway going to bed with someone I didn’t like just to get pregnant seemed wrong somehow, quite apart from the fact that if I did get pregnant I’d feel guilty, as if I’d stolen something from him.’
‘And asking a man for some sperm over dinner seemed OK?’ His voice, crisp with disbelief,