Within a few seconds Gladys was gone but Esther still stood frozen on the spot. Harry stood up and stepped over. He tentatively lifted an arm to put around her shoulders but stopped as she flinched.
‘Don’t touch me.’ She thudded her bag down on the table. ‘And what on earth are you doing here?’ Angry tears were flooding her eyes and he hated that this was his fault.
‘Nothing happened. You must know that, Esther.’
‘Really? All I know is that you told me you were spending the night in bed when you were actually falling out of a club in London with Penelope!’ Her words cut in before he had a chance to add anything.
Her hands were on the table, her body leaning over towards him, and he could see her whole body was shaking.
‘How’s your mum?’
‘What?’ She seemed taken aback by his question. Then she stopped and took a breath. ‘My mum is okay. Smoke inhalation. Because of her frailty, they’ve kept her in. She’ll get reassessed tomorrow.’
She sagged down onto the chair behind her and he poured her some tea. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to rush in with, but this wasn’t about him. It was about her.
Her hands were still trembling as she picked up the mug. ‘Tea.’ She grimaced.
‘I didn’t like to ask Gladys if she had any coffee,’ he added, but his light-hearted tone seemed off.
She didn’t even look at him. Just closed her eyes and leaned her head on one hand. ‘I can’t even see the house until later when the fire chief comes back. I don’t even know if anything is salvageable—if the house is even salvageable.’
Every part of him ached for her. He took a breath, knowing how these words might sound. ‘It’s only a house, Esther. You’ve still got your mum and she’s doing okay.’
She sobbed into her hand. ‘I know that. I know that. When I got to the hospital I just remembered every patient I’ve ever treated who’d been involved in a house fire. I couldn’t even breathe just thinking about it.’
He winced. He knew exactly what she meant. The way that smoke lingered in the air of the department after they’d been treated. The horrible charcoal-like smell of burning skin. It was one of the hardest things to deal with, and for Esther to think that might have been her mum...
He stood back up and walked around the table, this time not giving her opportunity to flinch. This time just pulling her up to him and hugging her to his chest.
She didn’t fight it. She just slowly wrapped her arms around his waist and stayed there. He wasn’t sure how long they stood. Much longer than the five minutes that Gladys said she’d be.
When she finally pulled her face back from his chest she just shook her head. ‘What are you doing here, Harry? Why did you come?’
The furrows in her brow were deep and her eyes littered with confusion.
‘Why do you think I came? I came because I love you, Esther, and I didn’t want you to be alone.’
Her muscles tensed and she stepped back, holding out her hands.
‘But that picture. The lies you told me...’
‘No. I told you the truth. I was in my bed. But Penelope phoned and she was in trouble. She’d gone out with someone who’d made her feel threatened. She was drunk and asked if I’d come and get her.’
Esther blinked, no words coming out. ‘What?’ It was barely a whisper.
He bent down towards her. ‘You know there’s nothing between Penelope and me. It’s just not like that. I love her like a sister, and in a way, I wish she was, at least then I’d have a family that was worth caring about.’
She stepped back and sat back down. When she looked at him again with those big blue eyes he sensed something from her. It was time for truths.
She put her hands on the table. ‘Are you going to tell me about your father? Your parents?’
He spoke honestly. It was the only way he could do this. ‘I was part of a family that my sole purpose was to be the heir. There was really no other requirement. Neither of my parents was interested in having a child. They just saw it as their duty.’
Esther just looked confused. ‘Who looked after you at home? What about school holidays? Surely you spent some time with them? They spent all your time ignoring you?’ She was shaking her head as if she really couldn’t get her head around it.
He stayed patient for a moment. Then took a deep breath. ‘Esther, you seem like a girl who spent her childhood surrounded by love. It was normal for you. It wasn’t normal for me.’ He put his hand to his chest. ‘I thought what I had was normal. I thought it was normal to have parents who didn’t look at you when you entered the room. Who didn’t care how you were, or how you felt. I spent my life being brought up by an ever-changing rota of nannies. Most of them left before I ever really got to know them. There was one maid who worked in my parents’ house for seven years—she was the only person who ever laughed and joked with me. I went to boarding school. I rarely saw other kids interact with their parents, so I thought that what I had was entirely normal.’ He felt his own voice start to break, so he stopped talking.
Esther sat with her eyes wide. As if she were taking everything in and processing it.
Harry breathed again. He was here to tell her that he loved her. He wanted her to move in with him. To take a chance on him. He had to let her know exactly what she was getting.
He tightened his grip on her hand. ‘But I’m not crazy. I know that is ridiculous. But everything about my relationship with them—my parents—coloured every part of my life. It’s hard to learn to love, to share with someone, when you’ve never had an example of that to learn from. I didn’t see it every day. That’s why you’re so important to me, Esther.’ He looked over and met her blue gaze. ‘You’re the first person I’ve met that I’ve found it easy to love.’
Her mug clattered against the table. He’d said it three times now. Once to Oona, and twice to Esther. She seemed to be listening, but was she hearing?
Her fingers tightened around the mug. ‘Why?’
He gave a slow nod. She wanted to know it all. ‘Because you never asked me for anything. You didn’t want me for anything.’ He gave a gentle smile. ‘You didn’t even like me to begin with. Then I started being around you. I could see the relationship you had with your patients and their families. I could see how you worked hard in amongst your colleagues. And you could adapt, you could work anywhere—’ his gaze met hers ‘—because you felt you had to.’
‘And that makes me easy to love?’
‘Sure it does. Because it’s all about how big your heart is, and how much you love. Your only agenda is looking after your mum. Making sure she’s okay.’ He paused for a second, wondering if he should actually say these words out loud.
‘And the worst part is that even though I know they ignored me, I spent years witnessing it. Deep down, I still wanted them to love me. When my father dropped dead, I realised that was it. It was all over. There would never be any kind of shot at redemption. I’d never get to sit at the side of my dying father’s bed and listen to him apologise for how he’d treated me, and tell me that he did actually love me. I shut all those thoughts and possibilities out.’
‘Oh, Harry, why?’ She sounded incredulous.
‘Because I wanted to be loved. I wanted to feel worthy of being loved. I wanted parents who would be proud of me. Just like your parents did. People look at me and think, He’s rich, he’s got everything. But I nev
er had an iota of what you had. I’ve spent my life keeping my distance from people. Not letting my guard down. Because letting your guard down means you can get hurt.’ His voice broke a little. ‘And you’re the only person I’ve felt able to do that with. I love watching what you have with your mum. The two of you are as close as can be. You talk all the time. You have pictures of your mum, and dad, all around your flat. And in those pictures? You’re all in each other’s arms, wrapped around each other.’ He paused again, his voice hoarse. ‘You’ve no idea how much I wish I’d had the same normal as you. And up until now, I’ve never admitted that. Not to anyone. Not even to myself.’
She blinked, her eyes wet, and as soon as he saw that he immediately wanted to take back all the parts of himself he’d exposed.
He straightened in his chair. ‘I was never abused. I was never cold, never hungry. I didn’t want for anything, really, apart from love and somebody to show some interest in me.’
‘That doesn’t make it right,’ she said bluntly. ‘We see the worst of some families in the health service. Being fed, clothed and having a roof over your head doesn’t mean you didn’t suffer from neglect. That sounds exactly like what happened.’ She moved from her chair at the other side of the table over next to him. Her gentle floral scent following her across the room. It was all he could do not to breathe in and inhale it strongly.
‘You swept me up in a fairy tale,’ she said, the edges of her voice a little sad. ‘I wasn’t looking for a prince, or a duke, but I found one anyway.’
His hands moved to her waist. ‘And is that good, or bad?’
‘Both,’ she said without qualm as she sat down in his lap. ‘You know, you’re making assumptions. I have an almost great relationship with my mother, but it’s not perfect. Not the way you think. Do you know she didn’t tell me straight away about the cancer?’
‘What?’ Harry was surprised.
She shook her head sadly. ‘She didn’t tell me straight away because she didn’t want me to worry, about her, and the fact she couldn’t manage to work any more. She didn’t want to put the responsibility on to me. I was really hurt when I found out.’ She stopped for a second and swallowed. ‘But I understood she did it out of love.’