Merger By Matrimony

Nine months had changed a lot, not least on the compound, where sensibly-spent money had improved living conditions and amassed more much-needed staff to cope with Henri’s departure, her own and, in due course, her father’s. He would be working in the medical facilities of the Felt Pharmaceutical subsidiary, which had now only been going for a matter of a few weeks.

Nine months of absolute bliss. It still seemed hard to believe that dreams had come true…

When Callum, supposedly on his death bed and utterly unconscious to anything happening around him, had murmured those words, Destiny had been overcome by the twin emotions of shock and mortification.

They had both stared down at the bed to find Callum looking at them, eyes open and with an expression which, if not perky, had been amused enough to inform her that his brush with death had been successfully outmanoeuvred.

‘My boy, you’re with us at last.’ Her father scurried around, taking all the routine medical checks, making sure that everything was now returning to the land of the living.

All Destiny could think of to say was, ‘How long have you been listening to our conversation?’

‘Is that any way to greet the man you adore, when he’s been on the brink of death?’

Aside from his voice sounding weaker, any near-death experience had certainly left his mind as alert as ever it had been and his sense of humour utterly intact.

‘Which,’ she hissed, bending down to look at him, at once gutted by such an enormous feeling of relief that he was out of the woods that it was quite possible to allow her embarrassed anger at being eavesdropped to get the better of her, ‘he has clearly managed to overcome.’ He’d put her through hell, and now here he was, frail, haggard, feeble—yet still capable of rousing within her emotions that left no room for anything else.

What a consummate actor! Lying there on the bed. Had he heard everything she had told her father? Every word? And had he been aware all along of her presence in the room, hovering over him like a desperate mother hen, not bothering to hide her tears at night because she’d foolishly imagined that he couldn’t hear them?

What did it matter, anyway? He had heard enough.

‘Don’t pester the man, Dessie,’ her father ordered, unable to hear their sotto voce conversation but more than capable of hearing the tenor of her voice, which contained no hint of any soothing bedside manner.

‘Yes, my worshipping nurse, a little sympathy, please.’ Callum gave her a weak, pathetic smile, and then added insult to injury by asking her whether she would mind feeding him a little something, because he really was quite hungry now.

‘Does he think this is a hotel?’ Destiny fulminated to her father, once they were safely out of the choking confines of the room, which seemed to have shrunk to the size of a matchbox the minute Callum opened his eyes. And his mouth, for that matter.

‘He may be conscious, but he obviously hasn’t had a good look around at his surroundings as yet,’ she chuntered on, ignoring her father’s lack of input into the conversation. ‘He might just have realised that rustling up a few tasty morsels might be a tad more difficult than he thinks!’

‘We could see our way to bread and soup, Dessie,’ her father reminded her gently. ‘There’s no need to take it out on the poor man just because he happened to overhear what you were saying to me about—’

‘Don’t remind me!’ Destiny nearly wailed, slopping soup into a bowl, then carefully re-covering it to protect it from the flies.

‘He’s been through a bad experience. Can you imagine how hideous this whole thing must have been for him? The man nearly died, for goodness’s sake!’

‘I’m not saying that I’m not glad he’s on the mend. I’m just saying that the two-faced cad had a right to let us know what was going on before I embarked on my soul-wrenching confession. But oh, no! Typical!’

She then proceeded to spend the next two days running and fetching for him. In her father’s presence he professed to be much weaker than he was, refusing to answer any of her questions with a feeble wave of his hand whilst still being able to insist that she sit with him while he fed himself, taking ages in the process, and that she talk to him because, although he couldn’t possibly communicate for any length of time, he still needed to feel the presence of other people around him. By ‘other people,’ he meant her. And having her around gave him ample opportunity to remind her of the heart-wrenching confession he had wilfully overheard.

He constantly asked her if he really was her beloved darling, and when she refused to answer smiled in an infuriatingly knowing way.