Heart Surgeon in Portugal, page 4
‘Very nice!’ he said, sounding surprised. ‘What did you put in the eggs?’
Phew, he liked it, that was a relief - good start, Ellie. ‘Some tarragon I found growing near the kitchen door. The way my mother does it.’
‘Giovana left us some eggs then. Very considerate of her. I must thank her.’
‘Yes,’ grimaced Ellie, ‘very fresh ones too.’ With straw and unmentionable smudges clinging to their shells which she had fastidiously cleaned under the cold tap before cracking them open. Ellie was very much a city girl.
‘More bread, Mr Harland?’ He nodded vaguely, his attention now back on his papers. Ellie sliced into the rich yellow cornbread and pushed the butter and apricot jam nearer to his left elbow. ‘No need to bother with lunch today,’ he said, not even glancing up. ‘Since breakfast is late, we can have an earlier supper. You need to know that I take all my meals outside. We’ll eat out here tonight.’
Behind his back Ellie bobbed a curtsey and muttered, ‘thank you kind sir!’ under her breath. So she was expected to join him for supper as well as see to his food. And what exactly was she to cook? A search of the kitchen cupboards had turned up several packet soups and a tin of beans but precious little else.
He had an uncanny way of guessing her thoughts. ‘Giovana will be round later after she’s been to Mass. She’s very religious. Doesn’t generally work here on Sundays, but she’ll bring something over for tonight.’
Hallelujah! A ready-made meal I can pop in the microwave!
Rafe raised his head and gave Ellie a warning stare. ‘Try not to upset her. We couldn’t manage without Giovana, she’s worth her weight in gold.’
Ellie‘s mouth gaped. She began to stutter a protest but he stopped her with a ‘talk to the hand’ gesture. ‘The rest of the day is all yours. Relax and get some sun on that pasty skin. Do you good, some sunshine.’
Now where had she heard that before! ‘Aren’t you doctors supposed to discourage tanning?’ she reproved. At the tone of her voice, Rafe frowned. His dark stare travelled over her body, surveying her head to foot.
‘In your case the vitamin D will do you good. Presumably you had the sense to pack high factor sun cream?’
‘Plenty,’ Ellie snapped back at him, ‘perhaps you would like to borrow some.’ If I’m pasty you’re not exactly toasty yourself, Mr Big. she thought, lips twitching with very private amusement. Tasty maybe, but not toasty!
‘Not that you’ll need it if you’re going to go around in that spare tent outfit.’
How dare he! ‘This,’ said Ellie, plucking at the striped cotton, ‘is one of Jon’s old shirts. If it’s good enough for a French beach -’
‘Doesn’t do you any favours,’ he interrupted, and dismissed her with a wave of his hand.
Ellie thought that was downright rude. She carried the breakfast dishes back into the kitchen and set about tidying up. Only the prospect of meeting Giovana kept her spirits from sinking back into her boots. She was going to need this Wonder Woman on her side. Harland was treating her like the village idiot and it simply wasn’t fair to make judgements about her based on a few unfortunate incidents. If only Mum hadn’t made her promise not to talk about herself.
‘Oh do hurry up, Giovana!’ she urged out loud. Someone to talk to - someone to advise with the cooking, to show her where the shops were. Someone to moan to about Rafe Harland. Someone who would see her side of things, who would sympathise - even if she too idolised the wretched man, which unfortunately was more than likely.
The kitchen was all a cordon bleu chef could wish for with its expanse of richly varnished wooden cupboards and red terracotta floors, a cream Smeg fridge-freezer and a range cooker big enough to cook a meal for an army. Dressers were stacked with fine blue Portuguese crockery. Open shelves displayed gleaming copper pans - which Ellie just knew would be a nightmare to clean. Drawers were crammed with razor-sharp knives and implements. But it was the microwave which truly gladdened her heart. There was a dishwasher too, but she had yet to work out how to switch it on.
She was washing and drying breakfast dishes in the big sink when there was a gentle tap at the door and Giovana came in.
Giovana was not at all what Ellie had been expecting. She was tiny and skinny and quite old. And very shy. With scarcely a word of English. But her little brown wrinkled face was all smiles and nods and she was carrying a basket that looked far too heavy for her tiny person to have lugged down the lane from the farm.
But there was no ready meal to be popped in the microwave. Giovana had probably never eaten a ready meal in her life. Supper was to be a plucked chicken, yellow and scrawny, and with its head on. That Ellie was aghast was clearly apparent. Communicating in facial movements and hand gestures she indicated the chicken and the oven and spread her hands to indicate her helplessness. This caused Giovana great amusement and she cackled with laughter at the stupid English girl the great doctor had brought out to look after him. She spread the chicken on a wooden board and made a slicing movement with the edge of her hand to demonstrate chopping its little head off. Pointed to the oven dials to indicate temperature for cooking, and counted on her fingers to show for how long. Out of the basket came lettuce with the soil clinging to the roots and wrapped in newspaper, tomatoes and peppers and spring onions, and a pot of fresh local yogurt. Ellie hoped she would cope; she was going to have to.
Giovana was very sweet and there were lots of smiles and gestures.
That there wouldn’t be any girlie chats was only too clear.
Ellie rang home and complained to her mother: ‘It’s yellow and it’s skinny and the head’s still on!’
‘Lovely, darling - a farm-reared corn-fed bird, perfect for the two of you. Weigh it first to calculate the cooking time. And allow twenty minutes extra. Make a nice salad dressing like I showed you.’
‘Mum, they don’t have powdered mustard. Just ready-mixed stuff in a jar.’
‘So use that. You’ve got lemons and olive oil. Must dash – late for a staff meeting. Bye darling.’
Ellie found herself a secret corner of the garden on the far side of the house and well away from Mr Big who had now removed himself to his study where he was making a lot of calls on his Blackberry and using his laptop. Earlier he had come into the kitchen for more coffee - he was getting through gallons of the stuff. No wonder the man was so crotchety - he must be hyper with all that caffeine coursing through his veins.
He had found her staring unhappily at the plucked chicken which was stretched out on a chopping board. Summing up the situation in a glance, he raised his eyes to heaven, selected a big sharp knife from the knife block and set to work. Neither of them spoke and to Ellie his silence seemed yet another reprimand. He turned the bird on its back, grabbed a foot and sliced into the joint. Then reached for the head …
Ellie turned away. Rafe glanced at her forlorn back, raised an eyebrow, finished the job in seconds and left her to it. ‘He thinks I’m a flake!’ she mourned. ‘I’ve seen dozens of gory operations without turning a hair so why should preparing a chicken throw me?’ … Because it’s got its little head on, you idiot city girl jeered a voice in her ear that sounded mockingly like Mr Big’s.
She spread her towel in the shade of an almond tree on a patch of coarse grass and settled down to read one of her set texts. Post Qualification: The First Few Weeks. It was perfectly safe. RH would never find her hidden away over here. But the heat was making her drowsy and within moments Ellie had turned onto her stomach and was fast asleep, her head pillowed on her folded arms …
Supper didn’t go quite as smoothly as breakfast. The farm-reared bird was full of flavour and not at all dry thanks to Mrs Robey’s suggestion of inserting a lemon into the cavity before roasting. Dear kind Giovana had returned with another newly baked loaf, this one a dark rye bread which was going down rather well with Ellie’s idea of roasting peppers and tomatoes in olive oil alongside the chicken. Rafe ate everything and seemed in reasonably good humour. He left the piece of boiled cardboard he found in his soup without comment on the side of his plate. The soup was quite tasty in spite of the fact that it was out of a packet and the instructions were incomprehensible. Next time she would remember to add the cold water more slowly to avoid those nasty little floating lumps. ‘Look,’ said RH, refilling her wine glass with chilled vinho verde, ‘I don’t want to eat hot soup in this climate. Go down to the fish market tomorrow and buy a dozen fresh sardines. I’ll grill them on the barbecue in the evening.’
‘Sardines?’ repeated Ellie, glancing at the waters of the pool as if they might be swarming with the little blighters.
‘You’ll need to get there early when the catch comes in.’
Ellie took a big gulp of wine almost draining her glass, but this time Rafe didn’t top her up; probably thought those flushed cheeks indicated she had had quite enough. He hitched his chair away from the table, stretching out his long legs in pale beige chinos, interlocking his fingers behind his head as he stared out across the peaceful gardens. The sleeves of his white linen shirt were rolled up to the elbows and while he looked away into the distance Ellie’s own eyes studied the carved muscles of his arms. He smelled so nice - soap and shampoo and after-sun lotion. Those lines of fatigue which had made his expression so severe, were now much less obvious.
Jon had said it was a privilege to be given the chance to look after RH and it would be just too mean for anyone to begrudge the workaholic surgeon a week of rest and relaxation… But I have to admit it, she mused: I will be quite glad when he goes to this Clinic place. It’s all a bit of a strain, just him and me, the two of us, here at the Casa all day. He’s on my mind the whole damn time.’
She shivered involuntarily.
‘You getting cold?’
‘Me? No!’
Neither of them had exactly dressed for dinner, but she thought she looked nice… well, she hoped RH would think she did. Her white cotton top was short and boxy, almost showing her midriff but not quite, the wide boat neckline almost slipping off one shoulder - but not quite. That a bra strap showed was part of the look. Her green skirt reached her ankles and was a narrow tube of cotton and lycra. On her feet she wore sparkly flipflops and round her ankles a generous smear of mozzie repellant. She hadn’t been bitten yet, but Paradise was proving to have more than its fair share of nasty moments.
‘Didn’t think you could be – not in this heat - but after glandular fever you never know.’ He waited. ‘Anything else to eat tonight?’
‘Oh. Yes. Sorry!’
She hurried back to the kitchen, returning with figs from the garden, thick local yoghurt and honey from the Monchique Hills - well, that’s what it said on the label. When they had finished, RH seemed in no hurry to banish Ellie to the kitchen but questioned her about the glandular fever.
‘Nasty at your age—infectious mononucleosis.’ Rafe rolled his tongue with relish around each syllable. ‘The presence in the blood of a large number of mononuclear white cells, one of the characteristics of the disease.’
Ellie was itching to let the doctor know she was less ignorant of the medical facts than he assumed. But Mum had been adamant and she had literally to keep her mouth shut tight.
‘I take it they've done the Paul-Bunnell Test?’
To the best of her knowledge there were no other specific tests for glandular fever. ‘I think they’ve done it,’ she coughed into her hand, mumbling ‘yeah - the old bunny test.’ Deliberately avoiding his narrow-eyed stare, her face a picture of wide-eyed innocence, Ellie gazed past the doctor to where acres of rough pasture stretched beyond the Casa’s boundaries. A herd of Giovana’s white goats could be glimpsed grazing among wild vines and hazy blue flowers like tiny lupins.
To Ellie’s relief, Rafe changed tack: he’d obviously decided the patient was clueless and it wasn’t worth taking this any further.
‘A couple more days, then I’ll be off early and getting breakfast and lunch there.’
‘Breakfast?’ echoed Ellie in surprise.
What Rafe said next froze her stone cold sober.
‘Breakfast at the Centre. Theatre lists start early. As you would know -’
Ellie felt herself stop breathing …
‘- your brother being a surgeon,’ continued Rafe smoothly.
‘Yes, of course .. um, he does - did, I mean, when he was doing general surgery. Of course now he’s chosen to specialise in A&E it‘s a bit different.’ To cover her confusion Ellie leapt to her feet and began stacking dishes on a tray, clearing the table and heading for the kitchen where she hastily clattered things into the dishwasher before heading for the safety of her own room.
Next morning she was up bright and early, laid up breakfast for Mr Harland and drove out into the sunshine to track down the fish market in the nearby town. It wasn’t hard to find. Ellie parked the car and headed to where seagulls were wheeling and crying and the reek of fish and seafood hung pungently in the air. Inside the market the choice was astonishing. Everywhere she looked were plastic orange crates set out on trestles where fishermen were displaying the morning’s catch. All the varieties Ellie had ever heard of - and then some! Squid and tuna, sea bass, plaice and mackerel; red mullet and swordfish and octopus and little soft-shelled spider crabs. And could that really be shark?
But Ellie was after sardines, and spoiled for choice. Where should she start? Whose prices were best?
‘Hello!’ exclaimed a voice behind her. ‘Aren’t you the little girl from the plane?’ Ellie didn’t appreciate being described as little - but an English voice in all this confusion was something to gladden the heart. She swung round and there smiling at her was someone she knew she had seen somewhere before … a very attractive older woman, wicker basket over one arm and huge black sunglasses perched on top of her chic silver bob.
Of course! The lady sitting on the other side of the aisle on the Faro flight, cool and soignée in the midst of the jostling hubbub of the fish market. Today she wore an Italian-designed loose and gauzy lilac dress, and Ellie in her white strappy tee shirt and denim shorts felt hot and bothered and knew she must look it. But a beam of genuinely pleased recognition transformed her face. ‘Why hello!’ she exclaimed.
‘Vivienne Carr,’ her new friend introduced herself, raising a perfect eyebrow to watch for Ellie’s reaction.
‘I’m Eleanor Robey,’ Ellie said eagerly, ‘Ellie for short. Isn’t this place incredible? I have to buy sardines and I’m so bemused I just don’t know where to start.’
‘Then I shall take you to Bernardo’s stall. He’s right over there so follow me. I always get my fish from Bernardo. Delightful chap – the freshest fish you could ask for, and so reasonably priced.’
Vivienne headed purposefully through the mêlée with Ellie close behind. ‘Isn’t this splendid, darling. I come down here twice a week.’
‘Really?’ said Ellie, trying not to lose her new friend in the throng.
‘Here we are, this is Bernardo. Ola Bernardo! Bom dia …’
Fifteen minutes later the two of them were sitting beneath the striped awning of a café on the sea front, their fishy purchases safely stowed in a freezer box in the boot of Ellie’s blue Seat. Over coffee she was giving Vivienne a potted explanation of her work at the Casa, and it was only on the way home she suddenly realised that even though her companion claimed not to know Mr Big it might not have been wise to mention the nursing degree … at any rate, the story of the flight and Ellie’s arrival at the Casa had given them both a good deal of amusement, and the two had arranged to meet again later in the week at the fish market.
‘You’ll never guess,’ said Ellie that evening. She had been saving this exciting titbit for after supper: a safe topic of conversation and one that shouldn’t draw her into any pitfalls with her sharp-witted employer. RH was well-fed and in mellow mood. Vivienne had charmed Bernardo into preparing the sardines for Ellie so all she needed to do was light the barbecue well in advance and prepare the vegetables.
Good as his word, Rafe took over the cooking, wrapping each sardine in a fig leaf and adding them to the barbecue with oil-coated courgettes and peppers. With lemon juice and more olive oil, mopped up with another of Giovana’s loaves – this one with added potato and cheese - you couldn’t ask for a tastier meal. And Ellie would go to the fish market as often as Mr Big wished if it put him in such a pleasant mood …
‘You’ll never guess,’ she said again.
‘What?’ said RH, picking out of the leftovers some fishy scraps and feeding them to Giovana’s skinny grey cat who was rubbing round his legs and mewing for attention. The little creature sat down beside Rafe’s wicker chair, his hand dangling over the side as he stroked the small purring head.
Ellie flicked her fingers but Miss Puss refused to be tempted away from her hero. It was Mr Big she wanted, the heart-breaking Mr Big. The two of them seemed to be having a love affair.
‘I don’t play guessing games,’ he said brusquely. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’
‘Nothing. I’ll get the fruit salad.’
‘Oh, sit still and get on with it.’ He rubbed his forehead and looked bored.
‘No Mr Harland.’ Ellie knew she sounded like a small child saying ‘Shan't!’
He gave a loud sigh. ‘Rafe,’ he said. ‘You can call me Rafe.’
Ellie toyed with the idea of saying snootily that it would not be appropriate, but actually she rather liked the idea. Rafe. Ellie and Rafe. Let me introduce you to Rafe, she could say to Vivienne, her new best friend. Anyway, in the modern hospital world nurses and doctors routinely used each other’s first names. But Mr Big wasn’t to know she knew that. And she was here as cook, not as an RGN. Sort of Upstairs and Downstairs.
‘I met someone this morning. Down at the fish market.’
Rafe swivelled in his chair and regarded her thoughtfully. He was thinking she had met a guy - maybe a young Portuguese, and was trying to tell him she wanted to go clubbing later. A pretty fair-headed girl was bound to attract attention ‘Look Ellie - if you want to go out tonight, nothing’s stopping you.’ The look of astonishment which spread across her soft features was almost comical. ‘Are you not trying to say you want to go out with some dude you met this morning?’
