Meredith Webber - Date with a Surgeon Prince

In the post-op ward, bright with murals of colourful forests and wild animals, Marni found most rooms occupied not only by the patient but by a clutch of family members as well—black-robed women, white-robed men.

‘Can I help you?’ a passing nurse inquired.

‘A little boy who had a cleft palate operation this morning. I was one of the theatre staff and wondered how he was doing.’

‘Ah, you mean Safi. Do you wish to visit him?’

‘I wouldn’t want to intrude on his family,’ Marni said.

‘You won’t,’ The nurse told her. ‘In fact, it would be good if you could visit him. He’s not local but has come here for all his surgery. The hospital takes many children from neighbouring countries because we have the doctors with the skills to help them, and this wonderful facility where they can recover, but often the parents cannot afford to accompany the child. The nurses will do their best to see these children are not too lonely, but most of the time—’

‘You’re too busy,’ Marni finished for her. ‘I understand, but I’m far away from home myself so I’ll be happy to visit Safi when I can.’

Following the nurse’s directions, she found Safi’s room, knocked quietly then went in. The little boy turned wide, troubled eyes towards her.

‘Hello,’ she said, aware he probably had no idea of English but not knowing what language he might speak. ‘I’ve come to visit you.’

She sat beside him and held his hand, wishing she’d brought a toy or a book. Although this boy was eight and she’d been only two when she’d first gone to live with her grandfather, she remembered how Pop had helped her feel at home—he’d sung to her.

Dredging back through her memory, she sang the nursery rhymes of her childhood, using her hands as she had back then, making a star that twinkled in the sky and an itsy-bitsy spider climbing up a water spout.

Safi regarded her quite seriously but when she sang ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ for the fourth time, he joined in with his hands then smiled at her.

The smile made her want to cry for his aloneness, but apparently the music had soothed him and he fell asleep.

Not wanting to disturb him too soon, she sat by the bed, holding his hand, her mind drifting through the memories of the tumultuous few weeks since she’d made the decision to come to Ablezia, stumbling out of the drift when she thought of her goal— her goal, not Pop’s.

Could she do it? Go cold-bloodedly into a relationship with a man simply to rid herself of her virginity?

Hot-bloodedly if it was Gaz! The thought popped into her head and Marni knew heat was colouring her cheeks.

Think sensibly!

It wasn’t that she’d thought it precious, the virginity thing. It had just happened, partly, she knew, as the result of having a wayward mother who flitted like a butterfly from man to man. But the biggest hurdle had been growing up with two elderly men who thought the world of her, and not wanting to ever do anything that would make them think less of her.

So she’d pulled back through her late teens when her friends had been happily, and often unhappily, experimenting with sex, although, to be honest, there’d never been a boy with whom she’d desperately wanted to go to bed.

At university, her lack of experience had embarrassed her enough for her to be cautious, then, probably because of the virginity thing, she’d virtually stopped dating, somehow ashamed to admit, if a relationship had developed, her intact state. Until Jack—

Enough brooding!

But Marni still sighed as she lifted the little fingers that had been clasped in hers and kissed the back of Safi’s hand.

Who would have thought it could be so hard?

She stole silently out of the room, turning her thoughts back to the child, knowing she’d return and wondering just where she could buy toys and books to cheer the little boy’s recovery.

Nelson would send whatever she wanted but he was busy with Pop—she’d check out the internet when she went back to her room.

As she passed the nurses’ station, nerves prickled along her spine and glancing over her shoulder she saw the back of a tall, dark-haired man bent slightly to listen to what the nurse at the desk was saying.

Of course it’s not him, she told herself, though why had her nerves reacted?

Surely she wasn’t going to tingle when she saw every tall, dark and handsome stranger!

NO GAZ IN Theatre the next day or the next, and Marni decided, as she made her way down the children’s ward to visit Safi, that she was pleased, she just had to convince herself of the fact. But the sadness in the little boy’s eyes as she entered his room banished all other thoughts. She sat beside him, took his hand, said ‘Hello’ then ‘ Salaam ’, one of the few words she’d managed to remember from Jawa’s language lessons.

Safi smiled and repeated the word, then rattled off what might have been questions, although Marni didn’t have a clue. Instead she opened up the folder of pictures she’d printed off the internet, showing Safi a map of Australia and pointing to herself, then one of Ablezia. Using a cut-out plane, she showed how she’d flown from Australia to Ablezia.

The little boy took the plane and pointed from it to her. She nodded. ‘Aeroplane,’ she said. ‘A big jet plane, from here…’ she pointed again ‘…to here.’

Safi nodded but kept hold of the plane, zooming it around in the air.

Marni flipped through her folder, bringing out pictures of a koala, a wombat and a kangaroo. She put them all on the map of Australia and when Safi picked up the picture of the kangaroo, she hopped around the room, delighting the little boy, who giggled at her antics.