Margaret Barker - Summer With A French Surgeon

‘But what about your own friends? Didn’t they think …?’

‘Oh, they were happy to accept the free drinks but they thought I’d gone mad … which actually I had, for the first time in my life! I’d always been so careful to toe the line and do everything my mother and father told me … especially my mother. She’d insisted I mustn’t marry until I was well established in my career. She used to constantly tell me about how she’d sacrificed her ambitions and forced herself to be content with life as a country GP, married to a GP, struggling with a huge workload whilst bringing up a family.’

She looked across the table at Bernard, who was hanging on her every word. She took a deep breath as she remembered her totally out-of-character stupidity in those early days of her relationship with the charismatic but totally unreliable Tony.

‘You see, I was totally blown away by Tony’s charismatic aura. I’d never seen anyone like him before except on TV or in a film. Looking back and remembering, I can’t believe how gullible I was in those days. I feel as if I’m remembering something that happened to someone else, a little sister if I’d had one, someone with no experience of real life—which, in a way, was exactly how I was. I couldn’t take my eyes off this tall, handsome character in the well-cut, expensive suit who seemed to demand attention from everybody who was listening to his deep, sexy voice.’

She paused as the weird memories from her past came back to her.

She took a deep breath as she watched Bernard’s reaction. Yes, he was a good listener and definitely seemed to want her to continue.

‘Tony was proud of the fact that he was a self-made man who’d come from a poor background. At the time I just couldn’t help admiring him and then the admiration blossomed into something more dangerous and I fell for him, hook, line and sinker, whilst enjoying the fact that he seemed attracted to me.’

‘So he was impressed by the fact that you were a medical student?’

‘Oh, he thought I was a good catch. He told me during our disastrous marriage that he’d thought I must be from a wealthy family because we were all doctors. How wrong he was! Our education was the top priority to my parents and that made a big hole in the family budget.

‘What I didn’t realise was that his business deals were getting fewer and further between and he needed to find a wealthy wife to help keep him in the lifestyle he’d got used to during his successful years. My parents met him for the first time at our registry office wedding. My mother could hardly disguise her dislike of him and she made no secret of the fact that I’d let her down badly. That hurt … that really hurt.’

Her voice faltered as she remembered the angst she’d suffered, knowing full well that it was all her fault, knowing she’d hurt her mother who’d given up so much to raise her family. She shifted in her seat, pulling the sweater around her shoulders as she glanced away from Bernard towards the beautiful seascape in front of them. Maybe she should stop talking about her past and give him a chance to recover from his busy day.

‘Bernard, you’re a good listener but I don’t want to bore you.’

‘Please continue! I’m fascinated. I can see where you’re coming from now. I do like to take an interest in the background of my students. As you say in England, it helps if I know what makes them tick, isn’t it, Julia?’

‘Yes, you got that exactly right, Bernard. You’re finding out what makes me tick.’

He leaned across the table. ‘I can tell you already, having known you only a couple of days. You’re aiming for the top and it isn’t easy, believe me. You’ll reach the next peak and what will you find? Another peak to climb!’

He broke off. ‘Please do go on. So you married this man from a different world? Were you happy at first?’

‘Well, for the first few weeks of our marriage Tony boasted to all his associates—I won’t call them friends because they were mostly hangers-on intent on helping themselves to his dwindling cash—about his clever young wife who was going to be a doctor. But the problem was that he thought I could pass my exams without spending time studying, be the perfect stepmother to his children when they came to stay at weekends, be a good hostess to his clients—and I quickly realised it wasn’t possible. That’s when it all turned nasty. His attitude completely changed. He seemed to think that by shouting at me he could turn me into superwoman, perfect in everything he wanted me to do for him.’

‘You have another saying in England—marry in haste, repent at leisure. Isn’t that right?’ Bernard was watching her reaction. ‘Was that what happened?’

‘Exactly! He changed completely once the ring was on my finger and he realised my family hadn’t endowed me with money. One of the things he told me before we married was that having fathered twins who were then five, a boy and a girl, he didn’t want any more children. It was a struggle to come to terms with that because I’d always hoped I would have children of my own when I’d established my career.

‘I subjugated my own desires for parenthood by immersing myself in taking care of my stepchildren. I loved those two as if they were my own and it was a terrible wrench when we split up and I lost all contact with them.’

Bernard noticed the emotional waver in her voice as she said this. Yes, he could see she would adore starting a family. Warning bells were ringing in his head. He mustn’t get too familiar with her.

‘So what caused you to split up?’

‘It was pressures of my work and trying to take care of my stepchildren. Tony, not being from a medical background, just didn’t understand. I adored the children, bonded with them and began to put them before my medical studies, but Tony was still dissatisfied with the amount of time I could spare him. He began to look elsewhere.

‘Everything came to a head one fateful weekend just six months after we were married. I was trying to get to grips with some revision in the study and was working on my computer when he flung open the door and told me to leave all that medical stuff and get into some expensive clothes. It was important that I should get out of my scruffy tracksuit and tart myself up so that I looked drop-dead gorgeous. He’d been speaking to a prospective client and he was taking him and his wife out for lunch. The wife, apparently, was a real doll and knew how to dress so I’d better make the effort.’

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