CAROL MARINELLI - The Elusive Consultant

Max didn’t say anything, just watched as she leant back in her chair and nibbled at the skin around her thumbnail, her serious brown eyes finally coming back to meet his. ‘Mum just refuses to believe it, she just can’t see that it’s all happening again.’

For an age he didn’t answer, just stared at Tessa thoughtfully. ‘That’s her prerogative, Tessa,’ Max said slowly. ‘Maybe she knows exactly what’s going on and just chooses to ignore it. The truth hurts sometimes.

‘Anyway, enough about grown-up games, let’s get on to brighter things.’ He gave her the benefit of a very nice smile and Tessa gave a grateful sigh as Max sensibly moved the subject to safer ground. ‘I missed you while you were away.’

The grateful sigh caught in Tessa’s throat. Max saying he had missed her definitely wasn’t safer ground. Max saying he had missed her sent her imaginations soaring, and her heart fluttering, so for something to do Tessa’s thumb went up for a second nibble. ‘Don’t you mean you miss the way I do your bloods and generally clean up behind you?’ Tessa said, forcing a half-laugh, trying to keep the conversation light.

‘No, Tessa, I missed you .’

Wrong answer.

An imaginary gong sounded in Tessa’s head and she could almost hear the clock ticking as she struggled to come up with a witty reply, a quick bucket of water to douse the undercurrents that were sizzling across the table. What the hell was going on? Max never spoke like this, never leant across the table with puppy-dog eyes and nervous smiles. He’d only said that he’d missed her, Tessa frantically reasoned, but it wasn’t so much what he’d said but how he’d said it. Not once in their five-year history had there been any subtle connotations, any shifts in tempo, but all of a sudden here Max was telling her he’d missed her, with eyes that seemed to be directed to her very soul.

‘The chopper’s out,’ Tessa said in a flurry of nervousness, gesturing to the window and wishing she could rest her burning cheeks against the cool glass. ‘I can’t see anything going on, but it isn’t their usual time for a practice run.’

The tension that had built around them popped like an overblown balloon as Max turned his attention to the window. ‘It isn’t a practice, they just called for a doctor assist.’

Tessa heard the edge in his voice and found herself smiling. Max lived for call-outs, unlike Tessa whose blood ran cold each and every time she was summoned to the chopper. ‘So how come you’re not out with them?’

‘It’s Chris Burgess’s turn this week, lucky thing. I haven’t been out to a good rescue for ages.’

‘We were out there two weeks ago,’ Tessa pointed out. ‘I’ve still got the vertigo to prove it. I don’t know how you can get such a kick out of it.’

‘Tessa Hardy, you know you love it really,’ he teased, but Tessa shook her head adamantly.

‘Solid ground does it for me every time. I freeze inside when they ask for a nurse assist. It’s not the patients that worry me. I enjoy a good multi-trauma just as much as you, Max, and I love going out with the road ambulance, but helicopters...’ Tessa gave a small shudder. ‘If I never set foot in one again it will be too soon.’ Her gaze drifted back to the window. The helicopter was long since out of sight, the perfect scene uninterrupted now. ‘It’s hard to believe someone might be in trouble out there when it all looks so picture perfect.’

‘Isn’t it just?’

Something in his voice dragged Tessa’s attention away from the view, a distant pensive note that sounded so, so out of place with Max’s usual easygoing manner.

‘I guess things aren’t always as idyllic as they seem,’ he said slowly, the dark note to his voice so audible Tessa felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.

‘Are you all right, Max?’

For a second his eyes crinkled, but not in their usual sunny way as his face broke into a smile. Instead, deep, unfamiliar lines grooved the edges of his grey eyes as the beginning of a frown appeared. ‘It’s nothing,’ Max mumbled, fiddling with the salt shaker, which instantly hit her as strange. It was normally Tessa who fiddled, Tessa who played with her food, the sugar bowl, the teaspoons—anything she could get her hands on actually—while Max sat nonchalantly, a look of vague amusement on his carefree face.

‘If there’s a problem Max, you can talk to me,’ Tessa offered tentatively. ‘We’re friends.’

A look Tessa couldn’t quite interpret flashed in his eyes and she was quite sure, as she registered his Adam’s apple bob in his throat, that Max was working his way up to tell her something.

‘Here you are, Dr Slater, sunny side up, just as you like them.’ Like the channels changing on the television, instantly the vision shifted. The wistful moment disappeared and the larrikin was back as Max licked his lips, while Narelle busied herself arranging knives and forks.

Max always licked his lips when a plate was put in front of him, Tessa mused. He was the only person who enjoyed food as much as she did. They spent hours, literally hours, talking about recipes and restaurants and the lack of variety in the canteen’s machines at night. Mind you, unlike Tessa, Max didn’t suffer for his sins. Three bars of chocolate washed down with cola was his usual staple diet on a night shift and not a single globule of fat ended up on his tall wiry frame, whereas Tessa only had to watch him eat to suffer the consequences at the next weigh-in.

‘What’s this?’ Max’s fork stopped midway to his mouth as Narelle placed a steaming plate of bacon and eggs in front of Tessa.

‘My new diet.’ Tessa shrugged. ‘It’s low carbohydrate, or should I say no carbohydrate. Apparently loads of film stars are on it at the moment, the weight’s supposed to fall off you. And the best bit of it is that I can eat as much of this as I like.’

‘You’re not serious?’ Max stared incredulously at her heaving plate. ‘As much as you like?’

Tessa nodded. ‘The more the better. I had this for breakfast as well.’

Max peered at her plate more closely. ‘No toast to mop up the yolk?’

‘Definitely not.’

‘No mushrooms?’

‘No.’ Tessa shook her head seriously. ‘They’ve got carbohydrates.’

‘Fruit?’

Again Tessa shook her head. ‘It’s this and lots of it—no doubt I’ll be having this for dinner later. Apparently I can have cheese as well,’ she added with a slightly nauseous twinge to her voice.

‘Do you want me to ring Coronary Care now and book you a bed?’

‘You can talk,’ Tessa snapped indignantly. ‘Anyway, at least I’ll be thin as they’re strapping me to the cardiac monitor.’

‘How many times to I have to tell you, Tess? You’re fine just as you are.’

‘I don’t want to be fine ,’ Tessa sighed. ‘I want to be thin and gorgeous and slip into tiny little tops and micro-skirts.’

‘Yes, please.’ Max winked. ‘To the skirts and tops I mean. OK, Tess, you’re not fine, you’re gorgeous and stunningly so—take it from a full-blooded male who knows a thing or three about women. So don’t you dare go rotting your health with yet another one of your fad diets.’

Thankfully he chose that moment to dive into his meal, which meant he wasn’t a witness to the huge blush that whooshed up Tessa’s cheeks as she fumbled with her knife and fork.

‘It can’t be good for you,’ he insisted.

‘It’s only for a couple of weeks, and for once it has nothing to do with vanity—it’s purely a financial thing.’ She watched as his forehead creased. ‘There was a letter waiting for me from the coroner’s court when I got back. I thought the inquest was going to be adjourned but it would seem that it’s going ahead at the original date.’ Despite the casual smile, Max heard the tremor in her voice. ‘And as neither of the two smart suits in my wardrobe will do up any more, it’s either this or a major splurge on my credit card.’