Redemption - Leon Uris [16]
Except for Georgia Norman. She was more mature, at thirty, and a woman of accomplishment and experience. She was English-born, like his mom, and a bit plump like her as well. As a young woman she trained and spent more than eight years nursing in the Medical Corps, including outstanding service during the Boer War.
It seemed the war did her in. She ran to the farthest place not in permanent ice fields, where she met Dr. Norman, a physician probably better suited to be a law clerk. Georgia craved peace and lacked great beauty. Calvin Norman was an acceptable compromise with life. Her desire for motherhood was soon derailed as she learned of her husband’s overly solicitous examinations of his female patients.
Then came the war that so many New Zealand men felt had arrived as a blessing. Dr. Norman saw it as an excellent job opportunity, an advancement. The war would be short, no doubt, and he would return with a shoulder full of pips, a chest with at least two rows of medals, and the command of any hospital or practice of his choosing.
Georgia was unlike any woman Rory had encountered, and for a man of his tender age his conquests numbered quite a few.
No weeping, no jealousy, no laying on of guilt. Her code with Rory was humor and lovemaking. As a lady who had been in the company of the military for nearly a decade and a highly informed nurse, Georgia was a most knowledgeable and creative lover. No questions asked, no demands made. Easy come, easy go. She had no other lovers but she was clever and patient. Rory would always find his way back to her. And she kept her secret from him.
Her cottage had a wild look to the sea around the bend from Taylor’s Mistake. As she gazed at the windswept horizon, a loud knock sounded. She responded to the knock and saw before her a drenched, battered sot with sour breath.
“Cor, blimey, what a gorgeous sight you are. Are you begging for alms or do you want to come in?”
Rory staggered into the room, shrugged, and shook his head several times.
“I read about it in the newspapers,” she said.
“Please,” he cried, and opened her robe and buried his face in her bosom and they slowly slipped to the floor and she held him and rocked him, her breasts soon salty from his tears. There are needs a strong man can’t speak of. A need like this from him had never been considered. He allowed himself for the first time in memory to completely cave in.
When at last he disengaged, his jerky loud breathing continued as she ran her fingers through his hair. “You’re soaking wet.”
“I didn’t know it had been raining. My da is up in the hills. It’s raining on him, too. I need a jar, Georgia.”
“To hell you do,” she answered, “you need to hold your head over the toilet and stick your finger down your throat. Now, in with you.”
Her strong nurse’s hands pulled him to his feet and he obeyed. She soaked him afterward in a hot tub and dried him and wrapped him in her husband’s ponderous wool bathrobe. Tea, bitters, and a drop of cognac calmed his tummywobbles.
Having felt that great surge of compassion from her flesh to his, he was desperate for more.
“Georgia,” he said in nearly a whimper, “would you just lie down with me and hold on to me, I mean, real tight like…just that.”
“What a grand idea,” she said.
7
Liam unglued his eyes to an unlikely tattoo of sun rays on the tent. His hand reached under the quilt and fished for the poteen bottle. It had died and gone to heaven hours ago. He berated himself for leaving the station in such haste that he had not thought to bring more.
The trashy taste in his mouth and the need to relieve himself overtook his dread of the morning chill. The stream brought him back to life in a hurry.
Liam puffed on the embers of the fire until they fanned, and when tea was made, he wrapped his hands around