The doctors choice

by Wilde, Hilary

  She felt her fingers clinging to his. Suddenly she wanted to beg him not to go … to tell him she felt unsure of herself, afraid she would do the wrong thing.

  Val loved Barry so much… .

  And then she took a long deep breath and managed to smile.

  “Don’t worry, David, I’ll manage.”

  He looked at her tired face, the sad droop to her mouth.

  “You’re tired, Clare,” he said gently. “In the morning, things will look better.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  IT was a strange new life that Clare found herself living, and through it all, David Johnson seemed to move, despite the fact that he was now living over a hundred miles away.

  Every day his voice came over the air during the medical session, and this seemed to bring him close.

  Life for Clare was not always easy, as David had pre-dicted.

  Barry was amazed that first morning when Clare told him to get up for breakfast because, for as long as he could remember, he had eaten breakfast in bed.

  Later, when she said he could eat what he liked, he stared at her in surprise. “I’m not on a diet?”

  “Of course not,” Clare said. “You’re the same as the rest of us.”

  Barry was thrilled, but Clare saw the anxious look in Val’s eyes, and guessed at the words she had stifled.

  That first day they did little but sit around and talk, but after that Clare wondered how she would fill her day, accustomed as she was to the hours and discipline of hospital work.

  Her first opportunity came when she heard Marge wheedling her mother into letting her skip lessons for the day, as they were rounding up cattle on the eastern levee and she wanted to go along. Val hesitated, but finally agreed, and then told Clare apologetically that she had always hated lessons herself and sympathized with Marge. “Unfortunately she knows it, and takes advantage,” Val admitted.

  “What lessons do they do?” Clare asked.

  “There’s an hour of education on the radio every day, but apart from that, we get correspondence lessons which I have to supervise,” Val told her, giving a wry little grimace.

  Clare hesitated. “Would you like me to take over?”

  she offered.

  She was startled by Val’s delight, and only understood it as she took over her new duties and realized what she was up against. Marge considered learning to be a waste of time and did as little as she could; Barry was discouraged because he was far behind the other children of his own age. However, it gave Clare a purpose, something to do, and she really enjoyed the radio hours, especially when all the children sang together.

  She really loved everything to do with the transceiver, which was the hub of the household — and of every household for a radius of hundreds of miles.

  Her introduction to it had startled her. Vaguely she had heard of the radio and talking on the air, but the first time Barry came racing to find her as she was finishing a letter to her parents, she was startled to hear David’s voice so clearly.

  The transceiver was in a part of the screened verandah, with a table, chairs and several comfortable arm-chairs. Val was already there as Barry pulled Clare towards the transceiver.

  How clear and close David sounded, she thought.

  “You can be sure I’m glad to be back, folks,” David was saying. “Plenty of work waiting for me, I see. Now I know you all want to know about young Barry. I’m glad to say he’s fine, just fine. The op was a great success and he can now lead a normal life.”

  Watching Barry’s earnest uplifted face, Clare saw _

  Val glance at him anxiously. Clare smiled reassuringly.

  Barry would gradually lose his dependence on David.

  Next a pleasant feminine voice took over and asked for any medical calls to come on, and there was an immediate confusion of voices, all calling different numbers and a crackle in the background.

  “Static,” Barry informed Clare. “Must be rain somewhere.”

  Now David was talking to the different people as they each came on in turn when their number was called.

  The voices differed — some whining, some cheerful, some afraid, others almost defiant.

  A child, two hundred miles away from the doctor, had a high fever. “He’s real puked, Doc,” an unhappy voice said. “Right off his food. Ain’t never been that way before.”

  Later another woman, her voice brisk, announced that one of her Aborigine stockmen had had his head cut in a fight.

  “I, did what I could, Doc, but the wound’s not heal-ing good. I’m not too happy.”

  David dealt with each query in turn, his voice kind but firm. He prescribed drugs by numbers and promised to fly out to see some of the cases. He also told his listeners where he would be flying in the next few days to hold clinics. Then, the medical session over, he spoke to Barry.

  “Hi, Barry, sleep well? How’s Clare making out?”

  Val leant forward to adjust some knob, and Barry, his face bright, answered: “She’s fine, Uncle David, just fine, but boy, does she hate the flies!”

  David’s chuckle came clearly despite the crackle.

  “Don’t we all! Is she around?”

  “You bet,” Barry answered. “Here she is.” He nudged Clare. “Take over. It won’t bite.”

  Her cheeks suddenly red, Clare had hesitated, knowing that so many people, scattered over so many miles, were listening.

  “I’m fine, just fine,” she said, and blushed again, for she had caught the habit of that expression. She remembered some of the Australian expressions Barry had taught her. “Everything’s beaut,” she said. “Just beaut.”

  David laughed. “Good on you, lass! Keep up the good work. Over.”

  After that, to Clare’s astonishment, the feminine voice read aloud the telegrams.

  Val laughed. “Nothing’s sacred here, Clare. When you leave us, be careful what you say in a telegram.”

  Barry turned, his face suddenly pale. “You’re leaving us?” his voice accused.

  Val looked distressed. “Of course not, Barry, not—”

  “Until you can do everything Marge does and even more,” Clare said quickly. Barry stared at her and some of the fear vanished from his dark blue eyes.

  “It’s the galah session now,” Val said, still sounding unhappy. “You’ll like this. Galahs are birds who make a lot of noise, and the men say that’s what we do, but it’s such fun to be able to talk and exchange news.”

  Barry was on his feet. “This is corny woman’s talk,”

  he said scornfully. “I’m going to play with Jeff and Jack.”

  They laughed as they watched the boy race out into the sunshine to play with the two big Alsatian dogs who were waiting for him expectantly.

  The galah session was a revelation, making Clare see more than ever what wonders the transceiver had done for these women, forced to lead such lonely lives. She heard a recipe for some special pudding, that a new baby had been born, that a son overseas had written that he was in love with a Scottish girl. Inevitably they all wanted to know about the “Pommie girl staying with the Johnsons”

  In the end, Clare was introduced by Val and had to tell them she thought that Australia was very large and very different from what she had expected. Which was true! At last the galah session came to an end and there was silence on the air.

  Val took Clare to see the big medical chest and the neat rows of bottles and boxes, each one labelled with a different number.

  “It makes it so simple,” Val explained. “David merely has to give a number and the amount of dos-

  “It is wonderful,” Clare said thoughtfully.

  “Life can be pretty grim when you’re hundreds of miles from a doctor and your kids are sick,” Val said.

  “This gives us a security we otherwise lack.”

  “It must be wonderful to be David, to know that so many people depend on him and need him.”

  “Frightening,” Val corrected.

  Clare smiled. “David w
ouldn’t be afraid.”

  Ma Astor brought tea out to the verandah and joined them for a cup, talking to Clare about the days when she had first come to the Territory. When she went inside, Clare wondered where Barry was, but he could not wander far and she could not watch him like a nanny all the time! Suddenly she saw a cloud of dust approaching, and as she and Val watched, gradually, a big red car materialized and stopped outside the lower gate.

  Sudden shrill giggles as the Aborigine children and women came racing to see the car, and Val was on her feet and halfway down the steps as a big man got out of the car, mopping his face, removing his dark glasses and peering up at the homestead.

  “Are you lost — or just thirsty?” Val called.

  “Both,” he said with a grin.

  Soon he was helping three women out of the car and Val was talking to them. As they turned to climb the shallow steps, Clare slipped quietly away to her room.

  There, she stared out of the window, thinking of David. He was like a pillar of strength — impregnable, reliable. What he must mean to all these mothers scattered round this vast countryside. Could Peter do such a job? She thought not. Peter had never been interested in people — only patients. His ambitious dreams had been of specializing, where you could see a patient and then forget him. David was the reverse. He believed it was vital to know the patient and the home background.

  Suddenly she heard a strange noise. She traced it to Barry’s room and found him crying on his bed. At first he pushed her away when she tried to comfort him, but at last he said:

  “You lied. You said you’d marry me and now you’re going away!” he cried.

  “But, Barry darling,” Clare said, “you’re only seven years old. We can’t be married for at least fourteen years and … Well, Val and Ian wouldn’t want me around so long. But we’ll write and often meet. I could come here for my holidays.”

  Barry listened and slowly nodded. “Fourteen years is long,” he said thoughtfully. “And I’ll go away to boarding school.”

  “It’ll soon pass,” Clare promised him. “We’ll both be busy. Please trust me, Barry.”

  He sat up, face bright again. “I do trust you, Clare.”

  They could hear laughter and voices and, neither feeling like meeting visitors, slipped out the back of the homestead to play with the dogs.

  Later, as Clare admired the flowers and asked Barry if he knew their names, he said Zoe would know.

  “She knows everything,” he said proudly.

  Clare was glad of the chance to talk about Zoe. She still had not forgotten her shock when she realized how much David disliked the child.

  “She’s eleven, isn’t she?” Clare asked casually.

  Barry nodded. “And most awfully clever. She can spell every word and knows all her tables. I wish I was clever like that.”

  Clare smiled. “You will be,” she told him. “You’ve got to be, if you’re going to be my husband.”

  He looked up at her, dark blue eyes twinkling. “My word, you’re right, Clare. Costs a lot to keep a wife.”

  He hesitated: “You haven’t told anyone?”

  “Of course not. It’s our secret.”

  He smiled. “Good on you, mate,” he said, and tossed her the ball with which they had been playing, as the two big dogs came racing up, thinking it was their turn to have a game.

  It was ten days before David finally managed to get away from his duties and visit Noorla Homestead. Ten days that had not always been easy for Clare, adapting herself to an entirely new way of living, a hot trying climate, and the everlasting flies as well as her secret sorrow.

  There were long nights when she tossed, trying to sleep, but thinking about Peter. Blaming herself. Going over and over again the day when he proposed to her …

  or she had thought he had! The day they parted. The thought of what might have been. Spain. Peter. A wonderful future together… .

  Long days, too, when things were hard, for Barry was difficult at times, fighting her over the lessons, quarrelling with Marge. One night, unable to sleep because of the heat, Clare thought worriedly about Barry. He seemed to have so little to do with himself.

  Marge was always out on Shamrock, her pony — but Barry only had the two dogs with which to play. If Barry was ever to be a normal little boy, he must share in the life of the family, and not be an outsider, merely looking in, as he was now.

  She needed an ally. She hoped to find it in Marge.

  So, the next morning, Clare stood in the blinding heat of the sun, whose glare hurt her eyes despite the wide shady hat and dark glasses she wore, as she leant on the white fence of the paddock and admired Marge’s chestnut-red pony, Shamrock. She had asked Barry to join her, and when he had sulkily refused, she was struck more than ever by the lack of friendship between the two children. True, Marge was nine years old and Barry only seven, but was that a great difference? Particularly when they were the only two white children in the household. Surely they should share secrets, jokes, interests? Anyhow, her opportunity to enlist Marge’s aid was there, and she crossed her fingers as she began.

  “Marge, don’t you like Barry?”

  Marge’s eyes were startled. “Of course I like him.”

  “Then,” Clare said, slapping at the persistent flies on her face, “why don’t you play with him?”

  Marge’s grey eyes were puzzled. “What at?” she asked.

  Clare looked at her for a moment and then smiled.

  “Marge, you certainly have a point there! What could you two play at?” She thought for a while. “Most children play games like – well, schools, doctors, shops.”

  Marge climbed on the fence, straddling it, looking Clare frankly in the eyes. “Clare, I used to play with Barry, but Mummy told me not to, for she, said I was rough. I’d – I’d hurt him. One day—” Her voice was unsteady as she went on: “One day I pushed him in fun and – and he fell off the fence. It was awful. He fainted.

  I thought I’d killed him. So did Mummy.” She shivered. “It was awful, Clare!”

  Clare laid her hand on Marge’s. “I can imagine. I don’t wonder.” She looked at the girl. “But, Marge, Barry is better now. He wouldn’t faint if if he fell now, and he needs you. You do everything he dreams of doing one day?’ Marge was staring at her earnestly, so Clare went on: “You know I’ve been teaching him to swim in the pool? He can float, but he hates getting his face under water.”

  “I did – at first,” Marge said. She paused.’ “You mean, if I – well, if I came swimming with you two, it’d help Barry?”

  “It certainly would,” Clare said.

  Marge jumped down, found two lumps of sugar in her pocket for Shamrock, and grinned at Clare.

  “Okeydoke,” she said cheerfully. “Next time you’re going to the pool, give me a shout and I’ll come along.”

  She walked over to her pony and Clare strolled back to the homestead. She had started the swimming lessons, despite the fact that Val always looked worried.

  The pool was not large but was quite safe, and with Clare in the pool as well, she was sure Barry could come to no harm. But it would be more fun for Barry if Marge joined them.

  That evening, Clare sought out Ian. He usually sat alone on the verandah, reading books or the newspapers, always very old, of course. Val generally sat in her sewing-room, for she had a flair and a passion for designing and making her own clothes. As a rule, Clare sat with her and they talked.

  They always changed out of jeans and slacks in the evening when they showered before dinner, and Clare was wearing a shell pink dress she had chosen because Peter had said it was the only pink a redhead could wear.

  Ian, sitting comfortably relaxed, smiled as he saw her and lowered his book. “Well?” he said.

  He listened intently to what she had to tell him and then nodded. “And excellent idea, Clare. Give me a list of what you need and I’ll order it right away. Easels, paints, canvas, and so on.”

  Clare beamed. “I want them t
o do things together, Ian. I’ve done some painting.and it’s fun.”

  He smiled. “I’m sure. Now why couldn’t I teach them both chess? That would be something to share, too.”

  “Oh, lovely!” Clare clapped her hands. “And Barry ought to start learning to ride soon, but I’m a bit worried about Shamrock. She’s rather lively.”

  Ian touched her hand gently. “Leave it to me, Clare.

  I’ve been looking forward to this day. I know just the pony for Barry.” His eyes twinkled. “How about getting a nice quiet horse for you? It would help the lad to have you learning as well.”

  “I’d love it,” Clare said warmly.

  She went to find Val to tell her all about it. When she saw the familiar worried look come into Val’s eyes, she said earnestly:

  “Please, Val, don’t worry so. David knows what he’s doing.”

  Val tried to smile. “gm still scared for Barry If you’d seen him before—” She hesitated. “Oh, Clare, I wish Barry could love us,” she said sadly. “We always wanted a son, and when Barry—”

  The mosquitoes and moths were beating their wings to bits as they hit the screened windows.

  “If only Gillian—” Val said slowly.

  “I know,” Clare said sympathetically. “David told me about her.”

  Val pushed away the lovely rose-coloured silk material that she was sewing, kicked off her shoes, and offered Clare a cigarette.

  “David told you about Gillian?”

  “M’m. I think he still loves her.”

  Val looked shocked. “Oh no! We were hoping you and—”

  Clare’s cheeks burned. “David and – me? Oh, no!

  Besides – I don’t talk about it, but David knows, I – I was jilted just four days before my wedding day. was stranded, my parents were going abroad, and then David offered me this job.”

  “I am sorry,” Val said slowly, “I had no idea. How ghastly!”

  “It was rather,” Clare admitted. Her cheeks burned again, for she knew she could not tell Val the whole truth – not the part that hurt most. The humiliating knowledge that Peter had never loved her and that he blamed her for “rushing” him.