The Homestead Girls

by Fiona McArthur

  ‘Daphne. Hope you don’t mind me knocking, just wanted to say thanks for dropping in on Mia. And the biscuits.’

  Daphne could feel the heat in her cheeks. It was nothing. ‘You’re welcome. She’s a lovely girl. She’s tall like you.’

  Billie sighed. ‘The rest of her is totally different. She’s a challenge and a joy.’

  There was something there that made Daphne want to comfort the woman. Which was stupid. ‘I’d know her as yours any day. Would you like to come in?’

  ‘Thanks. For a minute.’

  Daphne gestured Billie to one of the lounge chairs and watched her sink gracefully into it. Daphne had never mastered being graceful and she tried not to be envious of the other woman’s social ease.

  She saw her glance around. ‘Your flat is lovely.’

  Daphne appraised the room. It was better than it was originally. For a plain box of a flat she’d made it homey. She’d always been able to create ambience with furnishings. It was her inability to satisfy fathers and husbands and create the family she’d so desperately wanted that she had trouble with.

  ‘I try.’ She pushed thoughts of herself away. ‘So how was your first day?’

  ‘Fine.’ The word held a world of relief. ‘Everyone does a great job out here.’

  Daphne felt the pride expand in her chest. There were other types of family and she was finding them in her work. It seemed Billie felt it, too.

  She nodded happily. ‘I’m glad you think so. What made you come out here to work?’

  Billie hesitated. ‘I’ve had the dream for a while. I used to live here as a little girl before my parents died. Was always going to come back. It just took longer than I anticipated.’

  Daphne wanted to ask: How old were you when they died? Who looked after you? but held herself in, just chewed her lip instead before she said, ‘Well, we’re glad to see you now.’ She saw Billie visibly relax because she hadn’t asked nosy questions. Maybe she was learning to step back after all.

  Billie asked, ‘And how long have you been here?’

  ‘Six months. I came from Canberra. Grew up in the suburbs. My father was a politician and so was my ex-husband.’

  It was now Daphne’s turn to dread the questions that would come, but she guessed it was best to get them out of the way. Like the sting of lancing a boil. Just what she needed. Yuk. Except she didn’t have to.

  Billie smiled almost as if she knew the story. Which was silly. Nobody knew the story. ‘I’m glad you moved here for my sake, too, then.’ They smiled at each other and what awkward tension was left seeped away.

  The next morning at the base Morgan was the first person Billie saw when she opened the door. He looked ridiculously athletic and she wondered if she needed to think about joining a gym or something. Her inappropriate half scanned the taught thighs in beige trousers and tight shirt sleeves and decided he was more like one of those guys who hung out of a helicopter by his feet and scooped you up from a sinking ship. He really didn’t look like any of the doctors she knew.

  That sneaky ember she’d warned herself about glowed in her belly and she doused it with a cup of common sense. ‘Morning.’ She almost said ‘Captain’, but she bit her lip to hold back the smile as he raised those black and moody eyebrows. So the man wasn’t slow. She’d thought she’d hidden her amusement well.

  ‘Something entertains you?’

  Well obviously. ‘Just glad to be here, boss.’

  ‘Passed the first test, then,’ he said with an easy smile that startled her, and which was way harder to ignore, then he turned back to the large schedule board that stood on the easel in the corner of the room. ‘Let’s see where we’ll send you today.’

  There was no guess work involved. The roster was made for the month, with clinics and delegations and teams. She’d already seen he was the type who had everything planned and allocated before he’d leave the previous day, and as she followed his silent stride across the room the flutter of anticipation skittered across her belly.

  Today she’d fly. Could put all the flight physiology she’d learned into practice. Have her first glimpses of the browns and oranges of the landscape below from her aerial vantage point. She’d meet her first outback community as they dropped off the other health workers and flew on to their own clinic.

  ‘I’ll send you with Daphne on the last drop. She’s replacing one of the clinic nurses today who’s off sick. Generally she does retrievals. You’ll do the chronic GP clinic while she runs the immunisation and antenatal checks. Boorenji is one of our furthest clinics. Start you off easy.’

  She narrowed her eyes, lifted her head, prepared to say she didn’t want easy, when she saw his smile.

  Morgan was way ahead of her. There was another unexpected twinkle in his eye that disappeared quickly. ‘Don’t worry. There is no easy. They’re all unique challenges. I imagine the hardest part will be prising Daphne away at the end of the clinic. She does tend to want to mother everyone.’

  Billie could see that. ‘She’s a treasure.’

  No such flowery stuff for Morgan. ‘She’s an excellent clinician.’ Then they both glanced towards the door as Daphne entered, juggling a big plate of biscuits and two hot coffees in her hands.

  ‘Morning, Morgan. Morning, Billie.’

  The health clinic at Boorenji was held in a converted shipping container with a high corrugated-iron roof built above it to allow the hot still air to breathe around the box. The air conditioner hummed energetically in the middle between the two consulting room ends and puffed cooler air towards the exterior doors, where it was sucked out and beaten into submission by the heat outside.

  Daphne helped Billie settle into her GP clinic which held a tiny desk, two chairs and a fold-up examination bed similar to those carried by a masseuse for home visits. There was enough equipment to achieve rudimentary examinations, plus a hand-held i-STAT machine for quick blood tests. But she thought perhaps the communication of medical history might prove problematic with the heavy dialect of the local people, so different to Billie’s experience.

  Outside the structure, standing and sitting under a tree were a dozen candidates for the doctor, two younger station women with their children for Daphne herself, who’d brought folding chairs with them, an old jackaroo with bowlegs and a chest infection, and two Aboriginal elders sitting on haunches against the backdrop of desert. All were good-naturedly waiting their turn or being nudged to the head of the line for various reasons.

  On Daphne’s end of the container, it was immunisation day and children clutched their mother’s hands or necks and buried their faces when Daphne called the next victim through for a weigh on the portable scales, an immunisation needle and finally a juicy mandarin from the bag she’d stowed in the plane that morning for rewards.

  Barbara Tomkins’s daughter, Gwyn, was here for her four-year-old injections. Barbara’s family had been one of the ones Daphne had dropped in to nurture when they all came down with chicken pox. Gwyn was happy to see Daphne, and she didn’t even cry when the second injection went in.

  ‘Aunty Daphne will need to come and have a fun visit one day. Won’t she, Gwyn? And we won’t let her lift a finger.’

  ‘No fun in that, Barb.’ Daphne smiled at the mum and the stoic child, whose huge dark eyes were glued to Daphne as she clutched her mandarin. Daphne opened the door to let them out.

  The next patient was ushered to the front of the line outside Daphne’s door by a determined older lady. One look at the younger woman as she grimaced and dropped her hand to her big belly and Daphne smiled. She tried not to be too excited that she’d have the chance to do a bit of midwifery for a change. Not too much, but a little would be very nice.

  ‘Come in. Sit down.’ The young woman sidled past, eyes down, chewing her lip, but she didn’t sit. Too uncomfortable, maybe? Daphne smiled at the older lady. ‘Are you her mum?’

  ‘Aunty May. This’s Belle. She’s too early. Didn’t want to come but I made her.’

 
; Maybe six weeks, Daphne thought and glanced again at the noticeable but not huge pregnant belly. ‘Lucky you did, I’m thinking. When is your baby due, Belle?’’

  ‘End of next month.’ Aunty May nodded and the clinic chair groaned in protest as she lowered her bottom into it and crossed her arms in front of her ample bosom. She’d effectively blocked the door and Belle wasn’t going anywhere.

  So six weeks early. Daphne glanced at the bed and wondered how she’d get Belle up there so she could feel her belly. Find out the baby’s position, because if it was early it could quite possibly be breech.

  Belle groaned.

  ‘Are you in labour, Belle?’ Silly question. Another contraction caused a small moue of distress. Yep! They’d have to fly her out. ASAP.

  The girl raised wild eyes to Daphne. ‘Gotta push.’

  Daphne straightened. This was a whole new ballgame. She recognised the look and so didn’t need to ask if she was sure. Well, then. Her voice gentled even more. ‘Don’t be scared.’

  The girl’s eyes skittered to her aunty’s. ‘Gotta push. Now.’

  Daphne stepped to her left and opened the communication door between the two consulting rooms. Poked her head in. ‘Looks like we’re having a baby in here, Doctor. About thirty-four weeks.’

  Without waiting for an answer Daphne turned and grabbed a pair of gloves and the only two towels she had within reach. She put one on the floor in front of Belle and slung one over her shoulder so she could use it to wipe the baby when she needed to.

  ‘Do you want to lie down?’ Daphne inclined her head to the bed and Belle shook her head vehemently just as Billie opened the door.

  Without turning her head Daphne said, ‘Can you turn off the air-conditioner please. Prem baby.’ And then, ‘Did you want to do this, Doctor?’

  ‘I’ll watch and help if I’m needed.’

  ‘The Syntocinon’s in the emergency box in the fridge. You could draw that up.’ Having the injection ready for after the birth would be good. They didn’t need the mother to have a bleed as well.

  Daphne shot Billie a reassuring smile before she returned her attention to the girl. ‘Why don’t you lean on the back of this chair, Belle, and just do what feels right. It’s okay.’

  Belle gasped, then shook her head at the sensations that were building.

  Daphne put her hand very gently on Belle’s shoulder. Smiled at her. Her voice was just above a whisper and very calm. ‘It’s okay. Let me help get your nickers off and you can have your baby. If we have time I’d really like to try to listen to your baby’s heartbeat.’

  But when she looked into Belle’s face she saw that there was no time for anything. She was pushing. They’d probably be listening to this baby’s heartbeat on the outside.

  A sudden gush of water splashed the floor between the girl’s legs, mostly caught by the strategic towel, and Belle jumped at the sensation.

  Daphne glanced quickly at the colour of the liquid and met Billie’s eyes in relief, because the water pooling on the towel and floor was, reassuringly, faintly pink.

  Billie nodded. They were both happy the baby hadn’t passed a meconium stool before birth, because there was more chance of respiratory problems after birth if the amniotic fluid was green with meconium.

  The girl planted her hands on the back of the chair, sank slowly to her haunches above the wet towel, closed her eyes and squeezed with a low growling moan that meant business.

  And then it happened.

  Daphne hurriedly crouched too, gloved hands waiting under the other draped towel, and almost missed the catch because the baby shot out so fast, but she deftly gathered the tiny wizened body as it tumbled into the towel on the end of a snaking purple umbilical cord.

  ‘Well caught,’ Billie murmured.

  Daphne smiled to herself as she rubbed the thick protective coating of white vernix from a little screwed-up face so the sticky eyes could blink slowly as if still unsure what the heck had just happened. Then finally he opened his mouth and made a scratchy mewling cry that slowly strengthened into an indignant protest.

  ‘Good,’ said the quiet, satisfied voice of Aunty May from the corner of the room.

  ‘I hear you guys had an exciting day.’

  Daphne had been called out on another retrieval, this time to a man with chest pain, after they’d come back from the emergency flight with Belle and her baby. Billie was checking up on blood results from some of the patients she’d seen today.

  Morgan had finished what he’d been doing at his desk and crossed the room to her workspace to lean against the wall.

  Billie looked up, and up, at him. She wished he wouldn’t tower over her because it made it hard to concentrate. She resisted the urge to stand as well, but it might have shown in her face because he put one big arm out and lifted a chair as if it was a box of matches and sat it across from her desk. Sank into it, lounged back and studied her. At least it wasn’t so crowded when he sat down.

  What had he said? Exciting day. She thought about the tiny mewling baby and the surprised mum and couldn’t help the smile that flooded her face. It warmed her heart. ‘Very. It all happened pretty fast. I was still looking around for cord clamps but had no idea where they were.’ Her brow creased. ‘Daphne didn’t seem in a hurry to cut the cord.’

  He nodded. ‘Good. A lot of mums are anaemic out here and baby gets extra red blood cells from the placenta if you don’t rush to cut the cord. Waiting for it to stop pulsating is a good thing. There’s an interesting research paper with evidence that the blood flows back and forth until the newborn’s body shuts it down at just the right moment.’

  She might have read that somewhere. Boy, did she need to brush up on the latest obstetric trends. She’d spent most of her pre-start time on snake bites and chest pains. ‘How much extra?’

  ‘Anything from seventy to a hundred and fifty mils of blood. Makes a huge difference to childhood anaemia, and it’s especially good if a baby is six weeks premature, like Anthony was.’

  The baby boy’s inquisitive eyes appeared in her mind and she smiled again. ‘I can’t believe how alert he was. He did so well on the flight coming in.’

  He ignored that. Instead, he was piercing her with his black eyes as if he’d found a fault he wouldn’t tolerate. She was distracted for a second. A man’s eyes couldn’t be black. They must be the darkest brown.

  Whoa there. Stop it. She blinked herself back to the real world and he went on. ‘You don’t sound as confident with neonates as I expected. You said you had your Obstetric Diploma.’

  ‘Just the experience in maternity. I did that in a semi-rural hospital. It was more antenatal bloods and occasional caesareans than actual high-risk birthing practice. The paediatric registrar did the babies. But they were mostly low risk.’

  ‘You must have had some babies that needed resuscitation?’

  ‘Sure, but any really sick babies were shipped out, and apart from the required number of normal births I was mostly dealing with the paperwork and getting the lay of the land. It was fun but there wasn’t quite enough experience, even though what was there was good. After that I went on and did ophthalmology for three months.’

  He lifted his head at that. ‘The eyes have it?’ he quipped. ‘That’ll be handy.’

  ‘It requires vision,’ she said, tongue in cheek.

  He gave her one of those real smiles and somewhere down in the pit of her stomach that tiny coal of long slumbering heat flickered again.

  No! She turned her head away. Mentally pinched out the flames like the smouldering wick of a candle. ‘Anyway. I’d better get this report done or I’ll be off late and my daughter will be home.’ That was the idea. No men until Mia was safely at university.

  He sat back and studied her. With leisurely thoroughness. A confident, meticulous assessment that warmed her belly again even while it raised her hackles. ‘Your daughter’s name is Mia?’

  She couldn’t think of one work-related reason he’d needed to remember tha
t. Mia’s age could impact on Billie’s work. Mia’s health or behaviour maybe. But not her daughter’s name. So it was a personal question and she hadn’t expected anything personal from Morgan. He gave off that ‘work is for work’ vibe and she’d thought it was only her who’d found the other person distracting.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Daphne met her yesterday with cookies.’

  He stood up. ‘Daphne’s cookies. They’d go over well. A tough act to follow.’ Then he walked away and she felt vaguely unsettled.

  When she was ready to leave, Billie drove home via a different route. One that took her up towards the houses nearer the ridge that looked over the town, to where her parents had had their neat three-bedroom bungalow with the big tree that somehow didn’t seem so big now that she was a grown woman.

  She sat outside in her car and stared at the house she’d lived in with her parents. Obviously a young family had moved in. A scooter lay on its side outside the front door on the path, and there was a new shiny plastic swing on the tree she could remember having an old rope and tyre on.

  The memories were all good and the unsettled feeling Morgan had left her with disappeared and in its place was a sense of homecoming, belonging, and finally some peace. Coming back here, with Mia, this was not just another new town. This was where she would settle.

  In central Mica Ridge in the Hair For You beauty salon, Lorna Lamerton put the new donation tin for the Silver City Flying Doctor Service on the edge of the shelf. Then she straightened the black plastic hairdressers’ shawl back into place. ‘What have I missed this week?’

  The young cockney stylist straightened Lorna’s head and met her eyes in the mirror. ‘They say there’s another new doctor at the Flying Doctor Base.’ She flicked her chin in the direction of the tin. ‘We all know you’re interested in what goes on there.’

  A new doctor? A pang of too-familiar grief for her husband stung until she shook it off. They’d been lucky for all the wonderful years they’d had. Not so lucky with the downward spiral of Alzheimer’s in the last two. She let the breath sticking in her prickling throat ease out carefully.