Healthy communities needed empathetic health practitioners. And while empathy might not have been Mac’s strong point — someone had to give the tough love — she had no doubt about its value. Or the price of its loss.
On her computer was a website where you could place advertisements for GPs that would be seen by doctors all over the country. Mac had no one’s permission to do this but that didn’t seem important. Small, remote towns were finding it increasingly difficult to attract doctors, locums and nurses, and Gabriel’s Bay was as small and remote as they came. It would take time, Mac reckoned, to find someone — the right someone.
Permission was irrelevant. What mattered most was to start now.
Chapter 6
Madison
Madison ate her breakfast, and made her lunch with what she could find in the fridge. She was going to Aidan and Rory’s after school again today, so she’d better pack her book in her bag, too. It was about a girl whose mother had abandoned her in a religious group who refused to let her use her real name. She’d bought the book in the second-hand shop with half of the twenty-dollar note her dad had mailed her for her ninth birthday. She’d spent five dollars more on sweets for Aidan and Rory, making sure to ask Sidney first if it was all right. Madison’s own mum said sugar was poison.
‘If you want to blow your hard-earned cash on these two jokers, that’s up to you,’ Sidney had said. But she’d looked pleased.
After packing her schoolbag, Madison tidied up her bedroom because Oksana the cleaner was coming today. It didn’t seem fair that Oksana should do all the work when Madison was perfectly capable of picking up after herself.
Her mum didn’t share that view, and left stuff everywhere: plates, wine glasses, used tissues, even her undies.
‘That’s what a cleaner’s for,’ she told Madison. ‘And I intend to get the full benefit from the Ox’s well-muscled Russian forearms.’
If Oksana minded, she never said. She’d pick up the cash Madison’s mum left on the kitchen table, stuff it in her purse, and go about cleaning the house in a fierce way that made the floors and surfaces sparkle, but which had already broken the spiky green-glass bowl that her mum said cost a fortune even though it was ugly, a limited-edition Tracy Emin paperweight, her dad’s Tivoli iPod dock, every roller-blind cord but one, four Riedel wine glasses and two heads off the Dyson vacuum cleaner.
Oksana told Madison she was descended from Genghis Khan. ‘I am Tatar,’ she said, making it sound like she was saying goodbye. ‘Strong. Not afraid. I have seen tigers in Siberia, war in the Afghan mountains. Not afraid.’
Madison’s dad wasn’t happy about the broken stuff, but they needed to keep Oksana because she was OK being paid in cash. He thought it was funny that he and Oksana had the same opinion of the tax department.
Before they came to Stonelands, they used to live in Auckland. Madison was only seven when they moved, but she remembered there were lots of arguments. Her mum didn’t want to leave the city and her friends, but the house had to be sold, according to her dad, and so did the beach house on Waiheke Island, because the buildings he’d bought in Wellington needed earthquake strengthening or the tenants ‘would walk’. And the resort development in Samoa wasn’t happening as fast as it should — ‘bloody island time’ — and the banks were getting ‘a bit toey’.
He promised Madison’s mum that they’d only need to live at Stonelands for a year, ‘Eighteen months max, until things have eased up. It’ll be great,’ he said. ‘Like a country retreat. Plus, it’s a properly good investment — the wine sales are a bit sluggish, but the land’s worth a fortune. We’ll flick it when the market’s on the up. Money for jam.’
Aidan and Rory’s mum, Sidney, made jam but she sold it at the market for only three dollars a jar.
Madison liked a lot about her new home. The teachers at her school were nice, and she didn’t have to wear a uniform like at her old school. She made friends — well, Aidan and Rory — and the other kids were a bit loud and rough, but they weren’t too mean. She liked being free to run around outside. Before, she’d had nannies who didn’t really want to take her anywhere because of getting stuck in traffic, and her mum didn’t like her making noise inside, and the house only had a small courtyard with spiky plants. There was a pool, but she wasn’t allowed to go in alone, and the nannies got bored watching her, and her mum preferred just to sunbathe, and her dad was too busy. At Stonelands, she could walk through the vines, if there weren’t any workers or machinery, and on the surrounding land as long as she didn’t go too far from the house. She liked not having a nanny anymore, too, but she knew it wasn’t all that convenient for her mum to drive her places, like school.
What Madison didn’t like was that, not long after they moved, her mum and dad started arguing. Once, they were shouting in the kitchen so loud that Madison heard. Her mum called her dad a liar, and he said he was getting it all sorted but could she just rein it in until he did, and her mum said no way because he owed her for what she’d given up, and then went to her room and slammed the door.
And then her dad started being away heaps more than usual, and when Madison got up the courage to ask about it, her mum said he had to spend lots of time in Auckland now because he was ‘up to his eyeballs in alligators’. ‘Seriously,’ she added, ‘your bloody father is like a reverse King Midas. If he dived into Scrooge McDuck’s gold pile, it would evaporate in an instant, leaving nothing but the stench of empty promises.’
Madison wasn’t sure what any of that meant. But she’d been happy to know her dad wasn’t gone for good. He came down every few weeks, and she’d always ask if perhaps he could take her to the movies in Hampton. Or to the beach? He’d give her a quick hug and say, ‘Sweetie, sure, but not this time. Next time, OK?’
He never said when the next time would be, but Madison didn’t mind. It gave her something to look forward to every day.
Bedroom tidied, she went back to the kitchen to check the clock. It was time to leave for school, but her mum wasn’t up yet. Madison knew her mum didn’t really like getting up early to drive her, but there wasn’t a school bus, so she had to.
That’s why she went to Aidan and Rory’s house after school most days, because it meant her mum’s afternoon didn’t get cut short. Plus, her mum didn’t want to feel obliged to give the Booth sisters or Reuben Coates a lift home. Lots of kids like Aidan and Rory walked to school because they lived in town. But others lived in the country, and if their own parents couldn’t drive them, other parents usually helped out.
On the road to Stonelands, there was Tanya and Shari Booth, who lived on a farm. They were one year younger and one year older than Madison, and wore old clothes and gumboots. They never had sneakers for PE, just bare feet. They didn’t seem to ever wash their hair and they smelled like sheep’s wool and roast meat, which wasn’t that bad. Occasionally, their gumboots would have sheep poo on them, but that didn’t smell too bad, either. Sort of sweet, like grass.
The Coates family didn’t have a farm, just an old house with a rusty roof and no paint left on the outside and an overgrown garden with rubbish in it. Reuben Coates was at her school, and no one knew how many brothers or sisters he had, but everyone knew that an older brother was in jail. Some of the bigger kids used to tease Reuben about it. He was only eight, but he swore at everyone and tried to punch them all the time. He got into trouble a lot. Madison heard her mum and one of the other mothers saying he should be expelled or, preferably, put down.
When she told Sidney that, Sidney gave a little high laugh and said, ‘Of course. I mean, what’s the difference between a frightened, possibly abused small boy and a rabid dog?’ And she’d banged the cordial glasses down on the bench in a way that made Madison not want to ask her what she meant.
The Booth sisters and Reuben made her mum shudder, and she’d sometimes driven past pretending not to see that they didn’t have a ride.
Madison checked the clock again. It was way past time to leave. She didn’
t like waking up her mum, but she’d be late for school if she didn’t.
‘Mum?’
She tapped on the bedroom door. No answer. She knocked louder, and pushed open the door.
‘Mum?’
Her mother’s bed was empty. Madison checked the ensuite bathroom. Empty, too.
She went back out into the hallway. ‘Mum!’
A crash. The back doorknob hitting the kitchen wall. Oksana was here.
‘You are not gone to school?’ Oksana said when Madison ran into the kitchen.
‘Can’t find Mum.’
‘She asleep?’
‘No, I looked in her room.’ Madison knew there must be a good reason why she wasn’t here. ‘Maybe a friend needed her help and she had to go out?’
‘Car here.’ Oksana made a ‘tsk’ sound. ‘She up at cottage. With Germans.’ She pulled her phone out of her bag. ‘I call her …’
Of course! Her mum must have had a sleepover at Rainer and Elke’s! Rainer was the vineyard manager, and Elke was his partner. They lived in a little cottage next to the big building with the huge metal vats where they made wine. Yesterday before dinner, Madison’s mum had been calling her dad and getting no answer, so she’d left a message with lots of rude words, and then she’d walked out of the house and up the driveway. She went up to Rainer and Elke’s quite often ‘for a drink and a mutual bitch about your father’, she said. Madison was glad she was never invited — Rainer was always so grumpy.
Madison heard her mother’s voicemail, tinny through Oksana’s phone. Oksana tsked again and hung up without leaving a message. Her pink-lipsticked mouth was pursed tight, which made it wrinkle around the edges so that it looked a bit like a spiky flower. Madison’s mum hated her own wrinkles, even though they didn’t seem very obvious. She blamed Madison’s dad for giving them to her, and for the fact she couldn’t fly to the city to get them fixed. ‘This backwater’s idea of a beauty treatment is a blue rinse,’ she’d said.
‘You need ride to school,’ said Oksana. ‘Already late.’
Madison nodded. She should have left five minutes ago.
‘I could ring Ms Gillespie?’ she suggested.
Sidney let Madison call her by her first name, but most other people preferred it when she was more polite.
‘Too late,’ said Oksana. ‘Beside, she not taxi service. Come all this way. Use up her petrol. I take you.’
‘But — that would use your petrol.’
‘Your mother pay. I tell her.’
Madison wasn’t sure her mother would agree, but she definitely did not want to be late for school. She had a bit of birthday money left over. She could pay Oksana and pretend it came from her mum.
‘Quick. Fast, fast.’
Oksana swept her along in front, out to her car, an ancient Peugeot the colour of hot mustard. Madison liked that a small spider had built a shimmery web over the passenger side-mirror. She would never tell Oksana, who would dust it off, find the spider and squish it dead. The web would be her secret. She watched it sparkle and quiver like a fairy’s wing all the way to school.
‘The boys said Oksana dropped you off this morning,’ said Sidney. ‘Where was your mum, sweetheart?’
It was after school now, and Madison was sitting with Sidney at the kitchen table. Aidan and Rory were outside kicking a soccer ball against the side of the house. Madison calculated they had ten minutes left until Sidney told them to stop, and threatened to sell them to the CIA for use in practice interrogations.
‘She had a sleepover at Rainer and Elke’s.’
Sidney’s eyebrows rose. ‘A sleepover? OK …’
‘She went up before dinner, and I guess they invited her to stay.’
‘Wait. You didn’t have dinner together?’
Sidney was frowning, and her voice was suddenly sharp. Madison started to feel all prickly and squirmy, as if she and her mum had done something wrong. But she knew her mum trusted her to look after herself. ‘You’re a big girl now,’ she said. ‘Nine. A proper tweenie. We should buy you some makeup.’ And her mum hadn’t been that far, had she? Madison had her mum’s mobile number, and Rainer and Elke’s, too. They were only a phone call away if she had a problem.
‘I ate Oksana’s soup. She brings us food every week, and last night there was still some soup left, so I microwaved it. It had meat bits and cabbage in it — and it was really delicious,’ she felt compelled to add.
‘Cabbage soup. Right …’
Sidney sort of sighed the last word through her teeth.
But all she said next was, ‘How’s your book?’
Madison was grateful Sidney didn’t want to talk about her mum anymore.
‘Really good. The mother nearly died having a baby, but the kids saved her!’
Sidney poked the book up with a finger so she could read the back cover.
‘Huh. And I thought Laura Ingalls was pushing the boundaries of young fiction when she began stepping out with Almanzo Wilder.’
Sidney held up her drawing. ‘What do you think?’
It was meant to be a new label for her jam and the other stuff, like chutneys and pickles, that Sidney sold at the farmers’ market. It was supposed to be some fruit and vegetables and a bumblebee, Madison guessed. The bee was big and furry and black, and looked more like an angry spider that had sprouted tennis racquets.
‘I know,’ said Sidney. ‘Rubbish. Why do I bother? I’ll tell you why,’ she added, although Madison hadn’t spoken. ‘Because I crave to be one of those women who can overcome the fundamentally antagonistic properties of glitter and glue and soggy paper and create things of beauty and joy forever. I want to enrich this crappy house with colour-dipped candles, stencilled wall patterns, ombré light shades, pastel picture frames, découpaged trays and appliquéd wotnots. I want to master felting, and crochet, and paint effects with a sponge. I want to whip up whimsical labels with pen and ink. And you know, I could. I could achieve all of that if it weren’t for one fundamental issue. I have no artistic talent whatsoever.’
She screwed up the paper and tossed it with her left hand all the way across the kitchen towards the bin. It hit the flap square-on and went in.
‘I could draw you something?’ offered Madison.
‘Why not? Why not add humiliation to my sense of failure?’
Madison was about to apologise, but Sidney beat her to it.
‘Sorry, Maddie. Ignore me. I’m old and crotchety. I would love it if you drew me a label. But finish your book first.’
A knock on the front door. Sidney checked her watch.
‘Well, this’d be a first,’ she muttered and then gave Madison a quick guilty glance, as if she hadn’t wanted her to hear.
‘Feel free to tell those boys to stop recreating the finale of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo,’ she said as she went to answer the door.
But Madison didn’t mind the kicking. She couldn’t even really hear it once she got back into her book. The main character had decided to run away from the religious family, and it looked like some of the other children might go with her — if they could figure out how to get away. They were all super brave. Madison would feel very alone if she was apart from her mum.
‘Hello there.’
The voice made her jump. She looked up wide-eyed at the young man who was smiling at her.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Good book, is it? Love it when they grab you like that.’
‘Barrett, you know Madison, don’t you? Rick and Olivia Jensen’s daughter?’
‘Sure. Saw you up at Stonelands when I came to install the GFCI.’
Madison remembered. He was an electrician. The GFCI was a circuit-breaker, which Rainer wanted because one of the workers had got a shock from some of the equipment. Her dad had said the accident was just a one-off, but Rainer had got super grumpy, said it was a major health and safety issue, and it was lucky the worker hadn’t died. Rainer asked her dad if he’d prefer to be prosecuted, which would cost him a lot more, so her dad okayed th
e electricians.
‘I thought you were called something different?’ Madison said.
‘Brownie? That’s my nickname.’
‘What? Because Darkie was taken?’ said Sidney.
Madison couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.
Barrett/Brownie didn’t look embarrassed.
‘No, it was because I was a bit of a teacher’s pet at school. They started calling me Brown Nose, and then …’
‘And you’re still letting them, now you’re actual adults?’
He shrugged. ‘Could be worse. Down the club we’ve got Donkey, Thumper, Rooter, Nutsack—’
‘OK, yep, fair point, well made.’
‘If you like, you could pretend it was because of Elizabeth Barrett Browning,’ he said, with a smile that made Sidney give him a funny, sort of wriggly smile of her own.
‘So what’s the problem with the power?’ he asked.
‘If I switch the light on in the laundry, every other light in the house goes off,’ said Sidney. ‘Boomph! Black-out.’
‘Sounds like a wiring fault. Overloading.’
‘Expensive?’
‘Not necessarily …’
‘I love the way that almost sounded not like a lie.’
‘We’ll work something out,’ said Brownie.
‘Thanks,’ said Sidney. ‘Again. As usual. Barrett.’
‘My mother blesses you from heaven.’
A brr, brr noise. Sidney’s phone jiggled along the table like it was trying to run away. She grabbed it, checked the screen.
‘Speaking of mums.’
But then she took Brownie through into the laundry, so Madison couldn’t hear if it was her mum or someone else’s.
When she came back Sidney said, ‘You’re staying for tea and then I’ll run you home.’
Where Madison’s mum would be waiting. They could have cocoa together — well, her mum would have a glass of wine — and watch Project Runway.
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