by Tina Beckett
‘You think we should yell at her about her shoes?’
‘I’m just saying...’
‘She was driving here in her sports car. You don’t need sensible clothes while driving.’
‘Well, that’s another thing,’ Mary said darkly. ‘Of all the silly cars for a country GP...’
‘But she’s not a country GP.’ He turned and took a moment to focus on Mary’s distress. Mary was genuinely upset on his behalf—heck, the whole of Wombat Valley would be upset on his behalf—but Polly wasn’t to blame and suddenly it was important that the whole of Wombat Valley knew it.
He thought of Polly sitting on her makeshift swing, trying to steady herself with her bare feet. He thought of her polka dot dress, the flounces, the determined smile... She must have been hurting more than he could imagine—those cords had really cut—but she’d still managed to give him cheek.
He thought of her sorting the medical equipment in his bag, expertly discarding what wasn’t needed, determined to bring him what was. Courage didn’t begin to describe what she’d done, he thought, so no, he wasn’t about to lecture her for inappropriate footwear.
‘Polly saved us,’ he told Mary, gently but firmly. ‘What happened was an accident and she did more than anyone could expect. She put her life on the line to save us and she even managed her own medical drama with skill. I owe her everything.’
‘So you’ll miss your Christmas at the beach.’
‘There’s no choice. We need to move on.’
Mary sniffed, sounding unconvinced, but Hugo swung open the door of the treatment room and Joe was chuckling and Polly was smiling up and he thought...
Who could possibly judge this woman and find her wanting? Who could criticise her?
This woman was amazing—and it seemed that she, also, was moving on.
‘Doctor, we may have to rethink the hospital menu for Christmas if Dr Hargreaves is admitted,’ Joe told him as he entered. ‘She’s telling me turkey, three veggies, commercial Christmas pudding and canned custard won’t cut it. Not even if we add a bonbon on the side.’
He blinked.
Snake bite. Lacerations. Shock.
They were talking turkey?
Okay. He needed to focus on medical imperatives, even if his patient wasn’t. Even if Polly didn’t seem like his patient.
‘The swab?’ he asked and Joe nodded and held up the test kit.
‘The brown snake showed up in seconds. The tiger segment showed positive about two minutes later but the kit says that’s often the way—they’re similar. It seems the brown snake venom’s enough to eventually discolour the tiger snake pocket, so brown it is. And I reckon she’s got a fair dose on board. Polly has a headache and nausea already. I’m betting she’s been solidly bitten.’
Hugo checked the kit for himself and nodded. He’d seen the ankle—it’d be a miracle if the venom hadn’t gone in. ‘Brown’s good,’ he told Polly. ‘You’ll recover faster than from a tiger.’
‘I’m feeling better already,’ she told him and gave him another smile, albeit a wobbly one. ‘But not my dress. It’s ripped to pieces. That snake owes me...’
He had to smile. She even managed to sound indignant.
‘But you’re nauseous?’
‘Don’t you care about my dress?’
‘I care about you more. Nausea?’
‘A little. And,’ she went on, as if she was making an enormous concession, ‘I might be a little bit headachy.’
A little...
The venom would hardly be taking effect yet, he thought. She’d still be in the window period where victims ran for help, tried to pretend they hadn’t been bitten, tried to search and identify the snake that had bitten them—and in the process spread the venom through their system and courted death.
Polly had been sensible, though. She’d stayed still. She’d told him straight away. She’d allowed the paramedics to bring her up on the rigid stretcher.
Okay, clambering down cliffs in bare feet in the Australian summer was hardly sensible but he couldn’t argue with her reasons.
‘Then let’s keep it like that,’ he told her. ‘I want you to stay still while we get this antivenin on board.’
‘I’ve been practically rigid since I got bit,’ she said virtuously. ‘Textbook patient. By the way, it’s a textbook immobilisation bandage too. Excellent work, Dr Denver.’
He grinned at that, and she smiled back at him, and then he sort of paused.
That smile...
It was a magic smile. As sick and battered as she was, her smile twinkled. Her face was pallid and wan, but it was still alight with laughter.
This was a woman who would have played in the orchestra as the Titanic sank, he thought, and then he thought: Nope, she’d be too busy fashioning lifelines out of spare trombones.
But her smile was fading. Their gazes still held but all of a sudden she looked...doubtful?
Maybe unsure.
Maybe his smile was having the same effect on her as hers was on his?
That would be wishful thinking. Plus it would be unprofessional.
Move on.
Joe had already set up the drip. Hugo prepared the serum, double-checked everything with Joe, then carefully injected it. It’d start working almost immediately, he thought; hopefully, before Polly started feeling the full effects of the bite.
‘How are you feeling everywhere else?’ he asked, and she gave a wry smile that told him more than anything else that the humour was an act. Her freckles stood out from her pallid face, and her red hair seemed overbright.
‘I’m...sore,’ she admitted.
‘I’ve started cleaning the worst of the grazes,’ Joe told him. ‘She could do with a full bed bath but you said immobile so immobile it is. There’s a cut on her palm, though, that might need a stitch or two.’
He lifted her palm and turned it over. And winced.
Her hand was a mess. He could see the coil marks of the rope. The marks ran along her palm, across her wrist and up her arm.
She’d come down that nylon cord...
He heard Mary’s breath hiss in amazement. ‘How...?’
‘I told you,’ he said, still staring at Polly’s palm. ‘She let herself down the cliff, carrying the bag with saline. Without it, Horace would probably be dead.’
‘You did that for Horace?’ Mary breathed, looking at the mess in horror, and Hugo thought he no longer had to defend her. Polly had suddenly transformed into a heroine.
‘There’s a lot to be said for elevators,’ Polly said but her voice faltered a little as she looked at her palm and he realised shock was still a factor.
And there’d be bruises everywhere. He had to get that antivenin working, though, before they could clean her up properly. Joe had even left the remnants of her dress on. The polka dots made her look even more wan.
‘Let’s get you comfortable,’ he said. ‘How about a nice dose of morphine for the pain, some metoclopramide for the nausea and a wee shot of Valium on the side?’
‘You want to knock me into the middle of next week?’
‘I want you to sleep.’
She gazed up at him, those amazing eyes locked to his. He couldn’t make out whether they were green or brown. They were...
Um...no. She was his patient. He didn’t note the colour of his patient’s eyes unless there was a medical issue. Bloodshot? Jaundiced? Fixed pupils? Polly’s eyes showed none of those. He needed to ignore them.
How could he ignore them?
‘You promise you won’t transport me to Sydney while I’m sleeping?’ she demanded, and he smiled and kept looking into those over-bright eyes.
‘I promise.’
‘That’s in front of witnesses.’
‘Joe, Mary, you heard me. The lady sta
ys in Wombat Valley.’
‘Very well, then,’ Polly said, her voice wobbling again. Still, she looked straight up at him, as if reading reassurance in his gaze. ‘Drugs, drugs and more drugs, and then Christmas in Wombat Valley. I can...I can handle that. But turkey with three veg has to go, Dr Denver.’
‘You’ll get a better Christmas dinner in Sydney.’
‘No Sydney! Promise?’
‘I already have,’ he told her but suddenly she was no longer listening. The fight had gone out of her. She had the antivenin on board. Her future was sorted.
The flight-or-fight reflex relaxed. She sank back onto the pillows and sighed.
‘Okay, Dr Denver, whatever you say,’ she whispered. ‘I’m in your hands.’
* * *
He had Horace sorted. He had Polly comfortable.
There was still the issue of Ruby.
How did you tell a seven-year-old she wasn’t going to the beach for Christmas? She’d been counting down the days for months. He’d tried to figure it out all the way back to the house, but in the end he didn’t need to.
Lois, his housekeeper, was before him. News got around fast in Wombat Valley and by the time he walked in the front door, Ruby was in tears and Lois was looking like a martyr who’d come to the end of her tether.
‘I’m sorry, Dr Denver, but I can’t stay,’ she told him over the top of Ruby’s head. ‘I promised my son I’d spend Christmas in Melbourne with my grandchildren and that’s where I’m going. I leave in half an hour, and I’ve told Ruby you’re not going anywhere. You can see how upset she is, but is it my fault? You went and climbed into that truck. Was Horace worth it? He’s a lazy wastrel and his wife’s no better. Risking your life, losing your holiday, for such a loser...’ She shook her head. ‘I wash my hands of you, I really do. Ruby, stop crying, sweetheart. I dare say your uncle will sort something out.’
And she picked up her handbag and headed out of the house before Hugo could possibly change her mind.
Hugo was left facing his niece.
Christmas. No beach. No housekeeper.
One fill-in doctor in his hospital instead of in his surgery.
He was trapped, but what was new? What was new was that Ruby felt as if she was trapped with him.
His niece looked as if she’d been trying not to cry, but fat tears were sliding down her face regardless. She stood silent, in her garden-stained shorts and T-shirt, her wispy blonde curls escaping every which way from their pigtails, and her wan little face blank with misery. She didn’t complain, though, he thought bleakly. She never had.
He knelt down and hugged her. She held her stiff little body in his arms and he felt the effort she was making not to sob.
‘We’ll fix it somehow,’ he murmured. ‘Somehow...’
How?
Today was Monday. Christmas was Saturday.
He thought of the gifts he’d already packed, ready to be produced by Santa at their apartment by the beach. Bucket and spade. Water wings. A blow-up seahorse.
Lois had even made her a bikini.
He thought of his housekeeper marching off towards her Christmas and he thought he couldn’t blame her. Lois was fond of Ruby, but he’d pushed her to the limit.
And there was another complication. It was school holidays and Ruby would need daytime care if he had to keep working. He’d need to call in favours, and he hated asking for favours.
Maybe he and Ruby should just walk away, he thought bleakly, as he’d thought many times this past year. But the complications flooded in, as they always did.
Wombat Valley was Ruby’s home. It was all she knew. In Sydney she had nothing and no one but him. His old job, the job he loved, thoracic surgery at Sydney Central, involved long hours and call backs. Here, his house was right next to the hospital. He could pop in and out at will, and he had an entire valley of people more than willing to help. They helped not just because it meant the Valley had a doctor but because so many of them genuinely cared for Ruby.
How could he stop caring, when the Valley had shown they cared so much? How could he turn his back on the Valley’s needs and on Ruby’s needs?
How could he ever return to the work he loved, to his friends, his social life, to his glorious bachelor freedom?
He couldn’t. He couldn’t even leave for two weeks. He had patients in hospital.
He had Dr Pollyanna Hargreaves in Ward One.
Polly...
Why was Polly so important? What was he doing, hugging Ruby and drying her eyes but thinking of Polly? But the image of Polly, hanging on her appalling handmade swing while every part of her hurt, wouldn’t go away.
‘Ruby, I need to tell you about one brave lady,’ he told her and Ruby sniffed and swiped away her tears with the back of her hand and tilted her chin, ready to listen. In her own way, she was as brave as Polly, he thought.
But not as cute. No matter how much the Valley mums helped, Ruby always looked a waif. She was skinny and leggy, and nothing seemed to help her put on weight. She was tall for her seven years; her skimpy pigtails made her look taller and her eyes always seemed too big for her face. Her knees were constantly grubby—she’d have been mucking about in the garden, which was her favourite place. She had mud on her tear-stained face.
He loved her with all his heart.
‘Is the lady why we can’t go to the beach?’ she quavered and he took her hand and led her out to the veranda. And there was another reminder of what they’d be missing. Hamster wasn’t there.
Hamster was Ruby’s Labrador, a great boofy friend. They hadn’t been able to find a beach house where dogs were permitted so he’d taken Hamster back to the farmer who’d bred him, to be taken care of for two weeks.
Ruby had sobbed.
There was one bright thought—they could get Hamster back for Christmas.
Meanwhile, he had to say it like it was.
‘Did Lois tell you about the truck accident?’ he asked and Ruby nodded. She was a quiet kid but she listened. He’d learned early it was impossible to keep much from her.
‘Well, the truck fell off the cliff, and the lady doctor—Dr Hargreaves—the doctor who was coming to work here while we were away—hurt herself by climbing down the cliff to save everyone.’
Ruby’s pixie face creased as she sorted it out in her head. ‘Everyone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you save everyone?’
‘I tried but I got stuck. She saved me, too. And then she got bitten by a snake.’
Ruby’s eyes widened. ‘What sort of a snake?’
‘A brown.’
‘That’s better than a tiger. Didn’t she know to make a noise? If you make lots of noise they slither away before you reach them.’
‘The snake got stuck under the truck. I guess it got scared too, and it bit her.’
‘Is she very sick?’
‘She’ll be sick for a couple of days.’
‘So then can we go to the beach?’
He thought about it. Don’t make promises, he told himself, but if Polly didn’t react too badly to the antivenin it might be possible. If those cuts didn’t stop her working.
She still wanted to stay in the Valley.
‘I’m not sure,’ he said weakly.
‘Will she have to stay in hospital all over Christmas?’
That was a thought. And a problem?
Normally, snake bite victims stayed in hospital overnight for observation. She was a Type One diabetic. She might need to stay longer, but she was already having reservations about hospital food. How long could he keep her there?
He and Ruby had cleared out their best spare room. They’d made it look pretty. Ruby had even put fresh flowers in a vase on the chest of drawers. ‘Girls like that.’
&nbs
p; But he couldn’t leave the moment she was released from hospital, he conceded. He and Polly would have to stay for a day or two.
He was counting in his head. Monday today. Bring Polly back here on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Leave on Thursday or Friday? Christmas Saturday.
It was cutting things fine.
Food... There was another problem. Sick and shocked as she was, Polly Hargreaves had already turned her nose up at bought pudding.
He had no food here. He’d assumed his locum could eat in the hospital kitchen.
He’d promised Ruby fish and chips on the beach for Christmas, and Ruby had glowed at the thought. Now... He might well have a recovering Polly for Christmas.
He didn’t even have a Christmas tree.
And, as if on cue, there was the sound of a car horn from the road—a silly, tooting car horn that was nothing like the sensible farm vehicle horns used for clearing cattle off the road or warning of kangaroos. He looked up and a little yellow sports car was being driven through the gate, a police car following behind.
This was Polly’s car. He’d seen it at the crash site but he’d been too distracted to do more than glance at it.
But here it was, being driven by one of the local farmers. Bill McCray was behind the wheel, twenty-five years old and grinning like the Cheshire cat.
‘Hey, Doc, where do you want us to put the car?’
‘What’s the car?’ Ruby breathed.
‘I... It’s Polly’s car,’ he managed.
‘Polly...’
‘Dr Hargreaves...’
‘Is that her name? Polly, like Polly put the kettle on?’
‘I...yes.’
‘It’s yellow.’ Ruby was pie-eyed. ‘And it hasn’t got a top. And it’s got a Christmas tree in the back. And suitcases and suitcases.’
There were indeed suitcases and suitcases. And a Christmas tree. Silver. Large.
Bill pulled up under the veranda. Both he and the policeman emerged from their respective vehicles, Bill looking decidedly sorry the ride had come to an end.
‘She’s a beauty,’ he declared. ‘I’d love to see how the cows reacted if I tried to drive that round the farm. And the guys say the lady doc’s just as pretty. I reckon I can feel a headache coming on. Or six. When did you say you were leaving, Doc?’
