by Tina Beckett
‘We’re not leaving,’ Ruby whispered but she no longer sounded desolate. She was staring in stupefaction at the tree. It was all silver sparkles and it stretched over the top of the luggage, from the front passenger seat to well behind the exhaust pipe.
Polly had tied a huge red tinsel bow at the rear—to warn traffic of the long load? It looked...amazing.
‘We’re staying here to look after the lady doctor,’ Ruby said, still staring. ‘I think she might be nice. Is she nice, Uncle Hugo?’
‘Very nice,’ he said weakly and headed down to unpack a Christmas tree.
CHAPTER FIVE
NIGHT ROUND. HE SHOULD be eating fish and chips on the beach right now, Hugo thought as he headed through the darkened wards to Ward One. He’d thought he had this Christmas beautifully organised.
Most of his long-termers had gone home for Christmas. He had three elderly patients in the nursing home section, all with local family and heaps of visitors. None needed his constant attendance.
Sarah Ferguson was still in Room Two. Sarah had rolled a tractor on herself a month ago. She’d spent three weeks in Sydney Central and had been transferred here for the last couple of weeks to be closer to her family. Her family had already organised to have Christmas in her room. She hardly needed him either.
But Polly needed him. He’d been back and forth during the afternoon, checking her. Anaphylactic shock was still a possibility. He still had her on fifteen minute obs. She was looking okay but with snake bites you took no chances.
Barb, the night nurse, greeted him happily and put down her knitting to accompany him.
‘I’m fine,’ he told her. ‘I can do my round by myself.’
The scarf Barb was knitting, a weird mix of eclectic colours, was barely six feet long. Barb had told him it needed to be ten.
‘Why my grandson had to tell me he wanted a Dr Who scarf a week before Christmas...’ she’d muttered last night and he’d thought he’d made things easy for her by keeping the hospital almost empty.
But Barb did take her job seriously. She was knitting in front of the monitors attached to Ward One, which acted as the Intensive Care room. Any blip in Polly’s heart rate and she’d be in there in seconds, and one glance at the chart in front of her told him Polly had been checked thoroughly and regularly.
‘No change?’
‘She’s not sleeping. She’s pretty sore. If you could maybe write her up for some stronger pain relief for the night...’ She hesitated. ‘And, Doc... She’s not admitting it but I’m sure she’s still pretty shaken. She’s putting on a brave front but my daughter’s her age. All bravado but jelly inside.’
He nodded and left her to her knitting.
Polly’s ward was in near darkness, lit only by the floor light. He knocked lightly and went in.
Polly was a huddled mass under the bedclothes. She’d drawn her knees up to her middle, almost in a foetal position.
She’s still pretty shaken...
Barb was right, he thought. This was the age-old position for those alone and scared.
He had a sudden urge to head to the bed, scoop her up and hold her. She’d had one hell of a day. What she needed was comfort.
Someone to hold...
Um...that wouldn’t be him. There were professional boundaries, after all.
Instead, he tugged the visitor’s chair across to the bed, sat down and reached for her hand.
Um... Her wrist. Not her hand. He was taking her pulse. That was professional.
‘Hey,’ he said, very softly. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Great,’ she managed and he smiled. Her ‘great’ had been weak but it was sarcastic.
Still she had spirit.
‘The venom will have kicked in but the antivenin will be doing its job,’ he told her. ‘Your obs are good.’
‘Like I said—great.’ She eased herself from the foetal position, casually, as if she didn’t want him to notice how she’d been lying. ‘Sorry. That sounds ungrateful. I am grateful. Mary and Joe gave me a good wash. I’m antivenined. I’m stitched, I’m disinfected and I’m in a safe place. But I’ve ruined your holiday. I’m so sorry.’
All this and she was concerned about his missed vacation?
‘Right,’ he said, almost as sarcastic as she’d been. ‘You saved my life and you’re sorry.’
‘I didn’t save your life.’
‘You know what happened when they tugged the truck up the cliff? It swung and hit one of the saplings that had been holding it from falling further. The sapling lifted right out of the ground. It’d been holding by a thread.’
She shuddered and his hold on her hand tightened. Forget taking her pulse, he decided. She needed comfort and he was giving it any way he could.
‘Polly, is there anyone we can ring? The nurses tell me you haven’t contacted anyone. Your parents? A boyfriend? Any friend?’
‘You let my family know what’s happened and you’ll have helicopters landing on the roof in ten minutes. And the press. You’ll have my dad threatening to sue you, the hospital and the National Parks for letting the Gap exist in the first place. You don’t know my family. Please, I’m fine as I am.’
She wasn’t fine, though. She still had the shakes.
The press? Who was she?
She was alone. That was all he needed to focus on right now. ‘Polly, you need someone...’
‘I don’t need anyone.’ She hesitated. ‘Though I am a bit shaky,’ she admitted. ‘I could use another dose of that nice woozy Valium. You think another dose would turn me into an addict?’
‘I think we can risk it. And how about more pain relief, too? I have a background morphine dose running in the IV line but we can top it up. Pain level, one to ten?’
‘Six,’ she said and he winced.
‘Ouch. Why didn’t you tell Barb? She would have got me here sooner.’
‘I’m not a whinger.’
‘How did I already know that?’ He shook his head, rechecked her obs, rang for Barb and organised the drugs. Barb did what was needed and then bustled back to her scarf. That meant Hugo could leave too.
But Polly was alone and she was still shaking.
He could ask Barb to bring her knitting in here.
Then who would look after the monitors for the other rooms?
It was okay him being here, he decided. His house was right next door to the hospital and they had an intercom set up in the nurses’ station, next to the monitors. Ruby had been fast asleep for a couple of hours but, any whimper she made, Barb would know and send him home fast.
So he could sit here for a while.
Just until Polly was asleep, he told himself. He sat and almost unconsciously she reached out and took his hand again. As if it was her right. As if it was something she really needed, almost as important as breathing.
‘I was scared,’ she admitted.
‘Which part scared you the most?’ he asked. ‘Sliding down the cliff? Hanging on that nylon cord swing? When Joe Blake did his thing...?’
‘Joe Blake?’
‘You really are city,’ he teased. ‘Joe Blake—Snake.’
‘It was a bad moment,’ she confessed. ‘But the worst was when I saw the truck. When I realised there were people in it.’
‘I guess it’d be like watching stretchers being wheeled into Emergency after a car crash,’ he said. ‘Before you know what you’re facing.’
‘Yeah.’
‘But you broke it into manageable bits. You have excellent triage skills, Dr Hargreaves.’
‘Maybe.’
She fell silent for a minute and then the hold on his hand grew tighter. But what she said was at odds with her obvious need. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she told him. ‘You should be home with your niece. Barb
tells me she’s your niece and not your daughter and her name’s Ruby. Is she home alone?’
‘Home’s next door. Her bedroom’s a hundred yards from the nurses’ station. Her nightlight’s on and whoever’s monitoring the nurses’ station can watch the glow and can listen on the intercom. If Ruby wakes up, all she has to do is hit the button and she can talk to the nurses or to me.’
‘Good system,’ she said sleepily and he thought the drugs were taking effect—or maybe it was simply the promise of the drugs.
Or maybe it was because she was holding his hand? It seemed an almost unconscious action, but she wasn’t letting go.
‘Tell me about Ruby,’ she whispered and he sat and thought about his niece and felt the pressure of Polly’s hand in his and the sensation was...
Was what?
Something he didn’t let himself feel. Something he’d pushed away?
‘And tell me about you too,’ she murmured and he thought he didn’t need to tell her anything. Doctors didn’t tell personal stuff to patients.
But in the silence of the little ward, in the peacefulness of the night, he found himself thinking about a night almost a year ago. The phone call from the police. The night he’d realised life as he knew it had just slammed to an end.
He’d been born and raised in this place—Wombat Valley, where nothing ever happened. Wombat Valley, where you could sit on the veranda at night and hear nothing but the frogs and the hoot of the night owls.
Wombat Valley, where everyone depended on everyone else.
Grace, his sister, had hated it. She’d run away at sixteen and she’d kept on running. ‘I feel trapped,’ she’d shouted, over and over. Hugo had been twelve when she’d run and he hadn’t understood.
But twelve months ago, the night his sister died, it was Hugo who’d been trapped. That night he’d felt like running as well.
He didn’t. How could he? He’d returned to the Valley and it seemed as if he’d be here for ever.
‘Tell me about Ruby?’ Polly whispered again, and her question wasn’t impatient. It was as if the night had thoughts of its own and she was content to wait.
‘Ruby’s my niece.’
‘Yeah. Something I don’t know?’
‘She’s adorable.’
‘And you wouldn’t be biased?’
He smiled. She sounded half asleep, but she was still clutching his hand and he wondered if the questions were a ruse to have him stay.
‘She’s seven years old,’ he said. ‘She’s skinny, tough, fragile, smart. She spends her time in the garden, mucking round in the dirt, trying to make things grow, playing with a menagerie of snails, tadpoles, frogs, ladybirds.’
‘Her parents?’
‘We don’t know who her father is,’ Hugo told her. He was almost talking to himself but it didn’t seem to matter. ‘My sister suffered from depression, augmented by drug use. She was always...erratic. She ran away at sixteen and we hardly saw her. She contacted me when Ruby was born—until then we hadn’t even known she was pregnant. She was in Darwin and she was in a mess. I flew up and my parents followed. Mum and Dad brought them both back to Wombat Valley. Grace came and went, but Ruby stayed.’
‘Why...why the Valley?’
‘My father was the Valley doctor—our current house is where Grace and I were raised. Dad died when Ruby was three, but Mum stayed on. Mum cared for Ruby and she loved her. Then, late last year, Grace decided she wanted to leave for good and she wanted Ruby back. She was with...someone who scared my mother. Apparently there was an enormous row, which culminated in Mum having a stroke. The day after Mum’s funeral, Grace drove her car off the Gap. Maybe it was an accident. Probably it wasn’t.’
‘Oh, no...’
‘So that’s that,’ he said flatly. ‘End of story. The Valley loves Ruby, Ruby loves the Valley and I’m home for good. I’m not doing a great job with Ruby, but I’m trying. She loved Mum. Grace confused her and at the end she frightened her. Now she’s too quiet. She’s a tomboy. I worry...’
‘There’s nothing wrong with being a tomboy,’ Polly whispered, sounding closer and closer to sleep. ‘You don’t force her to wear pink?’
He smiled at that. ‘She’d have it filthy in minutes. What I should do is buy camouflage cloth and find a dungaree maker.’
‘She sounds my type of kid.’
‘You do pretty.’
Where had that come from? He shouldn’t comment on patients’ appearances. You do pretty? What sort of line was that?
‘I like clothes that make me smile,’ she whispered. ‘I have an amazing pair of crimson boots. One day I might show you.’
‘I’ll look forward to that.’ Maybe he shouldn’t have said that either. Was it inappropriate?
Did he care?
‘So Ruby knows she’s safe with you?’ she whispered.
‘She’s as safe as I can make her. We had an interim doctor after Dad died but he left the moment I appeared on the scene. This valley could use three doctors, but for now I’m it. I’ve been advertising for twelve months but no one’s applied. Meanwhile, Ruby understands the intercom system and she can see the hospital from her bedroom. If I can’t be there in ten seconds someone else will be. That’s the deal the hospital board employs me under. Ruby comes first.’
‘So if there’s drama...’
‘This community backs me up. I’m here if, and only if, Wombat Valley helps me raise Ruby.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s my job.’
Only it wasn’t, or not his job of choice. He’d walked away from his job as a thoracic surgeon. Not being able to use the skills he’d fought to attain still left him feeling gutted, and now he couldn’t even get Christmas off.
‘But I’ve so messed with your Christmas,’ she said weakly, echoing his thoughts, and he hauled himself together.
‘I’ve told you—you’ve done no such thing.’
‘Would it be better for you if I was transferred?’
‘I...no.’
‘But I’m supposed to be staying in your house. You won’t want me now.’
At least he had this answer ready. He’d had the evening to think about it. Polly’s tree was now set up in the living room. He was preparing to make the most of it.
‘If you stay, you might still be able to help me,’ he said diffidently, as if he was asking a favour. And maybe he was; it was just that his ideas about this woman were all over the place and he couldn’t quite get them together. ‘You’ll need a few days to get over your snake bite and bruises. You could snuggle into one of our spare rooms—it’s a big house—and Ruby could look after you. She’d enjoy that.’
‘Ruby would look after me?’
‘She loves to be needed. She’s already fascinated by your snake bite—you’ll have to show her the fang marks, by the way. She’s also in love with your Christmas tree.’
‘My tree...’
‘The boys brought your car to my house. Ruby insisted we unpack it. I’m sorry but it’s in the living room and Ruby’s already started decorating it.’
‘You don’t have a tree of your own?’
‘We were going away for Christmas.’
‘You still should have had a tree,’ she murmured, but her voice was getting so weak he could hardly hear. She was slurring her words and finally the hold on his hand was weakening. The drugs were taking over.
He should tuck her hand under the covers, he thought, and finally he did, but as he released her fingers he felt an indefinable sense of loss.
And, as he did, she smiled up at him, and weirdly she shifted her hand back out of the covers. She reached up and touched his face. Just lightly. It was a feather-touch, tracing the bones of his cheek.
‘I’m glad I saved you,’ she whispered and it was all he could do to hear.
‘I’m gl
ad you saved me too.’ And for the life of him he couldn’t stop a shake entering his voice.
‘And you didn’t have a Christmas tree...’
‘N...no.’
‘And now I’m going to stay with you until Christmas?’
What could he say? ‘If you like.’
‘Then it sounds like I need to be helpful,’ she whispered, and it was as if she was summoning all the strength she had to say something. ‘Sometimes I can be my mother’s daughter. December the twentieth and you don’t even have a tree. And you have a little girl who likes tadpoles and dungarees. And I just know you’re a very nice man. What were you doing in that truck in the first place? The snake could just as easily have bitten you. You know what, Dr Denver? As well as saving your skin, I’m going to save your Christmas. How’s that for a plan?’
But she got no further. Her hand fell away. Her lids closed, and she was asleep.
* * *
He walked home feeling...disorientated. Or more. Discombobulated? There was no other word big enough to describe it.
He could still feel the touch of Polly’s fingers on his face where she’d touched him.
He might just as well have been kissed...
There was a crazy idea. He hadn’t been kissed. She’d been doped to the eyeballs with painkillers and relaxants. She’d had an appalling shock and she was injured. People did and said weird things...
Still the trace of her fingers remained.
She was beautiful.
She was brave, funny, smart.
She was scared and she was alone.
But what had she said? He replayed her words in his head.
‘You let my family know what’s happened and you’ll have helicopters landing on the roof ten minutes later. And the press...’
Who was she? He needed to do some research. He’d rung her medical referees when she’d applied to do the locum. He’d been given glowing reports on her medical skills but there’d been a certain reticence...
He’d avoided the reticence. He’d been so relieved to find a doctor with the skills to look after the Valley, he wouldn’t have minded if she’d had two heads. If she had the medical qualifications, nothing else could matter.
