Outback Doctors/Outback Engagement/Outback Marriage/Outback Encounter

by Meredith Webber

  Touching him…

  ‘You’re behaving like a child!’ she scolded, getting up from her position by the fire and moving determinedly towards him. ‘Scared to let me touch you because you know it’s going to hurt.’

  It isn’t the pain that bothers me, Cal thought but didn’t say.

  She knelt beside him, reminding him in a physical way of all the reasons he didn’t want her touching him.

  ‘Now, don’t tell me you haven’t investigated it. Is there a broken bone?’ Her eyes were shadowed but the firelight illuminated her pale skin with a golden glow.

  A year in Creamunna, during which time all you’ve had was one two-week break, and that was with the kids, he reminded himself. It’s prolonged celibacy attracting you to this woman.

  ‘The clavicle,’ he growled, and read the disbelief in her face.

  ‘Wrenching broke it? If it twisted it will be a comminuted break likely to have loose bits of bone floating free.’

  She had her hands on his shirt and he could smell butterscotch on her breath as she leaned cautiously over his injured shoulder, careful not to touch him with anything but the very lightest of light hands.

  Which moved down his arm to his hand, where she pinched him lightly on the wrist.

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Had to check nerve involvement,’ she murmured, cradling his fingers in her hand and lifting it towards the fire.

  ‘The blood’s flowing both ways—no swelling, no coldness, no discoloration,’ he told her, trying to retrieve the hand she’d captured but unable to pull it away from her because of the pain in his shoulder.

  ‘You’re the patient, I’m the doctor,’ she reminded him. ‘But you’re right—it seems OK. Now, about that bandage. I can tear the curtain into strips and use that to do a figure of eight around your shoulder, and there should be a bit left over to fashion a sling of sorts. You think it’s likely to get cold tonight so I’ll put it over your shirt.’

  Cal opened his mouth to argue but she’d moved away, producing the curtain again from the seemingly bottomless handbag and proceeding to tear it into strips, using sharp white teeth to get each division started.

  ‘I’ll do a couple extra for your ankle,’ she said, handing him a bunch of strips and a larger piece, no doubt intended for a sling.

  ‘My ankle’s fine as it is,’ Cal grumbled.

  ‘And one more for your mouth—a gag to stop you arguing!’

  He hoped she was joking, though the set expression on her face suggested otherwise. Why a set expression? If she was indeed a doctor, then tying up a broken shoulder shouldn’t make her frown.

  ‘We’ll be all right, you know,’ he said, thinking she might be more worried about their situation than she was letting on. Worry would explain the frown. ‘There’ll be a search and rescue helicopter landing here at first light—you wait and see.’

  ‘I’ll have to, won’t I?’ she joked, but although she smiled he imagined he could hear strain in her voice.

  Blythe knelt beside him again, and reached into his lap to take a strip of curtain.

  ‘Can you hold it in place while I do the first loop?’ she asked, starting with the end on his uninjured shoulder.

  As he reached up to take it, his fingers brushed hers and he felt a tremor he suspected was as much hers as his. He longed to comfort her, to say something to make things better, but as he didn’t know words enough to help, he took the quivering fingers in his hand and lifted them to his lips, pressing a kiss into the soft palm of her hand.

  ‘You’ve been wonderful,’ he said, releasing her hand as she tried to tug it free. ‘Here you are, calmly bandaging me up, when most women would be having hysterics, or at the very least weeping copiously.’

  ‘You don’t have a very high opinion of women, do you?’ she remarked, reaching around his body with the length of material. ‘There, I’ll knot it low down so the knot doesn’t press into the injured part.’

  He could feel the softness of her breasts against his back, and smell the fragrance of her hair as it brushed against his face. It made him think things he shouldn’t think—especially about a colleague who was treating him.

  But her arms wrapped around him like a lover’s, and for the first time in many, many years he felt a sense of loneliness.

  ‘It must be Mark marrying that brought it on,’ he mumbled to himself, then realised he was voicing thoughts he shouldn’t be having. Perhaps a reaction to shock!

  ‘Brought what on?’ Blythe asked, knotting another strip of cloth to the bandage and winding it expertly across his back. ‘Your poor opinion of women?’

  ‘Of course not. It was just a remark, and nothing to do with women.’

  Not much!

  Arms reached around again, but this time pain stopped him thinking unacceptable thoughts.

  ‘Hurts, doesn’t it?’ Blythe said, no doubt responding to his wince. ‘But I had to put some pressure on to pull your shoulders back. That should counteract the downwards displacement of bone.’

  ‘And probably cut off my venous flow!’ Pain added venom to his voice.

  ‘I’ve still got the gag if you get cheeky,’ she reminded him, but the hands that tucked the end of the bandage in and fitted the sling were gentle, and when she stood up, leaving the coolness of the evening pressing on his back, the sense of loneliness he’d felt earlier returned.

  ‘Now your ankle,’ she announced, but he put out his good hand to stop her.

  ‘No, truly, it’s all right.’

  ‘Then why won’t you let me touch it? For a start I should take off your shoe. If the ankle’s swelling, the shoe could cause constriction to the blood vessels.’

  She was right, of course, which made him feel worse, not better. He tried to remember if Grace had ever fussed over him.

  Perhaps when they were first married? He’d certainly been injured often enough. Falls from the motorbike when a mob of cattle had turned too quickly, or he’d hit an unseen rut in the grass and been thrown through the air. The other men laughing—their way of showing sympathy—roughly checking he’d had no broken bones before getting on with the job.

  Blythe lifted his ankle, gently easing off his shoe, and pain stopped further thought.

  ‘Could be a sprain or perhaps a Pott’s fracture,’ she told him, as her fingers pressed into the skin just above his ankle.

  ‘That covers a lot of ground,’ he told her, trying to draw his foot away from her as her explorations were causing more pain than he wanted to handle right now.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, resting his ankle back on the ground. ‘But it’s handy to have something to say to a patient. I mean, a Potts fracture sounds simple compared to ‘‘an isolated fracture of the lateral malleolus’’, now, doesn’t it? Say that to a patient and he or she would immediately freak out because it sounds so much more serious than good old Potts.’

  Cal found himself chuckling as she reached for another strip of material from his lap, though what lay ahead should have deadened any amusement.

  ‘Let’s leave it until it’s been X-rayed,’ he suggested, knowing the process of binding the ankle would hurt like hell, even if it did feel better later.

  ‘And risk displacement of the bones if there is a fracture? If it’s a simple break with no displacement, all you’ll need is a walking cast for three to six weeks, but once the bones move you’re going to need a general anaesthetic and manipulation—’

  Blythe stopped so abruptly he forgot he’d been about to tell her to teach her grandmother to suck eggs, and instead demanded, ‘What? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Where will the helicopter take us? I was thinking we’d finish up at Creamunna, but you need a doctor—and as you’re the only doctor in town for the moment, there’s no point in taking you there. And what will happen to your patients while you’re laid up? Will the RFDS cover for you?’

  Cal closed his eyes. The knock on his head must have affected him more badly than he’d realised. He hadn’t even considered the imme
diate consequences of this accident.

  Well, beyond getting rescued!

  ‘Mark’s experience when he took a break was that the Flying Doctors will cover emergencies. They do that anyway, flying out people who need urgent specialist care. Day-to-day stuff the sisters at the hospital handle, or people travel to the Derryville, the nearest large town. Damn, but this is a mess!’

  ‘And you’ve got your kids arriving.’ Blythe’s reminder fired an anger born of frustration.

  ‘Not until Christmas—that’s months away—but thank you, little ray of sunshine, for that timely reminder,’ he growled. ‘Anything else you’d like to add to my load of troubles?’

  ‘Your troubles?’ she said, the inflection in her voice giving new meaning to the word ‘scathing’. ‘What about mine? Stuck out here in the wilderness with a misogynistic medico—an injured misogynistic medico at that—and no hope of rescue till morning, which means I’ll probably miss the bus to Brisbane, and with my luck there won’t be another one for days, and no matter what you say, my entire family will blame me for this disaster. Then on top of that, all I had to eat at lunch was the entrée, then a lettuce leaf and a slice of chicken, because after the experience of the bridesmaid’s dress I was dreading the pins might give way, so I’m starving.’

  ‘And to think you gave me one of your butterscotches,’ Cal said, trying hard not to laugh at Blythe’s litany of woes.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, quite seriously he thought, though it was hard to tell in the firelight. ‘That was stupid of me, wasn’t it? Well, as thanks for my largesse, let me bind this ankle. At the very least it should minimise pain for you if you move it during the night.’

  He didn’t argue—well, not about the ankle—because he’d remembered where her tirade had begun.

  ‘A misogynistic medico? What gives you the impression of misogynism—if there is such a word?’

  He heard her chuckle.

  ‘I thought you might have missed that bit,’ she told him, binding his ankle with such professional skill he didn’t feel any additional pain. ‘But I did pick up certain vibes during lunch—comments on women in general, and a few directed at particular women among the guests. I think you accused me earlier in the day of bitchiness—or perhaps I accused myself—but some of the remarks emanating from your lips would have beaten anything I might have said hands down.’

  Cal tried to think back, but the immediate past seemed lost somewhere in the haze of pain his injuries were causing. Though given his general attitude from the moment Mount Spec had been proposed as a wedding venue, he wasn’t surprised.

  What did surprise him was the strength of his reaction to her words. He didn’t want Blythe judging him by his behaviour at the lunch.

  ‘It’s always hard, going back to the property,’ he told her, then realised he was making excuses which made him sound even weaker.

  ‘Especially hard, I imagine, to a wedding.’

  Her comment surprised him and he peered towards where she’d settled by the fire when she’d finished binding his ankle. He hadn’t heard any sarcasm in her voice, but he wasn’t good at the nuances of female conversation anyway. Marriage to Grace had taught him that much.

  ‘Yes!’ he said, because the words seemed to hang in the air between them, needing some acknowledgement or closure.

  ‘So why did you go?’

  Cal shrugged, then winced as the movement caused pain.

  ‘I suppose because Lileth’s a cousin. Although we hadn’t seen anything of each other since we were children, she cared enough to come out to meet me again. And Mark’s become a friend as well as a colleague, though when I agreed to be best man, the wedding was going to be held at Lileth’s home—your mother’s home.’

  ‘Well, at least I wasn’t the only one put out by the all-powerful grandfather decreeing she be married on the property!’

  Blythe sounded placated, but her words prompted a memory of Cal’s final conversation with his grandfather, just before leaving Mount Spec.

  ‘He’s not so all-powerful these days,’ he said, speaking slowly as he put some vague impressions into words. ‘If anything, he’s suddenly very much aware of his own mortality. I think wanting to have Lileth marry up there was his way of making amends.’

  ‘And you? Did he make his peace with you?’

  Again Cal peered towards his companion, wanting to see her face as she plucked these too-perceptive questions and comments out of thin air. But all he could see was firelight gleaming on her hair and the outline of her profile against the light.

  ‘What makes you think it was necessary?’ he asked, and saw her shoulders move as she laughed.

  ‘You were the heir—the first-born grandson—and, no matter what you say, someone of your grandfather’s vintage would put stock in primogeniture. And for some reason, you turn your back on your heritage and go off to the city to study medicine. He must have been horrified—perhaps even devastated.’

  Cal couldn’t deny either the horror or the devastation, so said nothing, though his mind returned to those lonely nights when he’d first been in the city—so adrift from all that was familiar.

  ‘Why?’

  The softly spoken air drifted across the night air and settled in his head but, though he knew what she was asking, answering wasn’t easy.

  ‘You obviously have that deep, inbred love for the country, so why leave the family farm—if one can describe such a vast spread in that way—to be a doctor?’

  Blythe had no sooner uttered the words than she wished them unspoken. Of all the stupid, insensitive things to blurt out! She reached out to rest her hand lightly on his knee.

  ‘I’m sorry! Of course you couldn’t have stayed on at the property once your wife had taken up with your brother. It must have been agonising for you. I imagine getting away was all you could think of…’ She stopped as her thoughts hit a snag. ‘Though why you’d choose medicine as an escape unless you’re an absolute glutton for punishment, I don’t know. I would have thought there were dozens of easier options—things connected with the land, a stock and station agent…’

  Not knowing much about country life, she ran out of suggestions, but she’d felt Cal’s reaction to her hand on his knee and withdrew it hurriedly.

  ‘You’ve turned all womanly again,’ he growled, coolness back in his deep voice. ‘Imagining me bereft and broken-hearted.’

  Blythe peered at him, but the firelight revealed little emotion on his face.

  ‘I didn’t mention broken-hearted,’ she muttered at him, obscurely upset by the ‘womanly’ jibe. ‘But surely, particularly in such a close community, you must have been at least slightly peeved to have your wife go off with your brother.’

  ‘That’s pure speculation on your part—my wife ‘‘going off’’, as you succinctly put it, with my brother. For all you know, it could have been my decision to leave and follow up on a lifelong interest in medicine.’

  ‘Was it?’

  He didn’t answer immediately and a quick glance his way showed only his profile, as he, too, gazed into the flames.

  ‘I was interested in improving medical facilities in the country and I’d been on a national committee which was looking into the provision of rural medical services for a couple of years. I’m three years older than Chris, but when he was old enough and experienced enough to know running Mount Spec was what he wanted to do, I was free to do as I wished. I decided I should put my money where my mouth was, so to speak, and actually do something about improving services. To do that, I had to begin by knowing more than I did about doctoring. So I went off to the city to study medicine.’

  The story came out so smoothly, Blythe wondered if it had been rehearsed. Or told so often the words were like a mantra. But there were holes big enough to drown in and she was too curious for subtlety, so she leapt into the biggest of them. ‘You said you were free. If she hadn’t taken up with your brother by then, why didn’t Grace go with you?’

  She was watching the
dark shadow of his body so saw his shoulders move in a shrug, then the wince of pain as his injury objected.

  ‘Grace found she liked Mount Spec more than she liked me.’ The harshness in his voice suggested remembered pain, for all his denial of heartbreak, but after his previous putdown Blythe knew better than to offer sympathy. ‘Our marriage had been more or less preordained by both our families. It was never a grand passion, and Grace was entitled to do as she wished, which was to remain as chatelaine of Mount Spec.’

  ‘Well, of all the selfish, grasping attitudes!’ Blythe blurted out as indignation overcame her desire to remain unmoved by his story.

  He turned to face her, and in the firelight she could see his eyebrows tugged closer in a frown.

  ‘Do you think so? Grace and I married young, but my experience of women since suggests they’re far more pragmatic than men give them credit for. Women go for the practical in decision-making—the emotional trip is just a cover-up.’

  ‘I knew you were a misogynist,’ Blythe muttered darkly, then heard his chuckle warm the darkness between them.

  ‘No way, merely a realist. I mean, look at Mark and Lileth. Mark was perfectly happy practising at Creamunna but even you don’t believe Lileth will last long in the country. So what will happen? Mark will move somewhere else. It’s the woman who influences most decisions in marriages.’

  ‘Though not in your case,’ Blythe pointed out, as anger at his attitude began to fire her blood. ‘You proved your own snide theory wrong. You simply abandoned your wife and family to go off and do what you wanted to do. And you make out women are the selfish ones! If you’d been influenced by your wife, you’d have stayed.’

  ‘In a household with a cook, a housekeeper, several other helpers, not to mention a nanny and a governess, my wife and family were hardly abandoned,’ he retorted coldly.

  Blythe shook her head. Experience had taught her it was impossible to understand other people’s relationships, but this man’s cold appraisal of his marriage break-up was so far beyond her comprehension it was unbelievable.