‘You know he’s just the same. He always will be just the same, whether you’re here or not. Now, are you somewhere nice with that nice young man?’
‘I…’ Rachel bit her lip. That nice young man.
Maybe she could apply the adjective to Toby.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘Has he taken you somewhere gorgeous?’
She smiled at that. This, at least, was an easy question. ‘It’s all red and gold brocade,’ she whispered. ‘And incredibly luxurious. Dottie, you should see the bed.’
There was a moment’s silence. And then Dottie spoke again, deeply satisfied.
‘Then why are you wasting time on the phone talking about it?’ she demanded. ‘You put your phone down this minute and go and make the most of it.’
Make the most of it? That was a joke.
Rachel put the phone down and pulled up her covers but in the end she did make the most of it. Or she did what she most needed to do.
She slept.
Digger was barking.
Rachel surfaced to sunlight streaming in over her bed. She blinked, trying to figure out just where she was. Memory came flooding back. She stretched out in her too-big pyjamas and thought this wasn’t such a bad place to live if you took away the brocade. And the tassels. And the particularly ghastly cupids staring dotingly down from the mantelpiece.
Her bedroom was facing east. She’d hauled back the dreadful crimson drapes the night before and now she could see right out to the ocean beyond. Why the bedroom had drapes she didn’t know, unless the local cows were nosy. There were cows in the paddock beyond the house, the sea was beyond the cows and beyond the sea was the horizon. A smoky haze was filtering the light but it still looked great.
Her apartment at the hospital looked out at a brick wall.
Maybe she could move to the country when Craig…
Yeah, right. Get a grip.
Craig.
She groped under her bed for her purse, checked the time-it was eight o’clock, far later than she usually slept even after huge nights on call!-found her phone and dialled home. Some things were automatic.
But some things weren’t needed. Or wanted.
‘What are you doing, ringing again?’ Dorothy sounded cross that she’d contacted her. ‘I told you not to and I meant it. Rachel, leave it be. I can’t tell you how delighted we are that you’re having a good time.’
‘But Craig?’
There was silence. Then: ‘You know very well how Craig is, dear. I told you. Lewis popped in before breakfast and he’s stable. As he always is. Rachel, it’s no use ringing.’
‘But you will let me know…’
‘Rachel, love, nothing’s going to change and you know it. You go back to whatever it is you’re doing,’ her mother-in-law said gently. ‘Stop ringing. Move on. Get yourself a life.’
A life. Right. Dorothy thought she was having a nice romantic time.
She looked down at herself, dressed in what she guessed were Hugo’s spare pyjamas. Blue and yellow stripes. Very fetching.
She looked at the bedside chair where Doris’s Crimplene lay waiting.
‘Which?’ she said to herself. ‘Romantic choice, eh? Which would Cinderella wear, and where’s my fairy godmother when I need her?’
Hugo and Toby and the plump, round-faced lady she’d seen taking care of Toby yesterday were all having breakfast. Oh, and Digger. The lady was just setting down a plate of scraps under the table. This was clearly doggy heaven.
It was Rachel heaven. She sniffed. Bacon. Coffee. Toast.
Some things were irresistible. She hitched up her pyjamas and hiked right in.
‘Hi,’ she said, and tried not to look self-conscious.
‘Hi,’ said Toby, while the lady and Hugo just looked.
‘No comment is required,’ she told them. She glared at Hugo-at the lurking laughter she could see behind his eyes. ‘Don’t even think about it.’ She held out her hand to the bacon lady, while the other still clutched her waist. ‘I’m Rachel.’
‘I’m Myra Partridge,’ the lady told her, taking her hand and gripping it with warmth and real friendliness. She eyed Rachel’s outfit in concern. ‘They’re not the doctor’s pyjamas?’
‘I have no idea,’ she told her. ‘They’re the ones the doctor kindly gave me last night. All I know is that they’re not this doctor’s pyjamas. They’re threatening to slide, but I’ve decided that they still look better on me than Doris Keen’s frock does.’
‘Oh, my dear…’ Myra’s lips twitched. She was in her late fifties, Rachel guessed, with eyes that said she smiled most of the time. She reached into a kitchen drawer and proffered a safety pin-which Rachel accepted with real gratitude. ‘I saw you in Doris’s frock last night. Doris rang a while back.’
‘If she wants her frock back, she’s welcome to it.’ Rachel thought about it. ‘Though she might want to come and get it. I can’t see myself hiking over to her place in these.’
‘Sit yourself down.’ They were all smiling now as she stuck the safety pin in place-all three of them. The kitchen felt great. Here the opulence and over-decoration were toned down by the sheer domesticity of cooking and the dog under the table and smiling people. There were pots and pans and…
‘Pancakes?’ Rachel said faintly.
‘I thought you’d all be hungry.’ Myra beamed. ‘The doctor’s been out since dawn.’
‘Has he?’ Rachel’s smile slipped. She looked across the table at Hugo. ‘Problems?’
‘Kim’s running a fever. Not too bad. I’m hoping it’s nothing. I’ve upped the antibiotics to maximum. And a couple of the fire crews have been working through the night. I checked them as they came in.’
‘He’d be doing something else if it wasn’t Kim and the fire crews,’ Myra said comfortably. ‘He’s always gone at dawn. I come in and look after the wee one…’
‘Until Aunty Christine comes in and takes me to school,’ Toby told her. ‘Mrs Partridge would take me to school and I want her to, but Aunty Christine makes Dad let her.’
She wasn’t buying into any family argument. Not yet. ‘Well, lucky you to have two ladies to escort you.’ She wriggled herself around in her pyjamas, testing the security of the pin. She let go the waist and did a little test jump-her hands hovering just in case, while Hugo, Toby, Myra and Digger looked on, fascinated. They were doomed to disappointment. The safety pin held. She sat herself down and reached for a pancake, deeply satisfied. ‘You were going to wake me up for some of these, right?’
Hugo was looking at her with a very strange expression. ‘Um…right.’
‘I wanted to wake you up hours ago,’ Toby announced. ‘But Daddy wouldn’t let me.’
‘You have a very kind daddy.’ Rachel beamed. ‘Just as long as he lets me share his pancakes and his bacon and coffee. Very kind indeed.’
Clothes. That was the most important thing.
‘Doris dropped your bag off an hour ago,’ Myra told her. ‘But she’s kept your clothes. There’s stains…’
‘I don’t want to know about them,’ Rachel said firmly, thinking about the last time she’d seen them and deciding if she never saw them again it’d be too soon. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Crimplene and flannelette.’
‘Digger saved your bra,’ Toby told her, and she faltered. Her bra. The last time she’d seen that had been…
Whoops!
‘Flannelette and Crimplene and lacy black bras are hardly professional,’ Hugo told her, and Rachel managed a sickly sort of smile.
‘Um…no. Not your white-coated doctor image, huh?’
‘No,’ he said faintly, and her grin widened. Hey, it wasn’t he who was doing the discomposing. It was suddenly Hugo who was discomposed. She had Hugo McInnes out of his comfort zone, which felt…good.
Definitely good, she decided. He made her discomposed. It was nice to have him a little discomposed in return.
But he was about to discompose her again. ‘I think we have
the problem sorted,’ he told her.
‘Mmm?’ She was into a mouthful of bacon. Yesterday’s hunger was still fresh enough to make her really appreciate her food and this was seriously good.
‘Christine’s bringing you some clothes.’
She thought about it. ‘Christine.’ She looked at Toby. ‘Red and gold Christine?’
They all knew what she meant. There were three smiles. But Hugo was rising, pushing back his coffee-cup. ‘She’s very good. I don’t know where we’d be without her. And she’s not red and gold at all. She has a style all her own.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘She should be here in a few minutes to take Toby to school. I need to do a house call. If it’s OK with you, Rachel, I’ll collect you in an hour and take you out to our nursing home. I was hoping you might be able to help.’
He paused as if what he was asking was an impertinence, but she wasn’t in the mood for worrying over impertinence.
‘Of course I’ll help. If I’m trapped here I may as well be useful. But how?’
‘The fires are worsening.’ He motioned to the window and the haze between there and the sea seem to be thicker. ‘They’re not threatening the town yet but the crews are working hard to keep it like that. And most of the crews are made up of volunteers with differing levels of fitness-as well as differing levels of common sense. There are lots of medical problems. I need to go up to the ridge.’
‘So you’d like me to do the coughs and colds and the like while you do the hero stuff?’
‘Would you?’
‘Of course I would.’ She grinned at him. There was something about this man that made her want to smile-even when she was offering to do his mundane work for him while he did the exciting stuff. ‘Though I guess that means I don’t get to drive fire trucks any more.’
His smile matched hers. ‘I heard about your fire-truck driving. Very impressive. But still…’ His eyes smiled at her-linking them-warming parts of her she hadn’t known were cold. Crazy. But…nice? ‘You’re hardly dressed for fire-truck duty.’
She looked down at her pyjamas and pouted. ‘What’s wrong with these? I reckon I’d look pretty snappy behind the wheel of a fire truck in flannelette pyjamas.’
‘Your safety pin would never hold.’ He chuckled, and the strange link was broken. For now. ‘OK. Let’s negotiate the duty roster when we’re organised. When you’re wearing something a bit more doctor-like. Meanwhile, I have to go. Myra, can you-?’
He was interrupted in mid-sentence. The back door swung wide-and in walked Christine.
It wasn’t hard to pick her. Rachel looked up from her bacon and she knew straight away who this had to be.
The lady was seriously lovely. She also wasn’t decorated at all. She didn’t need to be. What had Hugo said? ‘She has a style all her own.’
She certainly did.
She was tall, with flame-coloured hair swept up into a sleek knot, the hair itself seeming to tug the flawless complexion free of any lines.
No lines would dare come near this woman. She was wearing cropped black pants to calf length, a tiny white top, strappy black sandals and a silver bracelet that must have cost a fortune.
She looked as if she belonged in an inner-city art gallery, Rachel thought, with only one very fast rueful glance down at her pyjamas. She thought back to the people she’d seen yesterday at the Cowral show. This woman didn’t fit.
‘Hello, all.’ The woman’s greeting was bright and warm. She smiled straight at Hugo, though, Rachel noticed, and Toby didn’t look up from his breakfast. ‘Are you ready, Toby?’
You can see he’s still eating his breakfast, Rachel thought, but she didn’t say so. The question seemed to be rhetorical. Christine had dropped a carry bag on the floor and was reaching for the coffee-pot. ‘Heaven. You make the best coffee, Hugo.’
‘Harrumph.’ Myra rose and stumped over to the sink and Rachel wondered who had made the coffee. By the expression on Myra’s face it wasn’t hard to guess. Maybe it didn’t matter, though. Christine had moved on.
‘You’re the new doctor?’ Christine sank into the chair Myra had just left, as if it was her right, and turned her attention to Rachel. ‘So you’re Rachel. I’ve heard all about you.’ She motioned to the bag. ‘There are some clothes I purchased for you from our local discount store. I hope they’re what you want, Hugo?’
They’re what Hugo wanted?
Rachel raised her brows at Hugo and he attempted a smile. He looked a bit uncomfortable.
‘I phoned Christine and told her you were in trouble.’
‘Who, me?’ Rachel tried hard to sound nonchalant. ‘I like pyjamas.’ Discount store, hey? Obviously she’d been categorised by Crimplene. She swallowed her last piece of pancake and smiled at all of them.
Discount store.
Maybe she should put that aside. There were undercurrents here that she clearly didn’t understand. Undercurrents that were maybe more important than her pride.
Toby was concentrating fiercely on his pancake and wasn’t looking at anyone. Myra was looking angry. What was going on?
It didn’t matter. This wasn’t her place and these people had nothing to do with her. In a couple of days the fires would die down and she’d be out of here.
‘The clothes are all here.’ Christine swept a manicured hand at her bag and smiled at Hugo, and Rachel thought, Unconcerned or not, I’m with Toby here. His little nose was practically in his toast.
But she knew her manners. ‘Thank you, Christine,’ she told her. ‘Have you bought them? How much do I owe you?’
‘I’ll pay,’ Hugo said, but Christine put a hand sweetly on his arm.
‘It’s fine, dear. The Mathesons, who run the discount store, know you’re stuck. They won’t charge you.’
Hugo was stuck?
Gee, she was having fun here, Rachel thought-or she didn’t think.
She rose and lifted Christine’s obnoxious bag. She hated it already, even though she hadn’t opened it. ‘I’ll pick up my bill from…who did you say? Mathesons? If I really need this,’ she told them. ‘Otherwise I’ll return it. Thank you anyway, Christine. Now, if you’ll excuse me…’
She huffed at the lot of them. Toby looked up at her and she caught the six-year-old’s eye and gave him a tiny sideways wink.
Then she sailed from the room with as much dignity as a girl in too-big pyjamas could muster.
‘They’re horrible.’
They were all gone-Toby and Hugo and Christine. Christine to take Toby to school and Hugo to do his house call. Rachel peered out into the kitchen where Myra was washing the dishes. The housekeeper turned and Rachel looked at her with despair in her eyes.
‘I can’t wear these.’
‘Sorry?’ The housekeeper wiped her hands on the dish-cloth and looked Rachel up and down. Rachel was wearing Doris’s Crimplene again.
‘Look!’
She held up a pair of black trousers. Plain. Dead plain. Voluminous with a heavy vinyl belt. She held up a neat white cotton blouse. Another identical blouse. A plain black cardigan. Black flat-soled sandals.
‘At least Doris’s Crimplene has flowers on,’ she wailed. ‘And Hugo’s pyjamas have stripes. Myra, I may be stuck here, but these are awful.’
‘Christine only wears black and white,’ Myra said dubiously, coming forward and taking the offending garments away from her. ‘Only…’
‘Only Christine’s clothes are beautifully cut and really, really stylish and these clothes are built to fit anyone! Anyone at all. Or no one. These are burial clothes, Myra.’
Myra cast her another dubious glance. ‘You don’t think maybe you’re going over the top here?’
‘No.’ Rachel’s chin jutted. ‘I may be stuck here but I refuse to look like Christine’s welfare case while I’m here.’
‘You don’t wear black, huh?’
‘No way.’ It was the one thing she had in life-her clothes. She wore happy clothes, the sort of clothes that’d make Craig smile if he…
; No. She wasn’t going down that road, but she didn’t wear black. Ever.
‘You’re wearing pink,’ she told Myra, and if she sounded a bit like a sulky teenager she couldn’t help it.
But Myra was smiling. ‘Tell you what. I’ve finished the dishes,’ she told her. ‘I’m officially off duty until Toby comes home from school. We have an hour before Dr McInnes returns.’
‘So?’
Myra glanced at her watch. ‘It’s not yet nine and Eileen Sanderson doesn’t usually open until ten. But if it’s for you…’
‘Eileen Sanderson?’
‘Kim’s mum.’
‘Oh, no. I can’t-’
‘She owns Cowral Bay’s only decent dress shop and it’s great. Expensive but good.’
‘But she’ll be with Kim.’
‘She’s home. I saw Brian, her husband, swap shifts with her a couple of hours ago as I was coming here and she lives next door to the store.’
‘But she’ll be asleep.’
‘Not Eileen.’
‘I can’t-’
‘Rachel, you saved her daughter’s life,’ Myra told her. ‘You helped the firefighters last night. There’s not a soul in Cowral Bay who wouldn’t drop everything to help you right now.’ She frowned and looked again at the black, shapeless trousers. ‘Except maybe Christine.’ And she tossed her dish-cloth aside with a determined throw, grasped Rachel by the hand and towed her out to her car.
Hugo drove home an hour later, his thoughts overwhelmed with what lay ahead.
The fire was worse. The forecast was for a strong northeast wind, which would bring the fire down from the ridge. Already the town was shrouded by a pall of smoke so heavy Hugo had to put on his headlights.
There’d be heat exhaustion as well as fire-related injuries, he thought grimly. It was already scorchingly hot. If the fire grew worse… If there were emergencies…
He needed back-up.
He was set up here as a single doctor. Usually-well, sometimes-one doctor was enough. In a sleepy fishing village there was no need for a huge medical presence. Few doctors wanted to practise in such a remote area and the swell of campers during summer wasn’t enough to tempt medics wanting a high income.
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