‘He likes to hang his head out,’ Beth explained apologetically, but Angus had already worked that, easing the dog to the outside of the seat and sliding across so his body was pressed against Beth’s.
‘I could make him run back—it’s not far,’ she said, thoroughly unnerved by the closeness.
‘No, he’s fine,’ Angus said, so airily, she realised with regret, that he wasn’t feeling any of the physical upheaval that was plucking at her nerves and raising goose-bumps on her skin. He might just as well have been sitting next to a statue.
A statue that kept thinking about a blonde called Sally.
‘I’m sorry I interrupted your breakfast,’ Beth said, and although she knew it was none of her business, she plunged on. ‘You and Sally? You’re a couple? That’s good. I’m glad. I’m—’
‘If you say I’m happy for you I’ll probably get out and walk back to the resort!’ Angus growled. ‘For your information, Sally and I are work colleagues, nothing more. We’re here for a conference. I’m giving a paper on Tuesday.’
‘Oh!’
The relief she felt was so totally inappropriate she blustered on.
‘But you’re well. Busy as ever, I suppose?’
Angus turned and gave her a strange look then began to talk about the tiny finches that darted between the fronds of the tree ferns.
So, his personal life was off-limits as far as conversation went—Beth felt a momentary pang of sympathy for Sally who probably was quite interested in her boss and didn’t realise just how detached from emotion Angus was. And personal issues like health and work had just been squashed; what did that leave?
Beth joined the bird conversation!
‘The bird life’s wonderful here,’ she managed, her voice hoarse with the effort of keeping up what was very limp and totally meaningless chat.
‘The night life’s pretty surprising as well,’ he said, ice cool, although he did offer a sardonic smile in case she hadn’t caught his meaning.
‘Well, it was last night,’ she admitted with a laugh, remembering how strange she’d found it, in the past, that Angus, who was usually so serious, could always make her laugh. And with that memory—and the laugh—she relaxed.
Just a little.
‘I nearly died to see a person standing there, then to find it was you.’ She shook her head. ‘Unbelievable.’
‘But very handy, apparently,’ he said, and she had to look at him again, to see if he was teasing her.
But this time his face was serious.
‘Very handy,’ she confirmed, although it wasn’t handy for her heart, which was behaving very badly, bumping around in her chest as if it had come away from its moorings.
‘How long have you been on the island?’
She glanced his way again and her chest ached at the familiarity of his profile—high forehead, strong straight nose, lips defined by a little raised edge that tempted fingers to run over it, and a chin that wasn’t jutting exactly but definitely there. The kind of chin you’d choose not to argue with—that had been her first thought on seeing it.
Forget his chin and answer the question!
‘Only a couple of weeks. I spent some time at the Crocodile Creek Hospital on the mainland, getting to know the staff there, as they—the doctors and the nurses—do rostered shifts at the clinic and, of course, the helicopter rescue and retrieal services the hospital runs are closely connected with the island.’
‘Why here?’ he asked, and she glanced towards him. Big mistake, for he’d turned in her direction and she met the same question in his dark-lashed eyes. Although that might have been her imagination! He had beautiful eyes, but if eyes were the windows of the soul, then she’d never been able to read Angus’s soul, or his emotions, in them.
Except when he’d looked at Bobby. Then she’d seen the love—and the pain…
‘It was somewhere different, a chance to see a new place, experience different medicine, meet new people.’
‘Always high on your priority list,’ Angus said dryly, but this time she refused to glance at him, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the track in front of her.
‘I’ve always liked meeting people,’ she said quietly. ‘I might not be the life and soul of a party, or need to be constantly surrounded by friends, but I enjoy the company of colleagues and patients—you know that, Angus.’
Did she sound hurt? Angus replayed her words—and the intonation—in his head and didn’t think so. She was simply making a statement—putting him down, in fact, though she hadn’t needed to do it because he’d regretted the words the instant they’d been out of his mouth.
For all her shyness, or perhaps because of it, she was good with people, knowing instinctively how to approach them, intuitively understanding their pain or weaknesses, easing her way into their confidence.
‘And are you enjoying it? The island? The people?’
They were on a straight stretch of track, coming out of the thick rainforest into a more open but still treed area, and he could see cabins and huts nestled in private spaces between the trees.
Apparently more sure of the path now, she turned towards him before she answered, and her clear blue eyes—Bobby’s eyes—met his.
‘Oh, yes!’ she said—no hesitation at all. ‘Yes, I am.’
Then her brow creased and she sighed.
‘Or I was until the kids starting getting sick. What shall we do, Angus, if it is bird flu?’
‘Let’s wait and see,’ he said, touching her arm to reassure her.
Or possibly to see if her skin was really as soft as he remembered it…
He shook his head, disturbed that the strength of the attraction he felt towards Beth hadn’t lessened in their years apart. Perhaps it was a good thing she had a problem at the medical centre—something he could get stuck into to divert his mind from memories of the past.
Although sick children were more than just a diversion —they were a real concern.
She pulled up in front of a new-looking building, the ramp at the front of it still trailing tattered streamers and limp balloons. The dog leapt out and began biting at the fluttering streamers, trying to tackle them into submission.
Was this the medical centre and these the remnants of the official opening celebrations? The building was certainly new, and built to merge into its surroundings—tropical architecture, with wide overhangs and floor-to-ceiling aluminium shutters to direct any stray breeze inside. Beautiful, in fact.
‘Around the back,’ Beth said, leading him down a path beside the building. ‘The front part is Administration and a first-aid verging on ER room. The hospital section is behind it, here.’
They walked up another ramp and had barely reached the deck, when a woman with tousled curls and a freckled nose came out through a door, greeting Beth with obvious relief.
‘Thank heavens you’re back,’ she said. ‘I’ve called Charles, but you’re the only one who can calm Robbie. He’s babbling—hallucinating, I think—just when we thought he might have turned the corner.’
‘I’ll go right through,’ Beth said, then, apparently remembering she’d brought him to this place, turned to Angus.
‘Grace, this is Angus. Angus, Grace. He’s the doctor I told you about, Grace. Could you take him around so he can see the other patients, introduce him to Emily if she’s here and Charles when he arrives?’
The ‘doctor’ not ‘ex-husband’, Angus thought, feeling annoyed about the wording for no fathomable reason, though he did manage to greet the distracted nurse politely.
Beth hurried back to Robbie’s room. The virus that had struck the camp had started off with drowsiness, and the children seemed almost to lapse into unconsciousness in between bouts of agitation. Right now Robbie was agitated, tossing and turning in his bed, muttering incoherently, his movements more violent than they’d been during the night.
Beth checked the drip running into his arm, then felt his forehead. Not feverish, she guessed, then picked up his chart to con
firm it. The paracetamol she’d given him earlier must be working.
‘Hush, love, it’s all right, I’m here,’ she whispered to the fretful little boy, holding his hands in one of hers and smoothing his dark hair back from his forehead with the other.
But even as he stilled at the sound of her voice, fear whispered in her heart. They were treating the symptoms the patients had without any idea if this was an aggressive cold or something far more sinister. Alex Vavunis, a paediatric neurosurgeon who was a guest on the island, had taken samples of spinal fluid from the sickest patients the previous day, but it was too early to expect results.
Beth knew her assurances could easily be empty—that everything might not be all right for Robbie.
‘We’ve three children not feeling well, still in the camp, but Robbie and Jack are the most severely affected. My ward, Lily, was admitted yesterday and she’s a little better today.’
Beth heard Charles’s voice before she saw him, and turned to see he’d guided his wheelchair silently into the room, Angus seeming taller than ever as he stood beside the chair.
‘How is he, Beth?’
Charles wheeled closer as he asked the question.
Beth shook her head.
‘Agitated,’ she said, ‘although there is some good news. Jack seems a little better this morning. Lily?’
She heard Charles’s sigh and knew the little girl must still be unstable.
‘Jill has been with her most of the night. And Grace tells me you’ve been here all night. You should go home and rest.’
‘I dozed between checking on the others,’ Beth assured him. ‘Emily’s on duty today, but I’ll stay now in case Angus needs some help with tests or information.’
She glanced towards the man who had moved to the chair beside Robbie’s bed and was reading through the notes on his chart.
‘You’ve how many sick?’ Angus asked, looking at Charles who nodded to Beth to reply.
‘We have the adult from the resort, one of the rangers and three children, making a total of five. There are another three children at the camp showing symptoms. We’ve moved those three to a cabin and the staff and volunteers there are entertaining them, keeping them as quiet as possible and making sure they take in plenty of fluids. Among the staff, the rangers, even people at the resort, there could be more who are simply not feeling well, people feeling the “beginning of flu” symptoms but who haven’t said anything.’
‘And you’re how far off the mainland?’
This time Charles fielded Angus’s question himself. ‘A half-hour flight by helicopter—less by seaplane.’
‘You’ve got to close the island, Charles,’ Angus said. ‘You must have had similar thoughts yourself, given the number of dead birds you say have been found. We have to quarantine the whole place—resort, national park, the camp and eco-resort—at least until we know more. It’s a thousand to one chance it’s anything sinister, but even that’s too big a chance to take.’
Beth stared at him, sure her jaw had dropped in disbelief.
‘You’re serious? You think it could be bird flu?’
She looked at the little boy still twitching restlessly on the bed and pain washed through her.
‘No!’ she whispered, but she doubted whether the men heard her, Charles asking questions, Angus answering, Charles talking practicalities—how to enforce a quarantine, important people here for the opening who wouldn’t like it, Health Department and Australian Quarantine Service concerns—
‘It has to be complete and it has to start now!’ Angus said in a voice Beth recognised as brooking no opposition. This was the focus Angus always brought to his work. ‘It would be criminal of us to allow even one person who could be carrying a deadly virus to leave the island. And we’ll have to get the police and health authorities to trace anyone who has left in the past week and to isolate those people as well.’
‘That won’t be hard. Most people here this week stayed on for the opening of the medical centre, and resort guests are usually here for a week, Sunday to Sunday. There’ll be guests due to go today but not until later in the day. The helicopter pilots who do the passenger runs each day—they come and go more than anyone but rarely get out of their machines. Their manifests will tell us who’s left so we’ll have a list to give the authorities on the mainland.’
The two men had turned away, intent on putting their quarantine order in place, as well they might be. It was going to be a complicated task, and more than a few people were going to be very annoyed about it.
Beth smiled to herself. Alex Vavunis, the self-important paediatric neurosurgeon, for one. He’d made life uncomfortable for several people, simply because he’d been upset to find his daughter, Stella, was growing up. Although being forced to stay longer might give him more time to spend with his daughter and to accept the new Stella—so good could come from bad.
And Nick Devlin, who’d stayed on longer than he’d intended already because his little boy, Josh, was enjoying the camp so much. But Josh was a brittle asthmatic and a lung infection of any kind could have serious consequences. Beth shivered at the thought of Josh picking up the infection, then felt a momentary pang of sympathy for Angus. He was the epidemiologist—he’d be the one coping with the fallout of the announcement.
Although Angus could handle that—work-related problems would never faze Angus. Only emotions could do that…
‘We’re definitely closing the island. Charles has been on to the quarantine people and the head of the state health department and she agrees it’s the way to go in the short term but she doesn’t want to go public with it and start a panic about a pandemic. Containing everyone on the island might help to keep the news off the front pages.’
Angus returned to Robbie’s room alone, explaining this to her while standing in the doorway, his eyes taking in the small ward, and the child now lying quietly, seeming even smaller than he probably was because of the big hospital beds.
‘In this day of e-mails and mobile phones, do you really think the news can be contained?’ Beth asked. ‘Besides, there were reporters and photographers here for the opening and though some went back on the last boat last night, I’m sure the local gossip columnist stayed on. Apparently she loves mixing with the rich and famous and the opportunity to spend time at the resort was too much for her to resist.’
Angus studied her for a moment and Beth could almost hear his brain working.
‘Perhaps if we don’t mention birds, just talk about a virus of unknown origin that has spread quickly, it might attract less interest from the press.’
‘It won’t work,’ Beth told him. ‘Most of the people on this side of the island know about the dead birds. And on top of that, you’ll have to tell people to stay away from dead birds—maybe all birds—and the moment you say that, then the words “bird flu” will ricochet through everyone’s mind.’
‘You’re right. We’ll just have to ask them to keep quiet about it—maybe someone will have to speak directly to the local columnist. Explain we don’t want to start a nationwide panic.’
‘Or maybe we’ll get lucky and some film star or other celebrity will do something dreadful that grabs the headlines and the quarantine of the island will go unnoticed,’ Beth suggested, and Angus shrugged.
‘Could we be that lucky?’ he said, then he smiled and Beth felt a surge of emotion in her chest—a too-familiar reaction to an Angus smile. And just when she’d been doing so well—playing the part of the mature professional to perfection, though being in the vicinity of Angus was reminding her nerve endings of how good things had once been.
Physically…
‘Charles tells me you’re off duty, but he wants all available hospital staff, as well as hotel personnel, park rangers and eco-lodge management people, at a meeting in the lecture theatre at the convention centre at the hotel. Can you drive me back there?’
Beth hesitated, desperately seeking an excuse to say no. Even before the surge she’d known that the l
ess time she spent with Angus the better off she’d be. But she’d asked for his help…
He’d come right into the room now, and stood beside her, looking down at Robbie, who was sleeping more peacefully now.
‘You go, I’ll keep a special eye on him.’
Grace must have followed Angus in, for there she was, flapping her hands at Beth as if shooing chooks.
She had no choice, standing up slowly, careful not to look at Angus, though every cell in her body was aware of his presence.
‘Do you think it is bird flu?’ she asked, and didn’t need to hear Angus sigh to know what a stupid question it had been. ‘Of course you don’t know,’ she answered for him. ‘It’s just that it’s been in the forefront of my mind all night. H5N1, a seemingly innocuous grouping of letters and numbers, yet with the ability to make anyone who understands them very anxious.’
‘From doctors up to heads of governments,’ Angus confirmed, his voice deep with the gravity of the situation. ‘But what we can’t do is panic—or even become overly dramatic about it. There’s a set routine for any disease outbreak—identify its existence, which we do by seeing how many people are affected—’
‘Five in hospital, three segregated in the camp, and who knows how many who haven’t sought medical attention.’
‘Enough to cause concern in a relatively small population,’ Angus agreed as they reached the cart Beth had used earlier. ‘The next step is to verify the diagnosis.’
He sounded worried and she looked at him and saw the frown between his eyebrows once again.
‘Problems with that?’
‘Of course,’ he said, climbing into the driving seat without consultation, but this was hardly the time to be arguing over who should drive. ‘There is now a fast and definitive test for H5N1, a gene chip known as the MChip, but it’s only been used in laboratories in the US. Out here we still use the FluChip, which is based on three influenza genes. It provides information about the type of virus but the lab then needs to run more tests to get the virus subtype—to identify H5N1, for example.’
‘Clear as mud!’ Beth muttered, although in the past she’d always enjoyed the way Angus had discussed his thoughts and explained things to her.
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