Doctor on Loan

by Marion Lennox

  ‘I don’t need—’

  ‘You don’t need anything,’ he told her, ‘but you’d be much, much more comfortable and it would give me real pleasure to provide it for you.’ He hesitated and then took her hand. ‘Mabs, the spirits nearly took me this week,’ he said simply. ‘Now they’re claiming you. We both know that. Your time is soon, and you’re not afraid, but my gift to you of an airbed could make your passage so much easier.’

  Christie held her breath. Mabs had refused so much…For a long, long moment Mabs looked up at him, gazing at him with eyes that seemed to see so much more. And then she sighed and her tired eyes creased into a smile.

  ‘Well said, young man,’ she said softly. ‘You’d fit in with my people. I accept your gift, and may it be returned threefold.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘HOW on earth did you manage to get her to agree to do that? If you knew the arguments we’ve had…’

  ‘Masculine charm,’ Hugo said, and grinned, and Christie couldn’t suppress a grin back.

  ‘Very convenient. Where do I buy some?’

  ‘You have your own style,’ he told her, his smile slipping. ‘Believe me, Christie, you don’t need one more ounce of charm than you have right now.’

  And that was enough to shut her up all the way to the settlement.

  It wasn’t far. Just around the next ridge Christie pulled over again, but this time there were signs that people lived there.

  The settlement was built on the shores of an estuary, a vast expanse of tidal flats. There were coconut palms and tropical foliage, but enough had been cleared for a group of rough-built huts to be erected on the water’s edge.

  Each hut was a wooden one-roomer, with an iron roof and a verandah as large as the hut itself. The huts were clustered around a central area which contained half a dozen campfires, a couple of swings for the kids, a few tables with logs for seats under the shade of the palms and not much else. It was simple, but it looked a real community.

  ‘These people don’t originally come from Briman,’ Christie told him, watching his face as he took it all in. ‘The original Briman Islanders were wiped out by an enthusiastic white settler with a few bags of poisoned flour. These people only arrived here five or six years ago.’

  ‘Why?’ But he’d half answered the question himself. This place was beautiful.

  ‘A political guilty conscience granted the Kooris land titles to this place,’ Christie told him. ‘As Mabs told you, these people—this tribe—were living rough on the city outskirts on the mainland, but they were being decimated.’

  ‘By?’

  ‘By unemployment, by lack of dignity, by poverty.’ Christie shrugged. ‘A combination of everything. Mabs’s parents were full-blood aboriginals who lived off the land as they’d lived off it for thousands of years. It was a noble way of living but it didn’t work when they were forced to assimilate fast into a white culture.’

  ‘I know that,’ Hugo said grimly. ‘We see evidence of it all the time in the mainland hospitals.’

  ‘These people decided they’d had enough,’ Christie told him, ‘so they formed a group to come here, and a condition of coming was to abide by the tribal rules. They forbid alcohol. They’ve used aboriginal grant money to employ the very best teachers. They intend to gradually assimilate into the community, but they’ll do it on their terms.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Hugo said evenly. ‘Where do you fit into this?’

  ‘They have their own healers,’ she said. ‘But they have Western diseases as well as their own, which they’re intelligent enough to know I can help them with. I work with their teachers and with their own medical people. I check the kids’ eyes—trachoma could be a huge cause of blindness here. I spend one day a week here and it’s never enough. So…’ She gave him an enquiring smile. ‘Are you ready to help?’

  ‘There’s nothing I’d like better,’ he said.

  A week ago, if anyone had told Hugo that he could spend eight hours sitting in the heat and sand and wind, checking one pair of eyes after another—and enjoy every minute—he’d have told them they were crazy. But that was just what he did.

  Christie had decided she had another doctor, and she was going to squeeze every last inch of usefulness from him before he left.

  ‘I have a lot of chronic patients here,’ she told him ‘House calls, private problems—and a session with the teacher. But what I try really hard to do is keep all eyes checked. The sand here causes major problems. Almost half the adult population is suffering from some kind of blindness. If you could just sit and check…’

  She introduced him to Maree, an aboriginal woman in her mid-twenties. ‘Maree is our community nurse.’ Christie’s eye messages told him she wasn’t a nurse in the way the government recognised nurses but she defied him to say a thing. ‘If you let her know the kids who need antibiotics, she’ll make sure they get them.’

  So that’s what he did. He sat and chatted to each child—or teenager—as they hove into view. There seemed some system that he couldn’t figure, but every time he finished with a child another would appear. He was stunned by how many needed the antibiotic eyedrops.

  He also did a rough check of each child and was dismayed by the number of other minor or not so minor things he found. A little boy sat with his head at an odd angle and when pressed said his ear had been hurting for days. And buzzing. Hugo diagnosed an ear infection and he and Maree cleaned it out and set the healing steps in process.

  An older boy who’d stood on coral a week previously had red weals running up to his ankle. If it hadn’t been tended to today he might well have risked losing the foot!

  He saw a teenager who was burning hot to the touch—‘Just a bug, Doc,’ the girl said. ‘Maree says I have to drink lots.’ Hugo examined her and worried.

  He found himself treating all manner of complaints, but hardly any were brought to his attention without probing. He had the impression they’d be content if problems weren’t noticed at all, but they accepted his strictures and treatments with cheerful good humour.

  They also took his presence with good humour. His fame had gone before him ‘The drowning doc,’ they called him, and he had to grin and enjoy it.

  And Christie…

  They simply called her Doc, and it was transparent that she was held in enormous respect. It was probably because she held them in as much respect, he thought as he watched her talk to a group of young children about the importance of looking after their teeth. She’d brought out a carton of toothbrushes, and she and the teacher spent a solemn hour labelling each child’s brush.

  ‘Because it’s important not to share,’ she told them solemnly. ‘If Brenda here has a bug in her tummy, even if she’s not sick yet, and she shares her toothbrush with Joe, then Joe will get a bug in his tummy as well.’

  Hugo found himself smiling as he watched her draw pictures on a chalkboard under the palm trees, showing Bill Bug in Brenda’s tummy, Bill heading up to her mouth, leaping onto her toothbrush and then standing on her tongue with his Bug Telescope, seeking a new home.

  This was as far a cry as he could possibly get from his state-of-the-art operating theatres in Brisbane, he thought as he watched her, his admiration growing by the minute.

  And the questions in his head kept increasing by the minute. Could he?

  So many things had to work if it were to be possible.

  The last chapter…He had to concentrate on the last chapter.

  No, he told himself fiercely, turning back to the girl he was treating. He had to concentrate on Mary Bindi’s eyes, and Anna Corragaba’s fever, and for now nothing else mattered.

  They finished early.

  ‘I can’t believe we’re done,’ Christie told him as they packed up at about five. ‘Having another doctor is magic.’

  It was. Hugo looked across at the girl beside him and agreed entirely. Christie was liberally covered with dust, she was wearing jeans and T-shirt and big leather boots—‘The snakes around here a
re murder,’ she’d told him that morning—and by the look of her footwear he pitied the snakes.

  She’d hauled her curls back with a crimson ribbon, she looked about as far from a doctor as he could possibly get and she was the most desirable doctor he could imagine. City specialists? Give him Dr Flemming any day…

  No! There was time enough for that in the future—please, God. He had to get himself sorted out. There were so many complications, and he wasn’t about to start something he couldn’t finish. That way lay madness. Or cruelty.

  ‘Want to eat dinner on the beach?’ Christie asked.

  That stunned him. He’d thought she’d be wanting to get back to Stan. It threw him right off balance. Professional detachment until he left—that was what he’d planned.

  But it wasn’t what Christie had planned. ‘Grandpa doesn’t expect me until late, and he eats at the hospital kitchen on Wednesdays. My day here often extends after dark. Mary-anne checks eyes and refers other problems to me, but today you’ve coped with almost everything yourself.’

  He had. Including the fever…

  ‘I persuaded Anna Corragaba’s parents to let her go to hospital,’ he said diffidently, and Christie smiled.

  ‘Maree told me. Well done. She says Anna’s been running a fever for three days, but it’s half the battle to get these people to admit they’re sick, and the other half to persuade them to do something about it. It’ll take her parents a while to get her there, though. They’ll walk her across the island.’

  ‘But she’s sick!’ Hugo was startled. ‘Don’t they have a car?’

  ‘No car.’

  ‘Then can we take her ourselves—or send out the ambulance?’

  ‘What ambulance?’ Christie grinned and motioned to her truck. ‘That’s it. You’re looking at it. And as for getting Anna into it, there’s no possibility she’ll agree. The tribal elders have decided they’d rather die than use cars, and they mean that literally.’

  ‘Why on earth…?’ That didn’t make sense.

  She hesitated, and then shrugged. It was stupid to share problems which in two days would mean nothing to him, but maybe—well, maybe he could write it down in his interminable notes.

  ‘If you knew the trouble they were facing with petrolsniffing among the kids before they came here,’ she said softly. ‘It was dreadful. I don’t know whether you noticed, but a few of the older kids are damaged because of it.’

  He’d wondered. There had been the odd slow-speaking, slow-thinking teenager in his list of patients.

  ‘So they gave up cars?’ he queried. ‘It seems a huge price…’

  ‘It’s one they’re prepared to pay, and if I’m to be allowed to treat them then I need to respect that.’ She smiled. ‘As you seemed to. I didn’t see you forcing any medication down anyone’s throat.’

  No. It had taken longer—to explain everything, to gently persuade—but he was left at the end of the day with the feeling that he’d done OK. There was a warm feeling in his gut which didn’t only stem from the fact that the sand was hot under his boots and he was standing next to the woman he was starting to think meant everything to him…

  But she was back on track. Back to business. ‘Anna should get to the hospital by midnight,’ she said briskly, hauling her gear into the back of the truck before he could stop her. ‘The men will carry her most of the way and they move fast. I’ll see her then.’

  ‘I suspect there’s a rumbling appendix.’

  She screwed up her nose. ‘Really? Damn. That’ll be a few hours tonight persuading her folks to let her fly to Townsville. Which they might or might not. Let’s hope it settles.’

  ‘We could operate on her ourselves,’ Hugo suggested, and watched Christie’s face.

  Her eyes flew to his, widening at the idea, and suddenly she smiled. The look of strain the mention of the appendix had caused eased at once.

  Which was all he’d hoped to achieve. It was all he could ever hope to achieve, he thought, and it was becoming more important by the minute. To take the load from her shoulders.

  ‘That’d be great,’ she said. ‘Oh, Hugo, you don’t know how great! To watch kids die because they won’t be helped…’ She closed her eyes and Hugo wondered how many times she’d had to do just that in the past. Alone. But now…She motioned to the beeper on her waist and she smiled. ‘I’ll be beeped if I’m needed at the hospital or when Anna arrives. Meanwhile, I have our dinner in the back of the truck. Let’s find ourselves a beach to eat it on.’

  This was different from the last time they’d eaten on the beach. Things had moved on. They weren’t wet from prawning, they were no longer doctor-patient or victim-rescuer and the relationship had drastically changed. They’d worked side by side, they’d done a good job—and they were both very carefully not looking into the future.

  Hugo because he didn’t know what lay there. And Christie because she knew what did.

  Bleakness, she thought as she sat silently on the sand and munched the cold quiche the hospital cook had prepared. She hadn’t known how bleak until now. Weirdly, Hugo’s offer to operate with her on Anna had left her feeling more miserable than ever. It had forced her to be more aware of her shortcomings, and the problems she faced here in the future.

  He’d help her this one time, and then he’d be gone, she thought. She’d be left with Briman Island, and her responsibilities, and she’d be on her own.

  Hugo watched her face in the gathering dusk. He wanted to say all sorts of things but he wasn’t prepared to voice any of them. One word and he was done, he told himself. He wanted her so much, but to hurt her was unthinkable. Better to walk away. Now.

  He hardly tasted the food, or the coffee Christie poured. He drank his coffee without thinking, then stopped and stared out over the sea with his mug cooling in his hands. The wind had died almost completely and there was only the steady rhythm of the surf between them. The steady beating of their hearts.

  Christie seemed content with silence, too. Mercifully, her phone was silent. The moon was starting to wax again. It was a fine crescent of silvery gold, casting a soft sheen across the water. The beach she’d led him to was completely deserted.

  There was only now, he thought bitterly. The moon and the warmth of the sand, and this woman. What if he could never come back?

  Dear heaven…Something was going to break!

  ‘We need to go,’ he said abruptly, and rose, holding out his hands to her to help her to her feet.

  Mistake. Huge, huge mistake. She swung up; he must have pulled harder than he’d intended because her body sort of landed with a thud against his, so they were standing with her breasts pressed against his chest and there was nowhere left to go.

  She didn’t pull back. Instead, she stood against him, her lovely face raised to his in mute enquiry.

  He shouldn’t. He mustn’t!

  How could he not? A man would have to be inhuman. In two days he’d be gone, and heaven only knew when—or if—he could ever return. It depended on so much.

  But that was for the future. Tonight was now.

  Christie was now. Christie…He couldn’t. He mustn’t!

  But somehow holding back was impossible.

  Because she was in his arms and he was lifting her, holding her and claiming her as his own. As she was! She was a part of him, this woman, and his body intended to claim her, whether his mind willed it or not.

  His mouth met hers. His body was melting into hers, as if they were two halves of a whole, torn asunder at some time in the past but now coming together as they were always meant to since the beginning of time.

  She was so lovely. She was his!

  And then they were falling, slipping down to where Christie had spread the picnic rug. A rug that was no longer intended for a picnic. They didn’t part. Not by an inch. Whatever had held them apart had snapped, fragmented and could no longer be restored.

  Christie…

  Their need for closeness was desperate. His hands searched, slipping bene
ath her shirt, feeling the softness and the heat of her skin. Feeling the perfection of her body. And her hands were doing the same, with a fierceness of possession that he hadn’t thought possible.

  How was it that someone so wonderful could want him? he thought dazedly. How was it that he hadn’t found her until now? She’d been on this island for ever, and he hadn’t known that he was incomplete without her.

  They parted—somehow—just for seconds. He withdrew, as one last stab of reality somehow surfaced. ‘Christie, we can’t…’

  ‘Try my doctor’s bag,’ she said, and her voice was a husky whisper, thick with passion. ‘Condoms are in the left-hand pocket.’

  ‘For emergencies such as this?’ He felt rather than heard her chuckle.

  ‘I distribute them to all my teenagers who can’t wait, and I give them a lecture about being sure,’ she whispered.

  ‘And…’ He forced himself to ask. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘As sure as I’ll ever be of anything in my life.’ She sighed deeply, arched herself against him and then gave him a solid push away. ‘Two seconds, Dr Tallent. This is a life-or-death situation. I’ll die if you don’t make love to me this minute, and I’m holding you entirely responsible for my resuscitation.’

  It was the best!

  Christie lay in her lover’s arms and stared up at the night sky. The stars were appearing now, one by one, as if exulting in what had just happened.

  This wasn’t her first time. She was twenty-eight years old, and in the years before she’d returned to the island there’d been two serious relationships. Both times they’d talked of marriage, but the island had called and in the end it hadn’t broken her heart to walk away.

  She’d thought it had been the island. She’d thought she’d had to walk away because of the islanders’ needs.

  It was no such thing, she decided. She hadn’t been meant to be married to either of the men she’d seriously considered in the past. She hadn’t felt like this. Not ever!

  If she’d met Hugo at medical school or in her training years…If Hugo had taken her to him then, would she have been so firm in her resolve to practise on Briman Island? Could she have said, No, I can’t marry you because I’m needed?