In Dr. Darling’s Care

CHAPTER NINE

THEY went out to the waiting area where Tom was. Of course he was waiting. He was grey-faced and sick.

Harry had sent out news before, but one look at Tom told Lizzie that he hadn’t believed the good news.

He had to believe it now, though she could scarcely believe it herself.

‘Tom, she’s going to make it.’ Harry hauled off his theatre mask and knelt in front of Tom. The big man was ashen, his cheeks lined with tears. He’d been leaning over, his face in his hands, and Lizzie could see the pressure marks where he’d pushed hard.

‘It’s crazy. Crazy…’ Tom looked up at Harry and his face said he still hardly believed them. ‘You mean she really will live?’

‘She’s been lucky,’ Harry said. ‘A broken cheekbone, a couple of fingers that will take a while to heal, some nasty cuts to her hand that we’ve taken a long time to close…’ He cast a sideways look at Lizzie that was almost a smile. ‘Our Dr Darling is quite a needlewoman-I doubt a plastic surgeon could have done better. And May has a deep laceration to her leg. She’s had a fair bang to the head but the X-rays are coming up OK.’

‘I’ll take her home…’

‘In a few days. Yes.’

Silence. ‘She thought I was gambling again,’ Tom said heavily, and Harry nodded.

‘She did. I came out and told you that. You told me to butt out of what wasn’t my business.’

‘I was bloody angry.’

‘I know. If I remember rightly, you told me to go to hell.’

He groaned. ‘I’ve been a fool.’

‘Why?’ Harry was still kneeling before the big man while Lizzie watched silently from the background. ‘Tom, why? You know she’s been busting a gut because she thought you were spending money again. She’s taken on extra shifts. She’s not been sleeping. Just like-’

‘Just like when she had to.’

Silence. Harry had lifted Tom’s big, farm-worn hands and was stroking them, as a father might have stroked a child. That was what Tom needed most desperately now, Lizzie thought. Warmth. And Harry could give it. He imparted warmth, spread it. He cared so much…

Not for her. Lizzie shivered and hugged herself. Shock had had time to take hold now. Emergency back in the city wasn’t like this. Not when you knew the people. Not when you cared so much that your guts hurt…

‘You mean she didn’t have to?’ Harry was asking, and Tom shook his head, his misery a tangible, awful thing.

‘No.’ The farmer looked up at Harry, a sudden surge of anger suffusing his face. ‘Dammit, do you think I’d go back again? To gambling? I lost our house. I darn near lost May and the kids. I pulled myself out of the gambling habit just in time and it nearly killed all of us. So now…do you think I’d ever go near the pokies again?’

‘May thinks you have.’

‘I know.’ He groaned again. ‘And I let her believe…’

‘Why?’

‘I had a windfall,’ he told them. At the look on Harry’s face he shook his head. ‘No. Not the kind you’re thinking. My dad’s been watching me…he was so upset when I got into the mess, but he wouldn’t lift a finger to help us. I asked him but he wouldn’t. “You’ll just gamble it away,” he told me, and maybe he was right at that.’

‘So?’

‘So he came good. It’s been two years since I’ve touched anything to do with gambling and he came to see me one night when May was on night shift. He gave me a gift. A deposit on a house. Or almost. The way my credit rating is, I have to have almost half the value or they won’t touch me. Anyway, I scraped up the rest. I’ve still got one credit card. I went to see a financial advisor and he reckoned it was fine to run it up for three months until settlement. He worked it all out for us. The payments. What I have to do. I just need to work a few hours’ overtime every week and that money goes straight into the credit card. And then…in another six weeks we get possession. It’s a house May has loved for years. I was going to surprise her. For our wedding anniversary I was going to hand her the keys.’

‘But May thought…’

‘She must have found my credit-card statement,’ Tom said heavily. ‘She knew I was working overtime but there was no extra money coming in. And money going out-lawyers’ fees and things-that I couldn’t explain. I told her I was planning a surprise but she didn’t believe me. She didn’t trust… And I was so angry… Hell, I wanted her to trust me again. I wanted it so much. So I wouldn’t tell her and she just said nothing-just started frantically trying to pay it off. And I was so damned stubborn I let her. And now this.’

Harry sat back on his heels. He stared at the man before him long and hard. Finally he said simply, ‘What house?’

‘The Maynard place.’

‘Right.’ Harry nodded, and Lizzie could see his mind in overdrive. ‘This is what you’re going to do.’

‘What?’

‘May’s mum and dad are here now. They’ll stay with her while she comes around, but for the next hour she’s going to be so groggy that she won’t take anything in. Meanwhile, I want you to find Neil Shannon. Urgently.’

‘Neil… The photographer?’

‘That’s the one. He can do good work and he can move fast. You’ve got an hour-the pair of you. By the time May wakes up properly I want a poster-sized picture of that house right in front of her eyes.’

‘But…a poster-sized…’

‘Don’t tell me you can’t do it,’ Harry said sternly. ‘You’ve stuffed it. Now you need to fix it.’

‘She should have trusted me.’

‘She didn’t walk out on you when most women would have,’ Harry told him, his voice still stern. ‘She didn’t abandon you. She simply worked her guts out to try and fix your mess. She forgave you. Are you saying you’re not going to forgive her now?’

‘I don’t-’

‘Tom, you lost her house. She had to sell her beloved horses. She lost her respect in the community. To be honest, surprises aren’t things she’s going to want any more. Ever. She needs total and complete honesty from you, and she’s going to need it for the rest of your lives. You’ve got a great woman. You nearly lost her-twice-but you have another chance. Don’t stuff it yet again.’

Tom thought about it. And thought about it for a bit longer. And his lined face crumpled still more.

‘I’ve been a fool,’ he said at last, and Harry nodded. He wasn’t in the mood for leniency.

‘You have.’

‘You’re sure she’s going to be OK?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Well.’ Tom rose on legs that seemed decidedly shaky. ‘Well… Maybe I’d better go and organise a photograph, then.’

Lizzie had slivers of glass in her fingers. If she could have, she would have taken them out herself, but operating on her right hand with her left was impossible. She waited until Harry had talked to May’s mum and dad and three kids, and then did a round of the little hospital’s patients, all of whom were deeply upset by the afternoon’s events. If he wondered why she didn’t offer to help, he didn’t say so-indeed, she had the impression that he’d have told her she wasn’t wanted. She made her way back to the doctor’s quarters and hugged Phoebe, drawing comfort from the big dog’s placid and dopey presence.

‘I love you, Phoeb,’ she murmured, and felt like weeping. The big dog slurped her tongue down Lizzie’s face and looked as if she agreed entirely. She was a very weepy kind of dog.

She was still there when Harry returned, sitting on the floor, hugging her dog, and Harry stopped at the sight of her.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

‘F-fine.’ The tables had turned, she thought. For the last three weeks he’d taken a back seat to her. She’d been the doctor and he’d-mostly-let her take the lead while his leg healed. But now there was no way he was taking a back seat. He might be wearing a cast, but he was very much a man in charge of his world.

That was what she wanted him to be. Not a patient. No way!

‘It could have been so much worse,’ he told her, kneeling down before her.

‘Y-yes.’

‘Lizzie, it’s OK. She’s fine.’

‘I shouldn’t care,’ she said, hugging her dog like Phoebe was the only thing between her and madness. ‘I shouldn’t. And I do, so much. I can’t bear it. If anything happens to May… To Lilly or May or Mavis with her blasted axe…’

‘You know you’d get over it.’

‘But I shouldn’t care.’

‘Why shouldn’t you care?’

‘Because it hurts,’ she said miserably. And then she looked down at her hands. ‘Like my fingers…’

‘Your fingers.’ He followed her gaze and his face snapped into a frown. ‘Hell! Lizzie, why didn’t you say?’

‘We were a bit busy, if you’ll remember,’ she said dully.

‘OK.’ Harry’s voice gentled still further and it was as much as Lizzie could do not to crumple right there. ‘Sorry, Phoebe, but you need to get off your mistress’s knee. She needs a doctor.’

He had the gentlest hands.

She sat in his room and watched as he gently probed every inch of her fingers. One, two, three slivers of glass… They’d been hurting badly but she’d hardly noticed. The pain in her heart was greater than the pain in her hands.

Because she knew now what she had to do.

‘You know when you asked me to stay and work here?’ she whispered as he bathed her hands with antiseptic and placed dressings over the deepest of the puncture wounds.

‘Yes?’ He looked up at her, with that smile that made her heart do back-flips. Only it had no business doing back-flips. He belonged to Emily. He belonged to Birrini. His smiles were not for her.

‘I’ve decided I do want to be a family doctor,’ she told him. ‘I saw it today. I love what you do here. I love the way the community cares for each other. This life…it’s what I want. I tried so hard not to care. I’ve been trying to be the ultimate professional-to not get involved in people’s lives. But it hasn’t worked. One locum with one caring doctor and it all slams back-what I loved about country practice. Why I wanted to be a doctor in the first place. You don’t have to convince me to be a family doctor, Harry McKay. It’s what I’ve always wanted. I just…lost courage for a while.’

‘Then you’ll stay?’ It was like the sun coming out-the way he smiled. The way his eyes lit up.

It was so darned tempting.

But that was the way of madness and she knew it. She might be a family doctor, but not here. No!

‘No, Harry, I can’t stay.’

Silence. ‘Why not?’

But he knew the answer. She read it in his face. He knew what she was going to say, but she knew before she gave her reasons out loud that no matter what she said-no matter what her reasons-he wasn’t going to do one thing about it.

He couldn’t. It was her problem, not his, and she knew that, too. But she said it anyway. It was embedded in her heart, and there was no way she could hide it. Not from herself. Not from him. Maybe not from anyone. The only thing she could do was finish her work here and leave.

But first it had to be said.

‘Because I don’t just love Birrini and the community here and the work,’ she whispered, her eyes not leaving his face. Hoping against hope. ‘I love you, as well as everyone else I’ve met in this crazy, gorgeous little town. But that’s the problem. You see, Harry, the real problem is that it’s you that I love the most of all.’ Then, as he closed his eyes and she saw the shuttered look slam over his face, she shook her head. ‘Harry, this isn’t fair. It’s not fair to land this on you and I’m expecting nothing. I know you’re engaged to Emily. I know you don’t want this. But it’s there. I’m sorry, Harry, but there it is, and now you know why I have to leave.’

She’d known that he wouldn’t do anything with it but this was awful. The night stretched before them. They had to eat together. They had to share a kitchen. But there was nothing to say that wasn’t loaded.

‘You’re engaged to Edward,’ he said at some time over a desultory dinner, and his voice was almost desperate.

‘No.’

‘You’re not engaged?’

‘No.’

‘You lied?’

‘I guess. Sort of.’ She looked up at him, her face bleak. ‘Edward asked me to marry him before I came down to Grandma’s funeral. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Edward and I have been an item for ever. On and off. He keeps wanting to get married and I keep thinking I should. It’s the sensible thing to do, but I can’t. That’s why I used the excuse of Phoebe’s pregnancy to stay here longer. To give me breathing space. To think.’

‘So you’ll go back and marry him now?’

‘What do you think?’ she said on a note of anger. ‘Of course I won’t. Did you take in anything I just said?’

‘Lizzie, I wouldn’t interfere-’

‘You already have. Leave it, Harry. If you can’t go and stay in your wedding house that’s waiting for you then stay here, but don’t give me grief. Let’s keep it formal from this moment on.’

Lizzie lay in her bed that night and she’d never felt so bleak in her life. Phoebe lay right on top of her. Usually she heaved the big dog off. She was so heavily pregnant that she weighed a ton-all right, she weighed a ton even when she wasn’t pregnant-but tonight she was the only comfort Lizzie had.

Why on earth had she told Harry that she loved him?

He hadn’t wanted it. She’d watched his face and it had shuttered so fast that she couldn’t begin to imagine that she’d ever get close. He hadn’t wanted her declaration, and why should he? He was engaged to be married to Emily. Sure, he had a fear of bridesmaids, but he’d never given her the slightest reason to think he didn’t want to marry Em herself.

‘He kissed me. He kissed me, Phoebe, and I’ve never been kissed like that. And the whole town was watching.’

Maybe men kissed like that…

‘That’s crazy, Phoeb. I’ve been solidly kissed in my time and there’s never been the least suggestion in my head that my toes would drop off.’ Which was what it had felt like when Harry had kissed her.

So maybe it hadn’t felt like that for him?

It couldn’t have.

She didn’t have the first idea what he was thinking, she told herself as she huddled into her pillow. Not one idea in the world. She didn’t know the man.

So how could she love him?

And what had she done in telling him? What damage? She’d thrown herself-and her pride-straight at a man who was engaged to someone else, and both were in tatters now.

‘You wouldn’t debase yourself like that, would you, girl?’ she asked Phoebe, and Phoebe opened her mouth wide and snored at a thousand or so decibels.

It was all the response a stupid question like that deserved.

‘Why are you here?’

It was three in the morning. Harry was silently checking his patients. Not because he needed to-Isobel was on duty and she was extremely competent. She’d call him if he was needed. But still he walked the wards, limping slightly and leaning heavily on one crutch. He was better at walking than this, but he was tired. And where was sleep when a man needed it most?

In Ward Three May should have been asleep too, but as he opened her door she saw him and waved him weakly inside. Her face was swathed in bandages, she looked pallid and shocked, but her eyes were alert and awake. She even managed a slight smile of greeting.

‘Are you in pain?’ he asked, and she gave a faint shake of her head and then winced.

‘Not much.’

He grinned, limping inside and crossing to the chair beside the bed. But he didn’t sit. She needed to sleep, not socialise. ‘You’re lying,’ he told her, and the smile behind her eyes deepened.

‘Yeah, well.’

‘I’ll give you something.’ He picked up her chart. ‘According to this, you’re overdue. A nice little cocktail of morphine and sedative. I’ll fetch it now…’

‘No, wait, Harry.’ Her hand came out and caught his. She was weak with shock but there was still the hint of the laughter he was used to in her eyes. Just. ‘You know what happened?’

‘You had an argument with a tree. And lost. Anyone could have told you trees don’t fight fair.’

‘I was exhausted.’ She shook her head, wincing again at the movement. That fractured cheek would have her wincing for a few weeks yet. ‘I must have gone to sleep at the wheel, and it was so stupid. Did Tom tell you?’

‘About the house.’

She nodded and turned her head painfully to the wall. There was Tom’s poster-a picture of a beautiful timber cottage, with horses in the foreground and the river and bushland behind. ‘He’d done it to surprise me,’ she said bleakly. ‘And I thought…I thought…’

‘We all know what you thought. And no one’s blaming you. He let you down so badly in the past that it was the natural thing to think.’

‘But I love him,’ she said distressfully. ‘I hurt him. And now this…’

Harry hesitated and then covered her hand with his. ‘I’m sure you’ll find it in your hearts to start again.’

‘Yeah? Like you can?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Melanie’s death,’ she whispered. ‘Your dad’s death. You’ve never let it go. Harry, I’ve been thinking…’

‘Don’t,’ he said, startled.

‘No, don’t stop me.’ She gripped his hand, trying to convey urgency. ‘Harry, I’ve been watching you. For so long. You have no idea. All the time I’ve been hurting when Tom’s been out of control, you’ve been hurting as well, but it’s even worse. Because you don’t have love underlying it. You didn’t love Melanie. I saw you then. You were infatuated with glamorous and Melanie was surely glamorous. She was everything you thought you wanted in life, before you realised how shallow that sort of life was. And now…now you’re doing it again.’

‘I-’

But she was in no mood for interruptions. ‘You don’t love Emily either,’ she said wearily. ‘Don’t tell me you do. And she doesn’t love you. Emily’s in love with the idea of being married to the town doctor. She’s in love with the idea of weddings. But I would have married my Tom even if he’d had nothing-if he was nothing. You know what he said tonight? If I thought he was gambling again, why hadn’t I just walked out? But he’s a part of me. He hurts, I hurt. I love him so much. Like you love Lizzie.’

Silence. ‘May, you need to go to sleep,’ he said bleakly. ‘I don’t love Lizzie. I don’t love…’

‘Anyone?’

‘I…’

‘Start,’ she whispered. ‘Admit you and Emily are a mistake.’

‘You need to be asleep.’

‘And you need to be awake. I can’t say this to you again after tonight. You’re my boss. I work for you. Tomorrow I’ll go back to being your patient and then a nurse in your hospital. But tonight…when I’m drugged out of my mind I can’t be held responsible, I can say what I like. Lizzie and Phoebe…they light up this town. They light up your life. Don’t mess with it, Dr McKay.’ She swallowed. ‘There was this moment when I knew I was going to hit the tree… I thought…I thought I wasn’t going to have anything any more. To be any more. That it was finished. And, you know, I don’t think that I was angry with Tom. I thought…in that fleeting moment I thought that I hadn’t had enough of my Tom. Of my boys. Of life. You take hold of it, Harry McKay, and stop being such a coward.’

‘May…’

‘OK, enough.’ She bit her lip and smiled at him a little sheepishly as she finally released his hand. ‘I’ve said what I’ve been wanting to say for years, and it was only seeing that damned tree in front of my nose that gave me the courage to say it. So don’t wait for your own tree. And now…’ She closed her eyes. ‘Now maybe I could have that cocktail?’

Memo:

Ring vet and find out just what the gestation period for bassets really is.

Organise working life so we have two separate medical practices. Hers and mine.

Visit Emily’s-no, not Emily’s, Emily’s and my-house and see if I can bear living with pink Chantilly lace.

Chantilly lace or Lizzie…

Breakfast was a very strained affair, interrupted by Emily. Harry’s fiancée walked in when Harry had just bitten into his toast and marmalade, which he promptly dropped.

Emily stood at the back door, looking bright and breezy. She was wearing neatly fitted black trousers, a gorgeous white linen blouse and high white sandals. Her hair was swept up into a glamorous knot and she was wearing full make-up.

Lizzie was wearing faded pyjamas. She glanced up and thought, Emily.

Emily.

Why do I even bother? Why do I think about bothering? Sometimes there’s no sense even competing.

She couldn’t compete now-that was for sure. Luckily she was distracted, almost distracted enough not to register Emily’s presence. She was stooping over Phoebe’s basket. Phoebe had been restless in the night and Lizzie was worried about her. She tried not to look at Emily. She offered the big dog some toast, but Phoebe turned her nose away.

Trouble. If Phoebe wasn’t eating, there were major problems.

‘Hi, Emily,’ she said, hardly looking up. ‘Do you know anything about having puppies?’

But Emily wasn’t looking at Lizzie. After one scorching glance at the pyjama-clad girl on the floor, she turned to her fiancé-who was looking particularly fetching himself in boxer shorts and white cast and nothing else.

‘Are you living with Dr Darling?’ Emily demanded, and Harry scratched his bare chest and appeared to think about it. It was maybe a bit hard to deny, seeing Harry was in his boxers and Lizzie was in her pyjamas. It was seven-thirty in the morning.

‘What time did you arrive?’ he asked, as Emily sat down. In front of Lizzie’s toast. Lizzie thought about minding, but then decided she didn’t. Or not very much.

How could you tell if a dog as fat as Phoebe was in labour? She put her hand on her belly, but there weren’t any obvious contractions.

‘I drove home late last night,’ Emily was saying. ‘My uncle rang me in Melbourne and said you’d be desperate for nurses. He said May’s been hurt in a car accident.’

‘She’ll be OK.’

‘So she was hurt?’

‘A couple of fractures. Lacerations. She’ll live.’

There wasn’t a lot of warmth here, Lizzie thought. Ninety per cent of her attention was on her dog but she had enough left to lend an ear.

‘You’ll need me,’ Emily said, and Harry nodded.

‘We do.’ And then, belatedly, like he’d just realised he hadn’t said it, he added, ‘We missed you.’

But Emily had moved on. There hadn’t been a kiss, Lizzie thought. If she was Emily she’d have kissed Harry by now. Boy, would she have kissed him!

‘Have you set the date for our wedding yet?’ Emily was asking, and Lizzie turned her attention back to Phoebe. Maybe Emily was waiting until she wasn’t here to get personal, she decided, and maybe she’d stay right where she was. She didn’t want to think about Emily kissing Harry.

But they had their rights. They were engaged.

‘I might just go and ring the vet,’ Lizzie said. ‘If you’ll excuse me…’

Emily swivelled at that and stared down at her like she was some strange and foreign form of insect life. ‘Why aren’t you dressed?’ she demanded.

‘I’m in my pyjamas,’ Lizzie said carefully. ‘It’s seven-thirty in the morning.’

‘But Harry’s not dressed either.’

Lizzie sighed. ‘I haven’t been in bed with your fiancé, if that’s what you’re implying,’ she said tiredly. ‘I’ve been in bed with a basset until her squirming drove me demented. Now, if you don’t mind, I think we have a little obstetric emergency to cope with.’

‘Do you reckon the puppies are coming?’ Harry asked. He looked more interested in Phoebe than he was in Emily.

‘I’m not sure.’

‘I’ll take a look.’

‘Harry, we need to talk,’ Emily snapped, and Harry nodded. Reluctantly.

‘I guess we do.’

‘Outside.’

‘Fine.’

‘I’ll go and ring the vet,’ Lizzie told them. She cast Phoebe another worried look but the big dog had her head down on her paws and looked more miserable than distressed. Early stages, Lizzie decided.

‘Practise your breathing like we talked about,’ she told Phoebe. ‘I’ll go and find us some help.’

The vet was succinct and reassuring. ‘Don’t fret. Unless she’s clearly distressed, the best thing is to let her be. Tell you what. I’m going out to see a cow in labour now. That’ll take me half an hour or so. What if I pop in and do a house call on Phoebe after that?’

‘Would you? I don’t like to think of bringing her down to your surgery.’

‘Sure, of course I would.’ She could hear Kim’s grin down the phone. Kim was a young woman vet who Lizzie had decided early on could be a friend, and she knew the whole town was hanging out, waiting for these puppies. ‘I understand your problem. If I had the choice of loading a cow into the back seat of your car and bringing her into surgery or loading Phoebe-maybe I’d choose the cow.’

That was all she could do for the moment for Phoebe. Phoebe seemed inclined to sleep, so Lizzie showered and dressed, trying rather self-consciously not to look any different from any other day. She decided finally to go really casual-just to show Emily she really didn’t give a damn. Old jeans. Casual sweatshirt, with white coat thrown on over the top. No make-up. Then she checked on Phoebe who still seemed to want to sleep-maybe she wasn’t in labour after all-and made her way over to the hospital. She may as well make herself useful while she waited for Kim’s house call.

The hospital was quiet. May was deeply asleep. The bruising had coloured drastically in the night, leaving her face almost Technicolored. Tom was seated beside her, holding her hand.

‘Have you been here all night?’ she demanded, and he shook his head.

‘Doc McKay made me go home. My parents are staying with the boys today, though, so I thought I’d stay with her a while.’

‘You know she’ll sleep.’

‘I just want to be here,’ Tom said in a cracked voice, his eyes not leaving May’s.

Lizzie thought suddenly with a fierce ache in her heart, That’s what I want. Some man to look at me when I’m black and blue and just love me…

No. Not some man.

Harry.

‘Emily’s back.’ Lizzie was barely in Lilly’s room before the teenager burst forth with her news. Word travelled fast in Birrini.

‘Mmm.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘Read your chart and watch you eat a piece of toast.’

‘No, but-’

‘Eat,’ Lizzie told her, and Lillian took a mouthful and swallowed almost at once, she was so eager to continue her train of thought.

‘He can’t marry Emily.’

‘Why not?’

‘He kissed you.’

‘Yeah. Once. It hardly makes him unfaithful.’

‘No…but he kissed you as if he meant it.’

‘Eat.’

Another bite. ‘You love him, don’t you?’

‘If I do, it’s hardly your business.’

‘I think you should fight Emily for him.’

‘Oh, great. Pistols at dawn.’

There was a knock on the door and Lizzie turned away, almost in relief. A junior nurse stood there, clearly anxious.

‘Yes, Terri?’

‘There’s someone at the nurses’ station asking for you,’ the girl said. ‘I’ll stay here with Lilly if you like.’

‘Did someone say who someone was?’ Lizzie asked.

‘Just Edward. He said his name was Edward.’