Rescue at Cradle Lake

CHAPTER FIVE

OSCAR should never have been permitted to farm. She should never have agreed to let him use their land to graze his cattle. She knew that as she trudged back over the paddocks. It was yet another burden on her heart, but at least the walk over the hills got a bit of air into her lungs and gave her a chance to take a little time out from the impossibility of what lay ahead.

And at first it seemed things were OK. Ginny checked the house paddock where she’d left her lamb who’d been stuck in the cattle grid. Everything there was great. The sheep there were surrounding the trough, as if not brave enough to leave it in case it drained again. Her rescued lamb was suckling from his resigned mother, his tiny tail wagging with the ferocious intensity of an avid eater.

One happy ending. Great.

She walked back behind the house, up to the paddock where Oscar kept his lambing ewes. She’d been there earlier that afternoon and had found six sad mounds of disintegrating wool, stories of lambing gone wrong.

There were ewes and lambs everywhere here. Lambing was almost at an end. She ran her eyes over the flock. Searching for trouble.

And, of course, she found it. There was one ewe down.

Why had she looked for trouble? she demanded of herself. Oscar had left his flock to their fate, letting nature take its course. So should she.

She couldn’t. She walked over and knelt by the ewe. The animal had gone past straining, lying on her side and panting, gazing ahead with eyes that were starting to dull with pain.

‘I’m not an obstetrician,’ she told the sheep, but she checked what was happening and winced. ‘Ouch.’

She couldn’t leave her. A bucket of hot soapy water might help Very soapy water. And a bit of luck…

She rose and Fergus was standing by the paddock gate, watching her.

‘Medical emergency,’ she said briefly, and walked across to meet him. He held the gate open for her and she passed him, aware that she smelt like sheep again and he didn’t. Aware that he was six inches taller than her. Aware that he had great eyes…

‘I didn’t think you’d leave Richard,’ he said.

‘I seem to remember you told me I might,’ she said. ‘Plus he’s sleeping. Plus we’ve run out of petrol. Why are you here?’

‘Same as you, I’d imagine. I thought I’d check on our lamb.’

Our lamb. It had a nice ring to it, she thought. A glimmer of humour in a day that had been singularly without any such thing.

‘He’s fine.’

‘So I see. But there’s a ewe in trouble?’

‘The lamb’s stuck. One foot out, nothing else. I need to find some lubricant.’

‘What’s your medical speciality?’ he called after her. She’d hardly stopped walking. He closed the gate behind her and now he caught her up as she headed into the house.

‘Emergency medicine,’ she said briefly. ‘Yours?’

‘I’m a surgeon.’

A surgeon. What was a surgeon doing in Cradle Lake?

No matter. Concentrate on the job at hand.

‘So if neither of us is an obstetrician… You reckon between us we can deliver a lamb?’

‘I reckon between us we can call a vet.’

‘No time,’ she said over her shoulder, reaching the ramp up to the veranda and shoving her way past interested dogs. ‘The vet comes from Marlborough and the ewe will be dead by then. She’s young. Too damned young to have been joined, I’d have said, but, then, I’m a doctor, not a farmer.’

‘You spent your childhood here?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So you farmed.’

‘So I did.’ They were through Oscar’s back door. She grabbed a bucket by the laundry trough and started running hot water. ‘Can you find a sheet or something that I can rip up to make a rope?’

‘How about a rope?’

‘Too coarse. I don’t want to deliver a lamb only to put it down because I’ve damaged it.’

‘You think it’s still alive?’

‘I didn’t listen for foetal heartbeat if that’s what you mean,’ she said, exasperated. ‘Dr Reynard, do you want to be some use?’

‘I… Yes.’

‘Then go find a sheet and join me out there.’

When Fergus got back to the paddock, Ginny was lying full length in the mud.

‘Why do ewes never choose a nice soft grassy patch to give birth?’ she muttered as he approached. ‘What is it with the muddiest, hardest, rockiest spot in the paddock? Ow!’

‘Ow?’ he said cautiously, and knelt to watch what she was doing.

She was trying to manipulate…

‘The shoulder’s stuck,’ she said tightly. ‘One foot’s come free and not the other. I need to get it back in and get the two legs out together. If that happens, maybe I can get it’s head down. Only she’s having contractions again.’

She was. Maybe it was their presence, but the ewe had finally decided to come to life again. Her belly was rippling with strong contractions and she was even struggling to rise.

Here was something he could do. He pressed the sheep’s head down with one hand and laid his other hand firmly on her flank.

‘It’s OK, girl,’ he told the ewe softly. ‘Dr Viental’s an emergency specialist. You couldn’t be in better hands.’

Ginny cast him a suspicious glance and kept on working.

She had small hands, he thought, which was just as well. She was using the soap as lubricant, trying to manoeuvre in the birth canal. Which was just a bit tricky when the contractions were designed to push her hand out again.

‘Can you tell her not to push?’ she gasped.

‘Don’t push,’ he told the ewe. ‘Remember your breathing techniques.’

The ewe had obviously forgotten.

Ginny swore again. The force of the contraction would be crushing her fingers. Then: ‘Got it,’ she said, and at the next contraction another tiny hoof appeared.

Two hooves.

‘Tie them,’ she told him, swivelling to soap her hands again. ‘Just tight enough to give you some purchase. It’s almost impossible to pull by hand.’

‘We’re going to pull?’

‘When I get the head in position. Breathe, damn you,’ she told the ewe. ‘If you push now, you’ll risk breaking your baby’s neck.’

Her fingers were already working, using the break in contractions to find purchase.

Fergus was looping the sheet, twisting it so the two little hooves were tied together, with a little of the sheet folded between them so they didn’t crush each other. His fingers were right against Ginny’s. There was so little room.

Another contraction and she grunted in pain.

‘Not yet,’ she muttered. ‘I can’t… I can’t… Yes!’

‘Yes?’ Fergus said, cautious.

‘Head’s down. Next contraction I want you to pull, very gently. I’ll leave my fingers where they are, pushing the head down.’

He looked at how far inside the ewe her hand was. He remembered the strength of the contraction. ‘Your fingers are behind the head. You’ll break something.’

‘I won’t break anything,’ she told him. ‘I’m tough as old boots. But I may just swear.’

‘I won’t listen.’

‘Very wise,’ she muttered, and he didn’t listen-or not very much-and one minute later a feeble excuse for a lamb slithered out into Fergus’s waiting hands.

It was alive.

Some things were instinctive. Newborn lambs weren’t so different from newborn human babies and he’d done his basic med training in obstetrics. Almost as soon as it was out, he was clearing its nose, checking its airways, making sure…

It gave a pathetic, mewing attempt at a bleat and Ginny grinned.

‘We have lift-off, Houston?’

‘Indeed we do,’ Fergus said, wiping the lamb on what was left of Oscar’s bed sheet. This felt good, he thought. More. Somehow in the drama of this day they’d been granted a little happy ending.

Two happy endings, he thought, if they counted the lamb they’d pulled from the cattle grid.

The ewe’s head was turned. She was straining to see, and Fergus lifted the tiny creature round to its mother’s head.

‘Well done, us,’ Ginny whispered, and wiped her face with the back of her hand.

Which maybe wasn’t such a good idea.

‘You look like you’ve just been playing with a chainsaw,’ Fergus told her, and she grinned, knowing he was feeling exactly the same as she was. Deaths while practising medicine were unavoidable. There was nothing like an intervention and a saved life to balance things up.

It didn’t make it better but it helped get things in perspective. A bit.

‘What’s a bit of blood between friends?’ she demanded, and he grinned back at her, enjoying her pleasure.

‘You love your medicine?’

‘I do indeed.’ She rose, tossing soap and scraps of linen into her bucket. ‘It takes me into another place.’

‘As opposed to the place you’re stuck in.’

Her smile faded. ‘Leave it,’ she said. She stood, looking down at ewe and lamb. The lamb was nuzzling the ewe’s flank, already searching for a teat. The ewe was still down but she was starting to move.

There was a warm night in front of them. She’d be safe.

She’d make it.

‘We have another baby to care for now,’ Fergus said gently and she flinched.

‘Madison?’

‘Madison.’

‘I don’t know how to face it,’ she said bluntly, and he nodded.

‘That’s what I’m here for.’

‘So we’re out in the paddock, delivering lambs.’

He smiled, a gentle smile that said he knew how she was feeling. It was a false smile, she thought. How could he know? But somehow it worked.

He was a doctor with an excellent bedside manner, she decided, trying to get a hold on things that were impossible to get a hold on.

Ginny hadn’t been near Cradle Lake since her mother had died. The house had been rented out for years. It had taken a huge amount of effort-and money-to get it to the stage where she could take care of Richard there. And now, standing in the paddocks looking down over the lake, with emotions surging through her that had been in overdrive since the first of her brothers had been diagnosed…

This man wasn’t helping, she thought. She’d fought since she’d been a kid to get some form of emotional independence. Not to break apart when she lost things.

Now, suddenly, she wanted to fall on this guy’s chest and weep-and what use would that be to anybody?

‘You met Tony? Our footballer-cum-nurse?’ Fergus was asking.

‘Yes.’

‘He’s out at your house right now,’ Fergus told her. ‘He’s talking things through with Richard. It seems he and Richard were in the same grade at school here, and Tony says they were friends. Tony reckons he can help.’

‘No one can help and Richard doesn’t want anyone,’ she snapped before she could stop herself, but he appeared not to notice her anger.

‘Cradle Lake’s a tiny community,’ he said. ‘They’re geared to help.’

‘They haven’t in the past. You heard Oscar.’

‘Yeah, I talked to Tony about that,’ he said thoughtfully. He had his hands in his pockets and was watching the newborn lamb suckle her mother. The ewe had struggled to her feet. It seemed that maybe life was going to go on after all.

‘It seems your parents pretty much drove the community away,’ he said, and she flinched. ‘Like Richard’s doing now.’

‘My dad left us when Chris died.’

‘And your mother hit the bottle and kept the community away. You cared for her alone, and for Toby until he died. Any time someone came near they were hit with abuse. In the end, when there was no one left but you, you were left to social workers.’

Ginny didn’t say anything in response to that. She remembered that time, though. Just after Toby’s death…

Richard had been eighteen then, and he hadn’t even stuck around for the funeral. He had been ill, but not so ill he had been unable to manage to care for himself. He’d had a girlfriend, and they’d simply climbed into his girlfriend’s combivan and headed for Queensland.

‘I’ll look after him,’ Ginny remembered the girl telling her. ‘The weather up there will be better for his lungs and this way you don’t have to look after him as well.’

Ginny had been fifteen. Toby had been two days dead.

Her mother had been comatose.

That had been when Social Security had stepped in. Ginny had been placed with a foster-family in Sydney-great people who’d helped her get where she’d most wanted to be.

Which was independent.

She had been independent, until the disease had finally caught up with Richard, as they’d always known it would.

And now…

‘Tony’s taken bedding out to your place,’ Fergus said softly, watching her face. ‘In case Richard decides he wants to keep Madison close.’

‘I can’t take care of Madison,’ she said, panicked.

‘No one’s asking you to, Ginny,’ Fergus said gently. ‘There was a bit of a community meeting this afternoon. People wanted to help your family twenty years ago and they weren’t permitted to. Oscar’s the exception rather than the rule. Cradle Lake was horrified at what happened to you, and everyone really wants to help. If you’ll permit…’

‘If I’ll permit?’

‘It has to be your decision,’ he told her. ‘Or some of it does. Whether Richard wants to be a part of Madison’s life, for whatever time he has left, is up to him, but the rest… If he does want to spend time with his daughter, then Miriam will come out here later tonight. She’ll bring Madison with her. And she and Tony will take turns to stay as a live-in nurse to the pair of them. For as long as it takes. I know Richard doesn’t want anyone but he hasn’t a choice in this, Ginny. We’ve organised it to care for you and if he doesn’t want it…well, there’s still the hospice in Sydney.’ He smiled. ‘But I think you’ll find Tony’s persuaded him. He can be very persuasive, our Tony. Best goal-kicker in the district and there’s a reason.’

His smile was persuading her to join him but she couldn’t. It was as if all the air had been sucked out of her lungs, leaving her with nothing.

‘Well?’ he said softly, and her eyes flew to his. His gaze was gentle, questioning, expecting an answer.

‘Tony’s telling Richard that he has no choice,’ he continued gently. ‘He’s telling him that what he’s asked you to do is too hard, and the community as a whole has decided to share. You nursed your little brothers until they died and you nursed your mother. Your mother drove the community away but they won’t stand back this time and do nothing.’

‘They can’t do anything else.’

‘That’s what you think,’ he told her. ‘You have no idea. No one knew that the new people in the Viental place were Vientals, or there’d have been neighbours round here by now.’ His smile deepened. ‘You have no concept of the network in this valley. I’ve been here a few days and already I know that the community network is just plain scary. Casserole production has gone into overdrive. There are even farmers offering to take over livestock duty on this place-not because they like Oscar but because they know you, and they’ve already guessed that you won’t be able to leave Oscar’s stock to fend for themselves.’

She swallowed. ‘I don’t… I can’t… Madison…’

‘There are two things that can happen with Madison,’ he told her, his voice calmly reassuring. ‘There’s no need to look like a startled rabbit, because we’ve talked about that, too.’

‘We?’

‘Me and Tony and Miriam and a number of locals who I bet you can hardly remember but who clearly remember you. The idea is to give you some space. Depending on what Richard wants tonight, there are different courses of action. If he wants her now, then we’ll bring her out here. Miriam and Tony will stay and we’ll nurse her back to health alongside her father.’ He hesitated. ‘It seems hard, introducing a child to a father who hasn’t long to live, but, Ginny, Madison’s almost five years old. I remember a bit of what happened when I was that old, and I bet you do, too. You don’t remember much, but some things stick. We think that maybe it’s more important that Madison be left with a shadowy remembrance of a father than no remembrance at all.’

His voice faltered. She stared up at him. There was suddenly pain in his face.

Pain for Madison?

No. He had his own shadows, she realised. There was a reason he was here.

‘Why-?’

‘Not now,’ he said, and she knew he’d sensed the question that was forming. Somehow he seemed to read her mind before she even knew what she was thinking herself. ‘For now, all you need to think is that Madison is Richard’s daughter. Not yours. There’s no reason why the burden of raising her has to rest on your shoulders. There’s all sorts of couples who’d give their hearts to a little girl called Madison, and you know as well as anyone that fostering-or adoption-can work brilliantly.’

But suddenly once again she heard pain. She could hear it behind the carefully professional words.

She should query it, but there was too much overwhelming her life at the moment to even begin to admit more.

‘I don’t know how I could have her adopted,’ she whispered, and his hands came out and caught her shoulders, holding her steady in the face of her fear. ‘But to take her on… A child…’

‘You don’t need to think of that right now,’ he told her. ‘You just think of the next half-hour. We need to get a bit of sheep’s blood off ourselves so we don’t scare the community of Cradle Lake half to death with stories of our bloody exploits. Then we need to go talk to Richard and to Tony and see what Richard has decided to do.’

Richard was sitting up in bed when they arrived back at the house. He was angry. Ginny got that the moment she and Fergus walked around the side of the house. Tony was at his bedside, seated beside him on the veranda. Listening.

Richard was trying to yell. He was gasping for breath but his anger was palpable. Ginny gasped and started forward-but Fergus’s hand found her arm and he hauled her back out of sight.

‘Let me-’

‘Shh.’

‘There’s no way you can make me,’ Richard was saying.

‘No one’s making you do anything,’ Tony responded, his voice unperturbed. ‘No one made you do anything five years ago. But it’s done, mate. Like the rest of us, you’re now facing the consequences.’

‘I have no intention-’

‘You deny she’s your kid?’

‘No, but-’

‘There you are, then,’ Tony said evenly. ‘It can happen to us all if we’re dumb enough.’ He grimaced. ‘You know, I got a bit pissed after a footy dinner a few years back. Me and Bridget didn’t take precautions. Bang, nine months later, there was Michael, bawling his head off, red-faced and scrawny. My kid. Bridget and I had been pretty keen on each other, so getting married wasn’t such a big deal, but we’d intended travelling a bit first, seeing the world before we settled down. Now we have Michael. Lissy followed soon after and here I am, a family man. Whoopee.’ Ginny could hear a smile enter his voice. ‘You know, now I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

‘You think I can possibly be interested-’

‘Not only interested, but involved, right up to your neck,’ Tony said ruthlessly. ‘I’ve seen your kid. Madison. Doc Reynard examined her all over. He says she looks like she hasn’t been getting enough to eat. Her mother’s obviously been too ill to take proper care of her. And she ran half a mile on gravel to save her mother’s life. She lost. That’s your kid, Richard. A tough, brave little urchin who looks like you. You want to turn your back on her?’

‘Ginny will look after her,’ Richard said flatly, and Ginny made to move forward again. Once again Fergus restrained her.

‘Not your conversation,’ he whispered. ‘Shut up and listen.’

‘I know where my sister would have told me to go if I’d tried that line on her,’ Tony was saying.

‘I’m dying.’

‘Aren’t we all, mate? I could get run over by a bus tomorrow. Hell, that’d leave my Bridget and Michael and Lissy in a right mess.’

‘You know what I mean. I’m dying now. How can I be anyone’s father?’

‘You already are. You just didn’t know. This is non-negotiable. What I want to know is if you’ll do the right thing if we bring her out here.’

‘What the hell do you want me to do?’

‘You can’t ask this of him,’ Ginny whispered, but Fergus’s hold was strong and sure and convinced. He had her hand in his, his fingers linked through hers. Reassurance in a crazy world. A notion that she wasn’t alone. That he was there for her.

Dumb. It was dumb. She hauled at her hand but it wasn’t relinquished.

‘You want to see her?’ Tony was asking.

‘No!’

‘Do you mean that?’ Tony said softly. He turned. ‘Fergus, is that you, mate?’

Their approach had obviously been heard, by Tony at least. Fergus gave Ginny’s hand a reassuring squeeze and tugged her round the corner, out where they could be seen.

‘Hi,’ he said, as if he was dropping in for a casual evening visit. ‘Ginny and I have just delivered a lamb. Horribly complicated presentation. Exhausted mother. Only the pure skill of two dedicated doctors could have created the outcome of healthy mum, healthy baby.’

Tony’s big face creased into a smile. ‘Sheep obstetrics. Multi-talented, huh? Aren’t we lucky to have you?’

‘Yes,’ Fergus said promptly, and Tony laughed. He turned back to Richard. ‘You want us to bring out your daughter?’

‘I need to speak to Ginny,’ Richard said, almost sulkily, but Fergus shook his head, joining the conversation as if he’d heard what had gone before. As indeed he had.

‘This isn’t Ginny’s decision, mate. It’s yours.’

‘Of course it’s Ginny’s decision,’ Richard said angrily. ‘When I die, Ginny will have to-’

‘Ginny won’t have to do anything. This is your call.’

‘I can’t get involved in a kid if Ginny won’t-’

‘Let’s leave Ginny out of the equation,’ Fergus said, and there was a hint of steel in his voice. ‘She has her own life to worry about. She’s agreed to do some part-time work with me over the next few weeks.’

Ginny flashed him a look that was pure astonishment but neither man noticed.

‘And she won’t be around so much. Oh, she’ll be around when you most need her. She’s promised you that. But not every waking minute. She’ll go under if you ask that of her, and I’m here to treat her as well as you. You made her ill with your suicide bid this afternoon and it’s not going to happen again.’

‘This is none of your business,’ Ginny gasped, but Fergus took her arm again, restraining her from hauling away from his side.

‘It’s none of Tony’s business either, but he’s here. You’ve elected to come to a tiny community and that means people sticking in their oars all over the place. Richard, your daughter’s at the hospital and she has no one. If you permit, we’ll bring her here and care for her here for as long as you’re well enough to cope. If you play it right, when you die she’ll retain a memory of a father who cares. Her mother obviously thought that was important. If you don’t think it’s important then we’ll contact the social workers in the city and organise foster-care. You need never see her. Your call, mate. Decide.’

‘You can’t ask me-’ Richard gasped.

‘We are asking you.’

‘I need to talk to-’

‘You don’t need to talk to anyone. You make the decision now. You ask to see Madison-your daughter-and we’ll bring her to you, with a nurse to help care for her.’

‘I don’t want a nurse. Ginny can-’

‘Ginny can’t.’ His voice was tough, inflexible, giving no quarter. There was a long silence, broken only by the harsh rasping of Richard’s breathing. It wasn’t fair, Ginny thought miserably. To ask it of him…

‘It’s not fair, mate,’ Fergus said, in such an unconscious echo of her own thoughts that she gasped. ‘But she’s your daughter. I have no choice but to put things to you as they are.’

Richard stared up at him. He glanced across at Ginny but Fergus’s hand was on her arm protectively, as if he knew that this responsibility would be handed over but there was no way he’d let this happen.

‘Tony said she looks like me,’ Richard whispered finally, and Fergus nodded.

‘She’s beautiful. She’s battered and she’s lost her mother and she’s alone. And, yes, she looks like her father. Do you want to meet her or don’t you?’

Ginny held her breath. It could go either way, she thought, and she waited. They all waited.

‘I have a daughter?’ Richard whispered at last, and something in Fergus’s face reacted. It was like a muscle spasm-pain? It was there only momentarily and then gone, but Ginny was sure she’d seen it.

‘You have a daughter,’ he agreed.

‘Then maybe I need to meet her.’

‘Only if you agree to a nurse coming to stay as well.’

‘There’s no need. Ginny will-’

‘Ginny won’t.’

The two men faced off. Strength facing… Fear?

And strength won. Fergus’s determination was implacable and all of them could sense it.

‘Fine,’ Richard said at last. ‘If the kid needs a nurse-’

‘If your daughter needs a nurse.’

‘My daughter,’ Richard said, and the petulance disappeared from his voice. ‘My daughter.’

‘So we can bring her to her father?

‘Yes,’ he whispered, and looked up at them. ‘Yes, please.’