The Doctor’s Special Touch

CHAPTER FOUR

BY THE time Darcy reached the refuge, it was ten at night. Maybe they’d be settled, he thought. Most of the lights were out. The big central room was still illuminated, however, and he walked in to find Ally standing in front of the fireplace. Someone had lit a fire and the crackle and glow of the flames was a warmth all by itself.

There was a woman in an armchair before the fire. Lorraine? Ally was standing behind her, gently running her fingers through her hair.

The scene was so different to the chaos of the afternoon that he stopped short in astonishment. Lorraine looked almost asleep, her head tilted back and her eyes closed.

Ally looked across at him and smiled, but her fingers kept on with their dreamy rub.

‘Here’s Dr Rochester,’ she said softly. ‘Come to check on all of us. Too late. Everyone’s asleep, Dr Rochester, except for Lorraine and she soon will be.’

I would be, too, Darcy thought, dazed, if those hands did that to me.

‘The kids?’ he managed, and Ally’s smile deepened. There was huge personal satisfaction for her in this day’s work, he thought, though he couldn’t understand why.

‘They’re washed and fed and settled. Tommy and Deidre and Lilly and baby Dot. I’ve checked them all. There’s no signs of illness, though all of them are still bearing their chickenpox scars.’

‘I need to check.’

‘I don’t want you waking them.’

‘You want me to accept your word?’

‘I do.’ She was still calmly massaging Lorraine’s head, running her hands through the woman’s newly washed hair again and again. Lorraine’s hair was a nondescript brown, normally plaited, greasy and dull. Now it hung down her back in soft, shimmering waves. The woman’s face, strained and distressed every time Darcy had seen her, now looked years younger.

‘Isn’t she pretty?’ Ally asked, as if guessing his thoughts. And then, as Lorraine cautiously opened her eyes, Ally let her hands drop to Lorraine’s shoulders. ‘Better?’

‘You can’t believe how much,’ Lorraine whispered. ‘You’re sure… We… He can’t…’

‘I’d imagine Jerry’s in jail and likely to stay that way,’ Ally told her.

‘But without him…’

‘Without him you’ll do very well. You and Penny and Margaret are firm friends and the kids love each other. There’s no need to separate. You can pool your pensions and live happily ever after, somewhere where you don’t have to cart water or go without food or put your kids at risk. Isn’t that right Dr Rochester?’

‘That’s right.’ Darcy was still struggling with the sensation that he was out of time-out of space. ‘Um…the men?’

‘Robert and Greg are sleeping in the other wing,’ she told him. ‘Robert’s face is the biggest worry. It’ll need attention almost straightaway. I was hoping you might be here soon enough to give him something for the pain, but after a hot shower and a big dinner he thought he might go to sleep anyway. I gave him as much paracetamol as I could.’

‘You…’

‘I don’t think it’s affecting the eye yet,’ she told him, seemingly oblivious to his astonishment. ‘But you need to see him first thing in the morning.’

‘You’re organising me?’

‘Yes, Doctor,’ she said meekly-and to his absolute astonishment, Lorraine giggled.

A giggle.

Since Sam’s death he’d been going up to the ridge once a month, whether they liked it or not, checking on the children. In all of that time he hadn’t seen so much as a smile.

And here was a giggle.

He stared at her as if he couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it. A butterfly emerging from an ugly grey chrysalis.

‘Is Marigold OK?’ Lorraine asked, but there wasn’t the desperate concern he’d assumed she’d have for her daughter. Ally’s massage almost seemed to have her drugged. ‘And Jody and David?’

‘They’re fine,’ he told her. ‘Jody’s settling. We’ve put Marigold on intravenous antibiotics and I think her arm should show signs of recovery within twenty-four hours. She’s already asleep. And David was sitting up in bed drinking a thick-shake as I left him.’

‘There,’ Ally said in quiet satisfaction. ‘All fixed. Didn’t I tell you Dr Rochester was wonderful? A real-life hero. With a name like Darcy Rochester, what do you expect?’

She smiled at him. They were both smiling at him. The look they were giving him was a sort of female conspiratorial look, like he was…some sort of hunk on the front of a romance novel?

Good grief. He had to get out of here, he thought desperately. Any minute now he’d start to blush.

But Ally was moving on. ‘I’ll show you where you’re sleeping,’ she said to Lorraine, breaking a silence which suddenly seemed to Darcy to be almost unbearable. ‘Do you think you’ll sleep?’

‘Of course I’ll sleep,’ the woman told her. ‘And you don’t need to show me. I’ve already seen. You know, there’s an electric blanket on my bed? Oh, the warmth.’ Lorraine rose on legs that were a little shaky. She’d turned from admiring Darcy-much to Darcy’s relief-and now she gripped Ally’s hands. ‘I don’t know how to thank you.’

‘I only did what you would have done yourselves in a day or two,’ Ally told her, and Darcy thought that, no, she was wrong there, but maybe it was a way of giving the woman’s pride back to her. ‘Things just came to a head when I was there. Now, you’re not to worry. You know the kids are safe. The future will be taken care of. Elsa’s coming back in the morning to talk practicalities with all of you, but everything’s going to be better. I promise.’

‘Oh, my dear.’

‘Go to bed, Lorraine,’ Ally said softly. ‘Go to sleep. For as long as you want.’

They were left alone.

The marine refuge had been built by the harbour, and the long living room was used by the fishermen as a meeting place when the pub was unsuitable-when they needed clear heads to make decisions. It was filled with big, squashy armchairs, the fire was set in a vast stone fireplace, and the windows looked over the bluff to the lighthouse beyond.

From here they could hear the waves crashing on the shore. The sound of the sea, the crackle of the fire and the fact that the overhead lights were low…it lent the place an intimacy that seemed almost overwhelming.

Darcy stared across at Ally, trying to adjust to what was happening. She was much as he’d met her on the doorstep a few hours ago, but now she’d been in the bush, pushed aside a few chooks, bathed a few kids, hugged some adults. Maybe she’d even wept a bit.

She looked bedraggled, he thought. She looked exhausted and battered and worn. But still she looked…lovely?

‘Can I drive you home?’

‘That’d be great,’ she said faintly, then hesitated. ‘How’s Jody? Were you telling the truth to Lorraine-that she’s settling?’

‘It appears so.’ For some stupid reason he was having trouble with his voice. She was throwing him off balance and he didn’t know why. Jody. Concentrate on Jody. ‘Her obs are settling a little. The fluid is starting to take effect. But, hell, Ally, if we hadn’t got her out of there she’d have been dead by this time tomorrow.’

‘You would have taken her anyway,’ she said slowly. ‘You were planning on picking her up and carting her down here, whatever the consequences.’

The only way to answer that was with the truth. ‘Yes.’

‘I guessed you were. But the fuss… You could have been sued for abduction.’

‘Maybe.’

‘So I saved you from going to prison.’ Her irrepressible smile peeped out. ‘How nice. Does that rate another sandwich?’

That took him aback. ‘You can’t possibly be hungry?’

‘Are you kidding?’ She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s five hours since I last ate and that was a mere snack.’

He thought about the food she’d put away and he grinned. ‘Yeah. An appetiser. Didn’t you eat here?’

‘I was bathing kids when the adults were fed, and I was hugging adults when the kids were fed. The lady who runs this place-Cornelia, is it?-didn’t think of feeding me.’

‘I’ll take you home now.’

‘Fat lot of good that’ll do.’ She dug into her pocket and produced two banknotes. ‘These are a real mockery at ten at night when every store in the place is closed. And I so wanted a steak.’ She sounded mournful.

‘You don’t have anything at home?’ he asked, startled.

‘I have my grocery money right here,’ she said with dignity. ‘I was planning on shopping when you picked me up.’

Hey! ‘I did not pick you up.’

‘What else do you call it? You ruined my plans. You interfered with my shopping.’

‘Surely you have an egg or something.’

She glowered. ‘I have tea bags.’

He choked. ‘Yum.’

‘Yeah. So take me home. My tea bags are waiting.’ She managed a martyr’s groan. ‘But who am I to complain? After all, I have my satisfaction to keep me warm.’

‘You really enjoyed sending Jerry to jail?’

Her smile this time was genuine. ‘You don’t know how much. It’s worth every tummy rumble.’

‘Are you going to tell me about Jerry?’

‘You know about Jerry.’

‘Only what he’s done here. That won’t get him put in jail.’

‘No.’ She smiled again, and her smile was suddenly tinged with sadness. ‘And it’s so hard to get a conviction. But they won’t let him go. Not with what I’ve told them. He won’t even get out on bail with his previous record for absconding.’

‘So how do you know him?’ he asked curiously. They were standing before the open fire in a strange setting of forced intimacy and he thought she might tell him things now that she otherwise wouldn’t. And suddenly he badly wanted to know.

‘My parents were mixed up with him,’ she told him.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ she said flatly. The fire spat behind her and a log rolled forward onto the grate. She walked forward to push it back with the poker and he frowned.

‘You’re limping.’

‘I’m not limping.’

‘You’re limping.’

‘You’re imagining it.’

He stared down at her feet-to the inappropriate flip-flops. And he remembered something that had been pushed into the background amongst the drama up on the ridge.

Jerry kicking a pile of firewood. A branch swinging forward with a resounding thump against Ally’s foot.

‘He hurt you.’

‘Jerry can’t hurt me.’

‘Sit down, Ally,’ he told her.

‘I’m not-’

He put his hands on her shoulders and propelled her backward into the chair Lorraine had just vacated. He flicked on the reading light beside the chair and a pool of light illuminated her slight frame.

She looked really young, he thought suddenly. And really…scared?

‘Hey, I won’t hurt you.’

‘I know you won’t hurt me,’ she said with some indignation. ‘Let me up.’ She tried to rise but his hands gripped her again and held.

‘Stay.’

‘Like a dog.’ She glowered.

‘If you like. Behave. Let me see your foot.’

‘There’s nothing wrong.’

But he was kneeling before her, flicking the flip-flop from her foot and raising it to the light.

‘Ouch.’

‘That’s my line,’ she told him.

‘Well, why aren’t you using it?’ He shifted her foot a little so the light was better, grimacing. ‘Hell, Ally, there’s a massive splinter in here.’

‘Gee, that makes me feel better,’ she retorted. ‘I know I have a splinter. I’ll dig it out when I have a shower.’

‘It’s too deep.’

‘It wouldn’t be deep if you hadn’t said massive,’ she said, and her voice was suddenly a trifle unsure. ‘How massive?’

‘You haven’t looked?’

‘When would I have had time to look?’ She grabbed her foot from him and bent it up so she was peering at her heel. It was such an unguarded gesture. What other woman he knew would do that? He stared at her vulnerable head, bent over her foot, and he felt something inside tug. Hard.

‘Ouch is right.’ She stared for a moment longer and then put her foot down. ‘But it’ll come out.’

‘I’ll see to it now.’

‘I’ll see to it myself.’

‘Ally, I don’t think it’s going to come out with a pair of tweezers,’ he told her. ‘It’s deep and long and it looks as if it’s in parts. I’ll give you a local anaesthetic and get the thing fully cleaned.’

‘You’ll do no such thing.’

‘Oh, right.’ He stood back and fixed her with a goaded look. ‘So you’ve gone to all that trouble to save Jody from infection, yet you sail into infection yourself-all because you’re scared of a local anaesthetic.’

‘I’m not scared.’

‘Good girl,’ he told her, and grabbed his bag.

‘Hey!’

‘Shut up. I’m working,’ he told her.

‘I can-’

‘You can’t.’ He lifted her foot again, inspected it carefully, then sighed and rose to fetch a bowl of warm water from the sink at the side of the room.

She half rose as if to leave.

He turned and gazed at her-holding her eyes with his.

She glowered again-and then sank back into her chair.

‘You think you’re so indispensable,’ she muttered.

‘Maybe I am.’ He smiled. ‘I can’t imagine you massaging a splinter out of a foot.’

‘No, but-’

‘And there’s not a single essential oil that has splinter removal as one of its properties.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ she told him.

He grinned. ‘You could at least be grateful.’

‘I’m grateful.’

‘Good.’ He came back to her and started loading a syringe. ‘This might sting a little.’

‘Yeah, yeah. I know exactly what “sting a little” means when it’s a needle into your foot. It means sending me through the roof.’

‘You need a bullet to bite,’ he told her, and she grimaced.

‘I’d rather have steak. This is not turning out to be my day, Dr Rochester.’

‘But you have put Jerry in jail.’

‘There is that,’ she said, brightening a little.

‘OK.’ He swabbed the side of her foot, waited until he could see she was ready and then injected.

She bit her lip-hard-and then nodded.

‘Fine.’

‘Good girl.’

‘Don’t patronise me.’

‘I would never patronise you, Ally,’ he told her. ‘I think you’re wonderful.’

Her eyes flew wide at that. ‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘Wonders will never cease.’

He grinned. ‘OK. Give the injection a few minutes to take effect. In the meantime…tell me about you and Jerry.’

For a while he thought she wouldn’t tell him. She sat with her foot stretched out on a stool before the fire and she looked…blank. It hurt, he thought, and it wasn’t her foot that was doing it.

Would she tell?

He continued to wait, but the combination of firelight and the sound of the sea was almost hypnotic, and finally she started. Her face was still blank. It was as if she was recounting something that had happened to others. Not to her.

‘My father was associated with Jerry long before I was born,’ she told him. ‘Jerome…Jerry…well, you’ve seen him. His personality is overwhelming. Dad met him here when they were both boys. Jerry used to come down here when his father was checking his properties. When Dad went to the city to live, he caught up with Jerry again, and finally he went to live with him. Jerry’s father had given him a farm in the hills above Nimbin in New South Wales. That was the start. You’ve seen the men who were with Jerry. My dad was like that.’

He knew. Damn, he knew.

‘And your mother?’ He’d started washing her foot with the warm water, carefully removing the soil of the day. She appeared hardly to notice. She was intent on her story.

‘Dad met my mother here,’ she told him. ‘Dad was twenty years older than she was, and he’d left town before she was born. But Dad had to come back here to fix up something to do with his parents’ estate and he met my mother then. She was only fifteen and he got her pregnant. My grandfather was furious. He wasn’t…he wasn’t a forgiving man, my grandfather. He demanded she have an abortion and she ran away with my father. So for the first few years of my life I was with Jerry and his people.’

She’d lived as these people had. She knew.

He hesitated. ‘Jerry… Was Jerry all right with you?’

She frowned. ‘You mean, did he abuse me? No. To be honest, I don’t remember much about my early childhood. All I know is that when I was four my mother brought me back here. She didn’t explain why. She seemed afraid but Grandpa didn’t know why and she insisted on going back herself. Whether she was still in love with Dad, or whether she was under Jerry’s spell, I don’t know. But she had enough sense to be afraid for me. Anyway, she left me with my grandfather and I stayed with him for eight years.’

‘And then?’

She sighed. ‘Then my grandfather died and my father took me back.’

‘Your mother…’

‘By that time she was just a victim,’ she said wearily. ‘She did what everyone told her. She’d stood up to them once when she’d taken me to my grandfather, but she was incapable of standing up to them again.’

Darcy was totally focussed on her story-but he had to concentrate on the procedure he was undertaking. He lifted her foot and lightly ran his nail down either side of her sole. ‘Can you feel this?’

‘No.’

‘Nothing?’

‘No.’

‘Good. I’m starting.’ He inspected the wound with care and then reached for a scalpel. She looked down at what he was doing and then carefully closed her eyes.

Good choice. And he could distract her still further with her story.

‘So you stayed with Jerry from the time you were twelve?’ he asked as he carefully split the skin at the side of the wood. The more he saw the more he was astonished. She’d walked on the splinter for hours. It must have been agony. It had shattered into pieces and was deeply embedded.

How had she done it?

But she was focussed on her childhood. Had she stayed with Jerry?

‘Are you kidding?’ She smiled, albeit a shaky one. ‘I had no choice. I was twelve and I went where I was taken. But Jerry was in trouble. Once, when he was really desperate, he came here and he brought me with him. He knew this place was deserted and there was some sort of drug deal going on. I was supposed to sit on the ridge and watch for people coming. For about three days he hid up there, and I was desperately lonely. All that time I knew my home was here-the people I knew-and, oh, I wanted to come back.’

‘You could have come.’

‘How? My grandfather wasn’t here any more. I didn’t know who would help me. I figured my father would just come and get me again. No. I was stuck. But while I was up on the ridge I was furious, with all the righteous indignation of a lonely twelve-year-old who was dragged where she didn’t want to be. I used to watch Jerry. I knew he was doing something illegal. I watched where he hid stuff. I memorised everyone who came. I took car registrations. I eavesdropped and I figured things out. From that time on, I kept careful records of everything I could. But of course Mum and Dad were part of the community. I didn’t see how I could do anything without destroying them.’ She swallowed and darted him a look that was suddenly unsure.

Darcy stayed intent on her foot. He was carefully manoeuvring pieces of shattered wood out and he needed to concentrate, but he also knew he had to give her space.

‘Then…’ she whispered. ‘Then Jerry decided I was old enough…’

Enough. Her voice trailed off to nothing.

Darcy’s hands stilled. His heart seemed to still. ‘Ally…’

But he might have known this was no passive victim. Not Ally.

‘Only I wasn’t,’ she told him, her voice suddenly defiant. ‘Grandpa had taught me karate-how cool is that?-and I fought. I took off into the scrub round the horrible place we were staying, and I ran. It took me hours to get to the nearest town but when I arrived I talked and talked and I don’t know why they believed me but they did. I was scratched and bruised and starving and just…vitriolic. In the end the police went up and arrested Jerry.’

He was dumbfounded. ‘You had him arrested?’ He shook his head in disbelief, seeing her as she must have been then. A twelve-year-old, up against the world. There was a lump in the back of his throat and he had to fight to speak again. ‘Guns blazing?’ he ventured, trying desperately for lightness. He wanted to hit someone. He desperately wanted to hit someone. Maybe it was just as well he hadn’t known this when he’d faced Jerry.

‘Hardly.’ She gave a rueful chuckle. ‘Not quite. Though if there’d been guns handy, who knows?’ She shrugged and in an unconscious echo of his own thoughts she added, ‘Maybe it was just as well I only knew karate. Anyway, it didn’t help. He skipped bail and left the country. Leaving a mess.’ She stared down into his angry eyes and ventured a lopsided smile. ‘Um… Dr Rochester, do you think you could concentrate on my foot?’

He caught himself. He was operating here. He went back to the splinter but it was almost clear. All he had to do was clean it really thoroughly.

He started to wash it out. As he concentrated on medicine again his voice came under control and it seemed possible to ask more questions.

‘What happened to your parents?’

‘They weren’t my parents any more,’ she said sadly, staring down at her foot. ‘They weren’t capable of caring for themselves, let alone me. I went into foster care. End of story.’

Only it wasn’t. He glanced up into her face, and behind the satisfaction that this day had given her he saw more.

She was haunted, he thought. He’d treated her as a flibbertigibbet, a person who’d bowled into town with her sky-blue signs and her ideas of making a living from massage.

And she had such shadows.

‘No one knew,’ he said, forcing himself to stay focussed on the dressing he was applying. ‘No one in the town seemed to have any idea of what happened to you.’

‘My grandfather never talked,’ she told him. ‘He was a hard man. He never talked of anything. Jerome Hatfield was our personal tragedy.’

‘Yet…’

‘Enough,’ she said, almost roughly. ‘My foot’s fine.’ He’d taped the dressing in place and her foot was as good as it was going to get. ‘Take me home, Dr Rochester. Even a tea bag’s looking good.’

‘How up to date are you with your tetanus shots?’

‘I’m fine. I had a booster two years back.’

‘Try to keep the weight off your heel.’

‘I’ve been doing that all evening. I’m an expert.’

‘Right.’ He hesitated. He should drive her home. But he couldn’t let her go home to a tea bag. Could he?

No.

‘Let me find you a steak,’ he said, and there was a short silence. ‘You could do that?’

‘I have half a dozen steaks in my freezer. My microwave can defrost them in minutes.’

‘I thought you had a wood stove.’

‘Yep. A wood stove and a microwave. How about that?’

‘You want me to go to your place?’

‘My dogs make great chaperones. And…’ he ventured a smile ‘…I hear you know karate.’

‘And two other Japanese words. That makes me bilingual. Or trilingual. Something.’

He grinned again. She was stunning, he thought. He was appropriately stunned. ‘OK. If all your patients are asleep, let’s go.’

‘They’re not my patients.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ he said faintly. ‘I’m starting to feel superfluous.’

‘Not when you have six steaks in your freezer. You’re not superfluous at all.’

‘There you go, then.’ His smile faded. ‘Not completely superfluous. But definitely completely confused.’ He hesitated. ‘You gave Robert paracetamol?’

‘Let’s check him,’ she told him, meeting his concern before he’d voiced it. ‘I can wait that long. Of all of them, Robert’s the one who’ll be awake. That carcinoma is almost bone-deep.’

He cast her an odd look. ‘You know your medical stuff.’

‘We get it in massage school.’

‘How to treat carcinoma?’

‘How to recognise one.’

‘Massage school’s changed since my day.’

‘You’re how old?’ She shrugged. ‘OK, Dr Greybeard. Let’s check Robert. My tummy’s rumbling.’

Robert was asleep, but not deeply. Ally pushed open his bedroom door and he stirred a little, whimpering with pain.

‘He hasn’t even had an aspirin before tonight,’ she whispered in sudden anger, moving across to stare down at him in the soft light cast by the hall lamp. ‘His face… It would have been a tiny thing to get rid of a couple of years back, but now…the mess…’

Darcy crossed to stand beside her. She was right. He’d only seen Robert’s face in the distance before this. Social Services had forced Jerry to accept him examining the children but the adults had the right to refuse treatment and none of them had come near him.

And now what must have started off as a tiny basal cell carcinoma had spread, covering Robert’s forehead and half his cheek. Horrid.

But as far as he could see it hadn’t invaded his eye. And it looked clean.

‘I washed it and put a mild antiseptic on it,’ Ally told him. ‘I hope it isn’t too deep-that the eye is OK. Even now, he must be facing major surgery. He’s so afraid. I talked to him about skin grafts, though. I told him I’m sure there are things that can be done to help.’

Here it was again. Her knowledge of medicine.

Was she a med-school dropout? he wondered. Or somehow trained and deregistered? If so, her use of the word ‘doctor’ was not only illegal but dangerous.

But this wasn’t the time to question it. Robert moaned softly again and Darcy came to a decision.

‘I’ll wake him. He’s only sleeping now because he’s exhausted. That pain will wake him up as soon as the exhaustion eases.’

‘Morphine and a sedative?’

He raised his brows and she raised hers back.

‘Right,’ he said, deciding not to take it further.

‘I thought Lorraine and Penny might need sedatives to help them sleep,’ she told him. ‘But a massage worked better. I can’t see Robert accepting a massage, though.’

‘No,’ he said dryly, and he put his hand on the man’s shoulder.

‘Robert.’

The man woke as if someone was striking him. There was pure terror in his eyes, and he hauled back, cringing. He was a little man, in his mid-forties maybe, but so emaciated he might be much older. His ginger hair was thinning. It had been roughly cut, as if done by himself without the help of a mirror. He wouldn’t be out of place in a shelter for homeless men, Darcy thought as he moved swiftly to reassure him.

‘It’s OK, Robert,’ he told him. ‘I’m the doctor.’

The man’s eyes moved past him and found Ally-and he visibly relaxed. How had this woman achieved their trust in such a short time?

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I thought it was…’

‘You thought it was Jerry,’ Ally finished for him. ‘He’s in jail, Robert. You know that.’

‘I should have gone with him.’

‘No,’ Ally said fiercely. She sat on the bed and took the little man’s hands between hers, her hold compelling. ‘There’s no “should” about it. Jerry tells everyone what to do, and because he’s so big and loud and compelling everyone just does it without asking questions. But you’ve been in agony for months. Jerry hasn’t let Dr Rochester help you. Now he can. He’s here and he can stop the pain and let you have a decent night’s sleep.’

‘The bed’s pretty good,’ the man whispered, and Ally gave him a smile brimming with encouragement.

‘Yep. And so was dinner. And so’s the treatment Dr Rochester can give your face. I cleaned it but I’ve probably made it hurt even more.’

‘It’s OK,’ the man faltered, but Darcy looked at the lines of strain around his eyes and knew he was lying.

‘Will you let me give you something for the pain?’

‘Ally gave me tablets.’

‘Did they help?’

‘A little.’

‘I can give you something stronger. And if you’ll let me,’ Darcy said softly, not wanting to bring the terror back into the man’s eyes, ‘in the next couple of days I’ll arrange for you to be transported to one of the big Melbourne hospitals. That face needs a top surgeon to treat it.’

‘It’s too late. It’s spread too far.’

‘No.’ Darcy made his voice flat and absolutely definite. Ally moved to let Darcy take her place, and he stooped to have a really good look. ‘Robert, I don’t know how deep it is, but it certainly looks like basal cell carcinoma. That’s skin cancer normally caused by sun damage. It’s close to the eye but it’s not so close that it’s going to interfere with either the eye or the eyelid. If we move now, we can fix it. What the surgeon will need to do is cut away the damaged surface. Because it’s big, he’ll need to do a skin graft. That’ll involve taking a piece of skin, probably from somewhere like your thigh, and stitching it over your face so the wound will heal.’

‘Ally told me that. But it’ll never heal.’

‘It will,’ Ally said. ‘Believe us. You must believe us, Robert. We can make this better.’

‘But I can’t afford-’

‘The public health system will cover this,’ Darcy told him. ‘Because it’s so close to your eye you’ll be treated as a priority patient. If I send you to Melbourne in the next couple of days, you’ll be operated on almost immediately.’

‘And…and after that?’

‘You can be brought back here to recuperate if you wish,’ Darcy told him. ‘We’ll put your residence down as care of this place, and take it from there. Our social worker will talk to you tomorrow about appropriate housing, and whether you want to stay with the others or not.’ Then, as Robert’s eyes grew confused, he put his hands on his shoulders and pressed him back on the pillows.

‘Enough,’ he told him. ‘Too much has happened too fast. But will you allow me to give you an injection? Something that will have you pain-free and let you sleep for the rest of the night?’

‘Pain-free? All night?’

‘Magic,’ Darcy said with a wry grin. He gave a sideways wink at Ally. ‘You know, even though massage therapists can solve most of the problems of the world, there’s still a use for us doctors. Can I give you the injection, mate?’

Robert looked from Ally to Darcy and back again. His face said he was confused beyond belief. But the terror had faded.

He’d been given hope. It had been worth waking him up, Darcy thought. He’d have woken in the small hours to pain and to the knowledge that the cancer was spreading. He must have been doing so for months. Waiting for the cancer to reach his eyes, and then…

That was the way of madness.

But instead of madness, now there was hope. He gazed at the two of them and then his weary face broke into the ghost of what might once have been a smile.

‘Maybe you’re crazy, the pair of you,’ he muttered. ‘And why don’t I care? Go ahead, Doc. Give me the injection. Work your magic.’