‘But…’ Mike shook his head again in sheer disbelief. ‘The Robertsons have tried every treatment known to man, and then some. In January they finally stopped trying and applied for adoption.’
‘They can’t have stopped trying entirely.’ She grinned again, and then appeared once more to concentrate. ‘Who else? I can’t think. There were heaps of patients booked in. I’ve left all their cards out so you can see who I’ve seen and what I’ve done.’
‘And…the patients in hospital? They need-’ Mike was practically flabbergasted.
‘I’ve seen them, too,’ she said blithely. ‘I let Mrs Pritchard go home because she told me you’d promised she could today, and I couldn’t see any reason to keep her longer. I decided to keep Hal Connor’s drip in. It packed up about five a.m-that was when I checked on you-but I still think he needs the fluids.’ She paused. ‘Oh, and Grandpa-’
‘He’s OK?’
‘Yes. His electrolytes are almost back to normal and there’s nerve function all along the affected side. And he’s loving me working here.’ She smiled her pleasure. ‘Which makes two of us. Me and him. So, how about you, Dr Llewellyn? Are you happy to have me working here?’
‘I don’t seem to have a choice,’ he said slowly, munching into toast without thinking. God, this felt good. Weird but good. To have a long sleep followed by breakfast…
The grey weight of exhaustion he’d been carrying had slipped from him and he felt ten years younger. He was confused, but at least now he wasn’t bone-weary. ‘Is there anything you haven’t done?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What about what’s happening at the hotel?’
Tessa’s smile faded. ‘Yeah, well… Everything can’t be good. But there’s news from Melbourne. Les is settled at the burns unit at the Alfred. He has a long road ahead of him but his condition didn’t deteriorate through the trip.’
‘But?’ Mike could tell here was something else. Tessa’s bright face had clouded.
‘I went down to what’s left of the hotel at about seven this morning. They were pulling… Well, they were pulling what may be the remains of Sam’s body from the ashes. I’ve identified it as human remains and it was hard enough to do that. I’ve organised for him to be brought into the mortuary, but the formal identification…’ She shrugged. ‘I’m afraid that might have to be up to you, Mike. You’ll need dental records. Medical records… I don’t know. I would have spared you that, but-’
‘Hell, you’ve done enough.’
‘No.’ Tess shook her head. ‘I haven’t done nearly enough.’ She clasped her hands with the same restfulness he’d seen the night before on the ambulance trip to the fire, and her face grew earnest.
‘Mike, the more I see, the more I know this is my sort of medicine,’ she said seriously. ‘In the States, medicine’s so specialised. Even if I choose to do family medicine, I won’t get to see anything like I saw this morning. I won’t get to see surgery or gynaecology or trauma. But here I see so much. In one short morning I’ve seen it all.’
‘It can be pretty mind-deadening,’ he told her flatly. ‘And it can be frightening. And sometimes it can be both. You’re coping with coughs and colds and people’s personal problems and life-threatening trauma all in the same day…’
She bit her lip and thought this through, and when she nodded he knew she was sure. ‘I know. I know it can be dreadful and I know it can be dreary,’ she said finally. ‘But this is what I want. Probation or not, I want to work here, Mike. Regardless of Grandpa. This is where I want to be.’
‘Tessa…’ He stared at her, troubled. He didn’t know the first thing about this woman. She seemed so sure, but he wasn’t sure at all. All he did know of this woman scared him stupid.
‘I’m rushing you,’ she said softly, standing up again. ‘Finish your breakfast, have another cup of coffee and think about it. You’re on call for the hospital for the next couple of hours. That’s another reason I’m waking you now. I’ve been invited to a football match this afternoon, and before that I’m off to do an obstetrician’s house call.’
‘An obstetrician’s…’
‘To Doris the pig,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Doris should be up to receiving visitors by now. I’m taking the Polaroid to get baby snaps for Grandpa. I’ll pass on your regards, shall I?’
‘Tess…’
‘Of course I shall,’ she said warmly. ‘After your help in delivering all those babies, it’d surprise me if Doris hasn’t named one of her sons Mike.’
She left him to his breakfast, and she left him feeling as stunned as he’d ever felt in his life before.
The day passed in a dream.
For the first time in Mike couldn’t remember how long, he had little to do. He checked Tessa’s medical records and found nothing to complain of. She’d been thorough and competent and careful, and there was nothing that he wouldn’t have done himself. Baffled, he took Strop for a stroll down to the pharmacy to countersign Tessa’s prescriptions.
‘Your new partner’s a damned fine girl,’ Ralph, the town’s pharmacist, told him. ‘Our Wendy went in this morning all stirred up because her periods are irregular. She’s getting ’em every two months and she jumped at the chance of seeing a lady doctor.
‘Well, she’s come home happy as a lark. Dr Westcott told her she’d have to be the luckiest fourteen-year-old girl in the district to get a period only every two months. It’s what her mother’s been telling her over and over, but do you think Wendy’d listen? But your Dr Westcott did the trick.’
The pharmacist sighed and dug his hands deep into the pockets of his white coat. ‘A woman doctor,’ he said in satisfaction. ‘That’s what this place needs. Plus…’ He grinned. ‘I can read her handwriting. A woman doctor with legible handwriting. Make her sign on the dotted line this minute.’
Yeah, right…
Mike came out of the pharmacy still troubled by a sense of unreality. This wasn’t happening.
There were the sound of car hooters from down by the river and he glanced at his watch. It was mid-afternoon. The local football game would be in full swing.
Football… ‘I’ve been invited to a football match,’ Tess had said.
He paused in indecision. He had his mobile phone on his belt. The locals played rough and there were always one or two minor injuries, so any minute now the phone would buzz into life.
He didn’t want to go back to the surgery.
‘I’ve been invited to a football match…’
‘What do you reckon, Strop? Do you feel like a football match?’
So Mike strolled the two blocks to the football field, telling himself all the time it was just to save the players the trouble of coming to the surgery. Not that he believed it for a minute.
The football competition here was a low-key, Australian Rules game. The ground had been marked out on the river flat, which meant whenever the river rose the games had to be cancelled. Four white posts were stuck in at each end of a roughly painted oval, and a players’ tent had been erected for each team. There was also a beer and pie tent. That was it. As a stadium it left a bit to be desired, but what the locals lacked in facilities they made up for in enthusiasm.
There were cars parked all around the playing field. Saturday afternoon football here was a town ritual. The women watched from the cars, with Thermos flasks and picnic baskets wedged between them on the front seats. Many had travelled in from outlying farms, and this was their social contact for the week. The only way anyone knew they were watching football was when a goal was scored. Then the hooters blared out from every second car in the place.
The men were made of sterner stuff, though, than to stay in the cars. They didn’t need the warmth-they left that to the women. Bellanor’s male population spent the game clustered around the beer tent-a hundred or so males spread no further than carting distance for the next round.
The rest of the boundary was left to the kids and the teenagers.
First off, Mike released Strop from his lead. From past experience, Strop would either spend the match hauling Mike’s arm off, trying to reach the pie tent, or he’d spend the match staring soulfully at pie tent customers, so as far as Mike could figure there was no choice. ‘Don’t eat too much,’ he told Strop. ‘Any more than one pie and you’re out of the car for a week.’
