Strop gave his tail a majestic wave and departed at a waddle.
Strop-less, Mike made his way slowly around the ground toward the training tents. This was where he’d be needed, he told himself, trying hard not to keep a weather eye out for Tess.
But somehow he found her. Tess was right in the middle of a huddle of teenagers. And what she was wearing… It was just plain extraordinary.
Or maybe it wasn’t plain at all. Tess wore bright purple leggings, a brilliant yellow jacket and a purple cap with a yellow pompom. Oh, and purple Doc Martens on her feet for good measure.
He blinked. The colours of the teams on the ground were red and black stripes and black and white stripes respectively so, in this sea of red and black and white, Tess stood out like a sore thumb.
She was sublimely oblivious. Tessa was perched on the bonnet of Alf Sarret’s FJ Holden. Alf was a nineteen- year-old car fanatic who polished his car twice a day and wouldn’t let anyone look sideways at it much less sit on it, but Tessa was definitely sitting on it and she was talking and laughing as if she was nineteen years old and had known these kids all her life.
She saw him from ten yards away and a brilliant purple arm shot upwards in a wave.
‘Mike. Come over here. Isn’t this the craziest game? The kids have been teaching me the rules-or rather trying to teach me the rules. I think you need to be a third-generation Australian to understand them. Why aren’t you wearing team colours? And who are we barracking for?’
‘Who are we…?’
‘The kids say I need to choose, and I need to choose now,’ she said. ‘Apparently I can’t stay in this town without swearing allegiance to a Bellanor football club. The only trouble is-do I swear allegiance to Bellanor South Football Club or Bellanor North Football Club?’ She looked around at her crowd of bemused teenagers. ‘The camp here appears to be evenly divided,’ she said. ‘And I know Grandpa hates football. So I figure…if you and I intend to be partners then I’d better barrack for who you barrack for.’ She grinned. ‘The kids say otherwise we’ll fight.’
If you and I intend to be partners…
He thought fleetingly of what he’d always imagined a partner might be. He’d thought of a sober, conscientious middle-aged doctor with whom he could share the load. Not this…this…this pompommed purple and yellow apparition!
‘Jancourt,’ he said faintly. It was all he could think of to say, and the word was met by a howl of derision from the teenagers.
‘Yeah?’ Tessa wasn’t put off by the teenagers’ reaction. Her eyes rested on Mike’s face and she twinkled down at him. She dug her hands deep into the pockets of her extraordinary yellow jacket and nodded. ‘OK. If you say so, Mike, then I’ll barrack for Jancourt. Tell me about our team.’
‘But Jancourt’s hopeless,’ Alf interrupted. He had nobly allowed Tess to sit on his car and was now acting as if he was in charge of her. ‘Don’t do it, Doc. Jancourt’s the lousiest team. They lose every week.’
‘Jancourt’s more a name than a place,’ Mike agreed. ‘It’s all they can do to scratch eighteen men. In fact, sometimes they play with up to half a dozen men short, and their back line has an average age of about sixty.’
‘It sounds just my sort of team,’ Tessa said with aplomb, and Mike grinned.
‘It is,’ he told her. ‘If you barrack for North or South Bellanor, then every Monday morning you’ll be looked at by half the population as if it’s all your fault that they’re feeling ill. If you barrack for Jancourt…well, every Monday morning all you’ll get is sympathy.’
‘Very wise.’ Tess seemed perfectly satisfied with the logic. ‘And what are our colours?’
‘Sorry, Tessa. Not purple and yellow.’
‘Rats. These are the colours of my very favourite football team at home. The Vikings.’
‘They’re a bit loud,’ Mike said faintly, and Tessa’s smile widened.
‘Loud! You want loud? The true Vikings uniform has a hat with horns! Or I could be a fan of the Green Bay Packers. My mom follows the Green Bay Packers and she gets to wear cheese on her head. This is sedate in comparison.’
‘Cheese?’ Tess had the whole bunch of teenagers riveted to their conversation, and Tessa was revelling in it.
‘I kid you not.’ She chuckled. ‘I swear. Green Bay Packer fans wear vast slabs of cheese on their heads-don’t ask me why. The Vikings are a sensible, sane football team that a sensible, sane girl like me can follow with pride. I’ll follow them to the death-I’ll even wear horns-but when football clubs expect their fans to wear cheeses and a girl’s mother says she’s being undutiful by changing to the Vikings, well, it’s enough to make a girl migrate all the way to Australia.’
‘I expect it is,’ Mike managed faintly.
‘So what are the Jancourt team colours?’ she demanded.
‘Cream and brown.’
‘Ugh.’ Tessa’s pert nose wrinkled in distaste. Then she shrugged. ‘Never mind. I love purple and yellow, but I can’t have everything.’ Her smile returned in full and Mike could only stare.
Tess looked totally, perfectly happy. She looked as if she’d lived here all her life, and as if there was nothing more she could ask of life than to sit in a cold wind on a teenage boy’s ancient jalopy and cheer a football game where she didn’t even understand the rules.
She’d fit into this valley as if she’d been born here, Mike thought, wondering. In one half of one football game, Tess had managed to woo and win the town’s teenage population. The group Tess was in made up the most popular kids in town and there were more teenagers sidling up to the edges of the group every minute. By tomorrow, the word would be around town that there was a new lady doctor in town and she was great!
‘Oh, hell…’
There was a sudden howl from the crowd. A tackle had brought one of the forwards down, and the injured player was clutching his knee in agony out on the field.
Mike sighed and dragged his attention from Tess. ‘Well, there goes my quiet time,’ he said with resignation. ‘I’ll leave you to your friends, Dr Westcott.’
‘Hey, I’m coming too.’ She slid off the car and tucked her arm into his. ‘I’m your partner, OK?’ Her smile widened. ‘I’ve always dreamed of running onto the field as team doctor. It’s one of my career goals. Like at the movies when they interrupt with, “Is there a doctor in the house?”.’ They did it all the time before I graduated, but never since.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not running onto any ground,’ he told her firmly, watching as the trainers raced over to the injured player with a stretcher at the ready.
‘I’ll only go if they yell that he’s stopped breathing. Even then I’ll wait until he turns blue. The players here have a nasty habit of getting on with the game, regardless. The only thing they ever stop for is Strop and that’s because he eats the ball. It took me months to teach him the pie tent was a better place to hang out than the centre of the playing field.’
‘You’re kidding.’ Tessa’s face creased in laughter. ‘It’s not a good doctor image-to have a ball-eating dog.’
‘No,’ Mike said darkly. ‘If I had my time again…’
‘You’d have him put down?’
‘Well…’
Tess chuckled and tucked her arm tighter in his. ‘Yeah, I know. Tough he-man Dr Llewellyn-with the squishy edges. So we’re not running out on the ground?’
‘Last time I went onto the ground I got hit in the face with the ball.’ Mike was incredibly aware of her proprietary arm. It made him feel as if every nerve in his body were alight-but, then, it’d seem churlish to haul it away. ‘The player only had a bruised knee, but I copped a bloody nose and a black eye,’ he managed. ‘They had to help me off!’
‘It’s not a good professional look.’ Tessa chuckled. She walked easily beside him, her arm still tucked in his. ‘So where do we do our doctoring?’ she asked.
‘The red tent. The player who’s coming off is wearing red for Bellanor North.’
‘Oh. Right. I’ll remember that.’
She would, too, he thought. Tessa’s quick, intelligent mind was busy tucking in item after item of what she’d term useful information. You wouldn’t need to tell her anything twice.
‘I don’t think you’re supposed to come into the training tent,’ he said faintly. ‘The rules are rigid. Women aren’t allowed.’
