His Secret Love-Child

That was when Jim felt the first shiver of fear. Or maybe it was more than a shiver. Maybe he knew that this was the end.

Honey had lost her optimism.

It was Honey’s hopefulness that kept this family together, he thought. No matter what happened, Honey had always said things would be fine.

When the Wetherbys had cut off access to the creek at the crossing, meaning their stock were at the mercy of the district’s notoriously unreliable rainfall, Honey had said they’d cope. There wouldn’t be a drought. The rains would be reliable, at least until they’d got Megan through university and had saved enough for retirement.

When the drought had hit she’d said they could weather it. They could sell some stock and Megan didn’t have to go to university quite yet.

When he’d had his heart attack she’d said it had just been minor, hadn’t the doctor said? And, yes, he needed bypass surgery, but if they couldn’t afford it then that was that, and surely a minor heart attack meant that the bypass could wait until after the rains came.

Meanwhile she and Megan were strong and they didn’t mind doing more than their share of the work.

Then when Megan had fallen in love with that boy, she’d said she’d get over it, she was young, there were lots more boys, but, please, God, she wouldn’t find one until after the rains because they needed Megan so much, and wasn’t it lucky Megan was such a good girl?

Honey. The eternal optimist. But now… Honey’s face was pressed against the cow’s warm flank and she looked…defeated.

‘What’s wrong with Megan?’ Jim asked again.

‘Women’s troubles.’

‘Yeah?’

‘And maybe she has some sort of infection,’ Honey added reluctantly. ‘Yeah, that’ll be it. Women’s troubles and flu. Don’t go near her, Jim. I don’t want you to catch it.’

Jim stared down at his wife for a long time. Honey kept on with her milking, methodically clearing the teats, her face carefully expressionless.

‘I will check Megan,’ Jim said at last. ‘Sorry, Honey, but you can’t protect me from everything for ever.’

The afternoon was a long one.

Cal came out to this settlement once a week. They rotated this duty, so three different doctors visited, with three different specialties. The settlement had a population of two to three hundred but the numbers changed as the various nomadic tribes arrived and stayed for a time before taking off on walkabout again. The nomads were generally healthy, Cal knew. It was those whose tribes had dwindled so far as to make the nomadic lifestyle untenable-those whose backgrounds had hauled them out of the ancient ways and left them with nothing to replace it-they were the ones who were in trouble. They stayed in these camps with no plan for the future, and in many cases they had drifted into despair.

Cal came out here once a week and he worked through medical problems, but every time he came here he tried to figure out how he could help.

Without getting involved.

His first patient for the afternoon was a teenager with a ragged gash from a fight involving broken bottles. His second patient was the kid’s opponent. The cuts had been roughly patched but they needed deep cleaning, debridement, an administration of fast-acting antibiotics and a lecture on care.

The lecture would fall on deaf ears.

Five years ago he’d started a club for kids like these back at Townsville. Gina had talked him into it. But after she’d left… He’d gone down to the club and he’d realised that these kids had given him comfort. That helping kids like these had felt good.

That he’d cared.

And the knowledge had had him backing off as if he’d been burned. He’d told himself he needed to move to Crocodile Creek. He needed to concentrate on his medicine, and he couldn’t do that if he was emotionally involved.

Work.

‘Why the hell,’ he asked the boy he was stitching, ‘were you fighting with broken bottles? I thought you and Aaron were mates.’

‘We were on the petrol,’ the boy said, a bit shamefaced. ‘I was off me head, like. Aaron was, too. After the accident…all our mates dead…we didn’t know what else to do so we started on the petrol to kill time till the olds got back from the hospital. Aaron must’ a said something to set me off, but dunno what. Just lucky it hurt, like, before we got too far.’

‘Before the community had someone else to mourn,’ Cal said grimly. ‘Slicing like this could have meant you bled to death.’

‘Nah.’

Cal sighed. Petrol sniffing was endemic here, used to alleviate boredom, loneliness, dissociation. There were so many problems.

He looked over to where Gina sat under a stand of eucalypts. She was in the midst of a group of women and their distress was obvious. Karen’s grandmother was over there, Cal saw. Mary Wingererra. As he watched, Gina put her arm round the old lady’s shoulders and hugged her.

She went in fast and hard, Cal thought. Maybe he should, too.

Could he? She thought he should. Her accusation was that he didn’t care. It was unfair. That was the problem. He cared too much.

‘When did you last go to school?’ he asked Chris, the kid he was stitching, and the thirteen-year-old looked at him as if he was joking.

‘School?’

‘It’s an option.’

‘No one goes to school. It’s not cool.’

It was the only option, Cal thought. Education was the only way out of this mess.

Yeah, but how…?

It was too hard. Once he’d thought he might try, but then Gina had walked away and he’d abandoned his kids’ club when he’d left Townsville. It had hurt like hell and he wasn’t putting himself through that again.

Don’t get involved. Treat what’s hurting and move on.

Gina was getting involved. Her body language was obvious. He could see her distress.

They were working outside-a hygienic option when the weather was good. It took a long time to get a room clean, and outside the rain periodically cleaned things up. He was sitting at a table and chairs they’d brought themselves. That was his surgery.

Gina didn’t even have that. She was sitting on the grass twenty yards from where he was sitting. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but that they were talking through last night’s accident was obvious.

She’d be expecting him to do something. She’d be judging…

No.

She didn’t expect anything, he reminded himself. She was going home the day after tomorrow and he didn’t have to answer to her. He had nothing to do with her.

Together they had a son.

‘Will I have a scar?’ Chris demanded, and Cal thought if he wasn’t careful, yes, he would have.

‘It’s not too deep.’

‘I don’t mind having a scar.’

‘I can count six already. That’s enough for any kid.’

‘Men have scars.’

‘Only if they live long enough to be men,’ Cal told him. ‘Which you won’t if you keep sniffing petrol and fighting with glass. Scars in the tribe you come from are supposed to be a sign of wisdom. There’s not much wisdom in a