‘I did something about it.’
‘You did?’
‘I told her she had two children,’ Lizzie said bluntly. ‘I said if she didn’t want to lose Amy as well as Scott then she needed to think about her daughter for a bit as well as her son.’
‘Just like that.’
‘It sounds easy.’ Lizzie hesitated, then shrugged and crossed to the kitchenette to fill the kettle. ‘You want some coffee?’
‘Please.’
It was easier with her back to him. She didn’t feel so self-conscious. So aware that he might be judging her.
‘I showed Mary Dunstan the figures of adolescent depression linked to suicide,’ she told him, and was aware of a deep silence behind her.
‘You told her…’
‘Someone had to.’ Lizzie turned and faced him. ‘I told her any eight-year-old living in that house would figure the only way to get love and attention was to be dead. I asked Mary if that’s what she and her husband intended Amy to believe.’
‘My God, Lizzie…’
‘I was horrible,’ Lizzie said with a faintly embarrassed laugh. ‘But someone had to be. Anyway, I talked for ages and Mary had a bit of a cry but I told her that wasn’t any use either and then I offered them a puppy.’
‘A puppy.’ He sounded stunned. ‘Not…one of Phoebe’s?’
‘Of course one of Phoebe’s.’ She was more sure of herself now. Going to the home of one of Harry’s patients and putting her oar in where she wasn’t sure she was welcome had seemed a bit…intrusive? But surely he couldn’t object to this.
‘Actually, I didn’t give the puppy to Amy straight away,’ she admitted. ‘I told her mother she was going to win it in my drawing competition. If she agreed. By the way, that’s Amy’s picture up there.’ She pointed over the sink to a vast painting of a kid on a surfboard. ‘Isn’t it good?’
‘They’re all good.’
She beamed. ‘They are, aren’t they? They’re all fantastic. So I asked Lillian if she’d do it and Lillian agreed with me straight away.’
‘Whoa.’ Harry looked like a man right out of his depth. He put up his hand to stop her. ‘Lillian?’ The anorexic teenager he’d just seen giving him cheek? ‘What’s Lillian got to do with this?’
‘Lillian is acting as our judge. Did you know, she got first prize for art last year and she won a state-wide competition? The Avis Baxter watercolour competition. I’m told it’s really prestigious. May tells me her parents wouldn’t even let her go to Melbourne to collect the award-they belittle her talent-but she’s really good.’
He nodded, bemused. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘I did know that. Her parents disapprove-which I have a huge feeling is one of the reasons she’s anorexic-but she’s very good.’
‘Well.’ She regarded him with satisfaction. ‘There you go, then. I brought Lillian in some paints the other day and she’s redecorating the walls in the kids’ ward. Which is keeping her mind off her neurosis nicely. But meanwhile I had a talk to Lillian about Amy’s depression and she says she feels just like that sometimes, only blacker. She’s so sympathetic. The art prize was a big thing for her, she reckons, so we’ve rigged this…’
‘You’ve rigged this?’
‘Did you know you sound very like a recording?’ she said kindly. ‘Or a parrot. No. Don’t apologise. You’ve been sick. You’re forgiven.’ She paused, giving him space to answer back-but he looked too stunned to even try.
‘Anyway we decided a little rigging was in order,’ she continued. ‘I have Amy’s mum’s permission for her to win a puppy. So…first prize for the competition is first pick of Phoebe’s puppies. It wouldn’t work if I hadn’t rigged it. I don’t believe in kids winning pets. They have to really want them. But tomorrow there’s going to be a full school assembly. Every kid in the school wants one of Phoebe’s puppies-Miss Morrison and I really hyped them up. Phoebe’s even been into the school to be introduced. The build-up’s huge and, thanks to Lillian’s conspiracy, Amy’s going to win. She’s going to be the envy of every child in the school. The kids will have to be nice to her if they want to play with the puppy. Miss Morrison says it’s the very best thing she could think of. Oh, and Mrs Dunstan’s taken down the shrine and put up a picture of Scott and Amy together. So…what do you think?’
She paused for breath.
What did he think?
She’d been gabbling, she decided. She’d been interfering in things that weren’t her business, but for the last few days she hadn’t cared. She was stuck here in this little community. She was here to do the job as locum and she’d walk away in a few weeks and probably never come near Birrini again. Meanwhile the tiny township was being incredibly nice to her and her grandma’s crazy dog, so it wouldn’t hurt to get involved. For a while.
At least, that’s what she’d been telling herself, but now, looking at Harry’s stunned face, she wasn’t so sure.
‘Do you disapprove?’ she asked.
‘Why would I disapprove?’
‘You like a beige apartment, remember?’
‘When did I say I like a beige apartment?’
‘Ten minutes ago.’
‘I must have been mad.’
She met his eyes. He was telling the truth, she thought, and cheered up immeasurably. For some strange reason what this man thought of her was becoming of paramount importance. Not that she intended to let him see that. So, act…insouciant? Was that the word?
Probably.
‘That’s what I thought,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Coffee?’ She held out a mug and he took it without appearing to notice. He was still staring at her and his gaze was starting to unnerve her.
Move on…
‘Now,’ she said, a lot more briskly and efficiently than she felt, ‘I need to do a clinic before dinner. I have three house calls to make and Phoebe to collect so I need to go. Can I give you a hand getting into bed before I leave?’
‘You’re not helping me get into bed,’ he told her, startled.
‘No?’
He thought about it. ‘No. And there’s no need to sound wistful. No!’
Lizzie grinned. ‘Believe it or not, I wasn’t sounding wistful.’
‘Really?’ The laughter in his eyes was wicked.
‘Absolutely really,’ she told him with all the asperity she could muster. She needed to get this on a formal footing right now. ‘So there’s no need to sound hopeful. You’re practically a married man. With a broken leg. You’re no use at all to a single girl like me.’
‘I suppose I’m not,’ he said, doleful all of a sudden, and she had to chuckle.
‘Good. As long as we have that clear. So how do you intend to get into bed without me…I mean, without help?’
Harry was laughing at her. The rat! The logistics of sharing an apartment with this man were growing more complex by the minute.
‘If I wanted to go to bed-which I don’t-then I’d put my pyjamas on,’ he told her blandly, and she blinked.
‘Over your back-slab?’
‘Over my back-slab. I’ve cut a slit in the pyjama leg.’
‘Oh, very practical.’
He laughed, but he obviously didn’t intend her to have the last word. ‘Quiet, woman,’ he ordered. ‘Hear me out. There’s no need to focus on my pyjama slit quite yet-because I don’t intend to get into bed. I’m only in this damned chair until someone provides me with sticks. The guys left my crutches back in Melbourne.’
She fixed him with a look that said she didn’t believe a word. ‘Are you kidding me?’
‘I’m not kidding you.’
‘You left your crutches in Melbourne. That’s something I really believe. Like Miss Morrison being told by her third-graders that the dog ate their homework.’
