Lilly, are you ready?’
‘Really?’ Lillian was tossing her bedclothes aside, her face a picture of disbelief warring with hope.
‘Outside,’ Lizzie said helplessly, trying not to laugh. This wasn’t like any hospital she’d ever been in. ‘You’re not burning rubber in any hospital corridor I’m a doctor in.’
‘Fair enough.’ Harry appeared to think about it. ‘How about into town and back again, then, Lilly?’
‘No!’ Lizzie was definite and once again he appeared offended.
‘Hey, you’re no fun,’ he complained. ‘Go do your antenatal checks, Dr Darling. Let me and Lilly figure this out.’
‘You’ll fall out and have to go back to Melbourne to get your leg reset,’ Lizzie managed, and he grimaced.
‘I won’t fall out. And, besides, it’d make you stay a bit longer. We’d like that, wouldn’t we, Lilly?’
‘I’m staying till the pups are born. No longer.’
‘We’ll see,’ he said enigmatically. ‘Lilly, what about a race out on the path down to the sea?’
‘Why there?’ the girl said, but she was already hauling on jeans over her pyjamas and was reaching for socks and shoes.
‘It’s a mossy path. If we fall out then Dr Darling won’t get to patch us up.’
‘I wouldn’t anyway,’ Lizzie muttered, and they both smiled. She stared at both of them-and then threw up her hands in disbelief. ‘Fine, then. Kill yourselves. See if I care.’
‘So you’ll watch?’ Harry was smiling.
‘Certainly I’ll watch.’
‘You’re sure we can’t use the road into town? If we don’t go on asphalt our wheels will get stuck.’
‘Great. You’re not built for speed.’
‘Who says?’
‘Me,’ she said, and put her hands on her hips and glared.
Standoff. They glared at each other while Lillian watched, fascinated.
‘If we use the garden path, will you referee?’ he asked at last, and she groaned.
‘You’re never serious.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘Lilly…’
‘It’s all right, Dr Darling, I won’t hit him,’ Lillian told her seriously. ‘I won’t knock him over.’
‘You’ll never let him win?’
‘Do I look like a girl who’d let a man win?’
‘Yay for you.’ She’d protested enough. ‘Fine. OK, Lilly, if you agree to win then I agree to act as umpire. And if either of you breaks another leg, I wash my hands of the pair of you.’
‘After you set our legs?’
‘Before. I swear it. And then I’ll patch your legs without morphine!’
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEY raced an hour later, and by the time they started the entire hospital was out to watch.
Certain rules had been decided. Once Lizzie agreed to take part she decided she was there to enjoy herself.
Lillian was given the wheelchair built for speed. Harry was removed from his slick little set of wheels and put in the hospital’s spare chair, which looked more like a bath chair than a wheelchair.
‘It was built for pushing elderly dowagers around fashionable watering spots last century,’ Harry complained, and Lizzie raised her eyebrows in gentle mockery.
‘We have two wheelchairs. Do you want Lillian to have this one?’
‘Yes,’ he said, and there was general laughter.
And Lillian… It had been a great day for her. She’d been put into hospital because she’d been starting to show signs of kidney failure. Her weight loss was making her cachectic. So she needed to stay. She needed medical supervision. But her problems weren’t purely physical. The long-term answer to anorexia wasn’t to be found by keeping her huddled in a hospital bed, though, with the stresses of the real world ready to crowd in on her the moment she was released.
So…maybe it was a good thing that she was here, Lizzie conceded, in this tiny community hospital where the boundaries between in and out were so blurred.
They had all the patients lined up to see, plus every staff member. There were also a few visitors. In particular, one very interesting visitor.
There was Joey-the drummer-out of his school uniform now. He’d just happened to be wandering through. He’d expected to visit a girl in a hospital bed, Lizzie thought, and she watched in satisfaction as he tried really hard to look cool and disinterested. How much better that he see this glowing, laughing kid lining up at the start of a wheelchair race and raring to go.
‘Your brakes are still on, Lillian,’ Lizzie called, and it was Joey who ducked forward and fiddled with the lever.
‘Hey, that was my only advantage,’ Harry complained. ‘You weren’t supposed to tell her that.’
‘She’d beat you even with the brakes on,’ Joey said stoutly. And then, because he was standing right beside her and suddenly his cool disinterest didn’t seem as important any more, he bent and gave Lillian a swift kiss on the lips.
It was her first kiss. The whole audience could see. She stared up at Joey in amazement and her face flushed with colour.
‘That’s for luck,’ Joey said softly.
Lizzie thought, What have we done?
But Lillian was growing more flushed by the moment. They needed to get the attention off her.
Harry sensed it almost as Lizzie did and he had the perfect solution.
‘What about me?’ he demanded, affronted. ‘Don’t I get a kiss for good luck?’
‘Not from me,’ Joey said, and grinned.
Whew! This felt great, Lizzie thought. Great. She dug her hands into the pockets of her white coat and thought, I’m working. I’m on duty as a doctor and here I am out in the sun with a whole bunch of people whose laughter is a medicine all by itself.
‘Dr Darling, you need to do that,’ Lillian retorted, and Lizzie hauled herself back to attention.
‘What?’
‘Give Dr McKay a kiss for good luck.’
‘I’m the referee. I’m meant to be impartial.’
‘It’s the referee’s job to make sure both contestants start on equal terms,’ Harry told her. ‘You’ve given me a turn-of-the-century bath chair and now you’re refusing to give me a good luck kiss.’
They were all watching her. The oldies were especially delighted-they’d toddled out
Go jump, she should tell them. This man is engaged to Emily.
But that would be making too much of it. This wasn’t the time to be talking of engagements or weddings. It was purely a good luck kiss and it meant nothing at all. If she didn’t…If she didn’t, then they could well ask why not and…
And she’d waited too long already. The silence was growing loaded.
Right. One good luck kiss coming up. She stepped up to Harry’s chair and bent and her lips lightly brushed his forehead…
