‘Why?’ Al had disappeared into the dark back shed with his torch. Now he reappeared carrying a crowbar. ‘We have the means to get in and there’s a qualified doctor on hand. What more could we ask?’
‘That we know he’s home. Uncle, what are you intending to do with that thing?’
‘Smash the door in.’
‘And if he’s gone to his sister’s for the night because he’s not feeling well?’
Al paused. ‘You know, I never thought of that, Fern, girl,’ he said solemnly. ‘I hope you’re right. Guess I’ll help Bill fix the door in the morning if he’s done that.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better to check first?’
‘Not now we’re here.’
He’d had enough talking. Al had decided to see for himself long before waking Fern and nothing was stopping him now.
He placed the crowbar against the lock and shoved. Then shoved again.
The old wood creaked a protest and then splintered into fragments as the door folded inwards.
Bill hadn’t gone to his sister’s.
He was lying on the kitchen floor, his face grey, and the floor tiles under his head were specked scarlet. He’d been coughing blood but he was almost past coughing now. Every breath was a frantic, rasping effort.
He was facing the door as they entered and Fern saw relief flooding through the fear.
Thank heaven for Al’s decisiveness.
‘What the hell’s wrong?’
Al bent over Bill and took his shoulder. ‘What is it, mate?’
Bill didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Al looked frantically up at Fern but Fern was raking the kitchen with her eyes. Most severe asthmatics had salbutomol, pump and nebuliser close at hand-in case. If ever there was an ‘in case’ this was it.
‘Where’s your stuff, Bill?’ she snapped across his dreadful breathing. ‘Here or in the bedroom?’
Bill rolled his eyes upward and then went on to fighting for all that mattered. His life.
Fern raced up the stairs three at a time. What she needed was laid out in neat preparation on the bedroom dresser.
It might as well have been on the moon as far as Bill was concerned. In his condition, Bill could no more climb the stairs than fly.
Fern was near flying, though. The strain on Bill’s system from that frantic effort to breathe couldn’t last much longer.
In seconds she was back downstairs, fitting Bill’s mask over his face as she squatted down beside him.
‘OK, Bill,’ she said gently. ‘We’re here now and we won’t let you die.’ It must have been the most terrifying of experiences, she thought grimly, to feel yourself getting worse by the minute and yet not be able to call for help.
There were things that didn’t make sense. Surely the asthma hadn’t hit so suddenly that Bill hadn’t time to locate his salbutamol and mask. Experienced asthmatics knew when an attack was starting. And why was he coughing blood?
She placed her hand on his forehead and winced. His temperature was sky-high.
A return of the pneumonia?
‘We need to get you to hospital, Bill,’ she said briefly. Her uncle had his car outside. ‘We’ll take you now.’
‘You don’t reckon we ought to get Doc Gallagher with his ambulance?’ Al asked uneasily.
Fern shook her head. ‘Ring and let him know we’re coming,’ she ordered. ‘But the sooner I get Bill into a hospital bed the happier I’ll be. OK, Bill?’
Bill’s hand came up to clutch her arm and the expression on his face was one of wholehearted agreement.
Quinn was waiting for them.
Al’s phone call had elucidated three short, sharp questions and then a command.
‘Get him in fast.’
Al had done as ordered, driving like a maniac with his hand on the horn and, Fern suspected, rather enjoying the drama.
Fern hadn’t. She’d sat in the back seat with her young neighbour, holding the mask and attempting reassurance, and all the while asking herself what could be wrong.
Bill was three years younger than Fern but she knew him well. He’d always had asthma but it hadn’t seemed to slow him down. He played football and cricket and put in a hard day’s labour with the best of them. Now, though…
Now Bill’s big frame seemed to have shrunk. Fern’s arm was around his chest, supporting him, and it seemed that he must have shed almost half his weight.
Pneumonia…This weight loss didn’t fit with one bout of pneumonia and then a relapse. It was more typical of terminal cancer.
Quinn would have eluded cancer-surely. So what was going on?
Legionella? AIDS? Psittacosis?
He didn’t seem a candidate for any of those things-but who knew?
Possible diagnoses were still running through her head as the car screeched to a halt and Quinn hauled open the back door.
He had oxygen ready. Quinn’s mask replaced Fern’s in seconds and Fern moved swiftly to assist in lifting the absurdly light farmer to a stretcher.
She’d have to stay. A quick glance at Quinn had found his face grim and drawn and maybe she had something to do with that but the situation Quinn was facing with Bill was enough to make any doctor look grim.
This was no ordinary asthma attack.
For the first time, Fern found herself feeling what it must be like to be a lone doctor in a place like this. There was no fall-back position at all-except for a plane to take patients to the mainland in dire emergencies. The plane couldn’t get here for hours and even then patients could choose not to go. Many of the islanders chose just that.
Like Aunt Maud…
‘I’ll live and die on the island, thank you very much. I don’t want mainlanders muddling my insides with heaven knows what.’
How many times had Fern heard words like that from elderly islanders, even when there was no doctor on the island at all.
Quinn Gallagher was therefore a heaven-sent blessing for the islanders. Even if he was a toad, at least he was a medically competent toad.
‘What’s happening here?’ Fern asked softly as together they pushed the trolley down the corridor. ‘Do you have any idea what’s going on?’
Quinn glanced down at Bill and his face set, if possible growing even grimmer. ‘God knows,’ he said frankly. ‘Bill’s been ill for months-though never so critically as this. I’d appreciate a bit of your time here, Dr Rycroft.’
She couldn’t refuse. Given the same scenario, Fern would be terrified.
A critically ill man with no clear diagnosis…
In Sydney she’d call in the big guns. The top physicians.
Here there was Quinn and Fern.
‘I’ll wait for you outside, Fern,’ Al said unsteadily. Fern’s uncle had been steering at the foot of the stretcher while Fern walked beside Quinn at the head. At the door to the ward he stopped dead.
‘No need. I’ll run Fern home-or one of the nurses will,’ Quinn said shortly, and Al cast Quinn a look of real gratitude.
He’d done his duty. Now he wanted out.
Fern couldn’t protest She couldn’t be concerned that she was forced to spend yet more time with Quinn Gallagher.
The tension between Fern and Quinn had to be put aside. Bill’s needs took precedence. He was losing ground. Even after five minutes of oxygen the young farmer appeared cyanosed and limp.
‘Adrenaline, I think,’ Quinn muttered, his hands already adjusting tubing.
‘I’ll do it.’
