looked a mile away from a competent nurse, but his concern was genuine and when she started work she couldn’t have asked for anyone better.
He helped clean the gravel from the worst of the cuts. It was painstaking work. Many of the stones were deeply embedded and when the feet were fully cleaned there were two cuts that needed stitches.
‘Do we have any idea what happened?’ Ginny asked as she stitched. Until the child had drifted into exhausted sleep she’d spoken only to her, but now there was space and time to talk to Tony.
‘My beeper went off just at the final siren,’ Tony told her. ‘The groundskeeper gave me a ride in and he told me what he knows. The mother seems to have collapsed at the wheel of her car, half a mile or so from the football ground. Any houses close by would be empty. Everyone’s at the footy. Maybe the mother told the kid to get help or maybe the kid figured that the source of noise was the only place to come. But they’ve just resurfaced the road. Gravel over bitumen. By the look of her feet, I’d reckon she must have run the whole way in bare feet.’
‘That’s what it looks like,’ Ginny agreed, wincing in sympathy as she applied another piece of dressing over the stitched lacerations. ‘Of all the brave…’ She swallowed and looked down to the tear-stained little face. ‘Do we know what’s wrong with the mother?’
‘Cardiomyopathy.’ Fergus’s frame was suddenly filling the open door, his face as bleak as death. ‘And we’ve lost her.’
‘Lost…’ Ginny stared at him in consternation. She’d known. She’d seen it in the woman’s face. ‘But…’
‘She went into cardiac arrest just as you left,’ he said, and then, interpreting her distress, he put a hand out as if to ward off recriminations. ‘There was nothing you could have done to help. Believe me, I’d have called you back if there was. We’ve been trying to figure out what went wrong and now we know.’
‘Cardiomyopathy,’ Ginny whispered, dazed. ‘How on earth?’
‘The local police sergeant’s been through the car. There was a full medical history on the back seat. She must have travelled with it accessible-just in case. Plus she travelled with an oxygen supply. Plus enough medication to stock a small dispensary. She was desperately sick.’
‘Then why on earth was she travelling?’
‘Looking for one Richard Viental.’ He hesitated, his eyes meeting hers and holding. ‘Would that be…your Richard?’
‘My Richard?’ Ginny shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You think I do?’ Fergus sounded weary, as if he’d taken in too much information for one man to absorb. As maybe he had. He’d lost a patient under his hands less than an hour ago-a young mother who by rights should have lived for another fifty years. No matter how long you were a doctor-did anyone ever get used to it?
‘This letter was inserted as the first page of the medical history,’ Fergus said, after a break while they all seemed to have trouble keeping breathing. Tony was winding leftover bandage, but after he finished he automatically started rewinding. Without the spool.
Fergus was holding a sheet of notepaper-a letter handwritten in a spidery hand that scrawled off the page.
‘The police sergeant’s read this,’ he said, sounding apologetic and unsure. ‘I’ve read it, too.’ He sighed and looked down at the bed, where the little girl lay huddled in exhausted sleep. ‘It’s addressed to Richard but maybe you should read it as well,’ he suggested.
‘I… Should I phone Richard?’ Ginny whispered, and he shook his head.
‘Just read it.’
Dazed beyond belief, Ginny lifted the paper.
It was addressed to Richard. She shouldn’t read it. But…
She read.
Dear Richard.
I hope you don’t have to read this. I hope I can tell you myself. Please God, I haven’t left it too late. I’ve just kept on hoping, hoping…
By now you might hardly remember me. We were in hospital together, five years ago. You were in for check- ups after your lung transplant, just overnight for tests, and I remember being jealous. I was being assessed for a future heart transplant, and I thought wouldn’t it be great to have it over. Like you had. But then the doctors told me I’d get another couple of years from my old heart. That’s a laugh, isn’t it? A couple of years… Five years and one baby later, it’s still thumping. Just. Which is just as well, as there’s no new heart for me.
Anyway, five years ago we were released from hospital together. We went for a drink and I remember you looked great. I was feeling almost normal, high on the knowledge that I didn’t have to face a transplant quite yet. Women were looking at me with you-and me thinking they looked jealous. Maybe I got a little bit drunk.
Maybe we both did.
The next day I was a bit worried about pregnancy. But I remember you laughing, bitter but laughing all the same, saying, ‘No worries.’ Sterility, you said. No kids ever, you said. I looked it up on the internet later, thinking you’d been lying, but you had grounds for thinking you were right. Ninety-eight per cent sterility, the article I read said for you.
Madison must be the result of the two per cent that got through.
Should I have told you?
Well, maybe I should, but by the time I realised I was pregnant I’d done more research on what I was facing and I guess I was…running? Everyone was saying I should have an abortion-put my health first, they said. I thought if you wanted me to have one as well I couldn’t bear it. And I hardly knew you. You had so many plans-what to do with your new lungs. To tie you down with a sick woman…
No.
You know, maybe I thought that having Madison would kill me and maybe I even welcomed that.
Was that sick? Dumb? Maybe.
Anyway it didn’t work. I made it through the pregnancy. Afterwards, when I realised what a wonderful thing we’d done-how special it is and how wonderful Madison is-I tried to ring you. But-your sister is it?-was at the address you gave me. She said you were back in hospital and there were problems with your transplant.
I hung up without telling her why I was calling. The last thing you needed was a daughter.
My mother said we’d be fine. My mother would always be there for Madison.
Only of course there’s never a happy ending. Mum died last month of cancer and, what with the strain and everything, I had a cardiac arrest. They only just got me back and I’m on oxygen now and I know I’m failing. I shouldn’t drive but…
I rang your apartment again-shades of desperation, huh?-and the caretaker told me you’d moved to the country. To your parents’ farm. He gave me the address and I thought please let you be well, and even if you’re not, you’re at home with your parents, on a farm. A farm! Madison loves animals. Richard, she needs someone so much. I know I should see the social workers again and organise something for her and not hope for everything from you, but the last time I was ill she was in foster-care. It didn’t work. She was so unhappy. I can’t bear it.
Richard, you’re her father. Please take care of your little girl.
If you get this letter it means…
I can’t bear to think what it means.
Please love her to bits for me.
And thank you for giving me the gift of a daughter.
Yours with love-and with gratitude,
Judith Crammond
Ginny stared at the letter. She stared at it some more and the words blurred before her eyes.
‘This can’t be right,’ she whispered at last, and Fergus hauled up a chair and sat beside her. He flicked a look up at Tony, and Tony gave an imperceptible nod and disappeared.
She was suddenly the patient, Ginny thought. She was about to be counselled.
‘No,’ she said blindly, and Fergus took the letter from her lifeless fingers, folded it carefully and put it on the bedside table.
‘It seems crazy,’ he said softly. ‘But it seems that it’s right. Judith was driving with a car full of medical paraphernalia. How she thought she was going to get here… Our local police sergeant, Ben Cross, has been in to see me. When Ben found the medical notes in the car, he rang the hospital on the letterhead to confirm we had the right woman. He brought the information straight in, thinking it might help.’
