But, Fergus…watch out for her for me.’
‘I will,’ Fergus promised, and when Tony rang him at two in the morning to say it was over, he remembered his promise as he drove through the darkness.
To what?
To a deathbed.
In such circumstances it wasn’t even necessary for a doctor to attend. Richard had been in a coma for the last three days. His death had been inevitable. The local undertakers could come and do their job without him, and Fergus could sign the death certificate in the morning.
But not to go now was unthinkable.
He pulled into the yard and Tony was standing on the veranda, waiting for him.
‘I knew you’d come,’ he said in satisfaction. ‘Ginny said not to call you but-’
‘But I’d said call,’ Fergus said, almost roughly. In truth, he’d wanted to be here himself at the end, but time of death was totally unpredictable and Fergus was employed to take care of the needs of the entire community. Not just one man.
Or one man’s sister.
‘Was it OK at the end?’ he asked. There were deaths and deaths. He’d worked hard to make this one right. He’d rung a Sydney palliative care physician. He’d double-checked himself every way. Please…
‘He just slept into it,’ Tony reassured him. ‘If Ginny hadn’t been sitting with him, holding his hand, we wouldn’t have known exact time of death. He just slipped away.’
‘Ginny…’
‘She’s not here,’ Tony said. ‘She said she needed to be by herself for a bit. She left in the car a couple of minutes ago.’
Hell.
He needed to see the whole picture. He needed not to focus just on Ginny.
‘Madison?’
‘She’s sound asleep. We thought we wouldn’t wake her.’
‘No.’
‘You want me to call the undertaker?’
‘There’s time,’ Fergus said. He checked Richard’s body but it had been like Tony had said. He’d just slipped away, leaving his body like an outer husk of what had once been there. A peaceful death.
‘Can you stay on a bit longer?’ he asked Tony, and Tony smiled and shrugged.
‘We agreed this was a part of our regular shift work. Madison’s on the books as well as Richard. I’m on duty until seven.’
‘Ginny will be back by then.’
‘You’ll go and find her?’ Tony asked, and Fergus could see that he was troubled.
‘You think I should?’
‘I think you should,’ the big nurse told him. ‘Mate, I think you have to.’
She was in the boatshed. He’d guessed she would be, but even so it was a relief when he pulled into the clearing and saw her car.
The door of the boatshed was open. He pushed it wide and saw her. She was at the other door, sitting on the ramp which slid down into the water. She wasn’t moving. For a moment he thought she was in control, simply sitting staring out over the lake.
But then her shoulders heaved with a convulsive sob and he moved like a shot from a gun, kneeling, gathering her into his arms, holding her, pulling her against his chest, taking the brunt of the wrenching sobs as she wept her heart out for the brother she’d loved.
She wept and wept, until it seemed she could weep no more, and then she subsided against him, spent.
He kissed the top of her head and she shuddered, a long, racking shudder that seemed to go right through her.
And then she pulled herself away from him. Her face was almost colourless in the moonlight. Almost deathlike.
‘You’re never ready,’ she whispered, and he nodded.
‘No.’
‘I thought…’
‘That this would be different? You love Richard. How can a loss of a love be anything less than that?’
‘Oh, God…’
He couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t bear it for her.
And here she was opening herself up again for future pain. She’d taken on Madison. She’d taken on three dogs.
She’d take him on if he only could…
He couldn’t. He stared down into her face and the grief he saw was a reflection of the pain that had torn him apart for months. To take on more…
She saw it and she withdrew. Just a little. Just enough to show that she’d get past this, she knew it. The control was there, ready to slip down.
She might hurt as much as she’d done before, but maybe she’d learned that she’d survive.
A lesson he hadn’t learned yet?
‘Thank you for coming,’ she whispered. ‘I shouldn’t have needed…but I did.’
‘Of course you did.’
‘See. That’s the problem,’ she managed. ‘I’ll always need. That’s why…’
She shook her head as if ridding herself of a bad dream and tried to struggle to her feet. He was before her, lifting her, supporting her as she made her knees firm under her.
‘I’m fine. Thank you for being here for me, Fergus. I’ll go back to the house now. I need to get the undertaker before morning. I don’t want Madison to be awake when…’ She took a deep breath. ‘There’s things need doing.’
‘Let me help you.’
‘You’ve done enough,’ she told him. ‘You gave Richard the best medical care possible. More, you gave him friendship…’
‘But-’
‘You have nine weeks left in this place,’ she told him. ‘I understand you came here to get away from…strings. If you wanted to leave now, I could understand.’
What was she saying? Leave everything, including his medicine? ‘I signed a contract.’
‘Yes, but I’m available to be medical officer for the district now.’
‘Not yet,’ he told her, finally finding some ground he was sure of. ‘You need time to adjust. Madison needs time…’
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But maybe not. This is a new life. Maybe all we need to do is jump right in.’
‘But not tonight,’ he said roughly, grasping her arms.
She stared down at his hands on her forearms and then very gently she pulled away.
‘Yes, tonight,’ she whispered. ‘That’s all there is to do. Jump right back in at the deep end. Tonight.’
Luckily for Fergus, the next two days were extraordinarily busy. The medical scene was hotting up-mostly as the surrounding community realised there was a real doctor who could give real consultations and they didn’t have to travel.
To say he was beginning to be overwhelmed was an understatement.
‘I can’t leave all this to Ginny,’ he growled to Miriam the morning of Richard’s funeral, and she smiled and shrugged.
‘Before you we had no one and we coped. We’re blessed that Ginny’s agreed to stay here. Do you think we’ll stand by and see her worked into the ground?’
‘But she won’t say no,’ he growled. ‘I know her. Look out in my waiting room. Who would I say no to?’
‘We’ll protect her,’ Miriam said gently. ‘You’ll go back to your life and we’ll get on with ours. With Ginny.’
