Luke looked up at the woman on the veranda, and in the dim light his eyes were suddenly implacable and hard. ‘Mrs Mears, Karen has bruises all over her. She has a broken arm and it’s not the first time it’s been broken. She flinches when I raise my hand as if she’s used to being beaten. And she’s malnourished. Hungry, Mrs Mears. Now, are we going to come inside and talk about it, or do we contact the authorities in Cairns?’
Sandra Mears gave an audible gasp and her hand flew to her mouth. She took a step back as if Luke had slapped her.
‘We need to talk, Mrs Mears.’ Luke’s voice had softened but was no less implacable.
There was a long silence. Then Sandra slowly turned as if sleep-walking, and walked inside.
Nikki had expected chaos. Judging from the outside, the house was a ruin and Sandra incompetent. To her amazement the place was almost pathetically clean, the cleanliness accentuating the abject poverty in the place. She looked around in amazement and then down to Sandra. Sandra had sunk to sit at the kitchen table. Her head fell forward on to her arms and her shoulders heaved. This girl was wretched, and despite her anger Nikki felt a wave of compassion. What sort of mess was this girl in?
‘So tell us, what happened?’
The compassion hadn’t touched Luke. He was standing over Sandra almost like the interrogator in a bad movie. Nikki put up a hand in protest but he silenced her with a look.
Sandra looked up, her tear-stained face a plea, but Luke wasn’t interested in pleas. ‘Tell us, Sandra,’ he said.
‘She…she broke her arm.’
‘No. Tell us.’
The silence stretched out. Outside on the veranda a cane toad started its harsh croaking. The naked lightglobe made the effect surrealistic and awful.
‘You know,’ Sandra said at last.
‘No. You tell us.’
Sandra cast a scared look up at him and dashed a hand across her cheek. Luke didn’t stir. His gaze didn’t waver.
‘She was…she wouldn’t…she wouldn’t do what I told her…’ She took a deep breath. ‘It’s not true,’ she said suddenly. ‘It was Jamie. My…my youngest. He’s four. I’d just been to town and bought some biscuits. We hadn’t had biscuits for so long but…but the kids asked and asked. One packet of biscuits.’ She looked up, pleading with them to understand. ‘I just couldn’t bear not to-so I got them and then I went outside and when I come back Jamie had got at them and eaten six and shoved the rest in the toilet ‘cos he was full and he didn’t know what to do with the halfeaten packet and was scared I’d find them. And they blocked the toilet and I found them and I hit Jamie, but I couldn’t hit him hard ‘cos he’s only four and he gets asthma, and then Karen started crying and said I
shouldn’t hit him and…and I just-’ Her voice
broke off into tears.
‘So you hit Karen instead,’ Luke said, and to Nikki’s surprise his voice had gentled.
‘Yeah.’ The girl’s face came up. ‘I always do. She’s so like me. She just stands there and takes it. She doesn’t even cry. She just stands there. The other kids were crying ‘cos they hadn’t had any biscuits but not Karen…’
‘She’s so like you…’
‘Yeah.’ Sandra’s head sank on to her arms and she gave a broken sob. ‘I feel so bad. I love her so much and I hurt her…’ She managed to look up again. ‘Maybe it’s best if you take her away. I know I’ll keep hurting her. And I love her.’ She gave a desperate gulp as if to gain strength to continue. ‘I know it sounds crazy but I love her more than the rest of the kids put together and yet I hurt her…’
‘You didn’t come to the hospital…’
‘She’d look at me,’ Sandra said brokenly. ‘I know she’d just look at me and not say anything. She won’t even cry.’
Luke sat down at the bare, scrubbed table and his hand came out to cover Sandra’s. ‘Mrs Mears, you’ve reached the point where you accept help or watch your family disintegrate,’ he said softly. He motioned backwards to where Nikki was standing, silently watching. ‘Dr Russell and I can help, but only if you let us. You’ve admitted there’s a problem. If you love your daughter, then you must admit that you need help. And then accept it.’
Sandra’s eyes once more met his. There was a long silence. Even the cane toad outside had hushed. Nikki found she was holding her breath. So much depended on these next few moments.
Then Sandra took a ragged breath, and then another. She looked over to Nikki and back to Luke.
‘I’m in trouble,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know what to do. Please…please help me.’
Luke nodded as if he had expected no less. His hand stayed exactly where it was, and Nikki had a sudden sense of how Sandra must feel. To have this man touching her, feeding strength, reassurance and warmth into her through his touch. There was a sudden, crazy moment of irrational jealousy, quickly stifled.
Luke stood, and motioned to Nikki. ‘Do we have any sleeping-pills, Dr Russell?’
‘Yes.’ Nikki frowned. She wouldn’t have thought leaving sleeping-tablets for this woman was the most sensible thing. Sandra seemed almost suicidal.
‘We’ll leave you two tablets for the night,’ Luke told Sandra, heading off Nikki’s criticism. ‘I want you to take them and get a solid night’s sleep. Tomorrow morning I want you to get up, wash your hair, put on your nicest dress and bring the children into the hospital. I’ll arrange the nursing staff to take care of them for the rest of the day. You’ll visit Karen and then meet me in my surgery at twelve.’
‘My surgery’. Nikki flinched on the words. This man had taken right over. Still, he had achieved more so. far than she had ever been able to with this sullen, frightened girl.
‘But-’
‘No buts.’ Luke was standing, still not taking his eyes from Sandra. ‘By twelve tomorrow I’ll have a list of options available for you, and I want you to come knowing that every option is better than what’s happening now.’
‘But there’s nothing…’ It was a frightened whisper.
‘There’s everything.’ Once more, Luke’s voice gentled and his hand came down on to her shoulder. ‘There’s a whole great world out here for you and your children, Sandra, and it’s time you started finding it.’
‘But Karen…’
‘Karen loves you.’ He smiled then and his smile warmed the bleak little room. ‘If I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t help you. But Karen loves you and she’s a smart little girl. She wouldn’t love you unless you were worth loving. So let’s get to work and repay her trust.’
They left her then, sitting staring out bleakly into the night. Nikki was aware of intense disquiet as they bumped down the overgrown track away from the house.
‘You don’t think she’ll do anything stupid, do you?’ she said softly.
Luke flashed her a quizzical look. ‘Like suicide?’
‘Like suicide.’
He shook his head. ‘She loves her family too much.’
‘You sounded tougher before you met her.’
Luke nodded as he manoeuvred the little car out on to the road and turned homewards. ‘She’s OK.’ He was talking almost to himself. ‘Sometimes life is just too much. I think for Sandra it’s reached that point. But now she’s said she needs help-well, I reckon there’s light at the end of her tunnel, anyway.’
Nikki frowned across at him. His voice had suddenly flattened as if he was doing some sort of personal comparison. Surely this self-confident, overbearing male couldn’t have major problems in his life. And yet…He was at Eurong for a reason. What on earth was it?
‘Tell me why you’re doing country locums,’ she said gently, and he flashed her a look of amusement.
‘Probing into my ghosts, Dr Russell?’
Nikki flushed. ‘You’re a successful surgeon,’ she continued, and was annoyed at the trace of resentment she heard in her voice. ‘Why…why have you given it up?’
‘I haven’t given it up.’
‘Doing a locum in a backwater like Eurong is hardly a strategic career move,’ she said waspishly.
‘No.’ He smiled across at her. ‘Neither is burying yourself here in a house too big for you in a community that’s known and labelled you from childhood. And that’s what you’re doing, Dr Russell.’
Nikki bit her lip angrily. ‘Beattie-’ she started.
