than anything.
‘What did you guys eat today?’ she asked, and Marigold managed to answer before Cornelia answered for her.
‘Everything,’ she whispered. ‘We ate everything.’
‘The baker put on a huge spread for your party,’ Cornelia said, finally getting it together. ‘There was so much food, and many of the locals contributed more. There was lots left, so they brought it here. We had sausage rolls, hot dogs, cream puffs, eclairs, lamingtons, sponge cakes…’
Marigold cringed and Ally took a deep breath. Sausage rolls. Hot dogs. Sure, they could hold bacteria. If they did then she could well be writhing on the floor in a few hours herself, but it was much more likely that bacteria had nothing to do with this.
She remembered the food Jerry had decreed they eat all those years ago. Why would he have changed? He wouldn’t, she thought. He’d have access to all their pensions but any spare money would be his to do with as he wished.
Every single one of these people was seriously malnourished. That was why the chickenpox had hit so hard.
So they’d been starved for years-and then given a feast of hot dogs, cream puffs, eclairs. As much as they could eat.
Still holding Marigold, she knelt before Lorraine so she was right in her field of vision. The little boy could see her, too.
‘Lorraine.’
Lorraine looked up, her face desperate. ‘Someone’s poisoned us,’ she whimpered.
Great. Marigold jerked in her arms. The child might be only four years old but she knew what the word ‘poison’ meant.
Terror.
‘No,’ Ally said strongly. She might be wrong, but she doubted it, and even if she was… What these people needed most was reassurance. They’d been thrust out of their way of life, put at the mercy of the townspeople who Jerry would have taught them to fear.
‘I’m a doctor,’ she told Lorraine, in a voice that was stronger than the one she’d used with Marigold. ‘It’s my guess that you’ve been eating the same food for years. Rice and a tiny bit of free-range chicken and the vegetables you’ve grown yourselves. Nothing else. You’ve eaten the same thing day after day after day, and then today you’ve been given a feast. You’ve had pastry and sweets and butter and rich, fatty meat, and you’ve all eaten too much, too fast for your stomachs to handle.’ She gestured to the children who weren’t ill. ‘It’s a miracle that all of you aren’t vomiting. I’ll give you injections of Maxolon-that’ll stop the vomiting-and I’ll set up a drip for Marigold as I’m worried that she’ll go back to being dehydrated. Maybe David needs a drip, too. But I’m afraid there’s not much else I can do. Your bodies are just going to have to get rid of what they can’t handle.’
Lorraine groaned. She clutched her stomach again and then she sat back and gazed up at Ally in disbelief.
‘I ate six lamingtons,’ she managed, and groaned again.
‘Oh, dear.’ Ally smiled, but Marigold’s hands were clutching her around her neck and she felt her little body go rigid as once more she started to retch.
‘Can you ring the hospital again?’ she asked Cornelia. She was thinking through the options as she spoke. She could take Marigold to the hospital but all of them needed supervision. It would be easier if she settled them here. Also, it’d be much less traumatic than to try and transport people who were already so ill. ‘I want a nurse down here,’ she said. ‘I want saline drips and Maxolon. Enough for half a dozen patients. Tell them what’s happening.’
‘They won’t send a nurse,’ Cornelia muttered, glancing out with disbelief to the state of a kitchen Ally suspected she was usually deeply proud of. Not now. ‘I told you. They don’t have spare staff.’
‘They’ll have people they can call on in an emergency,’ Ally told her. ‘This is an emergency.’
‘But Dr Rochester-’
‘Dr Rochester is out of town. He’s not here and I am, so you’ll just have to be content with Dr Westruther.’
Then she added a rider under her breath before she reached for the phone herself to make the call Cornelia was so reluctant to make.
‘And you’ll have to be content with Dr Westruther, whether Dr Westruther likes it or whether she doesn’t.’
CHAPTER NINE
DARCY walked into the refuge and stopped dead.
Ally was scrubbing the kitchenette floor.
The sitting room was deserted. A fire still crackled in the grate, but the only other sign of life was Ally’s backside. It was an unmistakable backside. Her trousers were stretched tight over what was really a very nice posterior. The sleeves of her windcheater were hauled up almost to her shoulders. Her blonde hair was escaping from the twist she’d had it in earlier in the day, and it was wisping forward.
She had a scrubbing brush and a bucket of steaming water, and she was scrubbing as if her life depended on it.
The place stank. That was the only sign that anything was wrong.
Darcy had brought Will Daly down to the hospital to be told there was drama at the refuge, but Will had lost too much blood to leave. He’d had to cross-match and set up a transfusion and it had been half an hour before he’d been able to find out for himself what was happening.
‘Ally,’ he said-tentatively-and she turned. When she saw who it was, she sat back on her heels and she glared.
It was some glare.
‘I might have known,’ she said with loathing. ‘I have two square feet of kitchen floor-space left to scrub and, hooray, here comes the cavalry. The great Dr Rochester, arriving just when he’s most needed. What a hero.’
‘Steady on,’ he said, trying not to smile. ‘Are things OK?’
‘Fine. No thanks to you.’
‘I’ve been busy.’
‘Doing something nice and clean?’ she demanded with gentle mockery. ‘A squashed finger, I hear. I bet someone else scrubbed the floor.’
‘His wife,’ he admitted.
‘How is he?’ she asked, sarcasm fading.
‘Bad. But I’d say it’s mostly repairable bone damage. Not nerve as far as I can tell. It’s Will Daly. He says he knows you.’
‘I went to school with Will.’ She brushed her wispy hair behind her ears. ‘He always beat me at marbles. So he’ll be OK?’
‘He has all major feeling. He’ll need an orthopaedic surgeon.’ He smiled. ‘If he’s lucky, his skill at marbles will hardly be impaired.’
‘Good.’ She managed a smile in return but she was looking distracted. ‘You’ll send him to Melbourne?’
‘I’ve arranged for him to be taken to St Margaret’s tomorrow. They have the best orthopaedic unit and Robert can go with him.’
‘The guy with the face?’
‘Mmm.’ Darcy strolled over and looked down at her shining floor. ‘Is he OK?’
‘He didn’t join in the feast,’ Ally told him. ‘The pain relief you’ve given him is so welcome that all he’s done is sleep.’
Darcy’s smile grew a trifle rueful. ‘I guess we should be thankful for small mercies.’ He gazed down at her for a moment. She looked almost unreal. Sitting on the floor with her scrubbing brush, looking like…
Looking like what? He didn’t know.
Looking like Ally.
