City Surgeon, Small Town Miracle

flats. Gorgeous blonde hair, straight and glossy as a shampoo advertisement, the fringe pushed back with designer sunglasses. A wide, white smile.

‘Fiona.’

Fiona. The girlfriend.

Lois to Superman’s Clark Kent, while the wimp in his arms was simply some woman he’d rescued before he moved onto the next task.

‘I thought you had a call back to Sydney,’ Fiona said, clearly astounded.

‘I did,’ he said. ‘But I had an accident on the road and was forced to stay. Fiona, meet my accident. Dr Maggie Croft, meet Dr Fiona Hamilton. I told you about Fi last night. She’s a radiologist.’

‘Hi,’ Maggie said, feeling really, really at a disadvantage. Lying back in Superman’s arms was scarcely a way to endear yourself to Lois. Or to Fiona.

This woman was also a doctor. That made three of them, but there wasn’t a lot of professional recognition in the way Fiona was looking at her. Well, what do you expect if you go around carried in Superman’s arms, she demanded of herself. She was the victim here. The rescuee. Superman’s armful.

‘You didn’t go back,’ Fiona said blankly, looking from Maggie back to Max.

‘No. As I said, I was stuck.’

‘You really did have an accident?’ Fiona’s gaze shifted to the Aston Martin. As if to verify the claim, there it was, a smashed headlight, a crumpled left panel and a crack running the width of the windscreen.

‘Oh, your car,’ she said in horror, and put her hand to her eyes as if she couldn’t bear such hurt. ‘Oh, your gorgeous car.’

‘Maggie was hurt, too,’ he said brusquely. ‘I’m taking her in for an X-ray.’

‘You’re X-raying her here?’

‘Apparently it’s not as much a backwater as you might think,’ Max said. ‘I gather there’s basic X-ray equipment.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Fiona said. ‘Why are you carrying her?’

‘Because he’s bossy,’ Maggie said, finally deciding she needed to be helpful if she was ever going to get this over with. ‘Max won’t let me use crutches. The fact that I was fine on them last night…’

‘Max stayed with you last night?’ Fiona asked, incredulous.

‘Yeah, and with Grandma and Angus and our cows and our dog,’ she said, deciding to pre-empt trouble before it got a hold. ‘He was really useful. But I don’t want him to drop me, so…’

‘I’ll come in with you,’ Fiona said, sounding bemused, and stood aside and let them both pass. ‘You stayed with her last night, Max? You stayed in the same house as real people?’

‘Don’t be impertinent,’ Max retorted, and Fiona grinned as if it was a shared joke.

Great. She so didn’t want to be here, Maggie decided. If they were in Superman territory she wouldn’t mind a telephone box to disappear into.

Or was she thinking Doctor Who? A bit of time travel to a different place.

But there was no avoiding practicalities. Max had to let her down to unlock the building. She opened it, entered her security code, then sat down speedily in the chair next to the door, because to tell the truth both knees were wobbly now. She could cope with Max here, but Fiona’s presence completely unnerved her. She made her feel about ten.

‘The X-ray machine’s in there,’ she told Max, pointing to the next room. ‘If you set it up, I’ll come in when you’re ready.’

‘How out of the ark are we talking?’ Max said cautiously, while Fiona looked on in obvious bewilderment.

‘State of the art,’ Maggie retorted. ‘Or,’ she added honestly, ‘it was state of the art ten years ago. The old doctor got it second hand from Gosland hospital when they extended. For nice plain skull and knee pictures it’s fine.’

‘You’ve used it recently?’

‘It really is fine,’ she said, growing incensed. ‘What, you think we should have brought a small animal to test it on first? How about if Fiona volunteers a toe?’

Maybe that was uncalled for. Dumb, really. She didn’t know this woman, and to include her in a stupid joke…

But Fiona looked as if she hadn’t even heard. She tugged open the door and stared through at the X-ray equipment, becoming efficient. ‘I’ll check it for you, Max,’ she said briskly.

‘Wow,’ she muttered. ‘I have my own gynaecologist and radiologist.’

She was ignored. They were both in clinical mode. She had a sudden vision of them both back in Sydney, two hugely qualified specialists, totally focussed on their work.

Beside them she felt like a country hick. A patient to be cared for with clinical efficiency and kindness.

That’s what Max had been doing all night, she thought dully. Caring for her with kindness.

‘There’s nothing complicated here,’ Fiona called. ‘So what were you intending to do today? Make sure she’s okay and then come back to end the festival with us?’

She? She’s the cat’s mother. A saying used to teach children it was impolite to refer to people impersonally.

She, the patient. She, the inanimate object, causing trouble.

‘I’m still heading back to Sydney,’ Max told her, equally brisk, ‘just as soon as I know Maggie’s not going to do anything dramatic.’ Without waiting for a response-or an okay-he lifted Maggie again and carried her through. Still talking to Fiona. ‘We were always going back separately anyway. You know I have a list in the morning, and Clarissa and Doug are staying until it ends. I can’t wait until then.’

‘It’s pretty dreary,’ Fiona said. Max laid Maggie down on the prepared trolley, and Fiona manoeuvred the overhead X-ray machine over her knee. She slid a pillow underneath with the ease of a professional, as if she’d done it a million times before. As she must have. This was a simple technical procedure. She wasn’t X-raying a patient. She was X-raying a knee.

‘Clarissa and Doug are bickering,’ she said. ‘Brenda’s boyfriend turned up and I’ve had enough music. I’ll come home with you, as soon as you’re ready.’

‘Fine,’ Max said. ‘Are you okay there, Maggie?’

‘Fine,’ she repeated. Feeling like a sack of potatoes. Wanting, pathetically, to say, ‘Hey, this is about me.’

‘Do you have leather shields?’ Fiona demanded, still not looking at her. ‘We need to protect the pregnancy.’

The pregnancy. Not the baby. Not her baby.

‘In the side cupboard,’ she said through gritted teeth, and Max fetched them and set them up so they formed a barrier between the X-ray machine and her belly. Her daughter.

Annie? Not Archibald. She had a bit of thinking to do on that one.

Chloe didn’t seem right any more.

‘Right. Keep still,’ Fiona said. ‘Hold the position. Max, get out of range.’

So Max moved back behind the door and Fiona clicked and then clicked again.

‘And her head,’ Max said,

‘Her head. Why?’

‘She gave it a bang when we hit last night.’

‘So why didn’t you X-ray it last night.’

‘Maggie’s grandmother died last night. We couldn’t leave her.’

‘She died…’

‘Of old age,’ Maggie said wearily, not wanting any more questions, wanting this conversation to be over. ‘That’s why Max stayed. He was wonderful. But I don’t need him any more and you both need to be in Sydney. Can we get on with this, please, because, like you, I need to go home.’

Her X-rays were fine, beautifully read by Fiona. Torn ligaments in her knee that would heal in time. Nothing wrong with her head. Fiona wished her all the best for her recovery-and for her pregnancy-and left to go back to their ‘camp’ to pack. Max drove Maggie back to the farm and the closer to home they got the drearier she felt.

Why had meeting Fiona made everything seem worse? Heavier?

They pulled into the driveway and she recognised the vehicle at the front gate. Who wouldn’t? A silver hearse is unmistakable in anyone’s language.