It was hard to keep herself steady on the pavement. Without streetlights, people were jostling, good- humoured and laughing, but with each step Maggie felt less like laughing. Her back hurt!
This was tiredness, she told herself. Shock. She’d been bending over the two accident victims, not being careful. She’d been swimming before that. She’d done too much.
And…She wanted Max.
Maybe she’d never see Max again.
She deserved not to see Max again, she told herself dismally. She’d kissed him like a…like a hussy.
Ooh. She gave herself a mock hoot of horror. A hussy?
She didn’t feel like a hussy. She felt alone and clumsy and huge, and as she walked steadily onward she was also starting to feel more than a little scared.
A stab of hot pain jabbed at her back and she thought, no, it couldn’t be. Please.
She had to be sensible. If there was a chance she was in labour…No, she was imagining things. She was over three miles from the hospital now-it was impossible to walk back. She’d be okay.
But her back hurt. A lot.
Her feet slowed. What to do?
What would she tell a patient to do?
Call an ambulance.
That was good advice. She was nine months pregnant with bad backache. Calling an ambulance was only sensible.
The decision made, she felt better. She stopped walking and searched in her purse for her phone.
It wasn’t there.
Damn, she could see it, her phone, sitting on the charger on the bedside table in her apartment. She’d left it there when she’d gone swimming and she’d been in too much of a rush when she’d left with Max to think about taking it.
Don’t panic. Don’t panic!
She had no phone here, but she could get to her apartment and phone from there.
She could phone Max?
Or not. What could Max do that an ambulance couldn’t?
She kept walking. She could see the glimmer of the moon over the sea. The sea was where her apartment was. Great. Two minutes’ walk and she’d be there. She’d let herself in, make herself a cup of tea, ring the ambulance and then watch the moonlit sea while she waited.
No power. She wouldn’t be able to make tea.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, she was crying again! She wasn’t a hussy-she was a total wuss.
CHAPTER TEN
MAX spent the night with his thoughts returning again and again to Maggie. Uneasy, and getting worse.
As the city’s traffic became more and more gridlocked, the hospital became quieter. Apparently people were abandoning their cars and walking, or finding accommodation where they could. Once the traffic was truly gridlocked, accidents lessened, and even when they happened ambulances couldn’t get through the blocked roads.
‘Contact your local medical centres if you need to,’ radio announcers were telling those with battery-operated radios. Suburban doctors were operating emergency clinics. The population was coping as best it could.
Tomorrow there’d be questions asked in parliament, Max thought. Heads would roll over this unprecedented mess. Only…
Only Maggie.
Dammit, Maggie.
He needed to know that she’d got home safely, but he rang her apartment block between patients, at ten and again at midnight, and got no answer. He fretted about it to Anton as they worked together on what they hoped would be their last surgical case for the night, and Anton provided an answer.
‘Most small apartment blocks don’t man their front desks at night,’ he explained patiently, as he monitored their patient’s air supply. ‘Phone in the morning when the concierge comes back on duty.’
‘There should be an after-hours emergency number.’
‘Every apartment will have its own number,’ Anton said, staying patient. ‘Maggie will be able to ring out if she needs to.’
‘I need to ring Maggie.’
‘You don’t have her cellphone number?’
‘No!’ he snapped, so harshly the nurses looked at each other and thought whoa, tread lightly here, surgeon annoyed.
He just needed to know she’d got home. The radio was reporting total gridlock. Even when he finished here he wouldn’t be able to drive and find out.
In desperation, when he finally finished in Theatre-after two in the morning-he rang John and Margaret at the farm. Woke them. Frightened them.
For nothing.
No, Maggie’s apartment number didn’t work at night but if he rang in the morning the concierge would put him through. Her cellphone number? Actually, she’d given her usual phone to John because the locals used it at need. She’d said she’d buy another for private use but, no, she hadn’t given them that number either.
Why hadn’t they asked her for it?
‘So what’s the problem?’ Margaret asked sharply.
Max caught himself and said, no, it’s only that the city’s in the grip of a blackout, and he was probably worrying unnecessarily.
He left the ward and walked slowly across the quadrangle to his apartment. Thanks to the hospital generators everything seemed normal. He felt stupid.
But he also felt increasingly apprehensive, and the feeling wouldn’t go away.
This was not how it was supposed to be.
And as he stood there he thought…They were supposed to be together. One man and one woman and one baby.
The knowledge was suddenly so strong it was almost primeval, kicking in where any pretence at intelligence left off. Maggie and her baby weren’t here, so why was he here?
He stopped and stared southward, toward Coogee. Three miles or so as the crow flew. How long would that take him to walk?
How long would it take him to run?
The pain wasn’t too bad if she lay still.
She lay still.
The backache grew. It seemed to be coming in waves.
The apartment was dark.
She was
She was afraid.
Okay, get sensible. Yes, the contractions were indeed contractions. Yes, they seemed to be getting stronger and closer together.
She rang the ambulance yet again.
‘There’s a massive traffic jam,’ a sympathetic operator told her. ‘I’m trying as hard as I can to get a car to you. Can someone take you to your local medical centre? Can you call a neighbour?’
‘I’ll call a neighbour,’ she agreed, sweating.
She staggered up from the settee. Went to the door, unlocked it-just in case the ambulance could get here.
