MIRACLE ON KAIMOTU ISLAND/ALWAYS THE HERO

by Marion Lennox

  ‘No.’

  ‘I won’t go there, then,’ he said equitably, and lifted Button from the examination couch and popped her on the floor. Ginny took her hand and backed away—almost as if she was afraid of him.

  ‘I’ll let you know when the results come through,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Ginny...’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said again, and it was like a shield. Patient thanking doctor.

  Nothing personal at all.

  * * *

  Once in the car she could block out the personal. Once out of sight of Ben.

  She kind of liked taking Button home. No, more than liked. She was trying to hold back, aware at any minute that Veronica or Veronica’s husband could change their mind and want her again, but Button was a little girl who was easy to love, and she found her heart twisting at the thought of her being discarded.

  She might even fight for her, she thought. What rights did a stepmother have?

  Maybe none, she thought, but there was a real possibility she’d be taking care of Button for life—and right now Button was filling a void. Button needed her and she intended to do the best job she could.

  Which meant she was justified in refusing to help Ben, she decided, and squashed guilt to the back of her mind. One of her girlfriends had once told her, ‘Don’t have kids, Ginny. The moment you do, every single thing is your fault. No matter what you do, you feel guilty.’

  So she was just like other mothers, she decided, and thought she should ring Ben up and tell him.

  Or not.

  Focus on Button. And the vineyard? She wasn’t actually very good at growing grapes. She should find someone to replace Henry. She didn’t actually have a clue what she was doing.

  But, then, so what if she missed a harvest? she decided. The world had enough wine and she didn’t need the money. Henry popped in to see her and worried about it on her behalf, but she calmed him.

  ‘Next year, when I’m more organised, I’ll hire staff and do it properly. I should have done it this year but neither of us was organised. And you’re not well. Thank you for dropping by, but I’ll manage. Did Ben...? Did Dr McMahon give you something that’ll help?’

  ‘He wants me to go to the mainland and have a gas-gastroscopy or something. Damned fool idea. You want me to teach you about—?’

  ‘No,’ she said gently, thinking of the old man’s grey face. ‘Let’s put this year’s harvest behind us and move on next year.’

  That was a great idea, she decided. She’d put the whole of the last year aside. She’d refuse to be haunted by shadows of the past.

  She and Button could make themselves a life here. She watched Button water her beloved tomatoes—watering was Button’s principal pleasure—and thought...she could almost be happy.

  But happiness was a long-ago concept. Pre-James.

  Happiness went right back to Ben—and there was the biggie.

  But why was it unsettling her? Once upon a time she’d thought of him as her best friend. Friends instead of lovers? Why not again?

  He wanted her to do more. She could, she conceded. Hannah could look after Button.

  Working side by side with Ben?

  Why did she keep remembering one hot day in the surf?

  Why did the memory scare her stupid?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  RUNNING A SOLO practice was okay, was even feasible, except in emergencies.

  With only ten beds, Kaimotu Hospital was not usually used for acute care. Acute-care cases were sent to the mainland, and now, with only one doctor, it was a case of deeming more cases acute.

  With two doctors on the island they could cope with routine things like appendicitis, hernias, minor surgery, but with only one...well, the Hercules transport plane from the mainland got more of a workout.

  The islanders hated it. They loathed being shipped to the mainland away from family and friends, but Ben had no choice. Until they found another doctor, this was the only way he could cope.

  He did cope—until the night Henry’s ulcer decided to perforate.

  * * *

  Why did medical emergencies happen in the small hours more often than not? Someone should write a thesis, Ben thought wearily, picking up the phone. His apartment was right by the hospital. He switched his phone through to the nurses’ station while he slept, so he knew the nurse on call had overridden that switch. This call, therefore, meant he was needed.

  ‘Ben?’ It was Margy, the island’s most senior nurse, and he knew the moment he heard her voice that he had trouble.

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Henry’s on the phone. I’m putting you through now.’

  ‘B-Ben?’

  The old winemaker wasn’t voluble at the best of times, but now his voice was scarcely a whisper.

  ‘Yeah, Henry, it’s me. Tell me what’s wrong.’

  ‘Me guts,’ Henry whispered. ‘Pain...been going on all night. Took them pills you gave me and then some more but nothing’s stopping it and now...vomiting blood, Doc. Couple times. Lotta blood.’

  To say his heart sank would be an understatement. He was already out of bed, reaching for his pants.

  ‘You’re at home? Up on the headland?’

  ‘Y-yeah.’

  ‘Okay, I want you to go back to bed and lie very still while I wake Max and Ella up,’ he told him. Max and Ella were the nearest farmers to Henry’s tiny cottage. ‘They’ll bring you down to the hospital. I reckon you might have bleeding from your stomach. It’ll be quicker if they bring you here rather than me go there.’

  Besides, he thought, he needed to set up Theatre. Call in nurses.

  He needed to call on Ginny. Now.

  ‘I might make a mess of their car,’ Henry whispered, and Ben told Henry what he thought about messing up a car compared to getting him to hospital fast.

  Then he rang Max and Ella and thanked God for good, solid farming neighbours who he knew would take no argument from Henry. There’d also be no tearing round corners on two wheels.

  Then he rang Ginny.

  * * *

  Ginny was curled up in her parents’ big bed, cuddling a sleeping Button—and thinking about Ben.

  Why did he keep her awake at night?

  He didn’t, she conceded. Everything kept her awake at night.

  Memories of James. Memories of blame.

  ‘You stupid cow, how the hell can you possibly know how I feel? You’re healthy—healthy!—and you stand there acting sorry for me, and you can’t do a thing. Why can’t you get this damned syringe driver to work? How can you sleep when I’m in pain?’

  The syringe driver had been working. It wasn’t pain, she thought. It was fear, and fury. He’d had twelve months of illness and he’d blamed her every moment of the way.

  So what was she doing, lying in bed now and thinking of another man? Thinking of another relationship?

  She wasn’t, she told herself fiercely. She was never going there again. She was just...thinking about everything, as she always did.

  And then the phone rang.

  She answered it before Button could wake up.

  ‘Ginny?’

  Ben’s voice did things to her. It always had.

  No.

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘Ginny, I need you. Henry has a ruptured stomach ulcer. He’s been bleeding for hours. There’s no time to evacuate him to the mainland. Mum and Hannah are on their way to your place now to take care of Button. The minute they get there I need you to come. Please.’

  And that was that.

  No choice.

  She should say no, she thought desperately. She should tell him she’d made the decision not to practise medicine.

  Not possible.

>   Henry.

  ‘I’ll come.’

  ‘Ginny?’

  ‘Yes?

  ‘How are you at anaesthetics?’

  ‘That’s what I am,’ she said, and then corrected herself. ‘That’s what I was. An anaesthetist.’

  There was a moment’s stunned silence. Then... ‘Praise be,’ Ben said simply. ‘I’ll have everything ready. Let’s see if we can pull off a miracle.’

  * * *

  Henry needed a miracle. He’d been bleeding for hours.

  Ginny walked into Theatre, took one look and her heart sank. She’d seen enough patients who’d bled out to know she was looking at someone who was close.

  Ben had already set up IV lines, saline, plasma.

  ‘I’ve cross-matched,’ he said as she walked through the door. ‘Thank God he’s O-positive. We have enough.’

  There was no time for personal. That one glance at Henry had told her there was hardly time for anything.

  She moved to the sink to scrub, her eyes roving around the small theatre as she washed. He had everything at the ready. A middle-aged nurse was setting up equipment—Margy? Abby was there, slashing away clothing.

  Ben had Henry’s hand.

  ‘Ginny’s here,’ he told him, and Ginny wondered if the old man was conscious enough to take it in. ‘Your Ginny.’

  ‘My Ginny,’ he whispered, and he reached out and touched her arm.

  ‘I’m here for you,’ she told him, stooping so she was sure he’d hear. ‘I’m here for you, Henry. You know I’m a doctor. I’m an anaesthetist and I’m about to give you a something to send you to sleep. We need to do something about that pain. Ben and I are planning on fixing you, Henry, so is it okay if you go to sleep now?’

  ‘Yes,’ Henry whispered. ‘You and Ben...I always thought you’d be a pair. Who’d a thought... You and Ben...’

  And he drifted into unconsciousness.

  * * *

  She was an anaesthetist. Who’d a thought? Henry’s words echoed through Ben’s head as he worked and it was like a mantra.

  Who’d a thought? A trained anaesthetist, right here when he needed her most.

  Ben had done his first part of surgery before he’d returned to the island. It had seemed sensible—this place was remote and bad things happened fast. He’d also spent an intense six months delivering babies, but if he’d tried to train in every specialty he’d never have got back to Kaimotu.

  Catherine had had basic anaesthetic training, as had the old doctor she’d replaced. For cases needing higher skills they’d depended on phone links with specialists on the mainland. It hadn’t been perfect but it had been the best they could do.

  Now, as he watched Ginny gently reassure Henry, as he watched her check dosage, slip the anaesthetic into the IV line he’d set up, as he watched her seamlessly turn to the breathing apparatus, checking the drips as she went to make sure there was no blockage in the lines, he thought... He thought Henry might just have a chance.

  Henry had deteriorated since Ben had phoned Ginny. By the time Ginny had walked into Theatre he’d thought he’d lose him. Now...

  ‘Go,’ Ginny said, with a tight, professional nod, and she went back to monitoring breathing, checking flow, keeping this old man alive, while Ben...

  Ben exposed and sutured an ulcer?

  It sounded easy. It wasn’t.

  He was trained in surgery but he didn’t do it every day. He operated but he took his time, but now there was no time to take.

  He cut, searched, while Margy swabbed. There was so much blood! Trying to locate the source of the bleeding...

  ‘One on each side,’ Ginny snapped to the nurses and they rearranged themselves fast. Ben hadn’t had time to think about it but the way they had been positioned only Margy had been able to swab, with Abby preparing equipment.

  ‘I can do the handling as well,’ Ginny said calmly. ‘Get that wound clear for Dr McMahon. Fast and light. Move.’

  They moved and all of a sudden Ben could see...

  A massive ulcer, oozing blood from the stomach wall.

  That Henry wasn’t dead already was a miracle.

  ‘Sutures,’ he said, and they were in his hand. He glanced up—just a glance—in time to see that it was Ginny who was preparing the sutures. And monitoring breathing, oxygen saturation, plasma flow.

  No time to think about that now. Stitch.

  Somehow he pulled the thing together, carefully, carefully, always conscious that pulling too tight, too fast could extend the wound rather than seal it.

  The blood flow was easing.

  How fast was Ginny getting that plasma in?

  He glanced up at her again for a fraction of a moment and got a tiny, almost imperceptible nod for his pains.

  ‘Oxygen saturation ninety-three. We’re holding,’ she said. ‘If you want to do a bit of pretty embroidery in there, I think we can hold the canvas steady.’

  And she’d taken the tension out of the room, just like that. He and both the nurses there had trained in large city hospitals. They’d worked in theatres where complex, fraught surgery took place and they knew the banter that went on between professionals at the top of their game.

  Ginny’s one comment had somehow turned this tiny island hospital into the equal of those huge theatres.

  They had the skill to do this and they all knew it.

  ‘Henry’s dog’s name’s Banjo,’ Margy offered. They were all still working, hard, fast, not letting anything slide, but that fractional lessening of tension had helped them all. ‘We could tell him we’ve embroidered “Banjo” on his innards when he wakes up.’

  ‘He’d need some mirror to see it,’ Ben retorted, and went back to stitching, but he was smiling and he had it sealed now. That Henry had held on for this long...

  ‘Oxygen level’s rising,’ Ginny said. ‘That’s the first point rise. We’re aiming for full within half an hour, people. Margy, can you find me more plasma?’

  And Margy could because suddenly there was only the need for one to swab. Ben was stitching the outer walls of the stomach closed then the layers of muscle, carefully, painstakingly. Ginny was still doing her hawk thing—the anaesthetist was the last person in the room to relax—but this was going to be okay.

  But then... ‘Hold,’ Ginny said into the stillness. ‘No, hold. No!’

  No!

  They’d been so close. So close but not close enough. Ben didn’t need to see the monitors to interpret Ginny’s message—he had it in full.

  A drop in blood pressure. Ventricular fibrillation.

  He was grabbing patches from Margy, thanking God that at least the bulk of the stitching was done, but not actually thanking God yet. Saying a few words in his direction, more like.

  Or one word.

  Please... To get so close and then lose him...

  Please...

  The adrenaline was pumping. If Ginny hadn’t been here...

  Please...

  ‘Back,’ Ginny snapped, as he had the patches in place, as he moved to flick a switch...

  A jerk... Henry’s body seemed to stiffen—and then the thin blue line started up again, up and down, a nice steady beat, as if it had just stopped for a wee nap and was starting again better than ever.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Margy said, and started to cry.

  Margy and Henry’s daughter had been friends before they’d both moved to the mainland, Ben remembered. That was the problem with this island. Everyone knew everyone.

  ‘Every man’s death diminishes me.’ How much more so on an island as small as Kaimotu?

  ‘He... I think he’ll be okay,’ Ginny said, and Ben cast her an anxious glance as well. Henry had worked for her parents for ever. Did she consider him a friend? The tremor in her voice sa
id that she did.

  ‘We’ll settle him and transfer,’ Ben said, forcing his hands to be steady, forcing his own heartbeat to settle. ‘I want him in Coronary Care in Auckland.’

  ‘He won’t want that,’ Margy said.

  ‘Then we transfer him while he doesn’t have the strength to argue,’ Ben said. ‘I’m fond of this old guy, too, and he’s getting the best, whether he likes it or not. Thank God for Ginny. Thank God for defibrillators. And thank God for specialist cardiac physicians and gastroenterologists on the mainland, because if we can keep him alive until morning, that’s where he’s going.’

  * * *

  It was an hour later when he finished up. Henry seemed to have settled. Margy had hauled in extra nursing staff so he could have constant obs all night. Ben had done as much as he could. It was too risky to transfer Henry to the mainland tonight but he’d organised it for first thing in the morning. With his apartment so close he was just through the wall if he was needed.

  Enough.

  He’d sent Ginny home half an hour ago, but he walked out into the moonlight, to walk the few hundred yards to the specially built doctors’ quarters, and Ginny was sitting on the rail dividing the car park from the road beyond. Just sitting in the moonlight.

  Waiting for him?

  ‘Hey,’ she said, and shoved up a little on the rail to make room for him.

  ‘Hey, yourself,’ he said, feeling...weird. ‘Why aren’t you at home?’

  ‘You reckon I could sleep?’

  ‘I reckon you should sleep. What you did was awesome.’

  ‘You were pretty awesome yourself. I didn’t know you were surgically trained.’

  ‘And I didn’t know you’d done anaesthesia.’

  ‘Once we were friends,’ she said softly into the night. ‘We should have kept up. I should have written. I should have let you write. One stupid summer and it meant we cut our friendship off at the knees.’

  ‘As I recall,’ he said carefully, ‘it was a very nice summer.’

  ‘It was,’ she said, and smiled. ‘We had fun.’

  ‘You were the best tadpole catcher I ever knew.’

  ‘I’m going to teach Button,’ she said, and he wanted to say he would help but it wasn’t wise. He knew it wasn’t wise. She was opening up a little just by being here, and he wouldn’t push for the world.