The doctors choice

by Wilde, Hilary

As they left the ward, David came striding down the corridor.

  “Max picked up a boy injured when he was flung from a steer. I want you to come with me, Sister. f think we may have to send him on to Darwin, but we can make him more comfortable first.” He looked at Clare.

  “You can cope here.”

  The hospital seemed strangely quiet as Clare stood by the front door, hearing the whine of the plane, seeing t circling overhead before it came down. Back in the hospital, she made the rounds and chatted to Mrs.

  Mackenzie for a moment and then heard the plane take off. The boy must be badly injured…

  Sister Madge looked harassed when she returned, took over from Clare, and told her to get something to eat.

  “How is the boy?” Clare asked.

  “How can we know until he’s had X-rays taken? Bad concussion.”

  Before eating, Clare. got the stamp from Hazel and they talked for a short while. That evening Sister Madge was just as formidable, but Clare sensed a slight lessening of the hostility and it helped her face the night ahead of her feeling happier! All the same, it required all of her patience to be dutifully meek as her most simple duties were described in detail. She wished she had Eileen Mullins, her Irish friend from Queen Anne’s Hospital, with her to joke together about it.

  Eileen! She had never written to her! It would be fun to hear from her and the old hospital gossip,She would write the letter that night, she decided.

  But it was nearly midnight before Clare had a free moment, and she began the letter, describing the hospital, the operation, and the Johnson family, when a shadow fell over the page.

  David!

  How very pleasant it was to sit in the quietness, broken occasionally by a cough, a snore or a baby’s cry.

  They sipped hot tea and chatted. She was tempted to tell him of her decision to stay in Australia, but she was afraid he might be amused, tell her she should think seriously before deciding, that she had seen very little yet of the real raw Outback.

  “I met a man called Simon Trenchard today,” she told him instead. “He told me he knew the Johnsons.

  Hazel, I gather, doesn’t like him. She told me this afternoon that he’s always away.”

  “Yes, he knows Ian better than me. Simon has a name with the girls, that may be why Hazel doesn’t approve of him. He makes a fuss of them, gets bored, drops them and goes away.”

  “Isn’t he married?”

  “No. He’s a very eligible bachelor. Interested?”

  He saw the colour stain her cheeks and leant forward, taking her hands, his voice troubled. “I’m sorry.

  That was meant to be a joke, but it misfired.”

  “It’s all right,” Clare said with difficulty. “It didn’t hurt. Things are better. I still miss Peter, but— but I’ve accepted it.”

  He still held her hands tightly. His face was worried as he looked at her. “Clare, I know how you feel. Watch out you don’t leap from tie fire to the frying pan.” He tried to make a joke of it as he watched her expression.

  He laughed uneasily. “I know just how tempting it is to rush into the first pair of open arms. One’s prepared to do almost anything to alleviate the sense of humiliation and rejection. You could make a grave mistake.”

  She was suddenly conscious of the warm strength of his fingers and she shivered.

  “Cold?” he asked, surprised.

  “Just a ghost walking over my grave,” Clare tried to joke.

  David stood up, dropping her hands back into her lap.

  “I’d better get some sleep. Everything all right?”

  She stood up. “Yes, thanks.”

  When he left her, she walked round the wards again before finishing her letter.

  I heard Peter was married the other week. I hope he’ll be happy. It still hurts, Eileen, but not sb badly.

  She signed the letter and sealed it. She sat alone in the quiet darkness. The loneliness inside her seemed to grow and grow as she looked into the future.

  She must always be on guard lest she imagine that men meant more than they did, always watch lest her loneliness rushed her into something she might later regret. David had said what she knew so well — that it would be pitifully easy to rush into the first pair of open arms.

  arms.

  The next morning she was in a deep sleep when a pounding on her door awoke her. She sat up, seeing the bright sunlight coming through the curtains.

  “Clare!”

  “Coming,” she Called. What could David want so urgently?

  She opened the door and stood there, her red-gold hair tumbled round her sleepy, flushed face, her eyes half closed.

  “Max isn’t back yet,” David told her curtly, “and that girl Maggie is in big trouble. I’m flying out right away, and I need you. You may have to stay the night.

  How quick can you be?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  Clare closed the door, and never had she dressed so fast, flinging a toothbrush and a few things into a shoulder bag.

  David was waiting. “We must get cracking.”

  Joseph drove them to the airstrip, packing a couple of cases round Clare. In a moment, the plane was lurch-ing over the ground and taking off, then they were airborne. This time Clare was not frightened as she watched the earth slowly receding. The hot air seemed to blast in at them, but as they climbed higher it got cooler.

  “It won’t take us long. I’d better brief you,” David said, again rather curtly. “With Maggie, I usually find—”

  She listened carefully, knowing that later there would be no time for David to tell per what to.do.

  “Bill got through on the radio. He was panicking. He always does,” David said, as the plane lurched in an air-pocket. “But he knows the ropes and there’ll be boiling water ready. Rosie, the eldest kid, is ten and too sensible for her age. The youngest is a year old and a real handful. You’re going to see a different way of Australian living,” he added, his voice grim.

  The flight was finally over, and far below Clare saw the smoke as bushes blazed in the bright sunlight.

  “They throw petrol over them and set fire so that the smoke shows me which way the wind is and how to come in to land,” David explained, as far below she could see an outcrop of rocks, a few clumps of ghost gums, a billabong, in which a little water sparkled in the bright sunshine and a building with a rusty tin roof.

  “No proper airstrip, so it may be a bit rough. Hold on,” David warned her.

  She watched him lean forward, gazing down. He was wearing his khaki shorts and shirt, his dark hair was dusty, and dark glasses hid his expression. .e “I’m not scared,” she assured him, “this time.”

  Suddenly the earth was racing towards them, the plane gave a sickening drop, then straightened as it came closer to the ground and then was climbing again, higher into the hot sky.

  “Darned thing!” David said softly.

  Far below Clare could see small children racing across • the ground, chasing a big dog, clutching him.

  Again the plane circled and came down. Closer…

  closer … Clare closed her eyes tightly and hung on as David had told her. Then they were bumping, swerv-ing, rocking a little as the plane taxied along.

  David turned with a grin, running his hand through his hair. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” Clare said.

  He helped her out and she felt stiff. A tall thin man came hurrying up. He had not shaved for days and his eyes were sunken with shock and weariness. His faded overalls and shirt had been painstakingly patched.

  “Thank God you’re here, Doc,” he greeted David.

  His fair hair was thick with red dust, his face had smears of sweat-streaked dust over it

  Two little boys and a small girl came running.

  “This is Nurse Clare,” David said, taking the man by the arm. “How is Maggie?”

  “Right poorly,” Bill said, his yoice rough. “Right poorly, Doc. I’m scared.” He turned to look at David, his face stark wi
th fear. “Plain scared.”

  “I know, Bill,” David said gently. “But so you were each time before, and everything was okay.”

  “One day it—” Bill began.

  David led the way to the house, talking to Bill. Clare followed, the three small children staring at her, fingers in mouths. They were all clean, hair brushed, clean faded clothes. Had Rosie, Clare wondered, been told by her mother to clean the children up? She wanted to see this ten-year-old girl who was obviously her mother’s right hand.

  What a house! Clare stared in dismay. A gaunt building of wood with a rusty roof. The usual verandah with a screen – but what a screen, patched with bits of cardboard and tied with string. On the verandah a small girl was waiting, standing by a dilapidated pram in which lay a sleeping baby.

  “Rosie,” David said, his voice warm.

  The little girl’s hair was plaited neatly, her face clean, her dark eyes frigkitened, her too-short faded pink dress freshly ironed.

  “I’m glad you’ve come, Doc,” she said, and in her voice was the relief of someone asked to hold too much responsibility.

  David touched her cheek gently. “It’s going to be all right, Rosie. This is Nurse Clare.” Rosie looked quickly at Clare with a shy smile, and David went on: “Now, could you take -the children of somewhere?”

  A sheepdog came loping towards them.

  “Here comes the culprit that stopped us landing,”

  David said, pulling the dog’s ears with a smile. “Ber-nard’s the name, Clare.”

  Clare was smiling at Rosie, who smiled back. “I thought you’d want the kids out of the way, Doc,”

  Rosie was saying, “so I planned a picnic. We’ll be under the trees. The kettles are boiling.”

  “Thanks, Rosie, I knew I could count on you. Come, Clare.”

  Clare followed him, gazing round at the dark, pitiful shabbiness. Yet everything was so clean. A carpet with holes.that had been carefully patched. Faded curtains, spotlessly fresh-looking. Cheap furniture. Everything tidy.

  Bill opened a door. “floe’s come, Maggie,” he said gruffly.

  “Hey, Doctor!” the thin-faced girl on the bed called.

  Her face was pale and contorted, her eyes red. She had long black hair spread over the pillow. “You’re not a moment too soon,” she joked.

  “Maggie, here’s Nurse Clare. Another Pommie,”

  David told her, and turned to Bill. “We’d better get the stuff in from the plane.

  Clare closed the door and went to stand by the bed.

  “How’s it Maggie?” she asked gently, her hand on the pulse of the girl in bed.

  Maggie made a half-smile, half-grimace. “Pretty rapid. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, wouldn’t you, but each time it shakes me.”

  “I can imagine. You’ll be all right though,” Clare reassured her, getting to work. “Where’s the kitchen?”

  Maggie told her and Clare went out into the heat of a room with a big wood fire and a scrubbed table and couple of chairs. No refrigerator. An oil lamp on the table. A stone sink badly chipped with one tap. Yet it was all so clean. How hard Maggie must battle daily!

  Then David was there and their work began. Clare knew it was going’ to be a hard labour, perhaps with complications.

  It was five hours later that the baby was born. It was a small, red-skinned, black-haired scrap of humanity, and as David held the infant up by the heels and it coughed and spluttered and then suddenly wailed, Clare was very near tears. She took the baby as David gave him to her and David turned to Maggie.

  “A fine little son, Maggie,” he said.

  Clare tenderly held the slippery little body, looking down at the miracle she never could take for granted.

  Everything so small and so perfect. The baby was really wailing now, his healthy lungs being exercised.

  Maggie was smiling. She looked’ exhausted and radiant at .the same time. “Does Bill know?”

  “I’ll tell him now,” David said.

  Soon the painfully thin man was there, holding Maggie’s hand tightly.

  “Oh, Bill, isn’t it wonderful? Another son to help us run the farm. Wasn’t I clever?” Maggie said.

  Bill looked miserable. “He’ll be a crazy fool if he farms.”

  Maggie held his hand to her cheek. “Even crazier if he doesn’t. It’s the only life, darling, and you know it.”

  Bathing the small baby., dressing it in the clean baby clothes that had obviously been passed on from several other babies, Clare wondered how an English girl, unaccustomed to living this hard way, could be so gallant and yet so happy. For Maggie was happy. They had talked a lot during the long difficult hours, and there was no doubt in Clare’s mind — Maggie was one of the happiest girls she had ever met. Oh, she hated the flies and the heat and the dust and the bills that accumulated, but who wouldn’t? You must love a man an awful lot, Clare thought, to stand this sort of life and still find happiness.

  They put the baby in the cot close to Maggie, and Clare walked with David to the plane. “There may be a sudden reaction during the night,” he told her. “You know what to do?” He had left certain drugs and instructions. “I’ll send for you tomorrow, but I must get back right away. Maggie is pretty weak and I want her to have a long rest this time, so I’ll send someone to take over. I don’t think the kids will worry you.”

  “Rosie’ll help me,” Clare said, the sunlight dazzling her, the flies creeping over her skin. She had thought it was hot at Baroona, but here …!

  “Well,” David said abruptly, his voice suddenly defiant, “what do you think of this side of Australian life? Very different from the Johnsons’ way of life, isn’t it? Yet there are thousands of small farmers like Bill in Australia, always struggling. Just let them get a distant view of success and there’s either a drought or a flood or some disease to finish off everything. What a way to drag out an existence!”

  Clare was startled. “But they’re happy.”

  “Happy are they? Maggie is just thirty, and yet she has six kids and the eldest is ten years old. How many more can she have in the next ten or fifteen years? How can she go on living this strenuous life? What sort of life is it for a girl, anyway?”

  “But they love one another—”

  Clare slapped at the flies and wished she had put on a hat as the sun blazed down.

  “Love!” David said scornfully. “Does he love her?

  What man has the right to expect a woman to adapt her life to his? Why should a woman make all the sacrifices?”

  He sounded so angry that Clare wondered what could have upset him. And then she thought – was Gillian, Barry’s stepmother, the girl David had loved and wanted to marry, at the back of it? Was David remembering Gillian, regretting the fact that he had lost her because he expected too much of her?

  “But, David, when you love a man—” Clare began.

  He turned to look at her. “Could you live like this?”

  he asked, waving his arm vaguely.

  She looked at the parched grass, the small green vegetable patch near the house, the dusty earth that seemed to blow everywhere, the thin horses grazing in the paddock, the rusty machinery in a shed, the children still huddled under the ghost gums, waiting to be called.

  “It would be hard,” she agreed.

  “You see,” David said triumphantly. “Now what right has Bill to demand this of the woman he’s supposed to love? They were in London, both had good interesting jobs, and they come to this, simply because he wants to farm.”

  “But if he can only be happy farming—”

  “Happy! Is he to be the happy one and everyone else miserable?”

  She was startled by the anger in his voice. Was he arguing with himself?

  “But Maggie is happy– she’s happy because Bill is.”

  His hands were warm on her shoulders. “Clare, if I loved a girl, I couldn’t ask her to live like this. I couldn’t demand such a sacrifice.”

  “But it wouldn’t be
a sacrifice if she loved you.”

  “It would have to be a very great unselfish love,” he said.

  “But, David, Maggie told me they were most unhappy in London. Bill was restless and miserable. Of course they’re poor and everything is a battle, but they have one another.”

  David still held her as he looked down at her earnest flushed face. “You think that is enough?”

  Clare smiled. “But of course. That’s all a woman really wants, David, to love and be loved.”

  He looked into her eyes. “Is that what you want? Just to be loved, Clare?” he asked gently.

  There was a strange exciting look in his eyes. Clare felt breathless as she stared at him. She could see herself reflected in his grey eyes. And suddenly she knew something – something so wonderful she could not believe it – something so frightening that she could not speak.

  She was in love with David.

  “Doc, Doc, is it all over?” One of the small children was tugging at David’s legs, his small grubby face tired and tearful. “We want to go home!”

  Slowly David’s hands left Clare’s shoulders. Slowly he straightened, looking down at the boy for a moment as if he did not see him.

  “Sure, Roger, you can go home. But don’t make a noise, for Mummy’s very tired, and you’ve got a baby brother.”

  Rosie had come after her small brother. Now she held him firmly as she looked at David, her face bright.

  “A baby brother?”

  “M’m, and Nurse Clare is staying for the night. Look after her for me, Rosie.”

  Rosie smiled. “I will, Doc.”

  “Good on you, mate,” David said with a smile. He looked at Clare and there was a strange withdrawn expression on his face. “See you tomorrow.”

  As he got into the plane, the children and Clare moved away. The plane taxied down the uneven strip, swerved ungracefully into the air, climbing, circling, dipping a wing in salute, and then vanishing into the distance. Clare stood still, watching until the small silver dot vanished. She was trembling. She had been ever since she saw that strange look in his grey eyes, and had known she loved him. She remembered the way he had known she loved him. She remembered the way he had argued about men demanding too great sacrifices of the women they loved. Had he meant he was prepared to give up his Flying Doctor work and live hi a city if she wanted him to do so? Was it his way of making a proposal?