Midwife in a Million

by Fiona McArthur

  ‘Sounds fine.’ But all she could think of was how much she wanted to get going so this agonising exposure to Rory could be over with.

  Kate checked Lucy’s stretcher safety belt, forced a smile for her sleepy patient and buckled her own belt. She’d take it one hour at a time and not think about that talk she’d have to have on the way home. But it was hard when she had to decide what and how much to tell him.

  Maybe she could leave him in Derby and drive the truck back herself. The idea had merit but, unless Rory had changed more than she expected, he’d be unwilling to send her off on her own.

  The wind whipped the scrubby grass and stunted gums at the side of the road as they drove towards the distant ochre ranges and lifted the red dust they stirred into the now grey-black sky behind them.

  At least the wind would shift the dust cloud more quickly when the road trains drove past, Kate mused, and, as if conjured, Rory slowed their vehicle and pulled close to the edge of the road to widen the distance between them and an oncoming mammoth truck.

  The unsealed road was an important transport access for the huge cattle stations that lay between the infrequent dots of civilisation.

  Road trains were three and four trailer cattle trucks that thundered backward and forward across vast distances. These road monsters didn’t have a chance of stopping if you pulled out in front of them.

  Even overtaking a road train going in the same direction was difficult because the dust they stirred was so thick that visibility was never clear enough to ensure there wasn’t other traffic heading your way, and the risk far outweighed the advantages.

  Kate remembered pulling over and brewing a cuppa instead of following one heading towards Derby in the past. She was thankful this one was travelling in the opposite direction.

  This truck sported a huge red bull bar that flashed past Kate’s opposite window and three steel-sided pens filled with tawny cattle rattled after it. She sighed with relief when the dust was blown away by the ever-building wind and they could move on.

  An hour and a half of corrugations later, they came to the first of the major rivers they’d have to cross, the Pentecost. There was barely any water over the road, a mere eighteen inches, but that would change as soon as the storm hit. Then they’d be stuck on the other side until it went down.

  Kate caught a glimpse of a silver splash from the bank ten metres back from the road and shivered.

  Thank goodness the height of water was easy to see because Kate had no desire to watch Rory walk the Pentecost to check the level.

  Not that anyone walked across here. The Pentecost was populated with wildlife and a saltwater croc might just decide it fancied a roll with him. The name saltwater crocodile didn’t mean these creatures needed to be near the sea. They were quite happy to eat you a couple of hundred kilometres inland in freshwater. Even with her dread of the ‘talk’, that wasn’t how she wanted to avoid Rory’s company.

  Rory slowed the truck for the descent into the river bed, changed into low range and then chugged into washed gravel to crawl though the wide expanse of water. Once across, they steadily climbed out the other side until back on the road and trails of water followed them as the truck shed the water they’d collected.

  She looked up front through the windshield to where they’d stop. Her stomach dropped. Not here!

  Ten years ago, Rory and Kate had set up a picnic at sunset out here to enjoy the glory of the Pentecost River and the distant ranges. That night before Rory left he’d wanted a place that wasn’t her father’s land and this was where they’d come. A point on the triangle of vast distances people thought nothing of travelling.

  The memory was etched indelibly and Kate felt the soft whoosh of time as she remembered. That sunset had been as deeply coloured as a ripe peach with the magnificent sandstone escarpment of the Cockburn Range in the distance. She blushed red-ripe herself at that memory because that evening she’d set out to seduce the diffident Rory and they’d both got more than they’d bargained for.

  That was their round-bellied boab up ahead. She just hoped Rory would have more delicacy than to pull in there.

  The truck slowed and turned off the road into the lay-by. She glanced around for an alternative. Trouble was, theirs was the only decent sized parking area clear of the road and their boab was part of it. She sighed.

  Grow up, she admonished herself. She needed to check Lucy’s blood pressure and her baby’s heart rate but the memories of this place all those years ago crowded her mind as she waited for Rory to open the door.

  Kate remembered the night before Rory left ten years ago and unfortunately it was as clear as yesterday.

  ‘So you are leaving?’ Kate couldn’t believe it. Rory gone? What would she do without Rory? He stood tall and lean and somehow distant, as if he had to be aloof to say what he needed. This wasn’t her Rory.

  Safe in his arms was the one place she felt loved for herself. He was the one person who understood how lonely she’d been since her mother had died, the person who could make her laugh at life and made her complete.

  ‘I’m leaving tomorrow morning. With the cattle on the road train,’ he said and the words fell like stones against her ears. How would she bear it? How could he?

  He went on, ‘I can start my paramedic degree in two weeks. I have that. When I asked to marry you we both knew he’d fire me.’

  He paused and looked away from her and she knew it was to hide his shame. He had nothing to be ashamed of. Kate wanted to hug the memories away from him. She knew what had happened. She’d overheard her father flay the pride from Rory as if he was a criminal.

  She’d tried not to listen to the threats and abuse but if her father had thought she would think less of Rory from that exhibition then he was wrong. She was ashamed that she had Lyle Onslow’s blood in her own veins.

  ‘I’m sorry for my father, Rory.’

  His eyes stared at the distant hills with a determination she’d never seen before. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He reached into his pocket. ‘I have something for you.’ He snapped open the box. ‘Will you wear this until I come back?’ he said, and pulled the ring free. She recognised it as a tiny pink diamond from the mines behind Jabiru—a token she had no idea how he’d managed to pay for—and slid it on her finger, where it sat, winking prettily at both of them. No matter that her father had refused permission.

  She looked at the ring—Rory’s ring—it could have been the largest diamond in the world and it wouldn’t have been any more precious, but most of all she wanted to comfort Rory. Apologise for her father, show him how much she loved him. All she could do was pull Rory’s face down to hers and kiss him. They were alone under the vastness that would soon turn to night. Their last night together.

  ‘I want to marry you. I do,’ she said. For the first time she dared to gently ease the tip of her tongue into his mouth, awkwardly but with all her heart and soul in that one timid adventure, and suddenly they had entered a whole new dimension that sent spears of heat flicking from her through to Rory.

  He groaned and kissed her back, answering her challenge, each emboldened by the other, enticed by the danger until both were mindless with the desperation his leaving had ignited between them.

  She needed to feel his skin, hear his heart and she fumbled open his shirt and slid her hands against his solid warmth, up and down, not really sure what she should do but needing to feel and mould the hard planes of his chest—a chest she wouldn’t have near to lean on if he went.

  She could feel the shudder in his body as he sucked in the air he needed for control, groaned with what she did to him, and she rested her hand over his heart and soaked in the pounding of his life force.

  That was when she realised she had power. She could move him and make him lose a little of that tightly leashed control he’d always had. Push him to the edge and maybe he’d take her with him over to a place they’d always pulled back from.

  He tried to put her away from him but she wouldn’t let
him, flung herself back against him, pulling his hands up to caress her in return. Then it changed; she wasn’t the one in charge.

  Suddenly she was in his arms, carried to the blanket she’d set up for their picnic, laid gently on the grass and he was beside her.

  ‘Are you sure?’ His whisper over her ear.

  ‘Yes.’ No second thought. ‘Kiss me.’

  Then they were unbuttoning, discovering the places they’d left secret, venturing with her murmurs of pleasure and encouragement to seal their pact once they’d fumbled with their inexpert attempt at protection.

  Kate realised she had her hand on her throat and the pulse beneath her fingers rushed with memories. The truck had stopped and she dragged her thoughts back to the present with a shiver.

  They’d be gone from here soon and so would the memories that clung to her in this place like entangling cobwebs. She’d only need a minute or two to check Lucy and hear what she couldn’t as they rattled over the corrugations.

  Still sleepy, Lucy stirred and opened her eyes. ‘Where are we?’

  Kate laid her hand on her arm. ‘It’s okay. Pentecost River. How’re you feeling?’

  Lucy blinked like an owl. ‘I can hardly keep my eyes open.’

  ‘It’s the drugs for your blood pressure. Just doze as you can. I need to listen to your baby and check your observations while we’re stopped.’

  Lucy nodded sleepily and Kate slipped her stethoscope into her ears to listen for Lucy’s blood pressure. All the while she was aware that Rory was walking around the truck towards the rear doors and any minute now she’d have to face him. That wasn’t going to be as easy as it should be with those intimate memories so vivid in her mind.

  Lucy slipped back under her sheet when Kate had finished.

  Rory arrived, opened the back doors and waited to hear the verdict. ‘Lucy okay?’ His bulk blocked some of the light that spilled in with the open air and Kate was glad of the dimness because the heat had rushed into her cheeks and, uncomfortably, into other places too.

  She licked dry lips. ‘Better. Blood pressure’s one forty on ninety. Much improved. I’m happy if it’s still sitting at ninety diastolic.’ Kate eased her cramped knee and sighed. She’d have to get out and stretch. It was crazy not to walk around the vehicle to move her legs for a minute before they set off again. She just hoped he’d move and she wouldn’t have to squeeze past him.

  As if he read her mind, he stepped away and, once out, it was hard to stifle the urge to catch a glimpse and see if their initials were still engraved on that tree.

  She looked away to the river and realised Rory had moved up beside her, not touching but watching her. That was the worst thing. He didn’t have to touch her—she could feel his aura and there was nothing she could do about the tide of heat that again ran up her neck. Or the aching desire to just lift her hand and rest it on his cheek. Where had everything gone so wrong between them?

  ‘Our initials are still there, on the tree,’ he said.

  Kate’s heart thumped at him reading her so easily. She was twenty-six, for goodness’ sake, too old to be self-conscious about adolescent romanticisms. It would be horribly awkward if he saw how weak she was.

  She stepped past and thankfully her breathing became easier. Away from him.

  Rory didn’t know what to say. The memories were there for him, bombarded him here, and he hated the way she threw an offhand glance at the tree. As if it meant nothing.

  ‘We were vandals,’ she said, and he winced at the unexpected pain her comment caused. ‘You’d get fined for that nowadays.’

  She was so cold, Rory thought, and more like her father than he’d ever thought.

  She pointed to the river, no doubt to change the subject. ‘I stitched up a traveller two weeks ago from down there.’ They both looked. ‘The croc only nicked his fingers when he bent down to fill his water bottle.’

  Rory whistled through his teeth. ‘Now that’s one lucky man.’

  Kate smiled grimly. ‘Tell me about it.’

  No. He wanted her to tell him about what had happened ten years ago. Why she’d changed so dramatically. Why she’d broken her promise and said she didn’t love him. Sent the ring back.

  Had her father made her? Had Rory’s own parents had something to do with it? Now there was only Kate to ask.

  Why had Lyle Onslow victimised Rory’s father? Why fire him for no reason, stop his mother working anywhere on the station until they’d had to leave? Had the old man really been so afraid that Kate could love someone socially inferior like Rory?

  Rory opened his mouth and then closed it. He sighed. ‘I’ll top up the diesel with the jerrycans while it’s not raining.’ He walked away.

  It wasn’t what he’d been going to say. Kate knew that. That was the problem. They’d always had an intuition about what the other was thinking and it seemed she hadn’t lost hers either. She gazed out over the plains with the serpentine swathe of the river and the thick dark clouds almost obscuring the base of the ranges they’d watched that evening.

  The day she’d become a woman. A day that would affect her for ever. And Rory didn’t know. Would he understand? Would he hate her? Blame her? Feel sorry for her?

  ‘You right to go?’

  ‘Absolutely ready to go,’ she said, and they both knew that was exactly what she was thinking.

  Lucy had dropped into an uneasy doze and didn’t wake when the truck started again. Kate watched her patient’s flushed cheeks and a tiny niggle of fresh worry teased at her brain, pushing away thoughts of Rory.

  ‘It was a beautiful sunset that day.’ Rory’s voice was quiet and she knew it wasn’t only the sunset he was saying had been beautiful for them.

  Not now. Not with the memories so fresh in her mind. She felt the tears sting and she waited for them to form but of course it didn’t happen. She couldn’t go there.

  Thinking about that time of her life would open up all the wounds and grief and anger she’d bottled up for so long and she wasn’t sure what would ensue if she let them out. She was used to being frozen now. It was safe.

  Her glance rested on the young girl opposite her. With Lucy so sick, now was the time to be focused on her patient.

  ‘I don’t remember.’ She met his eyes briefly in the mirror and shrugged before she busied herself with writing down Lucy’s observations.

  Rory didn’t comment but, strangely, not once in the next hour did she feel his glance in the mirror as she had since Jabiru Township.

  When Lucy moaned softly in her sleep Kate narrowed her gaze on the bulge of Lucy’s stomach. She eased her hand down to gently rest on the top of Lucy’s uterus through the sheet. As she’d suspected, Lucy’s belly was firm and contracted beneath her fingers but, thankfully, after only seconds, the tightness loosened and her uterus relaxed.

  It was probably a Braxton Hicks contraction and not the real thing, Kate reassured herself, but the fact that Lucy had felt it even when half asleep was a worry.

  Kate glanced at her watch to note the exact time. She hoped Lucy didn’t take up regular moaning because then she’d have to start thinking the unthinkable.

  Please. She didn’t want a premature baby born hours away from hospital in the back of an ambulance truck.

  Closer to Derby might be okay. For about half an hour even the tiniest babies usually managed with warmth from the mum, and she could offer oxygen, but longer than that they had a tendency to crash. The risks increased dramatically for breathing difficulties, let alone all the other things that could go wrong.

  She’d never enjoyed her stints in the special care nursery, no doubt because it had been too close to her own skeletons in the closet, and she knew premature babies became ill from lots of things. She knew that sometimes they didn’t make it.

  Like hers. Like the child she’d never even seen, for all those reasons she’d never been given, and the memories she didn’t have that she’d blocked out successfully until now, until Rory had returned and allowed them
to crowd her mind again.

  Kate chewed her lip. ‘How long do you think the trip’s going to take?’ She had a fair idea of the answer; she just needed to ask it out loud and to share the anxiety that was building as she jammed the untimely images from the past back into their hidden cave.

  ‘Five hundred kilometres to go, at say fifty an hour is ten hours plus stops and moments of unusual interest. We’ve done two.’ Rory looked up for the first time in a long time and caught her eye in the rear-vision mirror. ‘I can shorten it by an hour but the ride will be rougher. Getting nervous, Kate?’

  Understatement. Not about the labour—just the baby. ‘Maybe we should have stayed at the clinic and had Lucy’s baby there. At least we’d have electricity and more hands.’

  ‘But they said ship her out.’

  ‘I know. The problem is there’s a real risk if Lucy’s blood pressure continues to climb.’

  Not to mention the haemorrhage risk, Kate thought, but didn’t say it out loud in case Lucy woke up. Already placental vessels would be damaged and weakening from the constant high pressure of blood. If one of the vessels burst it would pour blood between the placenta and the uterus, then mother and baby would be in big trouble. Like Kate had been. She’d have to watch Lucy for pain that didn’t come and go.

  ‘I think she’s starting to contract,’ she said quietly to Rory. ‘Still irregularly, but the Nifedipine doesn’t seem to be holding her.’

  Rory frowned. ‘Are you saying nature wants that baby out and she might go into labour?’

  ‘Most likely. I’m all for that.’ Kate grimaced. ‘Just not on the road.’

  Rory looked up at her again through the mirror and, while his face remained serious, his sincerity shone through. ‘That’s why you’re with her. I’ve got faith in you. And I bet Lucy does too. Everything will be fine.’

  It was a platitude. An attempt to ease her strain. He was a very experienced paramedic and ambulance officer, a professional at calming people in stressful and extreme situations.