by Ramsay, Anna
The treatment was very simple and very special. 'Some consider,' the lecturer had told his rapt class of students, 'that ORT—Oral Rehydration Therapy—is more important even than the discovery of penicillin. A single dose can save a child's life. And yet it is very cheap, and a mother can administer it herself. No need for a nurse or a doctor. It consists of a mixture of three different salts and glucose and it tastes like tears. UNICEF have undertaken to manufacture, promote and distribute rehydration salts all over the world. People are calling ORT the Child Survival Revolution.'
Squatting on the ground among the women, Jenni looked into their eyes and said slowly, 'Watch me. Watch me.' The women responded with strange jabbering. 'I haven't a clue what you're telling me,' smiled Jenni, 'but you're mighty interested, and so you should be. Now here's a foil packet, see how shiny and colourful it is, see the picture of mother and baby ...
Tear it open like this—oh, thank you.' Someone had pushed into her lap a metal pot and one of the plastic one-litre measuring jugs from the Mission clinic. This must be the woman singled out by Sylvia to be responsible for storing the packs of rehydration salts in her own hut, and teaching the other mothers how to treat their sick children. Clinic policy was to find and equip someone in every village to be responsible for this.
Jenni picked up and comforted a grizzling toddler who was rubbing his left ear against a bedraggled strip of animal fur tied round his wrist - village medicine, a cure for earache. He lapped up the water she offered, draining the mug of its pleasant, slightly sweet, mildly salty contents. 'That's a good boy,' she crooned, hugging the little mite close.
'How's it going?' murmured a deep voice in her ear, and lifting her face to the sun, Jenni found Ross crouching beside her, felt his arm come round her in a protective gesture. Escaping tendrils of her red-gilt hair tickled his unshaven chin. His closeness made her heart beat fast. They smiled at each other above the curly head of the wide-eyed child. 'Could you take a look at his ear for me?' she asked.
Her uniform was stained and creased. The doctor's bush shirt was damply patched with sweat, his fatigues caked with dust and grime. Trivial matters that these days she never even noticed.
A deep contentment suffused her; with an effort she resisted the urge to press her sunwarmed cheek against his hand.
'For you, Nurse,' said Dr Ross gravely, 'anything.'
Chapter Seven
Before they left, the thirsty medical team were offered goat's milk to drink from hollowed-out gourds. There were a lot of brown bits floating in Jenni's and the smell was offputting. But catching Ross's eagle-eyed signal she knew she must force herself to gulp the mucky stuff down. To refuse would be seen as an insult.
Leaving behind a plastic sack of ORT packs and supplies of dried milk, they reloaded the truck and climbed aboard for the long drive back to the Mission. They waved as they left, and the villagers, copying the gesture, waved back. Suddenly a man broke through the throng clutching a live and furiously cackling rooster. He caught up with the slowly moving truck and ran round to Jenni's side, thrusting the flapping and highly indignant bird through the window.
'What's he saying, Kefa, what's he saying?' she asked anxiously. 'What am I supposed to do?'
'You must accept this gift from the Village of Mercy to "the woman with hair of flames",' explained the dispenser.
'Oh, my g-goodness! Th-thank you.' The man's grinning head disappeared from view, and Jenni found herself hanging on to two scaly yellow legs while the bird bucked and flailed its wings and Ross said for pete's sake wring its neck before he crashed the blasted Land Rover.
Kefa produced a sack from nowhere and deftly stowed the bird inside, where it settled down huffily with the occasional indignant squawk. Jenni said it was Dr McDonnell who deserved presents, not she, and Ross said it was amazing the impression red hair and freckles made on some people.
'My hair isn't red, it's Titian. Titian changes colour from day to day.'
'I'd noticed that,' claimed Ross surprisingly. 'Sometimes you're an apricot, sometimes a strawberry. We’ll have that bird for supper tomorrow, cooked in a spiced coconut sauce.'
'Oh, how could you! I should choke on every mouthful knowing that those people had far greater need of it themselves. No,' said Jenni decisively, 'I shall take the rooster into school and offer it to the headmaster for a project—'
'Cookery project,' suggested the deep laconic tones.
Kefa tittered discreetly behind his hand and Jenni stiffened the Westcott chin in disapproval, pointedly concentrating on the view from her side window. She wasn't a girl to sulk for long. She was remembering her own schooldays… the teachers’ reports usually said she was a dreamer and a chatterbox. If she wasn't chattering she was day-dreaming. If she wasn't daydreaming she was—a sudden thought struck her and she voiced her worries aloud.
'I do hope they'll remember to boil the river water like I showed them. I wonder if they understood?'
Curtly Ross interrupted her. 'No good losing sleep over it. We'll come back in two weeks' time and see how things are.'
'Oh dear. Can't we make it next week? It seems so important to build on what's been done.'
Ross was trying to concentrate on following the tortuous track through this wilderness of bush. 'I'm in Dar three days next week, operating.'
Jenni knew that the most complicated eye cases were reserved for Ross to deal with en bloc in a marathon teaching session. That was that, then. A fortnight it would have to be.
That place was just one among many, yet Jenni couldn't rid her imagination of the plight of the Village of Mercy. 'Sylvia's made an excellent start on rehydration therapy,' she pointed out generously. 'Next time you take a clinic there I hope she'll notice a real improvement in those little ones.'
'I think you should be the one to come with me,' said Ross. 'You've clearly made something of an impression.’
‘Oh but I wouldn’t wish to upset her!’
‘Sylvia won't mind. She's got a lot on her plate, what with—' The rooster squawked agreement, but Ross never finished his sentence, obliged to concentrate instead upon skirting a crater right in their path.
But what about you? mused Jenni speculatively. Wouldn't you prefer to work with Sylvia?
'Well,' she responded quietly, 'it's your decision. I will go where I'm told.' She relaxed against her seat, as far as was possible in the jolting ride. Of course Dr McDonnell wouldn't be a man to confuse work with matters of the heart. He was a dedicated professional, that was plain to see. And if he wanted her working with him, then that was a vote of confidence in someone he had unfairly mistrusted right from the start.
Jenni yawned and sighed, but it was a sigh of contentment. She felt shattered, yes, but it was a warm and satisfying feeling. They had worked non-stop, all three of them: Kefa, patiently repeating over and over again, 'Amatispoona amabilli katha-tu ngelange. Take two teaspoons of this three times a day.'
She turned to smile at the dispenser, nodding off sleepily in the rear of the truck. 'You did a fantastic job, Kefa. You had to do so much of the talking for us. Could you understand what they were saying to you?'
'Some,' Kefa admitted with a flash of that shy smile of his. 'But you know, there are two hundred and twenty tribes in East Africa, each with its own language or dialect. It is not always easy to make oneself understood.'
'Two hundred and twenty!'
Jenni lapsed into drowsy silence. Poor Ross, having to do all the driving, and in such difficult conditions. Jenni did wish she could offer to take over the wheel and give the doctor a break. He had been on the go since dawn. She was OK in city traffic, but this was a whole new ballgame and the truck was a heavy thing to handle in bush terrain. Nightfall was barely an hour away. It was vital that they hit the murram roads before darkness descended with its customary swiftness.
There was an odd sort of taste in her mouth. She was sure it must be the goat's milk. 'Ross?' she murmured.
'Uhuh?'
'That drink the
y gave us. Did yours taste peculiar? Mine had all these brown bits floating about in it.'
The doctor grinned and for a brief moment took his eyes off the twisting track he had been concentrating on so grimly.
'They use manure to make their drinking vessels watertight,' he volunteered in the pleasant tones of one imparting an interesting snippet of information. 'Which accounts for the brown bits.'
Jenni's insides gave a ghastly lurch. 'I'm going to be sick!'
'Not in my Red Cross truck, you're not!’
She glowered and lapsed into an indignant silence, mentally ordering her stomach to behave. Was this the same man who but a couple of short hours ago had smiled into her eyes, held her in the circle of his arm, his heartbeats reverberating through her pliant body...
As the Land Rover bored its relentless path through the bush, Jenni's vivid inner eye replayed in slow-motion technicolor that interesting tableau.
Anyone glancing at her would assume the nurse was dozing, hand cupping her pointed chin, eyelids lowered in a sweep of golden lashes on sun-speckled skin. She was picturing herself with the child, Ross embracing the two of them in the shelter of his protective arm. Jenni shivered as she remembered how his heartbeat had quickened when she leaned trustingly back against him. Now why should that have been?—unless after all the cool clinical Dr McDonnell was not entirely impervious to Nurse Westcott and her fatal charm …
It was so unsettling to contemplate that Jenni felt her own heart begin to race and a blush start up her neck and spread to the roots of her hair. Imagine if he had kissed her, then and there, in front of Kefa and the entire population of the Village of Mercy! She knew that instinctively she had wanted him to, but the instinct had been triggered off by those pounding heartbeats pressed against her sweat-soaked back. It was his fault as much as hers. He hadn't been thinking of Sylvia at that moment. And she hadn't been thinking of Paul ... in fact, Jenni realised ruefully, she hadn't thought of Paul all day. In spite of the fact that she'd come all this way from England to be with him.
Paul and Ross. Such very different men. The two were like opposite poles of a magnet and Jenni felt her emotions pulled back and forth between them. Both men in their different ways irresistible. Irresistible. And impossible.
Paul, for all his sense of fun, had matured into a lonely monastic figure who, Jenni was slowly coming to the sad conclusion, would never marry. And as for the intriguing, infuriating Ross McDonnell—well, he had someone in his past. And Sylvia, present and future.
They were on to the murram roads now. Ross heaved a sigh of relief and recalled that an African doctor had told him of a black rhino crashing out of the bush and cannoning into a truckful of medical supplies. The Land Rover had been a write-off, and the doctor considered himself fortunate to have escaped with his life.
Ross pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. 'Physical danger is something I'm not used to,' he claimed, 'but it certainly gets the adrenalin flowing once in a while!'
Jenni glanced at him sharply. There was a glint in those eyes that suggested Ross actively enjoyed a touch of the James Bond to liven things up. She'd known he had a tough streak from the moment she set eyes on him. With that stubble and those heavy-lidded watchful eyes he could be mistaken for anything but a doctor. It was ridiculous that she should now find him so devastatingly attractive.
The ride was better now, but far from smooth. The rolling motion of the Land Rover caused Jenni's skirt to ride way up over her thighs. She kept pulling it down but it was wasted effort and she soon gave up trying.
When it came out of the blue, the stinging slap left a glowing imprint of Ross's hand on bare flesh. Jenni yelped in shock and pain. ‘Ross?!’
Kefa in the back gripped the edge of his seat in fright. One moment they had been travelling in a companionable silence - the next, Dr Ross had slapped the nurse on the leg! Oh my! He rolled his eyes and his mouth worked silently.
Ross pulled into the side and spread his palm. 'Sorry to hit you quite so hard, but take a look at this.’ In his hand lay the squashed remains of a large reddish-brown ant.
'A siafu!' breathed Kefa. 'Oh yes, the doctor is right, Nurse Jenni. This ant possesses powerful mandibles which bite and burrow into the victim's skin.'
'Here's my torch. Let's see if there's any more of those little devils before we drive on.' A thorough search turned up three more siafu. Kefa thought they might have been concealed among the rooster's feathers.
They finished the journey in alert silence.
* * *
'Dr McDonnell, I have just about had enough. Either that young man goes or I do!'
“Sister Bea!” Ross's eyebrows registered exaggerated alarm. Invitingly he patted the empty seat on his left and set about placating his senior nurse. 'I'm sorry to hear you feel less than charitable towards my prize patient. With a good meal inside you I’m sure you will be filled once more with the milk of human kindness. Now I can heartily recommend this chicken and peanut stew. Pass a plate along, you chaps down there.'
He leapt to his feet to pull out a chair for her and Bea sat down, glad to take the weight off her aching varicosed legs. ‘Ross, dear, don’t give me that milk of human kindness blather. You are not the one who has to cope with the two of them.
'It's not young Mgulu who's the problem,' pointed out Sylvia, who had returned from a week in London with a short feathery cut that suited her enormously. And an up-to-date make-up kit and enough new clothes to form a bridal trousseau. She looks smashing, thought Jenni, resting her chin on her fist and enviously watching the scene from farther down the long table. Ross can't take his eyes off her. And she's got that special glow of a woman in love. Lucky Sylvia. And unlucky me, to come all this way and discover that my dreams about Paul were ... well, just dreams ... and the man I really could fall for isn't up for grabs.
'Mgulu is most co-operative,' Sylvia was saying, 'but his dad gets increasingly tiresome—camping out at the end of the bed, tripping everyone up with that spear he refuses to part with, interfering with the treatment. And terrifying the rest of our patients! Fond as we've all become of them, it will make life easier when young Mgulu is discharged.'
'We-ell,' considered Ross, rasping the stubble on his unshaven chin, 'the bowel should be pretty well healed by now. He's a strapping feller, I reckon we could risk it. Tomorrow I'll take him into theatre and close the colostomy.'
Bea's faded blue eyes smiled back at him. She had a soft spot for Dr Ross, as Jenni well knew. 'We can certainly use the bed, doctor,' she agreed.
'True enough,' said Ross good-humouredly. 'Can’t have Matron being upset, can I! Allow me.' He spooned a generous helping of mashed squash on to Bea's plate, Jenni watching his every move with a quiet concentration she was entirely unaware of.
Sylvia folded her napkin and rose to her feet. 'Cataract list tomorrow, Ross,' she said briskly, all her old energy and dedication quite restored. 'I'll go and see to the pre-meds for you. You'll be coming over to do your usual check-up?'
Ross studied the watch strapped to a brawny sunburned wrist. 'Better see my pre-op patients now, before some other emergency crops up.'
'And I'll come too,' said Matt Blarney, keen as ever to shadow the experienced older doctor and learn all he could. Playing gooseberry, if he did but know it, insensitive boy! sighed Jenni to herself.
Leaving Bea in earnest conversation with the schoolteachers, she found a quiet corner to sit with her coffee and tuck a cushion in the small of her aching back. Eyes closed, she let her thoughts drift where they pleased. And as usual they pleased to settle on the person of Ross McDonnell. How disappointing that he hadn't wanted to join her for coffee and a chat about the day's work, as he sometimes did. But natural, of course, that he should wish to be with Sylvia now she was back and looking so glam.
A long sigh escaped Jenni's lips. If being in love made Sylvia look that great, why were there dark shadows which had nothing to do with melting mascara under Jenni’s own eyes. She was in love
too. It had crept up on her insidiously, and she'd tried so hard not to give in.
The fingers of her right hand closed over her left wrist and rested there. No need to take your own pulse to diagnose you were suffering from lovesickness! Well, it would go away of its own accord. It just had to. She couldn't be doing with falling in love with a man who had no time for her or her freckles or her short-sighted eyes or her wild red hair. A man who liked his women tall and tanned and handsome, with a brisk manner and a tongue to match.
Too restless to settle, she decided to take a stroll round the circumference of the Mission settlement. The darkness would hide her, and she couldn’t get lost if she didn't venture away from sight and sound of the buildings. Head down, she wandered slowly past Paul's darkened office, scuffing moodily through the dust and deliberately not allowing herself to look at the building where the doctor would be examining his cataract patients.
At this very moment Paul came coasting into the compound on his motorbike, free-wheeling in a wide circle with his engine turned off so as not to disturb the Mission, heading for the Admin block and coming to a halt beside Jenni.
Jenni decided she didn't want to be alone after all. She brightened visibly, but not before Paul's perceptive blue eyes had picked up her downcast mood.
He pulled off his black leather gauntlets and chucked her under the chin. 'Why so glum, chum?' he teased. 'I had a letter from your pa today. Want to come in and read it? He says they're all missing you and looking forward to seeing you at the end of next month.'
'Next month!' Jenni reeled back. If Paul had thrown a bucket of icy water full in her face it could not have been more shocking. Living each day as it came, all her energies concentrated on the here and now, she had given little thought for the passage of time. And Ross would leave before she did! 'But —but—' she stuttered painfully, 'I didn't realise ... I'm not nearly ready to go—'
Paul understood her distress. It gripped you like that, did Africa; seeped into your blood till you could live nowhere else but here. It had happened to him. It had happened to Sylvia. 'You go back while you can,' he warned, softening the seriousness in his voice with a chuckle. He gripped her shoulders in a wholehearted embrace, a pang wringing him as he noticed how slight the bones were beneath the thin covering of flesh. He didn't often think of Helen now, but for some reason the memory of his ex-fiancée came back within aching wistfulness for what might have been. Paul pushed it away with practised effort of will, and switched into counselling mode.