‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that,’ she said. ‘Are you doing evening surgery?’
‘Yes, but it’s lightly booked. It should be finished by six.’
‘I’ll see you at seven, then,’ she told him. ‘On the east shore. With sausages.’
‘See you then.’
Terrific, she thought as she drove butcher-wards. What on earth was she doing?
She didn’t have a clue.
CHAPTER TEN
SHE was there-with appendages. Fergus pulled into the east shore parking area, where a row of eucalypts divided the paddocks from the sandy shore, and he thought she’d brought everyone she could think of.
Ginny. Madison. Twiggy, Snapper and Bounce. Richard, lying on a blow-up mattress on the shoreline and seemingly asleep, and Miriam, calmly sitting beside him, her stockings off and her feet in the water.
It was a real family picnic, Fergus thought, and he wanted to run.
‘Hi.’ Ginny rose from where she’d been sorting through a picnic hamper. She was wearing a crimson bikini with a crimson and white sarong. She was smiling.
Maybe he didn’t want to run.
‘Bounce nearly ate the sausages,’ Madison announced. She was also wearing a bikini-a miniature version of Ginny’s. The Cradle Lake ladies auxiliary had held a working bee to augment Madison’s scant wardrobe. She now had outfits for every occasion, but her tiny body still looked waiflike and Fergus felt his heart wrench.
Maybe he should run.
‘So who saved the sausages?’ he asked, and Richard opened his eyes and managed a weary smile.
‘Our Ginny was a rugby player in a previous life. It was a tackle that would have done an international player proud.’
‘Ginny got a sore knee,’ Madison said gravely, and Fergus looked at said knee and saw a graze and a trace of blood.
‘Do you need a doctor?’ he asked, and she flushed a little.
‘I don’t need a doctor, thank you very much,’ she managed.
‘We need a cook,’ Miriam told him. ‘You’re on barbecue duty.’
‘Why?’
‘Men tend barbecues,’ Richard whispered. ‘And I can’t.’
It was all Richard could do to make himself heard, Fergus thought, looking down at his patient in concern. It must have cost him a huge effort to be there tonight. But together Miriam and Ginny had him comfortable. They had his oxygen cylinder set just above the water line. They’d lain him right on the water’s edge and he had a hand trailing lazily in the water.
The night was warm and dreamy, the sun a low ball of fading heat, reflecting softly off the water. If I only had a few days left, this is where I might like to be, Fergus thought, and glanced at Ginny and saw she was thinking exactly what he was thinking. There was pain behind her eyes, knowledge of imminent loss.
‘Let’s get these sausages cooked,’ he said, maybe more roughly than he’d intended. ‘Maddy, would you like to help me?’
‘Madison,’ she whispered.
‘Sorry. Madison, would you, please, help me with the sausages?’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Have they been pricked?’
‘Pricked?’
‘No,’ Ginny told him. ‘They’re unpricked sausages.’
‘That’s a terrible state of affairs,’ he told the little girl. ‘Let me teach you how to professionally prick a sausage.’
They pricked, cooked and ate their sausages. They polished off salad and lamingtons and sponge cake and grapes and lemonade.
‘It’s time to swim,’ Ginny decreed.
‘Aren’t you supposed to wait for half an hour after eating?’ Fergus asked, and she gazed at him blankly.
‘Why?’
‘In case of cramp.’
‘What medical textbook did that come out of?’
‘My mother’s,’ he said, and she grinned.
‘My mother said every minute out of the water on a night like this was a minute wasted. Are you pitting your mother against my mother?’
‘No,’ he said faintly. ‘I daren’t.’
‘You did bring your togs?’
He had. He felt a bit self-conscious hauling off his shirt and trousers, with everyone looking at him. Ginny had seen him before but the thought of that made him even more self-conscious-and Miriam whistling didn’t help at all.
‘Ooh, Dr Fergus. You make me go all wobbly round the knees.’
‘I begin to see what you see in the man,’ Richard managed, and Fergus made a valiant attempt not to blush.
‘I’m swimming,’ he said, and turned toward the water.
‘Not before the race,’ Ginny announced, and he hesitated.
‘The race?’
‘We have a boat.’ Ginny gestured up the bank to where an ancient bathtub lay on its side.
‘That’s a bathtub,’ he said cautiously.
‘The man’s intelligent as well as good-looking,’ Richard whispered. ‘Ginny, you’ve struck gold.’
‘Quiet,’ Ginny ordered. She turned back to the lake and gestured to a series of poles curving about two hundred yards out into the lake. ‘We use the bath to paddle through as many poles as we can. The poles are all in shallow water,’ she said. ‘They mark the boundary of where non-swimmers can go. Plus they act as a sort of slalom run.’
‘A slalom run,’ Fergus said cautiously. ‘As in skiing. Right. Um… Anything else I should know?’
‘Our bathtub doesn’t have a plug.’
‘Right.’
Ginny grinned at his evident confusion. ‘Right behind where the bath is, there’s a clay bank,’ she told him. ‘It’s really gluey clay, and it’s the makings of a Cradle Lake tradition. You make your own plug. Your plug can be made of anything you can find on the ground, like leaves, grass, even cow pats-but the plug has to be held together by clay.’
‘I see.’ He shook his head. ‘Nope. I don’t see.’
‘The trick is to make your plug, launch your bath and then paddle-using only arms over the side. You weave in and out of the poles. The record is the third last marker before the plug disintegrates and the bath sinks.’
‘Who holds the record?’ Fergus asked, and Richard managed a smile.
‘That would be me. Aged all of fourteen. Twenty-three poles.’
‘Richard was great,’ Ginny told them, smiling down at her brother in affection. ‘But, Fergus, you’re a grown man with muscles that make even Miriam whistle. Surely you can beat a mere fourteen-year-old whippersnapper.’
‘With cystic fibrosis,’ Richard added. ‘Everyone without cystic fibrosis should be handicapped.’
‘No one’s beaten your record,’ Ginny said soundly. ‘Stuff cystic fibrosis. It didn’t beat you then.’
It didn’t beat you then…
This was a battle, Fergus thought. He looked from brother to sister and back again and thought this disease had been a part of their lives for so long that it was a tangible thing. A monster to be beaten, over and over again.
Until it could no longer be beaten. Which would be soon.
Meanwhile, they were watching him. Expectant.
‘You want me to show you how it’s done?’ Ginny asked. ‘Richard would but he’s a bit tied up at the moment.’
‘You could say that,’ Richard said, and grinned. ‘Madison, sit by me while your Aunty Ginny plays boat captain.’
‘I reckon Madison could go in the boat,’ Miriam said, smiling at the lot of them like an indulgent aunt instead of the efficient nurse she was.
‘Can the dogs go in the boat, too?’ Madison asked, and Ginny held up her hands in horror.
‘One child maybe but no dogs. I intend to set a mark that Dr Reynard can’t beat. Madison, you can help paddle but the dogs would sink us by the first pole.’
‘Right,’ Miriam said decisively. ‘That’s it, then. The crews are decided. Let’s get this boat race under way.’
It looked easy, Fergus thought, sitting on the sun-warmed sand and waiting
as Ginny prepared her plug.
‘The trick is not to show Dr Reynard what we’re doing,’ she told Madison, and they turned their backs on him and stooped over the clay bank. ‘But the trick is to weave the grass, over and over. Watch.’
Two heads bent, intent.
This was great, Fergus thought. This, for Madison, was a night off. She was totally absorbed, and for the moment she could forget the horrors of abandonment, the loss of her mother. She was handing Ginny blade after blade of grass, and a complicated piece of neurosurgery couldn’t have elicited more attention.
‘Right,’ said Ginny at last. ‘Fergus, you’re permitted to help haul the bath to the water’s edge.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
‘Think nothing of it.’
They hauled the bath down to the shore, then Ginny fitted the now empty picnic hamper into the rear, upside down.
‘That’s your seat,’ she told Madison. ‘Put your toes down into the water and kick as hard as you can. Kick and kick and kick. I find yelling helps, too. A sort of warrior war cry. Listen as I yell and follow.’
Madison looked dubiously at Ginny. For a moment Fergus thought she’d refuse, but Ginny was squeezing a little more water out of her plug and not paying attention.
Finally she looked up, satisfied.
‘Right,’ she told Madison, woman to woman. ‘Are we ready?’
‘Yes,’ said Madison.
So Madison was seated on the wicker basket. Ginny climbed aboard and squished her plug into the hole.
‘Right,’ she yelled. ‘Push.’
Fergus and Miriam pushed the boat out into the water, through the first poles.
‘Go,’ Ginny yelled. She was in the bow of the bath, leaning forward so her hands were paddling crazily in front of her. The boat was hardly steerable. The trick was to get close enough to the next pole to grab it and haul the tub around. ‘Go, go go,’ Ginny yelled, and Madison kicked with a ferocity that belied her four years of age.
‘Go,’ Madison yelled, entering into the spirit of things and kicking harder. ‘Go, go, go.’
The dogs were going crazy, barking in chorus. Miriam was laughing, and Richard was doing a close approximation to a chuckle, holding his hands up and clapping to show encouragement.
Five poles. Six. Seven, eight…
The tub settled lower in the water.
‘Kick,’ Ginny yelled, hauling the tub round the next pole. ‘Go, go go.’
Two more poles. The bow dipped…
The bathtub slid silently underwater, but by the time it sank Ginny had Madison in her arms, hugging her and cheering as their vessel disappeared from view.
‘We were fantastic, Maddy, girl,’ she whooped. ‘Weren’t we fantastic?’
‘Madison,’ Maddy said, but she was smiling.
‘Fourteen poles,’ Ginny said in satisfaction. ‘Beat that, Dr Reynard.’
Only, of course, he couldn’t. He made a plug he was sure would hold. Miriam and Ginny and Madison shoved him forward with a push he had to concede was as powerful a start as he’d given them. They whooped, the dogs barked-and he sank as he reached the eleventh pole.
‘Pathetic,’ Richard whispered as they hauled the bathtub back to shore. ‘See what cystic fibrosis can do for a man?’
‘I’ll get better,’ Fergus said.
‘Not if you only stay here a few more weeks,’ Richard told him. ‘It takes a lifetime to build a skill like that.’
He broke off, gasping, and Ginny flinched. But it seemed she was determined to keep them all cheerful.
‘We all need a swim,’ she said determinedly. ‘Richard, would you like us to push you further in?’
‘I’m happy where I am,’ Richard managed. ‘Just watching. I’ve pushed my bathtub for twenty-three poles. What more can a man expect out of life?’
They stayed until dark. Miraculously Fergus’s pager stayed silent. They dried off. Ginny did a quick change behind a beach towel that had Fergus fascinated. Then they toasted marshmallows on the fire and sat and watched as the moon came up over the water.
Miriam excused herself. ‘I’ll be back at the house when you get there,’ she told them, ‘but there’s not a lot of nursing to be done here. Fergus, if you’ll stay to help Ginny get them all home, I might nip home myself and spend an hour or two watering my vegetable patch.’
‘She shouldn’t be staying with us,’ Ginny said, obviously feeling guilty as Miriam left.
‘It’s cost-effective,’ Fergus told her. ‘We worked it out. Two patients needing full-time care. We’d have to put another nurse on if we had them in hospital so the board’s happy to pay Tony and Miriam and Bridget to work like this.’
‘How hard did you have to twist their arms?’
‘I didn’t,’ Fergus said honestly. ‘This is a great little community, Ginny.’
‘I know it is,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t realised… If only my parents had asked for help…’
‘And you hadn’t had a neighbour like Oscar.’
She shrugged. ‘Oscar’s irrelevant.’ She turned and looked at Richard. As the sun had set they’d piled blankets over him to keep him warm. He’d stayed awake until the last ray had faded behind the distant mountains, watching with something akin to greed.
He’d watched the sun set on the lake. He’d watched his daughter trying to swim.
This was some hospice, Fergus thought. Would that all dying patients got such care.
He was deeply asleep now. Deeply…
For a moment Fergus hesitated, but then he rose and crossed to the makeshift bed. He stooped and felt for the pulse.
It was still there. Just. A thready, too fast pattern.
He turned and Ginny was hugging Madison to her, tight. Her face had blenched.
‘It’s OK,’ he said gently. ‘He’s still with us.’
The tension eased from her face, but not the pain.
‘Soon,’ she whispered.
‘Soon,’ he agreed. ‘But you’ve given him this night. You’ve given him the knowledge that his little girl will be cared for. It’s some gift, Ginny.’
‘You’ve helped,’ she whispered. Like Richard, Madison had slumped into sleep. She’d been seated beside Ginny and gradually she’d eased down onto Ginny’s knees. Ginny was cradling her, taking comfort as well as giving it.
The little girl stirred now and whimpered a little, as if she realised that the arms she was in weren’t those of her mother. Ginny eased her down onto the rug, pulling another rug over her. Then she sat and watched the tiny face, concentrating fiercely on sleep.
Soon they’d have to stir. They’d have to wake Richard and move him back to the house. Soon this evening would be ended.
She didn’t want it to end, Fergus thought, watching Ginny’s face and knowing instinctively what she was thinking. She knew her brother wouldn’t be coming back here.
Something was ending tonight.
He couldn’t bear it.
He didn’t remember moving. He just…did. One minute he was kneeling beside Richard. The next minute he was on the rug with Ginny. He had her in his arms and he was kissing her.
He was kissing her as she needed to be kissed.
It was different from last night. Last night their love-making had been driven by passion and laughter and mutual need.
Tonight…
Tonight he needed to kiss this woman as he needed to breathe. She was so beautiful, so needful, so brave…
She was taking the world onto her shoulders and she’d already been there. He had no doubt of the childhood she’d had, loaded with responsibility beyond her years, and here she was taking it on all over again.
She was so…so…
Ginny.
And she needed him. He could feel it in the way her body melted into his. In the way her face came up to meet his kiss, but more. It was as if she was a part of him that he hadn’t realised was missing. When her lips met his it was a completeness that he’d never experienced, could never experience with anyone
but this woman.
Ginny.
Her lips were opening under his. She was wearing a fleecy jogging suit, soft pants and an oversized sweater, which should be keeping her warm on such a mild night and so close to the fire, but she was trembling.
He held her and kissed her and kissed her and he thought this was right, this was how the world was meant to be.
This woman in his arms for always. For ever.
But Madison’s little body was hard pressed against Ginny. Maybe she felt the change in Ginny’s body. Maybe she felt the trembling and it fed her own insecurities. For whatever reason, she suddenly whimpered a little and drew away.
It broke the moment. Ginny’s hands touched his shoulders but already he was drawing away, looking down at the child in concern, looking back at Ginny, seeing Ginny’s uncertainty in the firelight…
‘I…’ She reached up and touched her lips where she’d been kissed, as if she had trouble understanding the sensation, the taste, the lingering feeling of awe she must feel because that was how he felt. Like the world had changed.
She’d said their time in the boatshed had changed her world, he thought, dazed. Maybe…maybe tonight had changed his.
No. Last night he’d known that he wanted this woman. The only thing that had changed was the intensity of that feeling.
‘Ginny, we need to be together,’ he whispered, and touched her face.
‘I don’t see how.’
‘We can work it out. We must.’
‘I don’t see how.’
‘I can do this,’ he said. He hesitated, taking in the scene lit by the firelight and the rising moon. A dying man. Three dogs, lying by Richard’s side. Richard had demanded the leftover sausages and he’d fed pieces of them to the dogs while they’d swum, making them his devoted fans for ever. Or for however long he had.
Before him was a beautiful woman, huddled into an oversized windcheater, gazing at him with eyes that were uncertain-but challenging. All or nothing, her gaze said. If I can do it, you can do it. Start again.
A child.
A little girl lying by her side.
Rescue at Cradle Lake Page 14