He didn’t quite wrinkle his nose but he turned his shoulder to block out the concept of happily married couples. ‘Let’s move to a spot with a bench so we can sit and just relax to enjoy the view.’
Harry’s aversion to marriage and happy couples was getting a bit old actually. Bonnie had no problem enjoying the history of the other couple. They found a spot on a rustically weathered log and as Bonnie emptied her hands she spotted Iris, her silver-haired, fly-swallowing lady from the first day, and waved.
Harry lifted one eyebrow as Iris bustled across, all chiffon and pearls, dragging a twinkle-eyed gentleman, and when she arrived she even kissed Bonnie’s cheek.
‘Hello, there, dear.’ Iris was glowing. ‘How lovely to see you.’ She glanced over her shoulder at her beau. ‘Fergus is a widower. We met last night. We had such a wonderful time that Fergus asked me to come with him again tonight.’
Bonnie shook the man’s hand. ‘That’s lovely, Iris. Hello, Fergus. This is Harry, the doctor I work with.’
‘Harry.’ Fergus smiled and they shook hands too. Bonnie pointed to the tray as it went past held by a smiling waitress.
‘Have you tried the crocodile?’
Iris giggled. ‘I said to Fergus, if I can eat a fly I can eat a crocodile.’ She glanced affectionately up at the elderly gentleman who looked down at her with an amused air. ‘He thinks I’m silly.’
‘Och, that’s no’ true. I think you’re a sweet wee gasbag and a lot of fun. Now, let’s leave these young ones to enjoy their evening while I whisper sweet nothings in your ear.’
Iris waved and Bonnie couldn’t help the grin on her face as she watched them walk away. ‘That’s great. A gorgeous Scotsman. She was so sad when I met her earlier in the week.’
‘You’re a softy. Care about each person, don’t you?’ Harry said. ‘Really wish them well. Anyone and everyone.’ He shook his head at the concept, pretended he didn’t subscribe to it too. ‘Not everyone is like that.’
She drained her glass. ‘I know for a fact you care, so don’t give me that. I’ve seen you in action in Bali. The kids on the bikes, that first night we met. Even the people here.’ She stared at him. ‘It’s what we do, Harry. Why we do it. Coming back to medicine might help you find the large part of you that’s missing.’ She felt the wall go up.
‘So I’m guessing you like it here.’ Harry changed the subject and she mentally shrugged. It was still like being in a minefield, talking to him.
‘I’m enjoying myself. I’d like more midwifery, but apart from the antenatal visits for the women from the settlement, as you’ve already said quite strongly, labours need to be shipped out. So I won’t see much of that. But I’m enjoying the diversity.’
‘Steve and Vicki do a good job.’ They took two more hors d’oeuvres as they went past and conversation gave way to pleasure in the view.
She nodded and sighed happily over the sunset that grew more spectacular by the second, and without looking at him tried for some history that wouldn’t upset him. ‘So, tell me how you know Steve?’
He put his glass down. ‘We grew up together, in Darwin. Went to the same schools, same group of friends, got married in the same year.’
He’d even mentioned his wife. That was a first. ‘So your wife was from Darwin too?’
‘No.’ He stood up and looked at the bar. ‘Do you want a soft drink? I think I’ll get one.’ Slam. End of conversation.
‘Sure.’ She stood up herself. ‘I might go and chase the waitress for another one of those crocodile biscuits.’
Bonnie circulated among the other guests, Iris introduced her around, she spoke to the wait staff she’d seen in the Desert Pea accommodation and avoided looking for Harry.
When they were called through the silk rope again from the top of the dune down to where the tables were laid out in the desert below, he appeared beside her in time to be her dinner companion, along with six other people at their circular table.
She wasn’t sure she’d have been so efficient. ‘I thought you might have preferred to sit next to someone less nosy.’
He touched his own nose. ‘You’re not nosy. I’m just out of practice answering to anyone.’
‘That’s your right. Sorry if I upset you, Harry.’ She chose her seat and tucked her bag under her chair.
He waited until she was seated, then sat down and they shared the sight of the vastness of the Olgas in front of them across the stretching desert. ‘You haven’t a mean bone in your body, Bonnie. Let’s just enjoy the night.’
Bonnie chose to admire the snowy cloth and the silver cutlery and the glasses that shone in the candlelight. Much better than feeling patronised, and a little irritated, even isolated below the stars that slowly appeared out of the darkening night sky, which was ridiculous. Other people introduced themselves, so there were other people apart from Harry here, she must remember that. This was getting old too.
She joined in the introductions that followed, appreciated the revelry as the champagne the others were drinking, even if she wasn’t, relaxed her dinner companions and loosened their tongues. It seemed they had a party of couples towing their caravans around Australia at their table.
‘Been on the road for three months,’ one of the husbands said with a grin, and his wife rolled her eyes. One of the other women giggled.
‘We’re in our fifth month,’ another commented, and Bonnie listened in awe as they spoke of the places they’d seen and the unexpected adventures they’d found. She couldn’t imagine being with one person for months on end in a vehicle. She certainly couldn’t imagine Harry doing it, but by the end of a long dinner and their companions, at least, draining the replenished red and white wine, she could see the fun of it.
Later that night, when the bus dropped them off, even Harry found himself returning to the staff quarters more relaxed than he’d expected.
He heard Bonnie say, ‘I had a ball.’
And it was actually easy to say, ‘Me too.’
He could see Bonnie still smiling over the risqué comments that had followed them off the bus and suddenly he didn’t want the night to end. Didn’t want to lose the connection they’d built up over the evening. A connection he hadn’t felt since Ubud, which, of course was his own fault.
‘Fancy a pot of tea? Don’t know about you but the evening seemed to end a bit suddenly for me.’
‘Sounds good.’ Bonnie looked up into the sky, searching for newly identified constellations, not so easy to see with all the lights around them. Out in the desert they’d extinguished the lights, the darkness had opened the whole sky to them, and it was a sight she’d never forget.
She spun around as she tried to identify the stars. ‘It was much easier when the astronomer pointed them out.’
She sounded plaintive, and Harry smiled to himself. Her eyes had been brighter than any of the stars they’d seen tonight. She’d been so excited to learn the names of the constellations and individual celestial bodies when the stargazer had told stories and myths from the past. He remembered how she’d been interested in the stars that night at Jimbaran.
‘Come inside before Security decides you’re up to no good.’
Bonnie turned her head and waved at the man with his torch who was circling the building. ‘I reckon he’d recognise us from the other night, but okay.’
They slipped in the front door and headed for the recreation room. ‘You make the tea, I’ll grab a box of chocolates from my room.’ Bonnie was gone before he could answer.
Harry turned the lights on in the communal dining room and plugged in the jug. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Every moment he spent with Bonnie made it harder not to pull her into his arms and find that peace he knew was there. The feeling of rightness he hadn’t lost since the magic of Ubud.
It had been like that with Clara too, he reminded himself. He didn’t even want to think about the differences between Clara and Bonnie. He had enough guilt.
There’d been magic with Clara too, and th
en before he’d known it he had been set up for heartbreak and disaster. No way was he going back. He had the horrors even imagining Bonnie in danger. And it wasn’t fair for him to not make that fact plain to Bonnie. Tonight.
On her side she’d kept the relaxed rapport from the evening. He could see that when she arrived back clutching an unopened box of chocolates. ‘My friends in Darwin gave me these. I’ll never eat them on my own. Seems right for tonight.’
She ripped open the box. Delightfully exuberant. ‘I had a great time.’ Bonnie popped a white sweet into her mouth and sighed blissfully. She sank back into the chair with her eyes closed.
He reached across and chose a dark nutty one with a twisted curl on top. Serious decision-making while he edged his brain around how he was going to say this. ‘Me too. Considering my behaviour earlier.’
She shrugged that away. ‘You didn’t want to talk about it.’
But he did now. ‘I want to apologise, though.’
She didn’t open her eyes. ‘Okay. Done. Let’s talk about something else.’
He supposed it was her turn to avoid unpleasantness but he needed Bonnie to understand how drawn he was to her, keen to spend time together if she was interested, but no strings and no future.
Not that she’d asked for any, and maybe the clarification was more for him than her, but he needed to say it. That he wasn’t opening himself for that kind of pain again.
The jug boiled and he got up and poured the water in the pot and put the cups on the table. Neither of them took milk. He’d learned that at least since he’d arrived. He sat down. ‘I’m guessing you haven’t asked Steve what happened to my wife and I. I appreciate that.’
Bonnie sat up and pointedly stared down at the chocolate choice in the box. He wished she’d look at him so he could see what she was thinking. Her posture suggested she didn’t want to hear and he was sorry about that.
After the relaxed evening it was probably a downer but she’d been happy to blast him at the airport and the sting lingered. She’d hear it and then they could both get on with their own lives.
She sighed and when she did look his way her eyes were the windows to the soul he’d expected. She’d accepted the conversation wasn’t going to go away.
‘Okay,’ she said quietly. ‘So you didn’t meet your wife in Darwin.’ She remembered his earlier statement. Of course she did. He’d bet she remembered a lot of things—some he wasn’t proud of.
‘I met Clara in Alice Springs. She did her training there and I met her again in Katherine when I started working for the RFDS.’
Bonnie so didn’t want to do this now. ‘Small planes make me sick. I could never nurse and fly at the same time.’ It had been a pleasant evening, she’d been proud of herself as she’d made headway with her plans of distancing Harry by being friendly and concentrating on other people. Drinking tea late at night was not good for distance. She should have stayed in her room.
She’d begun to feel queasy just knowing he was going to talk about his loss.
Did he have to ruin a great night? Did she really need to understand him? She was beginning to think the less she knew of Harry St Clair the better for her own sake, but she doubted she had a choice now he’d started.
Harry poured both teas. ‘I never felt sick, flying. Usually too busy with a patient to think about my stomach.’ His response came out lightly but she could see his mind was elsewhere.
Okay. Stop beating around the bush. Do it. Bonnie just wanted this over with. ‘So how long were you married?’ How long before she died? she really wanted to ask.
‘A year. But probably came down to a few months by the time you took out the amount of time I was away. We should never have got married, or at least I wasn’t keen on it until I had a less mobile job, but we did and very soon she fell pregnant, though we weren’t planning on that either.’
This was it. The reason he was how he was. Her voice dropped. ‘So what happened, Harry?’
‘Amniotic fluid embolism. Early labour.’
Bonnie felt her heart sink. Not nice at all.
‘We were in an outlying area. She should have gone to town at thirty-six weeks, been closer to the hospital. I wasn’t even there till near the end. Didn’t know what was happening. Nobody guessed. Everything should have been fine. No risk factors.’
Ouch. So he had no faith in natural labour. ‘Rare and horrible,’ Bonnie said quietly. ‘We’ve had one in Darwin, though before my time, and I think I read that the incidence as one in about twenty-six thousand. You can’t predict that. And not great odds if they do diagnose it when it happens.’
‘Yeah. Usual diagnoses made at autopsy.’ He grimaced. ‘Clara was a previously healthy woman, healthy pregnancy, but they found her uterus had a small rupture during early labour, must have been congenital, and the amniotic fluid got into her bloodstream, caused an allergic reaction. She collapsed and even though we did an emergency caesarean we couldn’t save her. I couldn’t save her. Couldn’t save my baby, though we tried. That resus nearly killed me. Certainly killed any desire to go back to medicine.’
‘Until now.’
He lifted his head and his eyes narrowed. ‘Who’s fault is that?’
She wasn’t taking the blame. No way. ‘Not mine. Nobody forced you. You’re your own man. But I’m glad you did. And I’m pretty sure Clint and Donna are too.’
His mind was still on Katherine with his own tragedy. No wonder she felt there was a part of him missing half the time. ‘I don’t know what I’d do if I came across it again.’
‘Are you sure of that?’ Bonnie didn’t agree. ‘Maybe you’d use what you learnt last time, pick it up way before anyone else, and give mother and child the chance they might not have had with the insight you gained. So that your wife and child’s lives weren’t wasted.’
He turned tortured eyes on her and Bonnie felt the squeeze in her heart that she was kidding herself if she thought she could stay immune to the hurt this man suffered. She was already too involved.
‘It’s the picture, Bonnie.’ The words were barely a whisper. ‘Her face as white as the hospital sheet.’ He shook his head. ‘My baby growing cold. It’s engraved on my soul.’
Bonnie felt her own heart rip. She stood up, moved to his chair and crouched down to put her arm around him. She rested her cheek against his.
‘It’s incredibly sad. And so hard on you. But maybe you should try to see there’s another side of the picture, Harry. Imagine it, because I can. It happened a minute or so later. Clara blowing you a kiss as she floated out the window, to heaven, with her baby. The two of them together, Harry, hand in hand. Sending you love for your pain but themselves at peace. Not bothered by pain or regret or fear.’ She leaned over and kissed his mouth. Willing his pain to ease. ‘There was nothing you could do.’ Quietly and firmly she said the words he must have heard a hundred times before. Maybe this time he could allow himself to believe.
She believed it. It was the kind of image her gran had given her when her mum and dad had died, and the relief had been enormous. And healing. She wanted to share that with this man who’d inched his way into her heart, when a man in her heart was the last thing she wanted.
It was all in his face when he looked at her. Really stared her down while he thought about it, and she wondered if she’d gone too far. His face stayed unreadable, a pain-filled mask she couldn’t see through, the huge wall between them bigger than it had ever been, like the Rock outside her window, but she couldn’t take it back. Because she believed it true with all her heart.
Then he stood up and just walked away. Left her sitting there, staring after him, wondering, hoping, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut.
The next morning Bonnie woke early and lay in bed and watched the stars fade outside her window. Her head still spun from Harry’s disclosures the night before and the picture of tragic disaster he’d painted.
It was a good premonition for what was to come.
CHAPTER NINE
; TAMEEKA’S auntie wore a bright red football jumper and orange shorts. A big, rangy woman, she had square, bare feet still dusty from the road and she ushered the sheepish teens into the medical centre with an expansive wave of her hand.
It was late afternoon and Bonnie observed the young pregnant woman’s apprehensive face and looked around for Harry. He was going to blow his top.
Her mind darted for answers as she waved them in. They could get the RFDS aircraft in if the plane wasn’t half a world away, helping someone else, or they could take the ambulance and meet the Alice Springs ambulance two and a half hours up the road.
But getting to a hospital in time was the question. Damn not having a midwifery facility here.
She shook off her wishes and put them aside. ‘Hello, there, you must be Tameeka’s Auntie Dell. She said you’d be with her. I’m Bonnie.’ She smiled at Tameeka and a nervous Bernie. ‘Come through, honey. What happened to Bernie’s cousin’s car?’
Bernie shrugged. ‘He went on walkabout two days ago and he’s not back yet.’
Bonnie glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘So what time did the pains start, Tameeka?’
‘Not long ago.’ The young girl wouldn’t meet Bonnie’s eyes, which wasn’t that unusual, but Bonnie had her suspicions when the next contraction rolled around very firmly within the minute and lasted a good sixty seconds.
‘I told her she ‘ad to come.’ Auntie Dell was born to be an authority figure and probably had a dozen nieces she’d be shepherding into labour. ‘You’re that nurse who picked up little Leila, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. Are you Shay’s auntie too?’ Bonnie smiled. She turned back to help Tameeka sit down. ‘Thanks for bringing her in.’
It was a shame Tameeka hadn’t seen her aunt a little earlier, Bonnie thought ruefully. That would have been good. But it didn’t really matter when her labour had started. The past was the past, and it was what happened now that counted.
She had the sudden notion that concept should apply to Harry too, but she’d hear enough from him in a minute without pre-empting him.
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