Harry St Clair: Rogue or Doctor?

by Fiona McArthur

  ‘It’s all good. You’re here now. Do you mind if I have a feel of your tummy and listen to that gorgeous baby of yours, please, Tameeka?’

  Tameeka lay down on the examination couch and Bonnie met her eyes before she attempted to feel. ‘Okay if I feel the way baby is lying?’ Tameeka nodded and Bonnie gently palpated the mound of ebony skin as she felt for the baby’s back, bottom and head. She smiled. ‘Your baby seems to know the way out. He or she’s pointing the right way.’

  Bonnie placed the nozzle of the little handheld foetal heart monitor on Tameeka’s stomach and the sound of a baby’s heartbeat filled the air.

  ‘Love the sound of them babies.’ Auntie Dell smiled beatifically. Bonnie nodded in agreement as she counted the beats.

  ‘What if it’s too late to go?’ Bernie asked the question but it was there too, in Tameeka’s eyes as plain as day.

  Auntie Dell huffed, ‘You’d be in trouble, bro.’

  Bonnie softened the rebuke. ‘Babies decide when and where they come. But we might get Tameeka to Alice Springs in time yet. At least she won’t be sitting there by herself, waiting. It looks like it’s going to happen today and I’m sure Bernie can miss one day off work.’

  ‘Too right. I’m not leaving her.’

  ‘I’m not leavin’ either.’ Auntie Dell planted her hands on her hips. Bonnie smiled to herself. She wasn’t going to take on forcing Auntie Dell to stay behind so it was going to be tight in the ambulance if they had to drive.

  ‘Who’s not leaving?’ Harry arrived with a measured tread and Bonnie’s antenna picked up the underlying pressure in his voice. At least the face he showed the young couple was non-judgemental and she allowed herself to relax a little. Of course he’d be fine. Except Tameeka was in labour a long way from a hospital.

  Tameeka’s abdomen grew tight and she rolled her eyes as another strong contraction informed everyone it meant business.

  ‘How long’s this been going on?’ Now Harry’s eyes held a tiny hint of accusation when he looked at Bonnie. He’d have loved to blame her, she could see that. She guessed it helped to blame someone and she was the logical choice. Men!

  ‘Not long. They’ve just arrived.’ Bonnie’s calmness eased the tension that had begun to tighten the room and Harry looked at the young couple.

  Bonnie could almost see Harry’s mind sorting options. He shot a look at Bonnie. ‘Have you examined her yet?’

  ‘Just felt her tummy. Head down, well engaged.’

  He nodded. ‘Tameeka, I’d like Bonnie to feel how far along in your labour you are. We have to tell the Flying Doctors when we ring them. Is that okay?’

  Tameeka nodded and Bernie gulped and eyed the door. Bonnie could see he’d decided to leave this bit of women’s business to the women and followed Harry out.

  Bonnie heard him mutter to Harry as they shut the door. ‘She said them pains didn’t hurt too much and I thought it was them Baxtin Icks, practice pain things.’

  The three women smiled at each other at the thought processes of men as Tameeka slipped her underwear off.

  Bonnie folded the sheet back from the bottom of the bed. Tameeka closed her eyes and nodded for Bonnie to go ahead.

  Bonnie pulled on her gloves and stared at the wall opposite as she concentrated on what she could feel. ‘Okay. I can touch your baby’s head a little way inside but not too far. The bottom of your uterus is very thin, pointing to the front, and opened enough for two finger widths. So that’s nearly three centimetres dilated. The baby has his or her chin well tucked in so that’s good.’

  Bonnie stood back and removed her gloves. ‘Your baby’s head is right down so when you get a contraction it leans on the opening and makes the cervix a little bit wider each time. That’s why the more regular the contractions, the quicker your labour.’

  ‘What about them waters?’ Auntie Dell had her hands on her hips again.

  Bonnie turned back. She was getting to that but she had an idea Tameeka had a little more trouble following what she was talking about than Auntie Dell. She smiled at the older lady. ‘The bag of waters is still there and Tameeka will probably still have a few hours of labour before her baby is born. Maybe enough to get to Alice Springs.’

  Bonnie listened again briefly with the foetal heart Doppler to check the baby didn’t mind somebody touching his or her head and then stepped back to wash her hands.

  When she came back to the bed Auntie Dell had helped Tameeka up and to dress again. Bonnie looked at both of them. ‘Any questions?’

  ‘Can I stay here and have my baby with my auntie?’

  Bonnie would have loved that but it wasn’t an option they had with no backup. ‘Unfortunately not. But we can try really hard to keep your auntie and Bernie with you until you have your baby.’

  In the end, despite Harry’s phone calls, the RFDS were away in Kakadu and Harry decided they’d use the road ambulance. He wasn’t keen on the presence of Auntie Dell and refused to see the problem.

  ‘There’s not much room in an ambulance and she’s a big lady.’ It seemed he wanted to be obtuse today and Bonnie was fast losing patience. ‘I don’t see how she can come,’ he said.

  They were outside the room and talking in low voices as they waited for Steve to bring the ambulance round. Bonnie almost laughed out loud. Fat chance of Auntie Dell staying behind.

  ‘I’m interested, Harry. What do you need room for? Tameeka’s a healthy woman, early in active labour, doing what she’s designed to do. If you’re sure we can’t have her baby here, with the option of transfer out afterwards if anything isn’t going smoothly, then you must be happy if we deliver this baby in the vehicle. In that case, we’ll pull over anyway and can open the back door and let Dell out.’

  Harry’s eyes flared. ‘We’re not delivering this baby in the ambulance. She should have gone to Alice Springs two days ago.’

  ‘She wasn’t in labour then. And you couldn’t predict this.’ Bonnie’s voice was very quiet and very calm. ‘And there’s not a lot we can do about that now, Doctor.’ She didn’t look at him or he’d have known she was ready to throw something at him for the misplaced tension in his face. She knew that he had issues but at the moment that was just tough.

  ‘I’ll get the ambulance if you want to ring Alice Springs and arrange for someone to meet us halfway.’

  Harry wasn’t finished. ‘This is a prime example of you providing another episode I don’t want to be a part of.’

  ‘Whoa there, cowboy.’ Bonnie didn’t fancy the sound of that. ‘Like what, Harry?’ She felt like poking him in the chest but restrained herself. One of them needed to. ‘What else have I forced you into? A brief fling in Bali? I didn’t see you running away. In fact, I’d say you did the chasing. And I certainly didn’t force you to come here and confront maternal medicine. But you are here so confront it.’

  He didn’t like that. ‘We don’t have time for this.’

  ‘No, we don’t, but you started it, and I’ll be finished before Steve gets here so you can darned well listen.’ She brushed the hair out of her eyes and fixed her eyes on his.

  ‘You can’t go on like this, Harry. Fear doesn’t have a part of caring for pregnant women.’

  He lifted his head. ‘And we should have shipped her out because I’m not sure I can lose that factor.’

  Stubborn, more than anything, she thought. ‘Or maybe you don’t want to because that would mean you’re moving on? Why is it so hard to let go of the fear and guilt, Harry?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s not fear, it’s caution.’

  She felt like saying that was piffle. But she didn’t. She really couldn’t be bothered getting childish. ‘Caution is fine, but we’re guardians who stand at the side of nature, not the directors. Women have been doing this longer than we’ve been interfering.’

  ‘From my perspective I can’t trust things not to go wrong. You can’t deny the mortality rate has fallen since we did start to interfere.’

  ‘We’re not talking p
enicillin here, Harry.’ Bonnie sighed. ‘The last thing Tameeka needs is a harbinger of doom draped around her neck.’ She breathed out heavily and then glanced at the closed door to the consulting room.

  ‘Doom happened to me. I can’t forget that.’

  ‘You told me you did everything possible. What makes you think I don’t understand? It’s not a new thing to lose a patient when the incident is greater than the resources. You were there and the resources weren’t. Even in a major centre most mothers still die with what your wife had.’

  ‘If they say I was negligent, I think I’ll believe them.’

  ‘I’m tempted to say “so what”? You hid away in Bali believing that anyway. Even when you did make a token return to medicine here in Ayers Rock you have so many rules and safeguards it’s an escape anyway.’ She shook her head and glanced at her watch. ‘I can’t help your insecurities but negative, fearful people should not be around birthing women. Now I’m busy. Let’s get this girl to Alice Springs.’

  Half an hour later they were thirty miles out of the township as Bonnie drove into the magnificence of the fading light. The sun had finished posing to the masses and it wasn’t a great time to be on the road with the wildlife coming out to feed at dusk but Harry obviously thought it more dangerous to have a normal birth than risk hitting a roo. Bonnie ground her teeth and concentrated on the road.

  Harry was in the back, which was lucky for him because Bonnie had a mind to tell him a few more home truths. She had Bernie up front with her and she didn’t want the poor guy to feel her frustration. He’d already backed down when Auntie Dell had said she’d get in the back.

  The next half an hour saw two near misses of kangaroos and a lucky wombat, and Tameeka’s noisy breathing from the back sounded like a freight train. Serves you right, Harry, Bonnie thought grimly. We could have been in a nice pleasant room back at the medical centre with electric lights and equipment if we needed it.

  At the end of yet another half-hour, outside the vehicle the light was restricted to the circular areas the headlights provided and the stars above. They still had an hour before they’d meet up with the other ambulance, and to make matters worse now a road train was bearing down on them from behind. Bonnie pulled over on a wide patch of dirt outside a rest area to let the monster truck go past.

  ‘Bonnie?’ Harry questioned from the back.

  ‘I’m just letting the truck past.’

  Then Tameeka’s shaky voice. ‘I gotta pee.’

  Well, you can’t wait another two hours, Bonnie thought silently, with a twitch of her lips. ‘I’ll just pull into this parking area.’ Bonnie drove the few metres and reversed the vehicle so the back door was away from the road then turned the engine and headlights off. She jumped out and went around the back.

  The night was quiet as the road train’s engines faded into the distance and when she stepped away from the vehicle’s cabin light the stars were brilliant and provided an amazing amount of gentle glow in the night sky.

  Bernie was beside her and he lifted the back door up for her. Auntie Dell squeezed herself out like toothpaste from a tube and shook herself to stretch the bits that had been cramped in the back.

  Then Harry helped Tameeka out and she leaned against Bernie when she could stand up. ‘My back is killin’ me when I lie down.’

  ‘I know, sweetheart.’ Bonnie looked around for some privacy for Tameeka. ‘Come this way. I’ve got a torch in case we need it but there’s some close scrub here, where you can go.’

  ‘I don’t need to do a wee,’ Tameeka whispered. ‘I just wanted to stop ‘cause my back was killin’ me.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ Bonnie had her suspicions about the pressure the girl was getting now and wouldn’t be surprised if this was it. ‘You may as well go while you’re here.’

  Bonnie turned round to give her some privacy and she could see Harry walking up and down beside the truck like an expectant father.

  Tameeka groaned and when Bonnie turned round she was on all fours with her head down.

  As soon as the pain eased, Bonnie helped her up. ‘You push a little then, honey?’

  ‘Mmm-hmm. And all that water came out. It’s still comin’ out. Don’t make me get in that truck.’

  ‘Let’s just get back to the light.’ This was it. Bonnie shrugged fatalistically. So be it.

  Harry came towards them and Bonnie said quietly, ‘Her waters broke. She’s going to have the baby now and she doesn’t want to get back in the ambulance. She wants to have it under the stars. Is that okay with you, Harry?’

  Harry sighed, hugely, and she watched his tight shoulders finally drop with the breath. He lifted his head. ‘It’s all coming true, isn’t it? The more I try to stop things happening, the more they seem to go against me. You were right. We would have been safer at the centre.’ He smiled without humour.

  He glanced ruefully up at the heavens. ‘But it’s not about me. It’s about Tameeka. As long as we have emergency light when we need it, let’s make it as good as we can for her. We’ll get some blankets in case she needs to be lifted into the back in an emergency. There’s four of us, we can lift her with the blanket.’ They’d still needed contingency plans.

  Then he smiled at her and Bonnie felt the tension slip from her shoulders like a huge sack of potatoes as Harry stopped fighting against her. She hadn’t realised how much stress she’d been carrying around.

  Thank goodness, Harry. Excellent man. About time.

  They set up a little bed on the ground, and dimmed the back lights but left the front cabin light on.

  Harry unobtrusively rubbed his forehead with two fingers and finally allowed the moment to soak in. He glanced across to where Auntie Dell sat cross-legged on the ground with Bernie hunched a handswidth away as Tameeka breathed quietly now in the still evening air.

  The stars flickered and shone above like a carpet of guardian angels and somehow, with each of Tameeka’s breaths, he could feel the pinpricks of pain that had burred into his skin for so long flicker and then fade away. Even more slowly he allowed Bonnie’s words of earlier that day to sink in.

  Tameeka was healthy, her baby had grown normally, and nothing had indicated there would be a problem. But he’d been determined to imagine every scenario that could go wrong.

  He’d forced them onto the road and increased the risk when it would have been far safer to at least have facilities around them. He hadn’t been smart, and his fear wasn’t helpful to him, to the midwife and especially to the mother.

  How far he’d come from the man who’d helped out at the birth centre in Ubud. How far from the joy and wonder he’d savoured with uncomplicated births just a few years ago.

  Bonnie had tried to tell him that and he’d refused to listen. But still she sat with her hands clasped loosely in front of her. A towel lay across her lap, waiting to dry the baby.

  She looked so calm, yet instantly attuned to every nuance of Tameeka’s needs, and he envied her the faith he should have had, hoped he’d have again, thanks to nights like this and to Bonnie.

  He’d had that faith once and after tonight he was determined to find it again. He’d lost the passion for well women doing what nature intended somewhere in his worry for himself.

  Bonnie had sent him on the quest, and while it wasn’t comfortable it had finally begun to feel right. This woman he’d been fated to meet, and who’d startled him out of his destructive stupor, shining brightly on the edge of his vision, then slowly lighting up his sky until she’d gradually warmed him from within.

  She’d banished the darkness that even the brightness of Bali hadn’t been able to penetrate.

  Fifteen minutes later, with the night still warm and bright, with little breeze and just as Tameeka’s baby’s head crowned, a brilliant shooting star shot across the horizon like a smiling angel. Harry felt the magic as he glanced across at Bonnie and counted himself doubly fortunate to be there.

  Harry leant across and rested his hand on the small of Bonnie’s ba
ck as she lifted the mewling infant to her mother’s breast.

  ‘Now, that’s what I call birthin’,’ Auntie Dell said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  OF COURSE mother and baby were well and they called off the Alice Springs ambulance. Harry drove back to Uluru. A beaming Bernie sat in the back with his family.

  Tameeka slept with her baby stretched across her chest like a kitten and her baby’s father keeping watch over them both.

  When Harry broke the silence, it wasn’t awkward—nothing could be while they all floated in post-birth euphoria—but the events of the day lay between them, waiting for the time he had to speak. ‘I’ve been hard work, Bonnie.’

  ‘This sounds familiar.’ He could hear the smile in her voice. ‘Like another birth.’

  ‘Good grief.’ Harry looked across at her and he could feel his mouth tilt. ‘I think we’re actually forming a bit of history.’

  She widened her eyes theatrically. ‘Not the H word, Harry? Oh, my goodness.’

  It was okay. She understood. He had the impression she would always understand. ‘You were right. Tameeka’s birth was amazing. She was incredible.’

  ‘Yes, she was. I think I mentioned she’s designed to do it.’

  ‘Okay, Miss Smarty Pants, you may have. But let’s keep the births for the centre in Alice next time.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor.’ Demurely. He’d like to kiss that respectability away but he’d have to wait. But he could plan.

  That was when it hit him. Splat, like the yellow smear on the windshield in front of him, drawn to the light, followed by a short, sharp blow as life as he knew it was wiped out. He loved her.

  He’d fallen in love. He’d said he couldn’t do it again and she’d made him. He’d lost his heart when he’d vowed he’d never risk that again.

  He’d thought he’d been attracted, get back on the bike kind of attracted, which had drawn him here from Bali and suggested he needed to practise reconnecting with women without the drama of falling in love. Just rapport and teasing and maybe a little more of that lovely sex without strings.