by Amy Andrews
‘You still wear yours,’ she murmured, fondling the wide gold band she had given to him on their wedding day. She remembered how she used to make him take his off and she would take off hers and she could slip hers inside the circumference of his. It had been like a confirmation that she would always be snug and safe and supported in his love.
‘We’re not divorced yet.’
She looked into his grey eyes and felt a weird kinship. They had always thought so much alike. ‘I guess I’ll have to give it back,’ she said wistfully, looking down at the narrow band.
The ring and all it represented—not just Gill’s love but its heritage and family value—were so integral to her that parting with it would be gut-wrenching. She may have only had it for six years but the ring that Henri had worn on his little finger for the last thirty years, after his dear Renée’s death, had tremendous sentimental value.
Henri had taken her aside after their engagement and told her it would honour him if she were to take Renée’s ring as her wedding band, and she had been touched and worn it with love and pride. That it had history and meaning, not just for Gill and her but for past lovers, had always made it extra-special for Harriet.
‘No,’ he said quietly, still fingering the thin metal. ‘Henri would want you to keep it.’
‘I couldn’t,’ she gasped, pulling her hand off his thigh and sitting back on her heels. ‘It’s a family heirloom.’
‘Henri gave it to you because he loves you and thinks you’re worthy of my grandmother’s ring. Whether you’re married to me or not, that won’t change.’
It seemed strange to be talking about Henri as an active, vital person when on the other side of the world he was fighting for his very life. The mood changed to sombre again, the talk of parting ways not helping.
‘Is your father going to keep you up to date?’
‘Yes. He’s going to ring again in a few hours.’
‘Make sure you send them my love. Tell them I’m thinking of them and to kiss Henri for me.’
‘Why don’t you do it yourself? Come back with me tomorrow. Don’t fly to London first. I’ll get a direct flight home from the capital. Come back with me. Henri would love to see you again.’
MedSurg, being an English charitable organisation, was based in the UK and had its headquarters in London. It was usual to fly teams out of wherever they might be at the end of a mission into London for a few days’ R and R and then fly them back to their homes. It made up for the lousy pay.
‘Gill…’ She couldn’t. It was just too hard. The strings had to be cut and the longer she kept them tied, no matter the reason, the harder it would be.
‘You know the irony of this is I was going to ask you to spend a few days with me in London…to try and sort things out…reconnect. I guess it’s too late…’
‘About two years too late. I can’t come back to Australia with you. It’s too hard, Gill. We both know where we stand. I want a baby. You don’t. We’re at an impasse. I will go and see Henri if…’ She didn’t want to say the obvious. ‘When I get back in a few days. I’ve always kept in close touch with your family, you must know that. Don’t make this harder than it is.’
She wanted to say if only he’d agree to a baby, but she knew he’d say if only she’d stuck to their original plan. They’d been down this road too many times before and with Henri’s fate weighing heavily on their minds she didn’t want to travel back over the same territory. Their energies would be better spent thinking positive thoughts for a swift recovery.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1300 HOURS
THE two surgical teams left the building together and walked across to the medical building. Once a week, providing they weren’t in the middle of surgery, the surgical and medical teams joined together and ran an immunisation clinic.
Most of the countries MedSurg serviced had very low levels of childhood immunisation. Part of MSAA’s directive was mass vaccination, and they employed people in the field, working in partnership with the World Health Organisation to co-ordinate local vaccination programmes.
Yellow fever, a potentially fatal mosquito-borne illness, was prevalent in this particular area, and the teams had been tasked to immunise as many locals as was possible during their stay. Thanks to the field operatives, come clinic days there were usually hundreds, if not thousands of men, women and children lining up for their shots. They mostly came in MSAA trucks, but a lot of locals just walked in from nearby villages.
Therefore it was all hands on deck. Some of the surgical teams grumbled about it but Harriet quite liked it. It got them out amongst the locals, instead of staying cloistered inside the same sets of walls for two months. They could become very insulated inside and it was nice to think they were doing something proactive for once, instead of reactive.
The idea of public health had always been attractive to Harriet, and as she walked in the heat she thought it could be an area of nursing she could get involved with now she was leaving MedSurg. She looked at Gill’s back as she walked behind him and thought how much leaving the organisation didn’t seem to matter any more. A few years ago it would have been unthinkable.
But so much had happened in a couple of years and she’d done a lot of soul-searching. Yes, she loved her work, enjoyed being a theatre nurse, but if she was totally honest, Gill had been the reason she’d stuck with it for so long. She never liked reducing her patients to body parts, as so often happened in the surgical setting, and public health would actually allow some sort of rapport and relationship to develop between her and her patients.
Several tents had been set up outside the medical building under the shade of the few remaining trees that existed in the dust bowl that surrounded them. They were big and looked as old as the buildings themselves, and were obviously very hardy to have survived all this time when other greenery had long ago succumbed to the arid heat.
The clinic was just getting under way as the team arrived.
‘So pleased you could join us,’ said Dr Kelly Prentice in her brisk New York twang, grinning eagerly at her recruits as she swatted away the ever-present flies. ‘Pull up a pew. You know the routine.’
Out of habit Harriet sat down next to Gill and then spent a moment dithering about whether she should have or not. Helmut sat on the other side of her and he smiled at her as he said, ‘Bet I can do more than you.’
Harriet smiled back at him and forgot her dithering. ‘This isn’t a race, Helmut.’ She rolled her eyes at him. ‘Competitive men!’ He laughed and started jabbing his first customer.
Between each chair was a small table with a supply of the vaccine and a box of gloves, and on the other side a sharps bin. Harriet smiled at her first patient and started work.
Gill looked up from his work at the teeming mass of humanity waiting patiently in line. An array of colourful fabrics dazzled the eye and Gill marvelled with all that they’d been through, their pride in their culture still remained strong. The crowd was as big as usual, about six or seven hundred at a guess, but he knew from past experience that with twenty health-care professionals administering the vaccine, it’d be all over in an hour.
He tried to concentrate on his work. But with thinking of his grandfather and with Harriet in his peripheral vision, talking and trying to make the children laugh as she worked, he was failing badly. She was a natural with the kids and had their shy, serious expressions erased in a flash, replaced with big white grins.
He had heard Helmut’s challenge and knew he would win hands down. Being fast wasn’t Harriet’s style. It wasn’t that she wasn’t efficient, she just thrived on making a connection, taking some time to make her patients feel like individuals.
She looked up at him and caught him staring. He smiled at her and she smiled back as she flapped at some flies. She was glowing, in her element, despite the heat and the flies, as she turned back to a little girl who was shyly showing her a raggedy old toy that had seen better days.
Gill continued to work through
his line, smiling at every patient, wondering what the hell must be going through their heads. The things these people had lived through and seen. They took their needles stoically, even the children. What was one tiny needle compared with a horrific civil war? Compared to having no food in your belly or your house burnt to the ground or your parents killed? Compared to dying from yellow fever, as so many of their countrymen had?
No. There were no hysterics here. No cajoling kids and bribing them with ice creams and sweets, like back at home. Just a resigned silence, a calm acceptance. Someone down the line, a woman, began to sing a tribal tune and others joined in, and suddenly the lines were swaying to the rhythm. It was like listening to ancient music being sung by a gospel choir in a foreign tongue.
Gill marvelled at the people’s resilience. They were standing in the dirt, their feet bare, the sun beating down relentlessly, in a place torn apart by war, and yet they could still sing. They could still rejoice.
He smiled at a beaming Harriet who was also getting into the groove. There was something indomitable about these people, defiant as they raised their voices in pride. They seemed to be saying, This is our home and we will survive.
Gill felt a sudden pang hit him in the chest and ripple outwards. What was it? Maybe it was his grandfather, maybe it was saying goodbye to Harriet, maybe there was magic in this music, but listening to their tribal tempo, which seemed to be coming from the very earth beneath their feet, he had a strong urge to go home. To ground himself.
He turned to look at Harriet as he absently brushed some flies from his face and he felt the ripples intensify. She sat on her chair in her scrubs, talking to a mother while she nursed a baby on her lap. The babe had its head snuggled into Harriet’s breasts and tiny fingers wrapped around Harriet’s slender index finger.
The two women couldn’t possibly understand each other but there was something universal about babies that crossed language barriers and cultures. Harriet looked radiant and for the first time ever he imagined how it would be to have her holding their baby on her lap. His baby. Watching her belly blossom and then nurturing their baby at her breast.
A small noise in front of him brought him back to the task at hand. A little boy was looking at him apprehensively with big round eyes. He looked from Gill to the needle he’d been holding poised in the air for too long now and then back at Gill again.
‘It’s OK, little mate,’ he said, and ruffled the boy’s hair, giving him a reassuring smile. The boy looked dubious but he took his vaccination without a whimper.
Gill made a concerted effort to control his scattered thoughts. It was hot and his grandfather was critically ill. And it was his last day here. He was always a little stir-crazy after being away from home for two months.
So, she was nursing a cute baby. Babies were cute, that’s how they sucked you in. It wasn’t until 2 a.m. feeds, no sex for six months and eating cornflakes for tea that you realised you’d been conned.
He liked his life. So had she. He liked dining out most nights, going to the movies, the ballet and the theatre. And making love till 2 a.m. And he most definitely liked his cornflakes for breakfast. Actually, not even then. Eggs Benedict was a much better breakfast at a dinky little sidewalk café.
Damn it all—they’d talked about this. She had agreed. After one scare and years of dating women who sooner or later had wanted his babies, he’d been ecstatic to find one who didn’t. She’d changed the rules. Not him. And, he thought as he jabbed yet another child, what about the population problem of the world? How often had they discussed that and decided they didn’t want to contribute?
Why, Harry, why? He jabbed another child. I would have given you anything you wanted, anything. But you want this? You want the one thing that I don’t. The one thing that gives me hives just thinking about it.
He noticed a big purulent sore on the arm of the next child that the flies were enjoying immensely, and it finally made him put a lid on his rising frustration. He jabbed the boy in the opposite arm and with Theire’s help explained to the mother to go up to the medical facility and get it looked at.
These clinics were a good opportunity to treat any and all ailments of the local population, and he’d already sent several patients over to the medical building, suffering from various superficial skin and eye conditions rampant in such a tropical environment. He’d even sent a man across who, he suspected, might have tuberculosis.
The crowd was at last thinning when he heard a most awful noise. He felt like a hand had rammed into his intestines and was squeezing really hard. It was a sound of deep distress and it was coming from Harriet.
He turned to her quickly in time to see her saying, ‘Gill!’
She was holding an infant who looked very close to death, flies buzzing around the child’s face like vultures circling road kill. The anguish on her face said it all. Please, help! Do something.
‘Theire,’ he yelled, keeping his eyes on the child, gently examining the scrap of skin and bones. He looked at the mother and the look of utter human misery and despair there was gut-wrenching. He’d seen that look so often in this war, and other wars all round the world, but it never got any easier to witness.
She was trembling all over and had her hands clasped together like she was praying. Bargaining with God. She was making a low keening noise in the back of her throat as if that’s all she was capable of, as if grief had stricken her mute. She knows, thought Gill. She knows her child is going to die.
‘Oh, Gill, it’s too late. The fever’s too advanced,’ cried Harriet, her voice etched with pain.
Gill knew she was right. The child’s skin had a yellowy-green tinge and the whites of his big brown eyes were also yellowed. Jaundice. The symptom that gave yellow fever its name. He was in liver failure.
He watched as Harriet flapped a hand back in forth in front of the little one’s face, swatting away the stubborn little black flies that had zeroed in on the exudate from his eyes and the dried blood at the corners of his mouth. She was making growling noises at them, frustrated at their persistence.
He glanced back at the mother, who was looking down at her child, her face cloaked in grief. She looked utterly destroyed, and Gill tried to imagine how he would feel in her position. Not just that his baby was dying but that he hadn’t been able to protect and keep his family safe as he was supposed to. He never wanted to be in her position.
‘Ask her how long her child has been like this,’ said Gill to Theire as she arrived on the scene.
There was an exchange during which Gill continued to examine the child.
‘She says he had a fever and vomiting about a week ago and then got better. He’s been yellow for a couple of days. She has walked for two days to bring him here. He won’t eat or drink.’
The child could barely hold his head up and keep his eyes open. He was practically unconscious. His fontanelle was very sunken, as were his eyes, and his lips and the mucous membranes of his mouth were cracked and bleeding.
‘When did he last pass urine?’ asked Gill.
There was another brief exchange. ‘Not for over a day now.’
Renal failure as well. ‘How old is he?’
Theire repeated the question to the distraught mother. ‘Six months,’ she relayed back.
‘Why did she wait, Gill?’ asked a distressed Harriet. ‘She waited at the end of the line. She should have brought him straight up.’
Gill gave her hand a squeeze. They both knew that it probably wouldn’t have made much difference. ‘Because that’s what these poor people do, Harriet, they wait.’
‘His name, Theire? What’s his name?’ she asked, turning to the interpreter, blinking back hot tears.
‘Nimuk.’
‘Stay here and finish up,’ said Gill, standing. ‘We’re nearly done. I’ll take him in to Kelly.’
‘Nimuk,’ she said, handing the child over. ‘His name is Nimuk.’
Her eyes burned with a fierce light, boring into his. Gill nodded as
he scooped the dying baby from his wife’s arms. ‘Come on, Nimuk,’ Gill crooned, as much for Harriet as for the poor baby.
She watched as he strode quickly to the medical building. He looked so tall and capable, the baby looking even smaller, more fragile than it was, pressed against his broad chest. Theire followed slowly, allowing the mother to use her as a crutch. Her painfully thin legs, legs that had trekked for two days, suddenly seemed boneless and not able to support her meagre weight. She was too shocked to even walk.
Gill disappeared inside and Harriet knew that she had seen the last of Nimuk. A tear slid down her cheek. She wiped it away, turned back, smiled at her next patient and jabbed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1400 HOURS
LUNCH was a sombre affair. Gill joined them just as they were sitting down to sandwiches and airline fruit juice. Harriet sought his face, searching it for something positive.
He shook his head. ‘He’s still hanging on. Kelly got an IV in but it’s palliative only.’
‘What about choppering him out?’ Harriet asked.
There was silence in the room as everyone looked at their plates and tried to pretend they weren’t there. They had all seen Nimuk and known how futile any intervention would be. They also understood that some patients just got to you. They clouded your judgment.
‘He’s in multi-organ failure. He has acidosis not compatible with life. His lactate is through the roof,’ Gill said gently, moving to sit down beside her. He stroked a finger down her cheek and cupped her face. ‘It’s too late, Harry.’
Harriet swallowed the lump that had lodged in her throat and squeezed her eyes shut as she nodded her head. ‘I know,’ she said, her voice husky with emotion. ‘I’m sorry…I know.’
The gentle caress of his thumb on her face was heavenly but was shredding her emotional fortitude. She placed her hand over his and gently pulled it away. ‘Thank you,’ she mouthed.