The Surgeon's Engagement Wish

by Alison Roberts

  And no wonder it had been named for its boulders. The white sand of the beach gleamed in the soft light but only small pathways towards the water were visible. Enormous boulders ringed the beach and were strewn across the sand. Beth had never seen such huge, smooth black rocks. And how come they glistened as though they were wet when the conditions were far too calm to have thrown any spray that far?

  Puzzled, Beth walked a little further. Then she stopped abruptly, put her hand up to shield her eyes from the last rays of sun for the day and she stared intently at the beach.

  It had to have been her imagination.

  But then it happened again.

  One of the boulders moved.

  And then a jet of spray of water coming from another of the enormous rocks caught enough light to resemble a tiny fountain and an odd, mournful sound carried clearly up the hill to where Beth finally realised what she was seeing.

  Whales.

  She had heard of mass strandings, of course. Had seen pictures of people fighting to save the huge mammals on more than one occasion but Beth had no idea what to do right now.

  She had to call help and find someone who did know. How long would it take her to run back uphill and then find a telephone? Who would she call? The police maybe?

  Beth was in the process of turning to retrace her steps when her peripheral vision caught something and she turned back and then breathed a sigh of relief.

  A light had come on at Luke’s house. He was home and he would know what to do.

  Keeping to the side of the gravel road where the grass verge gave more secure footing, Beth began to run downhill.

  Towards Boulder Bay beach.

  Towards Luke’s home.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘WHAT the—?’

  Luke braked sharply enough to cause a slight skid in the loose shingle of the road leading to his home as his headlights picked out the solitary figure running down the verge.

  Being the back view of a person in an unnaturally bright spotlight was no hindrance to recognition, and Luke knew exactly who it was almost instantly.

  At least this time the curvy figure was fully clothed. The last time Luke had seen Beth out of uniform had been at the staff swimming pool on Tuesday, and the image of her body in a swimsuit that had to be a size too small had been plaguing him ever since.

  Not that that had stopped him frequenting the emergency department of Ocean View far more often than was customary. If anything, he was even less able to resist that magnetic ‘scab-picking’ effect than he had been the night she had appeared back in his life. That moment after dealing with the motorbike accident victim when he’d noticed the slippers had replayed itself in his mind countless times since.

  Knowing that Beth was living in the motel unit allocated to new and single staff members had piqued his curiosity, but he had been largely in control of any encounters they’d had so far. And he wanted to keep it that way. He wasn’t going to risk another put-down like the one he’d received when he’d suggested they get together for coffee.

  Right now Beth was apparently hell-bent on reaching his home. His sanctuary.

  It was too much!

  He braked again, this time coming to a halt. He pressed the button to unroll the window on the passenger side of the vehicle. Beth had seen him coming, of course, and she actually looked eager to speak to him, but Luke got in first.

  ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’

  ‘Luke!’ Beth’s jaw dropped. ‘I thought you were at home.’ She peered in at him, clearly disconcerted. ‘There’s a light on at your house.’

  ‘It’s automatic,’ Luke snapped. ‘To deter intruders.’

  The rebuke went right over her head. ‘I need a phone. There’s—’

  ‘Hang on just a minute,’ Luke ordered. ‘How did you know it was my house?’

  ‘Ronald told me. No, Roz told me. Ronald just showed me where it was, but that’s not important, Luke. There’s a—’

  ‘It might be important to me. Who the hell is Ronald when he’s at home?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Luke!’ Beth raised her voice. ‘There’s a whole bunch of whales on your beach.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I thought they were big rocks but then one of them moved and I saw—’

  ‘Get in.’ Luke had started rolling downhill again even before Beth could shut her door properly. ‘Have you reported it?’

  ‘I didn’t have my mobile with me. That’s why I was going to the house. I mean, your house.’

  Luke reached for the phone plugged into the Jeep’s dashboard and punched in three numbers.

  ‘Emergency services,’ the voice responded promptly. ‘What service do you require? Police, fire or ambulance?’

  ‘Police.’

  A new voice was on the line within seconds. ‘What is your location?’

  ‘Boulder Bay. Just north of Cloudy Bay, Marlborough.’ Luke knew that the call was probably being answered in a major centre such as Wellington or Christchurch.

  ‘And what is your emergency?’

  A mass whale stranding.’ Luke could hear the surprised silence at the other end of the line as he concentrated on getting round a sharp bend in the road. ‘Sorry, but this was the fastest way I could think of to activate a rescue operation. I don’t have any numbers easily accessible for the Department of Conservation. They handle these sort of emergencies and we’ll need some assistance pretty quickly.’

  ‘Can you keep your mobile phone with you, sir?’ The officer from the police communications centre had recovered from the surprise. ‘We’re onto it. Someone should contact you very soon.’

  ‘Good. I should have some more information by then.’ Having stopped the vehicle and killed the engine, Luke unhooked the phone and clipped it to his belt. ‘Come on,’ he said to Beth. ‘We’d better go and have a closer look.’

  Beth looked quite nervous about approaching the whales, but Luke had no hesitation in walking right up the nearest mammal. They were big, but not monstrous. Its blowhole was about level with Luke’s waist and the whale was eight to ten feet long. Mostly black, there were large patches of white and the size of the fins was another good clue to their species.

  ‘These are pilot whales,’ he told Beth. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘If they were sperm whales there would be no rescue operation. They’d all have to be killed and buried.’

  Beth was horrified. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because sperm whales have virtually no chance of survival once they’re grounded like this.’ Luke’s head was turning rapidly, scanning the length of the small beach. ‘It must have happened within the last hour or so. The tide’s turned so we’re going to have a long wait for enough water to try refloating them.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m amazed no one saw the pod coming in. There must be twenty or thirty animals here.’

  Beth had come closer to the whale Luke was standing beside. She reached out a tentative hand and touched the rough cluster of barnacles that had seaweed trailing from it like an odd clump of hair. Then her hand stroked the black skin.

  ‘It feels warm,’ she said in surprise. ‘But it’s dry. Is it dead?’

  ‘Hard to tell just by looking,’ Luke said. ‘They can hold their breath for an extraordinarily long time. They can go into a diving reflex when they’re stranded like this.’ He walked to the head of the whale and gently touched the edge of its eyeball. The eye and then the whole whale twitched.

  ‘Watch out for the fluke.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The tail. It can swish pretty fast and it packs a punch.’

  ‘Oh.’ Beth hurriedly stepped away from the tail end of the large mammal.

  ‘Don’t step on the flippers!’

  ‘OK.’ Beth sounded out of her depth now and a second later she was clearly distressed. ‘Oh! Is that a baby?’

  The whale she moved towards was only about the size of a large dolphin. It was lying on its side, a flipper mov
ing weakly, and it made a mewling noise that had Beth dropping to a crouch beside it and reaching out to touch it.

  ‘You poor wee thing. Luke?’ Beth’s face was upturned to him and her tone was beseeching. ‘Can’t we do something? Can we save it?’

  ‘We’ll certainly do our best.’ How could he not respond to that heartfelt plea? The involvement of a baby in any kind of disaster exerted a greater tug on the heartstrings, but getting too emotionally involved with this kind of situation was a mistake that could easily affect the outcome. Luke turned away. ‘Come up to the house. We need a whole heap of stuff.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Blankets and sheets. Shovels. Buckets. We’re going to have to keep them all cool and damp. We’ll need to dig trenches to get any of them lying on their sides upright again. We also need to dig moats around their flippers and tails. This way.’ Luke led Beth up the path that wound between boulders and into the native shrubbery that comprised his garden.

  This was a bad idea, inviting Beth inside his home, but what choice did he have? He couldn’t carry everything himself and it could be some time before any further assistance arrived. The thought made Luke reach for his phone.

  ‘Who are you calling? The police again?’

  ‘No. My parents.’ It was sad, the way a puzzled frown appeared on Beth’s face. Her parents would probably be the last people she would think of contacting in any emergency. She had always had such a clear vision of the kind of family she wanted and it had come because she felt it had not been provided in her upbringing. The opposite had happened in Luke’s case, but it had taken extreme circumstances to show him the value of what he had always had.

  ‘They’re involved with Project Jonah,’ Luke explained. ‘And they’ve had a lot of experience with whale rescues over the years. Hi, Mum—Hang on just a sec?’

  Luke opened his front door and turned to Beth. ‘There’s a linen closet next to the bathroom. Get as many blankets and sheets as you can find. Take the ones off the bed as well.’ He knew he sounded terse but he couldn’t help it.

  Beth was going inside his house. It was never going to feel quite the same again, was it? He would think of her being there. Wondering what she thought about the things she saw. Whether she was drawn by the simplicity and homely feel of the place as much as he was. He would just be thinking of her, dammit, and he was already doing more than he should be of that.

  ‘Mum? Are you still there? Listen, there’s a pod of whales that’s beached itself practically on my front doorstep…’

  Luke’s conversation with his mother faded as he went, presumably in the direction of a tool shed, and Beth went inside the house.

  By the time she had taken a few steps she was feeling very puzzled. This must have been a holiday house in the past. Small and simply built, it had the feel of a quintessential New Zealand ‘bach’. Modifications had been made in recent times, like the new kitchen and bathroom, but Luke choosing this as his home seemed inexplicable. It was so far removed from the kind of mansion he had aspired to as his career had been taking off. The kind of home her parents had owned.

  Beth loved it. She could imagine how perfect a spot the small living area would be to watch the sun rise or set, but there was no time to stop and admire the sea view right now. The main bathroom was on the opposite side of the house, looking into a small garden, and the linen cupboard was easy to find.

  Beth stacked all the sheets and blankets from the shelves near the front door and hesitated before fulfilling the other part of her instructions. She really didn’t want to find Luke’s bedroom and take the linen from his bed.

  It was as difficult as she had anticipated. The bed smelt of Luke. Beth couldn’t believe how she could have remembered that faint, musky scent that she associated so strongly with lazy early morning love-making or just lying in someone’s arms, feeling loved and protected and so…safe.

  She couldn’t help glancing swiftly around to see if there was any evidence of a female resident. A comb or lipstick maybe, or a feminine robe hanging behind the door. The only evidence she found anywhere suggested that Luke’s interest in housekeeping hadn’t grown much since his days of sharing a house with other young doctors.

  The aroma from the pile of dirty socks and underwear in the corner of the new-looking en suite bathroom did not evoke any poignant memories. Beth’s nose crinkled and she hurried outside with the first armload of linen. Going back for the rest, she noted the dirty dishes on the kitchen bench and the CDs scattered on the floor of the living area.

  The cover of the uppermost disc caught her eye. Seventies Retro it was called and it brought back a sudden and unwanted memory of the fancy-dress party of that era that she had attended with Luke to celebrate the thirtieth birthday of one of the surgical registrars he lived with. Beth had gone dressed in an orange Paisley caftan she had found in a vintage clothing store and she had covered her black curls with a long blonde wig.

  She’d had the best time. The only really good time she had ever had attending the kind of parties Luke had preferred. Maybe that had been because the elite of the local medical community had all been in disguise that night, letting their hair down and having too much fun to be concerned with flaunting position or wealth or superiority.

  And she had gone home with Luke well before the others had left the party venue and Luke had slowly removed her wig and that caftan and had looked at her with that look and said softly, ‘I just love unwrapping presents!’

  But it had been Beth who had received the gift that night. Love-making so intense but so gentle. Until Beth had demanded more and had been given a lot more than she had bargained for. A lesson, in fact, on just how wild sex could be with a partner you trusted completely.

  She had never trusted anyone else that completely, but that was only to be expected, wasn’t it? Luke had been her first real love and she had given him her heart. Maybe he still had a piece or two of it. Or perhaps she had lost them when she’d tried to put her life back together. It would explain why she’d never been able to offer anyone else the kind of love and commitment she had felt for Luke.

  Could anything else ever be that good again?

  It was a relief to leave the house and the memory behind. Luke was on the path with a laden wheelbarrow and her first armload of linen was balanced precariously on top of buckets and tools.

  ‘Help’s on its way,’ Luke informed her briskly. ‘A Department of Conservation team is flying in from Wellington and Mum and Dad are rounding up local volunteers. The police are going to cordon off the road so we don’t get inundated with sightseers, and I’ve offered the house as a base for the operations manager. They’ll need kitchen facilities and so on.’

  ‘You sound like you know all about this kind of thing.’

  ‘Not really. I helped at a stranding years ago on Farewell Spit, which is a much more common place for this to happen. I would have thought Boulder Bay beach was too steep and rocky, but there you go. It’s happened.’

  ‘They do it when one of them gets sick or injured, don’t they?’ Beth stumbled a little as she followed Luke. At 9 p.m. it still wasn’t completely dark but it was hard to see her feet around the pile of blankets she held.

  ‘Sometimes it’s because the leader is sick or disorientated and sometimes they just don’t know why it happens. There’ll be people coming to study the scene. They make a site map and examine and take samples from any dead whales.’ Luke looked up as a set of car headlights appeared on the road winding down the hillside.

  ‘I hope that’s my parents,’ he said. ‘I’ve asked Dad to ferry other volunteers down from the top of the hill. We don’t want too many vehicles down here or there won’t be room for the heavy stuff.’

  ‘Heavy stuff?’

  ‘Tractors. Boats. Generators for the lights, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Good grief! I had no idea how much was involved in rescuing whales.’

  ‘Are you working tonight?’

  ‘No. And I’ve got th
e day off tomorrow.’

  ‘Good.’ Luke smiled. ‘How about coming to help me with a spot of triage, then, Nurse?’

  ‘Certainly, Doctor.’ Beth smiled back. ‘Do you have some colour-coded triage cards in that wheelbarrow first-aid kit of yours?’

  ‘No, but I’ve got a can of spray paint. We’ll put a big “X” on any obviously dead whales and that will save time later.’

  The feeling of excited anticipation that the prospect of working with Luke was engendering evaporated. Beth didn’t want any of these whales to be dead. This was an extraordinary experience to be thrown into and Beth’s connection suddenly went way past being the person to have discovered the emergency.

  She wasn’t about to stop and try to analyse why it was so important to her. Maybe it was because the whales had chosen Luke’s beach to strand themselves on. Or maybe she had accorded the situation the status of an omen regarding her new life in this place.

  It didn’t matter. Her determination to succeed was powerful enough to feel like desperation and there was no time to lose.

  At least fifty volunteers had gathered within an hour, and until the Department of Conservation officials arrived it was Luke’s parents, Don and Barbara, who took charge of the rescue operation. One whale was already dead—possibly the sick or injured member of the pod that had prompted the rest to strand themselves.

  Pairs and trios of people were assigned a now numbered whale each to care for. Beth waited until finally Barbara shone her torch on the piece of paper she was writing on and then looked up.

  ‘Beth Dawson?’

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘We’ll get you to look after the baby. Jack—you can help. You’ve got some experience.’

  Jack showed Beth how to gouge a shallow trench in the sand parallel to the tiny whale’s body. Luke came past just as they were completing this first task.