‘Alma,’ Sienna smoothed the white hair stuck to the older woman’s forehead. ‘Alma?’ she repeated, but inside she was seething at what he’d done. At Alma for caring about money when lives were at stake.
Alma coughed without opening her eyes. And Sienna couldn’t stop herself any longer. Her eyes filled with tears as she felt the fury of fear swell inside her until it took over just as the fire had devoured the building. ‘Are you crazy?’ She hissed at Douglas. ‘You were seriously lucky. If I’d had to come in there and find you both you were in big trouble.’
Then one of the young members of fire brigade arrived with an oxygen bottle and Sienna called him over, breathing deeply to calm herself. She never exploded. ‘Here,’ she instructed, ‘both of them.’
The young man scanned the crowd for the voice, saw Sienna and Douglas and then Alma on the ground and hurried over.
Douglas whispered hoarsely, ‘How did it start?’
Old Seamus shuffled over and offered his two cents’ worth.
‘Seems to have been on the outside wall nearest the car park. Young Jacob was acting crazy. Wondered about drugs myself. After you escorted him out. Thought he might have ended up in the clink with the threats he was making.’ Seamus nodded his head sagely. ‘He could’ve done something foolish.’ Then the old man looked around. ‘Where’s young Maddy? She wasn’t in there, was she?’
Sienna heard him distantly as she listened to Alma’s chest with the young man’s stethoscope, pushing aside the oxygen tubing that hung from the mask on Alma’s face. ‘No,’ she said without thinking. ‘She’s safe at my sister’s at Diamond Lake.’ Douglas probably needed oxygen, too. She wanted to check Douglas. Her heart still palpitated with the near loss of him. She wanted to hug him to her and not being able to publicly throw herself on his chest tore at her.
Two weeks ago her thoughts might have been focused on the fact that she’d lost everything she’d brought here that wasn’t in Douglas’s house. Maybe even her beautiful car. Now her thoughts focused on the man crouched down beside them. The incredibly brave, incredibly stupid father of her child. She leaned out and touched his shoulder. Felt the solid warmth of his body beneath her shaking fingers. Just a small reassurance that he was flesh and blood and she hadn’t imagined him here beside her.
He turned his head and looked at her, his red-rimmed eyes apologising for her distress. Mercifully, his coughing had slowed.
‘I don’t care how long you can hold your breath,’ she said grimly. ‘As your doctor, I need to tell you that smoking is bad for your health.’
She saw the admiration flare in his face and she felt like crying. Oh, Douglas. ‘Don’t you ever do anything like that again,’ she whispered, and scanned him for any signs of injuries.
His eyes still streamed, and his shirt lay plastered against his heaving chest, smudged with black, but he was okay and he’d saved Alma, and now that she thought about it, he’d also saved her.
Thank goodness he’d stopped her from dithering to collect her belongings. If she’d remained any longer in her room maybe he’d have been too late for Alma. She didn’t want to think about what Douglas would have done if he hadn’t been able to find Alma in there. He was safe. They both were. That was all that mattered.
She looked across at him and said very softly, ‘Thank you.’ She inclined her head towards Alma. ‘And thank you for saving Alma.’ Then she said, ‘I saw Jacob cross the yard before I saw the smoke. He’s cut off his plaster. I don’t know where he went.’
He nodded and sighed heavily.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Alma
Alma opened her eyes to a world gone mad. There seemed to be a lot of noise and shouting and it felt like some big oaf was sitting on her chest. No one actually was – it was just hard to breathe. She did struggle against one of the younger fire-brigade blokes pushing an oxygen mask onto her face and sucked in a raspy inhalation before she tried to push him away. So much noise? Was that a train coming?
She struggled to sit up and found herself half lying on the far side of the road outside her pub when she realised there was no train. That horrific noise was her majestic Desert Rose Hotel roaring into oblivion in a mass of flames and falling timber.
She blinked her raw, stinging eyes and tried to make sense of it. A fire. Then, the last few events she remembered began to filter back. Her stomach plummeted. Ah, yes, the smoke.
A lot of the other noise was the fire brigade shouting to each other and hosing things down. Keeping people back. Keeping people back from her pub. Her verandahs. Her beautiful staircase. Being destroyed. All her years of polishing and love and dedication to restoring the grandeur of the lady. Even Maestro the coffee machine from the Melbourne Cup. All those hours of buffing and shining. Gone.
She sucked in another cold stream of oxygen to quieten the surge of grief and distress that welled up in her throat and threatened to embarrass her here in the maelstrom. But the loss. The loss of the only thing she’d had the right to love. The loss of her future taken away behind a wall of horrific heat and rolling smoke. Crumbling into ash.
‘My pub,’ she croaked and coughed. Her throat hurt and her chest tightened like a vice again.
A window exploded around the side and she winced, before pushing the mask away. ‘How’d I get here?’
‘You put that mask back on, Alma,’ the fire-brigade boy bossed and Alma glared at his pubescent face.
‘I’ve seen you in nappies. Don’t you tell me what to do. I’ll take it off if I want.’
‘Woken up, have you, Alma.’ Douglas looked at her with a glint in his eye. He nodded suggestively at the plastic face cover, and grumblingly, she put it back on.
She remembered being in the kitchen when the fire started. Didn’t remember leaving it. She said in a muffled voice through the mask, ‘So who carried me out?’ Then she lifted it up slightly to say, ‘Shoulda left me.’
‘Sorry. I did.’ Douglas waved at the mask. ‘Keep it on.’
‘And you both nearly died.’ The sharpness in Sienna’s voice penetrated Alma’s distress. It was a note Alma had never heard from the calm doctor, and she closed her eyes. Thought about it. Opened them again and looked at the white-faced woman. ‘Close, was it?’
‘Too close,’ Sienna said very quietly and she saw Douglas touch Sienna’s shoulder. Saw the look of deep distress that still lingered in Sienna’s eyes. Must’ve been close. Too bloody courageous for his own good, that man. Guess she was glad he had carried her out. Or would hopefully get to that stage of thought sometime in the next year or two.
‘I’m sorry about your hotel, Alma,’ Douglas said. ‘She was a grand old lady and a part of you.’
Alma felt the tears prickle and she glared at him. Great. Now he was gonna give her sympathy and make her cry for the first time in Spinifex history. No bloody way was that happening. She dragged herself back under control and forced the lump in her throat down by sheer willpower.
‘It’s just a pub.’ The words came out harsh. But Douglas was right, her pub had been a part of her. A big part of what she’d done with the rest of her life after Pearl. And that investment of blood, sweat and fear of failure was well on the way to gone now.
That building had been a part of Shirl, too. She guessed it was good Shirl wasn’t here to see this. It was like losing a part of Shirl also, all over again. Why did life have to suck so hard so often?
Alma coughed. Turned her eyes away resolutely from the past, though she doubted she’d forget the picture she could still see of the crumbling wreckage in her mind’s eye. ‘Anybody hurt?’
Douglas’s big hand came down gently on her shoulder in unobtrusive support. ‘You’re the worst. Unless you had some sleepover guests we didn’t know about?’
That would be a real tragedy, she reminded herself, if she’d toasted some unsuspecting people. ‘Nope.’ She blinked her stinging eyes. ‘Just the doctor and the regulars in the bar.’ She sucked in a few more drags of oxygen until she could
talk again. ‘Main thing is nobody died.’ She glared at Douglas. ‘Except nearly me.’ She had to rest to get her breath back. ‘Not so sure I’m glad you pulled me free,’ she managed once she could talk again. She glared at the young fireman. ‘Would’ve given me peace from folk pushing things on me I don’t want. Shouldn’t you be somewhere else?’ She growled at the poor young man, waving him away with her hand. ‘Go and help your father.’
Chapter Thirty-nine
Maddy
Lying in bed in the early hours of the next morning, Madison tried to fall back to sleep, the tiny snuffles from Bee in her cot beside her bed making her smile.
Unexpected light danced across her ceiling and caught her eye, then the sound of a vehicle’s approach lifted her head. The lights disappeared as the sound died into the silent night. A trickle of foreboding crinkled her forehead as she eased back the covers.
As she rose she told herself of course there were other staff quarters somewhere she hadn’t seen on the drive in, but the unease made her glance at the clock and register the time. Four am?
Bee had woken three times since they’d all gone to bed and Maddy had just finished feeding her. At least she was sleeping now and swaddled in an extra wrap, because trying to keep her quiet as she moved around the room would have woken the dead, let alone Eve and Lily.
But now, slipping out to the verandah as she peered into the night, she had the sensation of eyes watching her, and unconsciously she tightened her grip on the torch Eve had given her.
A twig snapped loudly in the stillness beneath the verandah steps and Maddy spun and stared into the darkness towards the sound, and then the dogs, tied up for the night, began to bark in an explosion of ferocious growls and snarls.
Maddy’s heart thumped uneasily in her chest and a sense of dread made her back away from the edge until she heard the screen door open behind her and Eve’s voice.
‘Come inside, Madison,’ Eve said, calm and firm. ‘We’ll lock the door.’
Maddy hurried after Eve. ‘Do you think there’s someone out there?’ she whispered.
The steps creaked. ‘It could be an animal, but we’ll lock up just in case.’ Eve’s voice remained serene as she shot home the bolt on the door. Then she flipped on a row of lights and outside the house and the garden were bathed in yellow illumination. They looked out the kitchen window and suddenly a man’s head appeared. Both of them gasped.
‘Jacob!’ Maddy whispered and the nausea flooded her throat. He’d found her.
Then his body emerged as he climbed the last few steps until the full limping height of him stood on the verandah. She registered with shock that his plaster was gone. He must have cut it off himself.
‘Ha!’ he said, triumph in his voice. ‘Don’t hide. I knew you’d be here. Heard her say that was where she’d taken you. Come out, Madison. I saw you!’ The voice shook with exhilaration at his find. ‘You shouldn’t run away from me. You’re mine.’
Maddy turned to Eve. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Tears of fear and embarrassment and inevitability ran down Maddy’s cheek. She lifted her streaked face and squared her shoulders. ‘You keep Bee safe. I have to go out. I’ll go with him. I’ll make him go away.’
Eve shook her head firmly and there was no hesitation in her voice. ‘You’re not going anywhere with that man. I won’t let you.’ It was an order from an unexpectedly authoritative Eve, giving her no chance of disobeying.
Jacob’s voice cracked as his temper flared. ‘Come out!’ The women stayed silent.
He limped heavily across the verandah, trying to see into the dark interior with the external lights shining in his eyes.
‘If you don’t come out I’ll burn it!’ His voice cracked. ‘Burn this house down with you in it. Just like I burned that witch’s pub in Spinifex.’
Horror rose in Maddy’s throat and she lifted her hand to hold it in. He’d destroyed Alma’s beautiful pub. Had threatened Eve’s home. ‘I have to stop him,’ she pleaded.
Eve’s whisper penetrated her horror. ‘No. You can replace property. Not lives. Your baby needs you. Come on, Maddy. I’ll get Lily. You get Bee. We’ll go downstairs and out through the laundry. I’ll let the dogs go and they’ll chase him off before he can do anything.’ They began to quietly back away.
They heard the crack of something thrown against the glass of one of the windows and Maddy gasped. Hurriedly, she scooped up Bee then followed Eve to Lily’s room, but the girl was standing in the hallway with huge frightened eyes as Eve quietly explained the plan.
The three women crept down the central staircase to the large open area under the building that housed the laundry. Easing open the door to the outside, Maddy watched Eve slip past and edge across the yard to the barking dogs, which was difficult to do without being seen now that all the outside lights were on. She made it across to the dogs and unclipped their collars and they bounded growling and snarling towards the verandah before Jacob saw her.
Maddy felt the first stirrings of relief.
There was a shout from Jacob and snarls from the dogs, then the sound of bumps and yells and Eve whispered, ‘Come on. We’ll move towards the lake, near the gazebo, until we hear his car drive off.’
Then Eve stumbled, muffled a cry, and inexplicably froze. Maddy bumped into her, and Lily into Maddy, and Eve threw a hand out. ‘Stop! A snake.’
Maddy looked down, trying to spot movement in the lines of shadow and light, and that’s when she saw the fat striped body and inhaled sharply. She spun around with her baby in her arms to follow the snake’s path with her gaze. The tail disappeared into a cane basket of flowers. Brown stripes undulating. Jacob’s threat faded a long way into second place.
Lily said, ‘Did it bite you?’
‘Yes.’ Eve’s voice was faint. ‘I think it’s a tiger.’ Her voice shook.
‘Yes, it is,’ Maddy confirmed from the glimpse she’d had of the snake. She’d dealt with this in Western Australia when Tom, one of her older brothers, had been bitten. It was the reason she had learned first aid. A sudden surreal calmness settled over Maddy.
Lily had frozen in shock and looked about to faint. ‘Lily. Take Bee. I have to help Eve.’ Maddy pushed Bee into the young girl’s arms. Then she bent down to confirm the two marks showing red on Eve’s ankle. ‘How many times did it bite you?’
Eve’s voice came faltering and faint. ‘Once I think. Struck and bolted.’
‘Probably because it was going to be trodden on rather than because it was attacking. Hopefully there’s less poison that way.’ Strangely, as if in a vacuum, Maddy felt so calm that had Jacob appeared she would have told him to wait with such force even he would have stopped. She glanced around until she saw a heavy wooden chair.
She squeezed Eve’s shoulder once, grabbed the chair with a surge of superhuman strength and dropped it in the dirt beside Eve.
‘Sit. Don’t move. Where are your compression bandages?’ Anyone on the land would have bandages for snake bite somewhere for just such an occasion.
‘Upstairs. Behind the fruit bowl. We keep them there.’
Maddy flew back inside and up the stairs, not sparing a glance for the verandah or the man on it, if he was there, and found the fruit basin. She vaguely heard the dogs barking and growling, and Jacob swearing as his voice retreated. Locating the bandages, and spotting the cordless phone on the wall beside the sink, she grabbed them both and hurried down to Eve. If someone had asked her she would not have been able to say if the dogs had caught Jacob. Stuff Jacob.
‘Hold this and talk.’ Maddy thrust the phone at Eve and briefly glanced at her baby crooked in Lily’s frozen arms. ‘I’ll bandage. I’ve done this before.’
She checked Lily briefly again to see that Bee was fine, and waved once more at the phone, which had the emergency number taped to the front. She watched Eve’s shaking fingers begin to press the flying doctor’s number and listened for confirmation that it had connected.
Steadily, with her own fingers shaking, Maddy wadd
ed her handkerchief against the faint scratch, and then began to bandage the foot from the toes to the thigh. Firmly. Evenly. Not too tight. Rolling the bandage out in a smooth upward spiral. A car started up in the distance and she barely heard it. Barely cared. This was more important. Eve could die.
Eve had begun to tremble and Maddy took hold of the phone and changed it to loudspeaker in case she needed to talk. Gave it back to Eve and returned to the bandages. Now she could hear the tinny voice from the handset. ‘Dr Kent. Charleville Base Flying Doctor. How can I help you?’
Maddy heard the effort to be calm as Eve sucked in a breath. ‘It’s Eve Mackay at Diamond Lake Station. I’ve been bitten by a tiger snake on the foot. I’m fourteen weeks,’ her voice wobbled, on the verge of tears, ‘pregnant.’ And Maddy knew where Eve’s main concern lay. Maddy glanced at Bee and fought the sudden surge of panic she didn’t have time for now. Damn Jacob to hell for attacking these beautiful people.
Eve drew a shuddering breath as she listened to the voice on the other end. Maddy couldn’t hear the response properly as it was back jammed against Eve’s head. ‘Yes. She’s binding it now. Yes, I’m sitting. I’ll stay as still as I can. We’re under the house by the laundry. There was an intruder upstairs and the dogs are out. I think he’s gone.’ She released a quivering sigh and held the phone away from her head so Maddy could hear, too.
The doctor’s voice repeated, ‘I’ll just confirm. Diamond Lake Station. There was an intruder. One of our team will call the police. Tiger snake bite on foot. Fourteen weeks pregnant. You have someone binding your foot.’
‘Yes. Pressure on site and toes to thigh. Firm not occlusive,’ Eve said.
Maddy nodded as she worked.
‘And the airstrip is functional?’
‘Yes. The cattle gates are shut because my husband will fly in this morning and we do have night lights. Maddy will turn them on in a minute.’
The Baby Doctor Page 21