by Sandy Curtis
Now she felt it again. That sharp, bitter pang of disappointment. Only now it was mixed with regret. Regret for what might have been. For what should have been.
The hurt welled up fiercely.
'Are you all right?'
Startled, she looked up to see Drew in the doorway. In the flickering candlelight, she could see the concern in his eyes. She closed the notebook. 'Sure.'
'I read what your father wrote, Emma. He loved you. He was proud of you.'
'So it would appear.' She stood up. 'I'd better wipe up these dishes.'
Drew walked into the room. 'You're not very good at taking, are you?'
'What do you mean?'
'You're good at giving. You're caring, compassionate. But you don't know how to take comfort for yourself.'
'I don't need comfort. I can cope. I've always coped.' Even as she spoke, she could feel her grief chipping at the barriers that had kept her heart intact since she was a teenager. Caring for her father had been an emotional minefield. Now her nerves were stretched to the limit. But she had coped before.
She would now.
Hadley closed the diary which held the results of more than twelve months meticulous planning and placed it in the desk drawer.
For a man who'd been so long in the isolation of the bush, he'd found it surprisingly easy to find out the information he'd needed. Although Cairns was no country town, the people were friendly and eager to help a man in search of a 'long-lost friend'. Perhaps its international tourist status had made the residents more willing to accommodate the request of a stranger.
So now his diary held names, addresses and other details that would enable him to carry out the tasks he had been given.
A sigh of frustration rumbled through his big frame. Only the flood prevented him from carrying out the tasks he had been commanded to do. As soon as the water abated…
Through the thick material of his work trousers he fingered the knife strapped to his calf. The long thin blade nestled in its scabbard, reassuringly solid against the muscle.
His wife walked into the room. He rose to join her in prayer.
The next morning the sun shone. The heat blazed down and turned the sodden grass to steam.
Drew was becoming impatient. The pain in his wounds had lessened and Emma was pleased with the way they were healing, but he was anxious to get back to Cairns and look for clues to whoever had tried to kill him. Someone who knew enough about him to know where he spent his holidays and when. Someone daring enough to sneak into his fishing shack, tamper with his beer, then drive hundreds of kilometres with his unconscious body in the vehicle.
But he also didn't want to leave Emma here on her own. Whoever had dumped him here could, even now, be leading his would-be killer back to finish the job. He determined that when he left he would take Emma with him. Whether she liked it or not.
They had just finished breakfast when the sound of a vehicle approaching had Emma reaching for the rifle.
She strode to the front door and peered out. Then she ran to greet the old Willeys Jeep that churned its way up to the veranda.
A man jumped from the vehicle as he pulled on the handbrake. A tall, gangly man in his mid twenties with straw blond hair and pale green eyes.
'It's Mary!' he called, panic harsh in his voice. 'The baby's coming!'
'I'll get my bag.' Emma called. 'You go back to her. I'll follow.'
The Jeep ploughed back through the mud as Emma dashed into the surgery. She opened a drawer, took out a key ring. She tossed it to Drew. 'Padlock key - for the shed. Long one for the Land Cruiser. Bring it around here, please.'
She began placing instruments and other gear into a backpack that already contained a comprehensive medical kit and emergency supplies that were a habit from her work with Médecins sans Frontières. Drew pulled on her father's boots, grabbed up the rifle and ran as best he could to the shed.
Emma eased off the accelerator as she approached the river. Muddy water swirled around the trunks of trees lining the banks. It churned and eddied, and battered debris against the crossboards of an old bridge. The wooden planks barely cleared the turbulent water.
She glanced across at Drew. He had insisted on coming with her, and she hadn't had time to waste arguing.
'This bridge is higher than the ones downstream that lead out of the valley,' she explained. 'It's usually the last to be covered when there's a flood. Tom and Mary live on the other side.'
'Alone?'
Emma nodded. 'His parents bought another property closer to Cairns and left Tom to run this one.'
She drove carefully onto the bridge. The water's force vibrated up through the vehicle and quivered in the steering wheel. The Land Cruiser inched forward.
Suddenly the bridge shuddered. Emma looked upstream. Nothing.
The bridge shuddered again.
'Could be a tree or a log floating beneath the surface,' Drew guessed. 'Probably hitting the middle pylon.'
Emma increased speed. 'No point waiting for the bridge to go.'
They breathed a sigh of relief as the Land Cruiser gained the other bank. It wasn't long before they were driving through paddocks where healthy-looking cattle grazed on lush, rain-soaked grass. Avoiding fallen trees and storm-tossed debris slowed their progress and added to Emma's impatience.
She swung off onto a dirt track and through an open gate. She frowned. Tom never left a gate open - not unless the need was urgent. He must really be panicking. She increased speed, worry warring with the need for caution.
The Land Cruiser slid in the mud, jerked into a rain-hollowed rut and slipped out sideways. Emma slowed, changed down a gear. Her face tightened in concentration.
For the next ten minutes she battled the mud and debris, and finally they approached a low-set home surrounded by sprawling cattleyards and sheds.
Emma slid the Land Cruiser to a halt, grabbed her bag and ran for the front steps.
Drew followed her into an old-fashioned living room heavy with family photos, tapestry furniture and dark green curtains. He glimpsed Emma disappearing up the hall and into a room. Sounds of a woman crying and a man's whispered reassurances drifted out and he followed slowly.
The woman on the bed shrank back as Drew stood in the doorway. Her large brown eyes filled with fear. She raised a thin arm to grasp Tom's hand.
'I'm a friend of Emma's,' Drew said quietly as he walked into the room. 'My name's Drew.' He smiled, and the woman relaxed. The mound of her belly tightened beneath her floral smock and she groaned in pain.
'Easy, Mary.' Emma rested one hand on the firm roundness and looked at her watch. 'It's going to be a few hours yet. Why don't you get up and walk around between contractions. It'll help ease the backache.'
Mary looked dubious, and Emma smiled reassuringly. 'In some countries where I've worked, Mary, women keep on working as long as they can. Sometimes they even have their babies in the field because they've left it too late to get to shelter.' The tension eased from Mary's features, and Emma glanced at Drew. 'If you don't mind being left with Drew for a little while, Tom and I have some things to organise.'
Drew caught the message in the glance Emma gave him. She wanted to talk to Tom in private. Drew moved forward, taking Tom's place, and saw the worry trickle into Mary's eyes as she watched Tom and Emma walk out.
Mary's fear filtered through her lank brown hair, her scrawny limbs and the thin body with its incongruous soccer ball of life. Drew felt a stirring of sympathy. He looked down at her arms, frowned, then smiled reassuringly.
'Do you want a boy or a girl?' he asked.
The distraction worked. A slow, sweet smile spread over Mary's face, transforming it with a kind of beauty. 'Tom wants a girl. We'll call her Bethany Lee. But I don't mind if it's a boy.'
Whatever it is, thought Drew, I hope it doesn't have its mother's problem.
Emma and Tom came back with plastic, clean sheets and towels. Tom walked Mary around the room while Emma prepared the bed. She made no
protest when Drew helped her. He watched the competent sweep of her hands across the sheets. Then the swift, efficient setting up of instruments on the bedside table.
As Tom settled Mary on the bed again, Emma reached for a bottle of sterilising solution and a packet of surgical gloves. 'Mary, I need to do an internal examination to see how dilated you are. I'm going to the bathroom to scrub up.' She handed the packet of gloves to Drew. 'Perhaps you'll assist?'
'How long has Mary been an addict?' Drew asked as he held a glove open for Emma to slide her hand into.
'It wasn't hard to work out,' he explained at Emma's quizzical look. 'I saw the scars on her arms. I've seen them before.'
'I suppose you've sent a few to jail,' she muttered and gestured impatiently at the gloves packet.
'I'm a defence lawyer, Emma, not a prosecutor.' He held open the second glove. 'I try to keep kids like Mary out of prison. Though sometimes prison can save their lives. For some it's a reality jolt they'd never get on the streets, and their only chance to dry out.'
Emma regarded him thoughtfully, then made up her mind. 'Mary's been off heroin for over a year. She's been on the methadone program, and she's even been off that for a few months.'
'How do you think she'll cope?'
'She was very determined to give the baby a chance not to be born addicted. But she's not strong, Drew, physically or emotionally. I don't know how she'll get through this birth. Normally I wouldn't give an ex-addict pethidine or any other painkiller, but I will if I have no choice.'
Her eyes burned with determination. Drew nodded. 'You'll get her through it.'
He saw the appreciation in her eyes, then the doubt. 'You have a lot of confidence in me,' she said wryly.
'Yes,' he said with conviction, 'I have. You have a very empathetic nature and Mary trusts you.'
'Right now,' she held up her gloved hands, 'she doesn't have much choice.'
Drew walked out onto the veranda with a tray holding sandwiches and two mugs of coffee. He settled the tray onto a small table and sat down on a white cane chair.
Storm clouds cast a grey pall over the mountains. Heat shimmered in the air, and no breeze relieved its fierceness. Sweat dampened Drew's light cotton shirt and irritated the wounds on his back.
Emma walked out and sat in another chair.
Drew watched the tired lines around her eyes, the dark hollows that betrayed the strain she'd been under the past two days. 'How's it going?'
Emma picked up the coffee, took an appreciative sip, and sighed. 'Mary is just one big bundle of nerves. She is so anxious to do this birth right she'll probably be lucky to get through it without breaking down.'
'Why is she so anxious?'
'Because she feels she owes everything she has to Tom. He dragged her away from her druggie friends, got her on the methadone program, married her and brought her here to live so there'd be no pressures on her. His parents didn't approve but they decided to give them a chance and let them sort it out together.'
Drew reached for the sandwiches and passed one to Emma. 'That was very trusting of them.'
'Mmmm. Good sandwich - I didn't realise I was so hungry. Guess it is after lunchtime.' Emma settled back in the chair and crossed one jeans-clad leg over the other. 'Tom's always been reliable. Salt-of-the-earth type. He's loved Mary since high school but she moved to Cairns, got in with the wrong crowd, into drugs. Tom didn't give up on her, though.'
'It sounds like you know him very well.'
She shrugged. 'Tom was only thirteen when Mum and I left the valley. But I saw him when I spent a few holidays with Dad, and J.D. always wrote to let me know what everyone was up to. The valley's a pretty close-knit community.'
She stood up, flexed her shoulders, then massaged her neck. 'I'd better be getting back.' She looked down at Drew. 'Thanks for getting lunch.' Her eyes held his for a moment, and he could have sworn he read a yearning there, but she turned and walked back inside.
Drew sat for a long time, his churning thoughts a reflection of the need coursing through his body. No woman had affected him the way Emma did. No woman had provoked the depth of feeling, the immediate physical response, the urgent desire to cherish.
Or the helpless sense of frustration that nothing he could do or say would prevent her from walking out of his life as soon as she could arrange it.
The pendulum clock in the living room struck three o'clock. Drew flung down the magazine he was reading. Damned if he knew how fathers waited through the long drawn-out process of childbirth! This wasn't even his child and he was anxious to have the pain and fear finished with.
Mary's fear had permeated them all. Despite Emma's reassurances that everything was going well, Mary queried every change in the labour, desperately afraid her drug-taking had somehow caused problems with the developing foetus.
Drew had looked in on the struggling trio half an hour earlier. Tom's face had reflected his apprehension; Mary was worn and exhausted, but determined not to give in to the demands of her body for a quick fix to the pain.
His heart had scrunched in his chest at the sight of Emma, patiently massaging Mary's back to help ease her pain. Drew had never seen soldiers under siege before, but he imagined they would exude that same quiet resolute air of purpose he felt coming from Emma. That same acceptance of the fact there was a long battle ahead and only the steadfast would survive. Panic was not an option.
Suddenly a faint mewling cry sounded from the room. He walked to the doorway, hesitated, unsure if they would feel he was intruding.
Emma was cleaning blood from a tiny baby, while Tom wiped perspiration from Mary's face with a damp cloth. Emma looked at Mary and Tom, and smiled.
'All the fingers and toes,' she said. 'She's a beautiful little girl - a bit small, but we were expecting that.'
She wrapped the baby in a light cotton blanket, then handed her to her parents. Relief, joy, and an almost palpable bond of love seemed to surge from the young couple as they gazed in awe at their daughter.
Drew had friends who had children, but this was the first time he had been so close to a birth. He looked at the diminutive scrap of life, the dark hair damp on the reddened scalp. A tiny fist pushed into the air. Slowly the fingers uncurled.
Drew stood, unmoving, fascinated. Each little fingernail was so minuscule yet so perfect. The dainty hand pulled at her eye, rubbed against the whisper of eyelash on the delicate cheek.
An overwhelming sense of the mystery of life flooded through Drew. And a sudden unexpected longing for a child of his own. Without him being fully conscious of it, a smile of wonder and hope spread across his face. For a few more seconds he looked at the baby, then he glanced at Emma.
She was looking at him, her expression unfathomable. He returned her gaze. He watched her eyes widen and flare with emotion, with acknowledgment of the need flowing between them. A powerful, intense need, primitive in its depth. On a sexual level it hit him hard, tightening his loins with a fierce heat; but emotionally he felt as though he'd been punched in the heart. His breathing seemed to stop.
The baby cried. Emma stiffened, focused on Mary, on the job she had yet to complete.
Drew walked back into the living room, into a reality that no longer seemed real. Only Emma, and the deep sense of longing flowing between them, were real.
Emma waited until six o'clock before she felt confident she could leave Mary and the baby. Although exhausted, Mary was recovering well from the labour. Emma told Tom to note if the baby was irritable or jittery as this could indicate an addiction problem, but she reassured him it was highly unlikely and that the infant appeared quite healthy.
Tom pressed Emma to stay, but she explained the horses and dogs would need feeding. Above all else, Emma was exhausted. Physically and emotionally. Although she had presented a calm, confident facade to Mary and Tom, she had been desperately worried about Mary's ability to cope with a long labour. She assured Tom she would return in the morning.
The sun's dying rays glowed g
olden through the eucalyptus trees, casting long shadows across the road. Cicadas droned in perpetual rhythm, an auditory balance to the heat. Emma drove slowly, aware of every ache in her body, the tiredness creeping into her bones.
She felt Drew's gaze on her. 'Does it always make you feel like that?' he asked. 'Childbirth, I mean.'
She understood what he was asking. She had seen his reaction to the sight of the baby. And her heart had melted at the look in his eyes. She had connected with him then, connected in a way she had never expected to do with a man. And it had shaken her badly. She didn't want to feel that way, didn't want to be vulnerable.
She considered carefully before she replied. 'For me, yes. I've never lost that sense of awe, of wonder. Even when the child is born into famine or war, I'm still struck by the absolute miracle of birth. But it breaks your heart to deliver a baby for a woman whose other children are starving to death. There's no joy in her eyes. Just the bleak knowledge that by the time the famine or the war is over, all her children could be dead.'
'It bothers you, doesn't it? Not being able to save all the children.' Drew's voice was gentle, a verbal caress on her heart.
'You try not to let it get to you. You try to develop some sort of objectivity. But sometimes you could weep for the utter waste of life. In one refugee camp in Africa where our doctors were working, a camp officer brought in a baby girl who'd been tossed into the cesspit. She was newborn - less than an hour old. Tossed away like a piece of sh…'
The road wavered in front of her and she fought back the tears stinging her eyes.
A minute passed. She forced herself to concentrate on her driving, forced from her mind the thousands of pleading eyes, the sad resignation.
'What happened to the baby?'
'They searched for the mother - couldn't find her. She could have been desperate; the baby could have been the result of a rape. Who knows why she did what she did. The doctor eventually adopted the child.'
'Was that a wise decision?'