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‘I think you’re both barmy,’ Ethel said softly, and for the first time her face relaxed. ‘You’ve made me feel so much better.’
‘Punishing yourself is the pits,’ Nell said strongly. ‘Heck, Ethel, the outside world criticises enough—there’s no good to be gained by criticising yourself. And if you’ve lost four stone you have so much to be proud of.’
‘Thank you.’ Ethel sighed and rose ponderously to her feet. She looked Nell up and down, really seeing her for the first time. Then she cast an uncertain glance at Blake, and another at Nell. ‘Do I know you?’
‘I’m Nell McKenzie. My grandparents owned the place out on the bluff.’
‘Nell McKenzie!’ The woman seemed stunned. ‘Well, I never. You’ve changed so much. And… Did you say you were Dr Sutherland’s new associate?’
‘That’s right.’ Nell beamed at Blake, defying him to deny it.
But Ethel was off on the next track. ‘They’re amazing overalls you’re wearing.’
‘They are, aren’t they?’
‘They look as if they’re made from a quilt.’
‘Funny you should say that,’ Nell told her. ‘They are. From a king-sized quilt.’
‘You cut up a quilt to make overalls?’ Ethel’s voice took on a horror that said she was a patchworker from way back and Nell had just committed a crime somewhere up there with murder. ‘You’re joking!’
‘No.’
‘But why on earth?’
‘I needed overalls much more than I needed a king-sized quilt,’ Nell said in a tone which stated that no more questions were welcome on this score. ‘Enough of that. OK? Let’s get this prescription written and get Christmas on the road.’
Blake left her writing her brandy-cream script and made a fast phone call. Was she really who she said she was?
She said she’d come from Emily and Jonas but he didn’t want to ring his friends yet. He knew the surgical registrar at Sydney Central. It took five minutes to page Daniel, but he came through with the goods straight away.
‘Nell McKenzie? Of course I know her. She’s the best damned doctor we’ve had in Emergency for a long time and we’re going to miss her badly. There’s been pressure on her to put her baby in child care here and keep on working.’
‘Why doesn’t she?’
‘Who knows?’ Daniel hesitated. ‘But it’d be a hard job. Emergency’s relentless, and who knows how much support she has? She’s kept her private life very much to herself. She’s such a mousy little thing that—’
‘Mousy little thing!’ Blake sat back in his chair at that, and frowned. ‘We must have the wrong woman.’
‘Five four-ish high, freckles, red hair hauled back like she’s ashamed of it?’
‘There are similarities, but—’
‘Oh, she’s not mousy around patients,’ Daniel told him. ‘She’s extremely competent and decisive and very, very kind. The patients love her. But…you know…she’s sort of self-effacing. We didn’t even know she had a boyfriend or a husband, and we were stunned when she announced she was pregnant. The nurses had a running joke about immaculate conception.’
‘Good grief.’
‘But if she’s turned up at Sandy Ridge… Hell, Blake, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If you have Nell McKenzie wanting to work with you, then you hang onto her with everything you have. She’s worth her weight in gold.’
A real little work horse. Blake came back out to Reception as Nell waved goodbye to Ethel and gazed at her incredulously. Anything less like a work horse he had yet to meet.
But she was here. She was another doctor and he really was overworked.
Who was Ernest?
It couldn’t matter.
‘All right,’ he managed. ‘All right.’
‘All right what?’
‘All right, you can stay.’
Her smile flashed back into her eyes. ‘Gee, that’s nice of you—and so gracious.’
He glowered. She had him unnerved. ‘I can cope on my own.’
‘I’m sure you can.’ she told him. ‘But you’ll crack eventually. You can’t go on working at this pace for ever.’
‘I have for two years.’
‘And it’s getting to you.’
‘It’s not getting to me.’
‘OK, it’s not getting to you,’ she agreed blithely, and grinned again. ‘You’re coping magnificently. All’s well with the world and I’m doomed to spend four weeks being a pest. But that’s my fate, Dr Sutherland. I know my place in life. Pest extraordinaire. So can we get on with it?’
He was having trouble keeping up with her. ‘What—now?’
‘Take me to where I’m going to live,’ she told him, smiling sweetly. ‘Take me to the doctors’ quarters and then we’ll get on with me being your Christmas present.’
The doctors’ quarters were not to Nell McKenzie’s liking. She took one step through the door and stopped short.
‘How long did you say you’ve been living here?’ she asked in stunned amazement, and Blake gazed around defensively.
‘Two years. It’s not so bad.’
‘It’s awful.’
‘Gee, thanks. If I go into your home, would you be happy if I said it was awful?’
‘I’d hope someone would point it out if it was this bad.’
‘It’s not this bad.’
‘It’s worse.’ She stared around the starkly furnished apartment in distaste.
OK, it wasn’t very good, Blake admitted. The last doctor at Sandy Ridge—Chris Maitland—had lived offsite. When Blake had taken over from Chris two years ago, the doctors’ quarters had contained a stark laminex table with four vinyl chairs, a vinyl couch and a plain bedstead in each room. Oh, and one black and white television. There had been nothing more, and Blake had never had the time or the inclination to turn the place into something else.
‘You can’t live here all the time,’ Nell breathed, and Blake found himself getting more and more annoyed.
‘Of course I do. Where else would I go?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake…’ She stalked over and hauled open the bedroom doors one after the other. The only difference between his bedroom and the others was that Blake’s bed was made up and there was a pile of medical journals on the floor. ‘Very cosy,’ she retorted. She swivelled back to face him. ‘Where’s your Christmas tree?’
‘Why would I need a Christmas tree?’
Why indeed? They gazed at each other, eyes locked, and her gaze was accusatory. Like he’d personally shot Santa Claus!
This time he was saved by his beeper. He looked at the little screen and he sighed. He was needed. It was more work—of course—but his sigh was a sigh of relief.
‘I need to go.’
‘Of course you need to go,’ Nell said cordially. ‘I would too if I stayed in this dump.’
‘You asked to live here.’
‘Nobody lives here. People stay here. There’s a difference. You don’t live on torn green vinyl dining chairs and ugly grey linoleum. You exist.’
‘I’m leaving,’ he told her. ‘I have a patient in hospital who has heart problems, and then I have house calls to make. Make yourself comfortable.’
‘Comfortable? Humph! Ernest will hate this place.’
Who the hell was Ernest? He didn’t have time to find out. ‘Well, ring Jonas and Em and complain about your working conditions,’ he said with asperity. ‘I’m sure the three of you can work it out. You’re all so good at organising.’
‘We are at that.’
He cast her a last, long, dubious look. There were schemes going on behind those sea-green eyes. He could feel their vibes from where he was.
Who was Ernest?
‘Don’t do anything. Just unpack.’
‘And I’ll make myself comfortable,’ she said. ‘It’s what all guests do.’
‘Don’t!’
‘Go, Dr Sutherland,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Go and doctor to those who need doctoring. Leave me to my own devices.’
He didn’t have a choice. He left.
By the time Blake reached Casualty, Harriet Walsingham’s heart had decided to behave.
‘Though it gave me quite a scare, Doctor,’ she said, sitting up and crossing her ankles primly on the ambulance trolley. ‘I came over all funny, I did.’
‘Then you can lie straight down again in case you come over all funny again,’ he told her, pressing her gently back on the pillows and moving his stethoscope into position. ‘What exactly happened?’
‘She was out cold on the kitchen floor,’ one of the ambulance officers told him, and Blake looked a question at the younger of the two men. If something was grey, Henry painted it black.
‘Bob?’
‘She wasn’t unconscious,’ Bob told him truthfully. ‘She was just gasping like a fish out of water and she’d managed to grab the phone and call us.’
‘It’s got to be angina pectoris,’ Henry told him triumphantly. ‘Like I told you when we called. That’s what it’ll be. Won’t it, Doc?
‘Possibly.’ Not for the first time Blake thought longingly of big cities and fully trained paramedics. Henry was the local postman and Bob ran the menswear store. For them, a call for the ambulance meant major excitement in otherwise humdrum lives.
If only they wouldn’t act like would-be doctors, he thought. Half the patients who arrived at the hospital via ambulance had been given an amateur diagnosis on the way, and sometimes it scared the pants off them.
‘What’s angina pectoris?’ Luckily, Harriet wasn’t one to let big words scare her. She was just like the ambulance officers—seemingly grateful for such an interesting event to disrupt her mundane existence. She gave a delicious shiver. ‘Is it dangerous?’ She really was feeling better.
‘It’s when your heart muscle is starved for oxygen,’ Blake told her. ‘But by itself it’s not dangerous. Shush for a minute while I listen.’
They all shushed. For about ten seconds. Then…
‘Can I have our new Dr McKenzie look after me?’ Harriet enquired. ‘No offence, Dr Blake, but I’ve always fancied a lady doctor, and she sounds lovely. I remember her when she was a teenager. She was such a sweet little thing, but so quiet.’
Our new Dr McKenzie… ‘How did you know about Nell?’
‘It’s all over town,’ Harriet told him. ‘It’s so exciting. Lorna is on the hospital board and she told me in strictest confidence. She said no one was allowed to say anything until today because they wanted to surprise you. You must be so pleased. Isn’t it the best Christmas present?’
He took a deep breath. Was the whole town in on this? ‘Harriet, be quiet.’
‘But it is exciting.’
‘I’ll sedate you if you don’t shut up,’ he told her. Angina might be a minor problem, but it could also be a symptom of something major. ‘Let’s get you admitted and get an ECG done.’ He glanced up at the ambulancemen. ‘Thanks, boys.’
‘Think nothing of it.’ The men moved reluctantly off and then stopped. There was clearly something bothering them. ‘How are we going to get to meet our new doctor, then?’ Bob asked. He hesitated. ‘Shouldn’t there be some sort of function to welcome her back? So she can get to know people like us? Except for her grandma’s funeral it’s been over ten years since she was home. We’d hardly recognise her.’
‘She’s only here for four weeks.’
Bob shook his head. ‘Lorna says it might be for longer. If the town’s nice to her—for a change—and if she settles here after the bub’s born, then she might stay.’
‘And if she likes you, Dr Blake.’ Harriet giggled. ‘Not that she couldn’t.’
Blake took a deep breath. This was getting out of hand. A welcome party? ‘We’re hardly likely to find any comers for a welcome party in the weeks before Christmas.’
‘But it’s Nell McKenzie,’ Bob said, as if that made everything different.
‘You’ll have to explain.’
‘The town feels bad about Nell McKenzie,’ Harriet told him. ‘And in a way maybe we should. No one ever did anything.’
‘We couldn’t,’ Henry retorted. ‘We weren’t allowed to.’
‘No, but she was such a little thing. And they were so awful.’
‘Who were so awful?’
