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Appallingly, he was still seeing terror as well as pain in the little boy’s eyes. Legacy of his ghastly grandparents?
‘Hey, Kit, you’re here now, with me,’ he said as they rolled the trolley into Theatre. He touched the little boy’s face, willing the fear to disappear. ‘You’ve cut your hand but we’ll fix it. I know it hurts, but we’ll stop it hurting really soon.’
‘I broke… You’re not mad…?’
‘Dr Rachel tells me you broke her window,’ he managed. ‘I broke four windows when I was your age. I used to tell my mum and dad the cat did it. They didn’t believe me but they weren’t mad and neither am I. Accidents happen. Kit, can you tell me what you feel when I touch your fingers? Can you press back when I press? Here? Here?’
He was now in professional mode—sort of—but the lurch in his stomach wasn’t going away.
And the information he gained from Kit as they settled him into Theatre wasn’t helping.
He was checking for damage to the tendons that ran through the palm and attached to the finger bones. Secondly, for nerve damage, which could result in permanent loss of function or sensation. Tom was applying gentle pressure to the tips of Kit’s fingers, asking him to push back.
The responses weren’t good.
And Rachel got it. She was focusing on the IV, on getting pain relief on board, but she was listening to Kit’s quavering answers. Knowing what they meant.
‘Okay, Dr Lavery, tell me the set-up,’ she said as Tom’s testing finished. ‘Do you have anyone here who can cope with paediatric plastics? Or someone who can get here fast?’
‘No,’ he said shortly. Stemming the bleeding seemed straightforward. It looked as if the radial artery had been nicked—it must have been to cause this amount of bleeding. They could fix that. But what his examination had told them was that Kit needed a plastic surgeon or a vascular surgeon or both if he wasn’t to lose part or all of the use of that hand.
That meant evacuation. It was eight hours by road to Melbourne, ten to Sydney or Canberra. Shallow Bay wasn’t the most remote place in Australia but its position, nestled on the far south-east coast, surrounded by hundreds of miles of mountainous forests, meant that reaching skilled help could be a logistical nightmare.
‘Where?’ Rachel said, and he had to give her credit for incisiveness.
‘Sydney.’
‘You have air transfer?’
‘It’ll take medevac an hour to reach us in the chopper, but yes.’
‘Can someone organise that?’ she said to Roscoe. ‘Now?’ And then she turned back to the child she was treating and her voice gentled. ‘Kit, we’re going to get your hand bandaged now, and stop things hurting, but there’s a bit of damage deep inside that might make your fingers not as strong as they should be. We need to take you to a big hospital to get your hand mended.’
‘Tom can fix it.’ Kit’s voice quavered.
‘He can,’ she said, injecting her voice with confidence. ‘I know that. And so can I, because Tom and I are both doctors. If Tom agrees, I’ll do the first part now. But have you ever seen Tom sew something that’s ripped? Like a pair of jeans?’
‘He did once,’ Kit managed, trying gamely to sound normal. ‘Big stitches. It came apart again.’
‘Hey, how did I guess?’ she said, smiling down at him. ‘So Tom’s not very good at sewing and neither am I. Kit, there are things in your hand called tendons which make your fingers work. You’ve hurt them, so what you need is a doctor who’s really good at tiny stitches. Don’t worry, we’ll give you something that stops you feeling what we need to do. We’ll make sure nothing hurts, I promise. You’ll end up with a neat scar you’ll be able to show your friends, but a good needleworking doctor will make sure your fingers end up stronger than ever. So what that means is that we need to take you to Sydney.’
‘I don’t want to go.’
‘I understand that,’ Rachel said. ‘I’ve just arrived at Shallow Bay and it looks a great place. But have you ever been in a helicopter?’
‘I… No.’
‘Then what an adventure. Your friends will be so jealous. Tom, will you be going with Kit, or is there someone he needs more?’
And she looked straight at him.
So did Kit.
Is there someone he needs more?
Her eyes were challenging. Angry? He didn’t get the anger, but he couldn’t afford to focus on it now.
Kit needs his mother, he thought, and it was the belief he’d had reinforced about a thousand times in the last two years. But Claire was dead.
Kit’s father was who knew where? Steve had been Claire’s folly. The responsibility was never going to be Steve’s.
Kit’s grandparents? Claire’s parents? They’d glory in this drama. They’d use it against him and his fight for custody would start all over again.
So he had to go with Kit, but to leave Shallow Bay… To leave two more needy children…
‘There’s no one but me,’ he said, and it nearly killed him to say it.
‘We’ll manage.’ It was Roscoe, gruff, stern, decisive. ‘You need to go, Doc. And hey, we have another doc here now.’
‘But Marcus. Henry. I can’t.’
‘They can stay at home,’ Roscoe told him. ‘We’ll find someone to stay with them.’
‘Not that childminder.’ When Rachel spoke to Kit she was gentleness itself but when she faced Tom he saw judgement that he’d left the kids with such a woman. ‘She’s unfit.’
‘She’s awful,’ Kit quavered. ‘I don’t like her.’
‘It’s okay,’ Tom said, feeling helpless. He took Kit’s good hand and squeezed. ‘I’ll fix this.’ But how?
‘Their normal minder is Rose,’ Roscoe told Rachel. ‘She hurt her hip yesterday but she’s great. The kids love her. She’ll stay with them.’
‘She can’t,’ Tom said, option after option being discarded with increasing desperation. ‘Not by herself. Not with her hip, and I can’t trust Christine to help her. And with the field day at Ferndale—how many people are free this weekend?’ He sounded desperate—he knew he did—but he was torn in so many directions. Kit needed him, but so did Marcus and Henry. As a parent, he was failing on all counts.
‘We’ll find someone,’ Roscoe said, but he was starting to sound unsure. He turned to Rachel, explaining Tom’s dilemma for him. ‘The annual show at Ferndale is a huge deal and almost all the locals go. There’s an added problem, too. These kids have had a bit of a tough time in the past and they need to stay in their own beds. Farming them out’s not an option. I’d offer but my wife’s almost nine months pregnant. What if she goes into labour?’
‘You can’t do it,’ she said bluntly. She was still looking at Tom as if he was something she’d found at the back of the fridge, something that had been mouldering for months. ‘So who can these boys depend on?’
‘Me,’ Tom said bleakly.
‘Which is why we have one child with a sliced hand and two children with no carer.’
‘We’ll find someone,’ Roscoe said again, but Tom felt ill. Rachel’s disdain was obvious and he deserved it. Who could he ask, given this amount of notice?
But the expression on Rachel’s face had changed. She looked…as if she was about to step into a chasm? It was a momentary look and then her expression became one of resolution. As if a decision had been made, but the decision was scary.
‘Okay, then,’ she said briskly, as if what was about to be said needed to be said before she changed her mind. ‘Decision. If there’s no other option, I’ll accept responsibility. The boys don’t know me, but I’m dependable. I can’t imagine you’ll need to stay in Sydney for more than a couple of days.’
‘I can’t… They won’t…’
‘I’m not offering to do this on my own,’ she said, still brisk. ‘Nor should you agree if I did. There’s no way you should trust me. But if Rose of the hurt hip is otherwise okay… Would she agree to stay with the boys to give them the security they need? If she’s willing, then I’ll stay too. I can do housework, anything physical, and I can care for Rose as well as the boys. I don’t mind sleeping on the floor if I need to. I’ve had experience of living with kids. I can cope with anything they throw at me.’
‘I can’t ask that of you,’ Tom said, but she skewered him with a look that said he needed to get his act together.
‘So what are your options?’
There weren’t any.
‘Rachel, with Tom away, we’ll be needing you as a doctor,’ Roscoe said, sounding stunned. ‘I know you’re not supposed to start until Monday but there’s no one else. You know our last doc left us in the lurch. She had one of those scholarships you’re on, but bang, she got herself pregnant and her fiancée paid her way out. So there’s only Tom. And now there’s only you.’
Then his face cleared. ‘But maybe it would work. Rose isn’t disabled, just sore. She lives in the third cottage down on your bay and she’s slept at Tom’s before. There’s a spare bedroom, and I imagine you could use Tom’s bed. There’s an intercom from Tom’s living room to the nurses’ station here, so someone can always listen in if you need to be at the hospital. That works if Tom has to fix a drip or something at three in the morning. Tom works around his family. I guess you can, too.’
‘I guess I can,’ Rachel said.
‘I can’t ask…’ Tom managed, but he was cut off.
‘You have no choice.’ Once again he heard anger, but she was moving on. ‘Okay, Kit, let’s get your hand fixed up ready for your helicopter ride. Dr Lavery, I’ll need your help to stabilise things, but then you need to go home and pack.’
‘You’ve only just arrived,’ Tom said. He was feeling as if the ground beneath him was no longer solid. Who was in charge here? Not him. ‘You can’t…’
‘Dr Lavery, I have no idea yet of what you can and can’t do,’ she said with asperity. ‘But me… Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do without seeing me in operation. Do you or do you not need a childminder to stay with Rose?’
‘I… Yes.’
‘And is Rose dependable?’
‘Of course.’
‘So if I turned out to be a terrible person…would she kick me out?’
‘She would,’ Roscoe said from behind them. He was starting to smile—problem solved? ‘If she was worried I dare say she’d boss me and Lizzy to move, with or without our new baby. She’s one strong lady.’
‘And so am I,’ Rachel retorted. ‘So, Dr Lavery, if you don’t want me to stay with your boys then say so, but don’t tell me I’m not capable.’
‘I guess… I’m starting to think you’re very capable,’ Tom told her and tried to smile.
‘Thank you,’ Rachel told him, but there was no hint of a smile in return. He was still hearing anger. ‘Now, Kit, let’s get this hand fixed and show your stepdad I’m capable there as well.’
What had she promised?
Argh!
If there was one thing Rachel Tilding had learned in her twenty-eight years it was not to get involved.
Eight years ago she’d applied for the Roger Lavery Scholarship because it was the only one which offered to pay her entire way through medical school. Her education was sketchy, to say the least. She’d officially left school at fifteen. Since then she’d worked where she could, odds and sods for years, before ending up on night shift in a metal fabrication factory. She’d couch-surfed with anyone who’d put up with her, all the time saving, doing whatever she could to get the marks and the money to enter medical school. The day she’d heard she’d won the scholarship she’d been so tired she’d wept over the assembly line all night.
But then, thanks to the scholarship, things had eased. She’d been able to find somewhere permanent to live. She’d had security and a future, which was more than she’d ever dreamed of. The only cost to her was a contract at the end of her internship to work for two years in this end-of-the-earth place.
‘Two years?’ She thought of one of the other students on her med course, of his appalled reaction when she’d told him her plans. ‘Shallow Bay? A tin-pot hospital with no specialists, in the middle of the National Park, cut off by bushfires in summer, floods in winter? I’m guessing you’ll be married with babies by the end of the two years because there’ll be nothing else to do.’
‘I’m not into families.’ She’d snapped it before she could stop herself, almost a fear response.
‘You will be if you go there,’ her fellow student had said. ‘My uncle’s a county doctor, on call twenty-four-seven. His wife and kids hardly see him, but he says they’re the only thing that keeps him sane.’
A family? Keeping her sane? As if.
And now she’d offered to be part of one.
But it was only for a couple of days. She could do this. After what she’d been through, she knew she could pretty much do anything she needed.
But this was what someone else needed. Tom.
A stepfather. A man who’d left his kids with someone totally irresponsible.
So why had she made the offer? It wasn’t her fault the kid had hurt his hand. She didn’t get involved—she never had. And yet here she was, two minutes after arriving at Shallow Bay, putting her hand up to move in with a house full of kids. It was so unlike her it left her stunned.
Was it the thought of kids being left with a stepfather? After all this time, the word still made her feel sick to the stomach.
She was overreacting, she knew she was. Cinderella’s stepmother… Her own stepfather… They’d given the roles such a bad name.
One was a fairy story, she told herself, but her own…
Get over it.
Luckily she had medicine to distract her. It was a relief to move back into treating doctor mode. She was using local anaesthetic. Kit was awake and terrified, so she needed Tom to be Kit’s support person.
Roscoe had set up a screen so Kit couldn’t see her work. Tom could see over the screen but she had to block both Tom and Kit out. It was only Kit’s hand that mattered.
The anaesthetic block was cutting off sensation and Tom was keeping the little boy still. Conscious all the time of doing no more damage, she started removing slivers of glass. Left in situ, they could move during the flight and cause more damage.
There was enough damage already. He must have dragged his hand backward as he’d felt it cut. The glass had sliced from palm down to wrist and then across as he’d jerked back out of the shattered window.
She was focusing fiercely. Broken glass was appallingly difficult to clear from wounds, as its transparency made it notoriously hard to see. Roscoe was in the background, handing her what she needed, but Tom was right there. One of his hands was under Kit’s head, cradling like a pillow. The other was on Kit’s elbow, stopping it moving.
Despite her concentration on the wound, she couldn’t quite block out his presence. He was holding the little boy still but hugging him at the same time.
‘This is going to be an amazing scar,’ he was telling Kit. ‘You’ll need to make up a great story to go with it. Maybe we could get Dr Tilding to make marks that look like crocodile teeth to go with it. Then we could tell everyone that instead of staying with your grandparents last year you went croc hunting. Maybe one attacked Henry and you fought it off with your bare hands. I think it was a whopper, twenty feet long with teeth the size of my hedge-cutters. But you fought and fought and finally it held up its hands—paws?—what do crocodiles have? Anyway, your crocodile surrendered. And you told him it’d be okay as long as he said sorry and let you have a ride on his back.’
And to Rachel’s astonishment the little boy managed a weak chuckle. ‘That’s silly,’ he quavered. ‘Kids don’t ride crocodiles.’
‘I bet superheroes do,’ Tom said. ‘This scar looks like a superhero scar. Does it look like a superhero scar to you, Dr Tilding?’
She’d just fielded a sliver of glass. She held it still for a moment in her forceps, making sure her grip was secure before she tried to shift it, then transferred it to the kidney dish.
‘It’ll definitely be a superhero scar,’ she agreed. ‘You might need to buy a new T-shirt, Kit. One with Batman on the front?’
‘Batman?’ Kit said, with a brief return of spirit. With scorn to match. ‘Batman’s old.’ And then his face crumpled as he recalled another grief. ‘My meerkat T-shirt… It’s all bloody.’
‘We’ll try and fix it,’ Tom told him, but even Rachel could hear the doubt. And Roscoe grimaced behind him. To get monitors on the little boy’s chest they’d simply sliced the T-shirt away, not only to get fast access but also to check there were no other lacerations underneath. The T-shirt was now a mangled mess.
