“A young handsome doctor,” said Matron Hudson. “I thought they were only in films. The girls will be pleased.”
“What girls?” said Stephen, embarrassed.
“Pilcher and Scott, my two nurses. We’re all man-hungry up here, aren’t we, Kate?”
But Kate had switched on the transmitting set in front of her, and Stephen said, “I’m only here for three weeks.”
“I might have known it,” Grace Hudson said. “None of the eligible men ever stay long here. All we get are the fat old no-hopers.” She pressed Covici’s shoulder; she too looked at him with affection. “Why couldn’t you have been handsome, Doctor? Or even just stayed young?”
“Shut up, Matron,” said the fat old doctor, smiling at her, and waited while Kate began the radio schedule.
There were two sets of controls in front of Kate: one for transmitting and one for reception. She went about her work in a cool professional way: her voice was once more calm and impersonal.
“This is 7 KXQ, Flying Doctor Control Station Winnemincka. 7 KXQ Winnemincka. It is now four o-clock. Dr. Covici is here to take any medical calls. Over.”
A crackle of voices came into the room, and Kate shook her head. “There’s rain about somewhere. Listen to the static.”
“It’s bad up here in the Wet,” Grace Hudson said to Stephen. “It makes it difficult for Dr. Covici when he’s trying to make out symptoms through an earful of static. He’s got a miracle ear, though. I’ve heard him diagnose Hodgkins’ disease out of five minutes of crackle and whistle, and been right, too.”
“Come in, 7KV,” Kate said into her microphone, and nodded at Covici.
A woman’s voice, faint with distance, came out of the receiver. “This is 7KV, Doctor. It’s one of our blacks, he has a bad knee, Doctor. Fell off his horse yesterday. He has a temperature, just over the hundred, and the knee has begun to swell. Over.”
“That’s Kingaroy Station,” Hudson said to Stephen, and pointed to the map. “Two hundred and eighty miles from here. That’s Mrs. King. Has six kids, all of them delivered by Dr. Covici.”
Covici was saying, “Good afternoon, Mrs. King. What is the patient’s name? And his age? Over.”
The woman’s voice came back: “Half-bottle Turps.” And Covici, without a smile, wrote the name down on one of the register cards before him. “He’s twenty or thirty, somewhere in between, Doctor. You never can tell with the blacks.”
“Righto, Mrs. King. Give him some of the tablets, Number Sixty-two in the medical chest. Three a day, four hours between doses. He should also take half a teaspoonful of Number Thirty-six powder in a glass of water, also three times a day. Tell him to lie up and rest the knee. Report in again in three days, unless it gets worse in the meantime. How are the kids – all okay? Cheerio, Mrs. King.”
The medical calls went on, while Grace Hudson pointed out the locations on the map and offered terse descriptions of the people calling in. “One thing about people out here, they are prepared to help themselves, which is more than I can say for a lot of city patients I’ve attended. You find a few fools who won’t keep their medical chests up to date, but most of them stock them up as regularly as they do their larders. The Service went to a lot of trouble to devise the chest – we reckon it has everything in it that should cover any emergency. Everything from scalpels to laxatives. Open them anywhere is our motto. You’ll be going out with the doctor on some of his flights, won’t you?”
“I’m looking forward to it,” said Stephen, and was surprised to find that he meant it.
Then the medical session was over and Covici heaved his bulk up from his chair. “I’m doing my rounds in the hospital now. You want to come, Steve?”
Stephen looked at Kate, her head bent slightly forward as she read the telegram of a death into the microphone: the voice was just a little tighter now, as if striving for impersonal-ness, trying not to be touched by the death of a stranger, by the grief of someone she knew. “I’ll stay here a while,” Stephen said. “There’s more I’d like to know about this setup.”
Covici went out the door, saying he would see Stephen across at his own cottage. Grace Hudson hesitated for a moment, went to say something, then followed Covici out of the room. She had looked at Kate, and Stephen had recognised the look on her face. He all at once felt sorry for Hudson, that by staying a few minutes here in this room he could cause her to envy Kate. He remembered his mother and how little there was in life for women here in this country. A stranger, some new face to look at, to talk to, broke the drought of loneliness.
Kate finished calling her telegrams, took down some for dispatch, and switched off. She sat back in her chair, pushing her hair back from her forehead. Her hair was thick and black and she wore it longer than was the fashion down south. Perhaps fashion was late reaching here, had been too effete to make the journey into the wilderness. Then he saw the recent copy of Vogue on the nearby chair, and he knew that fashion, or vanity or whatever you liked to call it, could make the journey to the moon.
“I like the way you wear your hair.”
She looked at him with surprise and some suspicion. “You’re not going to get anywhere with me, Dr. McCabe. I’m not man-hungry, like Grace Hudson and the others.”
He was exasperated, sorry that he had stayed. “Look, Mrs. Brannigan—”
“I’m not Mrs. Brannigan.” She turned the ring on her finger without looking at it, an automatic gesture. “My married name was Peterson. I use my maiden name again.” Then she turned away, with one of the quick abrupt movements she had, like an awkward child. “Hello, Billy. They were looking for you out at the airdrome.”
The young man who had come in the door bore a startling resemblance to her. He had the same high wide cheekbones, the same soft dark eyes, the mouth that was full-lipped and a little too big; he was almost too good-looking for a man. He was nearly as tall as Stephen, but broader in the shoulders; despite his prettiness he would be able to look after himself. He was dressed in khaki shirt and shorts, long socks and the same sort of fancy riding-boots as Charlie Pinjarra had worn: he had his looks and he did his best to carry them off: he was a dasher, a boy for the girls. Even down south the women, man-hungry or not, would flock round him like birds round a man with a bag of crumbs. Stephen wondered to which one of the girls here in Winnemincka he handed out crumbs.
“I’m Billy Brannigan,” he said, and put out a hand; the other held a mouth-organ. “I’m Doc Covici’s pilot. Makes it a family affair, sorta. Me piloting the plane and Kate on the radio.” He sat negligently on the edge of the table: he had enough confidence for both himself and his sister. “So you’re from Sydney, eh? I’m going down there soon, I hope. I’m up for a job as a trainee on the big aircraft, the overseas stuff. That’s what I’m after! Flying the big stuff from Sydney to London, having something to do, somewhere to go when you’re off duty.” He looked out at the country beyond the window, at the shadows dribbling like pitch from the deserted castles of the hills: the only enemy here was the country itself. “I’ve spent all afternoon playing ‘St. Louis Blues’ to two gins. They think I’m better than Larry Adler.” He held up the mouth-organ and blew a quick chord on it. “I’m the darling of the gins of Winnemincka.”
“And the half-castes,” said Kate.
“Yeah, and the half-castes,” said her brother, and grinned: he was even confident enough not to resent his sister’s sneers. He looked back at Stephen. “Now you’ve seen Winnemincka, I suppose you can’t wait to get back to Sydney?”
“I’ve been here before. As a kid.”
“You want your head read, coming