‘Reuben will tell us.’
Reuben stepped out of the shed to shake Keanu’s hand, then turned to Caroline.
‘New nurse?’ he asked.
‘But old friend, I hope, Reuben. It’s Caroline Lockhart.’
Reuben beamed with delight and held out his arms to give Caroline a hug.
‘You’ve grown up!’ Reuben said, looking fondly at her. ‘Grown up and beautiful!’
And from the look on Caroline’s face, it was the first friendly greeting she’d received since her return.
‘And your father? How is he?’ Reuben asked.
‘Working too hard. I hardly see him.’
‘Working and caring for that poor brother of yours, too, I suppose. Same as always,’ Reuben said. ‘Me, I did that when my wife died but later I realised pain didn’t go away with work. I have a new wife now and new family, and my big boy, he’s rich and famous in Australia—sends money home to his old man even.’
‘That’s great, Reuben,’ Caroline said, and Keanu knew she meant it. Her affinity for the islanders had always been as strong as his, and they had known that and loved her for it.
‘So, what’s happening here, Reuben?’ he asked to get his mind back on track. ‘Well …’
Reuben paused, scratched his head, shuffled his feet, and finally waved them both inside.
‘The men working the bulldozer and crusher and extraction plant hadn’t been paid for more than a month so they walked off the job maybe a month ago.’
He paused, looking out towards the harbour where machinery and sheds were rapidly disappearing under rampant rainforest regrowth.
‘The miners are in the same boat, but they believe they’ll eventually be paid. I think their team bosses sent a letter to your dad some weeks ago and they’re waiting to hear back, hoping he’ll come. They’re happy to keep working until they hear because most of them—well, they, we—don’t need the money for food or fancy clothes. It just puts the kids through school and university and pays for taking their wives on holidays.’
The words came out fluently enough but Keanu thought he could hear a lingering ‘but’ behind them.
‘But?’ Caroline said, and he had to smile that they could still be so much on the same wavelength.
‘The miners—they mine. It was the crusher team that did the safety stuff. Your uncle’s been putting off staff for months, and he started with the general labourers, saying the bulldozer boys and crusher and extraction operators could do the safety work when the crusher wasn’t operating, but now they’ve gone.’
‘Then the miners shouldn’t be working,’ Keanu said. ‘You’ve got to pull them out of there.’
Reuben shook his head.
‘They’ve got a plan. They’re going to stockpile enough rock then come out and work the crusher themselves for a month and that way they can keep the mine going. The miners, they’re all from these islands, they know the hospital needs the mine and they need the hospital and the clinics on the islands. Because they’re younger, a lot of them have young families—kids. Kids have accidents—need a nurse or a doctor …’
Keanu sighed.
He understood that part of the situation—but nevertheless the mine would have to shut! Safety had to come first and their small hospital just wasn’t equipped should a major catastrophe like a mine collapse happen.
Caroline’s heart had shuddered at the thought of the miners working in tunnels that might not have been shored up properly, or in water that hadn’t been pumped out of the tunnels, but the best way to find out was to talk to them.
‘Well, if there are people working here, shouldn’t we start the checks?’ She turned to Keanu, and read the concern she was feeling mirrored in his eyes. ‘How do you usually handle it?’
But it was Reuben who answered her.
‘I’ll ring through to the team and they send one man out at a time—we do it in alphabetical order so it’s easier for you with the files. I’m a bit worried about Kalifa Lui—his cough seems much worse.’
‘Should we see him first?’ Caroline asked, but Keanu shook his head.
‘He’ll realise we’ve picked him out and probably cough his lungs up on his way out of the mine so his chest’s clear when he gets here. Better to keep to the order.’
Reuben had placed a well-labelled accident book in front of Caroline and a box of files on the table where Keanu sat.
Index card files?
Caroline looked around the office—no computer.
Ian’s cost-cutting?
She didn’t say anything, not wanting to confirm any more Lockhart inadequacies or bring up Ian’s name unnecessarily.
Keanu was already flipping through the files, and Reuben was on the phone, organising the check-ups, so Caroline opened the book.
But she was easily distracted.
Looking at Keanu, engrossed in his work, making notes on a piece of paper, leafing back through the files to check on things, she sensed the power of this man—as a man—to attract any woman he wanted. It wasn’t simply good looks and a stunning physique, but there was a suggestion of a strong sexuality—maybe more than a suggestion—woven about him like a spider’s web.
And she was caught in it.
The memories of their childhood together were strong and bitter-sweet given how it had ended, but this was something different.
‘Aaron Anapou, ma’am.’
Jerked out of her thoughts by the deep voice, she looked up to see a dust-smeared giant standing in front of her.
‘Ah! Hi! Actually, Keanu’s doing the checks. I’m Caroline—I’m the nurse.’
She stood up and held out her hand, which he took gingerly.
‘You should have gloves on, ma’am,’ he said quietly.
‘But then I might miss a little gold dust sticking to my fingers.’
Aware that she’d already held up things for too long, she waved him along the table towards Keanu, who already had the first card in front of him.
Reuben had helpfully laid out the medical implements between the two of them—a stethoscope, ear thermometer and covers, and a lung capacity machine. So what did she do? Act as welcoming committee? Wait for orders?
Behind her desk Reuben had also opened the doors on what looked like a well-stocked medical cabinet.
Maybe she did the dressings.
But, in the meantime, there was the accident book to go through. She looked at the recent pages, then flipped back, interested to see if there were always so few accidents recorded.
It wasn’t hard to work out when the crushing and extracting operations had closed down as most of the reported accidents had been caused by some chance contact with some piece of the machinery.
In the background she heard Keanu chiding men for working in flip-flops instead of their steel-capped boots, listened to explanations of water not being pumped out, and her heart ached for the days when the mine had been a well-run and productive place.
‘If you’re done, you can give me a hand.’ Had Keanu guessed she’d been dreaming?
The next miner hadn’t tried to hide the fact he’d been working in flip-flops—they were bright green and still on his feet. The skin between his big toe and the second one, where the strap