‘Caroline is here as a nurse, so if you don’t want her jabbing you with unnecessary needles, you’d better start treating her with respect. She’s spent more time in these islands than some of you have been alive and is not to blame for anything her uncle did.’
The anger that underlined Keanu’s words quietened the young men, then Brenko said, ‘I’m glad you’re back, Caroline. I still have the ukulele you gave me when I was little.’
Caroline smiled at the memory, but Keanu guessed that one happy memory wouldn’t make up for the animosity that had been thick in the air around her.
He led her through the next small room, this one closed off with the shutters. An elderly woman patient was sleeping soundly, although the young men’s voices could be heard quite clearly.
‘Unstable diabetic,’ Keanu murmured.
‘It’s the curse of all the Pacific islands,’ Caroline replied quietly, and he nodded, then, feeling the hurt he knew she would be nursing, he put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze.
She shot away as if he’d burned her, then must have realised her reaction had been a little extreme and moved close again.
But not close enough for hugs or squeezes, however sympathetic.
In the fourth room, a young woman was sitting up in bed, nursing her baby, Anahera standing by in case either of them needed a bit of help.
‘We don’t have a maternity ward because we transfer all pregnant women to the mainland at thirty-four to thirty-six weeks, depending on the advice of our flying obstetrician, but this little fellow arrived early,’ Keanu explained, smiling at the sight of the mother and child.
‘By rights he shouldn’t be here. His mum was to be going out on today’s flight,’ he continued. ‘But Hettie and the local midwife who delivered him suspect his dates were wrong. As you can see, he’s a good size and he’s feeding lustily.’
He turned to smile at Caroline.
‘In all truth, we love having him here—we’ve all gone a bit soft. Because the women and their babies usually fly in and go straight to their homes, we don’t get to see the babies except on clinic runs. Consequently, we’re happy to keep these two here just in case anything goes wrong. We’ve got them isolated in this room to keep them clear of any infection.’
‘Because you don’t know how Buruli ulcers are transmitted?’
‘Exactly.’
‘The lad with the ulcer will be transferred to the ICU across the passage, beyond the theatre, once Mina has finished dressing the wound. It’s next to the recovery room and ICU is probably a grand name for it but it’s got a ventilator and monitoring equipment in it. The lad doesn’t need it but it does keep him isolated.’
Caroline nodded her understanding.
‘We’re not finished, are we?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you have linen cupboards and drug cabinets and instruments and sterilisers and a million other things that a hospital, even a small one, needs? Where’s your radiography department, for a start?’
‘Through here,’ he said, moving into a separate wing. ‘The theatre you’ve already seen and all the sterilising stuff is in an annexe off that. Cupboards for sterile clothing, etcetera are also in the annexe, and there’s a shower and locker room next to that and beyond the theatre is Radiography.’
‘It’s well planned,’ Caro commented.
‘We’ve your father to thank for that,’ he said. ‘And him to thank for us having the best and latest in radiography machines. Money from the mine put in the basics—X-ray and ultrasound—and the Australian government donated a mammography machine, but he won a grant from one of the big casinos to put in a CT machine. He really does everything he can for the island and the hospital.’
‘The hospital and Christopher,’ Caro pointed out, and Keanu heard the catch in her voice. Did she think her father cared more for the hospital and his son than he did for his daughter?
Keanu remembered that as a child Caro had felt guilty about her mother’s death, and Christopher’s cerebral palsy, blaming herself for both problems, but there was no way Max would feel that.
‘That was bitchy!’ she said suddenly. ‘Both the hospital and Christopher need him far more than I do. And Dad has so much on his shoulders, the least I can do is understand that and do whatever I might be able to do to lift some of the burden.’
Keanu wanted to argue that she had every right to feel left out, but he wondered if Max’s avoidance of the island whenever possible was entirely to do with work and his disabled son, or was it that he was still haunted by his young wife’s death?
Would too many heartbreaking memories lay siege to him whenever he was here?
Caro was wandering around the equipment, checking it all.
‘So, what do you think?’ he asked, dragging his mind from the Lockhart family tragedies to the present.
‘It’s great equipment for a small hospital but, given the isolation, I’d say it’s all necessary. And I can see why Dad’s been working his butt off, not only for money to keep the place afloat but doing all the lobbying with business and government.’
The way she spoke told Keanu she saw little of her adored father, but as he watched she shrugged off whatever she was thinking and tugged at one of the curtains that screened off various sections of the room.
She poked her head out from behind the curtain and grinned cheekily, doing terrible things to Keanu’s heart, lungs, not to mention his determination to keep things professional between them.
‘We didn’t think of all of this when we decided to become the doctor and the nurse on Wildfire, did we?’
‘Didn’t know “all this” existed,’ Keanu reminded her, hoping he sounded more in control than he felt.
Trying to get her and the past out of his mind, he remembered the look on her face as they’d come back from the mine and his wanting to find out what she was up to.
‘The laundry cupboards and other stuff are closer to the kitchen and even if you don’t want a coffee, I do.’
She followed him obediently, said hello to the cook when he introduced them, then politely but adamantly refused to answer any questions.
‘To tell you the truth, Keanu, I have no idea what I can do to sort out all that’s happened at the mine, but I know I have to do something. The hospital needs a functioning mine, and the islands need the hospital, so we can’t just let it all fizzle out. Besides, it was a Lockhart who caused all the problems, so it’s up to me to at least try to do something to sort it out.’
But what?
The question bugged him, to the extent that he found himself, much later, when all was well in the hospital and Sam and Hettie both on call, walking up the hill, skirting the lagoon, to the house where he’d grown up.
They’d grown up.
He climbed the steps but once again hesitated on the veranda, reluctant to go in.
‘Caro?’
His call was tentative—pathetic, really.
‘If you want to see me you’ll have to come in,’ she yelled from somewhere inside, and he guessed from the direction of her voice that she’d be sitting at the big table in the dining room, pen and paper at hand, trawling through the information on the laptop.
Of course he could go in. It had been his home as much as hers, and although as a Lockhart she probably had more rights, his mother had run the place for years.
Until …
Then Caro was there, so much sympathy in her eyes he thought his heart might crack.
She