Lily kissed him affectionately on the top of his head and stroked the sleeping cat as Chippy settled across her grandfather’s feet. ‘Until the mobile phone reception improves, I think Turraburra’s phone box is safe.’
‘I just hope I’m still alive by the time the national broadband scheme’s rolled out. The internet was so dodgy today it took me three goes before I could check my footy tipping site.’
‘A definite tragedy,’ she said wryly. Her grandfather loved all sports but at this time of year, with only a few games before the Australian Rules football finals started, he took it all very seriously. ‘Did you get down to the community centre today?’
He grunted.
‘Gramps?’ A ripple of anxiety wove through her that he might have driven to the centre.
Just recently, due to some episodes of numbness in his feet, she’d reluctantly told him it wasn’t safe for him to drive. Given how independent he was, he’d been seriously unhappy with that proclamation. It had taken quite some time to convince him but he’d finally seemed to come round and together they’d chosen a mobility scooter. Even at eighty-five, he’d insisted on getting a red one because everyone knew red went faster.
It was perfect for getting around Turraburra and, as she’d pointed out to him, he didn’t drive out of town much anyway. But despite all the logic behind the decision, the ‘gopher’, as he called it, had stayed in the garage. Lily was waiting for him to get sick of walking everywhere and start using it.
‘I took the gopher,’ he said grumpily. ‘Happy?’
‘I’m happy you went to your class at the centre.’
‘Well, I couldn’t let Muriel loose on the computer. She’d muck up all the settings and, besides, it was my day to teach the oldies how to edit photos.’
She pressed her lips together so she didn’t laugh, knowing from experience it didn’t go down well. He might be in his eighties but his mind was as sharp as a tack and he was young at heart, even if his body was starting to fail him. She ached when she thought of how much he hated that. Losing the car had been a bitter blow.
The ‘oldies’ he referred to were a group of frail elderly folk from the retirement home. Many were younger than him and made him look positively spry. He was interested in anything and everything and involved in the life of the town. He loved keeping abreast of all the latest technology, loved his top-of-the-range digital camera and he kept busy every day. His passion and enthusiasm for life often made her feel that hers was pale and listless in comparison.
He was her family and she loved him dearly. She owed him more than she could ever repay.
‘Muriel sent over a casserole for dinner,’ he said, rising to his feet.
‘That was kind of her.’ Muriel and Gramps had a very close friendship and got along very well as long as she didn’t touch his computer and he didn’t try to organise her pantry into some semblance of order.
He walked towards the kitchen. ‘She heard about the Hawker and De’Bortolli babies and knew you’d be tired. No new arrivals today?’
Lily thought about the tall, dark, ill-tempered surgical registrar who’d strode into her work world earlier in the day.
You forgot good looking.
No. Handsome belongs to someone who smiles.
Really? Trent smiled a lot and look how well that turned out.
She pulled her mind back fast from that thought because the key to her mental health was to never think about Trent. Ever. ‘A new doctor’s arrived in town.’
His rheumy, pale blue eyes lit up. ‘Male or female?’
‘Sorry, Gramps. I know how you like to flirt with the female doctors but this one’s a difficult bloke.’ She couldn’t stop the sigh that followed.
His face pulled down in a worried frown. ‘Has he done something?’
Since the nightmare of her relationship with Trent, Gramps had been overprotective of her, and she moved to reassure him. ‘No, nothing like that and I’m stronger now. I don’t take any crap from anyone any more. I just know he’s not a natural fit for Turraburra.’
‘We’re all entitled to one bad day—give the poor guy a minute to settle in. You and Karen will have him trained up in the Turraburra ways in no time flat.’
I wish. ‘I’m not so sure about that, Gramps. In fact, the only thing I have any confidence about at all is that it’s going to be a seriously long month.’
Noah stood on the town beach, gulping in great lung-fuls of salt air like it was the last drop of oxygen on the planet. Not that he believed in any of that positive-ions nonsense but he was desperate to banish the scent of air freshener with a urine chaser from his nostrils. From his clothes. From his skin.
His heart rate thundered hard and fast like it did after a long run, only this time its pounding had nothing to do with exercise and everything to do with anxiety. Slowing his breathing, he pulled in some long, controlled deep breaths and shucked off the cloak of claustrophobia that had come out of nowhere, engulfing him ten minutes earlier. It had been years since something like that had happened and as a result he’d thought he’d conquered it, but all it had taken was two hours at the Turraburra nursing home. God, he hated this town.
He’d arrived at the clinic at eight to be told by the efficient Karen that Tuesday mornings meant rounds at the nursing home. He’d crossed the grounds of the hospital where the bright spring daffodils had mocked him with their cheery and optimistic colour. He hadn’t felt the slightest bit cheery. The nurse in charge of the nursing home had given him a bundle of patient histories and a stack of drug sheets, which had immediately put paid to his plan of dashing in and dashing out.
Apparently, it had been three weeks since there’d been a doctor in Turraburra and his morning was consumed by that added complication. The first hour had passed relatively quickly by reviewing patient histories. After that, things had gone downhill fast as he’d examined each elderly patient. Men who’d once stood tall and strong now lay hunched, droop-faced and dribbling, rendered rigid by post-stroke muscle contractions. Women had stared at him with blank eyes—eyes that had reminded him of his mother’s. Eyes that had told him they knew he could do nothing for them.
God, he hated that most. It was the reason he’d pursued surgery—at least when he operated on someone, he usually made a difference. He had the capacity to heal, to change lives, but today, in the nursing home, he hadn’t been able to do any of that. All he’d been able to do had been to write prescriptions, suggest physiotherapy and recommend protein shakes. The memories of his mother’s long and traumatic suffering had jeered at the idea that any of it added to their quality of life.
He’d just finished examining the last patient when the aroma of cabbage and beef, the scent of pure soap and lavender water and the pervading and cloying smell of liberally used air freshener had closed in on him. He’d suddenly found it very hard to breathe. He’d fled fast—desperate for fresh air—and in the process he’d rudely rejected the offer of tea and biscuits from the nurses.
He knew that wouldn’t grant him any favours with the staff but he didn’t care. In six hundred and ninety-six hours he’d be back in Melbourne. Pulling out his smartphone, he set up a countdown and called it T-zero. Now, whenever the town got to him, he didn’t have to do the mental arithmetic, he could just open the app and easily see how many hours until he could walk away from Turraburra without a backward glance.
The fresh, salty air and the long, deep breaths had done the trick and, feeling back in control, he jogged up the beach steps. Sitting on the sea wall, he took off his shoes to empty them of sand.
‘Yoo-hoo, Dr Jackson.’
He glanced