He wiped sweat off his own brow and felt the dampness of it in his hair.
‘The company doctor—you must have received an email.’
The still functioning part of his brain managed to produce this piece of information, while the straying neurones were still looking around for a black cat or a broomstick parked haphazardly in the corner of the veranda.
‘Company doctor?’ she said, shaking her head in a puzzled manner so the long strands of hair that he now saw had escaped from a plait that hung, schoolgirl fashion, down her back, swayed around her face.
‘Check your emails—there’ll be something there.’
‘Check your emails?’ she repeated, the red lips widening into a smile. ‘Out here we have to take into account the vagaries of the internet, which seem to deem that at least one day in four nothing works. The big mistake most people, me included, made was thinking wireless would be more reliable than dial-up. At least with dial-up we all had phone lines we could use.’
Neena paused then added, ‘Are you really a doctor?’
It was an absurd conversation to be having with a stranger in the middle of the night, and totally inhospitable to have left him standing on her top step, but there was something about the man—his size maybe?— that intimidated her, and she had the weirdest feeling that the best thing she could do was to send him away.
Far away!
Immediately!
‘And what company? Oh, dear, excuse me. The exploratory drilling company, of course. They’re staying on. I’d heard that. And they’ve sent a doctor?’
It still didn’t make a lot of sense and she knew she was probably frowning at the man. She tried again.
‘But shouldn’t you be reporting to the site office—not that it would be open at this hour. Who sent you here?’
He shrugged impossibly broad shoulders and pushed damp twists of black hair off his forehead.
‘Nothing is open at this hour. Believe me, I’ve tried to find somewhere. A motel, a pub, a garage—even the police station has a sign on the door telling people what number to phone in an emergency. And it’s not as if it’s that late—I mean, it’s after eleven, but for the pub to be shut on a Friday night! Finally an old man walking a dog told me this was the doctor’s house and I should try here.’
‘It’s the rock eisteddfod,’ Neena explained, then realised from the look of blank incomprehension on his face that it wasn’t an explanation he understood.
‘The Australia-wide high-school competition—singing and dancing. Our high school was in the final in Sydney last week. In fact, they came second, and as most of the parents and supporters weren’t able to travel to Sydney for the final, the school decided to put it on again here—but of course Wymaralong is too small to have a big enough hall, so it’s on tonight down the road in Baranock.’
Disbelief spread across the man’s face.
‘Baranock’s two hundred kilometres away—hardly down the road.’
She had to smile.
‘Two hundred kilometres is nothing. Some of the families with kids in the performance live another hundred kilometres out of town so it’s a six hundred kilometre round trip, but they’re willing to do it to encourage their children to participate in things like this.’
‘You’re not there!’ Mak pointed out, totally unnecessarily, but the smile had disturbed something in his gut, making him feel distinctly uncomfortable. Or maybe it was the heat. He hoped it was the heat.
Whatever it was, his comment served to make her smile more widely, lending her face a radiance that shone even in the dim lighting of the front veranda.
‘Someone had to mind the shop and take in stray doctors. So, if you can show me some identification, I will take you in, and tomorrow we can sort out somewhere for you to stay.’
‘Did I hear you say you’re taking in a stranger?’
A rasping voice from just inside the darkened doorway of the old house made Mak look up from the task of riffling through his wallet in search of some ID.
‘Haven’t you learnt your lesson, girl?’
The girl in question had turned towards the doorway, where a small, nuggety man was now visible.
‘I knew you were here to protect me, Ned,’ she said. ‘Come out and meet the new doctor.’
‘New doctors let people know they’re coming and they don’t arrive in the middle of the night,’ the small man said, moving out of the doorway so Mak could see him in the light on the veranda. A tanned, bald head, facial skin as wrinkled as a walnut, pale blue eyes fanned with deep lines from squinting into the sun, now studying Mak with deep suspicion.
‘I’ve explained to Dr Singh there should have been an email, and I wasted an hour trying to find some accommodation in town. Here, my hospital ID from St Christopher’s in Brisbane—I’m on study leave at the moment—and my driver’s licence, medical registration card and somewhere in my luggage, a letter from Hellenic Enterprises, outlining my contract with them.’
The woman reached out a slim hand to take the offered IDs, but it was Ned who asked the question.
‘Which is?’
A demand, aggressive enough for Mak, exhausted after an eleven-hour drive made even more tortuous by having to change a flat tyre, to snap.
‘None of your business, but if you must know, I was about to explain to Dr Singh that the company has asked me to work with her to evaluate the needs of the community as far as medical practitioners and support staff are concerned. The company realises having their crews and now some families of the crews here is putting an extra strain on the town’s medical resources and the powers that be at Hellenic are willing to fund another doctor and possibly another trained nursing sister, should that be advisable.’
‘Realising it a bit late,’ Ned growled. ‘Those lads have been out there a full year.’
‘But more are coming, Ned, and we will need to expand the medical service.’ The woman spoke gently but firmly to the old man then turned to Mak. ‘We’re hardly showing you the famed country hospitality, putting you through the third degree out here on the steps. Come inside. You’re right about there being no one in town tonight, but even if there had been, there are no rooms to be had at the pub or in either of the motels.’
She paused and grinned at him. ‘Kind of significant, isn’t it—coming on to Christmas and no room at the inn? But in Wymaralong it’s been like that all year. The crews from the exploration teams and the travellers that service the machinery have taken every spare bed in town. You can stay here tonight, and tomorrow Ned can phone around to see if someone would be willing to take you in as a boarder.’
‘Which you are obviously not,’ Mak said, following her across the veranda and into a wide and blessedly cool hallway, rooms opening off it on both sides.
She turned, and fine dark eyebrows rose while the skin on her forehead wrinkled into a tiny frown.
‘Obviously not what?’
‘Willing to take me in as a boarder.’
‘No, she’s not!’ Ned snapped, following behind Mak, right on his heels, ready, no doubt, to brain him with an umbrella from the stand inside the door if he made a wrong move.
The woman’s lips moved but if it was a smile, it was a wry one.
‘You can have a bed for the night,’ she repeated. ‘Tomorrow we’ll talk.’
Then she waved her hand to the left, ushering Mak into a big living room, comfortably furnished with padded cane chairs, their upholstery