plenty of free-roaming chickens and dogs, as well as a number of kids riding bikes and playing in the street. There seem to be an awful lot of children not in school.
‘There’s no school in the settlement,’ Seb explained, when Luci commented. ‘The kids need to go into Budgee on the school bus but a lot don’t make it in time. Today quite a few parents would have chosen not to send their kids to town because we were coming,’ he said as he parked the car and switched off the engine.
Luci could see several people waiting, sitting on the veranda of the hall. She helped Seb to unload the medical kits from the car and take them into the hall. A temporary clinic had been set up at one end near the kitchen. There were two stations, one for her and one for him, basic and identical save for the fact that Seb’s had an examination bed tucked against the wall, sectioned off behind a privacy screen.
They worked their way steadily through the locals who seemed quite content to sit and wait. They didn’t seem impatient. They didn’t seem to be watching the clock, like the clients in the city who always seemed to have somewhere else they needed to be. The pace suited Luci. It was nice to have time to stop and take a breath occasionally.
There were some things about home she hadn’t missed—the lack of privacy, for example—but she hadn’t realised just what a whirlwind life in Sydney was. The pace was frenetic, with everyone constantly on the go, but it wasn’t until she had a chance to slow down that she realised how rushed she’d been.
From her station she could watch Seb working. He seemed to be primarily checking ears and eyes as frequently as she was checking blood pressures.
He looked up and smiled at her and she felt a warm glow suffuse her. They worked well together. They did other things well together too and she hugged that thought to herself. She was looking forward to the end of the day, looking forward to tonight.
She stripped off her gloves as she finished with her patient and went out to the veranda to call the next one, only to find there was no one else waiting. She wondered if their day was done, if they could return to Budgee and finish what she’d started.
She went back inside the hall and was preparing to pack away her things when she saw Seb incline his head at her and nod at his patient, and she knew he wanted her to join them.
Seb was looking into the ears of a little boy who looked about three or four years of age. The boy’s mother sat beside him. She was heavily pregnant and the fabric of her summer dress strained across her belly.
‘Nadine, this is Luci Dawson, one of the community health nurses,’ Seb said as he switched sides to look into the little boy’s left ear. ‘Luci, would you mind checking Nadine’s blood pressure for me while I finish up with Byron? This is Nadine’s fifth pregnancy and she hasn’t had any problems, but she hasn’t had any antenatal care either and she’s not sure of her dates. She thinks she might be about seven months but seeing as we’re here I thought we’d do a bit of a check.’
‘Sure.’ Luci smiled at Nadine.
The woman looked much further along than seven months. Luci couldn’t imagine not having any antenatal care herself but Seb had warned her that things were different out here. Nadine looked relaxed but Luci knew Seb was worried.
It was hard to pinpoint her age. Her brown skin was smooth and glowed but her eyes looked tired. She could be anywhere from twenty-five to thirty-five. Even so, a fifth pregnancy was a lot.
Luci wrapped the blood-pressure cuff around Nadine’s arm and pumped it up. She popped the stethoscope in her ears and listened for the heartbeat followed by silence as the cuff deflated. Her blood pressure was fine.
‘All normal,’ she told Seb.
‘Good.’ Seb nodded. ‘Byron seems to have another slight middle-ear infection, swimmer’s ear most likely. I’ll give him a course of antibiotics but no swimming for a week, okay? And before you go I’d like to listen to the baby’s heart and take a couple of measurements, if that’s all right. Can you just hop up on the bed behind the screen for me?’
Seb rifled through one of the medical bags and found the medication he wanted. He wrote Byron’s name and the instructions on a label and attached it to the bottle.
Luci took the bottle and handed him the stethoscope. She picked Byron up and popped him on her hip and followed Seb around the screen. Protocol dictated that she needed to be present for the exam.
Nadine had already hoisted her dress up to expose her belly, which was as tight as a drum. Luci felt a familiar pull of longing and jealousy when she saw the woman’s heavily pregnant frame but she tried her best to ignore it. She was a professional, she could do this.
Seb placed the bulb of the scope on Nadine’s tummy and moved it around, listening for the baby’s heartbeat. Luci watched him. She saw him frown and reposition the stethoscope. She could see Nadine hold her breath but then Seb smiled and Nadine relaxed and exhaled.
Seb pulled the stethoscope out of his ears and looped it around his neck. Luci handed him a tape measure, which he took but didn’t immediately use.
‘Well, that explains a few things,’ he said as he smiled at Nadine. ‘You’re having twins.’
‘Twins?’ Nadine and Luci said in unison.
Seb nodded and his blue eyes sparkled. ‘Now I know you’ve done all this before but this is the first set of twins you’ve had. I want you to have some antenatal care. I want you to make an appointment at the hospital in Dubbo—actually, I’ll make it for you,’ he said as he helped Nadine to sit up on the edge of the bed.
He pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket and scrolled through the address book, looking for the number. Nadine stood up and slipped her feet back into her flip-flops before taking Byron from Luci.
Seb had been put through to the right department and covered the speaker with his hand as he spoke to Nadine. ‘Can you make it to Dubbo tomorrow afternoon?’
Nadine nodded and Seb confirmed the time.
‘They will do an ultrasound scan,’ he said as he ended the call. ‘It’s important that they try to confirm your dates and check that everything is on track. Any dramas, make sure you call the Budgee clinic. I’ll still be there tomorrow and I’ll phone Dubbo for an update,’ he added, wanting to make sure that she understood he’d be around to keep an eye on her. He handed Nadine a card with the Budgee clinic number on it and added the number for the Dubbo hospital, along with the appointment time.
‘Do you think she’ll keep the appointment?’ Luci asked as they hit the road a little later for the return trip to Budgee. Flocks of galahs and sulphur-crested cockatoos were feeding at the side of the road. The cockatoos rose up in a squawking mass as the car passed them but the little pink and grey galahs seemed oblivious. They kept their heads down, pecking away at the gum-nut seeds that were strewn on the ground.
‘I hope so. Twins are obviously trickier to deal with, and gestational diabetes is high in the indigenous population so I’d like her to have the proper care. It’ll be another month before anyone is back out at Frog Hollow. Anything could happen in that time.’
* * *
Luci’s muscles groaned in protest as she lowered herself onto a child-sized kindergarten chair. Muscles she’d forgotten she had ached and every time she moved she was reminded of the night before. She’d been stretched, bent
