but always organised, Dr Jack Armitage yelled. Loudly. And with satisfying invective. ‘If she’s already left Adelaide and she’s not here, where the hell is she? She should have been here last night and I was supposed to have left town this morning. I can’t do that until the locum I arranged through you a month ago, the one you promised me would be here in good time, has arrived.’
He shrugged off his leather bike-jacket, dropping it onto the nurses’ station in the small A&E department of Barragong and District Memorial Hospital, all the while keeping the phone pressed firmly to his ear. It took two long, deep breaths to control the urge to cut off the incompetent recruitment-officer who didn’t know his elbow from his…
‘Doctor, we’re trying to locate Dr Norman, but we keep getting her message bank.’
Jack’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached and he ground out the words very slowly. ‘Then find out if the good doctor has even left Adelaide. Ring the station and the bus depot, contact Port Augusta, find out if she hitchhiked—but just do your job and get a doctor here or you’ll lose your commission. I need a doctor yesterday because I’ve got an adventure to start that’s already five years overdue.’
He snapped his mobile phone shut and skidded it across the desk, watching it knock into a cluster of small, plastic Christmas trees. December the first. The day the staff always started decorating; they usually had him climbing a ladder to hang the silver balls from the bright-purple tinsel. But this year this day had a huge, red ring around it on his calendar and it wasn’t to remind him to decorate. It was the day he rode out of town.
He couldn’t believe he was still here. The words, just gotta get out of this place hummed over and over in his head. He should be gone by now. Damn it, but he’d done the right thing. Hell, he always did the right thing, and the one time he wanted to take off, deserved to take off, the bloody locum had vanished somewhere between here and Adelaide. He ploughed his hand through his hair. Weeks of careful and well-thought-out planning, weeks of organisation and working toward this point so Barragong would have contiguous medical care in his absence, had all come to this.
Even his mother had managed to leave town before him. She’d organised all her foster-care arrangements and was having a few weeks off sailing on the high-Pacific seas and yet he was still stuck here. Stuck in a town that had never really let go, a town that had hauled him back once before when he’d thought he’d got away. Now it was sucking him down and sucking him dry. He was sick of being responsible; he wanted his own life, wanted to play up, live hard and be bad—if only for a short time.
‘Jack?’ A surprised voice sounded behind him. ‘We thought you’d already left.’
He turned around to see Diana Renaldi, the unit-nurse manager, resting a box marked ‘christmas decorations’ on her baby bump, and her husband Max—Barragong’s CEO and Jack’s good mate—following a few steps behind, carrying a ladder.
‘A slight delay.’ He stepped up and relieved Diana of the box and grinned. ‘Still, it gives you time to change your mind, leave the man you dumped me for and run away with me.’
She laughed. ‘The baby and I would overbalance the bike, and besides we never dated. You never date any women in this town, and if I remember correctly it was you who set Max and me up on a date.’
‘Best idea he ever had.’ Max put down the ladder, slipped his arm across Diana’s shoulder and dropped a kiss onto her forehead.
‘It was indeed.’ Jack gave them a wry smile. He might not have a clue about the right woman for himself but Diana and Max suited each other perfectly. They both wanted the same things out of life—babies, a family. He didn’t regret for a second that he’d set them up.
He loved his best friends dearly, but settling down wasn’t for him. He’d tried it once and been badly burned, and he wasn’t in a hurry to attempt it again—especially when there was a world out there with his name on it waiting to be explored. If only he could get out of Barragong.
The sound of crying made all three of them turn around. A woman in her late twenties rushed towards them, staggering under the weight of a child whose chest-heaving sobs told of his pain and distress. A bloodied gauze pad was taped rakishly on the child’s forehead.
‘Oh, Jack, thank goodness you’re still here.’ Kerry Dempsey’s frantic voice matched her wide-eyed shock. ‘Lochie fell out of the large gum in our front garden and he’s cut his head and won’t stop crying.’
Jack swallowed his sigh. He might technically be off the clock but as he couldn’t leave town he might as well be busy. He was glad to hear the child’s lusty sobs because a quiet child was more of a concern. Ruffling the mop of black hair on the boy’s head, Jack instantly shot back in time to five years earlier, remembering how Lochie had come out screaming as the first baby he’d delivered in Barragong. He’d delivered many more since and seen them through a myriad of childhood illnesses. ‘Come on then, Lochie, let’s take a look at you.’
Kerry transferred the boy into Jack’s arms and Lochie gave a gulping sob followed by a long, wet sniff. ‘My arm hurts really bad.’ The little boy was naturally splinting his right arm, keeping it pressed close to his chest.
Kerry sighed. ‘David promised Lochie they’d put up the Christmas fairy-lights in the tree when he got home tonight.’
‘Couldn’t wait for Dad, huh?’ Jack tried not to smile but Lochie had been an impulsive kid from day one, acting first and thinking much later, if at all.
Lochie nodded, his face streaked with tears and red dirt. ‘I was helping.’
‘I bet you were, but next time it’s better to wait for Dad so you don’t end up in here being patched up by me. I’ll probably need to take a special picture of your arm, but right now I’m going to shine a light in your eyes.’
He enjoyed working with kids; in fact, if he was ever surveyed about what he enjoyed most about his job, he’d probably say the paediatrics component. Whether it be at work or coaching the under-nines’ footy team, he’d learned it was best to give step-by-step explanations to kids—especially with Lochie, who often did the unexpected.
As Jack flicked on the pencil torch he asked Kerry, ‘Did he black out at all?’
The mother shook her head. ‘I don’t think so because I heard his scream as he fell, and he hasn’t stopped since.’
Jack checked the boy’s pupils for size and their response to light. ‘They’re equal and reacting, so that’s a good start.’
Diana handed him an HIC chart. ‘If you’re right without me for a few minutes, I’ll go and pull his file and start the admitting procedure.’
‘Good idea.’ It looked like a pretty straightforward case, and he’d handled a lot worse on his own. Jack pulled on a pair of gloves. ‘Time to be brave, Loch.’ He slowly eased the tape that held the gauze pad in place off the boy’s forehead.
Lochie’s protesting shriek bounced off the walls as the gauze pad came away and blood started to trickle down his small face and into his eyes. ‘Don’t do that.’ His left hand came up to fight Jack’s with pinching fingers.
Jack pressed the gauze back against the forehead, cursing how head wounds bled so profusely even if they were superficial. ‘I’m sorry, mate, but I have to look at your head because it might need more than just a plaster.’
‘No.’
