The Bush Telegraph, page 9
It did feel pleasant to have her first day off after an incredibly busy week. The patient flow had continued to climb compared with the figures in the book now that someone in Spinifex could prescribe for minor ailments. The flying doctor visit had been a success, and Maddy and the local Aboriginal communities had met for the first time with the Indigenous worker’s help.
Bridget’s smile as she industriously sketched an inquisitive black cockatoo sitting on the fence made Maddy’s heart sing. The bird had flapped at Bee and tilted its head to stare, and she’d run for her sketchpad and was frantically trying to catch the likeness before it flew away.
Maddy savoured the glow of relief at seeing her daughter drawing again. Bridget hadn’t touched her paints and pencils since Alma had died, which was nine weeks ago. Maddy missed the older lady so much and would love to have been able to tell her about her first five days in Spinifex. She imagined listening to Alma’s pithy tales about the people she’d met.
The week had been a big one, absolutely the adventure she’d foretold, though positive as well in that Bee had gone home with a girl from her class and they’d played with the young Chelsea’s kitten on Thursday afternoon until Maddy finished work. The two girls had come across to the clinic to ask after school, bringing the kitten.
Reminded of her promise, Maddy considered the idea of a self-sufficient pet for Bridget when she herself was working such long hours. She thought about it again as she looked out to the fenced yard. A rabbit? No. Domestic rabbits were illegal in Queensland. A guinea pig? Cage cleaning – yuk! Bridget really wanted a horse. But what if they didn’t stay? Maybe they could borrow a horse? The state was in drought. Maddy was happy to buy feed while Bridget babysat someone else’s horse.
The back door stood open, and as the breeze outside stirred the big eucalyptus in the yard, the gentle ripple of leaves drifted clearly through the screen of the outer door. Amid the rustling of the leaves, Maddy thought she heard an odd thump and then a squeak.
Turning her head towards the noise, something seemed different in the line of the building next door. Was that a slight movement of the emergency exit door at the health centre that caught her eye? Her brow furrowed. Was it open a crack? Must be a trick of the light. Perhaps the cleaner had come in today, but then why use that door? ‘I’m just going over to the clinic for a minute, Bee,’ she told her daughter.
‘Okay, Mum.’ Bridget didn’t look up from where the pencil met the paper and the features of the still, patient bird were forming miraculously. ‘That’s beautiful.’ Maddy brushed her daughter’s hair as she shifted past.
Maddy pushed the screen door and stepped outside quietly so as to not scare the bird. She savoured the warm breeze as it touched her skin and riffled her hair. Until she realised that, yes, the clinic emergency door was open.
She paused. There were three reasons this could have happened.
It was most likely the cleaner. Or maybe someone hadn’t shut the door properly yesterday and she hadn’t noticed. Which was unlikely, as she’d done her round of the building as she did every night before she locked the front door.
Her skin prickled.
Or somebody had broken in and could still be inside the centre. They did keep drugs there, though the pharmacy door was kept locked and the scheduled drugs were in a sturdy safe inside.
She could ring the local police officer, which is what her friends would have told her to do, but she was here to prove to everyone that she could manage on her own. It was daylight. She’d be careful. But she wasn’t running for help.
The door creaked as she eased it open. As she poked her head through the door, the coolness of the clinic struck her forcibly after the heat outside. That must have been why she shivered. And why her heart flapped like a broken windmill in her chest. Did she really want to surprise a thief and not give them the option to run? There was still time to back away sensibly . . .
The crash of something shattering had Maddy’s pulse skip with shock. That was when she remembered the front door was deadlocked, so the only way out would be for whoever it was to go through her.
Before she could back out of the door, a shadow in the corner shifted and she sucked in a breath. ‘Who’s there?’ Her voice came out remarkably loud and the shadow sucked in a startled gasp.
Maddy felt the fright and anger bubbling inside her chest. No. This was her clinic, her first week, and not something she was going to put up with.
‘Just me.’ A small, blond-headed figure rose from the corner and inside Maddy sagged with relief, though her eyes bored into the boy’s face now that she could see him clearly.
‘Jayden!’ Her voice snapped across the room like a cattle whip and he jumped. Maddy stepped forward. ‘What are you doing here?’
Jayden straightened his back. He still only came up to Maddy’s shoulders. ‘Looking.’
‘Looking for what?’
He jutted his chin. ‘Something I can sell.’
Maddy narrowed her eyes at the boy. ‘Well, you’re not selling anything from my clinic. How did you get in the door?’
‘Dunno.’ Maddy glared at him and he shrugged. ‘With this!’ He held up a battered-looking plastic card. An old gift voucher. ‘You slide it into the edge, hit it hard and it pops the button up.’
Maddy let out a breath in exasperation. ‘Who taught you that?’
‘Nobody.’
Her brows rose. ‘Somebody did.’ It wouldn’t have been Connor, she was pretty sure of that. Instinctively she knew. ‘Your uncle, Kyle?’
The quick dart of Jayden’s eyes confirmed her suspicions. For goodness sake, that man needed sense knocked into him. The damage he was doing to this boy. ‘What’s your problem, Jayden?’
Jayden stared at her defiantly. ‘Nothing.’
Maddy looked at the boy, saw his youth, the fear he was trying to hide, and she blinked in shock. A child looking at her with fear was not something she’d seen before. The sensation left her uncomfortable and ashamed.
Her head turned away from him. ‘Well, you’re a problem to me,’ she muttered. She pulled the mobile phone from her pocket and scrolled through for the number she’d used for Connor the day after his accident, hoping that the boy’s father answered his phone on a Saturday morning.
‘What are you doing?’ Jayden’s voice had risen and there was a note of real fear now.
‘Ringing the police, of course,’ she lied.
‘Don’t do that.’ The note of panic made his voice crack.
Maddy cocked her head at him. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘Because they might send me away.’ His feet shuffled and the tension in his shoulders made them rigid.
Maddy’s heart softened. ‘Who would send you away?’ He didn’t answer, so she said, ‘You don’t seem very happy here, so maybe you’d be happier away?’
He dragged his arm across his face. ‘Kyle says I’ll end up in juvey.’
Uncle Kyle again. That man! Jayden just might if Kyle kept teaching him criminal skills.
‘Not a place I’d like to go to,’ he said.
Maddy looked at the boy and shook her head. ‘I’ll do a deal with you. You can earn your reprieve with work and I won’t call the police or your father.’
‘Work? Like what?’
Maddy searched her brain for a suitable punishment. ‘Sweep up whatever you broke here. And you can wash my car and make it beautiful inside and out and I won’t call the police.’
‘I’m not your slave.’
Maddy smiled grimly. ‘No. You’re my prisoner. So until lunchtime today you are my slave. It’s your choice. Unless you want me to notify the police and say you were caught breaking into government property.’ She waited for his response. When none came, she waved her phone at him. ‘Ten seconds to go.’
‘Aren’t you afraid that I’ll teach your prissy daughter to be a troublemaker? Or that I’ll be mean to her?’ There was a sneer in his voice, but there was also something in his eyes that said he expected to be hurt. Expected the worst to happen, no matter what she said she’d do. Her chest tightened.
What had happened to this boy to make him this angry? ‘No.’ Maddy tried for a conversational tone, as if they were talking about why he had sugar on his breakfast cereal. ‘I’m afraid you won’t tell me what’s upset you that makes you behave like this.’ She could see how damaged he was and she wondered what the hell the nice-seeming Connor and his dastardly brother had done to this child.
‘Nothing.’
‘Doesn’t feel like nothing to me. Especially when you’ve ruined my morning by stealing and breaking things. Today should have been a peaceful day. I’ve earned it after all my hard work last week.’
‘Tough.’ But he looked away and there just might have been a little remorse there. Or not.
‘You think you’re big and tough, but I think you’re a little boy who’s hurting.’
That had his face sneering again. ‘What are you – some kind of child psychologist?’
Little brat. Still, that was no reason for her to be a brat. ‘No. I’m a mum. And a nurse. I care about people.’
He crowed loudly at that. ‘My mum doesn’t care about people. Why should I?’ He lifted his hand belligerently and she sighed.
‘I don’t know about that.’ Maddy shook her head and looked at the broken coffee cup on the floor. Phyllis would not be happy. ‘You clean up that mess first. The dustpan is in the cupboard over there and the bin is outside the back. I’ll stay and make sure you close the door when you leave. Then you can come across and I’ll show you where all the car-cleaning equipment is.’
Maddy went to her office and opened up the computer to see if any late emails had come in. Six! By the time she’d given herself a head start for Monday by clearing her inbox, her nerves had settled and she could think more clearly.
What was wrong with that boy? A particularly loud thump of the brush and dustpan against the floor made her wince. He was one anger-filled kid.
‘Finished!’ Jayden stood at the door of the office and she jumped a little. She’d been involved in composing a new email and hadn’t heard him arrive. She stared at him as her brain readjusted. ‘Did you put out the bin?’
‘Yes. Yes.’
Maddy shut down her PC and stood up. He eyed the door. ‘You could run. Though I’ll phone the police and say it was you.’
He glowered at her in frustration. She walked past and checked his work. The area was now pristine.
She nodded. ‘Good job. Have you had breakfast?’
‘I don’t eat breakfast. But can I try the laughing gas?’
‘No.’ Maddy kept her face straight with severe effort. ‘No breakfast. Really? Well, I’m going to make more tea and toast. You can take a mug and plate out with you when you start washing the car if you want?’
When they arrived at the back door of the house, Bridget sat drawing with her tongue between her teeth. Her finger slipped on the paper when she saw Jayden.
Maddy winced. ‘I’m sorry, Bridget. I should have let you know I was bringing Jayden. He offered to wash our car.’
Bridget looked even more shocked. Jayden looked surly. Maddy suspected he wasn’t going to have tea and toast and be civilised.
‘Say hello to Bridget, please, Jayden.’
‘Locke.’ Jayden looked her daughter up and down as if she was a worm.
‘Jayden.’ Bridget’s face remained expressionless. Then she looked at her mother. ‘I’m going to get my paints.’ And with that, she left the room.
‘Sit down,’ Maddy told the boy, her voice pure steel. ‘Why do you talk like that? What’s making you act this way?’
‘I told you. Nothin’.’
‘It’s not nothing and you need to deal with your anger in better ways. You don’t want to grow up angry, doing stupid, nasty things and hating yourself.’ Like your uncle, she left out. Or Bridget’s father, which hadn’t ended well.
‘Why would you care?’
Her voice softened. ‘I told you. I’m a mother.’
‘I told you!’ His voice didn’t soften. ‘Mothers don’t care and I don’t need a mother.’
‘Why? Because you have such a fun time with your dad?’
‘Kyle says he’s more of a dad to me than mine is. That my dad is a loser.’
‘Maybe someone should have sat Kyle down and asked him why he felt he needed to say cruel things.’
Jayden blinked.
‘Think how you’d feel, Jayden, if someone said mean things about you. Nastiness bounces back and makes you miserable. You’re only hurting yourself.’
‘You don’t know me.’
‘Yes. I do. I knew someone who was never told what I just told you. And he grew up to be a bitter, angry, mean man who hurt people. And he came to a sticky end. Maybe you should try saying something that makes people feel good. I dare you.’
Maddy looked out the window to gain a measure of peace from the rolling red sand that disappeared into the distance. Bridget’s dad died out there. It was the wrong place to look.
She moved to the kitchen sink and pulled out the bucket, a cloth and some car wash, and led Jayden around the side of the house. There was a garden hose beside the carport. Maddy was thankful for it because it wasn’t something she’d thought to bring. She put the bucket down beside it. ‘I’m assuming you know how to wash a car?’
Jayden looked at her. ‘Of course.’
Maddy nodded. ‘Then I’ll see when you’ve finished.’
Jayden opened his mouth to say something and closed it again.
Maddy couldn’t believe this child was struggling so much. Why didn’t Connor sort this out and help him?
‘When did you lose your mum?’
‘She’s not dead. My dad fought with her so much she ran away. She left me.’ Another nail in Connor’s coffin. The boy shrugged as if it didn’t matter. Maddy knew it did. ‘She’s forgotten me,’ he told her, clearly trying to sound offhand.
Maddy’s stomach dropped. His mother had fought with Connor. The more she heard, the less he sounded like the man she thought he was.
‘Mothers never, ever forget their children. Sometimes they get sidetracked. So, until then, you have a dad who loves you.’
‘Ha. A great dad who’s always busy. He dragged me here, away from my friends. I had to sit and be a good boy while his mum died.’
And Maddy guessed he wasn’t a good boy. ‘Were you?’
Jayden didn’t answer. She felt sorry for Connor, then. He’d had some tough times. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your mum. And I’m sorry to hear about your nan.’ She weighed up her next comment, and hoped he wouldn’t use it against Bridget. ‘We’ve just lost someone very recently, too, and she left a very big hole in our lives, which is why we moved here.’
‘Stupid place to move to. There’s nothing here and nothing to do.’ His eyes flickered. ‘Except cause trouble.’
Maddy tried to look thoughtful. ‘Then Bridget should bully and hurt people, too? Be mean and break things and that will make her feel better?’
She waited. Jayden didn’t have an answer.
‘I don’t think so, Jayden. I think she’ll hold that person in her heart and help me with my grief, too.’ She looked at the bucket. ‘None of it’s our fault and none of it’s your fault. It’s part of being human when you care about someone you love.’
He looked ready to say something hurtful and then he stopped.
Maddy raised her brows and inclined her head. ‘You are a very fast learner, Mr Fairhall. I’ll have to remember that.’ Then she gave him a smile and went back into the house.
Chapter Seventeen
Connor
Connor pulled the hair at the back of his head and surveyed the round metal handle two-thirds up the heavy wood of his son’s bedroom door. Despite willing it to turn since he’d come in from outside, the handle remained still. The clock on the wall said nearly nine am.
Seriously, had the kid stayed awake all night dreaming up ways to get him back for making him do the dishes? Did he need to take back the television? No. That was his ace in the hole if things got bad again. The last two days had been a shift in their relationship and he wanted to keep that forward momentum. How had a relationship with his son, which had given him so much joy when they’d been in Sydney, become so exhausting?
He washed the grease from his fingers, which had accumulated when he’d changed the blades on the ride-on lawnmower, dried his palms and flipped the switch on the kettle as he thought about what he could have done differently for Jayden.
They had experienced huge changes from Sydney to here and he should have communicated more. He’d left his son to his own devices during the last few heartrending weeks of his mother’s death, and it wasn’t surprising that Jayden had gravitated to Kyle’s house to escape the bedside of a terminally ill woman.
Sadly, Jayden was too young to see that Kyle was paying Connor back for confronting him over the state in which he’d found his mother. Kyle’s inebriated bonhomie must have made him seem fun to a twelve-year-old.
Connor should have tried harder to cajole Jayden’s mother into supporting her son through his first exposure to death, but Kaye-Linda was off finding herself, somewhere in India, after being uselessly apologetic for the damage she’d done to Connor.
Connor wouldn’t mind the luxury of finding himself, or better yet his lost son, but he didn’t regret the time he’d had with his mum. He just wished he’d been told earlier that she’d been so ill.
Now he was stuck fulfilling his mother’s dying wish to save Kyle – but it wasn’t going to be at the cost of Jayden. If it came to that, Kyle would have to fend for himself and he’d take Jayden back to Sydney.
With that resolution came a modicum of peace, and Connor crossed the room and lifted his hand to knock on the door. Jayden could get up now. They’d have bacon and eggs and he could help him with the fencing.
He hesitated. Did you have to knock on the door of a sleeping twelve-year-old or could you just open up and look? He knocked. There was no answer, so he pushed open the door . . .
