Orphan Under the Christmas Tree

‘Hush,’ he said. ‘No talking. We’re here to be an audience to the great and good of Crystal Cove, but do feel free to reach into my pocket for a handkerchief any time!’

For the second time in umpteen years, Lauren felt a blush creeping into her cheeks, but before she could apologise again, Tom was shushing her, whispering in her ear that they could talk about it later, not, he’d added, that there was anything to talk about.

Although they would talk, Tom added to himself. Lauren was his friend and for that reason he was very eager to find out just what the golden boy of Australian surfing had done to Lauren in the past to send the normally calm, cool and collected woman into such a panic. The Lauren he’d seen tonight was so unlike the woman he’d come to know during his time in the Cove that he could barely believe it was the same person.

The mayor finished her speech by introducing ‘someone who needs no introduction to most Cove residents, world surfing champion, Nat Williams’.

The crowd gathered in the park and spilling out onto the beach let out a collective roar of approval. It wasn’t often the sleepy seaside hamlet had something to celebrate.

Nat Williams acknowledged the applause very graciously, then brought another roar of approval when he said, ‘It’s great to be home and to see all my old mates again. There’s no place in the world like the Cove.’

In fact, Tom decided as the big tree began to rise into position, it was obvious the people in the crowd were more excited about Nat’s return than about the tree.

He peered down towards the front row of seats, picking out the blond head of the surfing great. Two small children sat beside him, and next to them a lovely brunette, long, dark locks flowing around her shoulders. She stood out from the crowd not only for her good looks but because of her clothes, a long-sleeved shirt and jeans when most of the women present, if they weren’t still in swimming costumes with a sarong wrapped over them, were wearing strappy tops or dresses, minimal clothing as the day had been hot and the nor’ easterly hadn’t come in to bring relief.

He felt Lauren shift on the bench beside him and turned to see that she, too, was looking towards Nat Williams’s wife.

And frowning.

Okay, so putting two and two together was easy enough—they’d had a past relationship, Nat and Lauren—but knowing Lauren as he did, he couldn’t understand that she hadn’t sorted herself out by now. She was one of the most sensible people he knew and her training as a psychologist must surely have helped her move on, but her reaction to the thought of seeing Nat again had been disturbing.

Could she still fancy herself in love with him that she was frowning at his wife?

Well, that might explain why she hadn’t accepted his invitation to go out.

Although he doubted anyone as sensible and together as Lauren could still be clinging to some long-gone love.

Not knowing anything of love except that for its destructive powers, he couldn’t really judge, but he had always pictured it like a fire—yep, a destructive force—but if a fire wasn’t fed it died out—he knew that side of love as well.

So surely Lauren’s feelings for Nat, unnurtured for however many years, should have died out.

His ponderings stopped at that point as an ominous creaking from somewhere beneath the temporary stand warned him of imminent danger. The creak was followed by a screech as if metal components were being wrenched apart.

‘Get everyone off the stands,’ he yelled, as he felt the faintest of movements beneath his feet.

‘And everyone away from underneath or near them.’ Fraser Cameron shouted his own caution. Cam was already guiding Jo towards the side aisle, telling people who were close to the edge on the lower seats to slide under the railing and jump. It wasn’t far, less than two metres, but Cam was obviously thinking of lightening the weight on the straining scaffolding underneath.

Tom urged Lauren to follow Jo, telling her to make sure everyone was clear on that side, then he began ushering the people sitting in front of him off the stands. The important people on the platform, which must have been more stable, were turning around, disbelieving and bewildered by the panic building behind them.

As the noise beneath became more tortured, metal bracing twisting and wrenching from its brackets, the noise above increased, so the aisles were jammed and people were jumping from the top level, way too high, while those on the platform remained in their seats, stunned into immobility by their disbelief that the stands could possibly be collapsing.

Tom thrust through the throng, ignoring yells of protest at his actions, and grabbed Helene, pushing her towards the edge of the platform.

‘Jump,’ he ordered. ‘You’ve all got to jump. If the stands collapse all those behind you will come down on top of you, burying you and suffocating you.’

He grabbed the two Williams children, one under each arm, and hurtled to the edge of the stage, passing them down into the arms of a couple of helpers who’d appeared from the crowd below.

‘Take them as far away as you can and keep people back,’ he said, while behind him he could hear Cam telling people to keep calm, they’d all get off in time.

Which might have happened if the temporary seating hadn’t suddenly swayed sideways, igniting fresh terror in the crowd. They surged forward, leaping over seats, knocking others down, adrenalin kicking in, urging flight from danger.

Tom kept hustling those on the platform to the edge, telling them to jump then run, but fear could sometimes freeze the body so some people just stood, as if unable to hear the urgent message he was giving, so he had to lift and carry them to the edge where others helped them down.

A sudden howl of protest from the scaffolding and the stand collapsed, metal tubing smashing through the wooden seats and steps, the stands twisting, spilling people everywhere, trapping some while pitching others into the air.

Tom grabbed Nat Williams’s wife and leapt, hoping Nat was helping other people, though he suspected the surfing hero had been one of the first to jump, his wife forgotten.

‘Thank you. I must find my children.’

She had a soft American accent and dark shadows beneath her eyes.

Maybe being with Nat wasn’t all that much fun…

CHAPTER TWO

MIKE SINCLAIR, the head of the local police station, materialised in front of Lauren, as she and Jo were urging people away from the collapsed stands.

‘We need to move uninjured people away,’ he said, ‘and set up an area for those injured.’ He indicated an area of the esplanade, already closed to traffic. ‘Jo, if we make this space a triage area, can you stay here and treat minor injuries? The ambulances will come through to here, while Lauren, if you can stay with those who were on the stands but aren’t injured and those who have friends somewhere in that mess. Keep them calm. The Emergency Services people will be here soon—they’ll have bottled water and basic first-aid equipment.’

Lauren understood her role and moved through the crowd, urging the panicking locals back from the stands, helping injured people across to Jo, telling the others to stay clear, comforting tearful women and shocked men, telling children they’d be safe, just to wait over by the tree and their parents would find them soon.

She was doing okay until she found Bobby Sims, rubbing furiously at tears he obviously felt embarrassed about shedding.

Bobby Sims, easily the most disruptive of all the children who were given temporary shelter at the women’s refuge, crying?

‘I’ve lost Mum,’ he told Lauren, at first shaking off her comforting arm but eventually accepting it, and accepting a hug when she knelt in front of him and folded him in her arms.

He pressed close against her for a moment, then he lifted his head to say, ‘She was right there.’

He pointed to where the jumble of metal scaffolding lay heaped with wood and people.

‘Right near it. Greg was under there and he called out to her and she went and then it all fell down.’

Would Joan Sims have responded to a call from the man she was in the refuge to escape?

Lauren didn’t know. She’d been running the women’s refuge for the three years since it opened, and still couldn’t tell which women would go back to the partners who abused them, and which wouldn’t.

In the meantime, there was Bobby …

‘We’ll find your mum,’ Lauren assured him, ‘but while we’re looking, will you help me?’

Bobby’s startled ‘Me?’ suggested no one had ever asked him for help before.

‘Yes, you. You know most of the kids around here from school. A lot of them will be like you—they’ll have become separated from their parents. Go through the crowd and bring any kids who are lost or crying over near the tree. Once you get them there, they can look at the lights and decorations until their parents turn up to find them.’

Bobby seemed to consider objecting to this plan, then he straightened his shoulders and took off, hopefully to do something useful, not set fire to the Christmas tree or try some other devilment.

Lauren continued to herd people away from the stands, but the cries of pain and distress had her turning back towards the scene, checking, seeing Tom there in the thick of it, clambering over twisted metal to tend the injured.

Could the stand collapse further? Tom wondered about it as he lifted people trapped by the metal struts or wooden planks of seating. And had anyone been caught underneath?

Kids often played under scaffolding …

He sent a plea to the fates that this hadn’t been the case and knelt to reach a man caught between two metal seats, apparently trapped.

‘Can you hear me, mate?’ he asked, leaning further in to press his fingers to the man’s carotid.

The man didn’t respond, but his pulse was strong, and movement of his chest told Tom the trapped man was breathing.

Tom used his hands to search for blood. If it wasn’t pulsing out from any part of the man’s body, then the best thing to do was to leave him so the paramedics could stabilise his spine before they shifted him.

‘Can you give me a hand here?’

Tom glanced around to see Cam higher up in the wreckage, bent over another victim—male again.

‘His legs are trapped,’ Cam explained as Tom clambered cautiously across the tumbled seating.

Tom took one look and was about to tell Cam to leave it for the rescue crew when he saw the blood on the man’s thigh. There was no doubt the man’s femur was broken and his femoral artery damaged. They needed to get him out now.

While Cam supported the man, Tom began, cautiously, to shift debris from around him, trying to get at whatever was pinning the man’s legs and trapping his feet.

A twisted prop lay one way, a wooden seat caught beneath it, and below both some scaffolding that hadn’t moved, holding steadfast to its job, just when they needed it to bend a little.

Tom eased himself into a gap he’d found close by until his feet were on the solid scaffold, then he peered down to see if any unfortunate person had been caught below him and found the area was clear.

‘I’m going to jump on this bit and see if I can shake the twisted part free,’ he told Cam. ‘Hold the bloke in case it all gives way.’

Cam didn’t bother with a caution—they both knew if they didn’t get the fellow out he could die before the jaws-of-life equipment arrived and the safety crew made the scaffolding secure enough for them to do their work. They were governed by all kinds of workplace safety regulations but Tom wasn’t.

He grabbed the twisted bar and held it in his hands, then jumped, both feet rising then thumping back on the solid bar. Nothing happened, although he thought he might have felt a faint give in the bar in his hands.

He jumped again and felt the whole tottering edifice sway to one side then the other—sickeningly!

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, but looking down he’d seen a lot of the scaffolding still holding in the section directly beneath him so he didn’t think bending the piece beneath his feet would do much more damage than had already been done.

‘One more go,’ he said to Cam, moving so he could stand above the bar he needed to move and jump down onto it. Praying he wouldn’t miss as coming down on it could do him a very painful injury.

Putting that wince-causing image out of his head, he jumped and felt the scaffold give, felt the bar in his hand tear away, so the seat was released and they could get at the man.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing up there? Don’t you know there are experts for that kind of thing? Have you got a hero complex, or perhaps a death wish?’

He turned to see Lauren standing far too close to the devastated stands, hands on hips, the fury in her words visible on her face.

‘Lovely Lauren, don’t tell me you’re concerned for my welfare?’

Lauren didn’t need to look around to know that plenty of locals had heard the exchange. She was sure Tom had known that too, and had said it as revenge for her demented ‘date’ ploy and the encyclopaedia reference. She’d kill him! She’d climb up there and do it now if not for the fact that another person up there might endanger him.

Him?

No, she meant the other people still up there. Cam and whoever he and Tom had been tending.

Didn’t she?

She didn’t have a clue, she just knew that seeing Tom up there jumping on the already damaged scaffolding had sent cold chills through her body and clamped a band of steel around her heart.

‘The kids are all gone now.’

The voice, laden with doom although obviously the message was good, made her turn. Bobby Sims was right behind her, fear and apprehension making his usually bright, mischievous face pale and tense.

‘And I still can’t find Mum.’

The way he said it melted Lauren’s heart. For all his exasperating devilry, Bobby was still a little boy who loved his mother and had been with her through her string of abusive boyfriends.

‘You stay with me, we’ll find her,’ she told him. ‘If she’s not around here, maybe we’ll find her at the hospital. I have to go up there to talk to the people waiting to find out about their friends and family. We’ll get something to eat and drink up there as well. The canteen will be open.’

To Lauren’s surprise, she felt a small hand slip into hers, making her very aware that this wasn’t Bobby, the torment of her life, but a little boy who couldn’t find his mum.

She gave the little hand a squeeze, then knelt in front of him.

‘I’ll look after you, whatever happens, Bobby,’ she promised, drawing him into her arms to give him a comforting hug, repeating the promise that she’d take care of him, rocking him slightly as she offered comfort beyond words.

To her surprise he not only accepted the hug but he hugged her back, although as soon as she felt he’d had enough, she stood up. She led him up the road towards the hospital, following straggling groups of people who were also missing someone they knew or loved, the night silent with shock so the whispering shush as the waves slid onto the sand sounded loud in the darkness.

Once at the hospital, she realised she needed to start sorting people again—telling anyone not injured to wait on the veranda so the nurses on duty and those who had come in when they’d heard of the emergency listed the others according to the severity of their injuries. Jo, Cam, Tom and the other hospital doctor were all at work, Jo and Cam in the ER, working their way through the patients. Tom, Jo explained as she splinted a sprained wrist, was in Theatre with a man with a broken femur.

After checking with the ER manager that Joan Sims hadn’t been brought in, Lauren took Bobby through to the canteen.

‘What would you like to eat?’

For the first time since she’d seen him by the devastated stands, Bobby’s face lit up.

‘I can have any of that stuff?’ he asked, looking at the offerings, hastily prepared, Lauren guessed, in the servery.

‘Go for it,’ Lauren told him. ‘Grab a plate at one end and fill it up with whatever you want, but if you eat too much and throw up you have to clean up the mess.’

‘Me? I’m only eight!’

‘You,’ Lauren confirmed. ‘You’re never too young to learn to do a bit of cleaning.’

She watched as he heaped his plate then put some of his choices back, settled him at a table, told him she’d be on the veranda and to come out there when he finished. She was about to depart when she saw shadows chase across his face and tears well in his eyes.

‘No,’ she said quickly, ‘I should have something to eat as well. Wait here while I get some food and we’ll eat together then we can both go onto the veranda.’

She grabbed a sandwich and a cup of coffee and returned to find Bobby had nearly finished his large dinner.

‘There was apple pie there and some chocolate stuff and ice cream,’ he reminded her.

‘Go get some,’ she said, ‘but, remember, not too much.’

She was surprised to see him pick up his plate and carry it over to the servery, something she knew he refused to do at the refuge, telling whichever woman on duty in the kitchen it was a ‘girls’ job’ in tones of such lofty disdain they knew he must be echoing at least one of the men who’d moved through his mother’s life.

Back in the ER things seemed to be more chaotic than ever, but as Joan Sims hadn’t turned up Lauren stopped in her office to phone the police station. She spoke to a civilian helper who’d come in to assist, telling him Bobby Sims was with her if anyone phoned to enquire.

The helper checked his lists.

‘No one’s called us so far,’ he told Lauren, who was beginning to get a really bad feeling about Joan. She looked at Bobby, sitting dejectedly on a couch in the little anteroom where therapy patients waited, and had a brainwave. A lot of the OT and physio patients were kids so there was a TV, DVD player and a stack of DVDs in the small room.

‘Can you work a DVD player?’ she asked Bobby.

‘Course I can,’ he scoffed, then his eyes lit up. ‘Can I watch one of those DVDs?’

He’d obviously seen the shelves of them.

‘They’re all yours,’ Lauren told him. ‘I’ll be just outside on the veranda if you need me.’

She was about to walk away when the image of him standing there in front of the shelf made her turn back. She crossed the office and went into the little room where she gave him a big hug, then knelt so they were on eye level with each other.

‘Are you okay to stick with me until we sort this out?’ she asked him.

He nodded, then for the first time in the turbulent few years that she’d known Bobby he put his arms around her neck and pressed a quick kiss on her cheek.

‘Have fun,’ she whispered in his ear when she’d kissed him back. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

For some weird reason she found she had a lump in her throat and was swallowing it as she came out of the office into the corridor, slap bang into Tom.

‘I was looking for you,’ he said. ‘Are you all right? Do you have to be here? Can’t you go home and get some sleep?

Someone should be resting—there’ll be a lot of fall-out over this and plenty of traumatised people for you to have to deal with over the next few days.’

He’d put an arm around her as he spoke and was holding her close enough for her to see the concern in his eyes.

For a moment she felt like Bobby—she wanted to return the light hug he was giving her, return it with interest because a hug was what she needed right now—but she’d already embarrassed Tom enough for one night with her encyclopaedia statement so she stepped away.

Practical Lauren returning!

‘I’m fine. Have you eaten? Should I be rustling up some food for you and Cam and Jo?’

‘We’ve people feeding us all the time,’ Tom assured her, ‘but it will be a long night. At last count there are about thirteen with serious enough injuries to be hospitalised, and another seven or so who need bones set, or stitches in wounds, then there are muscle tears, that kind of thing, strains and sprains.’

‘No fatal injuries?’ Lauren had to ask, although just thinking of it made her cold all over.

Tom closed in on her again, resting his hands on her shoulders.

‘You’re worried about someone in particular?’ he asked, his voice so gentle Lauren had to swallow again.

Unable to speak, she nodded.

He nodded back, his face grave. ‘There’s talk of someone trapped underneath on the road side of the collapse,’ he said. ‘And from what I’ve heard it’s unlikely the person would have survived.’

The pulsing siren of an ambulance stopped the conversation.

‘They’re playing my song,’ Tom said, his voice lightening though his smile was grim, but he didn’t hurry off, pausing instead to give Lauren a real hug—like the one she’d wanted to give him earlier. ‘I’ll catch up with you some time soon,’ he said, and the words sounded like a promise …

The woman was so badly injured Tom wondered if there was any bone in her chest that wasn’t broken, but he had no time for stupid speculation, he needed all his focus on trying to save her.

Crush injuries to the chest were common from appalling road accidents, and Tom knew the only way to deal with them was bit by bit. She had oxygen pumping into her, the pressure low so they didn’t do more damage to her lungs, and her heart was still beating, which in itself was a problem, as it was also pumping blood out of her system through many torn veins and arteries.

‘Sometimes it seems as if more’s coming out than is going in. I’ve got the blood group done and we’ve sent out a call for whole blood but in the meantime the fluids should hold her.’

Tom looked up to see Cam gloved up on the other side of the operating table, ready to assist.

Two hours later they both stepped back, the woman, sadly still anonymous to them, beyond help.

‘Should we have been helping with the other injuries instead of trying to save her?’ Tom said to Cam as they stripped off their gloves and gowns and were washing together at the tub.

‘Jo and your co-worker are handling them all—they were down to minor stuff when I left and I would think they’ve finished now,’ Cam assured him.

They walked together through to the ER where Jo was slumped on a chair beside a couple of nurses, talking to Mike and another policeman. All of them turned towards Cam and Tom, took one look at their faces, and let out a collective sigh.

‘We don’t even know who she was,’ Tom said. He turned to Mike. ‘Do you?’

‘Joan Sims—Jo and Lauren know her from the refuge. Apparently she’s got a little boy.’

‘Bobby Sims,’ Tom said, remembering with sadness his and Lauren’s conversation about the rebel earlier. ‘I’ve met him before but he’s always come in with a teacher or someone from the refuge so I hadn’t met his mother. Where is Bobby now?’

‘He’s asleep in the little waiting room off Lauren’s office,’ Jo told him. ‘Now all the other people who came in have been patched and matched and those not hospitalised have gone home, Lauren’s in there with him.’

Tom turned and headed for the therapists’ office, his mind on the small boy. He must have a father, although maybe Joan Sims had been escaping abuse by someone else.

Would the child be safe?

He felt a shudder, as if the floor had moved beneath his feet, and shadows of the past flew by like phantoms in the night.

Of course Bobby Sims would have family …

Lauren was sitting at her desk, her head in her hands, exactly as she had been earlier—however long ago this afternoon had been.

‘Bobby?’ Tom asked as he came into the room.

Lauren nodded towards the alcove and Tom walked quietly towards it and stood a minute, looking down at the sleeping child. He had sandy-coloured hair rough cut and tousled and a serious over-bite that would need braces before too long, but, like all sleeping children, he looked so innocent Tom had to brace himself against the pain.