Taming Dr Tempest

Annabelle had stopped and was fiddling through the keys, although as he joined her she nodded towards the bent pipe.

‘Backed it under a low branch I’d say, wouldn’t you?’

Nick nodded in turn. He was too bemused by the strangeness—by the hot, dry air, the red dust already coating his shoes, this battered vehicle and an undoubtedly capable nurse—to make a comment on the driving skills of his predecessors.

Then a question he should have asked earlier occurred to him and he studied the capable nurse.

‘How come you know all this country stuff?’ he demanded, and though he expected a teasing smile and some light remark in reply she said nothing, just concentrated on the bunch of keys as if the large one that had ‘Toyota’ written on it hadn’t already been singled out by her nimble fingers.

She unlocked the doors at the rear of the vehicle and threw her pack and swag into a narrow space between chests of medical equipment, large plastic containers of water and a small, chest-like refrigerator. Nick hoisted his suitcase and set it on top of another chest, then remembered they had to collect the one from the terminal.

‘I’ll get it,’ he offered, but Annabelle followed him anyway, knowing it would be easier to carry if they shared the load.

And as she followed she considered the question she hadn’t answered. How to explain that this was the country of her heart? Or that she’d volunteered not only for the bonus money but so she could come out here to face the past, and hopefully put it behind her, enabling her to move on, strong and confident, towards whatever the future might hold.

He’d have thought she’d lost her marbles, and the poor man was confused enough as it was.

She caught up with him and together they carried the chest out of the now-deserted terminal building. Back at the troopie, it was Nick who found where the chest went, behind the driver’s seat and accessible only by tipping the seat forward.

The success must have gone to his head for next minute he was demanding the keys and settling himself into the driver’s seat, man-confident there wasn’t a vehicle made he couldn’t drive.

Until he noticed the two gear sticks…

Annabelle smiled to herself as she climbed into the passenger seat and watched the frown deepen on his face as he tried to work it out.

‘Okay,’ he finally admitted, ‘tell me!’

‘One’s for the four-wheel drive,’ she said, pointing to the smaller of the two. ‘You put the main one into neutral before engaging four-wheel drive and you have to lock the hubs on the front wheels.’

His frown was now directed right at her.

‘And other city doctors who come out to this godforsaken place find this out how?’

‘I guess they read the manual, or perhaps the information is passed on from the departing pair—there’d have been plenty of time for Phil to explain if it hadn’t been for the fight.’

‘Can you drive it?’ Nick asked, and Annabelle nodded then watched him get out, walk around the bonnet and open the door on her side.

‘It’s all yours. I’ll read the manual while we’re travelling.’

She smiled at him as she slid back out to the ground.

‘Well, at least you’re not too stubborn to admit you don’t know something. I could name half a dozen doctors in A and E back home who’d cut their tongues out before admitting a woman might know more about a vehicle than they did.’

Nick returned her smile with interest, flashing a gleaming grin alight with teasing self-mockery.

‘My ego’s taken such a battering already, one more blow is hardly noticeable.’

They swapped seats but it wasn’t until Annabelle started the engine that she heard a short, sharp bark and remembered Bruce.

‘Ha! You don’t know how to drive it either,’ Nick said, but she was already out of the vehicle, looking around her, finally locating the dog tied in the meagre shade of a gidgee tree at the edge of the car park.

‘Bruce?’ she called, and got an answering bark, but as she approached the dog she wondered just how adaptable he was to the medical staff who came and went from Murrawalla. He seemed to be largely blue cattle dog, a dog known to be loyal to one master, but Bruce’s slavering, tail-wagging, stomach-crawling behaviour as she approached suggested he was happy to be in any human company.

She let him sniff her hand and, as he continued to greet her with grovelling wriggles and little whimpers of delight, she unhooked his lead from the tree, picked up the empty water bowl and led him back to the vehicle.

‘That’s not a dog, it’s a small wolf,’ Nick announced as the dog approached him, prepared to offer Nick as much love as he’d offered Annabelle. ‘And just where does he sit? Not on my knee, I hope.’

But his attention to the dog, the way he scratched between his ears and under his chin, convinced Annabelle that he was all talk. Bruce had won him over in a matter of seconds.

Bruce settled the matter of where he would sit when Annabelle opened the back doors. The dog leapt in and dropped down onto a padded mat on top of one of the chests, his head against the luggage barrier that divided the front seats from the back part of the troopie. One glance at Bruce’s favoured position was enough to convince Annabelle she’d drive as often as possible. Whoever sat in the passenger side was sure to get a good amount of Bruce’s drool down the back of his or her neck.

They drove into town, Annabelle pulling up in front of the general store, which she knew from the past sold everything from groceries to underwear, from water tanks to televisions. Across the road a group of men sat on the low veranda of the local pub, cool in the shade of the wide eaves. They nodded their acknowledgement of a couple of strangers in town and returned to their drinking without comment, although Annabelle did wonder what they’d made of Nick in his bloodstained suit.

Once inside the store a keen young man took charge, checking Nick’s size and producing a couple of pairs of moleskin trousers, a pair of jeans, and three shirts within minutes of their arrival, then hustling Nick towards a dressing room to try them all on.

Annabelle took the opportunity to try on the hats, finally settling on a neat black number with a good brim and the ability to tilt saucily down over one eye.

Could she afford it?

Not really, but it was a great hat and it really would be better for Nick to have her old one, rather than advertising his new chum status in a brand-new Akubra.

Although why she was worried about what people might think of Nick she wasn’t sure.

Was it because she sensed a hint of vulnerability beneath his unyielding exterior, not just the uncertainty natural to a newcomer to the bush, but something deeper—some pain—hidden behind the hard polished surface of Nick—Storm—Tempest?

She tried tilting the hat to the other side and considered herself in the mirror, considering also why the man’s vulnerability—imagined or otherwise—was any of her business. He was noted for his lack of commitment to the women he took out, while her one and only serious experience in the relationship department had been so disastrous she’d been forced to realise she had to start again, going back to the first man she’d loved—the first man who’d deserted her—her father.

Making her peace with him and the past so she could move forward…

CHAPTER THREE

‘WHAT do you think?’

Nick appeared from the dressing room, holding his arms wide so she could admire his new look.

Stunning, but she didn’t say it, feeling slightly ill because her heart had given a little lurch when she’d seen how the blue shirt accentuated the blue of his eyes and the way the moleskins clung to his long legs.

‘Well done,’ she did say, speaking to the sales clerk, not Nick. ‘Now all we have to do is rough them up a bit and he’ll be ready to face Murrawalla.’

‘I run my ute over my new clobber,’ the young man offered, and Annabelle wished she’d had a camera to catch the stunned-mullet look on Nick’s face.

‘Make sure the zips and buttons are done up,’ the salesman added, ‘although they don’t seem to suffer much damage—just sink into the dust.’

Nick made a kind of bleating noise, but was obviously still too bemused by this latest bush conversation to question it or protest, although he did make a token objection when Annabelle suggested he get back into his other clothes so all the new gear could be washed.

‘And driven over by the troopie?’ he managed. ‘Is that acceptable, or does it have to be a ute?’

Annabelle laughed.

‘We won’t run over the shirts,’ she told him kindly. ‘The trousers will pick up enough dirt to spread through the wash and tone them down a bit. You’re getting jeans as well? Boots?’

He stared at her and shook his head, but she knew he wasn’t answering her question, just portraying disbelief at the situation in which he’d found himself.

The scruffing, washing and drying of the clothes took them another hour, but as Nick changed in the ablutions block at the caravan park, he knew it had all been a good idea. The trousers were great, comfortable to wear, softer now than when they’d been pristinely new. And they looked good, as did the shirt with the two pockets. In fact, as he tipped Annabelle’s battered old hat into a rakish angle on his head and checked the mirror, he had to smile.

City-man, Annabelle had called him, but no one looking at him now would think that.

‘Finished admiring yourself in there?’

‘Is there a spyhole in the wall?’ he answered, picking up his soiled clothes and coming out to join her and Bruce at the troopie, parked in the shade of a huge tree, with long drooping branches that reminded him of a weeping willow.

But he knew they grew along creeks and rivers and as there were no creeks or rivers within coo-ee of this place, he wasn’t going to make a fool of himself by suggesting a name.

No, he’d work out how to drive the troopie, he’d lock and unlock wheel hubs and he’d never give Annabelle cause to call him city-man again.

Though why it mattered what she called him, he didn’t know.

‘I gave Bruce a run and filled up with fuel while you were watching your laundry dry,’ she told him. ‘I also got us some sandwiches to eat on the way and a couple of cans of soft drink as well. I have a feeling I should do a proper shop while we’re here, because although Murrawalla has a roadhouse that sells groceries, meat, fruit and veggies, the prices will be much higher.’

She looked sufficiently worried about this dilemma for Nick to ask, ‘Are we in a hurry that you’d prefer not to shop here?’

‘Not really. We’ve a way to go, but the road’s good. No, I’m more worried about not buying local. I mean, if everyone in Murrawalla—’

‘All one hundred and forty of them,’ Nick put in.

‘Yes, but if they all shopped here in Murrawingi then the roadhouse would stop stocking even the basics and that’s bad for their business but also for the town.’

Nick shook his head.

‘I was just telling myself you’d never call me city-man again, but for someone who’s used to corner stores and local supermarkets open twenty-four hours a day, this conversation is mind-boggling. However, I get your drift, we’ll shop locally, and if it costs us a little more, too bad. Now, show me how to drive this beast and let’s get going.’

Once he had the hang of the gears, he drove competently, Annabelle realised, but, then, he probably did everything competently, even expertly. His reputation as a doctor was that he was always thorough, always willing to go one step further with a patient if he suspected there might be hidden problems. It was only his social reputation—if one had such a thing—that had given her cause to wonder about him when she’d seen him on the plane.

Not that his social reputation was any of her business. She reached forward and turned on the two-way radio, tuning it so they could hear messages without the chat between truckies and farm workers overwhelming them.

‘Do we use that?’ Nick asked, indicating the handset.

‘Only if we need to,’ she told him. ‘I don’t think there’s much point in just chatting to people. The truckies do it to keep themselves alert, but I imagine it’s only in here for emergencies as far as we’re concerned.’

‘This is Eileen at Murrawalla hospital—is the doctor’s car receiving? Are you new guys there?’

‘You must have wished that on us,’ Annabelle told Nick, lifting the handset to her lips and pressing the button to transmit.

‘We’re the new guys and we hear you,’ she said, then switched to receive.

‘Good! Where are you exactly? There’s a problem out on Casuarina, if you tell me where you are I’ll give directions.’

‘We’re only sixty kilometres from Murrawingi—slight problem at the airport,’ Annabelle reported.

‘Well, that still makes you the closest and at least you won’t have to backtrack. About another fifteen k up the road you’ll see a mailbox made out of an old bulldozer track, turn right there and follow the road another fifteen k to some cattle yards, turn left and about thirty k further down that road there’s a bloke in trouble in a washout. When you’re done you can follow that road— it eventually leads back to the bitumen about twenty k south of town. Casuarina is sending a tractor over to get the truck out but he’ll travel slow. Radio if you need the ambulance as well.’

‘A bloke in trouble in a washout?’ Nick echoed, as Annabelle checked the distances she’d written on a small notebook she’d found bound to the sunshade by a thick rubber band.

‘Sounds like a single car accident,’ she explained. ‘This is channel country. It’s dry now but when you get good rain up north, the water travels south and this area becomes a maze of small creeks that criss-cross the whole area. Once off the bitumen you drive in and out of these all the time, and some of them have steep drop-offs at the bottom. There’s the mailbox.’

Nick looked towards where she was pointing and was amazed to see that the mailbox had indeed been fashioned out of the track of an old bulldozer. He turned right onto a narrow dirt road, making a note of the kilometres, although he was fairly sure he’d recognise cattle yards when he came to them.

‘Better stop and lock the hubs just in case,’ Annabelle suggested, and he pulled up and watched as she walked to the front wheel on her side, bending over to shift the hub from free to lock. He went back to his side and did the same thing.

‘Are we now in four-wheel drive?’ he asked, wondering about the next move.

She shook her head.

‘No, but we can go into it if we need to now the hubs are locked. We should lock them every so often whether we’re using the four-wheel drive or not, to keep them lubricated.’

She passed him as she spoke and climbed into the driving seat.

‘It’s not that I don’t trust your driving,’ she said, ‘but we should get to this guy as quickly as we can so it’s not the ideal time to be starting your new driving lessons.’

Nick didn’t argue, although as he climbed back into the troopie and felt Bruce’s hot breath on his neck, he did feel entitled to a small grouch.

‘It’s a good thing I’m a modern man who isn’t fazed by women’s lib or the fact that one particular woman is outdoing me at every stage of this adventure.’

Annabelle turned towards him, as if startled by his admission, then she smiled.

‘Not at every stage,’ she reminded him. ‘You did rescue me from being trampled back there in the airport.’

She smiled again, though Nick was starting to wish she wouldn’t. She had such an attractive smile—the kind of smile that not only made you want to smile back but made you want to keep her smiling.

He shook his head, sure it had to be the heat—heatstroke—that had his mind wandering this way.

Although the vehicle was air-conditioned…

‘Hold on!’

The clipped order had him grabbing for the bar on the front dashboard, catching it just in time to stop himself being thrown forward against his seat belt.

‘That’s a washout,’ Annabelle explained as she eased the troopie into its lowest gear so it had to growl and grumble its way out of the creek bed. ‘I’m sorry, but going in it didn’t look as steep as that. I’ll take them all much more slowly in future.’

Still uncertain about the geography of it, Nick opened his window and stuck his head out to have a look. Clouds of red dust whirled in, but behind them he could see what Annabelle had meant. The road had seemed to ease slowly into the cry creek bed, but at the bottom it had been cut away so the last two feet of the descent had been abrupt.

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