The Doctor's Special Touch

‘So you think I’m about to prey on the population.’

‘I bought you a sandwich,’ he snapped. ‘Listen.’

‘Fine,’ she said. She set her empty shake container in the cute little drink holder between the seats, folded her hands in her lap and stared straight ahead. ‘In payment for my sandwich I’ll be quiet. But only because you let me have double cheese.’ Her voice became totally subservient. ‘Please, sir, I’m paying attention. You can start now.’

Silence. Then a sound from the driver’s side that might almost be…a chuckle?

She ventured a suspicious glance at him and found his lips were twitching. And those eyes…

Laughter did something to him, she thought, and tried very hard to stay looking demure and compliant and good.

‘OK.’ He took a visible hold on his sudden and unexpected flicker of humour, and gripped the steering wheel harder. ‘There are a few people I need to talk about.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Ivy Morrison,’ he said, and there was a touch of desperation in his voice that said that laughter wasn’t too far away.

‘What about Ivy Morrison?’

‘She’s on a pension.’ Laughter faded. ‘She’s a little simple. She buys every new thing that’s going and gets into the most appalling financial mess. She’ll be desperate to see you.’

‘I’ll see her.’

‘Are you listening?’ he demanded. ‘She can’t afford you.’

‘So you’re saying I should say, “Sorry, Ivy, the doctor says you’re too poor to see me”?’

‘No, I—’

‘Because that would be insulting and humiliating,’ she told him.

‘Yeah, but—’

‘What I can do is take her the first time. I’ll only accept cash—which I do anyway as I can’t afford credit facilities—and I’ll tell her that frequent massage isn’t indicated in someone really fit and healthy. I’ll also make sure that the only appointments I have available for her are on the day before pension day. Never the day after. OK?’

There was a silence. Then he said, ‘You understand about pension days?’

‘Of course I do.’ Did she ever. She knew all about eating reasonably in the first days after you received it and starving in the days before it arrived.

But this was no time for reminiscences. Darcy was still watching her curiously.

‘You’d do that for Ivy?’

‘Of course. I’d do it for anyone I thought needed that level of care. This is my home and this is my community. I’m not about to exploit it.’

‘You really feel like that about Tambrine Creek?’

‘It’s the only home I’ve ever known,’ she told him. ‘I’m not about to mess things up by being greedy.’

‘I don’t suppose you are.’ His voice fell away. He was clearly unsure where she was coming from.

As she was.

‘What about you?’ she asked, moving on. ‘You’ve told me you have a very romantic mother and you have a wood stove. What else?’

‘Sorry?’

‘What’s the rest of the story?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You’re not married? Gloria says you share the doctor’s house with two dogs and a bunch of chooks.’

‘Easier than a wife and kids,’ he said with mock seriousness, and she grinned.

‘I guess. OK. Why are you in Tambrine Creek?’

‘I like it.’

‘Most med students could think of nothing worse than heading straight to Tambrine Creek when there are heaps of jobs available in the cities. Gloria said you just arrived here five years ago to practise and you’ve never made any attempt to leave.’

‘I told you—I like it.’

‘But there must be a reason why you came.’

‘What’s the phrase you used?’ he demanded. ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out?’

But he wasn’t laughing. Ally looked at his hands on the steering wheel and saw his knuckles were white. There was a story here.

Yeah, well, that makes two of us, she thought wryly. Two of them running from ghosts.

There was no time for more. ‘Here we are.’ He was steering the big car along a dirt track leading from the ridge overlooking the town.

‘They live here?’ she asked incredulously, and he nodded.

‘They do.’

‘This belongs to Gareth Hatfield. Or it did.’

‘Gareth Hatfield? I’ve never heard of him.’

‘He’s…um… His son was a…a friend of my father’s,’ she said, her voice trailing off. Then, realising something more was expected, she tried again. ‘The old man was filthy rich. He bought all the land around here and then sold it off for a vast profit. The locals used to say he’d find some sucker to sell even this place to, and maybe he has. Is there water up here now?’ Tambrine Creek itself was set on a rich coastal plain, but the land up here was rough and rock-strewn. It was so dry it was almost dust.

‘They cart their water up from the river,’ Darcy told her.

She fell silent, staring about her. She could see three rough bush huts set well back into the scrub. The place seemed deserted. The huts were primitive and there were no vehicles parked where the track ended.

‘No one’s here.’

‘They’ll be inside. Between five and six o’clock, the women cook and the men meditate.’

She swallowed. Memories came flooding back. To have such a community here…now… But Darcy was still watching her, waiting for a reaction. She could see she was starting to puzzle him. What had he said? The women cook. ‘Lucky women.’

‘You’d rather cook than meditate?’ he asked, and she struggled to make her voice sound normal.

‘Of course I would. I’d rather cook than do anything. Especially when I get to eat what I cook. Where are the cars?’

‘There aren’t cars. They don’t believe in them.’

‘How do they get water up here?’

‘The women carry it.’

Her jaw dropped. ‘You’re kidding. It’s a half-mile climb.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Meditation’s looking good,’ she whispered. She’d thought, when Jerome had left the country, that such communities were a thing of the past. But maybe it was a lifestyle attractive for a lot of people.

It still horrified her. ‘I’m feeling a really strong bout of feminism coming on,’ she managed.

‘Try and keep it to yourself,’ he advised. He pulled the car to a halt and reached into the back for his bag. ‘Value judgements aren’t wanted here.’

‘Then what are you doing here?’ she demanded, shaking her sense of unreality and trying to haul herself back to the present. ‘You, the very king of value judgements.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘A greedy, money-sucking, bulimic call-girl.’

‘OK.’ He held up his hands in surrender. ‘OK. Enough. Truce. You want to come inside or stay in the car?’

‘You’d trust me with real people?’ Then, at his look, she suddenly relented. ‘I may as well. I guess I could hike off home—if the women cart water up here it seems a bit soppy to whinge about a hike of an hour or so—but…’

‘There are still people I want to talk to you about.’

‘More Ivys? More people you don’t trust me with?’

‘Ally…’

She sighed. ‘Oh, goody. It seems I’m going to be insulted all the way home again, too. OK. I’ll stay. I might have to find someone here I can insult in turn.’

‘Please.’

‘I know.’ She shrugged but then she smiled again. ‘Not appropriate. You don’t need to worry. I’ll be good. You’ll hear no value judgements from me. I won’t charge anyone for massage. I’ll do no harm. It was a truly excellent thick-shake and they were wonderful sandwiches, Dr Rochester. They were even worth being good for.’

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