Fiona Lowe - Four Weddings

When he’d stood so close to her at the lookout, holding her hands and caressing her skin with his thumbs, coils of yearning had unravelled inside her like silk streaming in the wind. Glorious sensations had spread through her, making her knees buckle. She’d desperately wanted to lean into him. Wanted to rest her body against him and snuggle into the shelter of his arms.

But stepping into his arms would have been a huge mistake. Way too big a risk.

So she’d pulled back and a dull pain had started to throb under her ribs. It had never completely left her.

When he’d released her hands his eyes had flickered with an emotion she hadn’t quite been able to pin down. Probably relief. The last thing he needed was an emotional nurse throwing herself into his arms. Now he seemed almost wary around her. She missed the laid-back doctor she’d first met.

She straightened her shoulders. None of that mattered. What mattered was the time she had left to learn all she could from him about Vietnam. Then she could decide the best way she could help the children of this wonderful country.

‘Follow me down to the boat.’ Tom turned and walked across the sand.

Bec scanned the water, looking for a boat, but she could only see gentle waves and the horizon. Five fishermen sat on the beach mending nets, leaning up against enormous round bamboo baskets.

As they approached, one of the men rose and greeted Tom. He turned over the large basket and floated it in the water.

‘Put your pack in the middle and then hop in.’ Tom gently placed his pack on the floor of the eight-foot-diameter basket.

Bec shrugged her pack off her shoulders. ‘Where’s the boat?’

Tom laughed, his eyes dancing. ‘This is it.’

Her shriek of surprise caused a great deal of mirth amongst the fishermen. ‘This is a boat?’

‘It’s a Vietnamese dinghy, a basket boat. It’s made from woven bamboo and covered in a waterproof tar-like substance, which is actually sap from a tree. It gets me safely to the island every time I visit.’

He caught her gaze, his eyes suddenly intense and earnest. ‘Trust me, Bec.’ He held out his hand.

Trust me. She tamped down the streak of panic those words generated. She could do many things, but the men she’d known had destroyed her faith in trust.

‘Hold onto me, step in and sit down while I steady it with my foot. It won’t sink, promise.’ His lips curved into a reassuring smile that raced to his eyes as he coaxed her into the boat.

But it wasn’t the boat trip that worried her. It was holding his hand. She could act all independent, avoid touching him and scramble into the boat on her own. She calculated that against the risk of upending the medical supplies into the salt water.

The medical supplies won. She reached out and caught his hand with her own, her fingers dwarfed in his wide palm. His heat fused with hers, racing through her, reigniting all the places that had glowed at his touch once before.

‘Nothing like an adventure, right?’ His solid, dependable tone encased her.

He was worried she was freaking out over the boat. If only it was that simple. ‘I’m always up for an adventure.’ She plastered a fake smile on her face and lowered herself into the round boat, ignoring the vague sense of loss that speared her when she let go of his hand.

Tom and the fisherman took their places in the basket boat, and the fisherman started to propel it forward using a single wooden paddle.

‘We act as counterweights so lean back and enjoy the view.’ Tom slid on sunglasses against the glare of the sun.

Sparkling turquoise water surrounded them as they headed toward an island dotted with coconut palms and golden sands. A conical mountain rose in the middle, dominating the landscape with its jungle green canopy. ‘If this was in Far North Queensland, this place would be an exclusive tourist resort. I’m guessing it became a leper colony a long time ago.’

Tom nodded. ‘The Catholic Church started this colony in the early 1900s, back in the days when the isolation of lepers from the general community was thought to be the way to stop the disease from spreading.’

‘But the world knows now that leprosy is not transmitted by touch.’

His shoulders rose and fell in a resigned shrug. ‘But in some local communities in Africa and Asia attitudes are slow to change. Lepers are still shunned. We’re working on change and some will take place in our lifetime, but it’s a long, slow process.’

She glanced up at the mountains that seemed almost to join the colony to the mainland. ‘Is the only way to get here by boat?’

‘Boat or a rugged jungle trek. Technically it’s not an island but for all intents and purposes it may as well be. It’s hard to walk when you’re missing parts of your legs. The bigger boat left earlier with Hin, the supplies and the rice that Health For Life organized.’

As gentle waves washed the boat up onto the sand, children appeared from behind the trees, waving and running up and down the beach. Tom clambered out of the boat and started unloading the packs.

‘We always get a big welcome when we visit. The kids really suffer from the isolation of the island. If one member of their family has leprosy then the whole family has to move to the village. As their parents are not welcomed in the towns they are stuck here until they’re older. Even then they can experience prejudice when looking for work or trying to attend high school on the mainland.’

The fisherman handed Bec out of the boat and she and Tom walked up the beach, toward some low-roofed buildings.

Bec mulled over how such a beautiful natural setting had become a prison. ‘So this false paradise is both a home and a hospital?’

‘It’s like any other village, except the two hundred people here can’t leave to work. Those that can grow rice and fish but the poverty here is dire. When you’re missing an arm or a leg, the physical work of farming is pretty much impossible.’

Tom grimaced. ‘There isn’t a hospital here. They have a medical clinic with health aides. If they need surgery they have to go to a provincial hospital. That creates its own set of problems. We don’t run a clinic here but we provide bandages, gauze and dressing supplies, which are always needed.’

‘What about crutches and artificial limbs?’

‘We work with some charities to source those when we have patients who need them. Today we’re going to do some skin checks and help the health workers.’ He slowed his pace. ‘Bec.’

The tone of his voice made her pause. ‘Yes?’

‘It can be pretty confronting if you’ve never seen the ravages of leprosy before.’ Again his eyes shone with concern.

The feeling of being cared for welled inside her, warming her.

Scaring her.

‘Thanks for the heads up.’ With a monumental effort she dragged her eyes away from his, away from the feeling of wanting to fall into their softness and be cared for. But she cared for herself, that was how it had to be. You’re here to work.

The clinic was L-shaped. Concrete walls were painted a bright cheery yellow and blue shutters lined the windows. The low thatched roof sloped downward and was rimmed by wide gutters to cope with the monsoon rains. Bec gave a wave to Hin, their interpreter. He stood chatting to people in an attractive courtyard dotted with flowering plants, and swept to within an inch of its life. Patients waited for their turn to see the health worker.

The peace and tranquillity of the tropical paradise setting clashed dramatically with the physical disfigurement of leprosy. Some people sat in wheelchairs—empty spaces below them where their legs should have been. Others had both legs but muscle contractures had left them bent and disfigured. One man was missing a hand, another an earlobe. Scarred eyes peered out of ulcerated faces, the cloudy whiteness of the pupils obscuring all vision.