Marion Lennox - The Australian's Desire

Now they stood side by side at the luggage carousel, waiting for his bag. It took for ever. There were other doctors there from the plane.

‘There’s some other wedding happening here,’ he ventured for something to say, and Georgie nodded, looking at the baggage carousel as if it was she who’d recognise his bag.

‘Yep. One this Saturday, one next. Planned so those going to both needn’t make two trips. We were starting to think there’d be no guests for the first one.’

‘It’s some storm down south,’ he said reflectively. ‘That’s how I met these guys. The trip from New Zealand should have been cancelled. We hit an air pocket and dropped what felt like a few thousand feet. Anyone who wasn’t belted in was injured.’

‘You got called on as a doctor?’

‘A bit. I was asleep at first.’

‘Off duty,’ she said blankly, and he winced. There was no criticism in her voice. It was a simple statement of fact, but she knew how to hurt. When he’d woken to discover the chaos he’d felt dreadful. He’d helped, but other doctors had been more proactive than him.

‘Look, I—’

‘Is this your bag? It must be. Everyone else has theirs.’

‘It’s mine,’ he said, and she strode forward and lugged it off the conveyor belt before he could stop her. She set it up on its wheels and tugged out the handle, then set it before him. Making him feel even more wimpish.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘My wheels are in the car park.’

‘Your car?’

‘My wheels.’ She was striding through the terminal, talking to him over her shoulder. He was struggling to keep up.

He was feeling about six years old.

‘Hey, Georg.’ People were acknowledging her, waving to her, but she wasn’t stopping. She was wearing really high stilettos but still walking at a pace that made him hurry. She looked like something out of a biker magazine. A biker’s moll?

Not quite, for her hair was closely cropped and cute—almost classy. The gold hoop earrings actually looked great. She was just … different.

‘Doc Turner.’ An overweight girl—much more your vision of a biker’s moll than Georgie—was yelling to get her attention. ‘Georgie!’

Georgie stopped, spinning on her stilettos to see who was calling.

The girl was about eighteen, bottle-blonde, wearing jeans that were a couple of sizes too small for her very chubby figure and a top that didn’t cover a stomach that wobbled. She was pushing a pram. A chubby, big-eyed toddler clung to a fistful of her crop top, and a youth came behind, lugging two overstuffed bags. The youth looked about eighteen, too, as skinny as his partner was chubby.

They were obviously friends of Georgie. ‘Lola,’ Georgie said with evident pleasure. ‘Eric. How goes it?’

‘Eric’s mum’s paid for us to go to Hobart,’ Lola said with evident pride. ‘She’s gonna look after us for a coupla weeks till all me bits get back together.’

‘Lola had a lovely little girl last week,’ Georgie told Alistair, looking into the pram with expected admiration. ‘It was a pretty dramatic birth.’

‘Had her on the laundry floor,’ Lola said proudly. ‘Eric had gone to ring the ambos and there she was. Pretty near wet himself when he came back.’

‘Lola, Eric, this is Dr Carmichael,’ Georgie said. The rest of the passengers from the plane were passing them on the way out to the car park. Nice ordinary people with nice ordinary people meeting them. Not a tattoo in sight.

Lola had six tattoos that he could see. Eric … Eric was just one huge tattoo.

‘Doc Carmichael is Gina’s surrogate father, here to give her away at the wedding,’ Georgie said.

‘He’s Gina’s surrogate father?’ Lola checked him out. ‘What’s surrogate?’ Then she shrugged, clearly not interested in extending her education. ‘Well, he’s older than my old man so I guess he’ll do.’ She surveyed him critically. ‘That silver in your hair. Natural?’

‘Um … yes,’ Alistair said, discomfited.

‘Looks great. Love a bit of silver. Looks real distinguished. Eric, you oughta get some put in. Next time I get me tips done you come, too.’ She moved forward a bit to get a closer look and smoothed Alistair’s lapel in admiration. ‘Cool suit. Real classy. Anyone ever told you we don’t do suits in this town?’

‘You taking him into town?’ Eric asked.

‘Yeah,’ Georgie said.

‘You got a spare helmet?’ Lola demanded. ‘He’s gonna look real dorky in that suit on the back of your bike. And what about his bag?’

‘I’ve got a spare helmet and I hooked up the trailer.’

‘Sheesh,’ Eric said. ‘Rather you than me, mate. She rides like the clappers.’

‘I’m not going on a motorbike,’ Alistair said, feeling it was time he put his foot down. ‘Georgia, I’ll get a cab.’

‘Ooh, listen to him,’ Lola said, admiring. ‘Georgia. Is that your real name?’

‘Georgiana Marilyn Kimberly Turner,’ Georgie said, grinning.

‘Sheesh,’ said Lola.

‘We gotta go,’ Eric said, looking ahead at the security gates with a certain amount of trepidation. ‘Lola, you sure about the—?’

‘The baby stuff,’ Lola corrected him, far too fast, and reached over and gave her beloved a wifely cuff. ‘Yeah, it’s packed. Shut up.’

Georgie chuckled. It was a good chuckle, Alistair thought, low and throaty and real.

‘They’re in for a rough flight,’ he said, watching the little family head off toward Security. By mutual unspoken agreement they stayed watching. Lola picked the baby up out of her pram, handed her to Eric, lifted the pram and dumped the whole thing sideways on the conveyor belt. Then she grabbed all the bags they were carrying and loaded them on top. Bags, bags and more bags.

A security officer from the far end of the hall had strolled down to where they were tugging their gear off the belt. The officer had a beagle hound on a leash.

The beagle walked up to Lola, looked up at her and sat firmly at her feet.

‘Hey, great dog,’ Lola said, and fished in her nappy bag. ‘You want a peanut-butter sandwich?’

‘Don’t feed the dog, ma’am,’ the officer said curtly, and Lola swelled in indignation.

‘Why the hell not? He’s too skinny.’

‘Can we check the contents of the bag you’re carrying, please?’

‘Sure,’ Lola said, amenable. She walked back to the conveyor belt with her nappy bag, lifted it high and emptied it. She put the baby on top for good measure.

‘She’s carrying the contents of a small house,’ Alistair said, awed, and Georgie grinned.

‘That’s our Lola. She’s one of my favourite patients.’

‘I can see that,’ he said morosely, and she shrugged, starting to walk away.

‘Yeah, it’s a long way from the keep-yourself-nice brigade I’d imagine you’d prefer to treat. But we need to be flexible up here, mate. Nonjudgmental. Doctors like you wouldn’t have a chance in this place.’

He bit his lip. She was being deliberately provocative, he thought. Dammit, he wasn’t going to react. But …

‘About the bike …’

‘Yeah?’ she said over her shoulder as she headed outside.

‘I’ll get a cab.’

‘Someone’s already taken the cab. I saw it drive off.’

‘There must be more than one cab.’

‘Not today there isn’t. It’s the northern waters flyfishing meet in Croc Creek. The prize this year is a week in Fiji and every man and his dog is fishing his heart out. And everyone else from the plane left while we were talking to Lola. You’re stuck with me.’

They were outside now, trekking through to the far reaches of the car park. To an enormous Harley Davidson with an incongruous little trailer on the back.