Marion Lennox - Dynamite Doc or Christmas Dad?

‘Is there anything we can do for Marge?’ Jess asked, seeing the worry. But …

‘No. It’s just a sore leg—she was kicked by a wallaby last week. Kicks go with the job. She had a massage yesterday—that was why two of us went to the mainland rather than just one to collect the animals—but it seems to have stirred it up rather than settled it. She’s sounds like she’s getting a cold as well. But at least she’s accepted she needs to rest.’

‘We are doctors. You wouldn’t like me…?’ Jess ventured, still seeing worry.

‘She’d be furious if I asked you to,’ Sally said. ‘She hates fuss. You know, she’s almost eighty. She shouldn’t be here, but she says, well, she says she wants to die doing the work she loves and Dianne and I respect that. It’ll be what we want for ourselves.’ She gave herself a little shake, visibly pushing fears aside. ‘But today we’ve persuaded her to rest and that’s huge in itself. She’s snuggled into bed with Pokey, but she’s feeling guilty and if we push her any more she’ll get up just to prove she can. Right. Work. Let’s go.’

Work.

They fed babies. They sluiced.

It was kind of fun.

The animals were in separate runs according to age, sex and species. Each run had a patch of natural ground, designed to be as close to the natural habitat as could be obtained, but there were sections in each run where feeding took place, or treating. These section were concrete slabs that had to be meticulously cleaned.

Jess scrubbed out the run of four short-nosed wombats. She worked alone. Dusty and Ben were in the turtle/tortoise run, cleaning the area around the pool. Scrubbing. Chatting.

Jess couldn’t hear what they were chatting about.

‘Do you want to work together or apart?’ Sally had asked.

‘Apart,’ Jess had said, fast.

But Dusty had said ‘Together’ at exactly the same time. Ben hadn’t responded.

‘That’s easy, then. Jess, you do the wombats, and Dusty and Ben do the tortoises,’ Sally had said, and before she knew it that’s exactly what was happening.

She could see them from where she was, fifty yards away, two heads, one small and blond, one adult and dark.

Dusty, asking questions.

Ben, seemingly at ease. Answering. Chatting back. Scrubbing as if he was accustomed to hard manual work.

Dusty manfully trying to keep up with him.

Even from here Jess was sensing the beginning of hero-worship.

‘I think this might be Dr Oaklander,’ Dusty had whispered to her during the tour, and she’d nodded, as grave as he’d been. They’d introduced themselves briefly as Dusty, Tess, Ben, and she’d seen Dusty react to the name. Ben.

‘Check him out, then,’ she’d said. ‘Maybe don’t say anything until you’re sure.’

Dusty was obviously taking her at her word, or maybe he’d simply forgotten again and was just enjoying the moment. There was too much else to think about.

He didn’t have enough males in his life, Jess thought ruefully as she watched them. No grandparents. No uncles. His teacher was a woman. Even his karate instructor was female.

What were they saying?

This was driving her crazy.

Ben’s reaction to Dusty had Ben disconcerted. He didn’t react to kids like this. In truth, he hardly reacted to kids at all. Once they’d lost newborn status he had little to do with them.

He was aware of them, of course. He’d even done a stint of paediatrics during training. But now … it was as if his decision about avoiding families had made him tune out from doing more than be nice to the siblings of his newborns.

But Dusty seemed … different.

The kid had him intrigued. He wasn’t a noisy kid. He’d sensed the need for initial quiet in the enclosure they were cleaning, not wanting to scare the tortoises. For the first few minutes he’d simply scrubbed and not said anything.

Then, as the creatures got used to them, deciding they were no threat, Dusty started talking. A little.

‘There are three different species of turtle here,’ he told Ben. ‘Look at the markings. And two species of tortoise. I really like tortoises.’

‘Have you ever had one as a pet?’

He looked appalled. ‘We live in London. These guys would hate it there.’

‘I guess.’

Dusty scrubbed on, then peeped him a smile. ‘What did the snail say when he was having a ride on the tortoise’s back?’

‘I don’t know.’ Ben sat back and enjoyed Dusty’s grin. Once more, he was hit by that blast of recognition. Surely this was …

‘Wheeeeeeee,’ Dusty told him, and Ben found himself chuckling out loud.

The creatures around them didn’t even back away.

‘Do you know any tortoise jokes?’ Dusty demanded, and Ben thought about it. He and Nate used to buy books of jokes. Jokes had been their very favourite thing and Ben was blessed with an excellent memory.

‘As a matter of fact, I do,’ he said, and Dusty chuckled in anticipation.

Just like Nate.

This was excellent, Jess thought. Wonderful. Dusty was getting to know his uncle without the tensions that revealing their relationship might cause. She’d deal with those tensions when they happened, she decided. Meanwhile the wombats were watching her balefully from inside their hollow log. Waiting for their clean house.

She scrubbed.

She kind of liked scrubbing. There were massive eucalypts overhead, taking away the sting of the sun. The wombats were a benign presence, and she thought, Am I doing it to your satisfaction, guys?

This was great for her head. It was taking her away from the grief of losing her mother, from the normal stress of work, the worry she always felt about Dusty …

And that was the biggie. Dusty had been desperately miserable since his gran had died. Now …

He had an uncle.

Any minute Ben might find out.

But when it came out … if Ben reacted well …

She glanced across at their stroke-for-stroke scrubbing. If Ben decided he did want to be an uncle … If he decided to share …

There were too many ifs. And she didn’t want to share with an Oaklander.

‘I’m befuddled,’ she told the wombats, and they eyed her as if they already knew it.

Befuddled but happy?

Yeah, okay, she was happy. She was in one of the most glorious places in the world. Come what may, Dusty had met his uncle. ‘I helped my uncle look after tortoises,’ she imagined him telling his friends back home. ‘He made me laugh.’

For Ben’s rich chuckle rang out, over and over, and a couple of research workers in one of the far enclosures swivelled to see. As they would. They were female and that chuckle … Whew.

Had Nate’s chuckle been as … gorgeous?

She couldn’t remember. Nate was a fuzzy memory, an overwhelming, romantic encounter and then nothing.

Ben was here, now.

He was still an Oaklander. Nate must have had that chuckle. For her to lose her senses as she had …

‘Well, I’m not losing my senses now,’ she told the wombats, returning to scrubbing with ferocity. ‘No way. I’m cleaning your yard and then I’m moving on.’

To the wallaby run. Not to Ben Oaklander. Not even close.

And then she paused. Sally had come flying out of the back door of the house. She looked around wildly. Saw her. Gasped.

‘I … I …’

And that look …

Jess was already rising. Switching mind sets. She’d done stints in emergency rooms. She knew that expression. ‘Sally, what is it?’

‘It’s Marge.’ Sally’s voice was scarcely above a whisper but the words carried regardless. ‘It’s serious.’

One minute Jess was a tourist, happily scrubbing for wombats. The next …

‘Ben,’ she yelled, no doubt scaring the wombats, but the look on Sally’s face said scaring was the least of their problems. ‘I need you.’