CAROL MARINELLI - The Outback Nurse

SITTING at her kitchen table, Olivia attempted to pen a reply to Jessica’s letter. A niggling sore throat which had been troubling her for a couple of days seemed to have come out in force. Pulling a face as she downed some soluble aspirin, Olivia reread Jessica’s letter. Although apparently still full on with Lydia, Jeremy was pestering Jessica to find out where Olivia had moved to. She took some solace when she read how awful he was looking—black rings under his eyes, unironed shirts, creased suits and snapping at everyone. Which was most unlike Jeremy, who saved his mood swings for the home front. At work he was calm, unruffled and totally pleasant to one and all.

Perhaps he was actually missing her, realising what a terrible mistake he’d made. What if he did get in touch? Could she take him back after all he’d put her through? Olivia knew the answer should be no, yet a part of her couldn’t let go. He had been her first real relationship, her first and only lover. The reason she had left her family and friends in England and travelled to the other side of the world. Letting go just wasn’t that easy.

She had been in Kirrijong a month now. The locals were starting to accept her. Alex had returned to have his sutures removed, bringing her a bunch of proteas and several bottles of home-made tomato sauce. Her fridge and pantry groaned with the weight of home-made wines and chutneys, nectarines and lemons. They waved as she passed in her black Jeep and had started to make appointments to see her without Clem. It felt good to be liked and wanted. Yet each night she crept into the huge wooden bed and, while hating herself for being so weak, longed to feel Jeremy’s arms around her, ached for the warmth of human touch.

It was Wednesday and she wasn’t due on duty till eleven. Normally Olivia arrived early anyway, there was always more than enough work to do, but she had allowed herself the luxury of a lie-in and the chance to catch up on some letters. She hadn’t been feeling herself at all lately. Initially Olivia had assumed it had been the pressure she was under, but now, with this niggling throat and persistent headaches, she began to suspect she was coming down with the same flu that seemed to be sweeping the rest of the town. Yelping as she noticed the clock edging past ten-thirty, Olivia dressed quickly. The morning had caught up with her.

Breezing into the surgery bang on eleven, she smiled confidently at the now mostly familiar faces.

‘Morning, Betty. Are these for me?’ Picking up a pile of patients’ files, she started to flick through them.

‘Yes. One’s for stitching—he’s out the back. And there’s an ECG that needs doing—Clem wants it done as soon as you arrive. And a word of warning—he’s not in the sunniest of moods this morning.’

Olivia raised her eyebrows. So she was finally going to see the legendary dark side of the good Dr Clemson.

‘He came in like a bear with a sore head this morning and then, to make matters worse, her ladyship arrived.’

‘Her ladyship?’ Olivia enquired, not having a clue whom Betty was talking about.

‘Oh you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting his lady friend, Charlotte, have you?’

‘His lady friend?’ Olivia recalled the first night she had arrived in Kirrijong, when Clem had failed to meet her. Funny, although she’d heard what Dougie had said, by the way Clem had spoken about Kathy she’d just assumed there was no one else. Anyway, it didn’t matter to her who he went out with, of course it didn’t, Olivia thought firmly. She was just surprised, that’s all.

‘If you can call her a lady.’ Betty lowered her voice. ‘What he sees in her I’ll never—’ She coughed suddenly and started to shuffle some papers. ‘Speak of the devil.’

Clem held open his door and Olivia felt her jaw drop for there, walking out of his office and looking completely out of place in a doctor’s surgery in the middle of the bush, was six feet in heels of absolute drop-dead gorgeous sophistication.

Dressed in an immaculate white suit, her skirt at mid-thigh revealing the longest bronze legs imaginable, Charlotte Ross sauntered over to the desk, tossing her raven black mane. There was arrogance about her, an air of superiority, that, Olivia guessed, came when you were that beautiful. She looked straight through Olivia and Betty and picked up the telephone, barking orders at Dougie who doubled as the local taxi. She shook a cigarette out of her packet. Olivia felt her temper rise. Surely she wasn’t going to light up here? Charlotte obviously had some discretion, though, and put the cigarette back in the pack.

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