Walking to the Stars (2 page)

The rational part of Nick's mind looked at Josh and thought ‘basal cell carcinoma’ because of the fair skin, but the rest of him just loved his son with a deep gratitude that they were both still alive.

His beard clipped and teeth brushed, Nick went in search of cleaner clothes. He was, after all, probably going to Albany, and he wouldn't be the only doctor for hundreds of kilometers there, so he'd better not look too scruffy.

When he headed out to his van, sandwiches wrapped in a cloth in his hands, Josh was hitching the harrow blades to the back of the tractor. Nick put the sandwiches on the van roof, away from Harold, and went across to help.

"You're clean,” Josh pointed out when Nick hauled on the hitch.

"Could be,” Nick said, shoving the hitch pin through the coupling.

"Could be you're going to go see Jenny Duggan,” Josh said. “Bring back some of her jam, it's better than yours."

Nick left Josh chuckling to himself at the idea of his father pursuing a woman, and got into his van.

They were only two kilometers out of Jerramungup, and once the van was warmed up it did it in a couple of minutes. Not that the van had any suspension to speak of, and the tires had been replaced with wooden hoops years before, giving a rough ride over the corrugated gravel, but the van had been a delivery vehicle once and had converted beautifully into an ambulance.

Nick parked the van beside the old shop that he used for a clinic and put the damper down on the burner so it would keep the coals warm, ready for later. Jo was his nurse and receptionist, a competent amateur midwife and all round decent person, but she wouldn't be there, not with the rain. She'd be harrowing and seeding just like everyone else.

The main street was empty, with not a horse to be seen, not outside a store or on a tether pin on the school oval. Nick couldn't see any vehicles on the main street either, apart from a rusting bicycle or two. Anything that could be used to tow a seeder was out in the rain, circling around the paddocks. Every person who wasn't nine months pregnant, so frail they couldn't take the rain, or involved in the school, was out there, too.

That left him, the school teachers, and the baker in the town. It would be a quiet morning.

He let himself into his clinic, left his boots beside the front door and put on a pair of slippers Jo had left for him. His rooms were dim and the rain was loud on the tin roof, but Nick would be content to see no one for a couple of hours.

He lit the fire in the stove in the kitchen with the kindling Jo had left ready, put the kettle over the flames, and went into his office.

He had a short wave radio, one of only two in the town; the school had the other, for the older kids to have School of the Air classes. He could call Albany in the event of an emergency, or even Broken Hill directly, rather than relayed through Albany, if the weather was right.

The weather wasn't good, but when he hand cranked the radio and tinkered with it, he picked up the relay from Albany. Ten minutes later, mug in his hands, he sat back in his chair, kicked his slippers off, and put his feet up on his desk. Nine in the morning, time for BBC World News.

He'd read somewhere, long before the Collapse, that someone reckoned the very last electromagnetic signal from Earth would be the BBC World service, and that person was probably going to be right. They'd kept right on broadcasting through the EMPs, had left Britain for somewhere else safer and just kept right on pumping out their signal, the voice of impartial news reporting, then later of the re-emergent World Governing body which had risen, literally, from the ashes of the UN.

It was a good morning to be indoors and listening to the radio while everyone else worked in the rain and mud.

The Pococks, at least the branch of them he was interested in that morning, lived about fifteen kilometers out of the town, on a farm that abutted what was left of the South Coast Highway, so Nick made good time getting out there.

The farmhouse looked deserted, no vehicles or horses nearby, but smoke rose from two of the chimneys and when he knocked, one of the teenage girls in the family opened the door.

"Dr. Nick,” she said. “Mamma said you were coming to see Nanna. She said she'd come back here if I banged the gong."

"Thank you, Janie,” Nick said, smiling at her, secretly pleased he'd remembered her name. “Go and do that now, and I'll go have a look at Nanna."

The gong clanged before Nick had negotiated his way past the racks of wet washing in the hall. Nanna was tucked up in the middle of a huge bed, a moldering orange tabby cat beside her, pillows piled behind her head and her glasses on the end of her thin nose.

"Doctor,” she croaked, and Nick took her hand and sat on the bed, on the other side from the cat.

"Hello, Mrs. Pocock,” he said. “How are you? Did you sleep last night? Have you had some breakfast?"

"Can't eat,” she said, pursing her lips. “It all just repeats on me something cruel. Can't sleep, either. It's no good, Doctor. I can't keep on like this."

Nick surreptitiously checked Mrs. Pocock's skin for tenting while he took her pulse, and the old dear was dehydrated. “I agree,” he said. “I want to take you to Albany for the day, to have a procedure done."

"I'm not dying off the farm,” Mrs. Pocock said. “You can't take me away from here."

"There won't be any dying happening anytime soon,” Nick said reassuringly. “I want to put a tube in your stomach, so you can eat through the tube, and I want to do it at Albany hospital. No reason you won't still be here when Janie gets married, as far as I can see."

The lips relaxed a little, the cat opened one yellow eye and winked at Nick, and the old woman's pulse took a bit of a bound.

"Who's been talking?” Mrs. Pocock demanded. “Has anyone been saying anything about Janie?"

"Not as far as I know, and Josh tells me everything he hears,” Nick said. “Ah, here's Janie's mum coming in the house, I must go have a word with her."

Mrs. Pocock the Younger was a stout woman with strong capable hands and a short temper, presumably made that way by her large family. Underneath the caked-on mud, she looked genuinely worried about her mother-in-law, and she took the suggestion of the old dear going to Albany for surgery well, despite it being seeding time.

Between the three of them they wrapped Nanna Pocock up warmly. She weighed almost nothing in Nick's arms when Nick carried the old girl out to his van. He strapped her to the gurney in the back, while her daughter-in-law and granddaughter hugged her and she lectured them about looking after her cat.

When he drove off, bumping down the rutted track to the highway, he could hear her admonishing him about his driving over the clatter of the van.

Marsia grabbed Nick's arm as he walked out of Mrs. Pocock's room, and he let her drag him off to her office.

"Want some tea?” she asked, and he groaned in anticipation.

"Please,” he said. “A life without caffeine is hard to take.” Marsia had comfortable chairs in her office, worn and marked, but with thick padding on the seats, and Nick settled into one gratefully.

Marsia had a kettle in the room, and a tiny fridge. Nick wasn't used to the humming and buzzing that went with electrical appliances, so he was acutely aware of them.

While the kettle gurgled, Marsia found two mugs from a cupboard, and put a tin of tea leaves in front of Nick enticingly. “Tempted?” she asked, and they both laughed.

"I know, I know,” Nick said. “Come and work for you and you'll give me caffeine."

"You know you want to,” she said, still chuckling.

"If I didn't have Josh, I might,” Nick said. “But there's no real future for him in Albany. At Jerramungup, there's the farm for him. He'll never be short of food."

Marsia was older than Nick, and had lived through as much as he had, and she nodded, suddenly serious. “Of course. I must admit I get uneasy living in a population centre like Albany,” she said. “I keep looking at how much there is here; the wind farm, the bio plant at Narrikup, the army base. Someone, somewhere, must want all of this."

The kettle boiled and clunked, and Marsia stood up and poured water into the mugs and spooned in tea, then took a bottle of milk out of her insulin fridge.

The first taste was heaven, making Nick smile and close his eyes for a moment in bliss, but he opened his eyes again when Marsia said, “I have a favor to ask of you. If you do this, I'll give you my canister of tea."

"What favor?” Nick said. “And as always, it's equipment I really want, not tea."

"Sure, supplies instead,” Marsia said. “I've got a patient here, and he can't really stay. Can you take him for me? Look after him?"

"What's wrong with him?” Nick asked. “Can he work? If he can, I'm sure he can find a home in Jerramungup, especially at seeding."

"Fractured femoral shaft,” Marsia said. “I did an open reduction a week ago, and I need the bed, so I need to move him somewhere."

"He's not from here?” Nick said, frowning.

Marsia shook her head. “He was crew on a freighter that docked last week, broke his leg only a day out from Albany, or else he wouldn't have survived. No idea where he's from originally, but he speaks English as though it's his first language."

Nick thought about the idea, turned it over in his head. “None of the families here can take him?” he asked. “He must have scrip if he worked on a freighter."

Marsia shook her head. “No. There were refugees on the ship, and the town has given priority to placing them. Can you take him?"

He needed medical supplies urgently; oxytocin, anesthetic, suture thread, needles, dressing kits; and he didn't have the scrip to pay for them. Feeding a stranger for a few weeks would be a small price to pay.

"All right,” Nick said. “I'll take him back with me. He can talk to Mrs. Pocock for the ride home."

Jenny Duggan's cafe was like a trip back in time, full of the intense scent of coffee and the floral waft of cakes, and Nick sat down at one of the tables and breathed in deeply.

Jenny was there, wrapped up in an apron, big-hipped and smooth-skinned, and Nick smiled widely at seeing her.

"Hello, Dr. Nick,” she called out from behind the counter. “What would you like?"

"Coffee, please,” Dr. Nick said, smiling at her. “And a lamington cake, and a few minutes of your company, before I have to go back to the hospital."

Jenny chuckled, and winked at him. “Not a problem,” she said. “Thought you might want to buy some of my jam, too."

"I do,” Nick said. “Or Josh will sulk for a week."

"Can't have that,” Jenny said, coming over to the table with a mug on a saucer and a plate with a cube of chocolate and coconut encrusted cake. She put them in front of Nick and then sat down opposite him in the otherwise empty cafe. “So, what have you been up to?” she asked. Her smile was undeniably flirtatious, and Nick couldn't help but flirt back.

Mrs. Pocock had recovered from her PEG insertion enough to be annoying the staff when Nick checked on her.

"I want to go home, Doctor,” she said. “I'm sure they're not looking after Tiger properly."

Nick took her hand and rubbed at the loose dry skin over her knuckles. She had some spring in the skin now, so her hydration was picking up.

"She's had 500 mls, Doctor,” the nurse at the end of the bed said. “And has passed a small amount of urine."

"Then I think it's time for you to go home,” Nick said, smiling at Mrs. Pocock. “And you can make sure Tiger has had his dinner."

Once Mrs. Pocock was dressed and wrapped up warm, ready to be carried out to the van, Marsia took Nick to meet the man with the broken leg who would be staying with them.

Marsia said, “This is Dr. Nick. He's agreed to take you back to his town to recover, Samuel."

Nick smiled at the young man in the bed, and said, “Hi, I'm Nick. I hope you'll be comfortable with us, Samuel."

Samuel was young, not much more than Josh's age, and he had the dark skin and hair of more than half the world's population. Apart from the cast on his leg, he looked fit and healthy.

Samuel smiled back at Nick, and his teeth were even and white, so he'd either come from damned good genetic stock or he'd lived a privileged life.

"Thank you, Dr. Nick,” Samuel said, and he had the rich accent of South America, at least to Nick's ear. “I'll help out as much as I can. I worked in the engine room of the freighter, so I can fix pumps and things."

"Excellent,” Nick said, finding himself grinning back at Samuel. “If Dr. Marsia had told me this, we wouldn't have spent quite so much time loading supplies into my van. Are you ready to go? We've got a long drive ahead of us, and it's nearly dark already."

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The van they were to leave in made Samuel shake his head involuntarily as he hobbled on crutches across the forecourt. A producer gas unit dangled off the back, belching out carbon monoxide no doubt, and the wheels were solid wood. The van looked like it ran on good luck and will power.

When Samuel propped his crutches against the passenger side and levered himself into the front seat, a querulous old woman in the back said, “Who's that? Who are you? Dr. Nick! Dr. Nick!"

Dr. Nick hopped in behind the steering wheel and turned his head to look into the back of the van. “It's all right, Mrs. Pocock. This is Samuel, he's coming to help me on the farm."

"He's got a broken leg,” Mrs. Pocock said. “He won't be able to work."

Dr. Nick laughed and shook his head at the woman. “I had noticed, Mrs. Pocock; I am a doctor."

Dr. Nick pushed the van into gear and hauled the handbrake off, the clutch ground, and the van lurched forward into the rainy night.

It took a few minutes to make their way through the outlying suburbs of Albany, houses and warehouses mostly hidden by the rain. Then Dr. Nick pushed the van into top gear and they began to build up speed, cruising down the hills with the cold damp wind whistling through the perished door seals, before slowing down and dropping back a gear to make it up the next slope.

The windscreen wipers swished away, but the van's headlights didn't penetrate very far into the darkness, and Samuel wasn't sure how Dr. Nick could manage to see to drive.