LITMIR.BIZ

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you remember Alkiri telling us about the harbour being blasted through the coral by the Americans during the Second World War?’ Keanu asked as they dropped down to land on a marked circle next to a building Caroline recognised as the clinic.

      As children, she and Keanu had been brought here for their immunisations, and occasionally treated by the resident nurse for minor injuries.

      ‘It seems funny, being back,’ she said as she followed Keanu out of the helicopter, feeling a now-familiar tension as his hand held her arm to steady her.

      Keanu leaned back in to pull out a backpack, and Caroline knew it would contain all the emergency equipment they might need.

      ‘The clinic is actually well stocked and we probably won’t need anything apart from the mobile ultrasound unit that’s in here, but it’s just as easy to take the lot.’

      He spoke to Jack, who’d shut down the engine and disembarked, carrying the portable humidicrib and another bag of equipment.

      ‘You’ll stand by?’

      Jack shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.

      ‘Actually, I’d like to take a look at the engine. It was missing a bit on the way over, which sounds as if a little moisture has got into the Avgas. Last night was cooler than we’ve had and the supply tank I used to refuel was close to empty so there could have been some condensation in it.’

      ‘Which means?’ Caroline asked, pleased she hadn’t heard the missing beat of the engine.

      ‘I’ll drain the tank—get an empty drum from the store to put it into—and refill the chopper tank here. We keep a small tanker of Avgas here because we often need to refuel, and it’s useful if we’re doing search-and-rescue work, which is co-ordinated from here.’

      ‘How long?’ Keanu asked.

      ‘Three hours tops,’ Jack replied cheerfully.

      Three hours! They wouldn’t be rushing the pregnant woman back to Wildfire.

      Keanu introduced the local nurse, Nori, the name reminding Caroline they’d been at school together. They hugged and exchanged greetings, although Keanu broke up the very brief reunion with a reminder that they had a patient.

      Their patient was standing in a corner of an examination room, bent over and clinging to the table. A large woman, it was hard to tell she was actually pregnant.

      ‘Baby’s coming,’ she said as they came in. ‘Soon.’

      ‘Are you able to get up on the table so I can examine you?’ Keanu asked in his deep, caring voice.

      ‘No way! I’m not getting up there. The baby’s coming now.’

      Nori was plugging in the crib to warm the mattress in it, and fitting an oxygen tube to the inlet, so Caroline grabbed a small stool that seemed to have no apparent purpose and pulled it over so Keanu could squat on it while he felt the woman’s stomach for the strength of the contractions.

      Nori had laid out clean towels, gloves and various instruments on a trolley beside the table. Caroline put on gloves, took a towel, just in case the baby did come unexpectedly, and checked that suction tubes and scissors were among the instruments.

      If the baby popped out limp, they would have to resuscitate it, but at least they had the humidicrib to keep it pink and warm on the way back to Wildfire.

      Keanu was talking quietly to the woman in their own language, and Caroline knew enough of it to know it was mainly reassurance, although he slipped in a question from time to time. Apparently this was her sixth child, so she probably knew more about childbirth than either she or Keanu.

      She was thinking this when the woman gave a loud cry and squatted lower, Caroline getting her hands down quickly enough as a watery mix of fluid rushed out.

      The baby followed, straight into Caroline’s waiting hands—sure and steady hands, although inside she was a mix of trepidation and elation.

      The little one cried out, protesting her abrupt entry into the world but with her little fat hands clutching the umbilical cord as if she was ready to take on whatever it had to offer her.

      Certainly not a thirty-week baby, more like thirty-six, perhaps even full term.

      Keanu reached out a hand to help Caroline and her precious bundle up from the floor, then took the child and passed her to her mother.

      The look of love and joy on the woman’s face as the baby nuzzled at her breast brought tears to Caroline’s eyes.

      Keanu was clamping the cord, ready to cut it, but the woman took the scissors out of his hand.

      ‘I do this for my babies,’ she told him, cutting cleanly between the clamps.

      She passed the baby back to Caroline, who put her down gently on the table on a warm sheet Nori had taken from the crib. Carefully, she wiped the tiny baby clean, suctioned her nostrils and mouth, Keanu taking over for the Apgar score, then Nori produced another warm sheet and Caroline swaddled the little girl, whose rosebud lips were pursing and opening like a goldfish’s, instinct telling her she should be attached to her mother’s breast.

      Yet Caroline’s arms felt reluctant as she passed the baby back, which was ridiculous.

      As if arms even knew what reluctance was …

      Nori led the woman to a comfortable armchair and said she’d take care of things from now.

      Caroline made to argue but Keanu shook his head, just slightly, and led her out of the clinic.

      ‘The islanders have their own rituals for disposing of the placenta,’ he explained as they stood in the sun, feeling it warm on their skin after the cool of the air-conditioning inside. ‘Before the hospital the islanders had their own midwife—sometimes two—who cared for all the pregnant women. When you and Christopher were born, your father called for one of these women but it was beyond her ability to save either Christopher from injury, or your mother. Your father then decided that all women should have their babies on the mainland and when young women went to the mainland for training as nurses, the midwives stopped passing on their skills.’

      ‘But now?’ Caroline asked. ‘Seems to me someone having their sixth baby wouldn’t have got the dates wrong—and then there’s the baby who was in hospital when I arrived.’

      ‘Exactly,’ Keanu replied with a grin that made her stupid heart race. ‘Now they have the hospital and helicopter as back-up, I think they’ve decided with a little cheating they can have an island birth. In fact, one of the local nurses is over in Sydney, doing some advanced midwifery training. It might not be traditional midwifery but at least, when she returns, the island women will have the option of staying here.’

      ‘Which is wonderful,’ Caroline declared, smiling herself at the remembered feel of the little baby dropping into her hands. ‘So now?’ she added, feeling that standing in the sun smiling inanely was probably making her look like an idiot. ‘Can we go for a walk? It is so long since I was on Atangi, I need to get the feel and smell of the place back into my blood.’

      Keanu swallowed a huge sigh.

      He could hardly say no. The baby was fine and whatever was going on inside the clinic was islander business—and women’s business at that.

      The problem was that the look on Caro’s face as she’d stared in wonder at the baby she’d caught had stirred all kinds of uncomfortable thoughts in his mind, and unease in his body.

      He’d felt tension from Caro’s closeness the whole time they had been in the room and although he was professional enough to not let it affect him, now he wasn’t fully focussed on something else, the awareness had grown.

      It was because of the notebook, and something to do with sitting on the rock and feeling her hurt when he’d pointed out the flaws in her idea—feeling her disappointment, although she was smart enough to know it would never have worked.

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