Harry St Clair: Rogue or Doctor? (7 page)

She pulled away and looked up into his face. Then she reached up and kissed him. Light and fleeting—like her. ‘Goodnight, Harry. Look after yourself.’ Then she turned round and walked quickly away.

‘You too,’ he said to her back.

The next morning Bonnie’s suitcases needed only closing, and there were still two hours to go before her bus to the airport. Sweat trickled down her back as she sat by the pool in her sarong and swimmers with her book as she tried to block out the idea of any chance of seeing Harry. It would only be worse.

The tiny movement at the corner of her eye spun like a coin into a wishing well, a flicker of light as she turned the page of her novel. Bonnie blinked, looked around, not sure what she’d seen—maybe a thrown toy or the kick from an underwater swimmer—but the unease she felt made her drop her book and jog to the edge of the pool just to check.

A crescent of shadow lay on the bottom, one without movement and immeasurably gut-wrenching. Bonnie dived into the pool still wearing sarong and sunglasses just as a woman screamed.

By the time she surfaced with a limp toddler in her arms a crowd had gathered, and the child was lifted from her arms, then she too was pulled from the pool by willing hands.

‘Someone, call an ambulance.’ The woman who’d lifted the child from her glanced at the toddler’s staring eyes and lack of movement and Bonnie saw panic flare in her face. Her face screwed up and she pushed the child into Bonnie’s hands and walked away quickly—and left Bonnie to cope by herself.

Bonnie glanced around. For a moment she thought she saw Harry but then an old man stopped in front of her and she realised it was wishful thinking because nobody seemed willing to help her.

She sank to the ground with the child in her arms and jammed down the panic that would only make it harder. She didn’t bother to check for a pulse before she puffed two small mouthfuls of air into the child’s lungs. Then she shifted and began cardiac compressions, counting quietly as she strove to block out the people crowding to look but not to help.

The elderly gentleman knelt down beside her, his blue-veined hands shaking as he clasped them together. ‘I don’t know how to help. What do you want me to do?’

‘Can you do mouth-to-mouth? Little puffs. I’ll do the chest compressions, that’s the most important. Watch me. I’ll show you.’ She shifted quickly and puffed two small puffs until the little chest rose and fell. Then she moved back to the side. ‘Is anyone a doctor?’ Bonnie said shortly, and glanced around at the bystanders.

‘Anyone at all?’ She began to count out loud again as her fingers found the child’s sternum and began to compress on the little chest with cardiac massage. She shook her head when no one spoke.

‘Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.’ Bonnie paused,
shifted again to breathe twice. The little chest rose and fell, and Bonnie looked across at the older man. ‘Can you do that?’

His eyes filled with tears. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Watch the clock for me, then, please.’ She started again.

Harry’s brain screamed to help but he couldn’t move. He saw the old man shake his head and that was the moment Harry pushed his way through. He pushed not just through the people but the wall of fear that sucked the breath from his chest. Wrestled himself free from the giant steel claws that had held him back from the first moment he’d realised what was going on—the powerful memories of another dead baby he had worked on had been too strong.

His non-compliant feet hadn’t moved, despite his brain urging them on, and his heart had thumped in his chest like it was going to explode. Then he’d felt relief as the older gentleman had joined her. He didn’t need to get involved. They’d be fine.

But seconds later he’d seen the old man’s shake of the head and Bonnie had looked up in desperation as she’d been left to her own resources again. Finally he’d been able to break the hold on his limbs and thrust himself forward. He hoped he wasn’t too late.

Bonnie felt panic rising again as the little girl continued to lie flaccid beneath her. Then suddenly Harry, of all people, dropped down beside her to help. ‘I’ll do the compressions. I know what I’m doing.’

He compressed the toddler’s chest. There was no hesitation, exactly a third in depth, no over-or undercompensation, which spoke of years of practice, and
she shelved the questions that surfaced bitterly until she had time. Please, God, such precision would squeeze the little heart to force oxygen to the child’s brain. In that captured moment, with the shock of the threat of death for this child a reality, for a split second in time as he cradled the child’s chest Bonnie was struck by the snapshot of Harry’s hands, hands she hoped she could trust with a child’s life.

She breathed two breaths as the thirty-second mark came around again. ‘Are you medical?’

‘A doctor.’ He didn’t look at her. ‘You must have seen her fall in. How long was she under for?’

‘Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.’ Bonnie paused, breathed twice, the little chest rose and fell, and Bonnie looked up at the old man. ‘How’s the time, please?’ She started again.

‘One and a half minutes.’ How long had he been there? But that wasn’t important. Why wasn’t the little one responding?

The next half a minute dragged with aching slowness, thirty chest compressions, two breaths. Then another thirty seconds.

‘Come on,’ Harry muttered after Bonnie’s next breaths and he compressed again, and as he finished speaking the tiny girl blinked slowly and finally screwed up her face before she coughed and began to cry weakly.

Bonnie felt a sob catch in her throat, the sudden heat of tears mixed with the swimming-pool water that still trickled down her face from her hair, and a huge shudder rippled down her back. She looked at Harry and no doubt her own relief was reflected in his eyes as he stared back at her.

Then raw ache at the back of her throat as she held back the sob continued to grow in size like a sharp rock in her neck and she pulled back out of the way as Harry rolled the little girl onto her side and into the recovery position.

She heard him say, ‘Thank God,’ as she inched further away. It had been him she’d seen. Why had he waited? Then the traumatised mother threw herself down beside her daughter and burst into tears. The sound of a distant ambulance siren drifted across the pool area.

Bonnie kept retreating until she could slip unnoticed back to her chair to retrieve her handbag. Her sarong had ripped, the wet fabric ungiving as she’d flung herself down, and she just wanted to hide somewhere and curl up after the near horror. She bit the skin of one hand to stop the chatter of her teeth as she felt shock well inside her.

A Balinese waitress approached diffidently and held out her wet sunglasses.

Bonnie met her eyes. There, too, huge tears trickled in mutual horror and dawning relief of the child regaining consciousness. ‘Thank you.’ The little waitress could barely make her words form. ‘To lose a child would harm our souls for ever.’

Bonnie sucked in air. ‘We’re all very lucky.’

The little waitress inclined her head. ‘Fortunate to have you, and the doctor.’ They both looked across to where Harry’s face was like granite as he stood with the little girl in his arms. He glanced up as if saying that had been too close.

The anguish in his face made the rock in her throat return. It had been him she’d glimpsed at the start. But
surely not? However, when she replayed in her mind that image she knew it was true. Why hadn’t he come straight away? Why had he left her alone when she’d needed him? Why had he not mentioned he was a doctor in the last two days? A man she’d shared special time with, a birth with, made love with. That was what liars did.

‘I need to go to my room.’ Bonnie tried to smile at the waitress but all she could think of was that she needed to get away before she broke down.

She saw him glance her way, saw him read the distress in her eyes. Harry was hurting too but she didn’t care. He’d left her to cope on her own. He’d lied to her from the moment they’d met. The picture burned in her brain as she walked blindly to her room.

Like the last man she’d dared to care about.

Yes, she’d been very glad he’d been there at the end but would never understand his hesitation. He was a doctor and he’d lied over and over again to her.

By the time Harry walked out of the hospital in Denpasar an hour and a half later, the pain lashed him in a hundred places he’d forgotten—and none of them were physical.

He’d stayed fairly immune during the drive in the ambulance. The little girl, Ginger, had been awake and croakily stable but he’d been unable to leave her until she was safely in hospital and monitored by experienced personnel.

But walking out that hospital door into the stickiness of the Balinese heat, the memories hit him like a car full of tourists.

He’d done okay today, thanks mostly to Bonnie, but
how was he to live with the crushing guilt of his delay in response?

It had happened in his first emergency after Clara had died. His colleagues had told him it was only natural, to give himself time, but he’d backed away in horror. A man not to be trusted. A doctor unable to deal with emergencies. A man ashamed of a vocation that had been his life. So he had run to Bali.

Avoided any contact with medicine. And drifted. Drifted until a determined little midwife had dragged him into the very situation he’d been running from.

That was why he’d vowed he didn’t want people’s lives in his hands. Especially those of babies. Imagine if the little one had died.

That was why he stayed here. In the furore he hadn’t apologised to Bonnie for not helping earlier. Being catatonic with fear, allowing others to do what he could have done better, was no excuse, and no doubt she despised him. Well, that was okay. He despised himself. He knew he was far from perfect. He just hadn’t realised how far.

But there, in the back of his tortured mind, was the glimmer of a chance to explain. He could probably catch her at the airport if he left now but he didn’t know what to say to her if he found her. But could he let her fly away without telling her why? And she’d need to debrief, if only a little. He was an expert in what happened if you didn’t do that.

In the end it was Bonnie who found him. He’d been leaning up against a pylon in the departure hall when she’d walked past, dragging her suitcase.

She glanced sideways, saw him, jerked her bag a little
as if to decide whether to stop or not, when Harry straightened.

‘Hello, Bonnie.’ Lord she was beautiful to him. She looked stressed, which wasn’t surprising; she looked upset, which was his fault; and she looked confused about whether she was glad to see him or not. He supposed he could be thankful for that small mercy.

He met her eyes. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

She tightened her hand on the bag. ‘Luckily that’s your problem, not mine, Harry.’

He ran his hand through his hair and sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Bonnie.’

She lifted her head. ‘For which thing? Lying for the last two days or not helping me save a child’s life until it was almost too late?’

He deserved that. ‘All of it. And there are reasons for both.’

She shook her head. A physical denial. ‘Well, don’t try to explain because the excuse won’t be good enough.’ She glanced up at the clock. ‘I have a plane to catch and I’m already late.’ She put her hands up to her neck and undid the clasp on the necklace. ‘I’d rather not keep this.’ She dropped the little silver baby on a chain into his hand and jerked her bag. Then the words flew out as if she couldn’t prevent them. ‘How dare you lie to me? All this time.’

He closed his fingers over the charm and sighed. ‘I lost my wife. My unborn child. I can’t do medicine any more. I can’t talk about it.’

She tossed her hair. ‘Maybe you should because I can’t see hiding it is doing you any good.’

‘My choice.’

Brittle emerald, her eyes were like temple stones as she glared at him. ‘I don’t think you should have that choice. Lives are lost, Harry. Medicine isn’t run by God. We do the best we can and sometimes our best isn’t good enough.

‘It’s hard, but if every skilled doctor, every trained practitioner reared away from that reality, if they all turned their backs selfishly on their vocations like you have while you were buried here, how many more families have to feel that same sense of loss before you help?’

She tossed her hair and he could read the hurt in her face. ‘There was almost another family today. How do you feel about that?’

He shouldn’t have come. This wasn’t doing either of them any good. ‘It can’t be my problem. I can’t be calm like you were.’

That sobered the fury in her head. He saw it drain away and be replaced by pity. Pity he didn’t want. ‘You missed the nausea episode in my room that followed after I left the pool area. I wasn’t so calm then.’

He heard her but it wasn’t the same. She’d responded instantly to the situation. He didn’t have that faith in himself. ‘You were calm when it mattered and that’s a big part of why that mother still has her child.’

Then he saw it in her eyes. Her own doubt and fear about a situation that wasn’t so different from his—except she hadn’t given in to it.

It was a lightning bolt of perception. Bonnie could choose not to admit the fear if she was unable to save the child, not give in to the helplessness of being alone
in that emergency. The way he had. He never used to be like that. He’d been the first on the scene, the fastest with treatment. The golden boy of the Royal Flying Doctor Service. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Now he’d let her down. Continued to let himself down.

Then she lifted her head. ‘Do you know how the little girl is?’

Her most important question. At least he could answer that for her. ‘No ill effects so far. I just left the hospital.’

‘Good! ‘ She even smiled, not at him but into the air with relief, and he was glad about that. In itself it was validation of standing here feeling like hell. That smile made it worth it.

‘Now I’m going,’ she said, and he felt a slam of desolation he hadn’t expected. At least he’d tried to explain. She pulled the bag forward a few inches and then stopped. ‘You should give medicine another go, Harry. You might find salvation instead of hell. You never know. But if you ever want to talk about it, don’t come and find me.’