Thanks to Quinn Gallagher’s meticulous cleansing of the wound, there seemed no sign of infection.
Fern found some relief in the news of Sam-but not so much as would lift the black cloud of depression hanging over her.
The next two days seemed to take for ever.
Fern drifted from home to hospital in aimless misery, learning Quinn’s clinic times and planning visits to her aunt purposefully to avoid him.
She was supposed to be on three weeks’ honeymoon. Therefore she had three weeks of idleness before her, even if she went back to Sydney.
With someone else looking after her job in Sydney, there was no justification for Fern to leave her aunt and uncle-especially when they seemed to need her so much.
As Fern expected, Maud was appalled that Fern’s engagement to Sam was off.
‘Mind, it never really felt right,’ she told her niece, gripping Fern’s hand in trembling fingers. ‘But I so hoped…’
‘You so hoped to see me married,’ Fern agreed. ‘But maybe marrying isn’t what I’m meant to do with my life.’ She told her aunt Sam’s logic-that Fern was clearly unsuitable because of her disinterest in drowning or poisoning-but it hardly cracked a smile.
‘There’ll be someone else in time.’ Her aunt sighed.
‘I just hope I’m alive to see it.’
‘You will be if you have this operation.’
‘I don’t know.’ Fern’s aunt sank back onto the pillows and a tear of hopelessness slid down the pillows. ‘I thought I might hold your wedding out as a bribe. I don’t know whether I can make you understand, Fern, but it felt like a sort of a bribe to me. If I agreed to the operation then nice things would happen as well as scary ones.’
‘They will,’ Fern said with asperity. ‘For a start, you’ll live.’
‘But that’s in the future.’ Her aunt sniffed at her crazy logic and shook her head. ‘I suppose you’ll talk me into it eventually,’ she whispered, ‘but for now…leave me be, Fern. I just want to sleep.’
She was growing weaker.
She should be in Sydney now, Fern thought bleakly, wishing that there was some way she could forcibly pick her aunt up and move her. Impossible. To take her without her full co-operation-without her calm acceptance of what was happening-would be to put more strain on her damaged heart. The results could be disastrous.
She left her aunt soon after.
‘Dr Gallagher wants to see you,’ Geraldine told Fern as she left her aunt’s room. ‘He asked you to wait.’
‘If Dr Gallagher wishes to discuss my aunt then he’d better do it with my uncle,’ Fern said bleakly, ‘because I don’t want to discuss anything at all with Dr Gallagher.’
She walked out with her head high and, ignoring Geraldine’s astonished look, climbed into her car and burst into tears.
Her nights were awful.
Fern took hours to drift into troubled sleep and the nightmares she had made it hardly worth the effort. When her uncle woke her that night it took a while to realise that his calls weren’t an extension of her dreadful dreams.
‘Fern!’
Her uncle’s voice finally penetrated the mist. Fern sat up in bed, fumbling for the light switch and for reality.
‘Fern!’ There was trouble in her uncle’s voice-and urgency.
Her aunt. Something was wrong with her aunt Even as Fern stumbled out of bed the nightmares cemented into certainty and she knew what the matter was. Her aunt had died and someone had telephoned from the hospital. She’d been so exhausted that she hadn’t heard…
By the time she reached the head of the stairs the horror inside her was a sick dread. Fern stared down the stairs at her uncle’s face in the hall light, waiting for confirmation.
It wasn’t there. Her uncle’s face didn’t reflect her horror.
It wasn’t Maud, then…
It was something urgent, but not with Al’s beloved wife.
‘What’s wrong?’ Fern managed, relief making her dizzy.
‘Fern, how do you feel about getting dressed and coming on a mercy mission?’
Fern shook the last strands of nightmare away with a visible effort.
‘A…mercy mission?’
‘Look, it may be nothing,’ her uncle confessed, ‘but I can’t help feeling a bit concerned…’
‘About my aunt?’
‘No.’ The elderly farmer shook his head. ‘Maybe I’m being a fool-but I was worrying about Maud and couldn’t sleep so I went down to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. You can see Bill Fennelly’s place from the kitchen. His light’s still on.’
‘So?’
Bill Fennelly was a neighbour, a man in his twenties, and he’d lived alone since his sister married. He was asthmatic, Fern remembered. His asthma was sometimes severe but the last time Fern had seen him he’d been well enough. Had she seen him the day of the wedding? She couldn’t remember. Maybe she hadn’t seen him since the last time she’d been home-twelve months ago.
‘I guess he’s just reading a good book,’ she suggested mildly but her uncle shook his head.
‘He’s been crook, Fern. He had pneumonia just before you came home. It took ages to clear. I know Doc Gallagher’s still worried about him, though. He checked him at home a couple of days ago and wanted to stick him in hospital but Bill wouldn’t have a bar of it. He’s fed up to the back teeth with being ill. And I saw him earlier tonight down at the store. He’s looking bloody awful-worse than Maud-and coughing fit to bust. Said he was going straight home to bed-but now the light’s still on.’
‘So he went to sleep with the light on.’
‘You don’t know Bill Fennelly,’ her uncle said darkly. ‘Comes from a very parsimonious line, does our Bill. No Fennelly known to man has ever gone to sleep with the light on.’
‘We could telephone,’ Fern said doubtfully. ‘It couldn’t hurt.’
‘I already have.’ Al Rycroft lifted his coat from the hook by the door. ‘There’s no answer. So I’m going over. I’d appreciate your company-but I’ll go alone if you won’t come.’
‘Oh, of course I’ll come.’ Fern took a deep breath. ‘Of course.’
Bill was an islander. The islanders looked after their own-and Fern was an islander as well.
Whether she liked it or not.
Bill’s house was locked and silent when they approached. Bill Fennelly was the only son of dour, strict parents and little had been wasted on luxuries. The farmhouse had always been bleak, though Fern noticed that a bright row of roses had been newly planted by the front door. Breaking out, our Bill, since his parents’ death.
They knocked and knocked again and then Al stood back and lobbed stones up at the bedroom window. No one appeared.
‘The man must be dead,’ Al said morosely. ‘The din we’ve made is enough to wake an army.’
‘Maybe we should contact Quinn,’ Fern said uneasily.
‘Why?’ Al had disappeared into the dark back shed with his torch. Now he reappeared carrying a crowbar. ‘We have the means to get in and there’s a qualified doctor on hand. What more could we ask?’
‘That we know he’s home. Uncle, what are you intending to do with that thing?’
‘Smash the door in.’
‘And if he’s gone to his sister’s for the night because he’s not feeling well?’
Al paused. ‘You know, I never thought of that, Fern, girl,’ he said solemnly. ‘I hope you’re right. Guess I’ll help Bill fix the door in the morning if he’s done that.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better to check first?’
‘Not now we’re here.’
He’d had enough talking. Al had decided to see for himself long before waking Fern and nothing was stopping him now.
He placed the crowbar against the lock and shoved. Then shoved again.
The old wood creaked a protest and then splintered into fragments as the door folded inwards.
Bill hadn’t gone to his sister’s.