The Australian's Proposal. Alison Roberts

drive fifty miles back and forth to work.’

      ‘So kids grow up and leave home,’ Kate said, understanding the problem of the lack of employment in small towns.

      ‘Or don’t leave home and get into trouble,’ Hamish said, sounding more gloomy than she’d ever heard him.

      ‘You sound as if you really care,’ she said, thinking how different he was from some city doctors she had known who felt their responsibilities ended when a patient walked out the door.

      ‘Of course I care!’ he snapped. ‘I’ve worked with these people for two years and become friends with a number of them. Just because I’m going home, it doesn’t mean I’ll stop thinking about them. But until something happens to change things at Wygera, these clinic runs—well, doctors and nurses will go on treating symptoms rather than the problem.’

      They’d turned off the main highway onto a narrower road which ran as straight as a ruler towards a high water tower.

      ‘Wygera!’ Hamish said, nodding towards the tower, and gradually, beneath it, a cluster of houses became evident. Dilapidated houses for the most part, with dogs dozing in the dirt in the shade cast by gutted car bodies. Kate recognised the look—there were suburbs in Melbourne where car bodies were the equivalent of garden gnomes in front-yard decor.

      Beyond the houses, the ground sloped down to where thickly grouped trees suggested a creek or a river.

      But if the town had a creek or river, why would it need a swimming pool?

       CHAPTER SIX

      HAMISH PULLED UP in front of a small building with a table and three chairs set up outside and a group of people lounging around on logs, chairs, or small patches of grass.

      ‘Medicine, Wygera-style,’ he said to Kate. ‘If the weather’s good we work outside, although there are perfectly adequate examination, waiting and treatment rooms inside the building.’

      He nodded towards a stand of eucalypts some distance away, where more people lay around in the shade.

      ‘They’re your lot. We come out a couple of times a week, and today’s well-baby day, but if you see anything that worries you, shoot the person over to me. Eye problems are the main worries with the kids, diabetes with the mums. They’ll all have their cards with them—the health worker sees them before we arrive.’

      Kate accepted all this information and advice, then, as a young man opened her door with a flourish, she stepped out and looked around her.

      The place was nestled in the foothills of the mountains that divided the coastal plain from the cattle country further inland. The ground was bare and rocky, with grass struggling to grow here and there, mainly in the patches of shade.

      ‘Your bag, ma’am,’ Hamish said, handing her a square suitcase from the back of the station wagon. ‘Scales, swabs, dressings and so on all inside, but Jake here will act as your runner if you need anything else.’

      Kate took the bag, but the young man—presumably Jake—who had opened the car door lifted it out of her hand and led her towards the trees, where the shapes became women and children as Kate drew closer. Another table was set out there, with two chairs beside it, but Kate wondered if she might be better sitting on the grass with the women.

      ‘Sit on the chair, then the women can put babies on your knee,’ Jake told her, while another woman who Jake introduced as Millie got up from the grass and took the second chair.

      ‘I’m the health worker here,’ she said, unpacking the case and setting up the baby scales. ‘I do the weighing.’

      ‘Thanks,’ Kate said, but she glanced towards the clinic building. Strange it didn’t have its own scales.

      ‘People take them to weigh fish and potatoes and bananas, not so good afterwards for babies,’ Millie said, while Kate wondered if people in North Queensland had a special ability to read minds or if she’d always been so easy to read.

      Though Hamish was a Scot, not a North Queenslander.

      She almost glanced towards him, but remembered Millie and caught herself just in time.

      ‘I’m Kate,’ she said to the assembled throng, then she took her chair. ‘Now, who’s first?’

      Some of the women giggled, and there was general shuffling, but Millie called a name and a pretty girl in blue jeans and a short tight top came forward, a tiny baby in her arms.

      Kate looked at the girl’s flat stomach, complete with navel ring, and decided she couldn’t possibly have had a child, but Angela was indeed baby Joseph’s mother.

      ‘He just needs weighing and I’m worried about this rash,’ she said, putting the baby on the table and whipping off his disposable nappy. ‘See!’

      The angry red rash in his groin and across his buttocks would have been hard to miss.

      Kate delved into the bag, assuming she’d find a specimen tube and swab. Yes, it was as well equipped for a well-baby clinic as the equipment pack had been for Jack’s retrieval. She wiped a swab across the rash, dropped it into the tube, and screwed the lid shut and completed the label, taking Joseph’s full name from the card.

      ‘Nappy rash, I told her,’ Millie said. ‘Said to leave off his nappies or use cloth ones on him.’

      ‘I did leave his nappy off,’ Angela protested, ‘and it didn’t get better, and I tried cloth nappies.’

      ‘Actually, the latest tests seem to find that disposable nappies are less irritating to the skin than cloth ones,’ Kate said gently, not wanting to put Millie off side, but wanting to get the message across to Angela. ‘Also, if we look at the shiny surface of the rash and the way there are separate spots of it here and there, I think it might be candida—a yeast infection.’

      ‘Like women get?’ Angela asked, and Kate nodded.

      ‘A similar thing. It’s caused by yeast from the bowel and by bacteria and is more uncomfortable for poor Joseph than simple nappy rash, but there’s a cream you can use that should clear it up.’

      What next? From what she’d seen of the town, it didn’t have a chemist’s shop, so getting Hamish to write a prescription seemed pointless.

      ‘Cream in the bag,’ Millie said to Kate. Millie obviously knew far more about clinic visits than Kate did! ‘This stuff stains his nappies so don’t you be worrying about it,’ Millie continued, addressing Angela this time, while Kate found the cream, one per cent hydrocortisone and three per cent iodochlorhydroxyquin—and, yes, the tube said it could leave a yellow stain.

      Millie certainly knew more than Kate did!

      ‘Spread it thinly over the sore part twice a day,’ Kate told Angela. ‘Like this.’

      She used a treated cloth to wipe the little fellow’s nether regions clean and another cloth to dry him off, then smeared a little of the cream over the bright scarlet rash. ‘You really need just a thin smear—putting it on more thickly doesn’t make the slightest difference. If it hasn’t shown signs of improvement, come back …’

      There wouldn’t be a well-baby clinic more than once a fortnight but Kate remembered Hamish saying they did clinics, plural, each week.

      ‘Come back and see whoever comes later in the week,’ she finished, while Angela handed the baby and his card over to Millie for weighing and recording.

      ‘You give Joseph to his gran and get back to school,’ Millie told Angela when Joseph had his nappy on again and was ready to go.

      ‘She’s still at school?’ Kate asked Millie, while they waited for the next patient.

      ‘Last year, university next year. Wants to be a doctor. She’ll