Mountain Ash (2 page)

She woke to the scent of strawberries. It was coming from somewhere to her left. Her brain felt like mush, her eyes were slitted welts and her body throbbed all over. Jodie tried to turn her head in the direction of the sweet fruity smell, understanding that strawberries were important to her.

‘Don't try to move, Jodie. We've got you strapped down.' A female voice, filled with compassion. ‘Your daughter is here beside you. Milly, say something to your mummy.'

The sound of snivelling, and then, ‘Mum? Can you hear me?'

Jodie went to answer but couldn't. Her mouth felt as if it were holding dry gravel.

The nurse must have grasped her problem. A face, with smoker's wrinkles above a top lip, swam into Jodie's vision. A wet facewasher suddenly appeared and the nurse gently wiped her patient's mouth, taking the time to moisten Jodie's lips. A cool slither of moisture. Ah, bliss.

‘That's enough for the minute,' said the woman.

Damn. It wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.

‘We've got a drip up giving you fluids intravenously. You can't have anything orally as we don't want you to vomit.'

Double damn. She was a nurse herself and she should have known that, but everything inside her head seemed wrapped in cotton-balls. Fluffy. Fuzzy.

‘Have another go at talking, love.'

Jodie whispered, ‘Milly?'

The scent of strawberries was right on top of her nose now. Milly's hair was in Jodie's face as her daughter flung her arms across her mother. ‘Mummy! You're back!'

‘I never went anywhere, sweetheart,' she croaked.

‘Yes, you did,' said Milly, her voice muffled into her mother's chest. ‘I couldn't wake you up and the ambulance man said I had to let you sleep cause that would help make you better and Alex said I shouldn't sit here by myself but the nice lady at the counter said I could stay beside you for as long as I liked and Mue said she'd come back and get me after she picked up your nightie and stuff and Alex got all cross and –'

The nurse broke in. ‘There, there, sweetie, I'm sure Mummy doesn't need to hear all that.'

‘Yes, she does,' said Milly. ‘Then Mue and Alex had a yelling fight and Muey won.'

Alex and Mue fighting? That didn't sound right. And what had happened to Parnassus, and the poor bloody steer?

‘Where's Alex now?' Jodie tried to direct the question to the nurse but she'd disappeared around the curtain surrounding the cubicle. Someone next door was calling.

Milly answered from her mother's chest. ‘He's getting someone to shoot Parnie.'

‘
What?
' cried Jodie, trying to sit up. ‘He can't
do
that!'

‘That's what Muey said.' Milly scrambled to her feet and stood staring at her mother with a tear-stained face. ‘That's the other thing they were fighting about.'

Jodie struggled all the more. She couldn't move. There were straps across her chest, her legs. ‘I have to stop him!' she cried.

The more she battled to get up the more she realised they had her completely immobilised. There was even tape across her head, for God's sake. She pulled against the strapping forcing her to stay on the spinal board. ‘Must stop him. Gotta stop him …'

‘Ms Ashton! You can't go anywhere!' The nurse was back.

‘Parnie, no! Must stop him … Milly, get me my boots, my clothes …'

Milly scrambled towards the plastic bag on the floor beside the visitor's chair.

‘Ms Ashton, you have the high potential for a very serious spinal injury. You can't leave this hospital.'

‘He's going to shoot my horse!'

‘No, he's not,' came a new voice. Muriel Bailey stood in front of her, resplendent in lolly-pink gumboots, lime-green skirt, fake gun-holster belt and cerise vest with tassels, all topped off with blue-rinse curls. She was at the end of the bed looking like a garishly dressed Calamity Jane. ‘I stood in front of Parnassus so he couldn't.'

‘You
what?
' chimed three voices at once.

Grinning, Mue looked down at her fingernails, rubbed them against her shirt. ‘'Twas nothing really.'

Jodie released her vice-like grip on the straps and the nurse quickly covered her patient – as if
that
was going to stop her from leaving again. Milly, dropping her mother's boots, ran up
to the older woman and hugged her. ‘Oh Muey, I knew you could do it.'

Mue patted the child's head while gazing, unsmiling now, at the woman on the bed. ‘Alex was so angry at Parnie he wanted him dead.'

Jodie chewed at her lip. She wanted to say something but, goddamn it, the sudden pounding in her head really hurt. She stopped a moment, allowing the pain to subside. Wincing, she tried again. ‘But it wasn't Parnie's fault.'

‘I know, I know,' said Mue. ‘Clem and I and everyone else tried to tell him that, but he wasn't in the mood to listen. In his eyes Parnassus had hurt you and that was enough.'

‘He wants to buy me another horse.'

‘So he said,' said Mue in a grim tone. ‘But didn't your dad give you Parnassus?'

Milly flung herself back out of Mue's arms. ‘Yep. Grandpa sure did! He said his three favourite things on the earth had to look after each other.'

Jodie closed her eyes. She'd forgotten he'd said that. The day before he died. On the verandah of his house in Narree. The late afternoon sun had been bathing his pain-worn face with light. It was one of the last lucid things he'd said before they'd had to call the ambulance to take him to hospital for his final twenty-four hours.

‘Parnie didn't look after Mummy today, but he didn't mean it,' said Milly, crossing her arms in defiance. ‘He just got all excited and thought he was doing the right thing.'

Trust her daughter to put it so succinctly.

Mue was nodding. ‘Yes, I know.' The older woman sighed and swiped a hand across her forehead. ‘Clem's got Parnie now. He'll look after him.'

‘Just as we will look after you, Ms Ashton.' The nurse again, sounding all self-righteous. ‘We need to treat you for the worst. If and when it turns out okay, only then can you get up. In the meantime you will stay flat and straight and that collar will stay on.'

Jodie rolled her eyes. Her eyeballs felt like the only part of her body she could move freely.

‘Mummy, you always tell me not to roll
my
eyes!'

That kid didn't miss a trick.

‘I know it's a pain in the neck,' the nurse smiled grimly at her own little joke, ‘but the alternative is not worth thinking about.'

No. It wasn't. Who would look after Milly then?

Jodie looked to Mue and couldn't help but notice the older woman seemed all done in. And there was a butterfly inked onto her right cheek.

‘Mue? Why the butterfly?' she asked, mesmerised by the beautiful colours swirling on the butterfly's wings. At the moment it was a lot easier to think about the simple things, like butterflies dancing on an old woman's cheek, than about the possibility of being a paraplegic for the rest of her life.

Mue slapped a hand to the side of her face. ‘Dearie me, I forgot about that.'

‘And those?' said Milly, pointing to Mue's waist. ‘The tubes in your holsters?'

A puzzled Mue glanced down in the direction of Milly's gaze. ‘Oh! You mean these?' She dragged some paints out of her fake gun belt. ‘I had just started face painting when Jodie came off that horse.'

Mue never forgot about anything. Jodie's accident must have scared the daylights out of the woman. Which meant it must
have looked a bad one. Which also meant she might have done more damage than she knew. Experimentally Jodie wiggled her fingers and toes. To her relief they responded, but it did little to halt the frigid, twisting sensation in her gut. She needed to find out what was wrong with her. Right now. ‘Where's the doctor?' she demanded of the nurse. She needed to go home, look after her daughter, check her horse. Pack up her father's house, move to a new place. She had far too much to do to lie around here. ‘Get me the doctor!'

A tousled head of black hair appeared through the gap in the curtains. The stethoscope around his neck and an air of authority denoted him as the doctor. ‘What's going on here?'

The nurse rushed forwards and dragged him into the cubicle. ‘This patient arrived in an ambulance earlier. She's come off her horse, had LOC, been spinal packaged and has a minor head laceration. The bleeding is controlled now.'

That accounted for the metallic taste accompanying the gravel in her mouth.

The nurse went on, ‘She is now becoming agitated –' (as Milly would have said: ‘What a dibber dobber!') ‘– and we need her scanned stat.'

The nurse actually said ‘stat', just like they did in the movies. As though it was really, really urgent. Which from the nurse's grim face, it was. Shit, shit, shit. Ripples of cold dread flooded Jodie's mind. From outside came the scream of an approaching ambulance. The doctor rumpled his hair and looked all the more flustered. ‘Bloody hell, not another one. Welcome to Trauma Saturday in Narree,' he said to no one in particular. He scratched his head again and looked at the clipboard the nurse had handed him. ‘Righto. I'll do the
paperwork and we'll get an X-ray on the way.' He then disappeared in a flurry of curtain.

Trauma Saturday, hey? Prickles of fear skittered across her skin. Shit, shit, shit again. What had she done? Jodie raised her eyes to the ceiling and started praying.
Dad, get me out of this one. Please make there be nothing wrong.

The nurse scurried around doing a set of obs. Blood pressure, pulse, temperature and a neurological assessment, all witnessed by a now silent Mue and Milly. The ‘stat' thing and word ‘trauma' must have got to them too.

‘Now I'll just shine this little light into your eyes to check your pupils.'

Milly piped up. ‘Mum's not a teacher. She doesn't have pupils.'

Jodie wished she could laugh. ‘It's to see if I'm still concussed, Milly,' she said. My goodness, what was going through her poor little girl's mind?

‘Oh.' Milly subsided back into the chair. Jodie couldn't see her and that caused momentary panic.

‘Milly? How about you and I go outside and ring Clem?' said Mue. ‘He wants to know how much tucker to feed Parnie. You can talk to him about that, all right?'

Clem Bailey, Mue's son, was as good a horseman as you could find, so Jodie knew Mue was just trying to get Milly outside and away from seeing her mother like this. She silently blessed the woman for that, but at the same time didn't want to be alone. Where was Alex? Surely he'd be here by now?

‘Mue? Alex?'

The older woman glanced over from where she was hurrying Milly out through the curtains. ‘He's gone home,' she said, sounding apologetic. ‘He had to go back up to the farm.
Some emergency with cattle out on the road and with so many people about for the campdraft, well, he didn't want any more accidents. He's texted me a number of times to see how you are …' She left the sentence hanging.

‘But he's not coming any time soon.' Jodie finished it for her.

‘Well no, but you know Alex …'

Yes, she knew Alex. Work came first. And he
was
looking after everyone else's safety too.

‘He wants updates and said he'll be along when he can get away.'

Of course he would. He'd make sure everything was right at the farm and he'd be back. Jodie closed her eyes. Visualised Alex. His rugged, strong face topped with silver hair. The square, solid jaw and reassuring smile. Cornflower-blue eyes … that could turn to chips of arctic-blue.

‘Bye, Mum. We won't be long,' said Milly, bringing Jodie's mind back to the emergency department.

‘Okay, sweetheart. Tell Clem to give Parnie a hug from me.'

Mue hustled the little girl out of the cubicle and Jodie was left alone.

She shut her eyes and tried to channel some of Alex's strength, to will away the worries that threatened to swamp her mind.

Jodie had taken to counting the beeps coming from her IV machine. It all took so long. Waiting. Being trundled to X-ray. Waiting. Scans. Waiting some more.

Milly was by her side, playing with Mue's phone. Mue was dozing in the visitor's chair.

Finally the doctor returned, not looking any less ruffled than when she'd last seen him, which seemed like hours before. He stood over her. She concentrated on the hairs poking from his ears. What's better to think about? Paraplegia or tufty ears? It was a no-brainer, really.

The man took a deep breath.

Apprehension twirled like a tornado in her tummy. Brian. His badge said he was Brian. Maybe if she just concentrated on …

‘Ms Ashton.' Another deep breath.

Oh God, what had she done?

‘I've got good news for you …'

Good news?