The Outback Nurse

‘Morning, Betty. Are these for me?’ Picking up a pile of patients’ files, she started to flick through them.

‘Yes. One’s for stitching—he’s out the back. And there’s an ECG that needs doing—Clem wants it done as soon as you arrive. And a word of warning—he’s not in the sunniest of moods this morning.’

Olivia raised her eyebrows. So she was finally going to see the legendary dark side of the good Dr Clemson.

‘He came in like a bear with a sore head this morning and then, to make matters worse, her ladyship arrived.’

‘Her ladyship?’ Olivia enquired, not having a clue whom Betty was talking about.

‘Oh you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting his lady friend, Charlotte, have you?’

‘His lady friend?’ Olivia recalled the first night she had arrived in Kirrijong, when Clem had failed to meet her. Funny, although she’d heard what Dougie had said, by the way Clem had spoken about Kathy she’d just assumed there was no one else. Anyway, it didn’t matter to her who he went out with, of course it didn’t, Olivia thought firmly. She was just surprised, that’s all.

‘If you can call her a lady.’ Betty lowered her voice. ‘What he sees in her I’ll never—’ She coughed suddenly and started to shuffle some papers. ‘Speak of the devil.’

Clem held open his door and Olivia felt her jaw drop for there, walking out of his office and looking completely out of place in a doctor’s surgery in the middle of the bush, was six feet in heels of absolute drop-dead gorgeous sophistication.

Dressed in an immaculate white suit, her skirt at mid-thigh revealing the longest bronze legs imaginable, Charlotte Ross sauntered over to the desk, tossing her raven black mane. There was arrogance about her, an air of superiority, that, Olivia guessed, came when you were that beautiful. She looked straight through Olivia and Betty and picked up the telephone, barking orders at Dougie who doubled as the local taxi. She shook a cigarette out of her packet. Olivia felt her temper rise. Surely she wasn’t going to light up here? Charlotte obviously had some discretion, though, and put the cigarette back in the pack.