Читать книгу Orphan Under the Christmas Tree - Meredith Webber, Meredith Webber - Страница 7

MIKE SINCLAIR, the head of the local police station, materialised in front of Lauren, as she and Jo were urging people away from the collapsed stands.

‘We need to move uninjured people away,’ he said, ‘and set up an area for those injured.’ He indicated an area of the esplanade, already closed to traffic. ‘Jo, if we make this space a triage area, can you stay here and treat minor injuries? The ambulances will come through to here, while Lauren, if you can stay with those who were on the stands but aren’t injured and those who have friends somewhere in that mess. Keep them calm. The Emergency Services people will be here soon—they’ll have bottled water and basic first-aid equipment.’

Lauren understood her role and moved through the crowd, urging the panicking locals back from the stands, helping injured people across to Jo, telling the others to stay clear, comforting tearful women and shocked men, telling children they’d be safe, just to wait over by the tree and their parents would find them soon.

She was doing okay until she found Bobby Sims, rubbing furiously at tears he obviously felt embarrassed about shedding.

Bobby Sims, easily the most disruptive of all the children who were given temporary shelter at the women’s refuge, crying?

‘I’ve lost Mum,’ he told Lauren, at first shaking off her comforting arm but eventually accepting it, and accepting a hug when she knelt in front of him and folded him in her arms.

He pressed close against her for a moment, then he lifted his head to say, ‘She was right there.’

He pointed to where the jumble of metal scaffolding lay heaped with wood and people.

‘Right near it. Greg was under there and he called out to her and she went and then it all fell down.’

Would Joan Sims have responded to a call from the man she was in the refuge to escape?

Lauren didn’t know. She’d been running the women’s refuge for the three years since it opened, and still couldn’t tell which women would go back to the partners who abused them, and which wouldn’t.

In the meantime, there was Bobby …

‘We’ll find your mum,’ Lauren assured him, ‘but while we’re looking, will you help me?’

Bobby’s startled ‘Me?’ suggested no one had ever asked him for help before.

‘Yes, you. You know most of the kids around here from school. A lot of them will be like you—they’ll have become separated from their parents. Go through the crowd and bring any kids who are lost or crying over near the tree. Once you get them there, they can look at the lights and decorations until their parents turn up to find them.’

Bobby seemed to consider objecting to this plan, then he straightened his shoulders and took off, hopefully to do something useful, not set fire to the Christmas tree or try some other devilment.

Lauren continued to herd people away from the stands, but the cries of pain and distress had her turning back towards the scene, checking, seeing Tom there in the thick of it, clambering over twisted metal to tend the injured.

Could the stand collapse further? Tom wondered about it as he lifted people trapped by the metal struts or wooden planks of seating. And had anyone been caught underneath?

Kids often played under scaffolding …

He sent a plea to the fates that this hadn’t been the case and knelt to reach a man caught between two metal seats, apparently trapped.

‘Can you hear me, mate?’ he asked, leaning further in to press his fingers to the man’s carotid.

The man didn’t respond, but his pulse was strong, and movement of his chest told Tom the trapped man was breathing.

Tom used his hands to search for blood. If it wasn’t pulsing out from any part of the man’s body, then the best thing to do was to leave him so the paramedics could stabilise his spine before they shifted him.

‘Can you give me a hand here?’

Tom glanced around to see Cam higher up in the wreckage, bent over another victim—male again.

‘His legs are trapped,’ Cam explained as Tom clambered cautiously across the tumbled seating.

Tom took one look and was about to tell Cam to leave it for the rescue crew when he saw the blood on the man’s thigh. There was no doubt the man’s femur was broken and his femoral artery damaged. They needed to get him out now.

While Cam supported the man, Tom began, cautiously, to shift debris from around him, trying to get at whatever was pinning the man’s legs and trapping his feet.

A twisted prop lay one way, a wooden seat caught beneath it, and below both some scaffolding that hadn’t moved, holding steadfast to its job, just when they needed it to bend a little.

Tom eased himself into a gap he’d found close by until his feet were on the solid scaffold, then he peered down to see if any unfortunate person had been caught below him and found the area was clear.

‘I’m going to jump on this bit and see if I can shake the twisted part free,’ he told Cam. ‘Hold the bloke in case it all gives way.’

Cam didn’t bother with a caution—they both knew if they didn’t get the fellow out he could die before the jaws-of-life equipment arrived and the safety crew made the scaffolding secure enough for them to do their work. They were governed by all kinds of workplace safety regulations but Tom wasn’t.

He grabbed the twisted bar and held it in his hands, then jumped, both feet rising then thumping back on the solid bar. Nothing happened, although he thought he might have felt a faint give in the bar in his hands.

He jumped again and felt the whole tottering edifice sway to one side then the other—sickeningly!

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, but looking down he’d seen a lot of the scaffolding still holding in the section directly beneath him so he didn’t think bending the piece beneath his feet would do much more damage than had already been done.

‘One more go,’ he said to Cam, moving so he could stand above the bar he needed to move and jump down onto it. Praying he wouldn’t miss as coming down on it could do him a very painful injury.

Putting that wince-causing image out of his head, he jumped and felt the scaffold give, felt the bar in his hand tear away, so the seat was released and they could get at the man.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing up there? Don’t you know there are experts for that kind of thing? Have you got a hero complex, or perhaps a death wish?’

He turned to see Lauren standing far too close to the devastated stands, hands on hips, the fury in her words visible on her face.

‘Lovely Lauren, don’t tell me you’re concerned for my welfare?’

Lauren didn’t need to look around to know that plenty of locals had heard the exchange. She was sure Tom had known that too, and had said it as revenge for her demented ‘date’ ploy and the encyclopaedia reference. She’d kill him! She’d climb up there and do it now if not for the fact that another person up there might endanger him.

Him?

No, she meant the other people still up there. Cam and whoever he and Tom had been tending.

Didn’t she?

She didn’t have a clue, she just knew that seeing Tom up there jumping on the already damaged scaffolding had sent cold chills through her body and clamped a band of steel around her heart.

‘The kids are all gone now.’

The voice, laden with doom although obviously the message was good, made her turn. Bobby Sims was right behind her, fear and apprehension making his usually bright, mischievous face pale and tense.

‘And I still can’t find Mum.’

The way he said it melted Lauren’s heart. For all his exasperating devilry, Bobby was still a little boy who loved his mother and had been with her through her string of abusive boyfriends.

‘You stay with me, we’ll find her,’ she told him. ‘If she’s not around here, maybe we’ll find her at the hospital. I have to go up there to talk to the people waiting to find out about their friends and family. We’ll get something to eat and drink up there as well. The canteen will be open.’

To Lauren’s surprise, she felt a small hand slip into hers, making her very aware that this wasn’t Bobby, the torment of her life, but a little boy who couldn’t find his mum.

She gave the little hand a squeeze, then knelt in front of him.

‘I’ll look after you, whatever happens, Bobby,’ she promised, drawing him into her arms to give him a comforting hug, repeating the promise that she’d take care of him, rocking him slightly as she offered comfort beyond words.

To her surprise he not only accepted the hug but he hugged her back, although as soon as she felt he’d had enough, she stood up. She led him up the road towards the hospital, following straggling groups of people who were also missing someone they knew or loved, the night silent with shock so the whispering shush as the waves slid onto the sand sounded loud in the darkness.

Once at the hospital, she realised she needed to start sorting people again—telling anyone not injured to wait on the veranda so the nurses on duty and those who had come in when they’d heard of the emergency listed the others according to the severity of their injuries. Jo, Cam, Tom and the other hospital doctor were all at work, Jo and Cam in the ER, working their way through the patients. Tom, Jo explained as she splinted a sprained wrist, was in Theatre with a man with a broken femur.

After checking with the ER manager that Joan Sims hadn’t been brought in, Lauren took Bobby through to the canteen.

‘What would you like to eat?’

For the first time since she’d seen him by the devastated stands, Bobby’s face lit up.

‘I can have any of that stuff?’ he asked, looking at the offerings, hastily prepared, Lauren guessed, in the servery.

‘Go for it,’ Lauren told him. ‘Grab a plate at one end and fill it up with whatever you want, but if you eat too much and throw up you have to clean up the mess.’

‘Me? I’m only eight!’

‘You,’ Lauren confirmed. ‘You’re never too young to learn to do a bit of cleaning.’

She watched as he heaped his plate then put some of his choices back, settled him at a table, told him she’d be on the veranda and to come out there when he finished. She was about to depart when she saw shadows chase across his face and tears well in his eyes.

‘No,’ she said quickly, ‘I should have something to eat as well. Wait here while I get some food and we’ll eat together then we can both go onto the veranda.’

She grabbed a sandwich and a cup of coffee and returned to find Bobby had nearly finished his large dinner.

‘There was apple pie there and some chocolate stuff and ice cream,’ he reminded her.

‘Go get some,’ she said, ‘but, remember, not too much.’

She was surprised to see him pick up his plate and carry it over to the servery, something she knew he refused to do at the refuge, telling whichever woman on duty in the kitchen it was a ‘girls’ job’ in tones of such lofty disdain they knew he must be echoing at least one of the men who’d moved through his mother’s life.

Back in the ER things seemed to be more chaotic than ever, but as Joan Sims hadn’t turned up Lauren stopped in her office to phone the police station. She spoke to a civilian helper who’d come in to assist, telling him Bobby Sims was with her if anyone phoned to enquire.

The helper checked his lists.

‘No one’s called us so far,’ he told Lauren, who was beginning to get a really bad feeling about Joan. She looked at Bobby, sitting dejectedly on a couch in the little anteroom where therapy patients waited, and had a brainwave. A lot of the OT and physio patients were kids so there was a TV, DVD player and a stack of DVDs in the small room.

‘Can you work a DVD player?’ she asked Bobby.

‘Course I can,’ he scoffed, then his eyes lit up. ‘Can I watch one of those DVDs?’

He’d obviously seen the shelves of them.

‘They’re all yours,’ Lauren told him. ‘I’ll be just outside on the veranda if you need me.’

She was about to walk away when the image of him standing there in front of the shelf made her turn back. She crossed the office and went into the little room where she gave him a big hug, then knelt so they were on eye level with each other.

‘Are you okay to stick with me until we sort this out?’ she asked him.

He nodded, then for the first time in the turbulent few years that she’d known Bobby he put his arms around her neck and pressed a quick kiss on her cheek.

‘Have fun,’ she whispered in his ear when she’d kissed him back. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

For some weird reason she found she had a lump in her throat and was swallowing it as she came out of the office into the corridor, slap bang into Tom.

‘I was looking for you,’ he said. ‘Are you all right? Do you have to be here? Can’t you go home and get some sleep?

Someone should be resting—there’ll be a lot of fall-out over this and plenty of traumatised people for you to have to deal with over the next few days.’

He’d put an arm around her as he spoke and was holding her close enough for her to see the concern in his eyes.

For a moment she felt like Bobby—she wanted to return the light hug he was giving her, return it with interest because a hug was what she needed right now—but she’d already embarrassed Tom enough for one night with her encyclopaedia statement so she stepped away.

Practical Lauren returning!

‘I’m fine. Have you eaten? Should I be rustling up some food for you and Cam and Jo?’

‘We’ve people feeding us all the time,’ Tom assured her, ‘but it will be a long night. At last count there are about thirteen with serious enough injuries to be hospitalised, and another seven or so who need bones set, or stitches in wounds, then there are muscle tears, that kind of thing, strains and sprains.’

‘No fatal injuries?’ Lauren had to ask, although just thinking of it made her cold all over.

Tom closed in on her again, resting his hands on her shoulders.

‘You’re worried about someone in particular?’ he asked, his voice so gentle Lauren had to swallow again.

Unable to speak, she nodded.

He nodded back, his face grave. ‘There’s talk of someone trapped underneath on the road side of the collapse,’ he said. ‘And from what I’ve heard it’s unlikely the person would have survived.’

The pulsing siren of an ambulance stopped the conversation.

‘They’re playing my song,’ Tom said, his voice lightening though his smile was grim, but he didn’t hurry off, pausing instead to give Lauren a real hug—like the one she’d wanted to give him earlier. ‘I’ll catch up with you some time soon,’ he said, and the words sounded like a promise …

The woman was so badly injured Tom wondered if there was any bone in her chest that wasn’t broken, but he had no time for stupid speculation, he needed all his focus on trying to save her.

Crush injuries to the chest were common from appalling road accidents, and Tom knew the only way to deal with them was bit by bit. She had oxygen pumping into her, the pressure low so they didn’t do more damage to her lungs, and her heart was still beating, which in itself was a problem, as it was also pumping blood out of her system through many torn veins and arteries.

‘Sometimes it seems as if more’s coming out than is going in. I’ve got the blood group done and we’ve sent out a call for whole blood but in the meantime the fluids should hold her.’

Tom looked up to see Cam gloved up on the other side of the operating table, ready to assist.

Two hours later they both stepped back, the woman, sadly still anonymous to them, beyond help.

‘Should we have been helping with the other injuries instead of trying to save her?’ Tom said to Cam as they stripped off their gloves and gowns and were washing together at the tub.

‘Jo and your co-worker are handling them all—they were down to minor stuff when I left and I would think they’ve finished now,’ Cam assured him.

They walked together through to the ER where Jo was slumped on a chair beside a couple of nurses, talking to Mike and another policeman. All of them turned towards Cam and Tom, took one look at their faces, and let out a collective sigh.

‘We don’t even know who she was,’ Tom said. He turned to Mike. ‘Do you?’

‘Joan Sims—Jo and Lauren know her from the refuge. Apparently she’s got a little boy.’

‘Bobby Sims,’ Tom said, remembering with sadness his and Lauren’s conversation about the rebel earlier. ‘I’ve met him before but he’s always come in with a teacher or someone from the refuge so I hadn’t met his mother. Where is Bobby now?’

‘He’s asleep in the little waiting room off Lauren’s office,’ Jo told him. ‘Now all the other people who came in have been patched and matched and those not hospitalised have gone home, Lauren’s in there with him.’

Tom turned and headed for the therapists’ office, his mind on the small boy. He must have a father, although maybe Joan Sims had been escaping abuse by someone else.

Would the child be safe?

He felt a shudder, as if the floor had moved beneath his feet, and shadows of the past flew by like phantoms in the night.

Of course Bobby Sims would have family …

Lauren was sitting at her desk, her head in her hands, exactly as she had been earlier—however long ago this afternoon had been.

‘Bobby?’ Tom asked as he came into the room.

Lauren nodded towards the alcove and Tom walked quietly towards it and stood a minute, looking down at the sleeping child. He had sandy-coloured hair rough cut and tousled and a serious over-bite that would need braces before too long, but, like all sleeping children, he looked so innocent Tom had to brace himself against the pain.

‘His mother died—we couldn’t save her,’ he said, returning to slump into the chair he’d left in front of Lauren’s desk earlier.

‘I was kind of expecting that. Mike came in earlier,’ Lauren responded. ‘He said she had horrific injuries.’

‘Will you take Bobby back to the refuge until someone finds his family?’ He wasn’t sure why he’d asked, although it probably had a lot to do with the phantoms that had flashed by.

Lauren looked up at him, her eyes dark with concern.

‘I couldn’t do that to him, Tom,’ she said softly. ‘I couldn’t put him in there with other kids who have their mothers. I promised him I’d look after him. I’ve all but finished my hospital and private work now until mid-January and when I have to be at the refuge, I can probably take him or get Jo to mind him, but the problem is my flat’s so tiny and there’s no yard and he’s a little boy who needs lots of space. I could take him out to the family farm but my brother and his family and my parents are all away for a couple of weeks—spending Christmas with my sister in Melbourne. I was to go too, but—well, you know how low on funds we are at the refuge, and I’ve cut the staff and … ‘

Tom frowned down at her.

‘That doesn’t mean you should be working yourself to death there,’ he muttered. ‘But that’s not the point, I can understand you taking Bobby home tonight, but surely you don’t have to worry about a yard for him to play in—he’ll have family somewhere.’

Lauren stared at the man across her desk. Eighteen months she’d known Tom, worked with him, attended various committee meetings with him, thought she knew him as a friend, yet there was a strange note in his voice now—one she couldn’t quite put her finger on—not panic, certainly, but some kind of disturbing emotion.

However, whatever was going on in his head, she needed to answer him.

‘Joan never named Bobby’s father, perhaps she didn’t know, and Greg, the most recent of the men she’s lived with, is violent,’ she reminded him. ‘Like a lot of women in abusive relationships, Joan had cut herself off from her family, or they from her. Oh, Mike and his people will try to trace relations, but there’s more.’

She took a deep, steadying breath.

‘Bobby saw Greg in the stands right before the collapse. He was calling to Joan, and she went—’

‘This man was underneath the stands? Did you tell Mike?’

Lauren nodded.

‘He wasn’t killed or injured there … ‘

She watched as Tom computed the information she’d just shared.

‘Is Mike thinking—?’

‘They won’t know until the workplace health and safety people inspect the wreckage, but Mike’s been to Greg’s place—he’s not there, or at any of the pubs. They’re looking for him.’

A wave of tiredness so strong it was like a blow swept over her, and she shook her head.

‘I can’t think any more tonight. Best I get Bobby and myself home.’

‘Stay at my place,’ Tom offered. ‘I’ve three bedrooms, plenty of yard for Bobby to play in, and I can dig out some toiletries and hospital night attire for you both as well. You don’t want to be driving when you’re as tired as you are, and if Bobby’s still asleep you’ll never get him up the steps to your flat.’

Lauren stared at the man across the desk from her, wondering just what the offer meant, then realising it was nothing more than the kindness of a friend.

She felt a tiny stab of regret that it wasn’t something more, but shook the thought away. As if it could be that …

She even managed a smile as she made a far-too-weak protest.

‘You don’t have to do that for me,’ she said. ‘Especially after I was so rude about you earlier.’

He grinned at her and the stab deepened.

‘I rather liked the encyclopaedia reference, not to mention putting the surf god in his place.’

‘I doubt that,’ Lauren told him, but the regret she’d felt earlier was turning to guilt …

‘Come on,’ Tom added. ‘I’ll show you where the hospital emergency packs are, or do you know?’

‘I know,’ Lauren told him, pleased to have something concrete to grasp hold of. ‘I often bring in women who have left home with nothing.’

Tom nodded, so much understanding in his eyes she felt like crying, or maybe asking for another hug, but such weakness was definitely exhaustion so she hustled off to get some toiletries and night gear for herself and Bobby. She returned with her haul to find Tom had lifted the sleeping boy and was carrying him along the corridor towards the side door that was closest to his house.

Tom’s house was the official hospital residence, built in the same style as the hospital with wide verandas on three sides, all of them providing glimpses of the ocean. As Lauren walked through the door she tried to think if she’d ever been inside the house before. She’d been to the house often enough, invited to drinks or a barbecue with other friends, but they’d always sat on the veranda.

The living room was comfortably furnished, very neat and tidy, the only thing out of place a folded newspaper resting on the arm of a leather lounge chair. It was off to the left of the central passageway, doors on the right obviously opening into bedrooms.

Tom pushed the second door with his foot and it opened to show a pristinely neat bedroom, a single bed set in the middle, an old polished timber wardrobe on one side and French doors opening to the veranda on the other.

‘Do you want to wake him to do his teeth and change his clothes or should we just let him sleep?’

Lauren considered the question—letting the little boy sleep was obviously the best solution, but he might wake and not know where he was.

‘Not that I want to hurry you or anything but my arms might give way any minute,’ Tom said, and though there was a smile in the words Lauren knew Bobby must have grown very heavy in his arms.

‘I think we’ll let him sleep,’ she said, and she slipped past Tom and his burden and turned down the bed, then, when Tom put Bobby down on the clean sheet, she slid off his rubber flip-flops and pulled the top sheet over him.

Tom came forward and turned on a bedside light, using a button to dim it.

‘All mod cons in this place,’ he said, then he touched the little boy on the head and hesitated for a few seconds before following Lauren out of the room.

‘Your bedroom is this way,’ he said, pushing open the next door. ‘There’s a bathroom just beyond it, towels in a cabinet behind the door. Do you need anything else? Would you like a drink of some kind?’

Lauren shook her head, then common sense dictated she should ask.

‘I don’t suppose you’d have a blow-up mattress or a comfortable lounger? I’d like to sleep beside him in case he wakes up in the night and doesn’t know where he is.’

Tom smiled at her.

‘Great minds,’ he said. ‘I was intending to do just that, but if you’re sure then it would be better for you to do it as he doesn’t really know me except as someone who causes him pain when he lands in the ER after one of his wilder pranks. I do have a blow-up mattress from far-off camping days. I’ll get it.’

He was about to walk away, but Lauren caught his arm so he turned back to her.

‘Why?’ she asked, adding, when she saw the puzzled expression on his face, ‘Why were you thinking of staying with him?’

Tom’s smile was gone, his face now pale and grim, although it would be. It was well after midnight and he must be exhausted.

‘I was Bobby once,’ he said softly, then he slipped his arm away from her fingers and disappeared back along the passage and into what must be the front bedroom.

His bedroom!

I was Bobby once?

What did he mean?

And why was it suddenly very important to Lauren that she find out? Find out all she could about the enigmatic man she’d thought she knew …

Why had he said that?

Lauren was a psychologist—she’d want an explanation for a statement like that.

But would she ask?

Lauren, his friend, would have, but this Lauren was different.

Because he’d seen vulnerability in her for the first time in the eighteen months he’d known her?

Because he felt, not exactly proud, but somehow pleased that she’d trusted him enough to show that vulnerability?

So he’d shared a bit of his?

Oh, please! Enough with the psychological delving.

He reached up on top of his wardrobe for his old backpack, assuming his blow-up mattress would still be shoved inside or strapped to it. He hoped the rubberised material hadn’t rotted. If it had, Lauren was in for an uncomfortable night. Perhaps the reclining lounge chair would be more comfortable for her, although they would probably wake Bobby trying to manoeuvre it into the bedroom, and would it fit?

He tried very hard to concentrate on these nice trivial matters, but in his head the image of a little boy, younger than Bobby by a couple of years, tucked into a strange bed in a strange room—the first of a series of strange beds in strange rooms …

‘Tom? Can I help?’

Lauren was in the doorway and it was obvious he’d dithered for so long she’d had time to have a shower for her hair clung in damp tendrils to her neck, and she was wearing what must be one of the ugliest nightdresses ever created. A vague purple colour, faded from much washing, it had something he assumed were bunches of flowers printed all over it, and it hung, shapeless as a deflated balloon, from her shoulders.

‘Fetching, isn’t it?’ she said, smiling at the thoughts she’d obviously guessed he was having. ‘Maybe the hospital insists on the design—it’d work better than an old-fashioned chastity belt for randy staffers.’

Though not for him, Tom discovered. Standing there in his bedroom door, freshly showered, totally exhausted but still so temptingly beautiful, his body would probably have reacted if she’d been wearing a suit of armour.

‘You’d look good in a wheat sack,’ he told her, hefting the whole backpack down from the top of the wardrobe and turning his attention to finding the mattress, shaking his head in frustration when it failed to materialise.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’m so tired I could sleep on a barbed-wire fence. It’s a warm night so if you wouldn’t mind lending me that puffy-looking duvet you have on your bed I can fold it, probably in three—is that a king-size bed?—and it will be fine.’

Looking at the bed was a mistake. He immediately pictured Lauren in it. And it was a king-size bed but right now he didn’t want to think about why he used a bed that size, let alone explain it.

‘Okay,’ he said, realising that the sooner he got Lauren tucked away in Bobby’s bedroom the sooner he could sort through the craziness inside his head.

Could he put it all down to seeing Bobby in that neatly made single bed?

Of course he couldn’t. It had started back with Lauren’s groan, and the strange sensation of … satisfaction? … he’d felt when she’d asked him to stand by her.

Not to mention his determination to find out more about the vulnerability he’d glimpsed in the woman he’d thought was so together.

He’d stalled again, standing in the bedroom, only vaguely aware of Lauren walking past him and hefting the duvet from his bed. He reached out to take it from her, but as he touched her arm she dropped it, and stepped over it so she was close enough to hug.

For him to hug her, although it didn’t happen that way.

It was Lauren who moved closer, Lauren who put her arms around him, slipping her hands beneath his shoulders so she could reach around his body, then she hugged him tightly to her, her head pressed against his chest, a whispered ‘Thank you for being there for me tonight’ rising up into his ears.

Then, just as he was certain she’d feel his body’s unacceptable reaction to the embrace, she pulled away, picked up the duvet from the floor, and left the room.