Chapter Eight
Hi Julia. I’m sorry, but a client has called, and I can’t make it this morning. Hopefully catch up soon.
Amelie
After leaving Milly and Benedict’s hobby farm yesterday, I made house calls on a Pekinese with eczema, an obese labrador who’d eaten snail bait and a sheep with a nasty abscess in his thigh, all while breathing through the knife in my gut.
The first time I menstruated, I was fourteen.
Fourteen years later, my cycle is the same.
In the middle of the month when I ovulate, I’m in pain for twenty-four to thirty-six hours. After that, I’m fine.
Until the following month.
After I’d treated the sheep, I was relieved that Cameron’s ute wasn’t blocking the driveway and even more relieved (for reasons I didn’t want to think about) that he wasn’t ten metres up a tree. I parked the ute, ate a sandwich and went to bed.
Now it’s Friday morning. When another cramp hits, I roll into a ball on the bed in the loft. My breaths bounce off the walls and the ceiling. I scrape tears from my face.
It hurts, Mum.
You’re a woman now, Amelie. It’s perfectly natural.
Other girls at school don’t get it like this. It doesn’t happen to you.
When I was sixteen, I went to a gynaecologist, who diagnosed primary dysmenorrhoea, natural contractions in the lining of the uterus.
Many women have this pain, some of them mildly, others, like me, acutely.
I’ve been checked regularly and I’m fortunate it’s nothing more serious.
Warm compresses and a bath work well, but there’s no bath in the cabin and I can’t find my hot water bottle so a shower will have to do.
I grit my teeth and climb down the ladder to the compact bathroom.
The water is warm, and I imagine it’s helping, until another cramp hits and I’m bent double all over again. My hair gets wet. Damn.
The crunch of tyres on gravel as a car pulls up.
Double damn. I pull on shorts and a T-shirt and run my fingers through my hair.
Keith Urban will greet whoever is there then maybe they’ll go away.
Not entirely confident about that and knowing how hard it will be to hide the cramps whether sitting or standing, I perch on the ladder to the loft, one foot on the ground, the other on the bottom rung.
‘Amelie!’ Cameron knocks on the door, left ajar so Keith Urban can come and go, and it opens wide. ‘What’s going on?’
I’d like nothing more than to stalk to the door and slam it in his face so I don’t have to talk to him and, even more importantly, so I don’t have to explain why I can’t stalk to the door and slam it in his face.
‘What do you want?’ My hair is dripping down my neck to my T-shirt. It’s a new T-shirt, white with yellow stripes. Blue denim shorts. No bra. I cross my arms but not for long because another cramp hits and I need to hang onto the rail. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘You told Julia you had to see a client.’ Factual. More than a hint of accusation. ‘I saw your ute.’
‘I’m on my way.’
He looks me up and down. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I didn’t want to let Julia down. I’m sorry I had to cancel.’
‘It’s not fair to blame her for what I did.’ He stabs through his hair with a hand. ‘What you think I did.’
‘Please don’t do this now.’
‘When do we do it? In another sixteen years?’
‘I don’t—’
‘Your resentment. My guilt. Yes, I fucked up afterwards, but I had no part in what they did. I wasn’t even there.’
‘It’s done.’
‘I would have stopped it.’
My fingernails must be digging divots into my palms but all I’m aware of is the incendiary fire in my abdomen. ‘Please stop talking about it.’
‘I didn’t know you were there.’
‘I saw you.’ My voice is scratchy.
‘After it happened.’
‘I heard what you said.’
‘If I could take those words back, I would.’
Even through my pain, I sense his. ‘Forget it.’
‘I can’t and neither can you.’ He steps closer. ‘I knew the risk you were taking when you wouldn’t wear your glasses. It scared me.’
I bring up my knees by putting both feet on the ladder, but the spasm pitches me forward and I fall onto my hands and knees. Cameron curses and crouches by my side.
‘What the …’ He puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Please go away.’
‘Why are you crying?’
‘I have stomach cramps.’ I sit on my bottom, bend my knees and wrap my arms around them. I wipe my face on my sleeve. ‘I’m okay.’
‘I’ll take you to the hospital.’
‘No!’ I lower my voice. ‘No, thank you.’
‘Julia.’ Eyes bright with concern, he gets out his phone. ‘I’ll call her.’
Deep breath. Groan quietly. ‘Five minutes ago, you were telling me off for standing her up.’
‘Please, Amelie. Let me—’
‘Go, Cameron. Please.’
‘I’m not leaving you alone like this.’
‘It’s when I ovulate!’ I lower my voice. ‘Now you can go.’
‘Are you certain that’s what it is?’
‘I know my own body.’
I sense he wants to argue but doesn’t dare. ‘What can I do?’
‘Nothing.’ My fists are clenched so tightly my arms ache. ‘It’s better when I lie down.’
‘You can’t go up to the loft.’ He opens and shuts cupboards before pulling out linen. And as I lean against the ladder, he takes cushions off the sofa and throws them into the loft before spreading a cotton blanket then a sheet over the base and tucking them in. He turns to me.
‘Can you get here by yourself?’
If I couldn’t, I’m almost certain that he’d pick me up and carry me with the same brisk efficiency he used to make the bed. I carefully get to my feet and walk a wobbly line to the sofa before lying down.
The sheet is crisp and white. He pulls another sheet over me.
‘Thank you.’
‘What medication do you take?’
‘Ibuprofen.’
‘Nothing stronger?’
‘Opioids would help but I don’t want to take them.’ Another bite of cramp. My knees shoot up.
The ladder creaks as he climbs to the loft but then he’s back. I lift my head and he puts a pillow under it. Cool, comforting. I take the second pillow, hugging it to my chest.
‘Sorry to let Julia down. I’ll apologise again.’
‘Julia didn’t say anything. Anna dropped by her house, worked out you’d cancelled and called me.’
‘Is Julia unwell? Something’s going on, isn’t it?’
‘She’s improving. She’ll talk to you about it.’
‘Is Dr Brown an alcoholic? Is that why he’s in hospital?’
‘Liver failure—he’s going into palliative care next week.’
‘He mustn’t have been coping; that’s why the place was a mess.’
‘We knew he drank, but didn’t know how bad it had got. He was a good vet and until a few months ago, he ran a good practice. Julia wanted to tell you but …’
‘I’m only here short term.’ I bring my knees to my chest. ‘It wasn’t my business.’
He frowns again. ‘What can I do, Amelie?’
‘Before you ask, it’s not endometriosis. It’s not serious and I’m lucky.’
‘I wouldn’t have asked.’ His hair isn’t blond, but it isn’t brown either. A bit of both. He hasn’t shaved for a couple of days and his stubble is dark. There’s concern in his gaze. ‘You get this every month?’
‘Strictly speaking, every twenty-eight days. A bath can help, or heat packs.’
‘I can get you a heat pack. There’s a bath at my house.’
‘It’s much better now.’
‘Can I get you something to eat, to drink?’
‘I’m okay. I think I’ll have a sleep.’
When he stands, I miss his worried face, his green eyes, his scruffy hair.
‘We can talk about the roundabout if you want.’
‘Not now,’ he says quietly. ‘You should rest.’ Footsteps to the bench then he’s crouching again, holding my phone to my face till the screen lights up. He dials a number on my phone and his phone rings. He adds the numbers to contacts on both phones then looks at his watch.
‘If I don’t hear from you beforehand, I’ll be back at four.’
‘It’s your cabin.’ A yawn. ‘I can’t stop you.’
‘I won’t come if you say no.’
‘Honestly?’
‘I’ll send Anna.’
‘Was she angry I stood Julia up?’
‘You care what people think, don’t you?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘Not always.’
‘You didn’t answer my question about Anna.’
When he tucks the phone into the sheet, our hands touch. If I really did hate him, I wouldn’t want him to touch me. As it is … A shaky breath.
‘She thought you would have asked the client, or Julia, to change the time,’ he says quietly. ‘Anna knew it would be out of character, which is why she called me.’
I yawn again, press my face into the pillow. ‘Oh.’
‘I’ll leave Keith Urban outside to guard you,’ he says, before closing the door behind him.