'I told everyone I didn't. All the volunteers I've worked with. The nurses. The drivers. The firefighters who brought animals in. I told them we can't afford to get attached. There are so many. If we get attached we'll go crazy. Let's do our best for every individual animal and let's stay dispassionate.'
There was nothing dispassionate about Tori. She looked wild. Her face was blotched from weeping. The spade she was working with was covered with ashes and dirt. Her hands were filthy and she'd wiped her hands across her sodden face.
She looked like someone who'd just emerged from this burned-out forest-a fire victim herself-and something inside him felt her pain. Or felt more than that. It hurt that she was hurting, and it hurt a lot.
He wanted to hug her again-badly-but she was past hugging. She had her arms folded across her breasts in an age-old gesture of defence. Trying to stop an agony that was unstoppable?
This was much more than the death of one koala, he thought, as bad as that was. There were levels to this pain that he couldn't begin to understand.
'Keep yourself to yourself.' His mother's words sounded through the years. 'Don't get involved-you'll only get hurt.'
Wise advice? He'd always thought so, but right now it was advice he was planning to ignore.
'What did you call her?' he asked, and she hiccupped on a sob and tried to glare at him. It didn't come off. How could it?
'Manya'
Why was she glaring? Did she think he'd mock?
Maybe she did. He knew instinctively that Tori was assessing him and withdrawing. As if he'd think she was stupid-when stupid was the last thing he'd think her.
'Why Manya?' he asked, searching for the right words to break through. 'What does it mean?'
'Just … "little one." It's from the language of the native people from around here. Not that it matters. It was only … I talked to her.' She sounded desperate again, and totally bewildered. 'I had to call her something. I had to talk to her.'
'I guess you did,' he said. And then, as she still seemed to be drawing in on herself, he thought maybe he could make this professional. Maybe it'd make it easier. 'Do you know why she died?'
'No.' She spread her filthy hands and stared down at them, as if they could give her some clue. She shook her head. 'Or maybe I do. She's been under stress for months but I thought we were winning. I knew she wouldn't be able to go back to the wild, but there are sanctuaries that'd take her, good places that'd seem like freedom. And she was so close. But one tiny abscess … It must have been the last straw. She was fine when I checked on her at seven, and when I checked at eight she was dead. Everything just … stopped.'
'It does happen,' he said softly. 'To people, too.'
'Have you had it happen to patients?' she managed, and he knew she was struggling hard to sound normal. Her little dog nosed forwards and she picked him up and held him against her, shield-like. He licked her nose and she held him harder.
The dog was missing a leg, he saw with a shock, and his initial impression of him as an old dog changed. Not old. Wounded.
As Tori was wounded.
Have you had it happen to patients? Tori's question was still out there, and maybe talking medicine was the way to go until she had herself together.
'Not often,' he told her, 'but yes, I have. That it hasn't happened often means I've been lucky.'
'As opposed to me,' she said grimly. 'I've lost countless patients in the past six months.'
She looked exhausted to the point of collapse, he thought. Had she slept at all last night?
When had she last slept?
'Your patients are wild creatures,' he said, and he felt as if he was picking his way through a minefield, knowing it was important that she talk this out, but suspecting she could close up at any minute. 'My patients are the moneyed residents of Manhattan. There's no way a rich, private hospital will cause them stress, and there's the difference.' He hesitated. 'Tori, let me dig for you.'
'I can do it.' She put the little dog down and grabbed the spade again.
'Can you?'
She closed her eyes, gave herself a minute and then opened them. 'No. This is dumb. I accept that now. The ground's one huge root ball. I'll take her down the mountain and get her cremated.'
'But you don't want to.'
'Just … just because I named her,' she whispered, hugging the spade, while the little dog nosed her boots in worry. 'I wanted her buried here. At least the edges of the bush here are still alive. I wanted her buried under living trees. Does that make sense?'
'It does,' he said, strongly and surely, and before she could protest again, he took the spade from her hands and started digging.
She was right. The ground was so hard it would be more sensible to cremate her. Only there was something about Tori that said this burial was deeply important on all sorts of levels. So he put all his weight behind the spade and it slid a couple of inches in. Slowly he got through the hardened crust to the root-filled clay below, while Tori watched on in silence.
After a couple of minutes she sank to her knees and gathered the little dog against her.
'What's his name?' he asked, trying not to sound like the digging was as hard as it was.
'Rusty.'
'How did he lose his leg?'
'Fire,' she said harshly, and he glanced at the little dog in surprise. He'd lost his leg but he wasn't otherwise scarred.
'He was burned?'
'Wasn't everything around here?' She hugged him closer and got another nose lick for her pains. 'But Rusty was lucky-sort of. He was … I found him in the fireplace of … of where I lived. Over there.' She motioned to the neighbouring property. 'Part of the bricks had collapsed, trapping his leg, but otherwise he was okay. He was my dad's Rusty. He's just waiting 'til he comes home.'
Her voice broke. No more questions were allowed, Jake thought, while she struggled for control, so he kept right on digging.
It took time. Ten minutes. Fifteen. He wasn't in a hurry. This was giving Tori time to catch her breath, figure if she wanted to tell him more.
There were cockatoos screeching in the gums about his head. Apart from the birds and the sound of the spade against the earth, there was nothing but silence.
What had happened to this woman? He shouldn't ask, but finally he had to.
'So who did you lose?' he asked into the silence, and for a while he thought she wouldn't answer.
Then, 'My father and my sister,' she said flatly, dreadfully. 'My sister was eight months pregnant.'
Dear God, he thought helplessly. Where to take this from here? 'You all lived over there?' he tried.
'We did. Micki … Margaret … My sister's relationship had fallen apart and she'd come home, so she could have her baby with us. Toby and I were going to look after her for the first few weeks after the birth.' She took a deep breath. 'But then they died. Dad and Micki and Benedict. Benedict was Micki's baby. A little boy. She was going to call him Benedict. I found Rusty three days later when I finally got back up here, but there was nothing else left. Nothing.'
It took his breath away. He felt ill. But desperately he wanted to help, and somehow he knew that the only way to do that was to keep on going. Keep digging-and keep on talking.
'So … Toby?'
'Toby was my fiancé.'
'But he wasn't killed?'
'What do you think?' She laughed, mirthlessly, and buried her face in her dog's soft fur. Her laugh sounded close to hysteria.
He let her be for a moment, pushing the spade deeper into the tree roots. The grave was deep enough, but he knew instinctively that if he stopped, then so would she. She'd get back to the business of living-but maybe talking about the dying would help?
He'd done a bit of psychology in medical school but he'd never practised it. Now, however, what to do seemed to be instinctive. A human skill rather than a professional one? Whatever, it seemed to be working.
'Sorry,' she said at last, sniffing and giving Rusty a bit of slack. 'That … that sounds dumb. Of course you'd think he'd be killed. But Toby … well, Toby was a charmer, and he was also a survivor. He was a lovely, vibrant guy, a photographer who came up here last autumn and took pictures of the mountains, took pictures of my vet clinic-and finally stayed.'
She paused again but then went on, more in control now. 'I need to tell you … Dad started the vet practice up here when Micki and I were kids. Mum died early but Dad looked after us really well. We had a great childhood. Micki married and moved interstate-I did veterinary science. Then Dad was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The past couple of years have been hard. But then along came Toby and he made us both laugh. He brought the house to life, and when he asked me to marry him I don't know who was happier, me or Dad. Toby didn't have any money, but what could be more natural than he stay here? His photography would take off, I'd do the vet work I love and we'd live happily ever after.'
He let that sink in for a bit, and dug a few more spadefuls. This was getting to be a very deep hole and still he didn't have the full story. 'But … 'he prompted softly, and he thought she wouldn't answer but finally she did.