Free Bittersweet by Colleen McCullough Page B

branch of the police, Cameron had a feeling he ought to call in the experts from Sydney, but his streak of Scots stubbornness kept saying no to outsiders. The Vespers were his problem, and he could solve it.
    Pauline Duncan the District Nurse had been a kind of catalyst for Sergeant Cameron, who knew her well. On theday Mikey Vesper was admitted to hospital, Sister Duncan had been called out before dawn to help with the mopping up of a brawl in the gypsy camp under the West Corunda River railway bridge. Having dealt with bruises and stitched up a couple of knife slashes, she climbed into her Model T and headed back into town. The old house in which the Vespers lived was on her way, and the niggling doubt she sometimes felt about Bill Vesper caused her to slow down, then stop. Why not? she asked herself. I’m actually here, so why not take a peep inside? The male Vespers won’t be here at this hour, maybe I can have a talk to that poor woman …
    Mrs. Vesper was boiling sheets in a copper outside the back door, and the three daughters, home from school with black eyes, were helping her. A tiny boy hobbled between their legs, weeping silently, and from time to time one of the females would brush him aside. A single glance was enough. Pauline Duncan rushed forward, scooped the boy up, and ran to her car. With the child on the passenger seat next to her, she drove straight to Dr. Faraday’s rooms. An hour later, Mikey Vesper was in Corunda Base, and Sergeant Cameron was having a fuse lit under him by Dr. Faraday.
    As for Mikey’s nurses, warned not to become haunted, it was far too late.
    “How could anyone treat a little child so cruelly?” Kitty asked.
    “A man like Bill Vesper doesn’t even know what cruel means,” said Grace, wiping her eyes. “If people don’t want children, then they shouldn’t have them.”
    “Huh!” snorted Edda. “There’s no way to prevent having them.”
    “Then I’ll make sure I marry a man who can support them,” said Kitty, chin up.
    “Don’t tempt fate, Kits,” Edda said. “If any of us could see into the future, fortune tellers wouldn’t enjoy fat incomes. Look at the film stars Grace is always blathering about. They all consult clairvoyants. Yet, when you think about it, what can possibly worry a film star?”
    Tufts grinned. “An unwanted baby?”
    Under the influence of so much love and care, Mikey’s dying slowed. If his days weren’t always free of pain, Dr. Faraday kept that pain as bearable as possible without causing coma. Mikey’s favourite treat was to be towed up and down a disused section of ramp in a wooden pony-cart painted bright yellow, with his nurse playing a whinnying, stamping pony. Only Grace never experienced the joy of being Mikey’s pony, but Grace knew Mikey had some very bad nights, and that they were his time to talk.
    Pain and deprivation had pushed his brain into a precocious maturity, but anyone expecting enlightened wisdom from his lips would have listened in vain. His thoughts, albeit a trifle advanced for his years, were still very much the thoughts of a toddling boy. What earned him love was the sweetness of his disposition, and what earned him admiration was his bravery.
    “Or perhaps,” said Grace to Edda, changing shifts, “what really makes Mikey so lovably memorable is his refusal tocomplain. And I should know!” Her face puckered. “How terrible, to be taught that lesson by a two-year-old!”
    Wisely, Edda did not reply.
    As the milestone of one month loomed for Mikey, his pain grew suddenly even worse, which meant the pricks of opiate grew more frequent. He couldn’t manage to eat any more, subsisting on chocolate-flavoured milk shakes and barley sugar or butterscotch toffees.
    “Tired, Kitty,” the child said just after he passed one month as a patient, “terribly tired.”
    “Then sleep, darling.”
    “Don’t want to sleep. Soon I won’t wake up.”
    “Oh, tiddly-pooh to that, Mikey! There’s always a waking