Page 27 of Prognosis So Done

found out about Harriet’s Fallopian tube and the arguments had

started. She felt a twinge again and wondered if it was a physical manifestation of her deep psychological longing for a child rather than an actual pain.

She did some calculations in her head. She’d had her period two weeks ago, not that it had been much of a period, so she was coming up to mid-cycle. It was a little early but by no means unheard of for the cysts on her ovaries to be giving her a hard time.

They could be become quite large and painful. A little while ago she’d had one drained via needle aspiration due to its increasing size.

Harriet placed the frame in her backpack with a sigh. The photo made her feel restless...and sad, and she was already sad

enough after the events of the day.

Pushing open the French doors, she walked out into the afternoon heat and leant against the balustrade. The sun was beginning its descent and the sky was already brilliant shades of red, gold and orange. It was a stunning ochre sunset and it was one of the things she would miss about this land of extremes which could be both beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

She could see the old basketball court in the distance,

where a few hardy weeds struggled through the cracked, neglected concrete. She was sure that in the convent’s heyday the court would have thronged with kids, but now the deserted cement was used as the MedSurg helipad.

A dreadful noise like a siren split the air, and for a

moment Harriet wondered if Kelly had pushed the incoming-wounded alarm. But then a rustle of movement below caught her eye and

she realised it was a human wail. Nimuk’s mother sat on the steps of the med building, Theire at her side, repeatedly slapping her forehead as she rocked back and forth.

The grief-stricken cry rang around the cluster of buildings, announcing Nimuk’s death. There was something so base, so elementally human about the long continuous wail that it tore at the fabric of Harriet’s soul. And yet there was an animal quality about it, too. It verged on demented —like a wounded beast crazed with pain.

It was heart-wrenching, so tragic that hot tears needled the backs of Harriet’s eyes and ran unchecked down her face. Goose-bumps pricked at her arms. A stranger’s grief, it seemed, was the key to unravelling the emotions that had been coiling tightly inside her since that morning.

For once she let them flow, instead of chiding herself for being too involved. She cried for Nimuk and his mother, for Henri and Peter, for herself and Gill and the demise of their marriage, and that Gill would never sit on a beach, making sandcastles with their child.

A few minutes later the noise stopped as abruptly as it had

started and Harriet dried her tears. How many had she shed over Gill and herself these last two years? She’d lost count. It was time to stop lamenting what she couldn’t have. There were worse things that could happen to a person in this world, Nimuk being a good case in point.

What was her grief compared to Nimuk’s mother’s?

‘Everything OK, Harry?’

Harriet hadn’t heard Katya’s approach over her own turmoil and the wailing mother. She shook her head, not trusting her voice, still too overwrought to talk. She swallowed hard against another threatening fog of emotion caused by Katya’s gentle enquiry.

‘Rough day?’

She nodded and cleared her throat. ‘I came out to enjoy the

sunset and then Nimuk’s mother...’

‘Da,’ Katya said. ‘I heard. It’s very sad.’

Harriet nodded, the urge to laugh hysterically bubbling inside at Katya’s typical understatement. It wasn’t that Katya was unemotional — in fact, she was probably the most intensely fiery and passionate of all of them — but she’d had her release today and now she was just getting on with it.

Harriet fanned her hands in front of her face, feeling the heat there. ‘I’m sorry. I must look a state,’ she said, conscious now that her eyes must be red-rimmed and her face all blotchy.

‘Is this just about Nimuk?’ Katya asked, her shrewd gaze performing a detailed inspection over Harriet’s face. ‘Are you and Gill all right?’

It was on the tip of Harriet’s tongue to deny any problems. In fact, the denial nearly came out before she changed her mind. She was sick of carrying it around by herself for two months and the sudden urge to unburden was intense. ‘No, we’re not all right. We’re all wrong, actually.’

Katya nodded. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, everything

sounded all right this morning.’

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