The Vet from Snowy River by Stella Quinn

CHAPTER

12

‘Ms De Rossi, can I have a word?’

Vera dropped her eyes to the woman’s name tag. ‘Nurse Boas, of course.’

‘Call me Wendy. We haven’t met yet; I see from your aunt’s file you often pop in to Connolly House during the afternoon shift after I’ve left.’

‘I run a café in Hanrahan. Mornings can be a little busy.’

‘So I hear! My daughter keeps telling me how lovely The Billy Button is. I’m looking forward to visiting.’

‘That’s very kind of her so say so. Is everything all right?’

‘Yes … and no.’

Alarm rendered her vocal cords useless for a moment. ‘Please, tell me what’s wrong.’

‘Your aunt has been a little out of sorts during the night.’

‘Unwell?’

The nurse grimaced. ‘Cranky would be a better word.’

‘Jill? She’s never cranky.’

‘It’s certainly the first time we’ve noticed it. It is not unusual for dementia patients to become agitated, so perhaps we’re just seeing some progression. When you’re with your aunt, you may notice something we haven’t that might be causing her distress. A sore tooth, a cramping toe, her hair parted on the wrong side … perhaps we’ve missed something.’

‘That’s … very thoughtful, Wendy. Thank you for letting me know.’

‘Any time.’ The nurse gestured to the waxed box Vera held in her hands. ‘Is that something from the café you’ve brought with you?’

‘Date scones. I use a lot of Jill’s recipes, and this is one of hers.’

‘Now who’s been thoughtful? You enjoy your visit,’ said the nurse.

Her aunt’s voice, when she greeted her, was stronger than she’d heard it in weeks.

‘Barb? Is that you? You’re terribly late and I’ve been cross with you for hours.’

Strong, but still confused. ‘No, my love, it’s Vera,’ she said, resting her hand on paper-thin skin. ‘I’ve brought you a scone for morning tea—the one with dates. Your favourite.’

‘Oh. Vera. You must be a nurse. How clever of you to know what I like. I suppose it’s written in my file.’

Vera smiled, despite the tug of pain she couldn’t help but feel. To be confused with her long-dead mother was bittersweet. To be confused with the nursing staff? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful world, though, where residents of aged care facilities had their likes and dislikes documented in their files? Jill De Rossi, vascular dementia and cardiomyopathy, aged 63, prefers date scones over plain ones, won’t eat tuna sandwiches prepared with mayonnaise, enjoys classical music for an hour before dinner in the company of her favourite and only niece, Vera De Rossi.

‘Shall we go into the garden? You can hold onto my arm if you need to.’

‘I am quite all right to walk,’ said her aunt, ‘if only this carpet would stop making me dizzy.’

The carpet was grey and nondescript. Vera ran her eyes over Jill’s room but noticed nothing out of the ordinary that might have thrown her aunt out of sorts. ‘Give me your arm,’ she said, leading the way into the corridor. ‘The sun is shining and the sky is so blue today, Aunt Jill. I think you’ll love it outside.’

‘If you say so, dear.’

She settled her aunt into a wicker chair and plumped up the cushion behind her thin frame. ‘Comfortable?’

Her aunt’s chattiness had waned, so Vera decided to dive straight into the thoughts that had been troubling her for the drive down to Cooma. ‘Aunt Jill … I’ve been wanting to ask your advice about something.’ Lots of somethings, really, and who else did she have to ask for advice?

She’d moved here to the foothills of the Snowy Mountains to simplify her life: cook, save money, lick her wounds and hunker down while the tatters of her self-respect re-knit themselves into a shape she recognised.

It had been naive to think her troubles would let her go so easily. The court case, of course. That was the trouble with a capital T that hung like a spectre over every minute of every day.

But then there was the new bit of trouble—the spark that had been kindled in her cold, bitter heart in the dimly lit foyer of the Cody and Cody Vet Clinic.

She didn’t want the spark. Sparks were trouble, and she was so over being in trouble.

Her aunt’s face didn’t change, but Vera kept going. ‘You know the great hairy mess of things I made back home? The charges, the arraignment, those hideous articles in the newspaper? Well, I’ve been given a choice: take an easy way out so I can move on, so we can move on, or dig my heels in and fight.’

Her aunt breathed in, and out, and her sparse grey lashes fluttered on a blink. Her earlier vim had sputtered out.

‘What would you do, Aunt Jill?’

Her aunt said nothing, but she didn’t need to. Vera knew damn well her aunt would have said to hell with those drongos. Do what feels right.

She took a long breath in of mountain air. Okay, then, decision made. She’d put this phone call off long enough.

‘Sue?’ she said as the dial tone connected. ‘It’s Vera.’

‘Finally. What’s it to be?’

She took a breath. ‘I don’t believe I’m guilty.’

‘Vera, we talked about this. A section 10 dismissal isn’t about you being saintly and earnest and taking a Mary McKillop stance. It’s about wrangling through a legislative loophole and getting your life back.’

‘I know. But here’s the thing, Sue, I don’t want to wrangle through loopholes. I do not feel that what I did was wrong, and I am not going to be made to feel guilty for that on top of everything else.’

‘Vera—’

She was on a roll now, and even the thought of her lawyer’s money clock spinning ecstatically with every word she spoke wasn’t going to stop her.

‘If I were being charged with selfishness for placing my aunt in an aged care facility that I hadn’t thoroughly vetted beforehand, I’d plead guilty. If I were being charged with having lousy taste in men and being the biggest fool on the east coast of Australia, then lock me up. I’m guilty as charged and wearing all that guilt already; it’s wrapped around me so bloody tightly some days I can’t breathe.’

She took a moment to get some control over her voice. ‘That’s why, Sue,’ she muttered at last. ‘That’s why I am not going to plead guilty to breaching the Surveillance Devices Act.’

She could hear her lawyer tapping on a keyboard.

‘Okay, Vera. Understood. We do this the hard way.’

‘Thank you, Sue. I’m sorry I’m not taking your advice.’

‘Don’t be sorry. I love doing it the hard way, it gives me a visceral thrill. You know how hard it is for a woman my age to feel a visceral thrill? Trust me … you’re doing me a favour. In terms of our legal stance on this, now we need to shift our mindset into offensive action rather than defensive reaction. We take these charges down. You ready for that, Vera? You’d better be.’

She swallowed.

‘Um, yes? How about you?’

‘I was born ready; I’ll be in touch.’

As the call ended, she let her phone slip to the table, wishing she’d been born with just one per cent of Sue Anton’s confidence.

‘Well,’ she said, resting her hand on her aunt’s pale one. ‘Decision made, Jill. I think you’d be a tiny bit proud of me.’

Jill’s head was nodding, as though she was the type of woman who agreed with whatever was going on around her.

Vera snorted. As if.

Jill—the old Jill—was at her happiest when she was neck deep into an argument about politics or climate change. Jill would have had no hesitation about taking on the legal system. She’d have had no hesitation about flirting in a dimly lit foyer either.

‘Cup of tea over here, ladies?’

She looked up as an orderly in navy scrubs approached them. A trolley had been set up beneath the wisteria. ‘Oh, yes please. Black for me, Jill has hers with milk and—’

‘Milk and one,’ finished the man.

She smiled at him. ‘I don’t think we’ve met.’

‘Tim. You need a little butter for that scone you’ve brought?’

Vera glanced at her waxed carton and the scone she’d torn into bite-size pieces. ‘No, thank you, Jill’s not a butter fan.’

‘I’ll try to remember that,’ said Tim. ‘Here you go.’ He set two cups before them, durable china with a sturdy handle for her, and a sip cup for Jill. ‘She can hold this herself, she tells me. Now, can I interest you in some reading material from my trolley? Lots of the residents enjoy having the paper read to them. There are magazines up in the common room, too, if you’d prefer to read something about four-wheel drives or surprise royal babies.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Er … Thanks, Tim.’

She waited until he’d moved to other residents enjoying the sun, then pulled the letter she’d written from her handbag. No surprise royal babies there. ‘Shall I read to you while you have your tea, Jill?’

No answer, so she cleared her throat and began anyway. ‘Dear Aunt Jill. It’s me again, Vera, your niece. I have a little fun news that you might enjoy …’

By the time she finished, her aunt’s gaze had drifted above the treeline to the smudge of mountain purpling the distant sky.

‘Jill?’

No response.

‘Is there anything you’d like to talk about, Aunt Jill? Anything you need?’

Still nothing. She glanced at her watch. There was nowhere she needed to be, and she had plenty of time. Perhaps she could put Tim’s advice into practice. Her eye fell on the newspapers he’d stacked on the wicker table, and she rifled through a few pages of the Snowy River Star. National politics was a nope, dry as dust; worries about drought; a bushfire out of control in the high country. She turned the page to an exposé on a local businesswoman who’d made a donation to the repertory theatre and smiled. Right up Jill’s alley.

She started reading. Businesswoman and former mayor Isabella Lang is the platinum sponsor of the upcoming Snowy River Region Repertory Theatre summer season. Opera, melodrama, and some new Australian drama is heading your way this year, with a focus on—

She paused as the name Cody caught her eye on a side bar. She read the heading, Hanrahan Chatter, and realised she was looking at a community page. She smiled. She may have only moved two hours’ drive from Queanbeyan, but in some ways it was like she’d moved a century back in time.

Our very own Josh Cody returns to Hanrahan after fifteen years and takes up a role as veterinarian in the Cody and Cody Vet Clinic founded by his younger sister Hannah Cody. Mr Cody is the only graduate of Hanrahan High ever to receive a full scholarship to the University of Sydney.

What a shame he didn’t go. He’d sure put plenty of practice in at the school science lab, or so we hear, and—

Vera frowned. Was this the standard of news local readers were subjected to here in the Snowy Mountains? This sounded like the sort of trash Poppy had been subjected to that had resulted in a crying jag in her back alley.

‘What a load of rubbish,’ she said, moving her eyes up to the date on the paper’s banner. Yes. Last week. That poor kid.

‘Oh hell,’ she said as a thought struck her. What was today’s date? Or more to the point, what was today?

Wednesday. Bloody hell. Tonight was the inaugural craft group gathering at The Billy Button Café and she’d done nothing to prep for it!

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and texted Graeme, who was on the early shift. Graeme! I totally forgot, tonight is curtain’s up for the first craft meeting. Six o’clock start. I’ll be there after lunch to get prepped … would you mind checking milk and egg stocks? I can pick some up here in Cooma before I drive back up the mountain.

Her phone beeped seconds later.

Milk and eggs in stock. I’ve set Poppy to work prepping a tea station on the buffet in the back room. Maybe some fresh flowers, if you’re passing the markets, would be a nice touch. Might want to buy a bottle of gin and some fresh lemons too, Vera, in case you need a sneaky G & T in the kitchen to get you through the evening, LOL.

She grinned. Her lovely Graeme … always brainstorming the good ideas.

Love your thinking,she tapped back.

You’re the only one rostered after five pm. Want me to ask Poppy or Jackson if they can work late?

She hesitated. Having a spare pair of hands was marvellous, despite the pain her till takings felt every time she paid her casual staff their wages. And who knew how many would be coming to Marigold’s evening craft group?

Let’s ask Poppy. She’s going back to Sydney early next week for the start of Term Four, and she’s keen to get as many hours in as she can. If it’s quiet, I can duck out to walk her home.

You’re the boss, boss.

She smiled. Damn straight, she was. She glanced at her watch. There was no need to hurry back. Graeme could run the café with one of his manicured hands tied behind his back, and Poppy had taken to café work like a duck to water once she’d overcome her outrage at the early starts. Vera had plenty of time to work up some sandwiches and cake for the evening ahead.

She leaned back in her wicker chair, held her aunt’s hand, and turned her face to the sun.