Ironbark Creek

By David Stanley

The world has turned. COVID-25 has created havoc and Cathy knows the key to survival is finding and keeping their home safe. ‘Ambos’ (their word for the ‘turned’) ravage the country while Cathy and Jack fight to build a community, all the while struggling to understand what lies beyond the trench that surrounds Ironbark Creek.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Nov 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9781504323499

David Stanley

David has lived and worked in rural and remote parts of Australia and Africa. He has an extensive academic publication history, and this is his 4th fiction novel. He also writes and performs Australian bush poetry.

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 David Stanley.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by

any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system

without the written permission of the author except in the case of

brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com.au

AU TFN: 1 800 844 925 (Toll Free inside Australia)

AU Local: 0283 107 086 ([phone] from outside Australia)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or

links contained in this book may have changed since publication and

may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those

of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher,

and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use

of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical

problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The

intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help

you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use

any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional

right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Cover Illustration: Copyright Stephen Stanley

Interior Image Credit: David Stanley

ISBN: 978-1-5043-2348-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-2349-9 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 03/11/2022

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 Home Run

Chapter 2 Homesickness

Chapter 3 Home Alone

Chapter 4 Homesite

Chapter 5 Homemakers

Chapter 6 Homelands

Chapter 7 Home Fires

Chapter 8 Home Invaders

Chapter 9 Home-Grown

Chapter 10 Home and Away

Chapter 11 Home Stay

Chapter 12 Home and Away: South

Chapter 13 Home and Away: West

Chapter 14 Home and Away: North

Chapter 15 Home and Away: East

Chapter 16 Home Loan

Chapter 17 Home Away from Home

Chapter 18 Homecoming

Chapter 19 Home Stretch

Chapter 20 Home Truths

Chapter 21 Home and After

Dedication

For Linda, Peter, and Stephen

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

M ANY PEOPLE, BOOKS, TV SHOWS, and films have inspired Ironbark Creek , and many people have helped with its development and production. My brother Peter provided excellent editorial support and offered some great comments about the plot lines, as did his wife Clare. My own wife, Karen, was also kind enough to listen to hours of plot discussion and even read an early draft. All their efforts were invaluable; I am very grateful. I also had a friend, Matthew Larnach, undertake the time-consuming and onerous task of formally editing this work. I am especially grateful to him for this. In addition, Jona Taylor from Balboa Press AU supported the initial development of Ironbark Creek . Jona was followed by Jim Manon, who also offered excellent advice and guidance through the production process at Balboa Press. As did Marj Madkins, and Hannah Martineau also from Balboa Press AU, who offered the initial and significant professional editorial reviews.

As I am not an Indigenous person or female, I asked for help from a female member of the local Wiradjuri community. This was provided and I was given advice from an Indigenous consultant who reviewed the book for its tone and its appropriate representation of the Indigenous characters portrayed. She read the book to ensure it did justice to Indigenous culture and the Indigenous characters and provided some insightful and relevant advice. I felt very blessed that she was able to offer her wonderful Indigenous insight. I feel fortunate to have found this input and very much value the advice offered. Although she does not want to be named, I cannot thank her enough.

I should advise the reader that Ironbark Creek includes interactions with zombies. Therefore, it includes several encounters with brain- and flesh-eating monsters. The book is not for the squeamish, although I hope you will find it is so much more than this. Thank you, too, for reading Ironbark Creek.

CHAPTER 1

Home Run

T HE FRILL-NECKED LIZARD LAY ON the rock, basking in the warm midmorning sun. Sensing the approaching vehicles, its head rose to scan the road. Then, at the last moment, as the three four-wheel drives rumbled past, the lizard darted from the rock and scurried into a nearby bush. The first vehicle was an old Toyota four-wheel-drive troop carrier. Jack called it his troopie. It was tan in colour and had a massive aluminium bull bar with a long, curved CB radio antenna sweeping back from the bull bar to where it was fastened to the roof rack. Behind the steering wheel sat Jack. He was in his late twenties, although he looked much older, with long greying stubble and salt-and-pepper hair. He was alert and anxious as he scanned the road ahead and periodically checked his rear-view mirrors. Behind, two other Toyota four-by-four vehicles followed at intervals of about a hundred metres. Both the trailing vehicles were brand-new white Toyota Land Cruisers. They too had massive alloy bull bars and sprouted long CB radio antennas that made the cars look like demonic insects as the aerials bobbed and swayed in the wind. One had a cab-side exhaust snorkel and bold, high-mounted floodlights fixed to the roof rack. The three vehicles maintained a constant speed of eighty kilometres an hour. Jack pressed the thumb switch on his CB radio and spoke.

Bill, mate. Come in, Bill. Are we still being followed?

Jack’s radio mic crackled as Bill, a young, lithe, and proud Aboriginal man of about twenty-five, who was driving the third vehicle, answered, Yer, they’re still behind us, mate, but a long way back yet.

OK, said Jack. We’ll take them through Welly and see what’s what there.

Ten four, said Bill. Bill was enjoying the drive in spite of the danger behind them. He had a portable CD player in his car, and he had brought a copy of a Cold Chisel CD with him on their trip. Bill turned the volume up and glanced in his rear-view mirror. They were a long way back, but he could still see them.

Ann, who was driving the second of the two new Toyota Land Cruisers, clicked her CB handset twice. Ann was new to the group. She was attractive, young, and smart. She had found her way to the community the way many had: by pure luck. She had red hair and a soft smile, and she had proven to be tough and resilient in the short time she had been with them. Jack was confident she would be a valuable asset to the community. Cathy had taken an instant shine to her. The click system had been Ann’s idea. They had started to use codes over the CB and kept their talking to a minimum when on the road. You never know who is listening, Ann had said. It was how I found you. Jack clicked his CB handset twice and wondered what the car behind was up to or after. He would have to tell Cathy when they got back to the Creek. He didn’t allow himself to think about if they got back. If he were to think like that, he mused, he might never want to leave.

The three vehicles continued towards Wellington—Welly, as Jack had started to call it. They remained at the same constant eighty-kilometre speed. Jack would have liked to try to outrun the car that had been following them since Cudal. He knew the road they were on well, but he also knew the risks of speeding. He knew from experience that caution and cunning were better options. He also knew that the other Toyotas were new and still being run in, and that his old vehicle, while strong and powerful, would be no match in a flat race. He knew the roads were no longer safe either, even though the traffic was practically nil. In the past six months there had been no road maintenance, and after each downpour of rain the potholes grew, the bridges became less secure and stable, and the roadsides became more overgrown. The number of kangaroos had also grown, and the great mobs all about the district had become unpredictable, likely to do as much damage to a vehicle as a pothole or a newly fallen tree over the road. Caution on the road meant a steady and reasonable speed. Jack also knew that the people in the car that had been following them for about a hundred kilometres were not just seeing them through their area. He did not know where they were from or what their intention was, but he could not risk an encounter that would put Ironbark Creek at risk—not after all he and Cathy had been through to find and bring back these final two new four-wheel drives.

As they neared Wellington, they began to see the familiar signs that they were nearing their homelands. Vehicles of all types and vintages were lined up in an almost constant barricade, blocking every side road to the right of the highway. The highway had become a wide corridor with the only access leading to the left, back the way they had come, or onward into Wellington. Streets and roads to the left were unblocked but led only into the surrounding countryside, away from Ironbark Creek. Some of the cars in the long barricade had no wheels or tyres; others had their bonnets raised or removed. Some were painted with the commands Stay away or Keep out, and many had their windows smashed. They were all lined end to end, with breaks in the line only where a wall or fence took the place of the car barricade.

The three vehicles reached Welly as the morning neared midday. They had been on the road since five in the morning. Jack, Ann, and Bill were all keen to get home and deliver the new vehicles safely. Jack led the other Toyotas into the town, entering from the south along what was left of the Mitchell Highway. His unease at entering Welly enveloped him. The road doglegged to the right slightly before coming to the first roundabout, where they angled left and continued along the main road. At the second roundabout, they turned right, soon turning again where the road divided in a Y-junction. Had they carried on to the left, along the main road, they would have proceeded over the bridge and across the Macquarie River, towards what had once been Dubbo. Jack led them up the right fork, with the other two vehicles now following close behind, then stopped just before an intersection. They all pulled up in a line across the width of the road. Bill, Ann, and Jack got out of their vehicles and ran quickly to the intersection ahead of them, where they gathered. Taking cover behind an overgrown bush and looking back down the street, they could see back towards the first roundabout they had passed when they first drove into town. It gave them a clear view back down the road into Wellington. Within moments the car that had been following them appeared in the distance and began moving slowly towards them.

Bill took out a cigarette, lit it, and began to smoke.

Disgusting habit, Ann said. That will kill you one day, you know. She threw in a smile so that Bill would know she was just being playful. Bill smiled and pretended to ignore her, but he knew he should give up. He walked a few metres back across the street and leant back against the front window of what had once been a clothing store. He took a long drag and began to enjoy the rare pleasure of a peaceful smoke. Jack and Ann watched the car that had been following them stop briefly at the first roundabout. It was a dark blue Holden ute with an oversized bull bar and two spare tyres strapped to the cab’s roof rack. Jack thought the car looked familiar. Although it was only a fleeting sensation, it made him feel uncomfortable.

As he and Ann waited to see which way the ute would go, Bill cried out as he fell back through the now-broken glass of the shopfront window. He felt the shattered glass raining down about him. The shattering glass and Bill’s muffled cries alerted Ann and Jack, who ran back across the road to help him. Bill had not seen the ambo lurking in the store. As the glass shattered, the ambo reached out and began to pull Bill deeper into the shop. Bill, having reacted quickly, was holding the ambo off him with all his might and calling out for Jack and Ann for help.

The ambo was an older woman. Her skin had turned dark yellow and was hanging in strips from her upper left arm. Her hair had long since thinned and fallen out, and she was wearing a dirty floral-print dress that was torn and frayed. She smelt of decay, and her teeth protruded from torn and drooping lips. She was thin and sinewy but surprisingly strong. Her eyes were completely white—even her pupils were pale and grey—and her mouth was open, searching. The ambo’s head turned from side to side as if she were seeking Bill out by scent. She had a firm hold on him. Even as he struggled, she fell on him viciously.

Ambos were what the community at Ironbark Creek called the zombies or walkers, or the reanimated dead, that had been stalking the land since the Liberty VAX disaster. One of Jack’s earliest encounters with them had been with two ambulance officers at the emergency department at the outbreak of the plague. They had come around from the back of the ambulance parked near the hospital and had walked towards Cathy and her kids with a staggering, shuffling gate. His first instinct was to call out and warn Cathy.

Look out for the ambos, he’d shouted.

Cathy had said to him later that she thought this had been less distressing to her young children. As they were ambulance officers, Jack had said that it seemed an appropriate warning. Cathy had known them both. Wellington was a small country town, and everyone knew everyone. Cathy had worked with them for years. Jack’s warning had also seemed more humane than calling out Walkers! or Zombies! or The dead! At the time, Jack didn’t actually know what they were, or what to call them, as these were only the second and third zombies he’d seen. Cathy and Jack had started using the term for any of the undead they met. It was a sort of inside joke they’d found amongst the horrors their world had become rife with. Watch out for the ambos, or How many ambos are out there today? had become part of their vernacular as the world and the dead turned.

Calling them ambos seemed to take some of the horror out of the reality of facing zombies who were bent on attacking and consuming them. There was something almost dinky-di about calling them ambos. It made them more familiar and less horrific. Cathy had thought it as good a name for them as any, and everyone at Ironbark Creek had adopted the term. They all knew there was nothing funny about being chased down and eaten by a zombie, but that first time Jack when had tried to warn Cathy of the ambos’ approach, there was a sort of warmth to the warning. Cathy had interpreted it as a sign of respect for or recognition of the two recently deceased ambulance officers.

To everyone else they were zombies or, often, fucking zombies or motherfucking zombies, depending on the level of fear or anxiety involved in the encounter. Cathy felt they were being just a bit more respectful calling them ambos. It always brought a smile to her face to think that this was something she, Jack, and the others could share in the face of the ongoing madness of the world. When they weren’t being described as ambos, Cathy referred to the dead as the turned. She thought this seemed to describe the way they had gone from being human to something else, something other than human. From the start, she could never really explain why, but even though they caused fear and trauma when her group encountered them, Cathy’s compassion often extended to the community and how they dealt with the turned. It was one of the things Jack found attractive about Cathy. But Jack was more pragmatic. When push came to shove, he shoved first.

-0-

As Jack and Ann ran to help Bill, Jack took Ann by the shoulder, saying earnestly, No, I’ll go. You watch that bloody car.

Ann turned and hesitated. With a worried look, she went reluctantly back to the bush on the corner to look up the road.

The car had gone.

Jack found Bill struggling with the ambo. He quickly took out a long hunting-style knife from its sheath on his hip and drove the knife into the head of the ambo with enough force that the blade disappeared up to the hilt. The ambo froze and flopped down on top of Bill with its head between Bill’s legs. Bill went rigid with fear. Don’t bite me down there, you bastard ambo, Bill said as he pushed the now floppy body off him and took Jack’s hand as he was helped up.

Thanks, mate, Bill said with a grimace.

Jack asked quickly as he looked Bill up and down, Are you hurt? Can you still drive?

Some glass cut my leg, said Bill with a tone of annoyance. I think she bit me too, here on the left shoulder. It hurts like hell. Bill pulled at his shirt where he felt the pain.

Jack looked at the shoulder wound first. Not too bad, but yer, she broke the skin, he said. He bent to look at Bill’s leg. This is worse. Jack snatched a silk scarf that had been on a mannequin in the shop display and tied it firmly around Bill’s leg wound.

Can you drive?

Yer, I can drive. Help me to the truck, Bill insisted.

Ann ran up to join them. I can’t see them. They’ve gone, she said breathlessly as she appeared at Jack’s side.

Fuck, which way?

I don’t know. They’d gone when I went back to see.

Time to go then, Jack said calmly.

Ann and Jack helped Bill into his four-wheel drive, then they both ran to their own vehicles. Jack started his up quickly, leading the way as he drove to the intersection and turned right, back towards the way they had come into town and where they had last seen the blue ute. The road ahead was clear. Jack took up his CB handset.

Bill, you mad bugger, you OK back there?

Just get us back to the Creek. I’ll be fine, Bill snapped, through a grimace of pain. He was referring to Ironbark Creek.

Bill, are you OK? Were you bitten? Ann cut in over the CB.

By an old woman ambo too, Jack said mockingly.

I know. Embarrassing, isn’t it? Bill chuckled.

I told you, smoking was no good for you. You need to be more careful, Ann said with concern.

Don’t worry about me. Where did that ute go? Bill asked.

I can’t see them, Jack said, becoming slightly alarmed. Shit, you two, get ahead of me and drive hard for the Creek. I’ll go back and sort this out. As he spoke, the tension in his voice made it clear that he invited no argument.

Don’t stop until you are back at the Creek. I’ll be home later. Jack’s troop carrier slowed down on the highway back out of Welly. He pulled onto the road’s shoulder to allow the two new Land Cruisers to pass. They didn’t hesitate. Within moments they had disappeared into the distance, going back down the highway, the way they had come. Jack swung the troop carrier round in an arc across the road and pushed his foot down on the accelerator, beginning the drive back into Wellington.

On the outskirts of town, Jack slowed down and drove cautiously, scanning each intersection and straining to see up the side streets and driveways for any sign of the blue ute. He stopped at the same first roundabout where they had last seen the car. He decided to drive on by following the Mitchell Highway round to the left as he had on his earlier arrival at Wellington. There was no sign of the blue ute. Jack hoped they had carried on through town and crossed the river on their way up to Dubbo. He drove slowly and turned right at the second roundabout. Then he saw it. The blue ute was parked about two hundred metres ahead at the kerbside under the shade of a massive tree. There were two men standing beside the car. One was urinating, and the other was holding a rifle as he looked about.

They saw Jack’s troopie at the same time Jack saw them. Both men turned to face Jack’s vehicle as he appeared at the roundabout. The man with the rifle brought it to his shoulder and fired off a shot that shattered the troop carrier’s rear passenger-side window. The other man dropped down behind the ute and reappeared with his own rifle. Jack hit the accelerator and swung the troopie all the way around the roundabout to exit the way he had come. With a last glance at the men by the ute, he could see them both lunge for their vehicle. The chase was on. Jack knew he did not have a lot of time. His old troopie was powerful but slow. As he drove back the way he had come, his escape plan was already fully formed. He cursed his luck that he had not just simply left with Ann and Bill, because clearly, earlier, they had given the blue ute the slip. Although, Jack thought, at least I will be able to find out what the buggers in the blue ute are up to … if my plan works.

Jack’s mind was surprisingly clear as he raced to escape his pursuers. He had often found that in an emergency, he was able to stay calm, as if the events were taking place in slow motion. Then he remembered where he had seen the blue ute before. Jack’s blood froze.

CHAPTER 2

Homesickness

Six Months Earlier

The Turning

T HE VIRUS WAS NOT LIKE COVID-19. COVID-25 was far more deadly. The infection rate and mode of transmission were no different, but the symptoms and the outcome were far worse. It was estimated that between 8 per cent and 10 per cent of those infected died, and within six weeks of the initial outbreak in South Korea, millions across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas had died. The race to find a vaccine had started as soon as the virus had been isolated. Both China and the USA had claimed they were on the brink of an early breakthrough. As it had been with COVID-19, the global economy was thrown into chaos. The travel industry, the entertainment industry, catering, and a host of smaller production businesses, many of which had only just started to recover from the disaster of 2020, collapsed. Countries raced to close their borders, and international commerce came to an overnight halt. Travel, both domestic and international, stopped as social distancing and isolation restrictions were imposed in one country after another. Australia was no different as states and even larger cities imposed travel and movement restrictions. Fear strode hand in hand with ignorance and the economic crisis as the regular TV death count updates stoked panic and global insecurity.

The USA, wanting to avoid a repeat of the massive economic and human disaster of the 2020 crisis, pushed their vaccine development through at breakneck speed. Rumours began to circulate that some bad science was being carried out, but the world was crying out for a solution as the body count mounted—and it seemed that any solution was better than none. The USA’s continuing economic and political war with China and the rest of the world had been intensifying since the last virus, and the world had been holding its breath for one or the other superpower to add nuclear war to the disasters that had plagued the world since 2020. Fierce fires raged across Australia, South America, the West Coast of the United States, and Indonesia; drought continued in Australia and sub-Saharan Africa. In Europe, floods and cold blasts of arctic wind had frozen travel and put pressure on electricity and gas supplies. Food security protests in Russia and parts of South America had seen thousands killed as the military forces of a number of countries tried to halt the riots and force people into state-controlled ghettos. In Germany and the USA, neo-Nazis and white supremacists protested about the restrictions placed on their employment opportunities, travel options, and civil liberties and against the influx of migrants whom many saw as a drain on their economic stability or even as the source of the virus. Fear dominated all forms of the media, with social media creating and giving voice to a swathe of origin theories and conspiracy theories that spread almost as quickly as the virus did.

When the USA announced that it had developed a vaccine, the World Health Organisation advised caution. They wanted to undertake human trials and to see conclusive results before sanctioning its wide-scale use. The US government pushed all opposition aside. It claimed that their work on the human genome project and their earlier work on the COVID-19 vaccine had allowed them to move more rapidly than in previous attempts at vaccine development. In China, the head of the Communist Party suddenly became ill, and the USA refused to send its vaccine research or any medical support to a desperate People’s Republic. China cut off all political, financial, and communication links with the rest of the world. The Bamboo Curtain slammed shut. All across the USA, scientists and pharmaceutical labs were given the right to start the process of mass-producing the vaccine. US political forces used the vaccine as a hook to draw back lost allies or strengthen old alliances. Any countries who fell in behind the Americans received either supplies of the vaccine or permission to mass-produce the vaccine under licence from the US pharmaceutical company with the patent. They called the vaccine Liberty VAX.

Within days of the vaccine’s being announced, millions of doses were sent to all parts of the world except China and North Korea. US military personnel were the first to be vaccinated. Then all of the United States’ developed world allies took precedence for vaccine distribution. Canada, Australia, India, the UK, and many other parts of Europe were among the first to receive the vaccine. In developing countries, riots and open civil conflict broke out as people fought to obtain the vaccine. In South Africa, at the site of a local production lab in Cape Town, hundreds died defending the nation’s vaccine stockpile. Hundreds more died trying to get their hands on it. Every day, thousands across the globe died from the initial COVID-25 virus. All over the world, the Liberty VAX formula was sold for thousands of dollars on the black market or on the Dark Web. Worse, cheap, hastily reproduced copies of the vaccine were sold regardless of the drug’s purity or effectiveness. Millions had died from the virus, and many hundreds of thousands had died from the riots and running street battles that occurred on almost every continent. Still, COVID-25 progressed and spread around the world at an alarming rate as the body count increased. Meanwhile, evidence about the vaccine’s ineffectiveness also mounted.

Within days of the first doses of vaccine being released, rumours started on social media of horrific side effects. The vaccine, the cure, and the solution the world had looked for was reported not only not to be saving people’s lives but also to be killing them. Indeed, the early social media reports from the USA, Germany, France, and the UK suggested that death was only the first of the side effects that Liberty VAX seemed to be responsible for. The US president, safe in a secret underground bunker, reassured the world via a daily TV info-meeting that the vaccine was the best vaccine ever and that the USA was humanity’s saviour.

-0-

Cathy held Auntie Ruby’s hand as she helped the older woman to sit forward in bed. They had been friends long before Ruby had been admitted to Wellington Hospital. Auntie Ruby had long seen something special in the young nurse. Their relationship was deeper than their strong cultural bonds and was based on more than the insight or wisdom of the older Indigenous woman. When Cathy was growing up in and around the small Indigenous community shared by their relatives, Ruby had witnessed first-hand Cathy’s resilience and tenacity. Cathy’s parents had done their best, but burdened by their own cultural challenges, they struggled to meet her needs or support her emotionally. At school, Cathy fought to stay focused on her studies, and though a gifted sportsperson, she was not encouraged to apply her gifts. Her parents refused to send her to sporting events, claiming they could not afford the cost of travel or equipment. And although Cathy was academically driven, her parents simply couldn’t see the point.

Reflecting on her own late teens, Cathy’s mother would shout, You’ll be pregnant before you’re fourteen. You’re wasting your time. Her father simply took no interest in her. She was the child he had not wanted. Jealous or bitter about his own frustrating childhood, he did his best to avoid her. At first, and for a long time, Cathy fought hard for her parents’ attention, although in the end it was only Auntie Ruby who had seen her value and her worth. As Cathy grew, she sought out the older woman’s company more and more. Cathy ignored her parents’ criticism, lack of interest, and apathy. She could see why they were the way they were, but she wished for more from them.

Cathy knew the very real challenges faced by Indigenous people growing up in rural Australia: bigotry, bias, prejudice, fear, apathy, financial hardship, and problems with access to safe housing or an education. She also knew that she would only find a better life if she could gain an education, find the positive messages from within her culture, and dodge the bigotry and prejudice she would face in the wider world.

Her aunt Ruby had seen Cathy’s will to do better. Ruby, who had always lived in Wellington, had been an outspoken woman in the local community. She had strong links to her Indigenous culture and stronger connections to country. She had once had a place on the local council and had lobbied for greater recognition of the Indigenous community’s welfare—her community’s welfare. For help with housing and employment and, in Cathy’s case, financial support with a small scholarship to go to Bathurst and study nursing, Cathy had come back to Wellington in her graduate year once her studies were complete. Her mother had become ill, and Ruby had been admitted to a residential care home by this time. This was eight years ago, and Cathy had resisted her aunt’s insistence that she move on to a bigger town or even down to the Big Smoke of Sydney. Cathy knew she might leave one day, but she had made a promise to herself that she would stay and care for her mother and Auntie Ruby and only consider leaving once they had gone. Until then, she would stay living and working in Wellington.

The hospital where Cathy worked was typical of the small state-run health facilities across New South Wales. It had a small emergency department, ran a number of clinic rooms for visiting medical officers and other specialists, and had a small GP clinic that ran most weekdays. There were several acute beds and a few aged care beds set aside for Wellington locals. Cathy’s father had been killed the year Cathy had started at university. He had been in a single-car road traffic accident with his car hitting a tree on a bend to the west of town. Both speed and alcohol were implicated in the crash. While Cathy took time from her studies to attend the funeral, mainly she used the time to visit Auntie Ruby and catch up with some of her school friends and cousins. Cathy’s mother died two years after Cathy had finished her nursing studies, from lung cancer. The last thing she had said to Cathy before she passed was that she could not have been prouder of her.

Now in her late twenties, slim and attractive, Cathy was starting to feel she might have missed her opportunity to go to the big city and have a very different life. But she couldn’t leave Ruby, not after all the older woman had done to help her when she was growing up. Cathy had had two children within a few years of starting work in Wellington. Their father, whom Cathy had known since childhood, did not stay long. Cathy was left to do the best she could, working full-time and extra hours to bring up the two small boys. By this time, Auntie Ruby or her mother had not been able to help, but Cathy had never regretted having the boys. She did everything she could to support and encourage them, but she was not alone. Cathy’s cultural obligations and involvement meant that she was often willing and able to help her relatives with financial support, accommodation, or transport. She always did what she could, although it increased her own commitments and stretched her resources. Still, she made sure her boys grew up surrounded by family, strong cultural influences, and love. Culture, she knew, had a cost, but it also kept her strong and centred on her family. Ruby had taught Cathy well. The older woman had made sure Cathy never lost her sense of country, place, or identity. But life was still hard. Cathy, not wanting to leave, held off making the decision to go. But she realised that for her and her boy’s future, she would have to leave and find work in a bigger city hospital. Auntie Ruby had supported Cathy’s decision and lamented that she had taken so long to decide to go. Cathy had been about to resign when the virus struck.

-0-

Here, sit up and eat your breakfast, Auntie, Cathy said, placing a cloth bib across Ruby’s chest.

Thank you, dear.

You know there are other patients who need your help? Anthea called as she stalked past the door to Ruby’s room. Anthea was the more senior of the two nurses, at least in her own mind. She was in her midtwenties. Her blonde hair was always neat and tidy, and today it was tied in a simple bun. Anthea was a little rotund but not obese. She had trained in Sydney and had always assumed her skills, knowledge, and experience were superior to Cathy’s, even though Cathy had graduated three years before Anthea. Anthea had worked for four months at Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital, in their emergency department. Cathy thought this had given Anthea some sort of delusion of superiority. Cathy was frequently on the wrong end of Anthea’s criticism as Anthea felt compelled to find fault or to offer advice that usually began with, Well, they don’t do it that way in Sydney, or At the Royal, we did things better, or Well, in the city we would have better equipment [or doctors, or work practices, or whatever]. Cathy had become accustomed to the petty bullying that was prevalent in hospitals across the health service, but it felt as if Anthea was practising to make an art form out of her bullying behaviour. Anthea often said the small rural town’s medical facilities were backward, or out of date, or old hat. Anthea particularly revelled in tormenting Cathy. Cathy let most of the hurtful comments pass her by. She had taken worse abuse from her parents growing up—and Anthea looked the sort who wouldn’t stay long in the rural hospital. Cathy held her tongue and did her best to stay out of Anthea’s way. Still, in the small-town hospital, some days were more difficult than others.

It was always more difficult when the criticism was aimed directly at Cathy. Cathy had always thought that nursing had some sort of sisterhood in that nurses, who cared for other people, would naturally care for each other as they faced the same challenges and risks. She soon realised this was not the case. Nurses, Cathy had come to realise, were bitches. It had started when she was a student. She had assumed it was part of the usual Indigenous bigotry, but it felt different. She was bullied by doctors, senior nurses, and clinical educators and by anyone who felt in any way able to have a go. Even fellow students would put the boot in if they could. Cathy thought it made them feel better to be making someone else’s life more miserable. Her saving grace had been her upbringing again. She had faced worse and had been made to endure much more shit to get through primary school and then high school than her nursing bullies knew. Cathy had developed a heightened sense of self-awareness of her surroundings out of necessity. She had generally seen the challenges of her training, and now those of her workplace, as a sort of rite of passage that must be endured and struggled through. Knowing that everyone was dealing with something, she made sure she didn’t add to others’ burdens. But Anthea seemed to find a perverse joy in making others suffer. At least three other nurses had left the hospital after Anthea had arrived. All of them had been on the receiving end of Anthea’s special attention. The director of nursing, Sheila, who had also come from the Royal North Shore Hospital, didn’t understand the problem or see the bullying. Every complaint, if it even reached her ears, was dismissed as playfulness, or a misunderstanding, or misinterpreted communication, or other nurses being jealous of Anthea’s ability.

Cathy never complained. At first this made her more