Chapter 21: Gareth Chancelor, Saturday afternoon, 10 days later

I leaned back in my deck chair and rested my head on the back, facing up towards the sky but with my eyes closed. My ears rang with the excited shrieks of 21 little girls. We had 19 out of the 22 in the class plus 2 younger sisters. Have you ever noticed that one excited girl will squeal occasionally? A group of 3 or 4 girls will break out into periodic bursts of shrieking. But when you go past a certain number of little girls, the shrieking all joins together into a continuous noise that goes on and on. I guess it tells you they’re having fun. It’s hard on the ears though.

I’m not complaining, mind you. I’m excited and happy to have them all here and have them enjoying themselves, but the continuous shrieking and squealing was getting to me. I was going to be happy when it was time to send them all home again at the end of the day.

Jen and two of her friends, Hannah and Annie, were there as well but they weren’t shrieking. They’d equipped themselves with whistles and flotation devices and first aid kits and were looking like professional life guards. It was probably a bit of over-kill for something like this, but it made the parents feel better so that was okay.

I also had three parents who’d generously offered to stay and help so that was nice of them. Speaking of parents, the chair next to mine creaked as someone sat down.

I peeked sideways and saw Benito making himself comfortable.

“Do you mind if I join you?” asked Benito. He held out a stubby of ginger beer for me. “Here you are, my friend, I brought you a drink.”

“Thanks mate,” I said.

I accepted the ginger beer gratefully and we popped the tops off and sipped our stubbies. Now my eyes were open again I glanced around the backyard. The girls weren’t all in the pool. Some were taking shots at the basketball hoop on the side of the 2nd garage. Others were sitting around gossiping. Most were in the pool, splashing around. They were all in swimmers, regardless of what they were doing.

Everything seemed to be under control, so I took a sip of ginger beer and I turned my attention to Benito.

“Is it strange for you?” I asked. “Is it strange to go out to one of your kids’ parties and meet your patients?”

He shrugged. “My last placement was in Sydney. I would see my patients in my office, then they would disappear into the teeming throng and I wouldn’t see them again until next time they came to my office. Since I moved here, I run into my patients all the time: in the supermarket, at school, at parties, in the street, all over the place. I like that. I enjoy seeing everyone out there and getting on with living. People tend to come to me when they’re at a low point in their lives. It’s wonderful to see them at other times, too.”

“What made you move here?” I asked.

“I grew up an hour or so thataway,” he said and waved his hand to the west. “One of my brothers has lived here in Emmerdale with his family for years. My parents and my grandmother and my sister all live down in Gunderoi. I always intended to move back to this area at some stage. When the opening came up at Emmerdale Hospital, the opportunity was too good to miss, so I grabbed it.”

I nodded to show my understanding and took another sip of ginger beer.

“So how are things in the Chancelor household?” he asked.

I looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “Am I going to get charged for this session?”

He grinned. “It’s all part of the service. Consider this a freebie. Or you can take it as a friend checking up on his good mate. Either way, no charge.”

I nodded. “Things have settled down a bit. Estelle and I are doing better. Bonnie’s tried a few different things to make sure I’m up to the challenge of being the parent in charge.” I shook my head in wonder. “I can’t express how much I adore that child. Even when she’s trying to be naughty, she still makes me laugh.”

“That’s good to hear. It’s important to enjoy our time with our children. They grow up far too fast. You know, despite your unconventional setup, your family is now functioning far better than most of the families I have to deal with.”

“Our unconventional setup is coming to an end. We decided it was time. Jen moved her things back to her own bedroom this morning.”

Benito nodded and raised his stubbie of ginger beer to me in a silent toast.

A little blonde girl came up to stand near us. She was wearing a set of ELC school regulation one-piece swimmers. Benito saw her coming and gave a broad smile.

“Hello Sally, my little friend. How’re you doing?”

She smiled warmly. “I’m having a great time, Mr Puretti. All my friends are here and we’re having fun. It’s good to see you here, too.”

“Do you want a cuddle?” asked Benito.

Sally looked down at herself. “Yes, but I’m wet. I don’t want to mess up your clothes.”

Benito chuckled. “These clothes are designed to get wet. I chose them for today because I expected to get wet at some point or other. You can have the honour of getting me started.”

Benito held out his arms and Sally sat herself down on his lap and cuddled into his chest. Once she was settled, she gave a delighted little sigh. Her pale skin and shock of blond hair contrasted strongly with Benito’s olive skin and Mediterranean features.

“I wish I was your patient, then I could get cuddles from you all the time,” she said.

“It’s precisely because you aren’t my patient that I can do this,” explained Benito. “I’m not allowed to cuddle my patients.”

“Oh,” said Sally. “That’s sad. What if they need cuddles like I need cuddles?”

“I have to apply for special dispensation from the Cuddles Board,” said Benito. “Then they send me an allocation of so many cuddles that I can give to that patient.”

She lifted herself up and looked into his face. She grinned to show her understanding of his joke. Then she cuddled back into his chest.

“That’s what I want to do when I grow up,” said Sally. “I want to work for the Cuddles Board and dispense cuddles to needy children.”

She looked across at me. “Hello, Mr Chancelor. Thank you for inviting me to the party.”

From her position cuddled into Benito’s chest, she reached out one hand, offering to shake hands. I shook her hand.

“Hello Sally, you’re welcome,” I said.

“Sorry about this,” said Sally. “Mr Puretti diagnosed me as being touch deprived. He prescribed frequent hugs and cuddles as a cure. Now all his family give me hugs and all my friends at school give me hugs, and I feel a lot better. But cuddles with Mr Puretti are the best.”

“I believe I have you to thank for putting all the drink cups in lines earlier,” I said with a smile.

“Yes,” she said with a little frown. “They were better that way.”

At that moment, a wet body dropped on top of me and clung to me.

“Hey Dad,” said Bonnie. “I’m just checking on Sally.”

My arms automatically went around her.

She looked across at Sally. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“That’s good,” said Bonnie. “I saw you cuddling with Mr Puretti and I got worried that you might be upset or something.”

I could feel myself getting drenched from the wet body sitting in my lap and draped across my chest. I decided I didn’t care. Like Benito, I’d chosen clothes for the day that could cope with getting wet.

“How’s it all going?” I asked Bonnie.

“It’s great,” she said. “I think everyone’s having a good time. I’m disappointed that Athena didn’t want to come but I guess all of this would be a bit too much for her. But we got nearly everyone else here. Thanks so much for letting me do this.”

She cuddled into me and sighed.

I glanced across at Benito and we exchanged contented grins.

A moment later, Jedda, an aboriginal woman, sank into the chair on the other side of Benito from me.

“Hello gents,” she said. “Is this men’s club?”

“Not at all. Feel free to join us,” I said. “We have plenty of chairs.”

She pulled the chair closer and put her feet up.

“Sitting yarning, with kids hanging on, it’s important business,” she said.

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Benito.

While we were talking, Jedda’s daughter, Bindi, came and silently squeezed into the chair next to her mother then cuddled into her side. Jedda immediately started running her fingers through Bindi’s hair, but apart from that she ignored Bindi and kept talking to us.

Jedda looked over at me and Bonnie. “You two started this challenge thing among Bindi’s mob?”

“I suppose we did,” I said. “Bonnie spent a while hanging on to me then she told her friends and the challenge grew from there.”

She nodded and smiled. “Bindi came home after school two weeks past. Hung on to father for an hour, more. Deadly business.”

The aboriginals around here are mostly the Kamilaroi people. This entire area is Kamilaroi land. Jedda is Kamilaroi. Like most country aboriginals, Jedda speaks in Aboriginal English which is a kind of dialect, I guess you could say. It can take some getting used to if you didn’t grow up hearing it. ‘Deadly’ means excellent, by the way.

Many of the original aboriginal languages have been lost as living languages. Some, like Kamilaroi, only exist as memorised song-lines but are no longer used in day to day speech. As a result, most aboriginals across Australia speak in Aboriginal English. Then if they go to school or work in an up-market business with non-aboriginals, they’re often expected to talk in plain English without their dialect – I guess you would call it Australian English. That makes two different dialects they speak. And if they’re one of the aboriginals keeping their native language alive, that makes them multi-lingual. That’s seriously impressive.

“Hey Sally,” said Bindi. “Have you done the Daddy Challenge?”

“Yes I have,” Sally smiled as she said it. “I cycled over to Mr Puretti’s house and got him to hold me. He carried me around for 38 minutes. Then Mattia carried me around for 21 minutes more. That’s one of Mona’s older brothers. Then one of Mona’s uncles was sitting on the couch and he let me cuddle with him for 23 minutes. That’s a total of 82 minutes of me doing the challenge.”

“You timed them?” said Bonnie.