Prologue

It was three hours into Christmas Day but the young man’s grim face displayed none of the seasonal spirit of goodwill to all men. He stormed through the Royal Darwin Maternity delivery suite’s doors, ignoring the desperate high-pitched wail of “Wait, Mark, please wait,” in his wake.

As Mark stomped down the corridor, following the green exit signs, he discarded one by one, the face mask, the latex gloves and the hospital gown protecting his formal crisp white shirt, black silk cummerbund and trousers. He threw each one violently to the floor, barely breaking his determined stride towards the exit. He did lean on the wall momentarily while he removed the transparent galoshes covering his shiny patent leather shoes. The loose ends of a bow tie around his neck, which had been untied some hours earlier, hung down as he bent over. This must have reminded him of the mad rush to the maternity section of the hospital from his father-in-law George Stone’s formal Christmas Eve dinner. It was during the serving of the main course that Maggie’s waters broke.

He turned the final corner in the corridor and continued wordlessly as he strode determinedly through the open area which served as a waiting room on his way out, his desperate clutching for breath demonstrated his need for fresh air and the roads leading south, leading away from Darwin.

Here, Maggie’s closest relatives had hung on during her long hours of labour and waited for news.

Selena, George’s latest girlfriend, thirty years The Darwin Sentinel newspaper owner-editor’s junior, was the first to react to Mark’s stern countenance with concern, “Is everything alright with the baby, Mark?”

His father-in-law George laughed with an undisguised sneer in his voice, and held nothing back in expressing his thoughts, “Leave him be, Sel, It’s Mark being the usual wuss who’s about to lose his Chrissie Eve dinner. Let him go outside and chunder, before he returns to tell us know what my Margaret’s had.”

“Wasn’t she being prepared for a Caesarian, as the labour had gone on so long?” heavily pregnant Jenny, Selena’s daughter from a previous marriage, asked in a whisper. Mark idly registered Jenny’s husband Jack stretched out asleep on a sofa by the wall.

“No,” Selena answered, “there’s not been time for a Caesarian, and they don’t do any operations on the sixth floor anyway. She must’ve restarted birthing while the surgeons were examining her.”

Well, George was right. Mark, did lose his dinner, just before he reached his faithful ute, parked crookedly where he had left it in a hurry on their desperate arrival. He drove home, although was it still his home, he thought? It was Maggie’s home now. Mark packed up what little of his gear he cared anything about, plus his cameras, and drove nonstop down to Melbourne and Aunt Milly, his only living relative.

He hadn’t returned to Darwin in the five years since, but now, on Christmas Eve 2018, he was at the start of his way back and parked for the night at a truck stop just south of Port Augusta, South Australia. Let’s let Mark take up his story in his own words.