The days, we soon realise, are long and hot out in rural New South Wales. We wake up in the heat, go to work in the heat, walk home in the heat, then go to the pub to try to drink ourselves away from the heat. I’m too scared to swim in the river in case I encounter a snake; I don’t trust that anyone in the local hospital is competent enough to save me in the case of a fatal bite.

Wingabby Base Hospital has the dubious honour of being named worst hospital in the country a few years running. (I’m not exactly sure where the data comes from for this study, but I believe it.) For some reason the electricity is faulty, and I don’t believe for a second the hospital’s claims it can’t be fixed. This means that the heating is left on even on thirty-plus-degree days, because it can’t be switched off. The hospital might as well have a big sign out the front saying, WELCOME TO DANTE’S INFERNO.

‘All the doctors from Sydney do is complain,’ says Maureen, a thin blonde with a taste in fashion surprisingly similar to Nicole’s, when we meet for our rural induction at the end of the week. ‘The last group were absolutely impossible.’

Despite the obvious shortcomings of Sydney doctors, Maureen has enough kindness in her heart to cease the berating and instead offer everyone a homegrown orange. ‘Wingabby has the best oranges in New South Wales,’ she tells us proudly.

We dutifully eat our oranges, which to my surprise taste incredible.

‘Medical admin don’t give us homegrown oranges in Sydney,’ Estelle whispers to me. ‘Quite nice of her, really.’

I’m so used to steel scalpels and synthetic antibiotics and plastic cannulas I’d forgotten there’s magic in the world not performed in an operating theatre or created in a pathology lab.

My phone pings. It’s a message from the Godfather, who’s sitting on the other side of the room.

Wonder what else Maureen grows on her farm, with a winky emoji.

I show it to Estelle.

‘It’d be hydroponic for sure,’ she says. ‘Everything’s so natural and clean out here, man.’

‘And we have our country races coming up this weekend,’ Maureen says, looking excited. ‘It’s the biggest event of the year!’

Estelle smiles. ‘Who knows, mate,’ she whispers, nudging me, ‘might find me a farmer!’

As we file out of the room and into the sweltering heat of the ward, I say, ‘It hasn’t been all bad out here so far. I mean, imagine if we’d never met the Godfather!’

‘The guy is a genius,’ Estelle agrees as we struggle up the stairs. ‘Yesterday he corrected the consultant nephrologist because he’d got the patient’s creatinine clearance wrong. Like, he figured it out in two seconds. Without the calculator.’