The boy laughed and Marty felt that half his job was done; a relaxed child was so much easier to assess.

‘His ears look fine at the moment. Do you have any other concerns?’ he asked the mother.

‘Actually, I do.’ The woman reached into her oversized handbag, pulled out a Filofax and opened it to a page of notes. ‘I’m worried about his pencil grip when he’s using a crayon. He’s not holding it properly. I read that he should be using a digital pronate grasp by now.’

A parent was the most likely one to pick up a problem, but parenting had changed since Marty had chosen his specialisation. Now it was a competitive sport to raise the ‘best-ever’ child. Perfect kids who came off an assembly line with no human flaws or quirks. In the last few years, he’d seen the stress levels of parents—and their offspring—skyrocket. He’d gone into paediatrics to treat sick kids, but these days he spent more time dealing with anxious mothers.

Anxious mothers. He should be a world expert by now. Since Bella had broken her wrist, Lexie’s worrying had escalated again. Before that, Lexie had seemed to be getting better, although when they’d walked up the ridge four weeks ago, she was concerned about dislocating Bella’s elbow. Ironic in retrospect.

‘Dadda, do the swing!’

Marty had glanced down at his three-year-old, skipping on the path beside him. Even though her nose was red, Bella hadn’t complained about the cold yet. Earlier, she’d bolted out the back door to crunch through the frost, admiring her trail of footprints in the grass and puffing her breath into the air. With barely a beat between them, Lexie had raced behind, dangling Bella’s gloves and a jacket.

Now, Bella was rugged up like an Eskimo, her pink scarf wrapped all the way to her chin and her hood almost covering her eyes. A few strands of dark hair had escaped her ponytail and drifted across her cheeks. Could she see the vast sky that stretched across their heads and met the dark blue of the mountains in the distance? Lexie had said it was too cold, too cloudy for this walk, but he’d won the argument by getting Bella onside. He wanted to take them along the ridge where he jogged every Tuesday and Friday, a wide dirt path bordered by clumps of gum trees, raucous kookaburras in their branches and kangaroos grazing nearby. Some days he wished he could disappear from the hospital at lunchtime and clear his head up here.

Bella tugged on his hand again.

‘Swing, Dadda! Please?’ She smiled up at him, a small gap between her two front baby teeth.

‘You’ll have to ask Mummy too,’ he told Bella. ‘Remember, you need both of us to swing.’

Lexie took Bella’s hand but then stopped and crouched down beside her.