The Family Doctor

by Debra Oswald

  ‘I always think there’s something sort of infantile about this dish—the spongy top, the combo of salty and sweet, the whole lot soft enough to be shovelled into your mouth with a spoon.’

  Rohan nodded. ‘That’s why it works as comfort food.’

  All evening, she could feel thoughts about Stacey sitting on the edge of her mind, even while she was enjoying the food, the wine, the talking with this man, the laughing. Those good things felt real—they were real—but strangely disconnected from the other reality which was always there, like an indigestible lump in her belly.

  Anita and Rohan kept excavating their way to the bottom of the terracotta dish and talked about their mothers force-feeding them in times of stress. Rohan described his experience as a fat teenager, the weight piling on from his mother’s feeding plus his own secret eating to console himself about being a pudgy, unconfident loser. In the end, it was his desire to join the police force that gave him the drive to lose weight and cultivate some muscles.

  Anita had developed a theory about men like Rohan. If you encountered an attractive grown-up man who was not an up-himself dickhead, it often emerged that the guy had been considered deeply unattractive as a seventeen-year-old. Those adolescent males who were chubby, the late developers, those blighted by acne or whatever—they were the best value as adults. They didn’t carry the unconscious arrogance of the good-looking man and they maintained a sympathetic understanding of insecurity in other people. Now it turned out Rohan Mehta was one of those cases. That explained his slight diffidence about himself, despite his undeniably handsome looks. Maybe it also helped to explain his kindness and the cautious, humble manner. Anita decided not to share her theory with Rohan right now. She didn’t want to embarrass him or give the impression she was sucking up, coming on to him in a desperate way.

  They opened a second bottle of wine, with a verbal contract to drink only half of it, and Anita filled a platter with sweet biscuits that had been posted from Chile.

  Taking dishes to the sink, she was aware of their bodies close together in the small kitchen space. When Rohan reached behind her to put something down, she leaned against his arm, leaning firmly enough that it would be clear it was a purposeful lean rather than an accidental brushing past.

  He took the cue and pulled her close against him, but gently, waiting for her to confirm that this was what she meant. He was restrained, not wanting to presume or push her or take advantage, so she would have to make it even clearer. She lunged forward to kiss him.

  For a moment, she worried she might have been the one to misread the clues—maybe he was merely offering kindly physical affection to a sad woman. But no, when he kissed her, it wasn’t in a kindly way. He kissed her in an unrestrained and lustful way. Even then, he didn’t want to take anything for granted beyond the kissing, so Anita knew she would again have to offer a clear invitation. She led him by the hand into the bedroom.

  The next morning, because there was only insipid light leaking in around the window blind, Anita realised that it was early, not long after dawn. Rohan must have assumed she was still asleep because he was very quiet as he fished around to find his clothes on the bedroom floor.

  Anita should sit up, switch on the light, offer to make him breakfast or at least a beverage. But instead she lay there pretending to sleep while she rehearsed what she should say.

  Possibly she should say, ‘Good morning, Rohan Mehta. Thank you for noticing I was a mess in that car park yesterday and driving me home without being pushy or patronising or fussy about it. Thank you for staying and thank you for a really good night, including the—look, I have to say, the great sex. Also, I slept surprisingly well—so it seems you’re an ideal person to share a bed with as well as an excellent sexual partner. I’m pretty sure you’re a truly good man. But the problem is, this whole thing feels strange—kind of off—because of the way we know each other, so this can never be a relationship.’

  But she didn’t say that. She stayed curled under the doona, eyes closed, as she listened to Rohan pick up his shoes and slip quietly out of the apartment.

  Only when she was sure he was gone did she emerge from the bedroom. After a shower and coffee, she tried to ring Paula, but her friend’s phone was switched off. She must be seeing patients. Hopefully she’d had a decent restful night.

  SEVEN

  THE FLOOR WAS ROLLING SLIGHTLY UNDER PAULA’S FEET. The woozy seasick sensation of jetlag. Elevated levels of cortisol and insufficient sleep the night before. The accumulated minutes of flimsy dozing might have added up to two hours, but the whole night had been infested with visions of Stacey and the kids—the ones Paula already carried in her head, now spliced together with imagined moments from the video on Matt’s phone.

  Briefly, at three a.m., she’d considered driving to the surgery and rummaging in cabinets for some heavy-duty medication to knock herself out, but she couldn’t risk feeling dopey, not now when she must stay clear-headed to find a helpful strategy for Rochelle Ferguson.

  At four a.m., she’d made the decision—she had to be resolute with herself about this—to temporarily stop thinking about Rochelle. In Paula’s current state, her thought process kept sliding into pessimistic spirals which wouldn’t do that poor woman any good. So she must put the problem aside for now. Come back to it when she was in a more fit state.

  In the morning, she contemplated ringing Anita but then let the idea go. She didn’t have the capacity to deal with her friend’s distress on top of her own right now.

  Paula managed the morning’s appointments—luckily nothing cropped up that required too much fine judgement or dexterity. At lunchtime, she stepped out into the street and deliberately soaked up some sunlight, feeling it reinvigorate her a little, like a solar battery being charged. Then she bought a banh mi to take back to the surgery, in the hope food might help her to feel more normal.

  Sitting at the desk, she ate quickly, worried that the smell of the pork roll would permeate the room. If the food didn’t help—if she didn’t feel she could function at a proper level through the afternoon—Paula resolved to finish work early, reschedule a few people, ask Li-Kim to cover anything urgent.

  Even with her consulting room door shut, she could hear an altercation building at the practice’s front desk. There were the loud bass notes of an angry male voice, punctuated by Jemma’s placating responses. Paula shoved the rest of her lunch in the bin and went out to the hallway.

  A large man stood at the reception desk, his forearms planted on the upper counter as if he was about to rip it up off the floor. Every time Jemma stammered out a reply to his badgering questions, he huffed his contempt and waggled his massive skull, as if nothing she could say was worth taking into his head.

  Paula recognised the man. Ian Ferguson, Rochelle’s husband.

  There was a flush of panic through her ribcage. Maybe Rochelle had confronted him, with Paula’s encouragement, and that was why he’d shown up here, angry.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ she asked. ‘Can I help?’

  Jemma swivelled around in her chair and Paula saw how much she was floundering in the face of his bullying. ‘Mr Ferguson was hoping to see Dr Lang but I explained that, um …’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I’m sorry. Mark Lang is overseas at a conference,’ said Paula, moving closer to the desk in order to draw Ferguson’s attention onto herself and away from Jemma. ‘If it’s something urgent—’

  ‘It’s this fucking hand.’ He waved his right hand, which was wrapped in a tea towel, with a small patch of blood soaking through. ‘I’ve been trying to make missy here understand that I need to see a doctor and I always see a male doctor.’

  Jemma threw Paula a tiny smile—This guy is such a fuckwit—but Paula could also see that the poor young woman’s eyes were swimming with tears.

  ‘Ah. Right.’ Paula nodded, surprised by how calm she was managing to sound. ‘Well, both our male doctors are unavailable this afternoon, but I have some time right now if that
would suit you.’

  Part of her wanted Ferguson to stomp away, but another part of her was curious.

  ‘You could go down to the hospital emergency department,’ Paula added, ‘but there’s no guarantee you’ll score a male doctor there either.’

  The man gave a little snort.

  ‘Look, Mr—is it Ferguson? Hang on … are you Brody’s dad?’

  ‘Uh, yes,’ he replied, a bit confused.

  ‘I’m Dr Kaczmarek. I’ve seen your son a few times.’

  Paula was careful not to mention seeing Brody two days ago, in case Rochelle hadn’t told her husband. In case that caused him to wonder if his wife had revealed anything.

  In fact, Ian Ferguson looked blankly at her—he didn’t know or care much about his son’s doctor. His being here right now was simply a coincidence. It could be a useful coincidence, though: an opportunity for Paula to check out this man and assess the danger.

  Ferguson hesitated for a moment but eventually he muttered, ‘Well, might as well get this hand sorted out.’

  Paula indicated that he should follow her to the consulting room. She heard his heavy footsteps up the corridor behind her and suddenly her chest tightened. She was back in her living room, half crouched, breathless, hearing Matt’s shoes on the floorboards. Then a lurch in her belly, and she was in the moment when Matt paused by the bodies of his children and looked her in the eye.

  Inside the consulting room, with Ian Ferguson sitting at the treatment table, up close, Paula was conscious of the bulk of the man. He was a head taller than her, hefty, with a wide barrel of a torso, his fair skin ruddy and sun-damaged, eyes so pale they were almost colourless in that massive head, like an enormous, sallow, weatherworn bull. He was carrying too much weight and there were hints of old injuries in the way he moved, but the power was still there in him, in those colossal shoulders and huge mottled hands.

  Ferguson unwrapped the tea towel and placed his right hand on the surgical sheet to show Paula his injury. The gash down the outside of his thumb wasn’t deep and had already stopped bleeding.

  ‘How did you do this?’ Paula asked.

  ‘Oh, I tripped on the stairs at work and turned out there was a jagged bit on the railing. Badly made piece-of-shit railing.’

  ‘Well, the good news is that it’s not too deep.’

  ‘Won’t need stitches?’ he asked and Paula could detect the nervous little boy inside the weathered middle-aged bully.

  ‘No. A clean-up and some steri-strips will do.’

  Paula turned away to fetch the items she needed to dress the wound.

  Ferguson cleared his throat awkwardly and offered, ‘I’m sure you know your stuff. Medical stuff. But I’m more comfortable with a man. Someone who’s going to do what needs to be done without a lot of chat. That’s why I steer clear of female doctors, wittering on with a load of babble.’

  Paula was astonished at how blatant he was. Most men would hedge and dissemble to cover their misogyny, but not this guy. She consciously fought the disgust off her face and focused on his hand as she sluiced the wound with saline.

  These were the powerful hands that had left a string of purple bruises around his wife’s throat, her voice cracked and hoarse, her eyes flecked with red.

  Ferguson made teeth-sucking noises at the sting of the antiseptic Paula was applying. She relished the little stabs of discomfort she was causing him and she felt the sinews in her arm tighten, repressing the urge to jab her fingers into the raw flesh to make this bastard wail with agony.

  She took a breath, gathered herself, then concentrated on the task of peeling the backing off steri-strips to hold the edges of the wound together. She didn’t speak because she didn’t trust herself not to spew out invective at this man. Her silence made Ferguson uncomfortable. Her lack of female doctor ‘wittering’ threw him off balance, and in fact he was the one who started wittering.

  ‘Don’t think I’m a wimp,’ he said. ‘The reason I’m checking if I need stitches is because I have to take care of my hands. For my business. Can’t afford to have my hands out of action.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ murmured Paula, then let him fill the silence with more babble. Clearly Ferguson found the sound of his own voice soothing when he was stressed.

  ‘I’ve got a security and investigations business. Bit of keyboard work with that, but the major issue is I also do some shooting instruction. I like my security guys to be up to speed with handling nine-millimetre pistols and I don’t trust the clowns you usually get teaching that stuff. So I got myself qualified as an instructor. Need my hands in top working order.’

  Paula saw the gun in Matt’s hand. The ragged wound in Stacey’s neck.

  She swung around to the computer and scanned Ferguson’s medical file. Most of the clinical notes had been entered by Mark Lang. She must talk to Mark when he came back to work—ask for his take on this guy, see if they could come up with a solution between them to ensure Rochelle’s safety.

  ‘I see that Dr Lang referred you for a cardiac stress test and other tests but there’s no record here of—’

  ‘Oh no,’ he interrupted, ‘I haven’t got time for that carry-on.’

  ‘Well, you might want to take more care with your health. You’re a sixty-two-year-old man with a young child.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. My boy’s only six. Brody.’

  The sound of the child’s name coming out of this man’s mouth made Paula shiver. He pronounced ‘Brody’ and ‘my boy’ with serrated edges, possessive, controlling. Was she imagining it? She might be. She might be. Even so, right now, she would do anything—she would rip his tongue out of his revolting wet mouth—anything to stop him saying the boy’s name again.

  Paula pushed herself to regulate her breathing and fixed her eyes on the computer screen, but she kept seeing Brody’s anxious little face, checking his mother was okay. Then she saw Cameron, fretting, scanning the house for danger signs, keeping close to Stacey.

  Paula heard her own voice coming out on autopilot. Her benignly firm doctor voice. ‘The thing is, Mr Ferguson, cardiac health is not something to ignore.’

  ‘I’m not gonna have a heart attack this week, though, am I?’

  What a blessing it would be for Rochelle, for Brody, for anyone else in this man’s orbit, if a sudden heart attack took him out.

  ‘Since you’re here,’ said Paula, ‘we should take your blood pressure and talk about a few other tests.’

  ‘Rightio, you don’t have to earbash me about it.’

  Paula put on the blood pressure cuff, pumped it up, read the gauge—using the familiar steps of the task as a way to settle herself.

  ‘One eighty-six over one twenty … that’s worryingly high,’ she said.

  ‘If it’s high, that’s because you got me riled up about all this,’ snorted Ferguson. ‘That’s from you putting stress on me.’

  For this man, every setback, every irritation, would always be someone else’s fault.

  Paula turned back to the computer monitor. ‘I see that Dr Lang prescribed some medication for hypertension a while ago.’

  ‘Yeah, I stopped taking it. Gave me headaches.’

  Paula should allow this man to walk out of the consulting room and pray he had an almighty heart attack or stroke, thereby releasing his wife and child from fear and violence.

  ‘Look, Mr Ferguson, you can ignore my advice—it’s up to you—but I think you should follow up on some of these appointments. Is there a reason you never got the blood tests Dr Lang ordered?’

  ‘Aww … he gave me one of those—y’know …’ He flapped his hand at the sheaf of test forms on the desk. ‘I hate those pathology joints. Too much waiting. I’m busy.’

  ‘Well, why don’t I just take some blood right now?’

  Paula usually sent patients off to one of the private pathology places to have blood drawn, but sometimes she did the simple stuff herself in the consulting room, on the spot. With certain patients, reluctant or unreliable ones, it was the safes
t way to ensure proper follow-up. As she suggested this solution to Ferguson, Paula was observing herself, hearing herself be the responsible doctor again. Her habits of mind were so strong, feeling the obligation to offer good care even to this vile man.

  ‘It would only take a few minutes and then it’s done,’ she added.

  She saw him wince.

  ‘I’m not big on needles.’

  A needle phobia. Paula felt a surge of vengeful anticipation—it would be satisfying to see this man squirm for a moment. ‘Ah, right. Well, I find that when a patient is scared of needles, it helps if—’

  ‘I’m not scared,’ he shot back. ‘Just not a fan. I mean, who in their right mind likes getting stuck with needles?’

  Paula pressed her lips together in a forgery of a sympathetic smile.

  Ferguson scrambled to regain some dignified ground. ‘It’s a physiology thing. I come over faint. My blood pressure or some issue.’

  ‘That can happen,’ Paula said. ‘But if you lie down flat, you’ll be fine.’

  She indicated the examination bed he could lie on. Ferguson waggled his head to register his doubt, but he climbed onto the bed.

  Paula immediately regretted that she’d persuaded him to accept follow-up tests. Why had she pushed it? She should’ve let him walk his loathsome carcass out of the consulting room with his hypertension buzzing and his dodgy heart ticking inside him like a fucking time bomb. Without proper treatment, there was some hope this guy might keel over and die. Of course, with or without treatment, there was a strong chance he would survive long enough to keep tormenting Rochelle for years. And a chance he would kill her one day very soon.

  While Paula printed off ID labels and stuck them on the blood sample vials, Ferguson stretched out on the bed, his needle phobia making him run off at the mouth even more.

  ‘I hope Brody isn’t a brat when he comes in here,’ he said.

  ‘No, always beautifully behaved,’ Paula responded.