The Family Doctor

by Debra Oswald

  Don’t be silly. I’m fine. Go and have a delightful day with your lovely man. P xx

  And they did have a delightful day. And he was a lovely man.

  Walking back towards the ferry wharf at the end of the afternoon, Anita said, ‘I think our restorative outing was exactly what we needed.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Rohan.

  ‘But look, I gotta tell you I feel a bit guilty about having a lovely time when—y’know …’

  ‘When so much horrible shit has happened?’

  ‘Yes. And you need to know that whatever is going to happen with us, Paula is a huge priority for me—I mean, I can’t just …’

  ‘No, no, I understand,’ he assured her. ‘You’ve got to take care of your friend.’

  She halted abruptly on the crowded footpath in order to kiss him, causing a minor pedestrian pile-up. He kissed her ardently, but at the same time steered her out of the path of an oncoming power-walker with the assured grace of a ballroom dancer.

  When they stopped kissing long enough to come up for air, Anita urged him, ‘Let’s always be open, please—let the air get to things so they don’t go all festy and putrid.’

  ‘Mmm, festy and putrid,’ Rohan said with jokey growl of lust.

  There were delays with the ferries, so they had to sit on the slippery gloss-painted benches and wait ages for the next one. But in their contented mood, that felt fine, as if it was happily prolonging their excursion rather than causing irritation.

  Sitting there, the two of them agreed that they should, sometime soon, introduce each other to their respective families. There was much discussion over how to go about this. The Delgado and Mehta families presented different issues, requiring different manoeuvres. Rohan’s strategy would be to introduce Anita to his sisters first, then allow them to talk her up to his parents, before the eventual parents/new girlfriend presentation. With the Delgados, Anita’s favoured tactic was the surprise meeting—bring Rohan to a large family gathering unannounced. All her relatives would be smitten by him and fall over themselves to be the one Rohan liked best. Thereafter, Anita’s mother would take credit for having identified him as a much better man than the usual losers her daughter chose.

  On the ferry back across the harbour, Anita stuck her head over the side and let the chilly salty air cuff her around the face in a way that felt wonderful. She was slightly windburned, full of food, pleasantly weary from walking on sand and talking earnestly and having a lot of sex in the last few days.

  Anita headed back to her own apartment, alone, in order to get a decent night’s sleep. As she flopped on the bed, she made a mental list of bushwalks she and Paula should do together, music gigs they must book, restaurants they could try. She wouldn’t allow her relationship with Rohan to create any separation from her friend, not ever and especially not now.

  SIXTEEN

  PAULA HAD A MONDAY MORNING OF TREATING THE VERY old and the very young.

  She placed the stethoscope on the ribcage of a three-year-old girl with bronchitis, apologised to her for the coldness, then listened to the air sighing in and out of the tiny lungs.

  She examined the raw, vulnerable toes of an eighty-year-old man with peripheral vascular disease, then talked through the management options with him as gently and candidly as she could.

  She swabbed the perfect, almost translucent skin on the arm of fifteen-month-old baby having his MMR booster. Paula let the baby wail and glare at her, so the infant’s sense of betrayal about the needle was directed at the doctor rather than his own mother. He quickly settled and glued his little body to his mother for protection. By the time they left the surgery, Paula did manage to elicit a wary smile and a finger-scrunching wave from the baby.

  When Paula slipped out to the kitchenette to make tea, she noticed two missed calls from Anita. As she waited for the kettle to boil, the phone vibrated again, with Anita on the caller ID, and this time Paula answered it.

  ‘Hi, lovely,’ said Paula. ‘You okay?’

  ‘What’s a placental abruption?’ Anita asked urgently, garbled. ‘If a pregnant woman has an abruption, what does that mean? That’s bad, isn’t it? Does it mean—fuck …’

  ‘Take a breath, Anita. It’s when the placenta comes away from the wall of the uterus.’

  ‘It’s caused by trauma, yeah?’

  ‘Can be. Not always. But yes, sometimes it’s from abdominal trauma, like a car accident. Why are you asking? Has someone—’

  ‘Brooke Lester. She showed up at Royal Women’s last night bleeding. She rang her mum and dad, or the hospital did—I’m not sure. Anyway, the parents called Rohan from the hospital and they told him she’d had an abruption.’

  ‘How serious? Did she lose the baby? Did they have to—’

  ‘Hang on a sec. Rohan’s talking to someone right now about that. Hang on.’

  Paula stood in the kitchenette, listening to the burble of voices in the background of the call. She could vaguely make out the sound of Rohan talking to someone on another line and Anita interjecting with questions.

  It was a long time since Paula had done obstetrics, but she’d never forgotten a case she’d observed during her residency—a baby stillborn after the mother had been injured in a car smash. She reminded herself that most babies survived an abruption and mothers almost always did, unless the injury was severe, unless a lot of blood had been lost. Paula ran her hand rhythmically back and forth along the curved laminate edge of the benchtop to calm herself.

  Eventually Anita came back on the line.

  ‘Sorry about that. Good news: Brooke’s okay. She needed a blood transfusion and they had to do an emergency caesarean. Shit—sorry, I need to go. Have to take this call.’

  ‘Wait. The baby? Have they said if the baby is okay?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  Paula heard more indecipherable talk with Rohan, then Anita came back to say, ‘Yes, both okay, apparently. Let me find out more and I’ll ring you later.’

  During her afternoon appointments, Paula kept her phone on silent but face up on the desk. That way, if a call came in from Anita, she could excuse herself and take it.

  This urgency, the electric current running through her, the need to stay on alert for any news about Brooke Lester—well, it was ridiculous. There was no practical need for Paula to be kept informed and she was of no use to the woman. But for her own sake, Paula needed reassurance. And that was understandable. If a patient were to come in to the surgery right now with anything like Paula’s recent history of trauma, she would respond to that person with compassion.

  ‘Of course you feel distressed,’ she would say. ‘Of course you’re excessively focused on this young woman with an abusive partner. Of course you’re seeking peace of mind by assuring yourself this woman is safe.’

  Paula would never scold or shame such a patient and she understood she should offer herself the same kindness. But it wasn’t easy to do that.

  When Anita finally called back, Paula hurried out into the street with her phone, needing more clear air around her than she could find inside the practice building.

  ‘Hi,’ said Paula. ‘Have you found out any more?’

  Anita was steadier now, no longer in that wound-up state she could pitch herself into sometimes. In fact, she was in journalistic mode, laying out information in short sentences, careful to clarify when details were verified and when not. Paula appreciated that—it was like a page of medical notes, composed and precise.

  Anita had learned that Brooke had collapsed in the foyer of the Royal Women’s Hospital at about eleven p.m. the night before, bleeding heavily. Her parents arrived some time later. It was still unclear if Brooke or the hospital had contacted Trish and Rob Lester. The Lesters then rang Rohan. Anita had previously given them his direct number.

  Brooke told hospital staff and her parents that she’d been assaulted by John Santino. She said he had shoved her repeatedly against a table. Her abdomen had been slammed onto the hard edge several times.
After the assault, Santino went out, leaving Brooke alone. She experienced severe pain and bleeding, so she caught a taxi to the hospital. Shortly after that, she underwent an emergency caesarean section. The baby was in a stable condition and although Brooke needed a blood transfusion, she was recovering well under the circumstances.

  Paula exhaled heavily, prowling up and down the footpath outside the medical practice.

  ‘Has Santino shown up at the hospital?’ Paula asked.

  ‘No. But Marina’s been in there to see her. By the time the police had a chance to interview Brooke, she denied he ever assaulted her. “I tripped and fell against the table”, she’s now saying. Rohan reckons she looked really petrified.’

  ‘Can the police do anything?’

  ‘They’ve got a provisional order to restrict Santino from going near her. Cops don’t need Brooke’s consent to do that,’ Anita explained.

  ‘Well, that’s something.’

  ‘Yeah, for sure. But don’t know how much use that’ll be in the long run—I mean, if she’s too scared to make a formal complaint and he fights the order in court and whatever … who the fuck knows? How long will the docs keep her in hospital now?’

  ‘Hard to say,’ said Paula. ‘After a caesarean, if there were no other problems, she’d only be in there about five days. But in this case, probably longer.’

  ‘Okay. So Brooke should be safe in there for a week or so. Get this—the cops reckon Santino’s been out boozing every night since his acquittal. Boozing and/or doing drugs. Apparently he can’t go near the bar he owns because people hassle him there. Rohan reckons he’s been hanging out at some other bar called Protozoa. What kind of name is that for a drinking establishment? Anyway, he’s in Protozoa, getting out of it, talking shit to strangers. Maybe he’ll do everyone a favour and stumble drunkenly in front of a bus.’

  A week after John Santino was acquitted and three days after Brooke Lester’s baby was delivered by emergency caesarean, Paula drove straight from work to the Royal Women’s Hospital.

  Walking through the foyer towards the bank of lifts, she recalled the times she’d been here to visit friends who’d had babies. Cameron and Poppy were both born here.

  It was half past seven, towards the end of visiting hours, so the lifts were busy with people heading back down to ground level to leave the building. Paula pressed the button for the floor she figured she would be most likely to find Brooke Lester. She was carrying her medical bag with the stethoscope poking out through the opening. People were more inclined to trust a doctor, more inclined to confide in you.

  She told herself she was only there to assure herself Brooke was safe and well, without disturbing the woman.

  The lift dinged and a family group stepped out, loaded up with stuffed toys and helium balloons proclaiming It’s a boy! Paula exchanged a cheerful smile with them. The maternity hospital was such a happy place. Of course, on any given day, there would be a few unfortunate people dealing with a loss or anxiety about a sick newborn or some other painful complication, but for almost everyone, it was a happy place.

  When she emerged from the lift on the postnatal floor, there was a flurry of activity in the corridor. Nurses were rushing about, a couple of them running, stopping for quick consultations with each other before dashing off.

  One of the nurses turned to Paula with a harried smile. ‘Every baby in Sydney decided to be born in the last three hours!’ She didn’t look unhappy about it, just busy and distracted.

  Paula smiled back and called, ‘Good luck!’ before the nurse hurried away.

  Paula wasn’t sure Brooke was on this floor and she had no idea which room she might be in. Better not to ask at the nurses’ station—they might wonder who she was and it would arouse suspicion. And anyway, the one staff member behind the desk was preoccupied, juggling several phone calls.

  The corridors were relatively quiet. Most visitors had left, the dinner service was long finished and the nursing staff were occupied elsewhere for the moment. Paula did her best to look like a regular visitor, a slightly lost one peering at the room numbers.

  She walked around for ten minutes but saw no sign of Brooke. If she stayed any longer, it would start to look peculiar. She reached the far corner of the floor and was about to turn and leave when she caught a glimpse of a young woman with blonde hair—blonde hair Paula recognised from the TV coverage outside the courtroom. Brooke Lester moved slowly past the open doorway of the room with the typical stooped posture of a woman recovering from a recent caesarean.

  Paula froze, not wanting to be caught gawping. Coming to the hospital was a mistake. An invasion of this woman’s privacy. She should leave immediately.

  ‘Excuse me. Are you a doctor?’ asked Brooke, standing in the doorway of her room. She pointed at Paula’s medical bag, the stethoscope clearly visible.

  ‘Yes. I’m a GP. But not a doctor here,’ Paula responded. ‘I’m just visiting.’

  ‘Oh right. Sorry.’

  ‘Are you okay? Do you want me to find someone for you?’

  ‘No, no, I’m okay. Well, except for—you know …’

  Brooke indicated her hand cupping her sore belly and mimed the line of her caesarean incision through her nightgown. But she was grinning too, sending herself up. She was so open, eager to connect, in a way that was hugely winning.

  ‘I don’t want to bother them when they’re busy.’ Brooke waggled her hand in the direction of the nurses’ station. ‘I’ve got a question about my baby. You’d know about babies, yeah?’

  ‘Oh—a bit. But if you need a paediatrician to—’

  ‘Can you just check if something looks normal? Do you mind?’ asked Brooke.

  ‘Sure,’ said Paula. Nerves were fluttering in her chest but she reminded herself: she was simply responding to a request for help.

  Brooke beckoned Paula into her room then shuffled across the floor in her sheepskin slippers. It was a private room, fresh and cheerful, with a large window, a rocking chair in one corner and an armchair next to the bed. Pink paraphernalia filled every available surface and a blanket printed with pink and red koalas was wrapped around the newborn lying in the transparent plastic crib.

  ‘Oh my God, she’s so beautiful,’ Paula whispered. Her instinct was to whisper—reverence for this tiny exquisite creature. ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Three days.’

  The baby was half awake, squirming in the crib, stretching one body segment at a time, trying out her new limbs now that she was out of the uterus and had more room to manoeuvre. Whatever the trauma of her arrival in the world, this infant looked full-term and healthy enough to thrive.

  ‘See this whitish bit?’ Brooke pointed out a pale spot at the centre of the pink curl of the baby’s top lip. ‘Is that bad?’

  ‘Ah. That’s a milk blister from sucking. It’s normal, nothing to worry about.’

  ‘But it can’t be from sucking. I only just started doing proper breastfeeding and that blister thing was there as soon as she was born.’

  Paula had heard that same breathy edge of anxiety in many new mothers she’d cared for over the years. She smiled at Brooke in the warmly reassuring way she had smiled at other mothers. ‘It’s really nothing to worry about. It’ll go away naturally. Some babies are born with that little blister because they’ve been sucking their thumbs inside the womb.’

  ‘Really? Ha! That’s what you were up to in there, little baby.’

  Brooke and Paula looked down at the newborn then looked up to grin at each other with the gormless delight of people disarmed by the impossible loveliness of an infant.

  By now the baby was fully awake, twisting her head, mouth open, searching for a breast, making surprisingly loud yowling sounds. Brooke jerked with fright.

  ‘Ooh, she wants milk,’ she said, lunging towards the baby, flustered. ‘This is all so hard. Don’t even know how to—oh, shit …’

  ‘You can take your time,’ Paula suggested. ‘Would you rather sit in the chair to fee
d her?’

  ‘Yeah, might be easier on my tummy.’

  ‘Okay. You make yourself comfortable and I’ll bring her to you.’

  Brooke sat on the upholstered chair and took a pillow off the bed to cushion her caesarean incision. Once Brooke had undone the top buttons on her nightgown and unclipped her maternity bra, Paula calmly handed her the wailing baby.

  She was ready to help the young woman get the baby properly attached to the breast. It had always intrigued Paula that something as essential to human survival as breastfeeding was often so difficult. The difficulty seemed like a biological design flaw.

  In fact, it turned out Brooke was managing fine on her own.

  ‘Wow, you’re good at that,’ said Paula. ‘A lot of people have trouble but you’re doing so well.’

  Brooke looked up, her eyes welling with tears. ‘Really? I’ve been worried this poor kid got a shit deal having me for a mum.’

  ‘What? No way. She’s lucky to have you as her mum. You’re going to be great.’

  ‘Thank you for saying that.’ Brooke sniffed back tears and tucked her head down.

  Paula listened to the little sucking noises the baby was making. She recalled visiting Stacey when Cameron was born, watching her feed him, and being astounded by the happily animal nature of the process. Then Paula checked herself—she mustn’t let memories of Stacey leak across and distort her perception of the person in front of her now.

  The peaceful moment was broken by a groan of pain from Brooke. ‘Aww … my belly hurts,’ she said.

  ‘Ooh, I bet. Breastfeeding helps the uterus to contract back. After you’ve had a caesarean those contractions can be extra painful. You okay? Want me to find someone to bring you something for the pain?’

  ‘No, no, I’ll cope. Thank you, though. The baby likes your voice—it’s making her calm. Would you mind passing me some water?’

  ‘No worries.’ Paula poured a glass of water from the jug on the bedside table.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Brooke, taking the glass with her free hand. ‘Shit … sorry—am I holding you up? You’re here visiting someone?’