The Family Doctor

by Debra Oswald

  She reached for the tourniquet but then left it in her lap for a moment. Paula had cared for patients after someone close to them had killed themselves. She’d witnessed how cruel suicide could be to the loved ones left confused and guilty. That should have made her back off—knowing this action would hurt people—but the humans she cared about most were gone and she felt pretty much disconnected from everyone else. Except Anita. She hated the idea that this would hurt her beautiful friend, on top of everything else, on top of all of it. Worrying about Anita was what caused Paula to sit on the exam bed with the syringe loaded and the tourniquet lying in her lap for a long time.

  But in the end, she could see no bearable way to go on. The numbed, structured life she had tried did not work. The shame would always be there. And she missed Remy so much, it was a constant dragging pain through her chest and belly.

  She tugged the tourniquet into position on her arm and imagined who would find her body in the morning. It was a matter that should be considered. Paula wouldn’t want to burden another person with a distressing sight. But she figured that by administering the overdose on the examination bed in the consulting room, it would most likely be a medical professional who would find her, someone who’d dealt with similar things before and could handle it.

  Before injecting the morphine, she thought about Anita again, wishing she’d spoken to her, said a proper apology, expressed her love. She considered calling her now but decided that would only end up upsetting her friend even more.

  During those few moments of hesitation, Paula heard knocking on the door that opened into the car park of the medical practice. She stayed very quiet. Whoever it was would give up and go away if the place seemed deserted. But the knocking continued, louder and more insistent.

  Paula took off the tourniquet and put the syringe up on a high shelf before she opened the consulting room door a small wedge. On the other side of the narrow corridor, the knocking on the external door kept going.

  Then someone yelled out. ‘Hello? Are you in there? I can see your car.’

  Paula recognised the voice—Ruby—and rushed to open the outer door. The girl stood there, blood smeared across her shirt, with the dirt bike lying on the paving behind her.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Paula, ushering the girl inside. ‘You’re hurt.’

  ‘Not me,’ Ruby said, and she took a step sideways so Paula could see Jye sitting on the planter box, with blood crusted on one side of his face, gluing his hair into sticky clumps.

  Paula reached to pick the boy up, but Ruby said, ‘Careful! He’s got bits of glass in his head. I got most of it out but might be bits still in there.’

  Paula took the kids into the consulting room and sat Jye on the exam bed. He was quiet and compliant as Paula checked his face and used tweezers to remove the last few slivers of glass embedded in his skin—luckily none too close to his eye. She started to clean up the lacerations, speaking softly to him, trying to be as gentle as possible. Even so, it must have stung quite sharply, but the boy barely flinched, silent and shut down.

  Ruby was breathless but she was focused and clear. When she’d reached her nana and pa’s place on the dirt bike, Jye was gone. According to the grandparents, Wigney had turned up, demanding to take his son, so the terrified boy locked himself in the bathroom. When Wigney forced the door open, he discovered that Jye had smashed the window, climbed out and disappeared into the bushland. The father could see traces of blood on the jagged edges of the window pane, so he knew the kid was injured.

  By the time Ruby got to the house, her stepfather had already driven off and her grandparents had called the police for help. But Ruby wasn’t going to wait around for the cops. She took off again on her bike, guessing that her brother had gone to one of their hidey holes. She found him near the Upper Pinch Road house, in a cave the two kids used as a cubby, a retreat where they kept supplies of lollies and bedding and toys.

  Ruby didn’t trust the police and she didn’t think her nana and pa’s house was safe. But she knew Jye needed medical attention, so she brought him here on her bike, hoping to find Paula.

  ‘That’s good, Ruby,’ said Paula. ‘But we really must tell the police and your grandparents that you’re both okay. I don’t have my phone with me, so can you use the one on the desk?’

  It took Ruby a moment to remember her grandparents’ landline number before she dialled. Then she held the receiver out so Paula could hear it ringing and would be able to speak to them. The phone rang a few times before Paula heard an almighty thumping noise coming from the door to the car park—someone kicking at the timber, then forcing the outer door open.

  ‘Jye! You in there? Jye!’

  At the sound of Curtis Wigney’s voice, the boy froze and Ruby dropped the phone receiver onto the desk.

  ‘You got him in there, Ruby? I saw you on the bike. You got him, you little bitch?’

  Paula lunged across to shut the consulting room door, but Wigney slammed his weight against it before she could close it.

  The man was making wet growling noises in his throat and snarling the same words over and over—he wanted his son, he hated that little bitch Ruby. His pupils were dilated and Paula could feel the heat radiating from his body even a metre away. Wired up on amphetamines, she figured. Then she saw the rifle he was holding down by his side, gripped tight.

  She only managed to say, ‘Please don’t—’ before he swung his arm out, thumping the butt of the rifle into her cheekbone and propelling her hard into the desk.

  By the time Paula squeezed the pain out of her eyes and stood up, Wigney was reaching for Jye. Ruby launched her small wiry body at her stepfather, yanking at his neck and screeching at him with a piercing animal sound.

  He was much bigger and stronger, but the girl was so fierce that Wigney had to put effort into prising her off his neck, dropping the rifle on the floor in the process.

  While Ruby struggled with him, Paula thought about the syringe of morphine on the high shelf, but even if she could manage to stab the needle into him, it wouldn’t work fast enough to help them now. And there was no way she could reach the gun.

  Instead, she shuffled backwards to unsnib the back door that led to the toilets and the rear courtyard. Then she grabbed the weighing scales from the floor and slammed the corner as hard as she could into the back of Wigney’s head. She felt the blow connect, felt the sharp metal edge penetrate the skin, squelch through flesh and hit the bone of the skull. She hoped it might be enough to knock him out.

  Wigney just grunted in pain and spun around to glare at her, blood seeping down his forehead. But he staggered sideways a few steps—enough to open up a pathway for the children to slip past him.

  Paula flung open the back door and yelled to the kids, ‘Run! Now! Run!’ Then she rushed at Wigney and jammed her fingernails into the injury site she had stitched on his forehead. She prised the stitches apart, felt the moist flesh as the wound split open, and blood began to ooze out.

  Wigney hissed with pain and grabbed her arm. Even if she couldn’t pull her arm free of his grip, he was still forced to fend her off, distracting him long enough for the two kids to escape through the door. Once Ruby had managed to hustle Jye out of the room, Paula kicked the door shut and slammed her body against it.

  There was no way she would let this man past her, not until the kids had time to run far enough away, find help and be safe.

  Wigney cursed and slammed his boot into Paula’s belly until she crumpled to the floor. She landed across the doorway, which meant his access to that exit was still blocked. Pain sliced through Paula’s face and abdomen like a knife, but there was still space to have the terrified thought: Wigney could easily pick up the rifle and go out the way he came in, through the car park door, then run around the building and catch up with the kids. Paula would not have the strength to stop him.

  But Wigney was too wired up to think clearly, consumed by his anger at this bitch of a woman blocking his way. She felt the heat of
his breath as he wheezed above her, the weight of his legs astride her and then his hands around her neck. He squeezed her throat, pumping his forearms to tighten his grip, crushing her larynx. Her head exploded with pain but she still managed to thrash her arms and legs, trying to fight him off. Air hunger meant the body would fight to survive and get the air it needed.

  Then, with the sustained pressure from Wigney’s hands, Paula felt herself shift down into a different gear, light-headed, her limbs tingling, hypoxic. She scrambled to calculate time—how much time had passed, how far the kids could have run—but she couldn’t think anymore. Not enough oxygen in her brain to think. This was it.

  The sat nav in the car showed she was virtually there. Over the last few kilometres Anita had seen half a dozen police cars on the highway, lights and sirens going—hunting the bad guy presumably.

  She spotted the sign for the medical practice and pulled off the road, but the place looked very much shut on a Sunday—blinds drawn, Closed sign on the front door. She was about to drive away—try ringing again, maybe ask around at the pub—but then she saw Paula’s car in the car park round the side.

  Anita found herself smiling at the thought she was about to see Paula. She wanted to see her friend so desperately.

  Then she realised the side door of the practice was open, hanging askew, splintered wood around the hinges. Anita stepped through the door and took a breath to call out to Paula. But when she heard strange guttural noises, it made her cautious, triggering the instinct to keep quiet as she moved further inside.

  She saw a man crouched over Paula, hands around her throat, growling over and over that she was a ‘fucking bitch’, loud enough that he didn’t hear Anita come in. Paula was limp, her face blue, dead-looking.

  Anita rushed forward with the impulse to kick at this man to force him off her friend. Her foot hit something on the floor and she realised it was the butt of a rifle. The man heard that and when he looked up, his eyes black, monstrous, the muscles in his thick neck tight and shiny with sweat, Anita knew she didn’t have the strength to haul him off before he killed Paula.

  The decision felt simple and clear. She picked up the rifle. She’d had a go with one once, on her first visit to the Maryvale property. Matt had showed Anita how to fire his rifle at cans on a fence.

  She aimed it at the man’s head and pulled the trigger.

  TWENTY-THREE

  IN THE MINUTES IMMEDIATELY AFTER SHE SHOT CURTIS Wigney, Anita had limited awareness of the flurry of police activity around her. She was told the details sometime afterwards.

  In those first minutes, she was so deafened by the gunshot, ears ringing, dizzy, she had to lean against the wall to maintain balance. She almost slipped over in a slick of blood on the floor, so she dropped to her hands and knees to crawl across the room to reach her friend. She was careful to avoid looking at Wigney’s dead eyes. His body had slumped to one side, which meant his weight wasn’t pressing on Paula’s ribcage, thank Christ.

  ‘Paula.’

  Anita called her name over and over. Paula was unresponsive, her skin blue-grey, eyes closed, her mouth slightly open and slack, but when Anita grabbed her wrist, she was sure she detected a pulse. When she reached out to touch Paula’s chest, she was convinced she felt the rise and fall of air going into her lungs.

  She had no idea if Paula was conscious enough to hear anything, but still she leaned in close and said, ‘I’m here. It’s Anita. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.’

  The next thing Anita was aware of was a police officer tapping her shoulder, asking if she was okay. She was still too deafened to hear any of the emergency vehicles outside.

  The police sergeant took her elbow to help her off the floor and steer her out of the room. He did this gently but firmly so the paramedics could move past quickly to check on Paula and Wigney.

  The grandparents had picked up Ruby’s call from the consulting room and, even though the girl had dropped the receiver, they heard enough down the phone line to call 000. At the same time, Ruby and Jye had climbed over the medical centre’s back fence and sprinted to a nearby house to bang on the door for help.

  In the car park outside, Anita couldn’t properly hear or process anything the cops were saying to her, so she said straight out, ‘He was strangling her. He was killing her. So I shot him.’

  When she saw the paramedics loading Paula on a gurney into the back of an ambulance, Anita called out to them, ‘How is she? How is she? Is she alright?’

  But with the overlapping sirens from approaching police cars and the clutter of vehicles and people and swirling lights, the paramedics didn’t hear her. They whacked on their own siren and lights and accelerated out onto the highway.

  The chunk of time after that felt unreal, impossible to measure or digest, even though there were familiar objects in front of Anita’s eyeballs and people were saying words she understood, following procedures she would have expected. She was still pretty deaf from the noise of the gun, and presumably in shock too, which must have contributed to her disembodied sensation in the police station.

  She wouldn’t have described herself as being afraid during that time, except afraid for Paula. She recalled asking the officers several times if there was any word on her friend’s condition and being told there was no information yet. The cops did confirm that Curtis Wigney had been declared dead at the scene.

  Then at some point, maybe after two hours had passed, the sergeant came in to tell her, ‘Thought you’d want to know—your friend, Paula Kaczmarek, she’s in hospital in Sydney, conscious and stable.’

  Knowing that, Anita felt her stomach muscles finally unknot and she knew she could handle whatever was going on around her.

  The police were methodical, unhurried, polite. Later, when her head was clearer, she would recall that the cops were really very kind to her. And for her part, Anita was being as cooperative as she could manage, answering their questions, sitting compliantly in a room as officers came and went.

  When she outlined the events of the day, she listened to her voice coming out of her body in coherent sentences, but she felt oddly disconnected from the lucid words. One moment managed to cut through the blur and lodge in Anita’s mind with defined edges. When she followed one of the officers to the main desk to fill out another form, she saw a family group on a bench in the waiting area. A man and woman in their early sixties, both worn out, anxious lines gouged into their faces, sat side by side, whispering to each other. A little boy was asleep on the bench beside the woman, his head on her lap, the side of his face pocked with a dozen small scabs and stained yellow with antiseptic. At the other end of the boy, a teenage girl sat with her hand resting protectively on his ankles. A skinny, spiky tough-nut of a girl.

  Later, Anita would understand that these people were Ruby, her half-brother Jye and their maternal grandparents. And later, she would realise that she had killed that little boy’s father.

  As she waited by the counter, Anita saw the grandfather lace his fingers through his wife’s hand, giving her strength or maybe drawing strength from her. Either way, the two of them appeared to be sharing the load of this trauma together.

  Then Ruby looked up and caught Anita staring. At first the girl gave her a filthy look—What are you gawking at, lady? But as she and Anita maintained eye contact, the look shifted into something closer to recognition. Maybe Ruby had sussed out who Anita was and what she’d just done. The girl fixed her with those intense brown eyes and nodded very slightly. A moment of connection before Anita was ushered back into the side room.

  At some point—Anita had little concept of how much time had passed—she heard a familiar voice talking to the officers on the other side of the frosted glass door.

  ‘Yeah, hi. Rohan Mehta. We spoke on the phone. But I’m here as Ms Delgado’s friend.’

  Hearing Rohan’s voice, Anita suddenly found herself shaking and the tears came. She hadn’t cried at all until that moment. And when he walked into the room, she didn�
��t fall into his arms so much as let her whole weight drop against him. He stood there, holding her up as she sobbed.

  ‘Oh, Anita. It’s okay. I’ve been so worried about you. But this’ll be sorted out. Might not feel like it now, but it’ll be okay,’ he said. ‘I’m here. We’ll get through this.’

  Rohan brought her a box of tissues and a glass of water, and they had a few minutes to sit together in the small bare room. He explained that the moment he knew Anita was driving south, he’d jumped in his car, hoping he could prevent something bad from happening.

  Anita nodded. ‘Do you think what I did was—’

  ‘Look, I’m—main thing for me is that you’re okay. Better if we don’t talk about the details now. We’ll find you a lawyer and then …’

  ‘Please tell me what you think,’ she persisted.

  Rohan sighed. ‘Oh … obviously I wish none of it had happened.’ Then he clasped her hands securely. ‘But I reckon you made the best choice you could in that situation. You saved Paula. You did the right thing.’

  Anita closed her eyes for a moment to absorb that. It wasn’t that she required Rohan’s sanction—she was sure she’d done what she had to do—but still, it was a blessed fucking relief to know he was on her side.

  Rohan wanted to stay independent of the police handling of the case, so he left the room whenever there was any official questioning going on. But in the meantime, he was busy doing whatever he could to make things easier for Anita.

  The sergeant’s wife ran a small clothing boutique in town and, as a favour to Rohan, she opened up the shop late that Sunday afternoon. Rohan purchased several new items of clothing for

  Anita—he did pretty well with the sizes—and brought them back to the police station so she could change into fresh clothes, putting her bloodied garments into evidence bags. She wouldn’t have to wear a prison jumpsuit.