by Steve Low
Eleanor had been back a few days. From the beanbag where I lay, I watched her fussing about a flower display. She worked up against a mantel piece, her feet apart to keep balance. Her pleated skirt was loose over her narrow hips.
Outside, the city hummed. It was Friday night. I imagined the revellers hustling along in groups, excited by each other and their destinations. But myself and Eleanor, we had nowhere to go – not together. I had understood that for some time. As an isolated couple, we functioned reasonably well. Each knew that there were lines drawn, that should not be crossed. But as a couple, in a social setting, we didn’t fit. People who stimulated me, usually proved an irritation to Eleanor. We were virtually rendered dysfunctional. Time after time, I felt foolish and hamstrung in her company. And I knew I irritated and embarrassed her.
“Aren’t you going to study?” she asked.
“Yeah, I guess so. There’s nothing else happening.” I padded along the hall to the kitchen. My books lay scattered about one end of the kitchen table. They had been strewn there for days. I knew she barely tolerated the mess. But if I passed my exam, a rich vein of income would be ours. Money and its comforts appealed to her.
I opened the fridge door and peered inside. Nothing tempted me. I pulled back a chair and sat down. I shuffled the books around. My thoughts flicked onto the ICU. I thought of Jenny McVie, a recently separated woman of about 30. I’d only been working in there for a week. Already she was leaning into me, as we worked together at the bed end. She smiled at me sweetly and looked up demurely from under her long lashes. I could do without another crush. An English girl had wrecked my time in Tunbridge. Nothing much had happened physically - a couple of bungled rendezvous. But the heartache . . . the anguish . . . The wasted time spent daydreaming, instead of exploring the new country.
I lumbered through to the bathroom. I drilled several hundred mls of urine into the residual at the base of the pan. Through the crack in the door I could hear the television grinding on in the living room. After I had finished, I immediately needed to go again. I tried to unzip, but too late, the excess distributed itself inside my trousers. Terminal dribble, I thought. It was the stress of approaching exams that did it. I took off the wet clothes and left them in a pile on the floor.
Midnight came. My eyelids were heavy. Eleanor had long since gone to bed. I had achieved very little. I was too much of a dreamer. Haunting music played in my head. I pondered on the English girl, Jenny McVie, Melanie. Unlikely options for my future circulated. Mostly I was plucked from obscurity into revered success. A rock-star or a writer. I seldom dreamed of a medical Nirvana. Somehow that seemed too ordinary. I would merely following the paths of my brother, my father, and my grandfather . . . Richard had of course followed the revered pathway before me. But in the end he had disappointed Graham. It took Richard many years to shake off the shackles Graham had placed on him. But when he did, he’d done a reasonable job – disappearing into the Australian outback. He’d become a rural GP in the fullest sense. He’d swapped the suit and tie for dungarees and a 10 gallon hat. Graham had been stunned. He’d wanted another specialist, a surgeon . . . But he couldn’t criticise or lecture – Richard hadn’t caved in to the new generation’s debauchery. He was still an upright chap. It was just where and how he was working that had Graham puzzled.
I heard the sound of voices through the drapes. I held my breath and listened. A car sped up the street and drowned the voices temporarily. Howling laughter burst forth, followed by an excited babble –some philosophic argument in the middle of the night. I felt my skin crawl. I should be out there. I should be laughing. I should be one of the drunken melee, not trapped here, in this silent regulated tomb.
In the morning she was happier. She liked things organised. The morning forced us into a template. Breakfast was to be had. Beds were to be made. There were jobs to go to. I watched her bustling about. 4XO chattered in the corner – road conditions, the temperature and the time. They always told you the time, I thought. You always knew, how close your next obligation was.
From the front door came a series of heavy blows.
“Who is that, at this time of day?” Eleanor said, screwing up her nose.
I knew perfectly well who it was. Nobody else pounded the door in such a way. A voice hurled abuse down the hallway.
“Oh . . . it’s Remington,” Eleanor said. She slipped out of the kitchen.
“How’s the intensivist,” said Remington, thrusting through the door. He grabbed the electric jug and rammed it up under the cold tap.
“Help yourself,” I said unable not to laugh. “And the intensivist – ask me after the exam. Maybe by then I’ll really be one. But, do I really want that? Perhaps I am the new Bob Dylan.”
“Jesus what a speech. There’s no evidence for the latter. You’ve never done a single thing of any note.” Remington began emptying instant coffee into a mug.
“Why don’t you have it all?” I said.
“What a septic unit,” Remington said, raising his top lip. “Anyway Davenport, what I’ve come to tell you, is that there’s a party tonight. And you’re going.”
“Aren’t you going to study?” I asked, my mood lifting.
“Do a couple of hours, then go,” Remington said. He added a few more spoonfuls of coffee to his cup - then a load of sugar. Wrapping his hand around the front of the mug, he drank deeply. He slopped some of it down his shirt front. “I’ll pick you up tonight then – make sure you’re ready.” Away he went, as abruptly as he had arrived.
Eleanor reappeared. “He always gets his way, doesn’t he,” she said.
Later I sat in a cold dimly lit living room. Chairs with gaping holes in the fabric, rested on threadbare rugs. Through the window, long grass was bathed in lamplight and drizzle.
“I had trouble extracting Davenport from his happy home,” Remington said, hanging one leg over the arm rest of his chair.
Arnold sat on the low coffee table. He was short, but of ample girth – hairy like a grizzly bear. He emptied marijuana heads onto a filter paper. “I’ve got something here that will sort him out,” he said. Some of the heads bounced off the table top onto the floor. He bent down to retrieve them. The meagre overhead lighting reflected off his broad forehead. He rolled the filter paper and its contents into a tight cigarette. He licked the ends, moulding them with his fingers. The other two watched in silence as he lit one end and sucked hard on the other. His face reddened. His temporal veins bulged. The cigarette tip flared. Glowing embers floated down to the floor. Remington came over and stamped them out.
“We don’t want to wreck your pristine floor Arnold,” he said.
After Arnold had filled his lungs he cocked the cigarette towards Remington. The radiologist took it and inhaled. He held the smoke in for several seconds to maximize absorption. His eyeballs seemed to swell with the strain. I clutched at the proffered cigarette as Remington’s exhalation mushroomed up between us. I created gaps at the corners of my mouth to dilute the smoke as I inhaled. A tendency to asthma underlay my caution. The hot tide overwhelmed me however and my efforts ended in a coughing fit.
“What a poor set of lungs,” Remington said with glee.
“Here we have – the blue bloater,” Arnold added.
“Bastards,” I wheezed.
“Crank up some music Arnold,” Remington ordered.
As the drug hit home, I sensed something akin to distortion inside my skull. A wave of relaxation rose up through my torso. I felt myself convulse with laughter.
“I’m in the therapeutic window,” I announced.
Remington elbowed Arnold away from the stereo sending him sprawling across the floorboards. Soon the room was drowning in chiming guitars and desolate harmonies.
“Ah , , , the Bats,” Arnold said from his supine position. He jumped up and launched into a clumsy dance, laughing uproariously at his own endeavours. The others joined in, flopping about the room to the throbbing din. Exuberant, Arnold reached for his doctor’s bag. “Migh
t as well go the whole hog,” he shouted, as he fumbled about inside. He came out with a syringe, a needle and an ampoule. “Bare your shoulder Remington,” he said. He sucked the drug into the syringe. There was a flash of silver as the needle drove into Remington’s naked flesh.
“Morph is it?” I asked, rolling up my shirt-sleeve. I was often amazed at some of the things Arnold did. He had a conservative provincial background and I could sense that one day he’d go right back to where he came from. But for now he played an outrageous part with ease.
“Ten milligrams for you Davenport – a special gift from the taxpayer.”
After we had all received the opiate, Remington, full of impatience, exhorted us to follow him to the car. Outside the weather was like a slap in the face.
“Cold turkey,” Remington said, struggling to open his door against the wind.
The party was spilling out the door, when we arrived. Rain hummed in the down pipes coming away from the verandah roof. Remington strode in ahead of the rest of us, his clothes entirely black – his hair peroxide blonde. At the door they negotiated their way through a group of youths clustered about fiery cigarette ends. Inside the music was a pulsatile wall – the bass almost physically palpable. Off the hallway, in a side room, figures bobbed and gyrated in a virtual black out.
Remington chose to ignore that room, carrying on instead to the kitchen at the back. There amongst the white-ware, groups of three or four hung about in conversation, or in some cases – awkward silence. Remington, clutching a can of beer to his chest, sidled up to one of the animated groups, some of whom I recognised as radiographers from the hospital. We soon became separated. I found myself conversing with two girls named Lisa. “So you’re both named Lisa,” I repeated inanely, tugging at an earlobe. I looked around for my associates but they were not in the room. Swinging back to the two Lisas, I felt a rushing feeling in my head, as though my brain was trying to exit from my skull. I surveyed the girls again now feeling smug. I felt as though I was studying them from a superior realm – while they in turn looked at me with knowing smiles. This guy is off his face they seemed to imply. After a few more pleasantries I retreated to the room from where the music emanated. Inside it was dark and smoky. The blue light from the graphic equaliser jumped in time to the beat. I flattened myself against a wall, waiting for my pupils to adjust to the dark. The music hardened up and the crowd swelled like a rising tide. I was drawn off the wall to join them - a solitary figure, with only a beer can for company. I bounced about amongst the swaying mass of bodies. Out of rhythm, I was virtually jumping up and down on the spot. My beer boiled and fizzed out the keyhole.
I drifted in between two other women, older than the two Lisas. They were dancing together in a conversational way. Noting my peculiar dance, they laughed and tried to mimic my movements. I was pleasantly surprised to see that one of the two was Melanie from ICU.
“Hello Melanie from ICU,” I said. My hair was falling into my eyes. I swept it back with the hand holding the beer can. One side of my head became sticky and wet. We all stopped the bouncing at the same time.
“Hi,” Melanie said. “You’ve lost your drink.”
I looked down upon the pale skin of her arm, and chatted about the party, the ICU - anything. My gaze moved all over her. The thoughtful face with pensive lips, framed by the dark straight hair, The sensuous neck. The well defined legs below a short turquoise skirt. The burnt sienna top. . .
“Well, he’s giving you the once over,” her friend said, hands on hips.
“This is Beth,” Melanie said, her face impassive.
“Were you dancing, or having a fit?” Beth said. She was shorter than Melanie – more buxom with powerful thighs and short red hair.
“I can’t control my limbs tonight,” I said.
“Oh really,” Melanie said. “We had no idea.”
“Most doctors are disabled in some way,” Beth said. “Usually by their egos . . .”
“Not true,” I protested. “My ego is as small as a peanut.”
The opening bars of Hotel California struck through the room. Melanie and Beth became energised. “This really takes you back,” Melanie shouted at me. The two of them danced away across the room.
Back to what? I wondered, watching them dance away. Something pretty good I surmised, judging by the way they had responded. The music stopped. As though a dyke had burst, we were all swept towards the door in a departing tide of people. Wedged up against Melanie, as we were jammed through the door frame, I was assailed by her trailing aroma of perfume. Who did she live with I wondered. On the floor behind us, a figure in calico struggled to unearth the next disc. “Don’t go,” he implored. “Don’t go yet.”
Later I snuck out into the drizzle. Melanie and Beth had been gone half an hour. Their presence and then their absence unsettled me. I had little stomach left for the party. I didn’t bother informing Remington and Arnold about my departure. I kicked my way through puddles in a gutter. Reflections were shattered into flying droplets, like breaking glass. I said Melanie and Beth’s names out loud. It was like sampling a new wine. I wanted another taste.
Two cars, full of revellers, came up behind me, blasting their horns.
“Off the road dickhead,” someone yelled.
I didn’t look up. To engage them was an invitation to be trashed. “Wanker,” they shouted a few times, before speeding off.
I dropped off Highgate and descended Stuart Street. The harbour lay below – a black beauty, studded with points of bright light. I thought about Eleanor, asleep in the house. Years ago, I had idolised her - carved her name into my heart. But had she ever been similarly consumed? She was too pragmatic, I concluded. Now our chemistry was limp. My heart had dipped into a slow death spiral. How far was it to the cold hard earth?
I crossed into York Place, my jacket alive with raindrops. The house was in darkness. Inside, I stood silently in the hallway, clicking the door shut behind me. I heard Eleanor’s breathing falter then regain its rhythm. Relieved, I padded on down the hallway, avoiding the squeaky floorboards. I hunted the living room for my walkman, groping amongst the shadows. For a few seconds I gazed out the window at the garden, next door. Lying on the back porch, a rubbish bag lay slashed to bits. Detritus had spilled out onto the adjoining pathway.
“Bloody dogs,” I murmured. A chill shook me and I retreated to the spare room. I burrowed under the musty covers. I switched on the tape player. It was the Blue Nile – left field, minor key solitude. I envied the singer. Music and love – that would be something.
Chapter 3