And the diagnosis of PMT was not far off either. Rather than it being pre-menstrual tension, though, it was pre-mother tension. For it was on the twentieth of each month that my mother called. From wherever in the world she might be. That simple call was sufficient to trigger a depressive episode so severe that I always ensured I was rostered off work that day.
To mitigate the effects of her call, I usually spent the morning of the twentieth in my studio. I was working on a Japanese-style mural – a four-metre by two-metre red flame of a fabric painting with a gold Japanese maple leaf motif. It’d been inspired by a lecture about Lafcadio Hearn, the great twentieth-century orientalist and Japanophile at the Wheeler’s Centre I’d attended. I’d bought one of his books – Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things – simply for the kick of being terrified by Japanese ghost stories in my flat above the meatworks.
But that morning I could not concentrate, my hand constantly darting towards the phone and my heart in my mouth. I’d tried to pin my mother down to get her to agree on a time to call me, but she wouldn’t agree to that. ‘I raised you for eighteen years and you want me to make an appointment to call you?’ she’d asked, incredulous.
By half past ten that morning, all the cups of chamomile tea I had been drinking conspired against me and I bolted to the loo. And as always, my mother had perfect timing and called me midstream. I literally ran to get the phone with wee dripping down my legs and onto my jeans, then sat gingerly on the edge of my hammock to talk to her, thinking of all the hundreds of time in my life that my mother had me wetting my knickers.
‘Now, can you explain to me why your father’s HDLs are up?’ my mother opened. ‘And the doctor said that my blood pressure is a little on the high side too. What do you think I should do about that?’
‘Can you get your doctor to email me your test results?’ I sighed, looking up at the sky. ‘I’ve given him my email details before.’
‘Oh, we’ve changed doctors,’ my mother replied airily.
‘Why? I thought you loved James Hodges. His practice is within walking distance of your place and he bulk-bills.’
‘But we’re seeing Brently George now. He is the Peraras’ and the de Silvas’ doctor and it’s nice to go as a group to see him.’
‘Mother, you are not going to the doctor to have a pedicure,’ I groaned. ‘You should not be shopping for doctors. You should have continuity of care. That’s important at your age.’
‘Well, there would not be any issue of continuity of care if your brother had become a doctor instead of you!’ my mother roared. It would have been unethical for Ryan to treat my parents, just as it was for me, but rationality wasn’t a character trait my mother was known for.
I sighed. In twelve years the conversation hadn’t changed. Twelve years since I’d been accepted into medical school instead of my twin Ryan.
‘What if she gave up her position in medical school for Ryan? Can’t we swap one child for the other?’ she’d demanded of the dean of admissions at Sydney University. The dean politely refused to see her ever again.
However, halfway through first year, my anatomy teacher caught me crying while dissecting an arm. Perhaps it was the fumes of the chloroform used to preserve the cadavers that finally loosened my tongue and had me pouring out a lifetime of grief to her.
‘I’m sleeping in the garage now. She won’t let me into the house anymore,’ I sobbed.
The professor had gone away and a few weeks later I’d had a meeting with her and the course convener.
‘We can organise for you to receive a full scholarship and you can live on campus at one of the colleges. Would that be preferable to staying at home with your parents?’ the course convener had asked.
I’d nodded, taking with both hands the opportunity to escape my tormentor. I told my mother that living on campus was a condition of the scholarship, but she didn’t care, as long as she didn’t have to pay my fees. As soon as I graduated, I moved to the colder but more comfortable Melbourne, where I could be close to my aunt Fatima, an old family friend who’d cared for me when I was a child – and been more of a mother to me than Anoja ever had.
I stayed on the phone listening to my mother rant until she was spent, which was a good thirty minutes later. I did not argue or try to interrupt. When she was done she hung up.
I curled up like a ball in the womb-like confines of the red hammock, taking comfort from the feel of the roughly hewn cotton fabric against my skin. I couldn’t ever remember being held by my mother – and she actually boasted about the fact.
‘I never cuddled Marion as a child. I only ever picked her up to change her nappies. One day she cried for five hours straight. After that she stopped crying. Altogether. She’s never cried since.’
Pressing my face against the bright red of the hammock, I wished I could cry. Perhaps then I could actually feel my heart beat just for once, instead having to rely on my stethoscope for proof.
‘I know some of you are not keen,’ the director of medicine informed the staff on the palliative care ward. ‘But the Nairs are willing to pay you double-time and a half for in-home care until Shanthi Nair passes.’
Such arrangements were not uncommon. Families sometimes wanted to be in more familiar surroundings to help ease the passing of a loved one. It was not unusual for people to come into a palliative ward and then go home if the end became a protracted process. And in Shanthi Nair’s case, it was fast becoming clear that that was how things would pan out. She’d rallied extremely well once her son had arrived. While she was not well enough to return to India, she did not require the constant medical care needed by a person about to die.
In these cases, St Jude’s provided an in-home service complete with twenty-four hour nursing care and a doctor on stand-by as well. Only this time, nursing staff were proving difficult to get. I wasn’t surprised.
‘You won’t have to go far,’ the director of nursing rushed to assure the mutinous group of nurses. ‘Mr Nair has secured a beachfront house in Brighton. It is lovely. I went there myself. Three storeys.’
‘He treats us like maids,’ Jodi said furiously.
‘He won’t even look us in the eye, ignores us and just barks orders at us,’ Kristen seconded.
‘Mr Nair? I don’t believe you. He’s lovely!’ the director of nursing said. ‘And you will have the top floor to yourselves with your own private balcony and a private swimming pool – you certainly won’t be treated like maids.’
‘We’re not talking about Mr Nair, we’re talking about his son Lucky!’ Kristen retorted. ‘I am not going to that house to work for him!’
Several other nurses nodded in agreement, their arms crossed militantly across their chests. Both the director of medicine and the director of nursing looked beseechingly at me. I was standing at back of the room with my back to the wall. I felt like I should join the protest too. I had been on the receiving end of Lucky Nair’s rude behaviour too and I’d had enough.
‘It’s too cold in here, doctor. Fix it.’
‘The tap in the bathroom is broken, doctor. Fix it.’
‘The coffee in the cafeteria is bad, doctor. Fix it.’
I sometimes wondered whether he thought my name was Doctor Fix It. And he seemed to see past my invisibility cloak, which irritated me no end.
‘You are a very attractive woman, you know,’ he observed in the corridor one day. ‘Never mind the drab clothes you wear.’
‘I am a doctor, not a fashion model,’ I’d slapped him down. ‘And shouldn’t you be visiting your mother and not perving on her carers?’
‘ “Perving” is not exactly what I’d call it; rather a car crash you can’t help look at!’
He’d then disappeared into his mother’s room before I could think of a suitable retort.
‘Come on,’ I said, trying to rally the troops. ‘You know this isn’t for him. It’s for her. Mrs Nair is the one dying.’
‘Look, I feel for her, but I’ll be damned if I�
�ll be treated like shit by her son,’ Jodi said.
‘Jodi, what are their options? She won’t last the ten-hour flight back to India. They’re not Australians, or even permanent residents, so they don’t qualify for Medicare. Should we let them go and tell them to find agency nurses for themselves?’
There was a rumble of discontent. Agency nurses were regarded with more than a mild degree of contempt.
‘Yes, imagine that. That wonderful woman is dying, too shy to ask for pain relief even when she’s suffering, and you want to put her in the hands of contract nurses?’
‘Okay!’ Jodi agreed. ‘I’ll go, but I want you at the house when I’m there!’
‘What do you mean?’ the director of nursing asked.
‘I will only work for the Nairs if Marion is there with us!’ Several other nurses nodded their agreement.
‘But Dr Gamage must be here on the ward. Doctors do two visits a day to support external patients, but that is it,’ the director said.
‘Then we won’t go.’
The director of nursing and the director of medicine briefly spoke to each other before turning to look at me. ‘Marion, will you do this for us?’ the director of medicine pleaded. ‘Lucky Nair has promised a hefty donation to the hospital. Enough to fund several research scholarships.’
‘Excuse me? You want me to go and live at the Nairs?’ I demanded.
‘Please?’ the director begged. ‘It’ll be like a holiday by the beach. We’ll even pay you double-time.’
I straightened my shoulders to refuse. Goddamn it, I was doctor, not a nurse, and I opened my mouth to say as much when I saw old Mr Nair. He’d escaped his son’s clutches momentarily and limped painfully out to the little balcony for a breath of fresh air. He was such a sweet old man. So kind and gentle. I watched as he gallantly stood aside for two elderly ladies coming in from the balcony.
‘Okay,’ I agreed softly, though the words sounded strange even to my own ears.
I learned more about family living in the brief time I spent with the Nairs in Brighton than in my entire previous dysfunctional personal life before that. I also learned that Lucky Nair wasn’t such a big arse after all. Perhaps.
For one thing, he’d moved heaven and earth to find his parents a comfortable home. ‘Oh, puttar,’ Shanthi Nair had gasped, seeing the elegant Victorian house on the tiny rise at the end of Cole Street in Brighton.
‘I knew you wouldn’t want one of those glass and concrete houses,’ Lucky replied softly, pointing to the postmodern crimes against aesthetics that flanked the Victorian masterpiece on either side.
‘Look at the gardens,’ Raju Nair said as the medical transport personnel wheeled Shanthi in through the cottage garden filled with roses, lilacs and geraniums in full bloom.
It was not a bad place to spend your last days really. The ‘library’ was as large as my entire apartment and the windows overlooked expansive lawns onto the beach and Port Phillip Bay just beyond. People were making the most of the hot weather with the distant hum of jetskis and sailors calling out to each other from their sailboats.
I could not fault Lucky’s sense of what was appropriate either. ‘I’ve had them convert the library into Amman’s room. My parents will sleep in there. I’ve also had them place the nurses’ station in the dining room adjoining that. There is a little sofa bed in there and a sealed closet for all the medication.’
‘So where are we supposed to sleep?’ Jodi asked grumpily.
‘On the second floor. Whoever is on duty will have use of the master bedroom, and Dr Gamage can have the use of the second room.’
‘And where are you sleeping?’
‘There is a little attic on the top floor,’ Lucky said. ‘It doesn’t matter where I sleep.’
‘Because he’ll most likely sleep at the foot of our bed,’ Shanthi called out weakly.
‘And we’d only just succeeded in booting him out too!’ Raju laughed.
‘You still sleep with your parents?’ I asked with a smirk.
‘I moved out of their room when I was sixteen!’ Lucky said.
‘Because you went to London for your studies,’ his mother reminded him. ‘Doctor, the night before he went, he slept between his father and I like he was a baby!’ Mrs Nair laughed.
‘Call me, Marion, please,’ I said.
‘Such a pretty name for such a pretty girl,’ Mrs Nair sighed, making me feel very uncomfortable.
‘I swear I’ve seen your face before,’ Raju said for the hundredth time since he met me.
‘Yes, you do look so very familiar to me too,’ Shanthi seconded.
‘Are you sure you don’t have any relatives in Tamil Nadu?’ even Lucky asked. ‘Have you ever been to India?’
‘No,’ I muttered. ‘I have never been to India, or even back to Sri Lanka for that matter.’
‘You haven’t travelled much then?’ It was Lucky’s turn to smirk now.
‘I go overseas at least twice a year for medical conferences so I make sure I see much of where I go to,’ I replied. Yes, I feel uncomfortable with my lack of worldliness. ‘You’ve travelled extensively then?’
‘These two dragged me everywhere and anywhere. But I would have preferred a brother or sister,’ he returned glaring at his parents. For their part they just rolled their eyes. ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’
‘Yes,’ I admitted brusquely before helping Jodi to set up all the equipment we needed – heart rate monitors, resuscitation carts and a drip line while a friendly argument broke out amongst the Nairs about the sibling they never provided for Lucky.
‘So, are you close to your siblings?’ Shanthi asked me as we worked. ‘Do you have brothers or sisters?’
‘A brother.’
‘Older or younger?’
‘A twin.’
‘You are a twin? Oh, how wonderful! You must be so very close.’
‘What does he do?’ Raju asked. ‘Is he a doctor like you?’
‘No. He moved to Sri Lanka last year and works for my uncle’s business.’
‘Oh, what kind of business does he run?’ Lucky asked arrogantly. ‘I have some interests there too.’
‘My uncle runs a waxworks,’ I replied, but was cut off by Raju, who was looking curiously at his son.
‘Since when have you developed an interest in Sri Lanka?’ his father asked.
‘Since I lodged legal claims for the old saree mill in Panadura six months ago. That was why it took me a few days to get here from London. I stopped in Sri Lanka en route to finalise the deeds – I would never have done it if I’d known why you were asking me to come – but the courts found in our favour. The squatters have been kicked out. Appa, the saree mill is ours again.’
‘Are you even Sri Lankan?’ Lucky asked, eyeing my dinner plate with distaste. It’d been about a week since we’d all moved into the house in Brighton and the peace was, at best, tenuous. The nurse on duty took one look at him as he strolled into the kitchen from the laundry and bolted out of the room with her salad, leaving me alone with him. By and large the nurses had taken to eating their meals in the sitting room upstairs and avoiding the surly Lucky altogether.
‘I’m brown, aren’t I?’
‘So what is that you’re eating then? Burnt meat and boiled vegetables. Why aren’t you eating the food the caterers dropped off?’
‘Because I’ve been working at St Jude’s for almost four years now and I’ve eaten that food on rotation so often it makes me gag.’
‘Can’t you cook?’ he asked grumpily as he helped himself to some food from the fridge. He’d got in contact with some local Indian caterer and they kitted out the fridge every couple of days with foods whose sumptuous fragrances nearly made me swoon.
‘Clearly not, since all the food I eat is raw,’ I said sarcastically, pointing to the medium-rare lamb cutlets and crisp wok-tossed vegetables on my plate. Oh, the man was infuriating, but I’d be damned if I’d eat my meals like the nurses, in solitary confinement.
‘So why don’t you eat the food I have had the caterers deliver? I understand that the Australian nurses may find it a little spicy but you should be fine with it,’ Lucky said, sitting down with a plate of biryani, lamb curry and a glass of red wine. He was dressed in a pair of camel-coloured pants and a charcoal T-shirt. He’d just come back from a swim in the bay and had a shower, and there was water still clinging to his hair.
‘Because it’s a free country and I can do what I want to do. That includes eating what I want to eat.’
‘India is a free country, only our women aren’t as opinionated as you!’
‘Clearly you must have failed history in high school if you think all Indian women are meek and subservient. Remember Indira Gandhi? And isn’t the chief minister of Tamil Nadu a woman too? Jayalalithaa? Hardly a bunch of wilting flowers your country has produced.’
‘The current chief minister is a man – but yes, Jayalalithaa was the chief minister for Tamil Nadu for a long time,’ Lucky said, looking impressed. ‘You are quite worldly for an Australian. Very few people outside India know much about its politics.’
‘Why do you suppose Australians are ignorant? Australians are among some of the best-travelled people in the world.’ I looked daggers at him and made a neat cut into my meat.
‘Eating with utensils is like making love through an interpreter,’ Lucky said, quoting the great traveller Ibn Battuta as he mushed his rice and curry into little balls before depositing them elegantly in his mouth with his lean fingers.
‘You must have some experience with that, since you’d probably only score women who don’t speak the same language as you,’ I tossed back.
‘Oh, the lady has a temper! What next? What insult will you hurl at me now?’
‘Would it matter? It’s not as if anything will make a dent in that thick head of yours!’
‘No – that is true. I am blessed with a self-confidence that could not be shaken even with a sledgehammer. But it is clear I have chinked your amour.’
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