In Dr. Darling’s Care

by Marion Lennox

  ‘They’re all good.’

  She beamed. ‘They are, aren’t they? They’re all fantastic. So I asked Lillian if she’d do it and Lillian agreed with me straight away.’

  ‘Whoa.’ Harry looked like a man right out of his depth. He put up his hand to stop her. ‘Lillian?’ The anorexic teenager he’d just seen giving him cheek? ‘What’s Lillian got to do with this?’

  ‘Lillian is acting as our judge. Did you know, she got first prize for art last year and she won a state-wide competition? The Avis Baxter watercolour competition. I’m told it’s really prestigious. May tells me her parents wouldn’t even let her go to Melbourne to collect the award-they belittle her talent-but she’s really good.’

  He nodded, bemused. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘I did know that. Her parents disapprove-which I have a huge feeling is one of the reasons she’s anorexic-but she’s very good.’

  ‘Well.’ She regarded him with satisfaction. ‘There you go, then. I brought Lillian in some paints the other day and she’s redecorating the walls in the kids’ ward. Which is keeping her mind off her neurosis nicely. But meanwhile I had a talk to Lillian about Amy’s depression and she says she feels just like that sometimes, only blacker. She’s so sympathetic. The art prize was a big thing for her, she reckons, so we’ve rigged this…’

  ‘You’ve rigged this?’

  ‘Did you know you sound very like a recording?’ she said kindly. ‘Or a parrot. No. Don’t apologise. You’ve been sick. You’re forgiven.’ She paused, giving him space to answer back-but he looked too stunned to even try.

  ‘Anyway we decided a little rigging was in order,’ she continued. ‘I have Amy’s mum’s permission for her to win a puppy. So…first prize for the competition is first pick of Phoebe’s puppies. It wouldn’t work if I hadn’t rigged it. I don’t believe in kids winning pets. They have to really want them. But tomorrow there’s going to be a full school assembly. Every kid in the school wants one of Phoebe’s puppies-Miss Morrison and I really hyped them up. Phoebe’s even been into the school to be introduced. The build-up’s huge and, thanks to Lillian’s conspiracy, Amy’s going to win. She’s going to be the envy of every child in the school. The kids will have to be nice to her if they want to play with the puppy. Miss Morrison says it’s the very best thing she could think of. Oh, and Mrs Dunstan’s taken down the shrine and put up a picture of Scott and Amy together. So…what do you think?’

  She paused for breath.

  What did he think?

  She’d been gabbling, she decided. She’d been interfering in things that weren’t her business, but for the last few days she hadn’t cared. She was stuck here in this little community. She was here to do the job as locum and she’d walk away in a few weeks and probably never come near Birrini again. Meanwhile the tiny township was being incredibly nice to her and her grandma’s crazy dog, so it wouldn’t hurt to get involved. For a while.

  At least, that’s what she’d been telling herself, but now, looking at Harry’s stunned face, she wasn’t so sure.

  ‘Do you disapprove?’ she asked.

  ‘Why would I disapprove?’

  ‘You like a beige apartment, remember?’

  ‘When did I say I like a beige apartment?’

  ‘Ten minutes ago.’

  ‘I must have been mad.’

  She met his eyes. He was telling the truth, she thought, and cheered up immeasurably. For some strange reason what this man thought of her was becoming of paramount importance. Not that she intended to let him see that. So, act…insouciant? Was that the word?

  Probably.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Coffee?’ She held out a mug and he took it without appearing to notice. He was still staring at her and his gaze was starting to unnerve her.

  Move on…

  ‘Now,’ she said, a lot more briskly and efficiently than she felt, ‘I need to do a clinic before dinner. I have three house calls to make and Phoebe to collect so I need to go. Can I give you a hand getting into bed before I leave?’

  ‘You’re not helping me get into bed,’ he told her, startled.

  ‘No?’

  He thought about it. ‘No. And there’s no need to sound wistful. No!’

  Lizzie grinned. ‘Believe it or not, I wasn’t sounding wistful.’

  ‘Really?’ The laughter in his eyes was wicked.

  ‘Absolutely really,’ she told him with all the asperity she could muster. She needed to get this on a formal footing right now. ‘So there’s no need to sound hopeful. You’re practically a married man. With a broken leg. You’re no use at all to a single girl like me.’

  ‘I suppose I’m not,’ he said, doleful all of a sudden, and she had to chuckle.

  ‘Good. As long as we have that clear. So how do you intend to get into bed without me…I mean, without help?’

  Harry was laughing at her. The rat! The logistics of sharing an apartment with this man were growing more complex by the minute.

  ‘If I wanted to go to bed-which I don’t-then I’d put my pyjamas on,’ he told her blandly, and she blinked.

  ‘Over your back-slab?’

  ‘Over my back-slab. I’ve cut a slit in the pyjama leg.’

  ‘Oh, very practical.’

  He laughed, but he obviously didn’t intend her to have the last word. ‘Quiet, woman,’ he ordered. ‘Hear me out. There’s no need to focus on my pyjama slit quite yet-because I don’t intend to get into bed. I’m only in this damned chair until someone provides me with sticks. The guys left my crutches back in Melbourne.’

  She fixed him with a look that said she didn’t believe a word. ‘Are you kidding me?’

  ‘I’m not kidding you.’

  ‘You left your crutches in Melbourne. That’s something I really believe. Like Miss Morrison being told by her third-graders that the dog ate their homework.’

  He stared up at her, wounded to the core. ‘Don’t you believe me?’

  ‘Nope. There’s no way you’d be permitted to be weight-bearing yet.’

  ‘I can use crutches without weight-bearing. I broke my ankle when I was seven. I’m a champion at hopping.’

  ‘Hopping. Six days post-surgery.’

  ‘That’s the one.’ He beamed and she refused to be disconcerted by a beam. No matter how distracting this particular beam was.

  ‘Let me see your patient notes.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I’ll ring up the orthopod. Let’s ask him if you’re supposed to be hopping.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You can’t hop if you don’t have crutches.’

  Stalemate. She eyed him thoughtfully. He eyed her back.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. The leg’s really secure. The pin and plate are holding everything in place and if it wasn’t for the wound itself and the swelling I’d have a nice light fibreglass cast that would stop you worrying completely.’

  ‘So it’s OK for me to worry now?’

  He sighed. ‘You’re like a terrier with a bone.’

  ‘A broken bone,’ she agreed. ‘Or two bones. Tib and fib. Let me read your notes.’

  They glared at each other. And kept on glaring. And he capitulated first.

  ‘Read them, then,’ he said, goaded, and thrust the notes at her.

  She grinned. ‘There’s a good little patient.’

  ‘Lizzie…’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘I’m your boss, remember?’

  ‘And you’re my patient.’

  ‘Just go and do your clinic-my clinic. Read my notes in your own time, but in the meantime leave me be. I’ll wheel myself over to the storeroom and find some crutches.’

  ‘I’ll wheel you. May can bring you back. After I’ve read the notes.’ She plonked herself down at the kitchen table. ‘Talk amongst yourself,’ she told him. ‘I’m reading.’

  ‘Lizzie…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I don’t think I can live with you.’

  She didn’t
bother to look up at that. She couldn’t. He’d make her laugh and his laugh was altogether too dangerous. ‘Hey, are we back where we started? That’s what I was saying. And you haven’t even met Phoebe yet.’ She went back to reading.

  ‘So…’ He drank his coffee and stared at her bent head, baffled. ‘Where’s Phoebe?’

  She still didn’t look up, forcing herself to focus on the orthopod’s close-written notes. ‘Being Phoebe-sat,’ she told him. ‘If I leave her here alone she destroys the door. Jim’s had to replace it once already. We had to use four posters to cover the damage. So now the locals have organised a roster.’ She smiled up at him briefly before burying her nose once again. “‘Weight-bearing in small bursts after the cast with plaster boot fitted”,’ she read. “‘No weight-bearing until the cast is fitted”.’

  ‘Thus the hopping…’

  She ignored him. ‘Physiotherapy. This town doesn’t have a physio.’

  ‘I don’t need a physio.’

  ‘Yes, you do. Just lucky you have me.’ She buried her nose again.

  ‘What do you mean-just lucky I have you?’ he asked, and she wiggled herself further into her chair and smiled.

  ‘I did three years of physiotherapy before I started medicine.’

  ‘How old are you?’ Harry looked shaken.

  ‘Twenty-nine.’

  ‘You sound about ten.’

  ‘Gee, thanks.’

  ‘Why did you start physio?’

  ‘I thought it would be good. It was good. Only halfway through I decided I wanted to do everything.’ She frowned, lifting an X-ray and holding it up to the light. ‘Heck, you were lucky, Harry. Do you realise how close you came to losing the whole leg?’

  ‘I know,’ he said shortly, and she finally looked at him across the table. Really looked at him.

  ‘You know you’ll be fine. The pins work really well and Max Carter’s the best orthopod. He’s talking about a hundred per cent recovery.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So I’m frustrated. And I don’t intend to use you for physio.’

  ‘Well.’ She laid the notes on the table. ‘It doesn’t hurt to see a man frustrated. There should be more of it, I reckon. And if you don’t agree to use me for physio then I’ll simply remove every crutch in the storeroom right now. What’s it to be, Dr McKay?’

  ‘I don’t have to-’

  ‘You do have to. You’re being childish.’

  ‘Me…childish?’

  ‘Most men are. I guess you can’t help it. Now, do you agree to treatment so I can organise these crutches, or am I going to ring May and tell her to move the crutches fast?’

  ‘You’d really…?’

  ‘I’d really.’

  He stared up at her. Goaded. Something was working behind his eyes, she thought, but she couldn’t figure it out. He seemed totally bemused. But there was only one option he could take, and that was the sensible one. Finally he sighed and spread his hands.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘There’s a good boy,’ she told him, and grinned. She came behind his chair and pushed him toward the door. ‘Obedience. That’s what I want. Now, let the nice doctor take you for a walk in your pushchair before she gets back to her work.’

  ‘Lizzie?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you want your ears boxed?’

  ‘Kinky,’ she said. ‘Very kinky. Of course I don’t want my ears boxed. You must be missing your Emily.’

  Harry was reduced to stunned silence.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Memo:

  Real doctors do not whimper and disintegrate into their wimpy wheelchairs.

  Real doctors stand up for more than five minutes.

  I will not fall flat on my face.

  I will smile at Mrs Jordon and try not to think that a ninety-three-year-old heart patient is travelling with more speed than I am.

  I will not think of Lizzie.

  I will not interfere… I will not try and reach the end of the corridor where I can hear her voice.

  Damn, I can’t reach the end of the corridor. Not on crutches.

  I will just sit back in my wheelchair for a moment and maybe let it roll forward. Just to stay out of the way while I have a rest. Not because I can hear every word she and Lillian are saying…

  ‘SO HOW’S it working out?’

  ‘What?’ Lizzie was sitting on Lillian’s bed, watching the girl eat her dinner. Or rather watching the girl trying not to eat her dinner.

  This was a huge, long-running battle. There were lots of psychological things happening here. By rights Lillian should be in a purpose-designed psychiatric unit, getting the treatment she needed, but that was out of the question.

  ‘My daughter’s not a nutter,’ Richard Mark had growled when Lizzie had raised the issue. ‘She shouldn’t even be in hospital, much less a mental institution.’

  ‘It’s not a mental institution. It’s just a centre for kids with problems like Lillian. Lillian’s about forty per cent below minimum recommended body weight. She’s dangerously ill.’

  ‘Her mother can feed her.’

  ‘You know that’s why Dr McKay put her in hospital,’ Lizzie had told him. ‘Lillian’s been eating when forced, but then making herself vomit afterwards. If she loses any more weight she’ll go into kidney failure. She’ll die.’

  The shock tactics had worked a little-but not enough.

  ‘OK. She can stay with you. But not a mental institution. No way.’

  At least the hospital was quiet, Lizzie thought thankfully. Someone needed to stay with Lillian while she ate, supervising every mouthful that went in, and then she had to be watched for at least an hour afterwards or the meal came straight back up.

  In the emergency medicine Lizzie was accustomed to, she’d never helped with such a patient, but the first night she’d been here all the staff had been busy and she’d volunteered. To her astonishment she’d found it incredibly rewarding. She was gaining real rapport with the troubled teenager and there was a distinct flush to the girl’s cheeks which hadn’t been there a week ago.

  If she was weighed Lizzie was sure she’d have gained a little, she thought, looking at her now as she toyed with her meal, but there was no way she was letting the girl near scales. She had to agree she was looking better before she could horrify herself with the concept of gaining weight.

  ‘You and Dr Harry.’ The girl lifted a fork loaded with a whole pea and looked at it dubiously.

  ‘Three peas,’ Lizzie told her. She leaned over, took the fork from the girl’s fingers, reloaded the peas and offered it to her again. ‘Eat.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘Down.’

  Lillian hesitated. And swallowed.

  ‘Great,’ Lizzie asked. ‘We’ll have you as cuddly as me in no time. Lillian, do you think I’m fat?’ She took the fork and reloaded it.

  ‘You?’

  ‘Me.’

  Lillian looked at her, assessing. ‘Those jeans look cute,’ she said.

  ‘They do, don’t they?’ Lizzie wiggled herself on the bedclothes and looked across at the mirror. ‘And I know this T-shirt is tight but if I lose any more weight then my boobs shrink. There’s nothing worse than shrunk boobs.’

  ‘Isn’t there?’

  ‘No,’ Lizzie said definitely. ‘Eat.’

  Lillian looked at her fork. She looked at Lizzie’s…boobs? And ate.

  ‘Terrific,’ Lizzie told her, and poked out her chest. ‘You’ll have nice boobs in no time.’

  ‘You don’t think my boobs are nice now?’ Lillian asked anxiously, and Lizzie shook her head.

  ‘They’re pimples, not boobs. Real women are cuddly. Like me.’

  ‘Does Dr McKay think you’re cuddly?’

  ‘I bet he does.’

  ‘And you’re sharing a house with him.’

  ‘Eat that sausage,’ Lizzie growled. ‘All up.’

  ‘Why? I don’t need it.’

  ‘You do need it.
We’re in boob-growing mode here. Besides, if you want to talk about grown-up stuff you have to act like a grown-up.’

  ‘Like…’ Lillian nibbled an end of the sausage. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, are we talking about what a hunk Dr McKay is?’

  ‘Mmm.’ Lillian smiled. Girl talk. She was very definitely interested. ‘You think he’s a hunk?’

  ‘Bite and swallow and I’ll tell you.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Once more.’

  ‘That’s cheating.’

  ‘I won’t tell you.’

  Bite. Swallow. ‘OK.’

  ‘Definitely a hunk,’ Lizzie said, trying not to notice that the plate was now half-empty. This was better than Lillian had done all week. ‘If he wasn’t in a wheelchair and engaged to Emily, I definitely wouldn’t be sharing a house with him. No way.’

  ‘He’s a bit wasted on Emily.’ Lillian thought about it for a bit longer. ‘Though he is quite old.’

  ‘Yeah, gee, he must be at least thirty-two or three. One foot in the grave, so to speak. It’s a wonder he still has the energy to get married.’

  Lillian chuckled and to Lizzie’s absolute delight she raised a forkful of peas without thinking. And swallowed all by herself. ‘Well, he is quite well preserved for your generation,’ she said, and Lizzie smiled even more.

  ‘My generation. Thanks very much.’

  Lillian refused to hear the huffiness. She saw the smile and she was intent on Dr McKay’s love life.

  ‘Emily’s really boring,’ she told her. ‘She’s been here for ever. When Dr McKay’s fiancée was killed…’

  ‘Dr McKay’s fiancée was killed?’

  ‘Ages ago. When I was about ten. Mum said Emily meant to have him then. She was so nice and they’ve just sort of been a pair ever since. Mum says they got engaged without Dr McKay even noticing and it was only when he was about to be married that he panicked.’

  ‘He panicked?’

  ‘That’s what everyone said. Why else would he have hit your car?’

  ‘You know, if I was going to commit suicide I might have chosen a better method than throwing myself under a tiny, tinpot hire car that was travelling less than ten miles an hour.’

  ‘I don’t think he was committing suicide.’