Snowy Summer

by Patricia Weerakoon

  She clutched the envelope. She didn’t want to do it. But, to refuse would be a sign of weakness. She thought of her father. He would have encouraged her to be brave – for the girls involved, and for herself.

  ‘Sheva,’ Dan’s voice was gentle. ‘You won’t be alone. I’ll be with you every step of the way.’

  If she refused, Sunil and his perverted friends would go on their merry way. No, she would not allow that to happen. She nodded. ‘OK. I’ll do it. Not because I am afraid of Sunil and his mates, or for you, but for the girls. And,’ her voice dropped, ‘for myself.’

  Dan smiled. ‘Thank you. Now some practicalities. We need to give you a makeover.’

  ‘A makeover?’ Annie gasped.

  ‘Don’t look so scared, we stop short of plastic surgery,’ he chuckled. ‘We’ll take a break in Goulburn. You will have a haircut and possibly a colour wash. You’ll also be shown some makeup techniques. You will also have a quick lesson in voice and phonetics, to teach you to pitch your words higher, while keeping the subcontinental accent.’

  ‘Do we need to go to such extremes?’

  ‘We can’t take any chances, Sheva. You need a completely new persona in Jindabyne.’ He gestured to a box in the back seat. ‘You’ll have a brand new wardrobe too.’

  She ran her fingers through her long hair.

  Dan glanced at her again. ‘It’s just for a couple of weeks, Sheva. Your curls will grow back.’

  Eight hours later, Dr Sheva Singh stepped out of Ranger Dan Cooper’s car and walked into the Jindabyne Medical Centre. Her curls were cut and straightened to a chic bob which framed her face and flicked forward under her ears. No longer sheer black, her hair shone mahogany brown with golden highlights. The thick tortoise shell frames of her Bulgari sunglasses shimmered in keeping with the colour of her hair. Clever application of mascara and lipstick made her eyes more heavily lidded and her lips thinner than normal.

  She was dressed in black pants and white linen blouse, teamed with a blue cashmere jacket. Low heeled black leather shoes completed her ensemble.

  Dan had handed her the clothes, complete with underwear in Goulburn when they stopped to get her hair and makeup done. Sheva had showered and dressed, then allowed the hairdresser and makeup artist to work on her. The voice therapist had given her tips on how to pitch her voice, and handed her a CD to practice to.

  Dr Annie Samarasinghe, consultant neuromuscular specialist and surgeon at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Sydney, morphed into Dr Sheva Singh, General Practitioner and family doctor in the brand new Jindabyne Medical Centre.

  Dan guided her into the medical centre.

  ‘A few weeks, Sheva. We’ll nail the scoundrels.’

  Chapter 12

  Four weeks later - January 2010 Jindabyne, Australia

  The strident call of Mozart’s horn concerto made Sheva jump. She missed a step, stumbled, and recovered.

  Sheva gathered herself and grabbed the phone from the pocket of her exercise pants, she glanced at it without breaking her stride on the treadmill again. Call identification indicated “Rosie”. She frowned. A call from the medical centre after hours was unusual. Rosie should be back at home by six thirty. They hadn’t made any plans to meet for dinner this evening.

  She thumbed her phone on. ‘Yes, Rosie.’

  ‘Sorry to bother you, Sheva.’ Rosie’s usually tranquil voice held a hint of panic.

  ‘What are you doing at there? It’s well past six.’

  ‘Where is the doctor?’ The voice in the background was loud, belligerent and male.

  Sheva punched the stop button on the treadmill. ‘Rosie, what’s the problem.’

  The treadmill whirred to a halt.

  ‘Please sit down. Sir—’

  Sheva grabbed her towel from the crossbar and hopped off the treadmill.

  ‘Rosie, are you okay? Where’s Peter?’

  ‘Sorry, Sheva. We have a patient. He just came in. Peter locked up and left for a swim just a few minutes ago. I was just leaving when—’

  ‘Did you tell him we’re closed?’

  The male voice was muffled. ‘Let me speak to the doctor.’

  Rosie’s voice went up several semitones. ‘No, you can’t speak to the doctor. Sheva, it’s a trauma case. Incision injury left wrist, possible nerve, maybe even artery.’

  ‘Can you transfer the patient to Cooma Base Hospital? The ambulance should be available.’

  ‘He refuses to go to Cooma and insists on seeing the doctor. Sheva, I’m really sorry. Could you drop in and see him? Just this once.’ There was a couple of seconds pause. ‘Sir, please sit down. I am talking to the doctor.’

  ‘Okay. I’m on my way. Pressure bandage and elevate the arm, the usual.’ She thumbed the phone off and slipped it into the pocket of her exercise pants.

  Sheva mopped the sweat off her face and neck and sprinted to the female change room.

  The gym membership was part of the employment package in her role as senior registrar at the brand new Jindabyne Medical Centre. The prefix of “senior” meant nothing, since she was the only doctor in the centre. On the other hand, to say she accepted the position didn’t go anywhere near describing how she had come to be here in Jindabyne.

  The painting of the possum on the swing door to the female dressing room had ‘Jill’ painted in red under it. The male dressing room had an identical painting on the door with ‘Jack’ written in blue under it. Presumably it wasn’t gym etiquette to differentiate possum sex anatomy on the change room doors. Given the nocturnal activity of possums in the roof of her cottage, live possums obviously had no problems in recognising the difference.

  There was no time to shower or change. Sheva glanced at the mirror. The remnants of her morning lipstick and eye shadow still clung to her face. Under it, her skin was flushed after the workout. Fortunately, she glowed rather than perspired when she exercised. Unzipping the side pocket of her bag, she grabbed her makeup kit and did a quick touch up of her eyes and lips, re-establishing the heavy lidded, thin-lipped image of “Sheva”.

  Bending her head, she sniffed her underarm, shrugged and sprayed the complimentary deodorant on her body. She sneezed as the cloud of jasmine scent engulfed her. Another glance at the mirror and the incongruity of the situation made her laugh. She would have never seen a patient in Sydney dressed in her exercise pants. On the other hand, she would not be called in to see a badly injured patient after hours either. Well, she had no time to waste.

  ‘Whoever Mr too-important-to-go-to-Cooma is, he’ll have to put up with me as I am,’ she grumbled aloud to the empty change room.

  Her hair was mussed by her workout. It was definitely not a professional look, even for after-hours Jindabyne. She wet her hands and finger-combed her bob back into place. She picked up her oversize Sri Lankan t-shirt and pulled it over her head, shoved her towel in her tote bag and jogged to the exit.

  ‘Leaving early, Doc?’ Nora, the gym’s owner and personal trainer called out to her.

  Sheva waved back. ‘An emergency at the clinic. Got to run.’

  ‘You’re a pushover, Doc,’ Nora’s reply carried to her as the gym door swung shut. ‘The community managed just fine before the medical centre was set up. You need to look after yourself.’

  Sheva stopped outside the gym and took a deep breath. Was she looking after herself? Yes, everything she was doing here in Jindabyne was about looking after herself.

  The only gym in Jindabyne was at the Snowy Mountains Holiday Resort; set on the banks of Lake Jindabyne. The view across the water at twilight was breath-taking. She indulged in a moment to admire it, remembering another evening when she had stood watching it, and the man who had stood by her side.

  Turning away from the lake, Sheva crossed Kosciuszko Road and ran up the grassy incline toward Nuggets Crossing Shopping Centre.

  She remembered her
apprehension and anxiety when she started working in Jindabyne four weeks ago. The charm of this place was infectious, and she was beginning to appreciate the place and the people, and enjoy the quieter pace and camaraderie of small town living. People cared for each other here, with easy smiles and casual greetings for friends and strangers alike. Knowing that she was on her own, families and friends had drawn her into their circle over the Christmas and New Year holidays.

  Jindabyne was only five hundred kilometres from Sydney, but it was a world away from the intense adrenaline rush and pressure-cooker atmosphere of Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

  She missed her mother, her friends and Sydney, but since she had to hide away, she couldn’t have chosen a better place.

  It really was beginning to feel like she had chosen to work here.

  Nuggets Crossing Shopping Centre was full of summer tourists. Sheva skirted the cars, utes, caravans and trailers in the carpark, scanning the area as Dan had instructed her, looking for anyone staring at her or following her. She glanced down at her T-shirt. Dan had told her not to wear anything likely to draw attention to who she was or where she was from. This one screamed Sri Lankan tourist. She’d better pack it away.

  ‘Hi, Doc! You look great,’ a bike-riding teen called out as he and his mates whizzed past. Sheva grinned and waved to them. Her seminar on healthy sexuality, at the summer recreation camp, a couple of days ago, had apparently given her a sort of cult following with the kids of the area. It was another sign of the community’s acceptance of her. She continued toward the medical centre.

  Judging by the large mud-splattered black car parked at the door of the medical centre, the patient was probably a wealthy farmer or local landowner used to getting what he wanted, when he wanted it, neither knowing nor caring how it could inconvenience others.

  ‘Where on earth is the doctor? It doesn’t take this long to get here from anywhere in Jindabyne. A man could die waiting for medical attention in this place.’ The refined private school accent laced with arrogant impatience reinforced her judgement as to the sort of man he was.

  She stopped, her hand on the door. Maybe she should alert Dan of the after-hours client.

  It was too late to worry about that. She needed to deal with the emergency first. Sheva took a deep breath and assumed her best professional persona. ‘Good evening, Rosie. What do we have here?’ The door swung shut behind her.

  Rosie was bent over the patient with her hand pressed down on the blood soaked gauze on his left wrist.

  Rosie looked up. ‘Sheva, I’m so glad to see you.’

  Sheva caught her lower lip in her teeth, and then smiled at the expression of frazzled relief on Rosie’s usually calm face. Smothering a chuckle, she grabbed her white linen surgical coat off the hook by the examination trolley. She shrugged on the coat, slipped her hands into a pair of surgical gloves, and walked over to the patient.

  The tanned features could have been carved from the granite high peaks of the alpine region and looked about as bleak. His thick tangle of sun streaked brown hair curled at the collar of the blood stained cotton shirt, damp with sweat and moulded over his broad shoulders.

  Sheva glanced at the admission notes and smothered a gasp.

  The last time she had seen him, he had been wearing a mask, a sabre, a cloak and a black hat with a “Z”.

  Chapter 13

  The pallor around his tightly pursed lips and beads of sweat on his forehead was evidence of the pain he was in. His pupils constricted and a frown creased his forehead. Grey eyes locked with hers and swept over her face, coming to rest on the front of her T-shirt.

  There was no hint of recognition.

  ‘I asked for the doctor.’ The voice matched the visage, haughty and authoritative. Nothing like the memory she had of him.

  Anger at the dismissive tone of his voice replaced any feelings of anxiety. She held his gaze, and drew on her vocal training, ‘I am the doctor here, Mr—’ she glanced at the admission notes— ‘Mr Knight.’

  She would play it cool and professional for now. However, a hint of sarcasm wouldn’t hurt. ‘I can assure you, we don’t let our patients die.’

  Rosie stepped away from the couch with a sigh of relief.

  ‘Rosie, could you please set up the theatre? I’ll do a quick examination here before we take Mr Knight in.’

  ‘You are the doctor?’ His eyes raked over her again.

  The astonishment in his voice would have made her laugh if she wasn’t so annoyed at his arrogance. Keeping the pressure on his bleeding arm, Sheva let her eyes meet his.

  So, she didn’t live up to his high professional expectations.

  Her thoughts winged back to the masquerade party. He had acted like he cared about her. He had thought she was a nurse. Maybe even then all he had wanted was to bed an Indian nurse for one night. Sunil, Roy—men—who treated women as a lesser species, as playthings for their pleasure. No. She had learned her lesson. No man would use her ever again.

  ‘What is it you disapprove of, Mr Knight?’

  For a moment her mind filled with memories of racist remarks hurled at her in the streets of London when she was doing her postgraduate work. She blinked and drew on her training to concentrate on the moment, to be compassionate and calm under emotional pressure in medical emergencies.

  Steadying, she replied with haughtiness in her voice to match his. ‘Never met a woman doctor before Mr Knight? Or maybe a subcontinental one?’

  She glanced down at the front of her T-shirt. ‘Maybe you don’t like Asian Elephants?’

  Keeping the pressure on his arm, she gestured with her chin to the framed certificates of her Sri Lankan Medical School graduation and Australian professional registration as a medical practitioner on the wall over the desk. Perfect copies of the original with her name abbreviated to Sheva Singh. ‘I assure you, I am qualified.’

  The grey eyes slid down her body. Heat raced through her. She had never been so glad of being dark skinned. Sheva forced herself to meet his eyes. No, there was no suggestion that he saw her for anything else than an incompetent female GP.

  A tinge of amusement crept into his voice. He glanced at her legs. ‘Actually, it’s your—your dress, and—’ he sniffed— ‘the cloud of whatever perfume you brought in with you.’ He glanced at her face. ‘Not quite what I expected from the medical officer.’

  Sheva forced herself to remain calm. She kept her eyes on his arm. He was a man used to being in control of every situation. Today he wasn’t and it was making him anxious. Maybe even afraid. He was too proud to show it, and this was how he chose to deal with it. She would ignore it for now.

  Taking care not to aggravate the injury, she unwrapped the bandages on his arm. It was a clean cut. There was no spurt of blood, it told her that the bleeding was not from an artery. That was just as well; she couldn’t do arterial surgery in this little outpost.

  She let her voice drop to a slightly gentler tone. ‘We close the medical centre at five. After hours, all patients who need urgent treatment are sent direct to Cooma Base Hospital by ambulance. Others come back the next morning. People here in Jindabyne are aware of it.’ She held back what she wanted to say: ‘Of course, you wouldn’t consider yourself one of the commoners who need to comply with the rules.’

  She picked up a fresh dressing from the examination tray by the couch and covered the wound. ‘I was at the gym. Hence the exercise shorts.’

  Again, she swallowed the words that popped into her mind. ‘Not that I need to explain anything to you, you arrogant misogynist.’

  Keeping the pressure on the wound, she picked a pair of forceps and touched each finger on his left hand. ‘Can you feel this? And this? On all five fingers?’

  ‘Yes, yes and yes.’ There was a momentary hesitation. ‘I’m sorry, Doctor Singh. I had no right to bite your head off. It was impolite and inappropriate.’

/>   Sheva bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud at the tone of his apology. This was not a man used to apologising for his words and behaviour.

  ‘Your nurse did say you were closed,’ he continued. ‘I do appreciate your cutting short your gym routine to see me. I can’t take the time off to travel to Cooma.’ He paused and frowned. ‘I had no right to comment on your appearance. It was way out of line. I apologise for that too.’

  Sheva nodded her acceptance of the apology and concentrated on the assessment of muscle movement in his hand. She placed two fingers on his left palm. ‘Hold on to my fingers as tight as you can.’

  There was no weakness. In fact, he had a grip strong enough to fracture her bones. ‘You can let go now.’

  ‘Sorry, you did say hold tight.’ A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. His expression went from frozen and furious to charming and charismatic in a flash. It was the face of the man who had sent her senses into freefall a few weeks ago.

  No. She was done with love and emotion. Her time in Jindabyne was for one purpose only.

  ‘You have feeling and movement in your fingers. That tells me you don’t have any nerve damage. However, you have lost a lot of blood. Rosie’s notes say it is a farm injury. I will need to clean and examine the wound before suturing it. We’ll use a local anaesthetic, so you will feel no pain.’ She nodded to Rosie. ‘And I’ll give you something to help you relax.’

  His eyes narrowed and rested on her lips. She pressed her lips together. Thinning them, as she had been taught to do. Surely, he wouldn’t recognise her from a smile.

  Rosie handed him the tablets of pain medication and a glass of water. He gulped it down and lay back on the trolley with his eyes closed. ‘Okay, Doc. I’m in your hands.’

  Rosie and Sheva wheeled the couch into the little room which served as a semi-sterile mini-surgery. Sheva bent over to inject the local anaesthetic. Seated on a stool, she cleaned the wound and sutured it. She worked on the injury, with the patience and precision that was her professional trademark. The three of them were cocooned by the harsh light of the theatre lamp.