Marty asked the toddler to climb up the little stairs onto the bed, watching the movement of his hips and legs.
‘Now, I’m going to have a look in your ears with this torch. Can you turn your head and smile at Mummy?’
The mother had mentioned recurrent ear infections. As he gently angled the otoscope into the toddler’s ear, Marty kept talking. ‘Isn’t it lucky that we don’t have great big ears like an elephant. Can you imagine waggling those gigantic ears?’
The boy laughed and Marty felt that half his job was done; a relaxed child was so much easier to assess.
‘His ears look fine at the moment. Do you have any other concerns?’ he asked the mother.
‘Actually, I do.’ The woman reached into her oversized handbag, pulled out a Filofax and opened it to a page of notes. ‘I’m worried about his pencil grip when he’s using a crayon. He’s not holding it properly. I read that he should be using a digital pronate grasp by now.’
A parent was the most likely one to pick up a problem, but parenting had changed since Marty had chosen his specialisation. Now it was a competitive sport to raise the ‘best-ever’ child. Perfect kids who came off an assembly line with no human flaws or quirks. In the last few years, he’d seen the stress levels of parents—and their offspring—skyrocket. He’d gone into paediatrics to treat sick kids, but these days he spent more time dealing with anxious mothers.
Anxious mothers. He should be a world expert by now. Since Bella had broken her wrist, Lexie’s worrying had escalated again. Before that, Lexie had seemed to be getting better, although when they’d walked up the ridge four weeks ago, she was concerned about dislocating Bella’s elbow. Ironic in retrospect.
‘Dadda, do the swing!’
Marty had glanced down at his three-year-old, skipping on the path beside him. Even though her nose was red, Bella hadn’t complained about the cold yet. Earlier, she’d bolted out the back door to crunch through the frost, admiring her trail of footprints in the grass and puffing her breath into the air. With barely a beat between them, Lexie had raced behind, dangling Bella’s gloves and a jacket.
Now, Bella was rugged up like an Eskimo, her pink scarf wrapped all the way to her chin and her hood almost covering her eyes. A few strands of dark hair had escaped her ponytail and drifted across her cheeks. Could she see the vast sky that stretched across their heads and met the dark blue of the mountains in the distance? Lexie had said it was too cold, too cloudy for this walk, but he’d won the argument by getting Bella onside. He wanted to take them along the ridge where he jogged every Tuesday and Friday, a wide dirt path bordered by clumps of gum trees, raucous kookaburras in their branches and kangaroos grazing nearby. Some days he wished he could disappear from the hospital at lunchtime and clear his head up here.
Bella tugged on his hand again.
‘Swing, Dadda! Please?’ She smiled up at him, a small gap between her two front baby teeth.
‘You’ll have to ask Mummy too,’ he told Bella. ‘Remember, you need both of us to swing.’
Lexie took Bella’s hand but then stopped and crouched down beside her.
‘Why are your fingers so cold, darling? Where are your gloves?’
Bella grinned, and made them appear from each of her coat pockets like a magician doing a trick. Purple and sparkly—the brightest objects on this overcast day.
‘Okay, but put them back on after the swinging.’
They each held one of Bella’s hands and Marty called out: ‘One, two, three, SWING!’
He was careful to keep his momentum the same as Lexie’s. His wife seemed stronger since they’d moved here. The hard lines of her bones were softening; she’d put some weight on her skinny frame. Lexie was wearing her black fleece jacket; the one she’d bought eight years ago on their ski trip to Italy. Back then, she only drank when they socialised. In those photos, she had blonde hair and a big grin; she’d teased him that he was too old to keep up with her on the slopes and on the dance floor. He remembered them holding hands on the chairlift, drinking a creamy Bombardino which left cinnamon dotted around her nose, sharing lasagne with a single fork, and a kiss tasting of gluhwein. Her wonder at the jagged skyline of the Alps, the storybook villages dusted in snow. Now, dressed all in black with her dark hair, she could have passed for an Italian working at the resort. A different woman from the one he’d married. Inside and out.
‘One, two, three, SWING!’
Giggling, Bella kicked her feet up high in the air.
‘That’s enough now,’ Lexie suddenly said. ‘Put your gloves back on, darling.’
‘No, Mummy, I want more.’
Marty had tried to catch Lexie’s eye but she was focused on Bella.
‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘She can have a few more.’
‘But you said that swinging could dislocate her elbow,’ Lexie whispered.
Bella stopped in the middle of the path and refused to move.
‘For God’s sake, Lexie, that was a year ago.’ He hadn’t meant to sound so exasperated and tried to rein it in. ‘It’s okay. She’s bigger now.’
Squatting down, Lexie was wrestling with the sparkly gloves, trying to get Bella to unfold her arms and hold out her fingers.
‘Bella is big and strong and healthy,’ he said. ‘We can give her five more swings.’
‘I’m big and strong!’ Bella echoed, snatching her hands away from her mother. She held her arms up in a bodybuilder pose. ‘I’m so big. I’m almost four. I can have swings, can’t I, Dadda?’
‘You let her do anything,’ Lexie hissed.
And you’re turning her into a neurotic, anxious child, he wanted to retort.
Bella darted out of Lexie’s reach and rushed to investigate something next to the path.
‘Yukky! Look at this, Dadda!’
The smell hit Marty first. The animal was almost unrecognisable. Its grey innards curled in a heap, the head separated from the body, tufts of grey fur scattered across the dirt. Most likely a rabbit ripped apart. He wouldn’t tell Bella what it was—her bunny had died just a few months ago. Marty steered her away from the remains and kicked dirt over the mess.
‘Like Janice’s chooks,’ Bella said.
Their neighbour across the road had bailed them up as they were leaving the house earlier. Between sobs, Janice described the carnage in her chook pen: all five chickens mauled to death during the night. The victims of a fox, presumably. Bella wanted to organise a funeral—she knew the name of each hen. Lexie had been in tears and beseeched him silently. He’d ended up helping Janice dig a grave for the chooks while Bella and Lexie sang ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’.
Soft in the head. Marty could almost hear his father scorning the tearful women. ‘Buck up,’ his dad would have said. ‘Life in the bush is hard, get used to it.’ Not that they were living in the bush exactly: Merrigang was a village with a foot in each camp—the suburbs of Canberra over the ridge on one side, and farms and wilderness on the other.
He’d fallen for the place; it felt like coming home. And Lexie seemed better, he was sure of it; she was even making friends.
Not long after he’d pulled Bella away from the dead rabbit mess, one of those friends had appeared on the ridge: Tara, jogging in rainbow leggings, her cropped red hair plastered to her head with sweat.
‘This must be the elusive doctor,’ she’d said, winking at Lexie. ‘You didn’t tell us he was such a hottie! You’ve been keeping him away from us on purpose.’
A hottie. Marty had to stop himself from guffawing. He was pretty sure that, at forty-six, the term no longer applied. Did Tara prefer older men? She must be younger than thirty. Marty watched as a blush flared on Lexie’s cheeks, then his wife sidled closer to him and draped her arm around his shoulders. He could feel the warmth of her body, the weight of her arm, the curve of her breast pressed against him. When was the last time his wife had spontaneously hugged him? Those hugs were saved for Bella.
‘Hi, I’m Marty Parker,’ he said. ‘Hop
efully not too elusive.’
‘I’m sure you’ve heard all about me.’ Tara put her hands on her hips and drew in a lungful of air. She was shorter than Lexie and had to look up at them both. ‘I’m the one who makes them laugh every week.’
Lexie giggled. ‘You’re the one who shocks us.’ She arched her eyebrows and said to Marty, ‘Tara swears all the time.’
‘Okay, okay, I’m outrageous—but I make you laugh, right?’
Marty found himself smiling along as his wife joked with this woman. Lexie had called the playgroup mums her ‘life-line’ and maybe she was right—he hadn’t heard her laugh like this in years. Tara seemed fun, the sort of person who swept others along with her enthusiasm. Lexie needed a friend like that. After the move to England, she’d lost contact with almost everyone. Sometimes he blamed the friends; sometimes he blamed Lexie. Sometimes he blamed himself.
Until now, Marty hadn’t met any of the playgroup mums and struggled to keep track of their names and their kids. Although, recalling one of Lexie’s stories, he was sure Tara must be the mum who had dropped the f-bomb about a mouldy strawberry and all the toddlers had chanted the word after her.
‘I’ve just gone back to running,’ Tara explained to him. ‘It’s killing me. But I need to get rid of the baby belly and fit into my old work clothes. God, I wish I was skinny like you, Lexie.’
The weight had fallen off his wife without him noticing. But then one night, as he’d reached for her in bed, Marty had felt the sharpness of her hipbone. And when he’d started to look properly, he didn’t know how he’d missed it—the jutting ridge of her collarbone, the outline of her ribs, the hollows under her eyes and cheeks.
‘Where’s Zoe?’ Bella piped up. ‘Is she sick?’
‘She’s home with her dad, and she’s finally better. You’ll see her on Thursday.’ Tara turned back to Marty. ‘Tonsillitis—she keeps getting it. Do you think she should have her tonsils out?’
‘Depends on the frequency and severity. What does your GP say?’
‘She won’t give me a straight answer.’ Tara sighed. ‘But I can’t have Zoe sick every second week when I go back to work.’
‘Has the GP referred you to an ENT specialist?’
‘No, should I ask her for one?’
‘It wouldn’t be a bad idea. It might take a few months to get in, so ring for an appointment as soon as you have a name.’
‘Can you pull any strings to get me in faster, Dr Marty?’ Tara tilted her head to one side and batted her eyelashes at him.
‘I told you she’s outrageous.’ Lexie giggled again.
‘Well, it’s worth a try.’ Tara shrugged. ‘I need you on speed dial, Dr Marty. My hubby’s useless except if you want some policy advice on trade legislation.’
The talk quickly moved back to Tara’s children. The baby had been awake for hours last night—did Marty think she might be lactose intolerant? He outlined the symptoms, and tried to head off any further questions by looking at the sky.
‘Those clouds are closing in. We’d better get moving so we don’t get caught.’
None of the farmers around Merrigang had mentioned the word ‘drought’ yet, but if rain didn’t fall soon, it would be a tough season ahead. He’d heard the gunshots during the night—a cull on the thousands of kangaroos that were damaging farms and grasslands, as well as the city’s nature reserves. One of his teenage patients had asked him to sign a petition against the killing of the joeys. Apparently, the babies were taken from the pouch of the dead mothers and bludgeoned to death. It was considered the most ‘humane’ way.
‘It’s funny,’ Lexie said as Tara disappeared into the distance while they forked off onto a smaller, rougher track. ‘Tara can manage not to swear in front of you for ten minutes but she still does it around the kids.’
‘That’s because she was trying to get a free consult.’ Marty didn’t add his other thought: And trying to impress me.
Bella danced along in front of them, singing a theme song he didn’t recognise. Was she watching too much TV? He should pop home for lunch again some days and check that Bella wasn’t plonked in front of the television with Lexie half unconscious on the couch next to her.
When Lexie spoke again, he assumed it would be about Tara. But it wasn’t.
‘I was thinking—’ her words were soft, tentative ‘—that we could go up for Archie’s birthday’.
Blood rushed to Marty’s head. He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Was that why she had hugged him in front of Tara? Because she was setting him up for this?
‘We haven’t visited him for two years,’ she continued.
In England, his birthday had come and gone without much discussion. Marty should have been prepared for it this year, now they were home. But he couldn’t face returning. Not when he was so hopeful about their new life in Merrigang.
‘It’s not a good idea, sweetheart. It’ll set you right back.’
Marty touched her shoulder and Lexie jerked away from him, folding her arms across her body like a shield. Christ, he would not be made to feel guilty here. It was for the best. She needed protecting—from herself.
‘I probably can’t go anyway,’ he said. ‘I’ll be on call. Why don’t you go up by yourself? You could see your dad too. Bella can stay here with me.’
Marty knew his wife wouldn’t go anywhere without their daughter. Lexie gave no sign that she’d heard him; instead, she rushed to Bella and enveloped her in a tight cuddle.
‘Time to go home, Bella,’ Lexie said.
‘No, not yet,’ Marty fired back. ‘We’re going up the hill. Bella wants to do some exploring.’
‘It’s too steep for her.’
‘No, Mummy.’ Bella shook her head. ‘I’m an ex-plo-rer.’
‘Fine,’ Lexie snapped. ‘I’m tired and I’m staying here. Be careful.’
Glaring at Marty, she leant against a large rock, pulled a water bottle from Bella’s backpack and handed it to him. Marty tried to mask his surprise: she rarely let him do things alone with Bella. Last weekend, he’d encouraged Lexie to go to the museum for a few hours, so she could enjoy time out in her old world of exhibitions, while he looked after their daughter. But Lexie had refused.
‘We’ll be back in fifteen minutes,’ he said.
Lexie nodded and turned her attention to her phone. Marty briefly wondered what she was looking at—she’d deleted Facebook, the newspapers were too upsetting for her, and she didn’t follow any blogs. Perhaps she was emailing her sister.
Bella strode up the track in front of him, but her fast steps slowed after only a few minutes, and when she bent down suddenly, he stumbled against her. Standing upright again, she held out her palm to show him a white pebble that she’d found. They kept walking until she spotted her next treasure—a twig shaped like a Y. Next, a yellow leaf. Carefully, Bella placed these three keepsakes into the pocket of his jacket. Enthralled by his daughter, Marty pushed away thoughts of Archie and his birthday.
Finally, they made it to the top of the hill. Over a decade ago, this ridge had been burnt to a charred moonscape of brown rocks. A fire tornado rocketing around the edges of Canberra had threatened to engulf Merrigang and the outer suburbs. It destroyed hundreds of houses and thousands of hectares. Now, young trees stood proudly and the old gums had recovered. The track had been rebuilt. Only the very top provided hints of the fire. On the trig point, the white paint was scorched and blackened.
Standing below the trig point, Bella spread out her arms and spun around in a circle.
‘I’m the King of the Cars-dul. You the dirty rascal.’
‘Can you say “castle”?’ Marty asked.
Last week, he’d seen a ten-year-old with a severe speech impediment. Why hadn’t the parents done something before now? he’d wondered. Marty stared out across the Canberra suburbs, trying to pinpoint the hospital. Should he have ordered a scan for the girl with concussion yesterday? Marty would ring the hospital later and check that she hadn’t been re
admitted.
Bella tugged on his arm, forcing him to turn in the opposite direction, towards the Brindabellas, blue mountains of eucalyptus trees and rocky outcrops. Not long ago, the top of the range had been capped in snow. But Bella was pointing out something closer—a mob of kangaroos, thirty or more. Startled by the presence of humans, they bounded away, their strong tails curved behind them.
‘They’re off to the Brindabella mountains,’ Marty said, scooping Bella up onto his shoulders.
‘That’s me. I’m Brinda-Bella. I’m a mountain. Can we go there?’
If only he could keep Bella like this forever. Loving, uncomplicated, trusting. Every evening when he walked in the door, she raced down the hallway to greet him. Tory had been like that once. She’d loved their bushwalks and camping trips at age five and eight and ten—dad and daughter, out in the wilderness. But now, at sixteen, she called herself Victoria and barely spoke to him. His ex-wife stoked the hatred, Marty was sure of it. Would Victoria really come to Canberra for the Father’s Day weekend? ‘Can we go to Brinda-Bella mountain, Dadda?’ Bella asked again. ‘Can we go for my birfday?’
Victoria, his ex-wife, Lexie—they’d all stopped believing in him. But to Bella, he was still the hero, the one who could make dreams come true.
‘Absolutely, my little explorer. I’ll take you there.’
Marty finished writing up the boy’s two-year development check, sighed and reached for the file on his next patient. Maybe he could take Bella to the Brindabellas this Sunday?
3
LEXIE
MY FINGERS WERE SHAKING TOO MUCH TO LIFT THE CHILD LOCK ON the playgroup gate. Come on, you can do this. I pulled it again and the lock clicked. Seven steps to the footpath. My black boots thudded on the concrete. At the corner, I turned right, striding past the pharmacy and the bakery. The little strip of shops was busy, with most of the car spaces filled. What if Bella needs the toilet? She has to have help with her cast. What if she’s choking on grapes? What if one of the twins hits her with a wooden block?
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