The Doctor Calling

by Meredith Appleyard

  ‘Goodnight, Neill,’ Laura said. When Jake slammed the car door she reversed out of the drive and drove around the corner and home, her thoughts in turmoil.

  Laura sank down onto the side of the bed, dropped her phone onto the bedside cupboard and toed off her shoes. All this time Neill had known who she was and he’d said nothing. Of course Dorothy would have bragged about her and Alice. A dog-eared photo album of the two sisters still collected dust on the kitchen dresser, bulging with snaps of their summer holidays spent in Potters Junction. Framed graduation photos sat on the mantelpiece in the sitting room.

  Dorothy had never married and had no children of her own, so she’d always taken an interest in her older sister’s grandchildren. She’d always been proud of their achievements. Pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes, Laura chastised herself for being deluded enough to think Neill wouldn’t have worked out who she was. He’d never probed, had always been polite and respected her privacy. Of course he would have known who she was. But then again, did it matter?

  With a frustrated snort she flopped back on the bed, staring at the ceiling until the patterns in the pressed tin began to undulate. She rolled onto her side, dragged a pillow down and buried her face in it. Her safe little bolthole had been discovered.

  Throwing off the pillow she lunged for her phone and tapped in a familiar number.

  ‘You’ll never guess who I ran into tonight,’ she said before her sister Alice had a chance to speak.

  ‘No, probably not.’

  ‘Meghan Kimble.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, you know, Meghan Kimble.’ Laura heard her voice go up an octave. She took a steadying breath.

  ‘Where were you to run into her? Have you given up living like a hermit? Anyway, what’s the big deal? I thought you were friends from way back.’

  ‘Alice, she’s the GP in the next town, she’s married with a toddler and another one about to drop.’

  ‘That’s good news, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so, but what if . . .’ Laura took the phone away from her ear and glared at it. Sometimes Alice was too pragmatic for her own good. She’d been hoping for understanding and sympathy from her sibling and all she got was practicality and common sense. She pressed the phone back to her ear.

  ‘Look, Laura, from what I remember Meghan was pretty cool. I can’t imagine her gossiping about you. And what is there to gossip about anyway? It’s not as if you did anything wrong. You just took some time out. You’re worrying about nothing.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re probably right. Meghan was a good friend.’ She felt silly now, panicking and phoning her sister. Back when Laura had first come to Potters Junction she’d talked to Alice every day, sometimes more than once. Since Laura’s life had spun out of control, months prior to the move, Alice had been her rock. But Laura was back in control again and it was almost ten on a Saturday night. She mightn’t have a social life but her sister did. ‘God, I’m sorry, Alice, hope I didn’t interrupt anything important.’

  ‘Nope. I’m watching a crappy movie on SBS on my own,’ she said and yawned. ‘Sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine, now. I just had one of those moments —’

  ‘Moments? Do you need to see your shrink again?’

  Laura almost heard Alice sit up in her seat. ‘No, I don’t, I really am okay.’ She pulled at a loose thread on the hem of her shirt. ‘I guess I’ve been in a bit of a bubble, ignoring the rest of the world while I fiddle around here painting and gardening . . . And then I run into someone from the past.’

  ‘Laura, maybe it was a good thing, running into Meghan like that. I know you’re holed up at Dorrie’s because you had to take time out, but you can’t put your life on hold forever.’

  ‘I know, it’s just —’ She halted, closed her eyes, dismayed to feel tears not far away.

  ‘Laura,’ Alice said, her voice gentle. ‘I know life will never go back to the way it was. But you know you can’t hide away up there forever.’

  A tear pushed through, trickled out the corner of her eye and onto the doona.

  ‘Mmm,’ she said, not wanting to give her sister any idea she was crying, that she still had moments when she felt like such a failure. She should have been able to cope with what happened – she had the training, the skills to know what to do – and instead she’d gone down in a screaming heap. Literally.

  ‘Everyone grieves in their own way, sweetie, and I know there’s no time limit, but it’s been over two years since Mum and Brett died. If you were one of your patients, you’d be telling yourself to start thinking about the future, I know you would. You’ve been off work for six months. You need to get on with it before you forget how.’

  Work. Wasn’t that what she did here every day until she almost dropped with exhaustion?

  She held the phone hard against her ear as the cold, familiar fingers of dread squeezed at her insides. She knew it wasn’t the grief that was holding her back anymore, it was the fear – the fear of going back to medicine, the fear of folding the moment the going got tough. The fear of letting her patients down, her colleagues down, herself down.

  Laura pressed her fingers to her mouth. It wasn’t easy to admit she was afraid to go back to what she’d always believed had been her calling. She hadn’t told anyone about the numbing fear, not her sister or her psychologist. Most of the time she managed to keep it buried deep away from everyone, especially herself. But now her sister was telling her it was time to think about going back to work, and she knew Alice was right and she couldn’t ignore the fear any longer.

  ‘Laura? Talk to me!’

  Alice’s voice intruded on her thoughts and she moved the phone to the other ear.

  ‘Laura?’

  ‘I’m here and I’m fine,’ she said, surprised at how normal she sounded. Her stomach was churning and her heart was pounding as she wiped one clammy palm across the doona, but she sounded fine.

  ‘Do you need me to drive up tomorrow? I can,’ Alice said. ‘We can talk, drink wine in the middle of the day.’

  She swiped a hand across her eyes. ‘Thanks, Alice, but you don’t need to do that.’ But can’t I put off making the hard decisions for a bit longer? I like my safe little bubble. ‘It was a bit of a shock, you know, running into Meghan like that. She’s a blast from the past. My whole career, my whole life flashed before my eyes.’

  ‘I’ll look at my schedule, plan a weekend, and drive up there soon. Unless you decide to come home before I get around to it?’

  ‘I doubt it. Too much to do here,’ Laura said, knowing full well that deciding where home would be was another decision waiting to be made. She said goodbye to her sister and they disconnected. The phone plopped onto the bed beside her. She felt drained, hollowed out by her conscious admission it was fear, not grief, that was holding her back now.

  She was afraid of picking up her stethoscope and stepping behind a consulting desk again. She was terrified she wouldn’t be able to cope with whoever sat down on the opposite side of the desk; then the anxiety attacks would come back and she’d be exposed for the fraud that she was.

  When her vision began to blur from staring at the ceiling, she lifted herself off the bed and opened the wardrobe, wrinkling her nose at the smell of camphor. Like an automaton she slipped off her clothes and slung the skirt over a coathanger. Face washed and teeth cleaned, she piled up the pillows and settled herself into bed with a book and a cup of camomile tea.

  But the tea was tasteless and the book was boring. The words ran into each other and, as hard as she tried to stop them, her thoughts kept going back over her conversation with Alice.

  With a sigh the novel went back onto the bedside cupboard with the half-drunk tea and she sank back onto the pillows. She had a lot of thinking to do. If practising medicine wasn’t her work anymore, she needed to make a conscious decision about that, and she needed to act on it, instead of drifting to some other destination because she didn’t have the guts to ma
ke the tough decisions.

  And being a doctor was more than just work. As corny as it sounded, it was a calling. Why else had she studied until she went cross-eyed, worked appalling hours for very little, and forfeited a social life and any kind of meaningful relationships while she was at it?

  And what would she do if it wasn’t medicine? Her gut twisted. Climbing out of bed, she dragged on her robe and went to the kitchen to make herself another cup of camomile tea, this time adding a generous spoonful of honey. It was past midnight when she went back to bed. Her feet were frozen and her backside numb from sitting at the kitchen table too long, contemplating her life and searching for answers. None of it was easy, she decided, flicking off the bedside light and promising herself she’d think about it more tomorrow. Sleep came eventually.

  At first Laura thought she was dreaming. Was it her heart or was someone pounding on her front door? When she heard her name shouted she threw back the covers, fumbled for the lamp on the bedside cupboard. She grabbed her robe off the end of the bed.

  Switching on the outside light, she opened the door a crack. Jake Finlay stood on the verandah, t-shirt inside out and jeans zipped but not buttoned. His feet were bare.

  ‘You’d better come. Neill’s fallen over. I’m not sure what happened. I heard a crash and found him on the floor. He’s cracked his head and it looks like it might need stitches.’

  She pulled the lapels of her robe closed, gripping the edges with one hand. ‘Is he conscious? Have you called the ambulance?’

  ‘Why would I call the ambulance when you’re right next door? The old man said you’re a doctor.’

  She stepped back, gripped the lapels of her robe even tighter. ‘Technically yes, but I’m not practising.’ She swallowed. She wasn’t practising but that was her choice. There were no legal or professional reasons why she shouldn’t or couldn’t help Neill.

  ‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘Are you coming?’

  Neill was a friend. Health professionals should never treat friends. It had been drummed into her.

  ‘Maybe you should call an ambulance,’ she said.

  Jake swore and spun on his heel.

  What was she thinking?

  ‘Wait! I’ll come. I’ll get some clothes on.’ She could at least have a look. Render first aid. Any friend would do that.

  She donned trackpants and a sweatshirt, and grabbed the soft black medical bag that she always used to carry with her. Her knuckles were white around its handles. It was a fluke she had the bag in Potters Junction at all. After that awful day six months ago, she’d left the bag right where she’d dropped it when a concerned colleague had driven her home from the practice. Alice must have collected it because when she’d helped her pack for Potters Junction, she’d given Laura an exasperated look and shoved it in the car with her, saying, ‘You can pretend for now you’re not a doctor, but you are, and you always will be.’

  When she went back to the front door, Jake had gone. She let herself out and, seeing the insipid yellow glow of Neill’s back light, Laura made her way down the side of the house. She stumbled in the dark, shivering despite the warm clothes. Jake had left the gate open. Clutching the bag, she hurried across the backyard. It was three in the morning and she was wide awake. She could do this. She would do this. It was a simple bump on the head, probably not even a concussion.

  She heard a whimper and the scrape of Skip’s chain. ‘It’s all right, fella,’ she murmured as she went past, unconsciously crossing her fingers.

  She found them in the bathroom. Neill was propped up against the bathtub, pale and bloody, his pyjama jacket gaping. Jake was hunkered on the floor beside him.

  ‘What happened?’

  Jake stood up and eased past her to make room, and she dropped to the floor beside Neill.

  ‘I don’t know what happened. He said he went to the toilet and came in to wash his hands and then he was on the floor,’ Jake said, shoving his hands into the waistband of his jeans. ‘I was awake and heard him get up. I heard the toilet flush and then the thud. I reckon I was in here in seconds.’

  ‘Was he unconscious?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  ‘Neill,’ she said and gently touched his shoulder. ‘Did you pass out?’

  He shook his head without opening his eyes. She unzipped the bag and reached in. Even after six months, her fingers knew exactly where to find what she needed.

  ‘Neill, I’m going to shine a bright light in your eyes for a second.’

  He opened his eyes and she shone a penlight into each one. He blinked and, satisfied, she slipped the torch back into her bag, took his wrist and felt for his pulse. She searched for the stethoscope, her fingers going straight to the pocket where it was stowed. There was a smear of blood on the vanity and more splashed down the front of his pyjamas. Scalp wounds always bled profusely. The blood was clotted in a mess with what little hair he had.

  Shifting her focus to why he’d fallen, she warmed the end of the stethoscope in her hand and pressed it to his bared chest. As she listened to his heart, she observed his ribs through the wrinkled, translucent skin. About ninety beats per minute, regular, nothing overtly cardiac going on. She pulled the stethoscope out of her ears.

  ‘Do you remember what happened, Neill? Did you have any chest pain before the fall?’

  ‘No. I felt a bit woozy . . . It’s all the painkillers, I reckon. And I was tired after all the outings. I must have slipped, lost my balance.’

  ‘Does it hurt anywhere else?’

  He flexed his arms and moved his legs, shifted his backside on the hard floor. ‘Everywhere,’ he said. ‘But no new pains.’

  Laura let herself relax slightly. She heard Jake’s relieved sigh.

  ‘We’ll help you up and I’ll clean that head wound, see if it needs stitches.’

  Together they lifted Neill to his feet and helped him into the kitchen. She sat him on one of the vinyl chairs and Jake filled a bowl with warm water and collected several clean face washers from the linen press. He draped a towel around his father’s shoulders.

  Without hesitating, Laura lined up the things she’d need on the kitchen table and pulled on disposable gloves. She cleaned away the caked and clotted blood to expose a jagged laceration. It had started oozing again.

  ‘It does need a few stitches.’

  She peeled off the gloves and went to the kitchen sink to wash her hands, grateful that as a GP she’d insisted on doing her own skin excisions. A lot of GPs didn’t. She confidently tore open the disposable suture kit, setting it up on the kitchen table. When she took a needle and syringe from their packets, Jake visibly paled.

  ‘Local anaesthetic,’ she said, as she checked the labelling and twisted the top off a plastic ampoule. Her hands were steady. Jake pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down.

  Neill sat with his eyes closed.

  ‘You okay?’ Jake said and the old man grunted.

  After cleaning the wound with antiseptic wipes, Laura injected the local. She listened to his heart and checked his pupils while the anaesthetic took effect, aware of Jake watching her every move. Washing her hands again, she pulled on another pair of sterile surgical gloves and carefully sutured the laceration, covering it with an adhesive dressing. The room was still, Laura’s focus on her patient, the only sounds his ragged breathing and the snip of the scissors after each stitch.

  ‘Stitches out in a week to ten days,’ she said and began repacking her bag, dropping the used needles into a small sharps container. Jake scooped up the rubbish and threw it into the bin.

  ‘You might want to make an appointment to see your own GP as soon as you can,’ Laura said and put the back of her hand over her mouth to stifle a yawn. The adrenaline had dissipated and she was coming down fast. ‘Maybe your pain medication needs reviewing.’

  Neill stood up, wobbled a bit, leaned on the kitchen table. Laura and Jake watched, both ready to reach out if he needed support.

  ‘Cup of tea?’ Jake washed his
hands, picked up the electric kettle to fill it.

  ‘Thanks, son. With a couple of sugars.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Laura said. She zipped up the bag and lifted it off the table. ‘Neill, I’m sure there’s no concussion. You know my mobile number, and if anything changes, please ring me. Or the hospital.’ She paused, and then turned to Jake. ‘Yes, ring the hospital if he vomits, or if his headache gets worse, or there’s anything else you’re worried about.’

  ‘You won’t stay for a cup of tea, lass?’

  She yawned. It was after four. ‘No, but thanks anyway.’ Stifling another yawn, she added, ‘I’ll see my own way out.’

  The gate clanged shut, the sound echoing in the early morning silence.

  It took her a moment of panic, groping around in the dark at the back door, to remember that Jake had come to the front door and she’d followed him out that way.

  The sky was open but there was no moon and she cautiously felt her way around the side of the house, and swore when she got to the front door and discovered she’d locked herself out. She dropped the bag onto the ground and had to bite her bottom lip to stop herself from crying out in frustration.

  The fly-spotted lightbulb cast a feeble wash of light across the cracked cement of the front verandah. A sliver of brighter light shone below her bedroom blind. She’d left the light on and she remembered opening the window a few inches before she went to bed.

  ‘Ah-huh,’ she said. If she could get the flyscreen off, she’d be able to push the window up and climb through. Grinning, she set to work on the bedroom flyscreen. The potted aspidistra rustled in the shadows.

  One torn fingernail and a bruised thumb later, Laura gave up. All she had to do was get the screen off and she could push the window up and climb in. But the damn thing wouldn’t budge. If it hadn’t been a security screen, by now she would have put her fist through the wire and got in that way. Where was a pair of tinsnips, or a hammer and a chisel, when you needed it?