Bonkers

by Michelle Holman

  Lisa squinted with him. All she could see was a fluffy kind of lump around the two bones. Was that normal? She wished Dan were here. He would know. It occurred to her the man sitting in front of her would too.

  ‘How does it—’ she began just as Dan walked into the cubicle dressed in dark-green theatre scrubs. Lisa stared. He looked so tall and handsome in them. She bet the nurses just about wet their pants watching him scrub up.

  ‘Speak of the devil!’ Boneman cried and got to his feet to shake Dan’s hand. ‘I was just asking…your wife how you were.’

  Lisa curled her lip in disgust. The moron couldn’t even remember her name. But perhaps that was just as well, because the name on the big brown envelope of x-ray films was Linda Brogan.

  ‘Hi, Mark. How are things looking?’ Dan replied easily with a keen glance in Lisa’s direction.

  ‘Good! I hear you’re up for one of the Quality in Health Awards,’ Mark said.

  ‘Maybe,’ Dan replied absently, staring at the film on the light box. ‘How’s Lisa’s leg?’

  Because Mark the Boneman couldn’t remember his patient’s name, he didn’t notice what Dan called her. He tapped the box with his knuckle. ‘It’s looking great. We’ll put her into a double Tubigrip for a few more weeks and she can start weight-bearing. She’ll need to keep up the physio for a little longer.’

  Lisa looked between them anxiously. What was a double Tubigrip? Was it another name for a cast?

  ‘So, I hear you’re doing amazing things with the Ilizarov splints down the hill,’ Mark continued. ‘I’m coming along to the awards evening. I’m looking forward to seeing your presentation.’

  Dan nodded. ‘Do you want to see Lisa again?’

  Mark blinked and looked at Lisa glowering in her chair as if he’d just remembered she was the reason he was there. Frowning, he looked at the name on the notes and x-rays. ‘Lisa? Sorry, I thought your name was Linda.’

  Lisa bit her lip.

  ‘She prefers to be known as Lisa,’ Dan replied smoothly. Lisa sent him a grateful look.

  ‘What’s a Tubigrip?’ she asked as she hopped on her crutches along the corridor outside the consulting cubicle when they had finished.

  Dan walked slowly by her side. ‘A stretchy white stocking that goes from your knee to your toes. It’s a little like a surgical stocking.’

  Lisa stopped in the middle of the corridor. ‘Great! I’ll exchange one form of torture for another and look like a Nana Doris into the bargain.’

  Dan’s brows rose. ‘A Nana Doris?’

  ‘An old lady,’ she explained.

  He laughed.

  ‘Don’t you dare laugh at me!’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he replied gravely, obediently flattening his lips into a straight line. ‘The Tubigrip will be a piece of cake. It’s only for a few more weeks, and you can take it off to shower and before you go to bed.’

  She regarded him suspiciously. ‘You’re not winding me up?’

  He laughed again. ‘I’m not winding you up.’

  Lisa began to hop forwards again. ‘What about the crutches?’

  ‘You can start weight-bearing gradually.’

  She smiled.

  It was Dan who measured and applied the stretchy white stocking to her leg. Lisa was appalled at how hairy, white and horrible her leg looked without the cast, but Dan didn’t seem to notice; he was too busy making sure there weren’t any wrinkles in the stocking and that it was the right size. The feel of his large, steady hands on her bare skin made her feel jumpy; it set other parts of her body tingling as well.

  Once he’d finished, Lisa practised walking a few steps with her crutches. Dan stood and watched her, his arms crossed over his green scrub shirt. Lisa kept getting distracted by the sight of his chest and throat where it showed above the V of the green shirt.

  ‘OK?’ he asked.

  She nodded. ‘I think so. It feels weird.’

  ‘You’ll soon get used to it.’

  ‘Why didn’t I get somebody like you to look after me instead of Mighty Mark?’ she complained.

  Dan smiled. ‘I have to admit he hasn’t got the greatest bedside manner.’

  ‘Bedside manner?’ Lisa snorted as she took another hop past him. ‘You’d get a better bedside manner from a prostitute.’

  He laughed.

  She smiled again.

  Dan took her up to the theatre floor and found her a seat outside while he went back in to change his clothes. He explained that his morning list had run over, which was why he had run down still wearing his scrubs. He had been concerned she might have thought he’d forgotten her. Lisa was touched.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked her when he came back out wearing his dark-blue suit again, his hair mussed from dressing in a hurry.

  Lisa had the urge to reach up and smooth it flat. ‘A bit,’ she admitted and then, suddenly remembering Sherry’s advice, she went on tiptoe on her good leg, placed her hand on Dan’s shoulder and gently brushed his hair flat. His brows rose, but he didn’t pull away. Instead he slowly tipped his head forward to make it easier for her to reach him, and took hold of her elbows to steady her. At the same time his grey eyes looked searchingly into her upturned face.

  Lisa’s fingers lingered in the silky thickness of his hair for a few seconds longer, until she realized she was standing in a public building ogling Dan like a teenage groupie.

  She cleared her throat nervously and chirped, ‘That’s better,’ before grabbing her crutches and scuttling away backwards. ‘You looked like Dennis the Menace with that bit of hair sticking up.’

  ‘Gee, thanks.’

  Two theatre nurses passing by on their way to catch the elevator to the cafeteria witnessed the whole thing. ‘Well, now we know what the delectable Dr Dan has waiting for him at home,’ one remarked wryly as she punched the call button on the panel.

  The other nurse nodded, still watching Dan Brogan and the woman on crutches who presumably had to be his wife. The entire hospital knew she’d been involved in a bad car accident. ‘Lucky cow. She’s gorgeous, isn’t she?’ she said grudgingly.

  The first nurse watched the way Dan Brogan was looking down at his wife and sighed. ‘So’s he.’

  Dan took Lisa to lunch at a nearby café, walking slowly beside her in the sunshine. Lisa felt like a bottle of champagne had been opened inside her; bubbles of joy kept surfacing and popping all over her body. Dan looked the most relaxed she’d seen him in weeks. After lunch they returned to the hospital. Lisa was prepared to catch a bus home, thinking Dan had used up his entire lunchbreak and wouldn’t have time to drive her back. He delighted her by asking if she wanted to come up to the orthopaedic ward and meet some of the children while he did a quick ward round.

  ‘I’d love to!’ she agreed immediately.

  The first thing she noticed when she walked into the ward was the colourful pictures on the walls, cheerful prints on the bed and curtains, and the bright sunshine flooding the rooms from the big windows. The rooms mainly held four beds with a few single- and twin-bed rooms. When Dan walked into the rooms, the children’s faces lit up. All around her, Lisa heard cries of ‘Dr Dan! Dr Dan! What tie have you got on today, Dr Dan?’

  Today he was wearing a Pokemon tie.

  ‘Coooolll!’ one little boy cried when Dan let him hold the end of his tie and peer at Pikachu.

  He introduced Lisa to the children simply as ‘Lisa’ and began to explain the metal frames some of them had on their legs. They were the Ilizarov splints Mark the Boneman had mentioned during her appointment.

  Lisa eyed them warily. They weren’t a sight for the faint-hearted. A round metal frame stretched the length of the child’s limb with slim metal rods thrust through the leg and out the other side again. The rods were then attached to the frame by screws. She decided they looked like a human form of shish kebab.

  ‘Are you turning the screws regularly, Baron?’ Dan asked one solid Pacific Islands boy.

  ‘Yeah, Dr Dan,�
�� the cheeky-faced twelve-year-old said. Reaching into the drawer of his bedside locker, he pulled out a small silver tool and a printed list with times and dates on it. ‘See? And I’ve been cleaning the pin sites myself.’

  I think I’m going to be sick, Lisa thought, smiling until her face hurt. How can they be so brave? Baron’s leg needed to grow several more centimetres before it would be the same size as his uninjured one. He was being discharged at the end of the week and would carry on the laborious ritual of turning the screws on his frame four times a day for as long as it took to grow the soft spongy bone at the fracture site.

  All around her there were children lying on their beds with their legs propped on pillows, discussing how much their legs had grown, how much more they needed to grow and how often they had turned their screws that day. And in the middle of it all was Dan, going from bed to bed with his wry smile and quiet, kind voice, congratulating them and raising his brows at the ones who weren’t doing what they should be. Those raised eyebrows seemed to be all they needed to get out their little silver tools and get to work on those screws.

  ‘Hey, Dr Dan!’ called a slim Maori girl of about ten.

  ‘Hey there, Moana,’ Dan replied easily, going over to her bed.

  ‘Hey, Dr Dan, we all wanted to know if you could grow our legs as tall as yours?’ she asked cheekily.

  This was greeted by a burst of laughter from the children, who rolled around their beds giggling.

  Dan shook his head, smiling. ‘I want to get you home sooner than that, Moana.’

  Moana looked at Lisa. ‘Are you Dr Dan’s girlfriend?’

  Lisa hesitated. She didn’t wear any wedding rings so it was a natural enough assumption. ‘Er…no.’

  ‘This is Lisa,’ Dan repeated, just as he had when he brought her into every room.

  Moana looked from him to Lisa, obviously not satisfied with the answer. ‘Are you Dr Dan’s wife?’

  Lisa, who as a teacher thought she had become more than accustomed to dealing with kids and their awkward questions, stared at the little girl and said again, ‘Er…’

  Dan didn’t appear to be paying any attention; he had Moana’s chart braced on his raised thigh while he wrote on it. Without raising his head, he said, ‘Yes, Moana, you nosy little monkey, Lisa’s my wife.’ Finishing his scribbling, he dropped the chart into a box by the door and sent Moana a meaningful look from beneath raised brows which clearly said Behave.

  Moana grinned and buried her nose in a raggedy old doll.

  Lisa stood leaning on her crutches, her expression uneasy. She looked at Dan, but he was talking to the girl in the bed beside Moana, asking her to extend and flex her foot.

  ‘What happened to you, Lisa?’ Baron asked, looking at Lisa’s leg. ‘Did Dr Dan operate on your leg too?’

  This brought another round of laughter.

  Lisa relaxed and smiled. ‘No. But I did break my leg.’

  ‘When?’ Baron demanded.

  ‘March.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘In a car accident.’

  ‘Who was driving?’ he wanted to know.

  Dan lifted his head and frowned. ‘I was,’ Lisa said.

  Baron thought about this for a moment. ‘Well, that was dumb.’

  Lisa burst out laughing, along with the children. Dan rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  ‘Not as dumb as playing on the roof of your uncle’s shed and falling through, Baron!’ Moana retorted.

  Baron shrugged and grinned.

  ‘They are the coolest kids,’ Lisa said when she and Dan finally left the ward.

  He nodded. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to keep a straight face when I go in there, especially when I have to get tough on them.’

  ‘Oh, I can see you’d be real tough, Dr Dan. I’d be quaking in my splint if I had you sorting me out.’

  He gave his lopsided smile before checking his watch and saying, ‘If I give you a ride home now, I’ll be back in time for my out-patients clinic.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  In the car, Lisa asked, ‘What are the awards Mark was talking about?’

  Dan shrugged. ‘Oh, nothing special. They’re awards for clinical excellence—innovation—that kind of thing. They’re held every year.’

  ‘And you’re one of the finalists?’

  ‘Not me personally, the whole team working on the Ilizarov programme.’

  Lisa eyed him with wry amusement. My God, the man was so modest she wanted to shake him. Best of all it wasn’t an act. ‘Well, I hope you win,’ she said. ‘After what I saw today you certainly deserve to.’

  He smiled. ‘Lisa, you haven’t even seen the other finalists. They’re doing some amazing things. Non-invasive surgery, studies into medication levels in psychotic admissions in the ER—all sorts of things that are incredibly important.’

  There was a silence while Lisa fiddled with the top of her Tubigrip and watched the boats on the Waitemata Harbour as they crossed the Harbour Bridge to the North Shore. The ocean glittered beneath them in the sunshine, and several sailing boats carved the surface of the water on their way towards the islands scattered about the Hauraki Gulf.

  Dan hesitated. ‘It’s three weeks this Saturday night. Would you like to come?’

  Lisa was surprised. She hadn’t been fishing for an invitation. Her instinct was to say no, fearing he was only asking her out of a sense of responsibility. Then Lisa recalled Sherry’s sardonic comments about her gormless attitude when it came to him. Why not? What did she have to lose?

  Your pride, your self-esteem, your marbles, the sensible part of her brain replied tartly.

  Oh piss off.

  ‘OK. I’d like that.’

  22

  Lisa was determined to put a stop to her sleepwalking—or at least to Dan having to chase her around the house in the middle of the night. He seemed to take it in his stride, but she was acutely aware there were dark circles under his eyes most mornings. It worried Lisa that he was going into the operating theatre without the benefit of a good night’s sleep. So on the Friday night following the removal of her cast, she took what seemed to be the only sensible course of action.

  She tied herself to the bed.

  It had seemed like a really good idea the night before when she knotted one end of the silk sash of Linda’s white robe around her wrist and the other around the wooden headboard, leaving herself enough slack to lie down but not get out of the bed.

  What finally woke Lisa up in the morning was the pain from the pins and needles in her hand. During the night she had obviously tried to get out of bed a few times; each time she had climbed or tripped back in she had looped and twisted the sash until the knot was like a hard little nut and the amount of slack she had allowed herself had disappeared. Struggling to her knees, she tried to loosen the knot but it wouldn’t budge. To make matters worse, she was dying to go to the toilet.

  Jiggling about on the mattress with her knees clamped together, Lisa called tentatively for Dan, reassuring herself that if anybody would understand why she’d tied herself to the bed it would be him. After several increasingly frantic calls for help, she realized he had probably risen early and either gone for a ride on his mountain bike or down to the beach with his windsurfer. Her bladder felt like it was going to burst. She whimpered, sweat breaking out on her forehead as the tips of her fingers went from purple to white. What if her hand had to be amputated through lack of blood flow? People usually lost limbs doing something heroic like getting lost in a blizzard and succumbing to frostbite—not tying themselves up to a bed.

  The little silver mobile phone Dan had given her suddenly began to vibrate on the bedside table. With a cry of triumph, Lisa leapt for it and promptly banged into the table, knocking the phone across the carpet. It came to a halt when it hit the wall beneath the window by the bed.

  Lisa sucked her breath in and waited. When the little phone buzzed again she let out a sigh of relief. Sliding from the bed o
nto her bottom, she extended her good leg as far as it would go, made a stab at the answer button with her big toe and yelled, ‘Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Whoever it is please come quick! To the house! I’m…I’m trapped in my…er…bedroom and I’m…the situation is desperate! I need help!’ She made another attempt to flick the phone towards her with her toes and let out a howl of frustration when she managed to slam her foot onto the keypad instead and cut the caller off.

  ‘Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!’ she whimpered, tucking the heel of her good leg beneath her buttocks and rocking back and forth as the pain of her full bladder became excruciating, her forehead pressed against the side of the bed.

  Dan pulled into the garage five minutes later.

  ‘Dan!’ Lisa yelled at the top of her lungs. ‘Dan!’

  He cut the engine in time to hear her shout his name. He’d been out on his windsurfer, leaving her fast asleep at the house. She told him she never sleepwalked early in the morning and he’d never seen her do it, so he generally felt confident about leaving her for an early-morning trip to the beach.

  Her frantic calls sent his heartbeat into overdrive. Leaping from the car, he raced into the house, still dressed in his black wetsuit. When he raced through her bedroom door, all he could see were Lisa’s anxious blue eyes watching him over the edge of the mattress—her eyes and one arm tethered to the headboard.

  ‘What the—?’

  ‘Hurry! Hurry!’ she moaned piteously, tugging at the white material tethering her to the bed. ‘I’m busting to go to the loo!’

  Dan stared. ‘You tied yourself to the bed?’

  She pressed her sweating forehead against the edge of the bed and gritted out, ‘For God’s sake cut the small talk and untie me!’

  Dan was around the bed in an instant. He examined the knot. ‘What the hell have you been doing?’ he asked in exasperation, torn between disbelief and amusement at Lisa’s latest escapade.

  ‘I was trying to stop sleepwalking,’ she explained in a tight little voice. ‘You never get a good night’s sleep.’ Suddenly she wriggled anxiously and moaned. ‘Hurry up, Dan! I can’t hold on much longer!’