Turn Left at Bindi Creek

by Lynne Wilding

  ‘We’ll do an ultrasound too, Mrs d’Winters. Dr Cope’s ordered it to make sure the babies are okay,’ said the radiologist, a man named Sam, who sprouted a bushy red beard to match his hair.

  Brooke squeezed back the tears forming at the corners of her eyes; it was hard not to give way to emotion. She wanted these babies so much. For months she had prayed that their arrival would finally heal the scars of the past. Grief counselling had helped immensely, but there were still times when the memories and the melancholia overcame her. She didn’t want to act like a weeping willow in front of these professionals either. After all, they knew she was a doctor’s wife, and as such she should understand and just endure.

  Understand—yes, well she did, only too well—but endure? How could she endure it if the fall had damaged the two foetuses? What if one survived and the other didn’t? Or…She forced the fear out of her mind and heart. Everything would be all right, it had to be.

  Halfway through the ultrasound Dr Cope’s frame popped around the doorway. A short, portly man with dark hair and kind eyes that hid behind gold-rimmed bifocals, he wore a dark pinstriped suit, rather baggily, and a hand-knitted red waistcoat, which matched his red-striped tie. He bustled into the room, stethoscope in hand.

  ‘Brooke, how are you feeling?’ was his first question.

  Her expression was wry. ‘I’ve had better days.’

  ‘That was an interesting thing to do. All of the antenatal ward and half the theatre staff are buzzing with the news of Mrs d’Winters performance. Most mothers-to-be save their finale for the labour room, you know.’

  ‘Some performance. I could do without it, I tell you.’ Brooke’s tone was tart. ‘I’ll be black and blue by sundown,’ she added as she stared at him, her expressive eyes half blaming him for it having occurred. ‘How could such a thing happen?’

  ‘I’ve talked to an orthopod buddy, Graham Frost. He’ll call on you pretty soon to check the damage. You obviously have a weakness in that knee, probably from the previous dislocation.’

  ‘That was over ten years ago.’

  ‘I know; however, according to Graham, patients often don’t build the quadricep muscle up sufficiently to compensate for the weakness. And with the bed rest you’ve had, the most likely scenario is that the ligaments around the kneecap weakened—and boom!—they just gave way on you.’

  She wasn’t impressed with his reason, even though it did sound logical. ‘What about the babies? Are they going to be all right?’

  The doctor went and stood behind the technician, watching the ultrasound screen intently. ‘They look fine. Once your knee has had a chance to settle, we’ll bring the induction forward to next week.’ He studied her for a moment and then grinned reassuringly. ‘The bubs are well-developed; their lungs and hearts are strong enough to cope now.’

  ‘What about a Caesarean?’

  ‘Not unless it’s absolutely necessary.’ His tone was firm. ‘There’s no reason why you can’t deliver vaginally. So if you and the babies are doing well, that’s what we’ll aim for.’

  Curiosity got the better of the radiographer: ‘How’s she going to give birth with her leg in plaster, Doctor?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll be surprised by how easy it will be,’ Ed Cope said with a chuckle.

  Brooke gave her obstetrician a dubious look. Ed Cope was Jason’s friend. They’d gone through uni together and, while she found him excellent at his job, she wasn’t as confident as he was about it being easy.

  Ed Cope grinned at her again. ‘Believe me, the cast won’t be a problem.’

  And it wasn’t.

  The following Friday, 31 January 1986, at 3.05 p.m. Brooke gave birth to healthy twin boys. Adam Jason came first, followed three minutes later by Luke Travis.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘Are they asleep?’

  ‘Finally,’ Brooke answered with a tired smile. Three-year-old Adam and Luke had, after several attempts to delay the inevitable, succumbed to youthful exhaustion. ‘Hear that? Isn’t it heavenly.’

  Jason cocked his head to one side, listened, shrugged his shoulders and then frowned at her. ‘What?’

  Her smile widened. ‘The silence.’

  He yawned and stretched his arms high over his head. ‘Yes, they’re little terrors, aren’t they?’

  She nodded. ‘Adam is. He’s so energetic, and he has no fear. Today I caught him out on the deck putting one chair on top of the other to climb up onto that overhanging branch from next door’s maple tree. We’re going to have to cut the branch down soon or he’ll be up and over into the neighbour’s backyard.’

  ‘Mmm, that’s one thing I loved as a kid growing up in the country: you could run about at will, there was so much freedom to explore, seeing nature, learning to love and respect the land.’ He locked his hands behind his head and yawned again as he reflected. ‘I’d like the boys to be able to experience that as they get older…’ His voice trailed off to silence. ‘But they can’t in the city. You’ve got to watch them all the time here.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Brooke rolled her eyes as she settled at the kitchen table opposite him, a bundle of washing in her arms to be folded. ‘Here, with two to watch, I need eyes in the back of my head. Or maybe I could invent some kind of tracking device to pin to them and have a video screen check their movements, like some very expensive car alarms.’

  He chuckled at her idea. ‘Don’t let me stop you. You’d make us a fortune if you could.’ As he ran a hand through his dark hair, his features took on a serious expression. ‘Did I mention what happened at the surgery today?’ Before Brooke could answer he shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t. One of my patients overdosed. His girlfriend brought him in but it was too late. The fellow died on the examination table. Cardiac arrest and I couldn’t resuscitate him. The girlfriend—she’s an addict too—had hysterics.’ Jason’s shoulders sagged. ‘It was rotten and, of course, pandemonium followed. Police, ambos, curious patients.’

  ‘How awful—for you and the centre.’

  ‘That’s the second one in three months. It’s depressing and, as Christine said, not good for business to have patients dying in surgery. And would you believe this? The local newspaper wanted to run an article on what had happened, with pictures. Damned ghouls. We said no thank you very much!’

  Brooke glanced across at him and saw—really saw—how tired he looked. It was more than being tired or disgruntled by the events of the day; he looked totally fed up, as if he’d had enough of the place. Fatigue lines fanned out from his eyes and the premature sprinkling of grey around his temples was becoming more noticeable. His shoulders had developed a slight droop, too, even though he continued to play sport whenever he could. Clearly, the worries of working in an inner-city medical practice were taking their toll.

  ‘We need a holiday,’ she said decisively, forcing a lighthearted note into her voice. ‘We haven’t had a break since the boys were a year old. And, now that they’re kind of self-sufficient and play with each other so well, it wouldn’t be the disaster the last one was.’

  The week they had spent at Coffs Harbour had been a nightmare. The twins were just walking; actually, they had run everywhere and got into everything. It had been hell, and Jason had vowed there would be no more holidays until they were at school and more civilised.

  ‘I think I need more than a holiday; I need a change of pace and place.’ He looked at her solemnly and rubbed his jaw as he contemplated. ‘A change of surgery, perhaps.’

  It was Brooke’s turn to frown. Her hand stilled at the task of folding tiny underpants and singlets. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve been reading various medical journals and what comes in from the AMA. They’re crying out for experienced doctors in the country. I was wondering, how would you feel if we pulled up stakes here and relocated to a country town?’

  She should have been flabbergasted but she wasn’t. After four years of marriage she knew that Jason wasn’t a complicated man. She could usually gauge how he
felt about things—knew when he was in a mood, when he wasn’t happy, when he was angry about something. For some time now she had seen signs of his growing dissatisfaction with the medical centre. From the sporadic remarks he’d made about the centre it was clear that this had been building up for months. He was disappointed with his partners and their constant chase of the mighty dollar instead of doing what doctors should do—practise good medicine.

  His eyebrows shot up. ‘You’re not surprised, are you?’

  ‘No. Well, a little. I didn’t know how far you wanted to take it. I thought you might need a break or that you might go it alone in a single practice somewhere else in Sydney.’

  ‘Maybe. I’m not sure.’ As his gaze locked with hers, a certain wistfulness was evident in his eyes. ‘I’d just like to go bush to check a few places out around Cowra. Maybe Carcoar. It’s a small town and there’s always been a medical practice there, but it may sustain two doctors.’ He studied her for a moment and then asked, ‘What about you, though? How do you feel about moving? You have your involvements here—on the committee at kindy, and the local library, and you’ve got your naturopathy studies too, of course.’ He smiled when she poked her tongue out at him, unfazed by his continual heckling of her choice of study matter. ‘If you don’t want to, I’d understand.’

  ‘Oh, Jason, I want what’s best for all of us. Why don’t you take a week off? We’ll go up to your precious Carcoar and Cowra and have a look around. The twins would love to see the countryside, and maybe we could stay a couple of nights at a real farm.’ She chuckled. ‘You know, Adam’s already asking why they can’t have a pony in the backyard. Now that’s something I’d like to see: a pony in our pocket-sized garden!’

  His expression brightened, his grin widened. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ A move could be exactly what they, and especially Jason, needed. A new start in a new town. Being a city girl, Brooke wasn’t sure how she would fit in as a country doctor’s wife, but if it was what Jason wanted, then she wanted it too. And it was possible that the different surroundings would permanently banish the bad dreams that still periodically plagued her. Sometimes, after more than five years, she still woke up screaming, which upset the children. She smothered a sigh; it seemed as if she would never be totally free of the sadness and the frustrations of that period in her life.

  ‘We can call and see my mate Wes. He owns Sindalee, one of the top properties in the area. It’s been years since I saw him. You remember him from our wedding, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Her mouth twitched in sudden irritation. ‘The country man with the riding boots who looked as if he hated being there?’ Yes, she remembered the wealthy grazier. He and his sister had come to their wedding, but he had been the first to leave, as if the sight of people enjoying themselves, of a happy bride and groom, had made him want to throw up or something.

  Jason chuckled. ‘That’s him all right. Old chip-on-the-shoulder Wes. Claudia sure did a job on him.’ He shook his head as he reminisced. ‘He used to be the nicest bloke. I’ve never known anyone to change as much as Wes has over a divorce. You know,’ he confided, ‘he tried to get me to change my mind about marrying you.’

  Brooke’s hackles rose on hearing that. Who did this Wes Sinclair think he was?

  ‘Did he now?’ she said curtly. ‘Because his marriage went wrong he thinks every marriage is a mistake? That’s a pretty distorted viewpoint.’

  Jason shrugged. ‘Oh, Wes is all right. We’ve been mates for years. Claudia dealt him a low blow, that’s all. They’d been married for ten years when she just upped and said she didn’t want to be married any more. She wanted to pursue a career and become a barrister. Wes had no idea there was anything wrong with the marriage. And the kids took it hard; Fleece apparently has been a real handful, and the boy, Drew—he’s so quiet and withdrawn he hardly says boo. No, Wes’s heart’s in the right place; he just didn’t want me to get hurt. He’s really off women. It’s a shame, ’cause he’s a good bloke.’

  Brooke dismissed Wes Sinclair from her mind. She didn’t want to talk about him and his problems, even if he was one of Jason’s oldest friends. She was more interested in talking about what would be, if they decided to go ahead, a major change in their lives. ‘When do you think you could get the time off, love?’

  ‘Probably be a month before I could get a locum in.’

  ‘Okay, but we won’t tell the boys till the last moment, otherwise they’ll drive us crazy with questions like, “Are we going now? Are we there yet?”’

  Mid spring was a good time to drive due west out of Sydney. The heat of the day wasn’t too extreme. The twins, sitting in their booster seats in the back seat of the Ford station wagon, were fascinated by the bush and the animals they glimpsed on the way. There were lots of spring lambs and a few calves, as well as the occasional rabbit. The boys were amazingly patient with how long it took to get to rest stops, too. Once out of the car they’d play for half an hour or so to work off some of their boundless energy before allowing themselves to be strapped in again.

  Bathurst was an ideal place to stop for brunch, after which Jason said they’d travel along some of the back roads—the scenic route, he called it—and arrive in Carcoar by early afternoon.

  The winter had been unusually wet in the bush and so there were green plains and gentle slopes of lush pastures everywhere, dotted all over with cattle and sheep. Fields of canola, with its yellow flowers, and hillsides of purple Patterson’s curse (so named because the plant was a weed) intermingled with verdant lucerne to create a panorama of colours, giving the countryside a chequerboard effect.

  Brooke occasionally glanced across to Jason and noticed a physical change in him as they moved deeper into the country. The lines around his mouth were lightening and, despite the din from the back seat caused by the twins’ constant jabbering to each other, the tautness along his jawline was easing.

  Just past Rookley the boys began to complain that they were hungry and thirsty. Jason turned left at the main road when he saw a road sign. ‘We’ll go to Bindi Creek and have a quick pit stop. Then on to Carcoar.’

  The countryside was now dotted with smaller, prosperous-looking properties. Sheep farms, the occasional horse stud, fruit orchards and straight rows of grapevines attested to the richness and versatility of this part of the country.

  ‘What’s Bindi Creek like?’ Brooke asked as they came to a rise in the road. She remembered that they’d crossed the creek twice already as they’d driven along.

  ‘Don’t remember it too well—only visited it once or twice as a kid,’ Jason said. ‘I guess it’d be similar to Carcoar, which was a thriving town last century because of gold discoveries. The extension of the rail line to Blayney in the last part of the nineteenth century stopped its growth. Carcoar’s a sleepy place now, with lots of historic buildings and quaint B&B cottages and stuff. I guess Bindi Creek’s much the same.’

  ‘If Carcoar’s such a sleepy place,’ said Brooke, changing tack quite suddenly, ‘would a surgery be viable?’ Unable to take the noise any longer she turned to the boys and threatened, ‘If you don’t stop squabbling there’ll be no drinks or other treats. Be good. Now.’ She was often amazed how well a stern tone worked on them, but they were smart little characters and knew at their young age just how far they could push Mum and Dad. Silence descended, but she knew it would only last for five minutes or so.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Jason, as if there had been no break in the conversation. ‘That’s what we’re here to find out. Carcoar’s population used to be three hundred or so, plus a scattering of people who lived on surrounding properties. There could have been more growth, enough to sustain another doctor.’

  ‘The resident doctor may not be too pleased at the thought of competition,’ Brooke said with one upraised eyebrow.

  ‘Possibly. We’ll see.’ He grinned at her. ‘But, if we decide to move, we won’t make a fortune out here, you know. It’ll be a change of pace, a change
of lifestyle. I’m thinking that mostly it will be good for the twins, as well as ourselves.’

  A plaintive cry from the back broke into their conversation: ‘Mummy, I’m really starving.’ It was Adam. ‘Luke an’ me’ll die if we don’t get somethin’ to eat soon.’

  Brooke pointed out the window. ‘Look, there’s a service station with a café attached.’ Jason turned off the main road and then into an off-street parking area next to two or three vehicles. The service station was the first establishment in Bindi Creek. She laughed as the boys began to debate what they’d have to eat. ‘Guess you won’t starve after all.’

  As the d’Winters family walked towards the café, Brooke noticed a man in greasy overalls half enveloped beneath the hood of a ute. A second man dressed in jeans, a worn shirt and heavy work boots paced impatiently back and forth. A short distance from the vehicle, over on the left, a young boy about ten years of age kicked a soccer ball against a brick wall.

  The man in jeans moved and put his head as close to the other man’s as possible. ‘Well, Frank?’ he queried in an impatient tone. ‘What do you reckon?’

  The mechanic, presumably Frank, shook his head and muttered, ‘I think it’s the carby, Ric. It’s had it.’

  The d’Winters walked on into the café, which was empty apart from a middle-aged woman behind the counter. Brooke chose a window table. The trees in the orchard across the road were beginning to show sprouts of new growth here and there and she could see a sprinkling of white blossoms. She wondered what type of fruit they were. Possibly peaches or apricots.

  ‘The boys want hot chips and orange juice. What would you like, love?’ Jason asked.