Christmas Knight

by Meredith Webber

  ‘Codger? Codger Williams? But your father was the postmaster, not the baker.’

  Codger—whose real name, Grant remembered now, had been Bill, William Williams of all things—shoved out a hand the size of a baseball glove.

  ‘Never fancied eating letters,’ he said. ‘Did my apprenticeship here under old Harry Smart and took over when he retired. Not that he properly retired—the old fellow still comes in each day to tell me what I’ve done wrong with the pies or coffee rolls.’

  Grant shook the offered hand and, suspecting Codger was about to embark on a lengthy game of ‘do you remember’, gave his order.

  ‘I’ll be back to have a chat as soon as I’m settled,’ he said. ‘But since arriving yesterday I’ve been on the run so I haven’t had time to check out the surgery.’

  ‘Fancy you becoming a doctor,’ Codger said, using tongs to lift pastries into a white paper bag. ‘Katie Fenton—well, we all knew she’d go that way. Bloody brilliant, she was. But bad boy Bell? That’s a different story. Saw the light, did you? Decided there was more money to be made in the medical profession than swiping chocolates off the display in the newsagent’s?’

  ‘Ben Whiting swiped the chocolates, I just got the blame,’ Grant protested, though his mind was scooting backwards, wondering if everyone in town—including all the patients he was about to see—would have a ‘bad boy Bell’ tale to tell.

  ‘Yeah?’ Codger said, making the word so disbelieving Grant knew it would be a waste of breath to argue.

  He handed over a note, and took the change and his purchases, leaving the shop with a promise to return to talk over old times.

  Not in this lifetime! he added to himself as he walked back towards the house. As if I don’t have enough embarrassing memories of my own without people like Codger digging up more.

  The walk back to the house was undertaken with a marked diminution of enthusiasm. So much so, the thought of the wave-less beach seemed positively enticing. He tried reminding himself it was nearly Christmas, but it was so long since he’d felt anything approaching a festive spirit at this time of the year that the thought was more dampening than uplifting.

  But when he moved quietly through to the bedrooms, opening Katie’s door and peering in, the sight of her, sleeping deeply, as if confident he’d take care of everything, reminded him that it was good to be needed sometimes.

  He glanced towards the crib and saw the baby stirring, then, before he could decide if picking her up would be a good idea, she gave a funny snuffle, made a little grunting noise and waved her arms as if expecting company. Telling himself it was just this once, and picking her up didn’t mean getting involved, he crossed the room in two long strides and lifted her, turning to snag a couple of everything from the piles of baby necessities by the bed.

  He saw the sling, hooked over the doorknob, as he was leaving the room, and grabbed that as well.

  ‘I know there’s expressed milk in the fridge, but as it doesn’t come with a use-by date, I have no idea if it’s fresh. No idea how long it stays fresh, now I come to think of it. Debbie used formula. But as I also know you were fed only an hour ago, I think we’ll give it a miss.’

  The huge blue eyes studied him, as if taking in every word he said, remaining fixed on his face as he set her down on the couch and proceeded with nappy changing.

  ‘I’m quite adept at this,’ he told her. ‘Which is good for you, as I might be doing a bit of it over the next few weeks. Your mother needs to rest. You understand that, don’t you?’

  The sling took longer to work out than he’d expected, but eventually he had the baby tied securely, if not neatly, to the front of his chest.

  ‘Damn! Should have had the cup of tea first so I don’t run the risk of slopping scalding liquid over your downy head.’

  He peered down at the downy head in question, and added, ‘Though now you appear to have gone back to sleep, that’s less likely to happen.’

  Moving cautiously as he adjusted to the difference in his body shape, he set out the pastries on a plate and covered them with plastic film so Katie would see them when she came into the kitchen. Made himself toast, and decided to risk the tea, though he did add cold water so, should an accident occur, it would be warm and not scalding liquid splashing everywhere, concentrating all the time on the practical, so he didn’t have to think about the warm bundle pressed against his chest.

  ‘Good heavens, look at Dr Dad!’

  He swung from the sink where he was rinsing off his plate to see Aunt Vi come through the door. He moved towards her, leaning carefully forward far enough to plant a big kiss on his favourite relative’s cheek.

  ‘Katie’s sleeping and Fiona didn’t need feeding, so I thought I’d keep her occupied for a while,’ he explained.

  ‘Fiona? Kate’s finally named her, then?’

  Vi seemed so pleased Grant hated to disabuse her of the notion, but honesty compelled him to explain.

  ‘You can’t try out names on babies!’ his relative protested.

  ‘Why not?’ he demanded. ‘It seems eminently sensible to me. Anyway, I should be over at the surgery learning what’s where, not arguing with you about a name for a baby that doesn’t belong to either of us.’

  Vi cast him a funny look.

  ‘Bringing too much back, is it? I did wonder when I asked you to come, but after that wretched Paul left town, then the locum woman let Kate down so badly, I had to find someone.’

  ‘I was happy to come,’ Grant assured her. He couldn’t bring himself to deny the ‘bringing too much back’ comment, so he let it slide. ‘Now, did you want something from here, or were you just checking there was a doctor available to start work?’

  ‘I was just checking,’ Vi said, ‘but now I’ve checked, are you really coming to work like that?’

  Grant peered downward.

  ‘I thought I’d take the baby off before I start. Katie said you’d been minding her at work.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about the baby, but the shirt,’ Vi told him. ‘And the shorts.’

  ‘It’s all I have. No, I lie! I have one pair of long, cotton, draw-string trousers—cargo pants really—but it’s far too hot for long pants out here. They were for going out. I’ve been in Byron Bay, remember.’

  ‘Yes!’ Vi said faintly, then she squared her shoulders as if readying herself for battle. ‘Well, if a single, pregnant Katie Fenton arriving in town as the new doctor shocked a bit of life into the place, I can’t wait to see what you in your lurid beach gear is going to do!’

  ‘Liven the locals up a little more,’ Grant said, smiling and moving closer to give his aunt a hug.

  She responded with a quick kiss on his cheek.

  ‘It’s about time you came home,’ she said.

  Home?

  Now, that was a scary—no, forget scary, that was a positively terrifying thought.

  An impossible thought.

  ‘I’ve only come to help Katie out,’ he reminded Vi. ‘And seeing how isolated she is, I’m glad I was available. You know that hospital doctor did nothing more than the basic checks during her pregnancy, and there are no antenatal classes. The poor woman’s been at her wit’s end.’

  ‘She told you all of that?’ Vi demanded.

  Grant peered at his aunt, puzzled by the disbelief in her voice.

  ‘Why shouldn’t she?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t she?’ Vi repeated. ‘There’s no earthly reason why she shouldn’t except that, since the moment she arrived in town, she’s been Miss Independent. Miss I-can-manage-on-my-own. Offers of help were met with polite smiles and thanks but, no, thanks. I was surprised when I took a casserole around and she didn’t give it straight back to me.’

  The picture Vi was painting was disturbing, and as his aunt pulled patient files from the shelves, and he unwound Fiona from his chest, he said, speaking more to himself than to Vi, ‘I wonder why? I wonder what made her so unwilling to accept favours from people? Even to the extent of assuring her par
ents she didn’t need them here for the baby’s birth?’

  ‘From what I can gather, both the baby’s father and her own mother suggested an abortion,’ Vi said, closing the cupboard door and turning to take the baby from his arms. ‘So perhaps she feels, having decided to go it alone, she doesn’t deserve help, particularly from strangers—which is what we are to her after all these years.’

  ‘That’s why her parents should be here—or at least her mother. Katie says they’d planned their overseas trip for years, but I wonder if there’s more to it. If there’s been a family feud over her keeping the baby.’

  Vi led the way to the reception area, then turned towards him.

  ‘She was always a bit of a snob, Mrs Fenton,’ she mused. ‘And since he became State Manager of the bank, I imagine she’s got worse. Kate’s choice of single motherhood mightn’t have sat well with her. But Kate was always a loyal young thing—she certainly wouldn’t say if there’d been serious trouble.’

  ‘You’re right about the loyalty, but there can’t be an irreparable feud. She sent Katie recipes.’

  ‘Which the poor girl needed like a hole in the head,’ Vi fumed. ‘Overseas trip or not, Mrs Fenton should have come herself. She should be cooking not only all the meals but stocking up the freezer for when she leaves, and babysitting while Kate works, and taking her granddaughter for walks, and generally supporting her daughter, not sending flaming recipes.’

  Grant smiled at Vi’s vehemence.

  ‘If the scones were an example of the way Katie cooks, they probably will be flaming,’ he said. ‘But enough of Katie for now. Let’s see the patient list. Who do I know?’

  ‘Just about everyone, though they’ve all aged a bit.’ Vi set the baby down in a little basket positioned on a wide table at the back of the reception area. Beside it, neatly stacked, were piles of baby gear, similar to the ones in Katie’s bedroom.

  ‘Does no one use cupboards and little chests of drawers any more?’ he asked, forgetting they were supposed to be in work-mode.

  ‘That’s another thing her mother should have seen to,’ Vi said darkly. ‘The poor girl has no baby furniture and changing that baby on the bed instead of on a high table or baby-changing thingy will wreck her back.’

  Grant tucked the words ‘baby furniture’ into the back of his mind, though he could see it all—the chest of drawers with duckling decals on it, the changing table with little pockets everywhere for the odds and ends a baby needed, the bag that hung from the ceiling and held folded nappies.

  ‘You’d better remind me who people are,’ he said to Vi, shoving the mental image back into the furthermost corner of his mind. ‘You know, the old “you remember Mrs Woulfe” trick.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Vi told him, ‘though there are sure to be some slip-ups. It’s twelve years since you were in town, and we have had some newcomers in that time.’

  ‘A new bank manager for a start,’ Grant said, reading through the names in the appointment book and trying to put faces to them. ‘How long ago did the Fentons leave?’

  ‘When Katie was in her final year of high school. They actually left mid-year and she stayed on with the Williams family so she didn’t have to move schools.’

  ‘Codger Williams’s family?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Vi replied, totally unconcerned by this revelation that was causing Grant considerable dismay, though why he wasn’t sure. Actually, he was sure! The thought of the teenage Katie and the libidinous Codger sharing a bathroom was enough to make anyone uneasy, no matter how far in the past it was.

  He concentrated on the names.

  ‘Mrs Russell—that’s not old Mrs Russell, is it? She was over a hundred before we left town.’

  ‘She was eighty-eight when you left town and turned a hundred earlier this year. Her kidneys are giving up and the specialist down in Brisbane recommended she go on this Eprex. It means weekly injections. Kate got a lot of information about it, and has to order in the injections through the specialist. I’ll get the file.’

  She passed a thick file to Grant, who opened it and found the information leaflets explaining the drug Mrs Russell would be getting. Eprex was a trade name for erythropoietin, a hormone synthesised in the kidneys and released into the blood to stimulate the production of red blood cells.

  In people with chronic renal disease, the kidneys failed to produce the hormone, leading to a drop in the red blood cells. Because these cells carried oxygen throughout the body, the patient suffered from breathlessness and the general debility a lack of oxygen would cause. But athletes, needing an increased oxygen-carrying capacity to give them an added edge, would find the hormone invaluable. No doubt it was on the banned list, which explained why only specialists could prescribe it.

  He read through the rest of the information, then the most recent pages of Mrs Russell’s file. Though he’d seen cases of acute renal failure during his years in A and E, he’d usually slated such patients for admission and passed the problem on to people better trained to deal with the disease.

  Vi tapped on the door and helped Mrs Russell manoeuvre her wheelie-walker into the room.

  ‘You remember Mrs Russell,’ Vi said, following orders but totally unnecessarily in this case. ‘Granny, this is Grant Bell. My nephew. He’s doing Kate’s job for a while.’

  ‘So bad boy Bell’s come back, has he?’ Granny Russell cackled, and Grant, who’d been thinking country GP work might be more interesting than he’d thought, groaned inwardly and wondered how long it would be before the locals dropped the ‘bad boy’ tag.

  Speaking slowly and carefully, he led Granny through a recital of her general health—bowel and bladder habits, fluid intake and appetite—while taking her blood pressure, a surprisingly reasonable one hundred and sixty over seventy, pulse and checking her lungs for any sign of congestion.

  ‘I’m good as I was at eighty,’ she told him. ‘Maybe even better, since Kate sent me to Brisbane to get my kidneys checked and we started on these injections. You know, some of the lads in the high school football team’d kill to have some of the stuff I get.’

  ‘You’re right there, Granny,’ Grant told her, surprised to find the old woman knew so much about the drug—and obviously had no trouble remembering what she’d been told about it. ‘Nothing much wrong with your memory, is there?’ he said, wondering why some people retained all their mental faculties while others began losing theirs so early.

  ‘Nothing wrong with most of me—just my kidneys,’ Granny said. ‘The specialist said I was too old for a transplant, though I bet they’ve given them to people who didn’t appreciate a second chance as much as I would.’

  She was so definite that Grant was startled into questioning the remark.

  ‘What would you do with a second chance, Granny?’

  She looked up at him, the rheumy blue eyes as alert as those of the magpie he’d passed earlier.

  ‘Live a little, love a little,’ she sang, so off-key both she and Grant started laughing, though when she started coughing she sobered up and said, ‘We all deserve a second chance, don’t you think?’

  ‘I do,’ Grant agreed, though he wasn’t so sure it covered both the suggestions she’d made. ‘And that being the case, how about you start with me? Spread the word I’m a nice guy—no longer bad boy Bell.’

  Granny laughed again, then told him to get away with him.

  ‘You were never really bad, just into everything,’ she said. ‘The name kind of suited you.’

  She eyed his clothes as he unwrapped the syringe.

  ‘I should get a shirt like that,’ she said.

  ‘I’m glad you like it,’ Grant said. ‘Aunt Vi was horrified, but I was on holiday at the beach when she phoned and asked me to come. Now, where do you want this? Upper arm, thigh, stomach? Any preference?’

  ‘Kate did the right thigh last time, so let’s go for upper arm. My left one, as I’ve got a lot of cooking to do this afternoon.’

  She studied Grant for a minu
te.

  ‘If I gave you some cookies you’d take them, wouldn’t you?’

  He nodded, and she smiled and bared her arm, ready for him to swab it then inject the drug just under the skin.

  He was seeing his elderly patient out when the phone rang. Knowing it was likely to be Katie, waking to find her baby had been stolen, he hovered by the reception desk so he could hear at least one end of the conversation.

  ‘No, she’s fine. She’s sleeping. I’ll bring her over when she wakes. In the meantime, as Grant hasn’t killed his first patient, why don’t you relax and enjoy a morning off?’

  Grant smiled as he imagined Katie’s reaction, but Vi would have none of it.

  ‘Don’t you come near this surgery!’ she ordered. ‘I’ve already told you I’ll bring Fiona over when she wakes.’

  Grant could hear Katie’s protests from four feet away.

  ‘Oh, sorry!’ Vi said. ‘It must be the excitement of seeing him again. I was sure he said you’d decided.’

  There was a pause then Vi added, ‘Sophie yesterday? Well, I like Sophie. Mind you, I like Fiona, too.’

  The look of shock on Vi’s face suggested Katie had slammed the receiver down in her ear.

  Suspecting she’d come barrelling over to give him a piece of her mind, he grabbed the next file, checked the name, looked enquiringly at Vi who shook her head just enough to tell him he didn’t know the patient, then he called Mr Ridley in.

  ‘Brian Ridley,’ the man said, when Grant had closed the door and introduced himself. ‘I’m the bank manager, though I didn’t take over from Dr Fenton’s father. There were three or four in between him and me.’

  The man seemed nervous but, then, patients often were. With reason, considering some of the things they were expected to tell their doctors.

  ‘How can I help you?’ Grant asked, and Brian looked around the room, his eyes darting desperately from one poster to the next, as if seeking some solution to whatever ailed him.

  They settled on a warning that immunisation didn’t last for ever, the thrust of it being one should have regular boosters, especially for tetanus.