The Best Man

by Dianne Blacklock

  A moment later he responded, No need to shout.

  Sunday afternoon

  The change in Dylan by the morning was nothing short of miraculous. Not that the staff seemed to think so; it was all very routine to them. Of course he’d be hungry, and of course he could start to eat – only clear fluids at first, but all going well, he could have solid food by tonight. One thing he couldn’t do was jump around and risk bursting his stitches. So when Lachie’s relief translated into playfully roughing up his brother – probably because he really just wanted to hug him – Liv had to pull him into line immediately. She explained that it was very important for Dylan to avoid any stress or strain to his stomach muscles, and that included fighting off his overexcited twin.

  But it was so good to see Dylan smiling, his eyes bright and his cheeks pink again. Lachie was intent on grilling him for all the gory details, even though he probably knew more about it than Dylan did.

  ‘Was it scary in the operating room?’ he asked, his eyes growing wide. ‘Were you lying under one of those humungous lights, with all the doctors staring down at you, their faces masked, as one of them holds up a scalpel, and it gleams in the light, and he’s just waiting for you to count down from a hundred, so he can plunge it into your guts?’

  ‘Lachlan James Foley!’

  But Dylan was grinning, holding his stomach. ‘Don’t make me laugh!’ he pleaded. He caught his breath again. ‘Anyway, I don’t remember much, it’s all pretty fuzzy. The whole night is, but especially after I got the drugs. Hey Mum, you were right about them being the good ones.’

  He would have to remember that. ‘Yes, but the good drugs are only available in hospitals, administered by doctors,’ said Liv. ‘All other drugs are bad.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Lachie snorted.

  Rick came in after breakfast, giving Liv and Lachie the opportunity to go home for a while. Liv had never been so happy to have a shower and change her clothes. She put together a few things for Dylan, though the staff had told her he would in all likelihood be able to go home tomorrow, or Tuesday morning at the latest, so he didn’t need much. Lachie packed up the PSP and some games, and Liv tossed in a couple of books that were sitting on Dylan’s bedside table, getting an eye-roll from Lachie for her trouble.

  When they got back to the hospital, Rick left again. He would return later to stay with Dylan throughout the evening, but not overnight. Dylan had been quite definite about that: he wasn’t a baby, he pointed out. Liv was beginning to think he regarded the whole thing as an adventure, a rite of passage even, that made him worldlier than your average fourteen year old. Which was okay with Liv, as long as he was getting better.

  The boys were absorbed with their gaming device when their nanna and pop arrived, and were reluctant to turn it off.

  ‘Leave them to play,’ said Joy. ‘I’m just glad to be here and see my darling boy looking so well.’

  ‘What about me, Nan?’ said Lachie.

  ‘Oh, you always look well, scruff,’ she said, tousling his hair.

  Before calling her parents yesterday, it had taken Liv ages to come up with an opening line that would simultaneously convey both the necessary information, and complete reassurance. She ended up starting with, ‘So I just want to let you know that everyone’s all right –’

  ‘What’s happened, is it one of the boys?’ Joy interrupted frantically before Liv could get any further.

  Honestly, her mother’s antennae were fine-tuned for calamity. Liv remembered vividly when she was growing up, Joy glued to the news, keeping track of the rising death toll of the latest disaster. Each day when Liv got home from school, Joy would give her an update: ‘It’s up to sixty-eight dead in those terrible bushfires. I just know there’s going to be more.’

  ‘What did I tell you? Seventy-five now. And we haven’t heard the last of it, mark my words.’

  A week later: ‘Well, they’re still at seventy-five. The way they were carrying on you’d think there was going to be hundreds.’ She’d almost sounded disappointed.

  ‘When I think of what could have happened to you,’ she was saying to Dylan now, shaking her head. ‘You know, if your appendix bursts, you die. That’s it, all over, red rover.’

  ‘Mum . . .’

  ‘I guess you were lucky your mother was even contactable, under the circumstances. I mean, she could have been anywhere, and then what?’

  Rick poked his head into the room. ‘Special delivery!’

  He pushed the door all the way open and walked in carrying two huge McDonald’s bags and a tray of drinks.

  ‘Awesome!’ cried Lachie.

  ‘Rick,’ said Liv, who so enjoyed taking on the role of Nancy No-Fun, ‘Dylan can’t have solid food until tonight, didn’t you hear the doctor?’

  His face dropped. ‘Oh, really?’ He said it as though it had been Liv’s decision.

  Dylan was trying not to show his disappointment, but he’d only just been saying to Liv that his hunger pangs were starting to get stronger, and that juice and broth weren’t doing it for him.

  Joy had sprung from her seat when Rick first came in. ‘Well, what a generous and thoughtful thing to do, even so,’ she exclaimed, helping to relieve him of his load.

  No, once again, not thoughtful at all.

  ‘Well, you can have a soft drink, yeah?’ Rick said hopefully.

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  ‘Maybe a few chips wouldn’t hurt?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Rick,’ said Nancy No-Fun. ‘He’s not allowed solids until teatime.’

  ‘I tell you what, mate,’ said Rick. ‘The minute they give you the all-clear, I’ll duck out and get you a fresh McChicken meal, or whatever you want.’

  ‘Awesome.’

  Bugger him. Liv was pretty sure Dylan wasn’t supposed to eat like that for at least another few days, though she didn’t want to have to be the one to say it. But she knew it would have to come down to her. After all, she couldn’t count on the staff to police it; they might not notice Rick come in with the McDonald’s, or they might assume that he had brought it in for himself, not to feed to his son who had just had abdominal surgery.

  ‘I’m so glad we’re getting to see you, Rick,’ said Joy. ‘Olive said you weren’t coming back till later.’

  ‘You know, Joy, I was driving along, thinking my whole family’s back in that hospital room, including my favourite in-laws . . .’

  Liv rolled her eyes.

  ‘And I said to myself, where would I rather be? Going home to catch a few hours of the cricket? I don’t think so. So you know what I did?’

  Joy was hanging on his every word.

  ‘I turned my car around that minute and headed straight back here.’

  ‘See how much your dad loves you boys?’ said Joy.

  ‘Sorry, this looks like a bad time.’

  Everyone turned. David was standing in the doorway, a tentative expression on his face. Liv thought he was probably right – it wasn’t the best time, not for their sakes, but for poor David’s. Talk about a baptism of fire.

  But before she could warn him off, Joy piped up, ‘Of course not, doctor, come in.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not –’

  ‘He’s not Dylan’s doctor, Mum,’ Liv jumped in. She had to keep control of this, somehow. ‘This is a friend of mine, David Lessing. This is my mum and dad, Joy and Ken Walsh.’

  ‘How do you do?’ David shook Ken’s hand. Her dad seemed oblivious, but Joy was clearly starting to piece it together, largely because Rick was doing a very good impression of a stunned mullet.

  ‘This is the boys’ dad, Rick Foley,’ Liv charged on valiantly.

  ‘I thought only family were allowed to visit?’ Joy muttered, not quite under her breath.

  Liv continued over the top of her, ‘And here are the boys –’

  ‘Dylan and Lachlan,’ David said, identifying them correctly, and giving them each one of those fist bumps that the young people do. The boys seemed duly impressed.

  �
��How did you know which one of us was which?’ Lachie asked, wide-eyed.

  ‘Well, your mum told me you have a freckle on the right side of your nose . . .’

  Lachie frowned, touching his nose doubtfully.

  ‘And that Dylan just had his appendix out,’ David added. ‘Bit of a dead giveaway.’

  ‘D’oh,’ Dylan said, and Lachie elbowed him.

  ‘Gently, please, Lach,’ Liv warned.

  ‘How are you feeling, Dylan?’ David asked him.

  ‘Good, but hungry,’ he grimaced.

  ‘I’m not surprised. Bit rough having to put up with the smell of hot chips when you haven’t eaten.’

  ‘Reckon.’

  ‘But to be honest, you probably should wait a few days before you have anything greasy like that.’

  Dylan’s face dropped. ‘Dad was going to get me Macca’s tonight.’

  David winced. ‘You wouldn’t want to let the nurses catch you with it.’

  Bless him.

  ‘Can I tell you something, Dylan?’ David went on. ‘You probably couldn’t manage it, even if you think you could. A couple of bites in and you’d most likely feel sick – and take it from me, you don’t want to get an upset stomach when you’ve got stitches. You’ll enjoy it more in a few days, maybe give it a week.’

  A further blessing upon his house.

  ‘But what can I eat till then?’

  ‘Let me see,’ David said, reaching for the chart.

  ‘Apparently they’re letting just anyone read people’s private records,’ Joy sniffed.

  David didn’t seem to notice. ‘What have they given you so far?’ he asked Dylan, scanning the chart.

  ‘Soup.’ Dylan pretended to gag. ‘And juice and soft drink.’

  ‘Any problems keeping it down?’

  ‘Nuh.’

  ‘Well, you’ll probably get some scrambled eggs later, bread, yoghurt or rice pudding, something like that. The best I can do for you now is jelly, how does that sound?’

  ‘Cool,’ said Lachie. ‘Can I have some too?’

  ‘No, you got Macca’s,’ said David. ‘Your brother’s getting the jelly.’ He high-fived Dylan. ‘I’ll be right back.’ He caught Liv’s eye on the way out and gave her a wink.

  ‘Nice sorta bloke,’ Ken remarked.

  But Joy turned up her nose. ‘Treated the place like he owned it, if you ask me.’

  No one did, Liv felt like saying.

  ‘So that was David,’ Rick finally spoke. By the look on his face, he was still reeling.

  ‘Yes.’ Liv jumped in to stop him from saying something inappropriate in front of the boys. ‘He’s a nurse, works up in Cardiology.’

  ‘And how did you come to meet a man nurse from Cardiology?’ Joy wanted to know.

  ‘I didn’t meet him at the hospital,’ Liv said. ‘He’s a friend.’

  ‘What kind of a friend?’

  ‘A good one.’ Liv decided to head David off at the pass – she couldn’t let him come back into this. ‘Excuse me,’ she said briskly, and walked out of the room.

  She was pacing the corridor outside when David walked up, carrying three tubs of jelly in different colours.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, smiling nervously.

  ‘Hello . . .’ He looked bemused.

  ‘I’m just going to come straight out and say it,’ Liv began. ‘I think it’s probably better if you don’t go back in there.’

  He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ she assured him. ‘It’s the rest of them. Not the boys, and not my dad. He said you seemed like a nice bloke.’

  ‘But not a hit with your mother, or your ex,’ David said with a wry smile. ‘So they know . . . ?’

  ‘Not really, but my mother has an eagle eye and a suspicious mind,’ said Liv. ‘And she thinks Rick is still my lawful husband . . . so, you know . . .’

  ‘You are divorced?’ David said, checking.

  ‘Absolutely. It’s just, she’s religious, and a little crazy.’

  ‘I see. Well, give these to Dylan,’ he said, handing her the tubs of jelly. ‘Tell him not to eat them all at once.’

  ‘Thank you, that was really kind of you.’

  ‘It was nothing.’ He let out a sigh. ‘I guess I’ll see you?’

  ‘Yeah . . . though I don’t know when, things are going to be difficult for a while. Dylan will be off school, I don’t know what I’m going to do about work . . .’

  ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

  ‘God, no – I mean, no, thank you,’ said Liv. ‘I wasn’t fishing, I was just saying I don’t know when I’m going to have the chance . . . to see you again.’

  The disappointment was evident in his eyes. ‘Then I’ll leave it up to you,’ he said. ‘Bye, Liv.’ He turned and walked away up the corridor.

  Bugger it, she thought as she headed back to Dylan’s room.

  Monday morning

  The rumba started to play in Madeleine’s head, insistent, ludicrous. She rolled over and it stopped. She must have been dreaming. Then it started up again. Her eyes sprang open.

  She grabbed her phone off the bedside table and squinted at the screen. It was Liv. What day was it? She peered down at the numbers and letters on the display, trying to focus. It was Monday, and it was nine thirty.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  ‘Hi, it’s me, I’m sorry,’ Madeleine said all at once as she answered.

  ‘Where are you?’ said Liv.

  ‘I’m . . . it’s okay, I’m in the city, I can be there in . . . half an hour, tops.’

  ‘Well, all kinds of shit is going down here, so you better hurry.’

  Madeleine hung up the phone and tossed it onto the bed, rubbing her eyes. She didn’t know why she hadn’t set her alarm, but there was no time to dwell on that, she had to get her act into gear. She stumbled out of bed and threw herself under the shower just long enough to rinse off and wake up. She yanked a dress off its hanger; it was clean, it would do, and she wouldn’t waste valuable minutes finding a top to match a bottom. Back in the bathroom, she checked her face in the mirror. God, what a disaster. Puffy red eyes, blotchy skin, and her hair could do with a wash, but there was no time. She quickly brushed mineral powder over her face in the hope it would cover some of the blotchiness, and dragged a mascara wand across her lashes; lips she could do in the taxi on the way. She grabbed a hairclip and her handbag, and ran for the door, twisting her hair up and catching it at the back with the clip.

  As she burst through the foyer doors a minute later, a cold gust of wind almost picked her up and carried her away. What the hell? She looked up at the sky. It was grey and threatening, and she could feel fine rain spitting on her face. Her dress was thin cotton georgette, sleeveless, her shoes strappy slip-ons. She was going to freeze. She rooted around in her handbag in the vague hope she had one of her little cardigans, even a scarf buried away down deep. No luck. Madeleine hesitated for a second longer. There wasn’t time to go back, there was nothing she could do. Bloody Sydney spring, it had no right to call itself that. Oh sure, it was halfway between summer and winter – but all that meant was that it was golden warm one day, shivering cold the next.

  Twenty minutes after Liv’s call, Madeleine was racing up the street, breathless, cursing herself; she really shouldn’t have promised half an hour ‘tops’. But then, contrary to her usual experience, she managed to grab a taxi almost as soon as she got to the main drag, so she was going to be pretty close to her ETA, after all. As she settled into the back seat, brushing the spots of rain from her bare arms, she suddenly remembered that her car was in the garage of the apartment block. Crap! Though on second thoughts, it was probably better that she wasn’t driving: she wouldn’t have to park the car when she got to work, she could be dropped right at the door. And this gave her time to collect her thoughts, check her messages, breathe . . .

  There were two, no, three messages from Liv, sent before she’d finally gi
ven up and called her. Madeleine didn’t know why she hadn’t heard the beeps; she must have been really out to it. The messages warned her that she was about to walk into a shitstorm, without giving any hint as to what it might be. What the hell was going on in there? She really didn’t need this today. She scrolled further down the screen. There was nothing from Henry, not that she was expecting anything. Fortunately, there was nothing from Aiden either; it seemed he’d taken her at her word, and she wouldn’t expect any more trouble from him.

  Madeleine breathed out heavily, leaning her forehead against the car window as the streets sped by. It was raining properly now; droplets spotted the glass and dribbled down, blurring her view. But she wasn’t really looking; she had too much else crowding her mind.

  She hadn’t been able to get to sleep last night, maybe because she had slept too much the day before, but also because her brain wouldn’t switch off. She couldn’t stop trying to analyse her behaviour, and Henry’s, and Aiden’s, going over the sequence of events since he’d arrived in the country, and trying to understand what had contributed to the clusterfuck that had resulted. From the start, Aiden’s presence had seemed to cast Henry in a bad light, but now that had completely flipped. It was like looking at one of those pictures that played tricks on the eye.

  Eventually Madeleine had given up on sleep and turned on her laptop, and soon she found herself googling ‘effects of alcohol on inhibition’, ‘excessive consumption of alcohol’, ‘alcohol abuse’, ‘problem drinking’ and, finally, ‘alcoholism’. She did it to reassure herself as much as anything. Years ago, she used to be able to drink without any repercussions beyond a mild hangover, so she didn’t see how she could actually be an alcoholic, or surely she would have always had a problem drinking? Not only that, she’d barely even drunk for the last year or so, ever since Henry had moved out here to live. And she hadn’t suffered any withdrawal symptoms, she hadn’t needed to go to rehab or support meetings, she’d just stopped. One drink occasionally didn’t send her spiralling out of control, so the refrain that ‘one’s too many and a hundred’s not enough’ certainly didn’t apply.