The Bush Doctor's Challenge

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘Won’t be long now,’ Abby said in her crisp efficient tone, even flashing a smile as she looked up briefly.

  The smile didn’t last long.

  With something approaching horror she watched as Mike pulled what looked like an old chamois out of his shorts pocket and with hands a world away from Abby’s latexed ones smeared a thick oily goo over the painstakingly cleaned wound then nodded for Abby to continue.

  She didn’t dare look at Kell, didn’t dare look at anyone. Instead, Abby gave a small tight nod and, swallowing hard, resisted the urge to pick up her saline swabs and clean the revolting mixture away. Instead, she placed the wad of combine in place and secured it with a large clear waterproof dressing.

  ‘I’d like to give Jim an injection of penicillin, please, Kell.’ She looked at his deadpan face but she could see the flash of a smile in his eyes as he solemnly nodded.

  ‘Sure, Doctor.’

  ‘It should be fine now,’ Abby said as Kell helped Jim down. ‘But if the redness gets worse or if the pain increases…’

  ‘We will come and see Dr Bodey.’

  ‘Or even me,’ Abby added pointedly, and even Mike laughed.

  ‘Or you, yes, Doctor, we will come and see you.’

  Watching as Jim limped off, Abby heard a gurgle of laughter coming from Kell.

  ‘You were fantastic!’ he enthused. ‘Absolutely fantastic.’

  ‘I was just doing my job.’ Abby shrugged but her pink cheeks told Kell she was pleased. ‘Do you think I pushed it too hard at the end when I said he could come and see me?’

  ‘Mike laughed, didn’t he? I tell you, Abby, you’re in.’ For a second he looked at her, only for a second, but enough time for Abby’s cheeks to change from a cute pink to a rather unflattering shade of puce. ‘I’m sorry about earlier, I should never have tried to lecture you.’

  ‘Hey.’ Abby put her hands up. ‘I’ll take all the advice I can get out here.’ Her eyes strayed to the one box that hadn’t been opened—the esky—and Kell followed her gaze.

  ‘Ready for lunch.’

  ‘I was about two hours ago,’ Abby admitted, licking her lips as Kell pulled the esky down. Taking a rug, Abby fashioned a picnic area and poured two mugs of coffee as Kell played a very good mum, pulling off foil and handing her thick wedges of the best bread Abby had tasted, filled with the thickest slabs of beef and cold fried onions, the home-made chutney adding a delicious tang as Abby chewed in what undoubtedly wasn’t the most feminine fashion.

  ‘This is divine,’ Abby groaned in pleasure.

  ‘Wait till you taste the vanilla slices.’

  ‘I’m going to go back to Sydney the size of a house at this rate. How often do you do the mobile clinic?’

  ‘Most weekdays,’ Kell said, ladling more chutney into one of his rolls and somehow flicking the flies away as he did so. ‘This is just one of many. Some take a full morning to get to. Still, at least June packs us a bigger lunch so there are compensations.’

  ‘I’ll say. So how on earth did Ross manage?’

  ‘He didn’t is the simple answer. There was another doctor, Richard Hoskins, but he’d been trying to retire for the past decade. He only stayed on because he couldn’t bear the thought of what would happen otherwise. It’s good Ross found us or the clinic would have had to close.’

  ‘What would you have done?’

  Kell shrugged. ‘There would still have been more than enough work, there are a lot of nurse practitioners in the outback, but having a doctor and a well-stocked clinic just makes it all the more interesting. Shelly’s a midwife as well, so we’re a level-I centre, which means we can have uncomplicated labours. Now, if we could just persuade an anaesthetist to come on board…’

  ‘Oh, so I’m not good enough?’

  ‘You’ll do.’ Kell smiled. ‘You did really well.’

  ‘I did not,’ Abby insisted. ‘There was nothing done today that wouldn’t have been done without me.’

  ‘That’s not true.’ Kell shook his head so definitely Abby actually found herself starting to believe him. ‘That leg was nasty. I was pretty sure it was just straight cellulitis. I was erring on the side of evacuating him, you’ve saved a call-out.’

  ‘Hopefully,’ Abby said thoughtfully, ‘now that the foreign body’s out, there’s a good chance it will heal nicely.’

  ‘And,’ Kell said, the laughter evident in his voice, ‘you managed not to scream in horror when Mike put his home brew on your nice irrigated wound.’

  ‘Oh, the scream was there,’ Abby said grimly. ‘What was that stuff?’

  ‘Billygoat weed, and the most amazing thing of all is it works.’

  ‘I’m sure it does,’ Abby said, as Kell gave her a slightly startled look.’ I don’t have a completely closed mind, you know. In the city they’re putting honey on wounds now and it’s proving more effective in some cases than the most sophisticated antibiotics and dressings, and only last week the vascular surgeons put leeches on some poor girl’s finger after microsurgery, and the most amazing part of all is they’ve probably saved her from having it amputated. There’s a lot to be said for alternative medicine.’

  ‘You’re a bit of a dark horse, aren’t you, Abby?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ He was looking her in that way again, his eyes boring into her, making her blush with the simplest of sentences.

  ‘You come across so brusque, so efficient, so old school, and I don’t mind admitting when you stepped off that plane I thought you were about to turn tail and run.’

  ‘I nearly did,’ Abby admitted, hiding under the brim of her hat, anything other than meet his eyes.

  ‘And yet here you are now getting down and dirty, mixing with the locals as if you’ve always been here.’

  Abby managed a half-look at him as she bit into her sandwich, but she nearly choked when Kell spoke next.

  ‘What happened, Abby? How come you took up the position when you didn’t want to?’

  ‘I told you, if I wanted the consultant’s position—’

  ‘That’s the formal version,’ Kell interrupted. ‘Come on, Abby, what’s your story?’

  Her sandwich was finished so that diversion wasn’t open. Reaching for her mug, Abby realised her coffee was down to the dregs. For an age she didn’t answer, just stared out at the red dusty view, watching a small wind storm flicking up a few dry leaves and circling them around, little mini-whirlwinds dancing on the plain, and it was only then she turned her troubled eyes back to Kell.

  ‘Why does there have to be another version?’

  ‘Because for all your confidence, for all your brittleness and take-me-or-leave-me attitude, I can’t help but think you’re a woman with a lot on her mind.’

  ‘You assume one helluva lot,’ Abby flared. ‘considering we’ve only just met.’

  He didn’t say anything, he didn’t have to. The truth was, and they both knew it, Kell had in one night got closer to Abby than anyone had in a long time, and the tears she had cried after they had made love hadn’t been post-coital bliss, just the sheer overwhelming release of tension.

  Her mind flicked back as Abby remembered how he had held her, how good it had felt, how a relative stranger had somehow known how to hold her, what to say.

  What not to say.

  ‘Who hurt you, Abby?’

  She gave a very short, very false smile, then relented with a shrug. ‘No one. I took care of that part all by myself.’ When her cryptic words brought no comment Abby carried on talking, her eyes following the dancing leaves, pausing every now and then as the wind dropped, taking the time to regroup, to tell her story as best she could. ‘I was going out with another doctor, David. He was junior, one of the residents. When I say going out, it was hardly…’ She paused for a moment then cleared her throat. ‘We went out for six months. He liked parties, I liked restaurants, he liked pubs, I liked dinner parties.’

  ‘Not the ideal match,’ Kell ventured, but Abby shook her head.

 
‘He made me laugh and it felt surprisingly good. I’ve spent most of my life buried in books, working my way towards being a consultant, it’s always been my dream…’ Realising she was getting off the track, Abby cleared her throat. ‘You know what it’s like, there’s always some social event you’re expected to go to.’ She laughed as Kell shook his head. ‘Well, there is in the city. Anyway, we went to all the social dos together. I didn’t mind when he wandered off with his crowd it was just nice to have someone to go with. Like I say, it wasn’t a deep and meaningful relationship.’ A blush darkened her cheeks. ‘You may find this hard to believe after my behaviour last night but we never even slept together.’ She waited for a chortle of laughter, a scoff of disbelief, but it never came. It was as if Kell knew how hard this was for Abby, and he just nodded gently. ‘Of course, the rest of the hospital thought we were serious, they didn’t realise how casual the whole thing was.

  ‘He was in a car crash.’

  Despite the intense heat, Abby shivered, visibly paling as Kell watched her. Placing his sandwich down on the rug, he moved across to where she sat alone, putting his arm around her instinctively, knowing there was worse to come.

  ‘Were you on duty?’

  ‘Oh, I was on duty all right and I tried so hard to save him, but I didn’t.’

  ‘You couldn’t,’ Kell suggested, but Abby shook her head and for the third time in their short history he was witness to her tears. Only these weren’t tears of elation after a birth or the release of tension after love-making, these were choked, agonising rasps that seemed to convulse her. He sensed her agony, yet he knew she had to go on, knew that in this case out was definitely better than in.

  ‘I didn’t,’ she sobbed. ‘Because I thought I knew him, because I treated him like a friend, not a patient.’

  Kell looked at her, his eyes full of questions, and he screwed them closed when Abby spoke again, feeling her pain as he imagined the scene.

  ‘I didn’t order a drug tox screen.’

  He let her cry for a moment, held her close till the tears abated slightly and she could talk again.

  ‘He had massive head injuries and internal injuries, but I still think that had I known he was on drugs, if I’d only given him Narcan and reversed the opiates, he might have stood a chance, might have lived.’

  ‘What did the coroner say?’ Kell’s voice was practical, calm and to the point, and Abby took a deep breath.

  ‘That he died from his injuries, that nothing could have been done.’ As Kell opened his mouth Abby shook her head. ‘I got a rap on the knuckles, I didn’t get off completely scot-free. He pointed out the absence of the drug screen, how lucky I was that it ultimately didn’t contribute to his death.’ Her voice strangled in her throat as she continued. ‘Everyone blames me.’

  ‘I’m sure they don’t.’

  ‘But they do. I’ve heard a couple of the nurses talking and you’ve no idea how many times I walk into a room and the conversation stops, or they suddenly start discussing the appalling hospital coffee.’

  ‘Hospital coffee is appalling,’ Kell said. ‘I’m sure it’s a frequent topic of conversation.’

  ‘I’m not imagining it, Kell.’

  ‘Maybe not, but have you ever considered they’re not talking about your part in it? The fact a doctor was on drugs, came into the department and died, well, that’s enough to keep most staff rooms going for months.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Abby said tentatively. She had never really thought of it like that and she chewed on her bottom lip, barely noticing Kell’s arms were still around her. ‘Anyway, whether they blame me or not, it’s really immaterial. The simple fact is that I blame myself. I should have treated him as just another patient, not assumed that just because I knew him…’ Her bottom lip wobbled and a tear slid down her cheek. ‘Or thought I knew him.’

  ‘That must be hard as well.’

  Abby nodded. ‘There are a million questions buzzing in my head that I’m never going to have the answers to. Why would someone so young, with everything going for them, who knew all the risks…how could he do it to himself, and if he did have problems why couldn’t he have spoken to me?’

  ‘Nobody has those sorts of answers, Abby. People mess up their lives for different reasons and, as hard as it is to watch, sometimes there’s nothing you can do to help.’

  ‘I don’t believe that.’ Abby shook her head firmly, wiping angrily at her tears with the back of her hand. ‘There’s always something that can be done. When I get back to Sydney I’m implementing a new system for the addicts that come through the department. At the moment all we do is treat their symptoms and, depending who’s on at the time, perhaps make a referral to the drug clinic or hand them a pile of brochures. I want us to have a more structured approach, possibly some trained counsellors on staff. There’s a rapid detox clinic within the hospital, so the basics are in place. We just need to utilise the initial contact in Emergency more effectively.’

  ‘Sounds interesting,’ Kell said thoughtfully, but Abby hadn’t finished yet. ‘And I’m trying to arrange a drug awareness course for the staff, not just to alert them what to look for in patients, but in each other—’

  ‘Abby,’ Kell broke in, his voice calm and strong, ‘it sounds like you’re taking a hell of a lot on.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Abby shrugged. ‘But someone has to do it. Wringing our hands and saying it’s just too big isn’t going to help.’ Her voice softened and Kell had to strain to catch what she was saying. ‘I made a promise.’

  ‘To David?’

  Her eyes were glistening with a fresh batch of tears as she nodded. ‘After he died, I promised him that I wouldn’t let his death be in vain.’

  ‘Do you really think you can make a difference?’ His questions wasn’t derogatory. Instead, there was a note of admiration, of wonder in his voice as Abby gave a determined nod.

  ‘Absolutely.’ She gave a wry laugh. ‘That is if Reece ever gives me the consultant’s position! There’s a bit of spadework that needs to be done there. Apparently, since the night David came in, I’m suddenly the queen of investigations.’

  Kell’s arm tightened a fraction around her shoulders in a friendly sort of squeeze. ‘Running too many tests, huh?’

  Abby nodded.

  ‘Total body scan for a fractured toe?’

  Again she nodded but there was a tiny smile on her lips.

  ‘Full cardiac work-up for a touch of indigestion?’

  Her smile was a bit wider now. ‘All the time.’

  ‘And I bet every ninety-year-old who clips the kerb with his car gets a full drug screen.’

  She managed a laugh but it was laced with tears. ‘Every single one. Reece said that I needed to get back to basics, to practise some grass roots medicine without the luxury of a million radiographers and pathologists.’

  ‘Boost your confidence a bit?’ Kell ventured.

  ‘Or shatter it altogether.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Kell said with a sureness that was alien to Abby. ‘A breech delivery unaided, a mobile clinic in the middle of nowhere without even one call to the flying doctors—I’d say that’s a pretty good start.’

  ‘I can call them?’ Abby looked up sharply.

  ‘With the radio in the Jeep.’ Kell grinned.

  ‘But I thought that was just for emergencies, or to get in touch with the clinic.’

  ‘Oh, no, nine times out of ten I radio through at least once each clinic to ask advice from one of the doctors. They’ll be wondering where I’ve got to today. I shouldn’t have told you that—you’ll be on all the time now.’

  ‘No, I won’t.’ Standing up, she looked at the ants marching purposefully towards Kell’s discarded sandwich. ‘You’re looking at the new, confident Abby Hampton.’

  Kell grinned. ‘How about I clean up here and we eat the vanilla slices in the back of the Jeep?’

  Never had a change of subject been more gratefully received!

  Though she’d dug her hee
ls in, though she’d thought she might die without her laptop and an internet connection, that night, when Abby finally set up the computer and took an age to establish a connection, when she finally hit the ‘new mail’ button, when she tried to describe the past twenty-four hours of her life, the paltry four-line greeting she sent to her family didn’t even begin to encompass the roller-coaster of emotion she had set foot on.

  Looking out of the massive glass door, the setting sun illuminating the sky a fiery red, silhouetting one single lonely tree in the endless glowing landscape, Abby truly understood the beauty of the vast outback, took solace in the tiny speck she was in the scheme of things and finally managed to look back on the previous night without her heart skittering into shameful palpitations.

  CHAPTER SIX

  FOR all Kell’s promise of wooing her, from the lack of attention he paid her in the ensuing weeks, he had obviously thought better of it!

  Not a single flower, chocolate or even so much as a video graced Abby’s palm or even merited a mention.

  Sure, they worked well together, laughed at each other’s jokes and rowed about the patients every now and then and, sure, the air crackled with sexual tension like a balloon rubbed on nylon whenever the two of them were together, but whatever game Kell was playing, a quick chase clearly wasn’t on his agenda.

  Not even a slow one, come to that.

  As the days turned into weeks, a gnawing feeling pitted at Abby’s stomach, a sense of time moving on, quickly running out, but curiously coupled with a sense of sheer relief.

  What was the point of a romance that couldn’t possibly go anywhere?

  The outback was in Kell’s blood, he’d told her that on their first night.

  The city pumped in Abby’s veins.

  Not that she didn’t love Tennengarrah, not that the people weren’t wonderful, the work amazing and the scenery literally breathtaking, but it wasn’t, neither would it ever be, home.