The Bush Doctor's Challenge

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘You don’t have to take all the flak, Abby,’ he said, placing an ambu-bag over Bill’s mouth and pushing oxygen into his lungs. ‘We’ll share it.’

  Ross stood back, his face set in a grim line before he, too, joined them, pulling up drugs and joining in, but from the furious look on his face Abby knew she was in for it.

  ‘I’ll explain later,’ Abby said, catching his eye for a split second.

  ‘Oh, you can bet on it, Abby,’ Ross snarled.

  They worked in steely silence, only the harrowing sound of Martha’s sobs breaking the bleeps of the monitors, the hiss of the oxygen, the short, sharp, orders from Abby, and when finally the wavy line reverted to a slow but regular rhythm, when Bill’s chest rose and fell without the aid of Kell, they all stood back for a moment and watched as Bill started to breathe unaided, watched as he started to slowly come to.

  But there was no jubilation, no nods of appreciation or congratulations on a job well done, just the cold morning-after feeling of facing the consequences. As Abby checked Bill’s blood pressure, her shaking hand for once couldn’t be blamed on adrenaline, just the appalling but unfortunately all-too-regular fear of a passionate decision being dissected in the sterile surroundings of a courtroom.

  ‘My office.’

  Abby almost smiled. Ross didn’t have an office, just a regular seat in the staffroom, but it was hardly the time to point it out.

  ‘I need to talk—’

  ‘You’ve got that right at least,’ Ross interrupted furiously.

  ‘To Martha.’ Abby’s voice was surprisingly even as she looked her colleague in the eye then turned to her patient’s daughter.

  ‘Thank you,’ Martha sobbed, as Abby put a comforting arm around her and guided her away from the trolley where her father lay to the nurses’ station, dragging up two chairs and handing Martha a wad of tissues.

  ‘I don’t know that your father’s going to say the same,’ Abby said gently. ‘Bill’s wishes were very clear, and going against them…’

  ‘I’m his next of kin,’ Martha said fiercely, in a surprising show of strength. ‘It was me insisted that you resuscitate him, I didn’t leave you with any choice.’

  Abby shrugged. Litigation was a worry but not a relevant one for the moment. Her problem right now was how to handle Martha, Bill and the jumble that was their lives in whatever time was left. ‘What I’m trying to say, Martha, is that at any moment what just happened to your father could happen again. At any moment,’ she added, her words hitting the mark the second time around. ‘And even if we do attempt to resuscitate your father, this time around we mightn’t get him back. If you really do want him to know that you’re pregnant, it has to be now.’

  ‘Now?’ Martha asked, aghast, and Abby gave a small but definite nod.

  ‘Now, Martha.’

  ‘But it could kill him.’

  Abby took a deep breath. Her hands reaching over, she squeezed the icy ones of Martha, trying somehow to inject strength, hope, and then berating herself because maybe there wasn’t any to be had.

  ‘Then again, this news might be just what your father needs to hold on.’

  Kell gave a small smile as they approached, moving to the head of the trolley to make room for Martha.

  ‘Can he hear?’ Martha asked, her eyes darting anxiously to Kell, who nodded.

  ‘He just spoke,’ Kell said gently. ‘He was asking for you.’

  ‘I’m here, Dad.’

  Suddenly Martha looked so much younger than eighteen. She looked like a wary ten-year-old as she grasped her father’s hand and struggled not to cry. Abby didn’t fare so well, tears quietly slipping onto her cheeks as she watched a child who had lost her mother take the biggest gamble of her life and try to save her father.

  ‘I know you don’t want to live, Dad, I know how hard it is for you, but I need you, especially now’ Her voice broke and she glanced up at Abby, who nodded for her to go on. ‘I’m having a baby.’

  For a second Abby doubted whether Martha’s words had registered, but as Bill’s heart rate picked up and grey eyes that were begging to be permanently closed flicked open, Abby knew that Martha’s admission had hit home.

  ‘And I can’t do it without you. Des loves me and I love him and we really want this to work, but if I lose you now, if you go and leave me, I don’t know how we’ll manage…’

  Abby placed her hands on the heaving shoulders as Bill’s eyes closed again. ‘Let him rest now, Martha, he’s exhausted.’

  ‘Martha?’

  The tiny voice stilled them all but Bill didn’t say anything else, just squeezed his daughter’s hand tight, and it was Kell who found a chair and placed it at the bedside. ‘Abby’s right. He needs to rest. Maybe he’ll do it better with you sitting beside him, huh?’

  ‘What did Ross say?

  Kell found Abby, oh, so much later, sipping coffee in the staffroom and staring vacantly out of the window.

  ‘He made me a coffee then said he’d back me all the way.’ Abby gave a small laugh. ‘He’s great, isn’t he?’

  ‘He is,’ Kell agreed. ‘But I’d give him up for you.’ When even that didn’t raise a smile he closed the door quietly behind him. ‘It was Martha’s pregnancy test, wasn’t it?’

  Abby gave a small nod. ‘She didn’t want anyone else to know just yet.’

  ‘I understand.’ Kell sat down on the sofa beside her, but instead of it comforting her suddenly all Abby wanted to do was cry. ‘It was nice, though,’ Kell said, his voice pensive, his four little words not needing the further explanation that came. ‘Thinking it could be us for a while.’

  How did he know?

  How could he have known that she’d been sitting there thinking exactly the same thing?

  That Abby Hampton, city doctor, almost a consultant, was sitting staring out of a window dreaming of a little scrap of blotting paper turning pink, trying to imagine a life where careers didn’t matter, where sleepless nights had nothing to do with the road death toll and everything to do with your own little bundle of love.

  They’d make beautiful babies, Abby mused.

  An almost consultant and an almost cowboy.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘I HAVE to go.’ Kell’s deep voice merged with her dreams and Abby stretched languorously beside him as he brushed her shoulder with his lips. ‘Do you want me to set the alarm?’

  ‘Too many questions,’ Abby mumbled, pulling his arm back over her and nestling herself back into the curve of his body, feeling the early morning swell of him nudging against the soft inner curve of her thigh. But instead of wrapping his arms tighter around her, edging his body nearer and waking her in the most intimate of ways, he moved, kicking back the sheet and climbing out of bed. Abby found herself frowning into the pillow. ‘Where are you rushing off to?’

  ‘I’ve just got to go.’

  He didn’t mumble exactly, didn’t jump out of bed and pull on his jeans with barely a glance, but the emotional distancing Abby had felt in the past couple of weeks was blatantly evident, and for a while, as she pulled the sheet tighter around her and stared blankly into the grey shadows of the dawn, Abby felt the abyss she had tried to ignore for so long now deepen as Kell stood to go.

  ‘Where?’ She held her breath as she said the single word, knowing she had crossed the invisible line they had created between them.

  They were two independent people, two stars colliding perhaps, but they both knew their explosion was transient.

  Kell belonged here, Abby there, and never the twain should meet.

  That was what she wanted, what she had insisted upon, so why was she crossing the line now? Abby tried to fathom as she turned on her side and hit him with the full weight of her question, her hair cascading on the pillow, one glorious pale bosom spilling over the sheet, a stark contrast to the golden shimmer of her arms. ‘Where do you have to go? You’re not on duty for a couple of hours.’

  His eyes couldn’t meet hers and Abby chewed her bottom lip
as she watched him fumble with the fly on his jeans. ‘I just need some space, that’s all.’

  ‘Kell.’

  Her single word stopped him in his tracks and she watched him hesitate in mid-motion, watched the arms that had been holding her through the night stiffen as he paused, his T-shirt in mid-air, and she waited, waited for him to grin, to catch her eyes and smile that lazy smile, to say ‘to hell with it’ and climb back into the warm bed beside her and kiss away all the horrible doubts that seemed to be flitting into her mind lately with alarming regularity.

  But he didn’t.

  ‘What do you want from me, Abby?’ Not for a second did he raise his voice, not for a moment did she feel threatened, but so ominous was his tone that for the first time since meeting him Abby felt the sting of his disapproval, the dearth of pain in his voice and she gulped as she tried to answer, but Kell was too quick for her. ‘Two weeks from now, you’re out of here.’ His hand slapped against his thighs and his eyes bored into her as she lay on the bed, naked against this unexpected onslaught. ‘Two weeks from now, according to you, I might add, you’re going to be right back where you belong. So what’s with all the questions, Abby? What’s with the sudden need to know my every movement when this time in a fortnight you’ll be picking up the pictures and smiling at the memories?’ Pulling on his boots, he tossed her an angry glare as she lay there, her eyes wide, reeling from his words.

  ‘Kell?’ The question in her voice was evident but the hand that reached out for his was quickly rebuffed.

  ‘What, Abby?’ he snarled, but just as quickly as his anger had blown in it seemed to dissipate and she watched as he sat hunched on the end of the bed, his body so loaded with sadness, rejection, despair it made her want to weep. ‘I just don’t think I can do this any more, Abby,’ Kell said in a low hoarse voice. ‘I can’t just lie next to you and pretend the end isn’t going to happen.’

  Work was awful.

  All Abby wanted to do was to speak to Kell in the privacy of her home, to finish whatever Kell had so unexpectedly started.

  Correcting herself, Abby pushed open the clinic door and walked inside. Kell’s outburst hadn’t been that unexpected. Since the night Bill had become so ill, since the night a baby that hadn’t even existed had entered their fragile equation, they had been walking on eggshells, pretending time wasn’t racing by, that her departure wasn’t imminent…

  But, as they knew only too well, ignoring things didn’t make them go away. Soon her flight would be waiting, not only waiting but departing from the gate in ten minutes, and could a Doctor Abby Hampton please make her way to the departure lounge as soon as possible.

  Ross as usual was in great spirits. ‘C’mon, Abby, you’ve got a mobile clinic this morning. If you want to go to the ladies, make it snappy.’

  Feeling like a two-year-old Abby took his advice. Too many times she’d been caught out, and asking Kell or Ross to stop the Jeep wasn’t the only indignity one had to suffer in the outback. Thoughts of spiders and snakes and mozzies who seemed to have taken a liking to her were enough incentive to dutifully head off to the ladies’ room as Kell moodily loaded up the Jeep.

  ‘How’s Bill?’ Abby asked Clara as she picked up her bag.

  ‘The same.’ Clara shrugged. ‘Martha’s coming in this afternoon after her ultrasound so hopefully that will cheer him up a bit. I’ve been trying to get him to talk all night but he’s not even attempting to be polite now. Hopefully Ross will have more luck.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ Abby looked over at her patient who met her gaze momentarily, his disinterested eyes flicking away to the bland curtain beside him, and though it hadn’t been her intention, though the anger that boiled inside her wasn’t aimed at Bill, Abby made her way over.

  ‘So Martha’s having her ultrasound today,’ Abby said enthusiastically. ‘Is she going to find out what she’s having?’

  So lethargic was his effort it barely merited a shrug but Abby carried on her chatter, refusing to be dismissed, flicking through Bill’s notes at the end of the bed as she spoke. ‘Your blood work’s looking good, Bill. You should be thinking about going home in the next couple of days.’

  ‘I’m too sick.’ His eyes didn’t even attempt to meet hers and for a moment or two Abby said nothing.

  ‘Then you need to be in a proper hospital, Bill.’

  ‘This is as good as any hospital.’ Bill shrugged. ‘I get all the care I need here.’

  ‘No, Bill, you don’t.’ Abby’s voice was firm, sharp even, and out of the corner of her eye she saw both Ross and Clara jerk their eyes towards her.

  ‘This is a clinic, an excellent clinic maybe, but it’s not a specialist unit. We’re here as a holding base, a chance to stabilise patients before they’re moved. Neither Ross nor I are cardiac specialists and right now that’s what you need.’

  ‘I’m not leaving Tennengarrah.’ It was the most emotion Abby had heard from him in days but, as sorry as she felt for Bill, as awful as his plight was, Abby felt angry. Angry that such a young man, with so much to live for, with a daughter that loved him, with a grandchild on the way, could let it all go.

  ‘Bill.’ Abby moved closer and though she felt, rather than saw Kell enter she didn’t look over, her mind too focussed on this important conversation to let her personal life interfere. ‘I’m sorry to say this but, like it or not, you’re leaving Tennengarrah.’ Taking a deep breath, Abby continued. ‘Now, you can leave here on a plane with one helluva lot of hope and a family waiting for you when you get back, or…’ The silence around them built for a moment then Abby gave a brief shrug. ‘I’m sure I don’t have to spell out the other option to you.’

  ‘I’m not going to have an operation.’

  ‘And you’re sure, quite sure, that you know what you’re saying? Ross has asked me to speak to you again. He says that you’re still adamant you don’t want to be resuscitated and I have to respect that, so if you want me to countersign his findings then today’s the day, Bill. If that’s what you really want, then that’s what I’m going to do.’ Though her pen was poised over Bill’s notes she watched her patient closely, registering his muscles quilted around his mouth, a slightly nervous swallow. And though Abby had no intention of signing the papers under these circumstances, Bill wasn’t to know that. ‘Your daughter needs you, Bill.’ She’d said it before, they’d all said it, but this time, for the first time, the words seemed to hit their mark.

  ‘Why would she need me?’ Struggling to sit, Bill was the most animated Abby had seen him, but though her heart was in her mouth Abby kept her stance impassive, allowing her patient to continue, knowing it was Bill who needed to speak if ever they were going to get anywhere. ‘Why would she need me when all I can do is sit and watch the farm go to pot? If I’m gone she and Des can do something, build it up, make a decent life. I’m better out of the way.’

  ‘He’s good, then?’

  She watched Bill frown, his eyes confused. ‘Who?’

  ‘Des. He’s good around the farm?’

  Bill shrugged. ‘Well, he’s a hard worker. Thinks he knows it all, of course.’ Realising he’d said too much, Bill lay back on his pillow, but Abby wasn’t missing her chance.

  ‘I was like that,’ she said, her voice gentler, perching herself on the side of the bed but making sure she didn’t get too close. ‘I thought I knew it all, too. You saw what I was like yourself when I got here. A city doctor who’d seen it all, sure there was nothing this backwater could teach me. Not that I said it, of course, but I’m sure everyone got the message.

  ‘It’s not like that out here, though, is it?’ Abby said softly. ‘It’s beautiful, inspiring, wonderful, but it’s a tough old land, and though I’ve learnt so, so much in the past months I haven’t even scratched the surface. It’s people like Kell and Clara who teach people like Ross and me, who show us how this land works, how to work with it and sometimes even cheat it.

  ‘They need you, Bill.’

  ‘I’m scared.’ A th
in, bony hand reached out and Abby took it in hers. ‘Scared that if I have the operation I won’t wake up. I know it doesn’t make sense, I know I need it…’ Tears were trickling down his cheeks and he didn’t move to wipe them. ‘I’m just so scared.’

  ‘I know, Bill,’ Abby said gently. ‘And I can’t give you any guarantees. But if you have the operation at least you’ve got a chance, and by all the statistics a good one. Bypasses have come on even since you had your first one five years ago. They’ll have you walking a few steps within twelve hours, you’ll be back here within a couple of weeks. But even without guarantees, it is a chance, Bill, and more importantly it’s your only one.’

  As Bill slumped back on his pillow, Abby knew better than to push things. Taking on a more authoritarian tone, she stood up. ‘I’m not going to sign the order because I think we both know that’s not what you really want, but you have to make a choice and soon, or it will be out of both our hands.’

  ‘You did a good job back there.’

  It was the first words Kell had spoken to her in the two-hour journey, apart from the odd comment about ‘bloody mozzies’ or ‘stupid cows’ that wandered into the path of the Jeep, making the long journey ever longer as Kell, rather less patiently than usual, would get out and give them a hefty slap, moving them on as Abby sat there, wishing this awful morning would end, that she could think of something witty or at least relevant to say.

  Something that didn’t sound like small talk.

  Staring out of the window, aimlessly drinking in each lonely windmill, each thirsty dam Abby wondered how she could bear to leave, and if she couldn’t, how she could possibly bear to stay. ‘I know how Bill feels,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve only been here a while, but I know how hard it is to leave, to think that I’m probably seeing all of this for the last time.’

  The silence seemed to go on for ever and Kell didn’t even look over, just changed gear for something to do and fiddled a bit more with the air-conditioning, but even as he finally opened his mouth Abby knew what was coming next.