In Dr. Darling’s Care

by Marion Lennox

  ‘I’m not wearing a hospital gown,’ he muttered.

  ‘Harry, stop being silly.’ Emily’s voice was laced with tears and Lizzie gave her a sharp glance. There wasn’t a lot of professional detachment here-though maybe she was being unfair.

  If someone brought my fiancé into town, squashed, maybe I’d be a bit tearful too, she told herself.

  Maybe. She thought about Edward for a fraction of a second and grimaced. Come to think about it, there was a lot to be said for squashed fiancés.

  ‘My pyjamas are just through in my quarters,’ Harry was murmuring sleepily, and she forgot thinking about Edward and dredged up a smile.

  ‘I can’t get at you as easily in your pyjamas.’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’

  Amazingly he was laughing. He was drifting in and out of sleep, on the edge of pain, but he could still smile. She wished he’d go completely to sleep. Indignity was the last thing he should be thinking of.

  He did fade back into sleep as she and Emily prepared him for X-ray. She was grateful. Once again she had to move the leg slightly, straightening it a little more while she had the chance. The last thing she needed now was for that blood vessel to kink and block again.

  The woman, Emily, worked by her side, but she worked in silence, her mouth a tight, grim line. Her tears had receded, but she still looked sick.

  ‘He’ll be OK,’ Lizzie said gently, and Emily gave her a fierce, angry glance.

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  No. She didn’t. She couldn’t understand anything but what was before her. She should probe, but she was too shocked and cold and numb herself to take it further.

  Finally, with the analgesia working well, she took the X-rays she wanted. By this stage Harry’s head wound was worrying her more than the leg. He’d lost consciousness back on the road. He was sleeping now. If he was bleeding internally…

  ‘My headache’s eased,’ he muttered as she took the last film, and her eyes flew wide. She’d thought that he was asleep, and here he was reading her thoughts.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I don’t have a cracked skull.’

  ‘I’m checking anyway, if you don’t mind,’ she told him, and he nodded and seemed to drift off again.

  Good. The man made her nervous just by…just by being. And so did this silent nurse, hovering over her like a terrified parent.

  Wasn’t there anyone else in this hospital?

  She couldn’t mind. She just had to ignore them both and do what she thought right. Though she’d quite like someone to notice, a, that she was filthy and (more urgently), b, that she was freezing.

  No one did, so neither did she. Or rather, she did notice. She just didn’t turn into an ice cube and melt right there on the floor of the X-ray department. She didn’t have time.

  Finally someone noticed. Harry.

  After his initial protest Harry had seemed content to leave everything in her hands, and Emily was still working on autopilot. But with the X-rays finished, Lizzie grasped the head of the trolley to push him back through to the ward and his hands reached out and grasped hers. He’d woken properly this time, and his hands had a strength she hadn’t believed possible.

  ‘You’re still dripping.’ He stared up at her in concern, his face right under hers. ‘Lizzie, it’s time you were warm and dry,’ he managed, his words only slightly slurred. ‘Emily, look after her.’

  ‘We’ll look after you first,’ Emily told him. The woman seemed almost more shocked than Harry.

  ‘Can I help?’

  And here was the cavalry, in the form of a freckle-faced senior nurse standing in the doorway. She stared from Emily to Harry and then to Lizzie, and her eyes were wide with shock. ‘Joe said there’d been an accident. Dr McKay!’

  ‘Dr McKay’s broken his leg,’ Emily snapped, and the woman’s eyes widened even further.

  ‘Right. Goodness. I’ve just come on duty. What needs doing?’

  ‘Emily will take me through to the ward,’ Harry said strongly. ‘May, can you look after Lizzie? Dr Darling.’

  ‘Dr Darling?’

  ‘That’s me,’ Lizzie said wearily. ‘Lizzie Darling. The locum.’ Locum? Even the word sounded wrong. She didn’t feel like a locum. She was tired of being doctor in charge. If she didn’t drop her bundle soon she’d fall straight over.

  And the woman had the sense to see it. She focused and her eyes narrowed in concern.

  ‘You’re the basset hound’s mum?’

  ‘I’m the basset hound’s mum.’

  ‘This gets better and better.’ The woman smiled a greeting and held out her hand. ‘And our new doctor?’

  ‘Mmm.’ She was starting to shake uncontrollably and May felt it through their linked hands. She looked uncertainly at Emily. ‘Dr Darling’s making a puddle on our nice clean floor,’ she told her. ‘Can I take her away and dry her off?’

  ‘Do that,’ Emily told her, distracted. ‘Fine.’

  ‘I’ll show you where you can shower, Doctor, and if you like I’ll find you some dry clothes.’ May left no one room for a change of mind. She had Lizzie’s arm and was leading her to the door. ‘Or do you have some dry clothes in your car? Jim, our orderly, is looking after your dog. He found her in your car and took her out before she ripped the upholstery to shreds. I’ll ask Jim to fetch your luggage, shall I?’

  ‘My luggage is at a holiday cottage five miles south of here, but even a hospital gown’s preferable to what I’m wearing now,’ Lizzie managed, thankful all the same for the tiny realisation that she wasn’t completely alone. Someone cared. But she wasn’t ready to drop her bundle yet. Not completely. ‘I’ll check these X-rays first.’

  ‘The X-rays will be fine,’ Harry muttered from the trolley, and Lizzie nodded.

  ‘Oh, right. Of course they will be. No break at all. And here I was imagining the bend in your leg.’

  ‘Just stick a cast on it.’

  He had no idea. Had he heard what she’d told him about fractures and circulation? About how close he’d been to losing the leg?

  ‘You’re going to look really odd tomorrow wearing a cast,’ Emily whispered to him. She was practically wringing her hands and had been no help at all while the X-rays had been taken. It was all very well being shocked, Lizzie thought, but maybe she could be shocked later when she was no longer needed.

  Lizzie intended being shocked later. Maybe now?

  What had Emily said? You’re going to look really odd tomorrow wearing a cast.

  She was talking about their wedding as if it was still going to happen, Lizzie thought incredulously. But now wasn’t the time to enlighten her. It wasn’t the time to talk about weddings. Harry desperately needed to sleep, to let the painkillers take over. She needed to check his X-rays and then get her own head in order.

  It wasn’t the place for anything but making sure this man didn’t have a cerebral bleed-and making herself stop this awful shivering.

  ‘Can you take Dr McKay through to a ward and settle him?’ she asked wearily. ‘Harry, you need to sleep. I’ll talk you through the results of the X-rays when you wake.’

  But he was looking at her and there was real concern showing through the pain and weariness etched onto his face. ‘Only if you promise to look after yourself,’ he told her.

  ‘I will.’ She touched his hand, staring down at him and suddenly fighting a stupid urge to weep. ‘Of course I will. Looking after me is what I’m principally good at. Now sleep.’

  His head was fine. Lizzie checked the X-rays from every angle and could see no damage at all. It must have been a fair bang to make him lose consciousness but there was little to show for it now. She’d watch him carefully for signs of internal bleeding, but every sign was that he’d been lucky.

  Not so the leg. Lizzie held the X-ray up to the screen and May whistled.

  May had introduced herself with cheer. ‘I’m May. I’m general dogsbody round here. Basic nurse training twenty years ago. All care
and no responsibility. Emily’s our nurse administrator but I guess with Emily in a flap I’m it.’

  She was a welcome it. The freckle-faced forty-something woman exuded a warmth that Lizzie was in sore need of. Now she’d checked Harry’s head she could concentrate on that hot shower and dry clothes.

  ‘He’s not going to be walking down any aisle tomorrow, is he?’ May asked shrewdly, and Lizzie shook her head.

  ‘No.’ She looked again at the X-rays. She’d been very lucky to get the leg back into a position where the blood vessels weren’t blocked. Very lucky.

  ‘It’ll need pinning?’

  ‘It’s a corkscrew break right through, with breaks in both tibia and fibula. He can do six weeks in traction and possibly end up with a really bad result or he can get it pinned. Plus, there are slivers of bone that need fixing or removing.’

  ‘Can you pin it here?’ May asked, and Lizzie shook her head.

  ‘Heck, no. Pin this leg? Our Dr McKay needs an orthopaedic surgeon and an anaesthetist. Maybe I could do the anaesthetic but… How good are you at joining broken bits of bone together?’

  May grinned and shook her head. ‘Carpentry’s never been my strong point.’

  ‘Then we ship him out to someone who can.’

  The nurse turned back to the screen and screwed up her nose. ‘So the wedding’s off?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’d like him evacuated as soon as possible. Soon. His head looks good but he did lose consciousness for a bit. If there’s the slightest chance of him having an intracranial bleed, he needs to have it somewhere near a neurosurgeon. He can go to Melbourne, see out his danger period in a nice city hospital with all the facilities, get his leg pinned and plated and then come back here and recuperate.’

  ‘With you looking after him?’

  Lizzie let her breath out in a long slow sigh. ‘I guess.’

  This wasn’t the locum position she’d planned. Absolutely not. Once upon a time she’d been a family doctor-for two short years after she’d graduated. Now-after one awful day she hated even to think about-she was a nine-to-five doctor. She looked after the emergency department of a city hospital. She did her absolute best for everyone while she was on duty and then she walked away.

  She closed shop.

  And here, a tiny fishing village with its only doctor incapacitated… This place could suck her in, she thought fearfully. She should drive out of here right now. She could go back to the locum agency and tell them they were liars.

  She’d get another job. There were always jobs for locums. But…

  ‘We’ll be in a mess without you,’ May told her, and she winced.

  ‘I’m like you,’ she muttered. ‘I’m all care, no responsibility.’

  ‘Unless you’re stuck,’ May said shrewdly. ‘And you are stuck. There’s no one else. If Harry’s away and you don’t stay we’ll have to close the hospital until he gets back. All those people…’

  ‘How many?’ Lizzie demanded, startled, and May gave an apologetic shrug.

  ‘Well, five. Five in acute care. But there’s a nursing home, too.’

  ‘That wouldn’t have to shut.’

  ‘No, but the hospital would.’

  Lizzie tried to get her tired mind to think. This wasn’t right. Something wasn’t right. ‘Um… I only agreed to come last Tuesday. This wedding’s obviously been planned for months.’

  ‘We had another locum booked,’ May told her. ‘Only he realised how remote it was and pulled out.’

  So that’s why they’d lied to her. Lizzie’s heart hardened. ‘Then I can-’

  ‘No, you can’t,’ May told her. ‘You’re nice.’

  ‘I’m not nice.’

  ‘Yeah, you are. I’ve seen your dog. Anyone who didn’t get a dog like that put down at first sight has to be more than nice.’

  ‘You mean really, really stupid,’ Lizzie said, and May grinned.

  ‘You said it, Dr Darling, not me. But if the cap fits…’

  It was the best shower she’d ever had in her life. Lizzie stood under the hot water and let the heat and the steam soothe away the mud and the cold and the shock. Long after she was thoroughly clean she still stood there, letting the heat soothe her tired brain. Making her mind blank. Giving her time out.

  Somewhere someone called Jim was looking after Phoebe. That in itself was a godsend. Ever since Grandma had died Phoebe had followed her like a shadow and Lizzie, who didn’t do family, who didn’t do connections, was finding it a weighty strain.

  Phoebe was supposed to be back at the holiday cottage right now, but when Lizzie had shut the gate behind her this morning Phoebe had set up a wail that would have woken the dead. Then she’d launched herself at the wooden gate like a battering ram, over and over again, hurling her ungainly body at the wood in manic desperation to follow.

  ‘You’re pregnant,’ Lizzie had told her. ‘You’ll go into premature labour if you don’t stop it. I’ll be back tonight.’

  But Phoebe had kept right on howling and battering. Finally Lizzie had shoved her in the car. She was staying down here because of the dratted dog. If she had to do this locum job with Phoebe sprawled over her feet while she took surgery then the patients would just have to wear it.

  What had May said? Anyone who hadn’t had a dog like this put down at first sight had to be more than nice. ‘Ha.’

  She wasn’t being nice. It was just… Just that she was stuck.

  Phoebe had been Grandma’s dog. Grandma had loved Phoebe and she’d loved Lizzie. Grandma had been the one constant in Lizzie’s trauma-filled upbringing and the thought of losing her…

  No. She wasn’t going to cry. She blinked and splashed her face with some more hot water. She wouldn’t cry. But neither could she put Phoebe down.

  ‘But what on earth ever possessed you to let her get pregnant?’ she wailed to her grandmother. ‘One basset hound I can cope with.’ She thought about it and changed her story. ‘No. One basset hound I can survive. But a pregnant basset hound? A hound with puppies? And they mightn’t even be bassets.’

  Actually, that wasn’t such a bad thought. Maybe they’d have their father’s intelligence. Whoever the father was.

  ‘Maybe he’s a Border collie.

  ‘Yeah? Border collies are smart. You seriously think a Border collie would look twice at our Phoebe?

  ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘Um…is there someone in the shower with you?’ a voice called. ‘If there’s a party happening in there I’ll go away. I don’t want to disturb you.’

  May. Whoops, Lizzie thought, and stuck her head out of the shower curtain to reply.

  ‘I’m talking to the plughole,’ she told her with an attempt at dignity, and May nodded.

  ‘It’s a good thing, too,’ May said cautiously. ‘I find they don’t talk back.’

  ‘This one was talking back something dreadful.’

  ‘Dratted plughole. I’ll call a plumber and have it fixed.’

  This woman could be a friend, Lizzie thought gratefully, and the world looked brighter all of a sudden. Especially when she saw what May was holding.

  ‘My clothes!’

  ‘Jim drove out and brought your things in.’

  Lizzie considered. ‘All my things?’

  ‘All your things. Including the dog basket.’

  ‘Gee, that was nice of Jim.’

  ‘You’re dripping on the floor.’

  ‘Hand me my towel,’ Lizzie said without committing herself further until she’d had a little think about what was happening here. She retired behind the shower curtain and started towelling herself. And thinking.

  ‘I can’t stay here.’

  ‘You have to stay here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re the only doctor. You need to be on call twenty-four seven.’

  She swallowed. ‘Dr McKay wasn’t in cellphone range when I ran over him. He can’t have been on duty.’

  ‘He was only out of range because Emily has been driving him crazy. S
he’s been driving everyone crazy. Honestly, if I see one more pew ribbon…’

  ‘This wedding’s a big deal, huh?’

  ‘Yep.’ May put a hand behind the curtain and proffered what was most needed. ‘Knickers.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Bra?’

  ‘Do you normally provide valet service?’

  ‘When I want to talk, I do. Are you sending our Dr McKay away?’

  ‘As soon as I can get to a phone and arrange it, yes.’

  ‘Emily will hate you forever.’

  ‘Hey, it’s not my fault.’

  ‘You ran over him.’

  ‘So what am I supposed to do now? Wave a magic wand so he can sail down the aisle tomorrow? The only way he can get married tomorrow is for Emily to follow him to the city and marry him at a bedside ceremony.’

  ‘T-shirt,’ May said helpfully. ‘Jeans?’

  ‘Great.’ Silence while she wiggled into her clothes. Then she pushed the curtain back and emerged.

  ‘Gee,’ May said. ‘You don’t scrub up too badly after all.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You want to tell them, or shall I?’

  ‘Tell…’

  ‘The happy pair. That the wedding’s off. That all those rose petals are going to wilt.’

  ‘Rose petals?’

  ‘Emily’s gathered every rose in Birrini,’ May said. ‘Wheelbarrows of the things.’

  Lizzie stared at the woman in front of her, and May stared back.

  ‘Wheelbarrows?’

  ‘Wheelbarrows.’

  ‘Where’s Phoebe?’ she asked, moving on from this crazy image with some difficulty.

  ‘We’re minding her until you’ve faced Emily,’ May told her. ‘Phoebe or Emily… We’ll take Phoebe any day.’

  Dressed and warm and feeling as close to normal as she was going to feel today, Lizzie made her way through to the single ward where Harry lay. As she reached the door she paused. There was the sound of a female voice, strained to breaking point.

  ‘It’s not as if you have to walk down the aisle alone. If you have a cast on, you can wait for me on crutches. Then when you reach me you can hold my hand. It’d be better if you didn’t use crutches afterwards-for the wedding march-but I’ll be able to support you then.’