In Dr. Darling’s Care

by Marion Lennox

  ‘I didn’t think you did,’ she told him. ‘I can think of surer ways to commit suicide. And, besides, I’ve met Emily. There’s no need for a man to take drastic steps there.’

  He gave a half-hearted smile. ‘I was just…distracted.’

  ‘Six bridesmaids and two flower girls would be enough to distract anyone.’

  ‘I guess.’ He gazed some more and she scratched Phoebe some more. It was the strangest feeling. Peace… Like she’d found her home.

  Nonsense. Her home was in Queensland. With Edward?

  No and no and no. She hugged Phoebe close-which was sort of like hugging a sack of warmed jello. But it was the comfort she needed.

  There were fingers touching her hair.

  ‘Why are you here?’ he asked, and she turned toward him in surprise. His hand stayed on her head, drifting through her curls.

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘You told me you’re here for your dog. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘It does make sense.’ She strove really hard to ignore the feel of those fingers drifting along her forehead. She was seated at his feet. It was a gesture of warmth-a touch that meant nothing. Her hair was right under his hands and it was the easiest thing to touch her as he asked his question. It meant nothing…

  The fact that it sent slivers of warmth to every corner of her body was immaterial. Immaterial nonsense. It meant nothing.

  Nothing…

  ‘I told you,’ she said. ‘Airlines don’t carry pregnant dogs.’

  ‘Right.’ The fingers paused and then moved on and it was as much as she could do not to move her head under his hand, cat-like, so he could reach every spot. He was actually doing a fine job of reaching every spot without her moving. ‘So the airlines do a pregnancy test on every dog as they crate them? I don’t think so.’

  ‘She looks pregnant.’

  ‘She looks fat.’

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘It’s true,’ he told her firmly. ‘If I had to say whether Phoebe was pregnant or fat, I know which I’d choose.’

  ‘That’s not very nice.’

  ‘No, but it’s honest. And the flight from here to Cairns is three hours. Hardly time to divert the plane for an emergency basset Caesarean.’

  ‘You’re telling me I’m a liar?’

  ‘Nope. I’m asking why you’re really down here.’

  ‘It’s none of your business.’

  ‘Right.’ He considered. ‘But you’ll stay on for a while?’

  ‘It was supposed to be for three weeks.’

  ‘I need you for longer than that.’

  Those fingers were driving her crazy. She was practically purring. Three weeks…three weeks of sitting out on the back porch and having this man rub his fingers through her hair…

  Three weeks wasn’t long enough, she thought.

  What would she tell Edward?

  Family business. It was a complex matter, settling her grandma’s affairs. The hospital she worked for would understand. They’d just welcomed their new intake of interns for the year and included was an overseas trained doctor who’d done ten years’ emergency medicine in South Africa. He’d needed the job as intern to get his Australian registration, but he was seriously good. The hospital would barely miss Lizzie for the next few weeks.

  So she could stay. If Harry kept moving his fingers through her hair.

  It was ridiculous. Harry was engaged to Emily. She shouldn’t be feeling like this.

  She was.

  ‘Um…I can stay,’ she murmured. The night was getting away from her. The whole situation had assumed a dreamlike quality. The way his fingers moved… It was almost hypnotic. Wonderful.

  ‘Do you want me to remove your back-slab and give your leg a rub?’ she managed. ‘I… The notes. They said the leg needed to be rubbed.’

  ‘I don’t think that’d be wise,’ he told her, and his voice was suddenly so unsteady that she thought, He’s feeling exactly the same way I am. ‘Do you?’

  ‘You need the circulation kept going. I don’t want deep vein thrombosis.’

  ‘No, I don’t. But neither do I want any other complications.’

  Right. They both knew what he was talking about. The fingers ceased their stroking and Lizzie hauled herself away. Phoebe cast her a baleful glare and Lizzie thought, Yeah, I know just how you feel. Deprived.

  She hauled herself to her feet and looked down uncertainly at Harry in the moonlight.

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘That’d be great.’

  Distance. They were carefully putting distance between them. Building a barricade that was fragile, but it was the best they could do.

  ‘I’ll go, then.’

  ‘Right.’

  But Lizzie didn’t move. She stood there, staring.

  The phone rang. Thankfully-because otherwise she would have stood there all night. She didn’t want to move an inch.

  He was engaged to Emily.

  She had Edward.

  She gave herself a fierce inward shake and went to answer the phone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Memo:

  I will not go and see what the trouble is. Lizzie is a fine doctor. I need to stay off my feet. If I make myself useful then she might not stay.

  I will not think about Lizzie staying.

  I will go and ring Emily and tell her…tell her… Tell her what?

  I will not ring Emily.

  I will not go and see what the trouble is. Good doctors do not interfere with another good doctor’s work.

  I will just make sure…

  TROUBLE.

  Lizzie could hear a child sobbing in pain as soon as she swung open the dividing door into Emergency. May met her, looking concerned.

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be off duty?’ she asked, and the nurse shook her head.

  ‘One of the other girls has flu. With Emily away we’re tight. I’m working split shift till midnight. And I know Terry.’

  ‘Terry?’

  ‘He’s a friend of one of my kids. His parents are farmers. Sensible folk.’ She glanced over to a cubicle where the child was rocking back and forth on the bed with his father trying to hold him down. ‘Um…you should know that they’re a bit puritan. Or very puritan. They won’t even tell me what’s wrong. They want Harry to see the boy-because he’s a man, I gather, and what’s wrong with Terry is a man’s problem.’

  ‘He’s how old?’

  ‘Eleven.’

  ‘Man’s problem. Right.’ Lizzie unconsciously braced herself. Problems like this happened all the time in a big city emergency department. Problems out of left field. Like the biker who refused to be treated unless he could keep his pit bull terrier under his jacket all the time-a bit of a problem when she needed to take X-rays. Or the parent who refused to let go of a baby when the child needed resuscitation.

  Problems. She could handle problems.

  ‘Is Harry awake?’ May asked, and she shook her head.

  ‘He might be awake but he’s not working tonight. He’s a patient himself.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘Come on, May,’ she said, grinning. ‘We can handle this. What’s a mere man’s problem for two competent women?’ She pinned her efficient, doctor-in-charge-of-the-world smile on her face, shrugged on the white coat that May was holding out to her and walked over to the bed.

  The parents seemed to unconsciously stiffen. There was no welcome at all.

  ‘Hi,’ she told them. ‘I’m Dr Lizzie Darling. I’m looking after Dr McKay’s patients while he’s ill. What seems to be the problem?’

  They didn’t reply. The man held his son tighter and the woman sank down onto a bedside chair and wept. They both looked away from her. Then the child whimpered in his father’s arms and clutched his groin. He doubled over and his face was bleached white.

  ‘Where’s Dr McKay?’ the farmer growled, but Lizzie had seen enough. A hurting child wasn’t to be put aside because his parents were worried about which doctor the
y wanted. She sat on the bed beside the farmer and moved to prise the little boy’s hands away from his groin.

  ‘Terry, let me see what the matter is. I’m a doctor. I can help.’

  ‘It’s his… You can’t…’ his mother whispered, but enough was enough.

  ‘I’m a qualified doctor,’ she told them, her voice stern. ‘I’ve treated hundreds of children in my time in medical practice. There’s nothing here to shock me, and I’m not interfering with Terry’s privacy. Terry, I need to examine you. I can’t stop the pain unless I know what’s wrong.’

  His parents looked wildly at each other. Terry whimpered again and started to sob. Lizzie signalled to May. The nurse moved in, took the farmer’s hand and propelled him forward.

  ‘Let Dr Darling see what’s happening,’ she said. ‘She’s good. Don’t hold her up.’

  The farmer moved a whole six inches back.

  For heaven’s sake. What was their problem? This wasn’t something like a blood transfusion, Lizzie thought, where religious beliefs might be an issue. It was pure and stupid coyness.

  Coyness or not, Terry had been inculcated with his parents’ obsession for decency. The little boy was clutching the front of his pyjama pants and he was looking up at her in pure terror.

  ‘What is it, Terry?’

  ‘It hurts,’ he whispered. He threw a scared look at his parents, as if expecting punishment, but his need for help was overriding what he’d been taught. ‘Me…me balls…’

  His testicles.

  Lizzie nodded. It was what she’d been starting to expect. Terry was the right age for this sort of problem.

  But the easy things had to be excluded first. ‘Have you had an infection?’ she asked. ‘Has it been sore down there for a while?’

  ‘No. Only tonight. After dinner.’ He gave another moan and clutched himself again.

  ‘I need to see, Terry.’

  ‘But…you’re a girl.’ Another look at his parents and what he saw there seemed to cement his conviction as to what was right and what was absolutely wrong. He clutched himself even tighter. It was apparent to everyone that his dignity was more important than his need for assistance.

  He looked up at her wildly and Lizzie knew if she touched him she’d spark hysteria. Maybe from all of them.

  Now what? Lizzie took a deep breath. ‘Look, this is foolish-’

  ‘Can I help?’

  Harry.

  She turned and Harry was right behind her, balancing on his crutches in the doorway. What was he doing here? She cast him a glance that was half exasperated, half relieved.

  ‘We have a bad case of sex discrimination here,’ she told him, and he nodded. He’d been listening for a while, then.

  ‘And now’s not the time to take it to the equal opportunity commissioner?’ His eyes were smiling at her, and she thought suddenly, Great. It was great that he was here.

  She didn’t need him. She shouldn’t.

  But it was great.

  ‘Stand back and let me see,’ he told her, so she did just that while Harry bent over the little boy. To her indignation there wasn’t the slightest hesitation in the child agreeing to let Harry see.

  ‘You know, Dr Lizzie’s not really a girl,’ Harry told the little boy as he adjusted the child’s pyjamas. ‘She’s a doctor. For future reference, I think you and your parents need to figure out the difference. But for now I can look after you.’

  Lizzie’s not really a girl…

  ‘Hey,’ Lizzie said indignantly from behind him. ‘I like being a girl.’

  ‘Stethoscope or pantyhose, take your pick.’ He gave her a grin over his shoulder. He was leaning heavily on the bed, and she moved to take his crutches before they toppled. ‘It seems in Terry’s terms you can’t have both.’

  She hesitated. That grin had the power to deflect her but some things were important. The crutches were in her hands now. They should be in his. She glared. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded. ‘You can’t stand up.’

  ‘I’m a one-legged wonder. It’s time you realised that. Now, Dr Darling, turn your face to the wall and let Terry and me get on with secret men’s business.’

  Turn your face to the wall? She swallowed and glared some more, but he was no longer paying her attention. All his attention was on Terry. Lizzie and May were left to talk to themselves.

  Even the parents had turned away. Some people took privacy to absurd levels, Lizzie thought. To raise a child with this level of paranoia about personal privacy was asking for trouble.

  At least Harry was here. She could have managed this, she thought. She could.

  But it was just as well Harry was here.

  There was silence during the examination. Terry had stopped whimpering and the parents were shocked and speechless. Waiting for the worst.

  Had they looked themselves? By the appearance of fear on their faces, they seemed to think it could be anything that Harry was finding down there. Good grief.

  ‘I wonder if they changed his nappies when he was a baby?’ May whispered behind her hand, and Lizzie shushed her but then had to choke back a giggle.

  She was a doctor. Not a girl. She had to remember that.

  ‘There’s no sign of infection,’ Harry said at last. ‘But it’s really tender. I need to do a test for a urinary tract infection. Can we get a sample?’

  ‘I guess we can if you hold the bottle,’ Lizzie told him. ‘I bet that’s men’s business as well.’ May snorted, turned it into a cough and caught her eye, and suddenly the two women were grinning at each other like fools.

  Or like…friends?

  Where had that thought come from? Lizzie wondered, but it consolidated. Here in this little room with this rigid farming family, with the caring doctor with the gammy leg and the kindly smile, with the laughing nurse sharing a joke…

  She could stay here.

  Now, there was another crazy thought. She had no business thinking about long-term plans when she should be concentrating on the needs of an ill child. But there was little to concentrate on when it was Harry who had to cope with obtaining a urine sample.

  ‘I’ll fetch the bottle,’ May said, and Lizzie stepped out of the room as well so that she could do her grinning in private.

  ‘Collecting urine samples isn’t our Dr McKay’s favourite job, but serve him right,’ May muttered, once the bottle had been handed over. While this intensely personal operation was going on there was nothing they could do but wait. ‘Men. Do you think you and I should retire to the kitchen and do a little knitting, Dr Darling?’

  ‘Could you run the tests?’ Harry asked, and handed the bottle through the door. He looked from Lizzie to May and back again and added. ‘Please?’

  ‘See?’ May said darkly. ‘Running tests on little bottles of urine. That counts as cooking. Women’s work. Keep them barefoot and pregnant…’

  ‘And in the lab where they belong.’ Lizzie grinned and took the bottle from Harry. As she turned toward the lab she was aware of him watching her.

  He watched her all the way down the corridor and May watched him.

  Well, well, well.

  ‘There’s no sign of infection.’

  Minutes later Lizzie had the results of the urine sample test. ‘Nothing,’ she told him.

  Harry parked his crutches and sank into a chair in the nurses’ station. ‘The tenderness is getting worse.’

  ‘Torsion?’

  ‘It has to be.’

  They stared at each other. The laughter of a few minutes ago had disappeared. Each knew what was happening.

  In boys this age it could occur out of the blue-a twisting of the testes inside the scrotum. Left alone, the testis would lose all blood supply and would die.

  The only way to manage the problem was to operate. Now.

  ‘You’re not up to operating,’ she told him.

  ‘The alternative is sending him to Melbourne, but by the time he reaches Melbourne the damage will have been done. He’s risking the los
s of his testicle. There are implications for long-term fertility. We need to move.’

  Lizzie swallowed. ‘He may already… The damage may already be irreversible.’

  ‘He’s only been in real pain for twenty minutes. If we move fast…’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Of course I can. I’ll get a stool set up in Theatre. It’s a simple operation and I assume you can give an anaesthetic.’

  ‘For something like this? Of course I can.’

  ‘Then what are we waiting for?’

  ‘I’m a woman,’ she told him, making her voice meek. ‘You think I should be allowed in the operating suite?’

  ‘We’ll rig up a sheet,’ he told her, his eyes creasing again with the laughter she was starting to love. ‘We wouldn’t want to shock our Dr Darling, now, would we?’

  It was a straightforward operation, for which Lizzie was profoundly grateful. Despite his protestations, Harry was starting to look distinctly grey around the edges. It had been a long trip back by ambulance, even if he had been able to lie down. He was six days post-trauma and his body was still not close to recovered.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he growled as he saw her watching him. ‘Concentrate on your anaesthetic.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She adjusted the mask on the little boy’s face and turned back to her monitors. He’d gone to sleep without any problem at all. There’d been no more hassle with either Terry himself or his parents-it seemed that once he was asleep Lizzie could be a doctor and not a female.

  The anaesthetic was textbook simple. Terry was a healthy little eleven-year-old with no problems other that the one Harry was intent on fixing. She could afford to let her attention divide a little so that she could watch Harry.

  The man was seriously skilled. His fingers were swift and nimble, not hesitating in the least. He swabbed the area, draped and made a neat incision, wincing as he saw what lay exposed.

  ‘Poor kid. No wonder he’s been complaining. If this happened to me I’d be climbing walls.’

  ‘Twisted?’

  ‘The testis has turned inside the scrotum. Hell. There’s no blood getting through at all.’

  Silence. It was a tricky little procedure, manoeuvring it back.

  Harry’s fingers were gently shifting, moving the testis into a more natural position, enabling the blood vessels to work…