In Dr. Darling’s Care

by Marion Lennox

  Lizzie hadn’t thought of involving them. She’d asked their permission-of course-but to bring them here…

  It had been a masterstroke. Mr and Mrs Dunstan were staring up at their daughter as if they hadn’t seen her for years and, even from the stage, Lizzie could see the beginnings of tears on Amy’s mother’s face. And for the first time since Scott had died, she suspected, these tears weren’t for her son.

  ‘Of course you can have a puppy,’ the woman called in a choked voice. ‘And if anything happens to Phoebe’s puppies, we’ll get you another.’

  Something happen to Phoebe’s puppies? The thought was almost unthinkable.

  Everyone was looking at Phoebe now. Horrified at the thought. But prenatal nerves were obviously for pansies. Not for bassets. Phoebe wriggled free of Amy’s sweater and waved her tail like a windscreen wiper. Something happen to her puppies? No way!

  Great.

  But they hadn’t counted on Amy’s detractors. There were a couple of kids who really had it in for Amy, Miss Morrison had told Lizzie. They were the school toughs and they were here. The two tough little girls were sitting at the end of one of the front rows, and as the proceedings had unfolded they’d been watching with increasing displeasure.

  Now, as Phoebe stared out into the audience in dopey confusion, one of them found her voice.

  ‘Yeah, so she gets one of the puppies. So what? No one else would want them. That dog’s really, really stupid.’

  ‘She’s not.’ Amy gasped back her dismay. Lizzie moved to the child’s side and noticed with approval that Lillian did the same on the other side.

  This much at least was good. Lillian was seeing Amy’s plight more clearly than her own at the moment. It was medication for Lillian all on its own.

  But not for Amy. Lizzie had set this up wanting the entire school to be jealous of Amy’s puppy-of the prospect of the puppy, and then the puppy when it eventuated. This was far better than just handing an eight-week-old pup to the child. But the prospect of a pup… No, it’d extend the anticipation. Extend the pleasure. Extend the sensation of Amy being the luckiest kid in the school instead of the unluckiest.

  And here were these two horrible children trying their best to undermine it.

  Maybe she should go back to emergency medicine, Lizzie thought ruefully. That’s what she was good at.

  The principal was opening her mouth to speak, about to attempt to undo the damage. Could she?

  She didn’t have to.

  ‘If anyone else wants a puppy, I’m afraid they need to join a queue,’ Harry called, and Lizzie whirled to face him.

  What?

  ‘They’ve been bespoken as band mascots,’ Harry said, limping forward on his crutches so he had the whole audience in his sights. He grinned, that wide lazy grin that had her heart almost stopping within her. ‘They’re going to be groupies. Basset groupies.’

  This was crazy. The entire population of Birrini Elementary School was staring, fascinated, as Lizzie and Harry conducted a conversation over their heads.

  Lizzie was so far out of her depth here that she felt she was drowning. She didn’t get involved. She never got involved!

  She was standing on a school stage with an emotionally damaged eight-year-old clutching one hand and an anorexic teenager clutching her sleeve. Her great fat dog was sitting on her feet, the whole school was watching…

  And what had Harry said? Basset groupies?

  Harry was motioning to the boys at the back of the hall, who were grinning self-consciously back at him. ‘As everyone here knows except you, Dr Darling, these boys are the Birrini Punk Squirrels.’

  ‘The Birrini Punk Squirrels…’

  ‘They look pretty ordinary in their school clothes,’ Harry called. He was grinning like a Cheshire cat, thoroughly enjoying himself. ‘But you should see them in leathers.’

  ‘Or bare-chested,’ one of the boys yelled, and the kids in the hall dropped their collective jaws to their ankles.

  ‘I know them,’ Lillian breathed in Lizzie’s ear. ‘They’re the best band. The best. They get gigs all over the state…’

  ‘They’re adopting your pups,’ Harry called. ‘Until such time as they go to nice family homes, Phoebe’s puppies will be the band mascots. The boys want a pup apiece.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘The boys don’t mind if Amy has one puppy,’ Harry called. ‘But the rest are taken. Now…if the principal’s agreeable…We’re celebrating a few things here. No one’s made a public announcement about Lillian’s brilliant art win and it needs to be celebrated. Amy’s done a fantastic painting, too, and there’s a puppy coming her way. And the boys want to celebrate the impending birth of Phoebe’s pups. In honour of all of that-do you mind if the boys take centre stage, Mrs Hill?’

  ‘Go right ahead.’ The principal looked even more out of her depth than Lizzie. Which was clearly impossible. ‘Go right ahead, Dr McKay,’ she repeated weakly.

  ‘Fantastic.’

  So the stunned group on stage stood to one side and the four boys surged forward with whoops of delight and enthusiasm, bringing their guitars and drums along with them. They hauled out their shirts, loosened their school ties, fixed their young audience with grins that only eighteen-year-old boys knew how to produce-and proceeded to transfix every single member of the audience.

  ‘You realise they can’t have the puppies.’

  They were in Lizzie’s car, heading back to the hospital. Phoebe was sound asleep in the back, worn out by all the excitement.

  Lillian was being taken back to the hospital via a coffee-shop-‘Because maybe we need to talk,’ Lillian’s mother had said, fixing Lillian’s father with a look that said if he knew what was good for him he’d shut up about doctors and lawyers and start saying good things about artists.

  Amy had been soundly hugged by both her parents, assured they really meant what they’d said about keeping a puppy and was now surrounded by a group of envious little girls who really, really wanted to be her friend.

  The Punk Squirrels were walking back to the senior school, probably taking the longest route they could think of.

  ‘Of course they can’t keep them,’ Harry agreed. ‘That’d be counter-productive. I can’t really see those lads being saddled with the responsibility of puppies for many a year yet.’

  ‘But you said-’

  ‘I said the puppies would be the boys’ mascots until they were ready to be family pets. That means the puppies can be mascots for about eight weeks. Being mascots doesn’t necessarily mean they have to travel with the band. Maybe a small silver basset shape to hang from their navel piercings will do the trick.’

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ Lizzie said faintly. ‘How on earth did you manage it?’

  ‘I thought this was a great idea,’ he said, looking sideways at her in the car. ‘When May told me what you intended I just extrapolated your theme.’

  ‘Extrapolated…’

  ‘Expanded.’

  ‘I know what extrapolated means.’

  ‘That’s good,’ he said approvingly. ‘Very good.’

  ‘Don’t patronise me!’

  ‘I would never patronise you,’ he told her, and all of a sudden the laughter wasn’t there. Nowhere. Not even close.

  ‘But…’ Her voice was a squeak and she tried desperately to turn it into a cough, and tried again. ‘But…’

  ‘I know those kids that have been bullying Amy,’ he told her, taking pity on her discomposure. ‘That’s what being a family doctor is all about. You get to know your patients, warts and all. The kids that have been doing the bullying…Kylie and Rose come from dysfunctional families. They’ve had rotten treatment in the past. I have Social Services involved now, and I’m hoping it’s not too late. They’ve grown into two little thugs. Giving Amy a puppy by having her win the art competition was a brilliant idea but those two are going to try and take her glory.’

  ‘So…’

  ‘So the boys-the Punk Squirrels-are in ye
ar twelve at the senior school. They’re considered so cool by the rest of the town kids-and by themselves-that they’re practically ice. And they owe me.’

  ‘They owe you?’

  ‘The four of them came down with mumps, one after the other,’ Harry said, grinning. ‘Just before last year’s State Bandfest. The whole town was riding on the outcome and if it had got out that the boys couldn’t play because of mumps they’d have been laughing stocks.’

  ‘So…’

  ‘So they contracted epidemic parotitis.’

  ‘But…’ Lizzie frowned. ‘Parotitis is mumps.’

  ‘Oh, come on, now.’ Harry was grinning at her across the car. ‘How can you say such a thing? Mumps is an undignified kid’s complaint, engendering fat necks and not a lot of sympathy. Parotitis, on the other hand-whew. An almost unheard-of infection that maybe has something to do with parrots. Weird and exotic and just the thing for a bunch of cool eighteen-year-olds with navel piercings.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘And you got away with it?’

  ‘We got away with it, yes.’

  ‘And they recovered?’ Lizzie was choking back laughter. The man was clearly brilliant.

  ‘They did,’ he told her. ‘In the end half the kids in the town came down with a really undignified case of mumps, so their audience would have been halved. But still they stood out as being different. The boys’ parents were in the know, but no one else. While we were immunising kids for mumps as fast as we could go, we also had parents enquiring about immunisation for this strange new disease called parotitis. But we were able to explain that it was only kids who were really weird who got parotitis, and not the general run-of-the-mill population. The band’s street cred soared.’

  ‘So today…’

  Harry’s grin deepened. ‘So today was payback time. They’ve made a fuss of Phoebe, the thought of weird basset-something puppies as temporary mascots appealed enormously, and as a byproduct they’ve also seen what Lillian did.’

  His grin faded, to be replaced by a look of intense satisfaction. ‘You’ve done good there, too, Dr Darling. For Lillian to do that… Incredible.’

  ‘It was you who did good,’ Lizzie retorted, trying not to flush. ‘Getting her parents there.’

  ‘They were due for a kick in the butt. When May told me what was happening I rang them and said their kid was doing them proud so to get to the school and make a fuss of her. They’ll bring her back to hospital-we have a long way to go with her yet-but we’re making progress. You’re making progress. More progress than I would have dreamed possible.’

  ‘It feels good,’ Lizzie said, and he nodded.

  ‘It does. Do you want to stay?’

  ‘Stay?’

  ‘Stay here. I’ve told you. I could really use a partner. Birrini is big enough to employ two doctors full time, and to have a sympathetic female doctor…’

  ‘I don’t do family medicine.’ Her fingers were suddenly tightly clenched on the steering-wheel and Harry glanced across at her, his face thoughtful.

  ‘You do, you know,’ he told her. ‘You care.’

  ‘It’s because I care that I can’t do it.’

  ‘It’s because I care that I’m forced to do it,’ he said, and his voice sounded strained suddenly, all traces of laughter gone. He sounded suddenly bereft. ‘Alone.’

  Lizzie thought about that as they swung into the hospital parking lot. They came to a halt but made no move to get out of the car. Instead, she stayed silent, staring out the window at the little hospital nestled in the trees. A county bush nursing hospital. It was about as far from her ideal medical environment as she could imagine. And here was this man…

  ‘Alone, you said,’ she murmured cautiously, and Harry nodded.

  ‘Alone.’ The desolation was still in place.

  She ventured a fast glance at him and then looked away. He looked miserable.

  She thought about it. About the way he’d said the word. Alone…

  And she cast him another sideways glance. To confirm her suspicions.

  ‘Phoebe does this,’ she told him. ‘About half an hour before dinner.’

  He looked startled. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘She looks devastated. As if the end of the world is nigh and the only person who can save her from starvation or worse is me.’

  ‘You’re telling me…’

  ‘It’s your cocker spaniel look,’ she explained apologetically. ‘If you hadn’t said alone with quite that amount of pathos…’

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘You need to work on your act, Dr McKay. It’s good but not good enough. I’ve been trained by an expert. After Phoebe…no, a mere alone doesn’t cut it. You’re OK to hop into the hospital alone, then, Dr McKay?’

  ‘Yes, but-’

  ‘Fine, then.’ She grinned. ‘See you later. Come on, Phoebe, we have work to do.’

  Then, as he broke into stunned laughter, she climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind her, clicked her dog to heel-sort of-and then walked into the hospital, leaving him staring dumbfounded after her.

  ‘He’s sweet on you.’

  Two hours later Lizzie just happened to be walking past Lillian’s door. The girl had been dropped back at the hospital by her parents and had gone instantly and soundly to sleep. With a body as severely malnourished as hers was, it took little to exhaust her. Now, though, the minute Lizzie walked through the door she pushed herself upright in bed and giggled.

  ‘The guys say he’s nutty.’

  ‘The guys…’ Lizzie said blankly. She looked down at the girl in the bed and couldn’t refrain from a feeling of accomplishment. OK, she didn’t get involved-as a rule-but this morning she had and it seemed to have worked out just fine.

  ‘The Punk Squirrels. They walked back to school past the coffee-shop Mum and Dad had taken me to, and Dad called them in and bought them Coke and cake.’

  ‘Your dad?’ Lizzie asked, amazed, and was rewarded by another giggle.

  ‘I know. It’s amazing. You know my dad’s an accountant? He’s so big on professionalism. My sister and brother…Mardy’s a doctor and Stephen’s a law student and he’s crushed that I’m never going to be any good at those things. And he condemns everyone who doesn’t want what he wants. But Mum and I went to the girls’ room and Mum said Dr McKay came around this morning and gave him the rounds of the kitchen table. He said if the world was full of doctors and lawyers and accountants it’d be a really boring place and I had a skill that most doctors would kill for and he said I had to follow my heart…’

  ‘He said that?’

  ‘He did. He said following rules rather than following your heart leads to despair and that’s where I am-though I don’t know about that-but Mum hugged me and cried and said she’s proud of me and so’s Dad. I wouldn’t have thought it, but then when we came out of the bathroom Dad was talking to the guys. I mean really talking to them. Asking about their songs and their production. Like he was really interested. And then he started being really helpful about the way they did their distribution over the internet and they talked for about half an hour until Mum noticed I was nearly asleep and that the boys should be back at school. Then she hauled Dad off to pay the bill-but it was an excuse, I reckon, ’cos she left me with the guys for about ten minutes and they told me then that Dr McKay had been real funny and he’d insisted they had to help you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘They said he couldn’t keep his eyes off you on the stage. And Mum said when he was talking about following his heart…well, she was sure he was talking about Emily. Or not talking about Emily, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Lizzie was trying hard to take this all in but it was too hard. Too…close? In times of stress-revert to medicine. ‘I don’t think I do see what you mean.’ She tried a smile. ‘It sounds really complicated. Local knowledge needed.’

  ‘Yeah, but you know…’

  She didn’t know anything, and this had
to stop. Right now! ‘What have you had to eat?’ she demanded, and Lillian grinned.

  ‘You’re changing the subject.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right I’m changing the subject. I’m a doctor, aren’t I? And Dr McKay’s love life is strictly Dr McKay’s business.’

  ‘If you’re sure…’

  ‘What have you had to eat?’

  Lillian gave her a long look and then shrugged. Moving on. For now. ‘I ate a cake at the coffee-shop,’ she told her. Then, as Lizzie fixed her with a look of disbelief, she amended it. ‘OK. Half a cake. But it was a really big cake and I did try. Mum was watching me and she didn’t say a word-that’s Dr McKay telling her not to nag-but I could tell she was pleased. And then I ate half a round of sandwiches when I got back here and Dr McKay sat with me until I went to sleep so I swear it stayed down.’ She flushed a little and then looked anxious. ‘Lizzie…I mean, Dr Darling…’

  ‘Lizzie’s fine,’ Lizzie told her. She wasn’t staying here. She wasn’t feeling like a doctor. The treatment they were using on Lillian was unconventional so maybe formalities weren’t required. And she could see that more confidences were about to be delivered.

  But Lillian had changed her mind. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘If it affects the way you’re feeling then it matters.’

  Lillian hesitated.

  ‘Lizzie,’ she said, and Lizzie pushed away the white coat image and stethoscope and she smiled.

  ‘Lizzie. Definitely Lizzie.’

  And somehow it worked. Lillian’s defences crumpled still more. ‘Joey…the skinny one in the band…’ she started, obviously searching for courage as she went. ‘He said after I get out of here, can he take me to the pictures? What…what do you think?’

  Lizzie raised her eyebrows and tried not to smile. Tried not to shout! ‘Joey, hey? The drummer. Hmm. Maybe the question shouldn’t be, what do I think? Maybe it should be, what do you think?’

  ‘I think…maybe he feels sorry for me?’

  ‘Do you think someone like Joey would ask you to the pictures if he felt sorry for you?’