In Dr. Darling’s Care

by Marion Lennox

  ‘N-no.’

  ‘Then maybe he thinks you’re cute,’ Lizzie said, and stooped to give the girl a kiss on the forehead. More unprofessionalism but, hey, she was getting used to it. ‘As I do. Cute and artistic and kind to small children and ill-but recovering fast. How about that for a prognosis?’

  ‘I guess…it’s a good prognosis.’

  ‘It’s a fine prognosis,’ Lizzie told her. ‘Let’s keep working on it. Joey, hey? Well, well, well.’

  ‘Dr McKay, hey?’ Lillian mimicked, snuggling down under the bedclothes and smiling shyly up at her. And then past her. ‘Well, well, well.’

  ‘Dr McKay?’

  She hadn’t heard Harry. He’d come up behind her so suddenly that when he touched her arm she nearly jumped out of her skin.

  She whirled and he was sitting innocently enough in his wheelchair, his leg out before him.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she spluttered before she could collect herself, and he gave her a lopsided smile that had her even more flustered.

  ‘I’m tired of being on crutches. I’m practising my wheelchair skills like a good little patient.’

  ‘If you were a good patient you’d be in bed.’

  ‘No.’ He smiled across at Lillian. ‘Exercise in moderation. I’m sure that’s right. You don’t have to be in bed to be a patient. Miss Mark, what are you doing in bed at this hour of the afternoon? You’re looking far too healthy to be in bed.’

  It was a lie. Lillian had been in hospital for three weeks now and the child still looked skeletal. Her kidney function was compromised, her liver function worrying. They had a long way to go. But this morning they’d seen what could be possible.

  It was hard, though. She needed to be in some specially run facility where there could be supervision as needed, but also lots of things to keep the hyperactivity associated with anorexia satisfied. But, failing that, Lillian had to stay here. At home she couldn’t be supervised, she’d find laxatives or buy them, she’d purge…

  She was making the first moves toward a cure, but long term there was so much to do.

  Meanwhile… Lizzie looked down at Harry and she could almost see his sharp mind focusing on Lillian’s needs. Keeping the girl happy. If Lillian became bored out of her mind, there was no way they could keep her here. This wasn’t a locked psychiatric ward.

  ‘You’re bored,’ he said, and Lillian nodded.

  ‘You’re right. I shouldn’t be in bed.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘Get out. Do some exercise.’ She looked wistfully at Harry’s wheelchair. ‘Those things look fun.’

  ‘They are fun,’ Harry said promptly. ‘I’m getting better and better. Want a demonstration?’

  ‘No,’ both girls said together, and he winced.

  ‘Ouch. A man has some pride…’ Then he looked more closely at Lillian’s wistful face. ‘It is fun,’ he said slowly. ‘But it’d be much more fun if I had someone to show off to. Hey. I know what. Can I offer you an excursion in one of the hospital wheelchairs?’

  Lizzie blinked. Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this.

  But Harry, once fixed on an idea, was unstoppable. ‘The corridor is empty. There’s not a decrepit patient in sight. Everyone’s cosily settled for their afternoon nap except you, Lillian, and your two friendly physicians. And I’m sure our Dr Darling will turn a blind eye to some high jinks.’

  ‘High jinks,’ Lizzie said feebly. ‘High jinks? What is this? Gidget Does Birrini?’

  She was ignored. ‘How about we do some wheelies?’ Harry was teasing, and by the sideways glance he cast at Lizzie it wasn’t just Lillian he was teasing. ‘We could really burn some rubber here if you’re willing.’

  ‘Do wheelchairs go that fast?’ Lillian demanded, her eyes sparkling, but Lizzie was shaking her head in disgust.

  ‘Dr McKay, how do you think,’ Lizzie asked carefully, ‘that you got that broken leg in the first place?’

  ‘You hit me,’ Harry said blandly, and she choked.

  ‘You got it being a total twit.’

  ‘I did.’ He looked crestfallen. ‘You’re right, of course. So I did. Thanks for reminding me. And speaking of reminding… Dr Darling, I think Phoebe’s pining. She needs an antenatal check. Off you go and do some doctoring. Lilly, are you ready?’

  ‘Really?’ Lillian was tossing her bedclothes aside, her face a picture of disbelief warring with hope.

  ‘Outside,’ Lizzie said helplessly, trying not to laugh. This wasn’t like any hospital she’d ever been in. ‘You’re not burning rubber in any hospital corridor I’m a doctor in.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Harry appeared to think about it. ‘How about into town and back again, then, Lilly?’

  ‘No!’ Lizzie was definite and once again he appeared offended.

  ‘Hey, you’re no fun,’ he complained. ‘Go do your antenatal checks, Dr Darling. Let me and Lilly figure this out.’

  ‘You’ll fall out and have to go back to Melbourne to get your leg reset,’ Lizzie managed, and he grimaced.

  ‘I won’t fall out. And, besides, it’d make you stay a bit longer. We’d like that, wouldn’t we, Lilly?’

  ‘I’m staying till the pups are born. No longer.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ he said enigmatically. ‘Lilly, what about a race out on the path down to the sea?’

  ‘Why there?’ the girl said, but she was already hauling on jeans over her pyjamas and was reaching for socks and shoes.

  ‘It’s a mossy path. If we fall out then Dr Darling won’t get to patch us up.’

  ‘I wouldn’t anyway,’ Lizzie muttered, and they both smiled. She stared at both of them-and then threw up her hands in disbelief. ‘Fine, then. Kill yourselves. See if I care.’

  ‘So you’ll watch?’ Harry was smiling.

  ‘Certainly I’ll watch.’

  ‘You’re sure we can’t use the road into town? If we don’t go on asphalt our wheels will get stuck.’

  ‘Great. You’re not built for speed.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘Me,’ she said, and put her hands on her hips and glared.

  Standoff. They glared at each other while Lillian watched, fascinated.

  ‘If we use the garden path, will you referee?’ he asked at last, and she groaned.

  ‘You’re never serious.’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘Lilly…’

  ‘It’s all right, Dr Darling, I won’t hit him,’ Lillian told her seriously. ‘I won’t knock him over.’

  ‘You’ll never let him win?’

  ‘Do I look like a girl who’d let a man win?’

  ‘Yay for you.’ She’d protested enough. ‘Fine. OK, Lilly, if you agree to win then I agree to act as umpire. And if either of you breaks another leg, I wash my hands of the pair of you.’

  ‘After you set our legs?’

  ‘Before. I swear it. And then I’ll patch your legs without morphine!’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Memo:

  I will not break another leg.

  I will not think about Dr Lizzie Darling watching me every step of the way.

  I will not think about how much more fun life is-how much more alive I feel-and why…

  THEY raced an hour later, and by the time they started the entire hospital was out to watch.

  Certain rules had been decided. Once Lizzie agreed to take part she decided she was there to enjoy herself.

  Lillian was given the wheelchair built for speed. Harry was removed from his slick little set of wheels and put in the hospital’s spare chair, which looked more like a bath chair than a wheelchair.

  ‘It was built for pushing elderly dowagers around fashionable watering spots last century,’ Harry complained, and Lizzie raised her eyebrows in gentle mockery.

  ‘We have two wheelchairs. Do you want Lillian to have this one?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and there was general laughter.

  And Lillian… It had been a great day fo
r her. She’d been put into hospital because she’d been starting to show signs of kidney failure. Her weight loss was making her cachectic. So she needed to stay. She needed medical supervision. But her problems weren’t purely physical. The long-term answer to anorexia wasn’t to be found by keeping her huddled in a hospital bed, though, with the stresses of the real world ready to crowd in on her the moment she was released.

  So…maybe it was a good thing that she was here, Lizzie conceded, in this tiny community hospital where the boundaries between in and out were so blurred.

  They had all the patients lined up to see, plus every staff member. There were also a few visitors. In particular, one very interesting visitor.

  There was Joey-the drummer-out of his school uniform now. He’d just happened to be wandering through. He’d expected to visit a girl in a hospital bed, Lizzie thought, and she watched in satisfaction as he tried really hard to look cool and disinterested. How much better that he see this glowing, laughing kid lining up at the start of a wheelchair race and raring to go.

  ‘Your brakes are still on, Lillian,’ Lizzie called, and it was Joey who ducked forward and fiddled with the lever.

  ‘Hey, that was my only advantage,’ Harry complained. ‘You weren’t supposed to tell her that.’

  ‘She’d beat you even with the brakes on,’ Joey said stoutly. And then, because he was standing right beside her and suddenly his cool disinterest didn’t seem as important any more, he bent and gave Lillian a swift kiss on the lips.

  It was her first kiss. The whole audience could see. She stared up at Joey in amazement and her face flushed with colour.

  ‘That’s for luck,’ Joey said softly.

  Lizzie thought, What have we done?

  But Lillian was growing more flushed by the moment. They needed to get the attention off her.

  Harry sensed it almost as Lizzie did and he had the perfect solution.

  ‘What about me?’ he demanded, affronted. ‘Don’t I get a kiss for good luck?’

  ‘Not from me,’ Joey said, and grinned.

  Whew! This felt great, Lizzie thought. Great. She dug her hands into the pockets of her white coat and thought, I’m working. I’m on duty as a doctor and here I am out in the sun with a whole bunch of people whose laughter is a medicine all by itself.

  ‘Dr Darling, you need to do that,’ Lillian retorted, and Lizzie hauled herself back to attention.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Give Dr McKay a kiss for good luck.’

  ‘I’m the referee. I’m meant to be impartial.’

  ‘It’s the referee’s job to make sure both contestants start on equal terms,’ Harry told her. ‘You’ve given me a turn-of-the-century bath chair and now you’re refusing to give me a good luck kiss.’

  They were all watching her. The oldies were especially delighted-they’d toddled out en masse from the nursing-home section of the hospital and their faces were all alight with interest.

  Go jump, she should tell them. This man is engaged to Emily.

  But that would be making too much of it. This wasn’t the time to be talking of engagements or weddings. It was purely a good luck kiss and it meant nothing at all. If she didn’t…If she didn’t, then they could well ask why not and…

  And she’d waited too long already. The silence was growing loaded.

  Right. One good luck kiss coming up. She stepped up to Harry’s chair and bent and her lips lightly brushed his forehead…

  No.

  That was not his intention. Before she could guess what he was about he’d caught her, reaching up, and taken her face between his broad hands and directed her kiss.

  To his mouth.

  And this wasn’t some feather-light kiss of good luck. This was a kiss! While the entire population of Birrini Bush Nursing Hospital cheered and applauded, Harry McKay kissed his doctor-cum-partner.

  And his doctor-cum-partner’s senses shuttered down right there and then.

  She managed a gasp-sort of-but then her brain decided it had other things to concentrate on that were much more important than gasping. There was the vague sound of clapping and cheering, but it was only vague and then it disappeared entirely. There was just Harry.

  He was pulling her down to him, his lovely hands were through her hair, holding her close. His mouth was on hers. In hers. The feel of his mouth… It was the only reality there was.

  She felt herself sinking…sinking… He was tugging her in closer; warmth and desire were flooding her body from the toes up… And then he slipped his tongue into her mouth. She was bending to meet his kiss-the man was in a wheelchair, for heaven’s sake-but she wasn’t aware. She was only aware of the taste of him. The feel of him. Her knees were giving way. Dear heaven, was she going to sink to the ground while the entire population of Birrini Bush Nursing Hospital looked on?

  They wouldn’t mind. The cheering and laughter were gaining momentum so that even she could hear them.

  She didn’t care. She couldn’t care. She grabbed at his arms for support and her eyes closed, and he was all there was.

  Here was her heart. All there was in her world was the heat of his mouth, the feel of his fingers running through her hair and the sensation that all that had ever been wrong in her world was suddenly right.

  She was where she belonged. She was home.

  ‘Do you think we should run the race without them?’ It was Lillian, choking back laughter. Joey was behind her and his eyes were sparkling with mischief. ‘Should someone ring Emily and tell her the wedding’s off, then?’

  Emily.

  The word was enough to haul them back. To have them pulling away from each other. To have Lizzie step back, confused and disoriented, her hand flying to her lips, reluctant to lose the sensation of such sweet pressure.

  Emily. The race. Medicine. Edward. Queensland.

  Jim, the hospital orderly, had been standing to one side, holding Phoebe by the collar. The big dog seemed to have been adopted by the entire hospital, and wherever there was action there was Phoebe. Now, sensing Lizzie needed something to ground her-anything-Jim released her collar and the basset nuzzled her way forward and pushed against her mistress with a whine.

  It helped. The dog’s flabby warmth against her legs gave her back reality. It enabled her to say with a voice that was almost steady, ‘Now, are you still saying you’ve been disadvantaged, Dr McKay? If you want a longer good luck kiss than that, you’ll have to ask Phoebe.’

  It broke the tension. Almost. There were faces in the crowd that stayed speculative, but it gave them the footing to pretend that the kiss had been a joke.

  As it had been, Lizzie told herself desperately. It couldn’t mean anything. Could it?

  ‘It’s time to race,’ she told them. ‘Anyone want a good luck kiss from the dog or shall I start you off?’

  ‘Let’s go,’ Harry told her, and the look he gave her was strange. There was laughter there-teasing-but there was also something…something more.

  Something she didn’t want to think about.

  ‘On the count of three,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Beat him, Lilly. Show him what a woman can do. One, two, three…Go!’

  Lilly beat Harry. Of course she beat him. Some things were never in doubt.

  The path was wide and strewn with leaves, weaving in and out of the big gums overshadowing the gardens leading down to the headland. The first part was cultivated garden but outside the hospital boundary it became a rougher track, flattened by locals exercising their dogs or kids putting their trail bikes through their paces.

  Lilly was a wraith-like figure but with the anorexic’s typical compulsion for exercise she was a fighting fit wraith.

  Harry was super-fit.

  Lilly’s chair was streamlined and light. Harry’s was big and cumbersome, but it was more stable, meaning that he didn’t have to slow as much over the worst of the bumps.

  For Lizzie, following behind, she could almost see the moment when Harry backed off-not much. He surged ahead a
few times as if desperately trying to maintain the lead. But enough…

  They reached the point where the headland gave way to sand dunes and then to beach. Jim had dashed ahead, Phoebe waddling beside him, to set up flags.

  Lilly hit the flags a nose ahead and the cheers could well have been heard in Tasmania.

  ‘You didn’t let me win,’ Lilly demanded as, flush faced and triumphant, she turned to face her opponent.

  Harry gasped for breath, took a couple of seconds to answer and then told her, ‘Of course…’ gasp. ‘Of course I let you win. It was sheer good manners on my part.’ Gasp. Gasp. ‘I’m the world’s kindest doctor.’

  And Lillian’s face relaxed into a wreath of smiles. ‘You didn’t,’ she announced with jubilation. ‘I beat you.’

  ‘Thanks very much,’ Harry said morosely, and then, as Phoebe waddled up to Lillian, wagging her tail, he groaned.

  ‘That’s right. A kiss for the winner.’ Then he looked around for Lizzie. ‘Hey…’

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ she told him. ‘Winner takes all.’ And she walked over and gave Lillian a kiss that wasn’t anything like the one she would have liked to have given Harry.

  He was a wonderful doctor, she thought. This community was so lucky to have him. He was so caring. So giving…

  Emily was lucky to have him.

  And that was a stupid thought. Stay uninvolved, she told herself severely. Stay out of the hearts and minds of this community. Of Harry.

  He’s getting married and you’re moving on.

  ‘I’m going back to the hospital,’ she told him. ‘Some of us have work to do, even if others can afford to spend their time in idle wheelchair racing.’

  ‘All your patients are here,’ Harry pointed out.

  ‘I’ll find some who aren’t.’

  ‘Lizzie?’

  ‘Yes?’ She met his eyes. The community was crowding around now-there were people between them-but somehow their eyes locked and held.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said simply, and she knew he was talking about much more than refereeing the race. ‘Thank you, Lizzie.’

  ‘I’m just glad you didn’t break your leg.’