The doctors choice

by Wilde, Hilary

  Clothes! How it had hurt to casually pack the lovely trousseau garments she had bought and sewed, always thinking of Peter, but it would have been silly not to have used them.

  Saying goodbye to her parents at the airport had been hard for Clare, but Barry had been so excited, so full of questions, that she had been given no time to mope. Later, though, there had come many quiet hours while Barry slept and David read and Clare could close her eyes and think of Peter and what might have been.

  How sharp and severe the pain still was, the aching longing, the guilty thoughts. They should have been basking on the golden sands of Spain’s coast, now walking hand in hand, happily planning their life that lay ahead.

  David had seemed able to sense those bad moments, and always put down his book – usually some medical journal – and started to talk. It was mainly these conversations that opened Clare’s eyes and made her see David Johnson as he really was, so that the doctor-image she had in her mind of him as an impressive, authoritative, rather frightening man slowly vanished.

  Eileen had started this revelation, when she phoned the night before Clare’s departure to wish her luck.

  “The hospital’s just throbbing with excitement; Clare, my darling,” she had added, “you taking this exciting job with the dashing doctor. You know what?

  They’re all saying ‘twas you cancelled the wedding on account of the fabulous doctor.”

  Clare had laughed. “That’s absurd! Everyone knew I was crazy about Peter, and besides, Doctor Johnson is old—”

  “Old, is he now?” How Eileen had laughed! “And since when, my darling, has a man been old at the age of thirty-three?”

  That had made Clare look at David Johnson with new eyes and realize that Peter, who was twenty-nine, had seemed years younger than Doctor Johnson and far less mature.

  Once there had been a bad moment when, thinking about Peter, Clare had found tears sliding down her cheeks. In dismay she had turned her head, but not before David Johnson had seen them.

  How wonderful he had been, she thought. Comforting, reassuring. Telling her she was not the only one to know such humiliation. “It took me years to regain self-confidence,” he had said.

  “Someone jilted you?” Clare had gasped.

  He had smiled ruefully and told her the story. Of a girl called Gillian to whom he had been engaged when he was an interne.

  “I always planned to be a Flying Doctor,” David had said, “but Gillian had other ideas. She loved amusing people, cities, ‘and wanted me to specialize. We fought and—” had there been wistfulness in his smile? – “she eloped with my best friend. A famous racing motorist, Tony Hirst, who took her to America and gave her the sort of life she wanted.”

  Clare wondered what to say. “But if she loved you—”

  “Of course she didn’t.” David’s voice was crisp.

  “Gillian only loves one person. Herself. But I’ve talked to you about her before, Clare. Gillian is distantly related to my sister-in-law, Val. Second cousin three times removed or something. She’s Barry’s stepmother.”

  There had been a stillness between them as Clare stared at him, remembering what he had told her of Barry’s unhappy life.

  David nodded. “You were shocked when I said she walked out of Barry’s life, but if you knew Gillian, you’d understand. She’s – well, she’s different. She’s had a difficult, unhappy and insecure life. No love, parents always fighting, often separating, the child divided between them—”

  Remembering now, Clare thought of David’s face as he spoke. She was sure he still loved Gillian, though he might not realize it. She had gone on to say without thinking: “So that’s why you’ve never married.”

  David had denied it, firmly and frequently. He had forgotten Gillian years before. “Marriage for a Flying Doctor is, I think, out of the question,” he had said.

  “It’s a twenty-four-hour-a-day job. No girl could be expected—”

  “Of course she could,” Clare said. “If she loved you and married you, knowing the sort of life—”

  He had looked at her, and although his voice was grave, she had seen amusement in his grey eyes. “You think a doctor’s wife should make the adjustments?”

  “Of course!” she had said defiantly. “After all, doctors are different.”

  The phrase had seemed to fascinate him as he repeated it.

  “Doctors are different.” He had looked at her. “Just why?”

  How embarrassed she had been. He was teasing her.

  “Not only doctors but lawyers and – and all dedicated men. Clergymen – schoolteachers— If a woman loves a man enough, she must accept his work and—”

  Then Barry had woken up and needed attention and the conversation had closed.

  But David had mentioned Gillian once again on another occasion. He was talking of his brother, Ian.

  “I wish we could trace Gillian so that Ian could legally adopt Barry,” David said.

  “Ian has no son?” Clare asked.

  “No. Ian doesn’t mind, but Val has something of a guilt complex about it. Two girls, but no son to carry on the name and keep the cattle station going. Our great-grandfather started it. Barry seemed like the answer to their prayer.”

  It was then that David had told her something of the life that lay ahead of her. It would be terribly hot –months without rain, sometimes years. The flies were very tiresome. When the “wet” came there would be floods, often cutting them off for weeks on end. She should not be too lonely, he thought. Val, his sister-in-law, was sociable and had persuaded her husband to move their road so that it ran past the homestead, which meant that when travellers stopped to ask for water or petrol or even the way, she could ask them in for drinks or a meal.

  “Val loves company. Ian is different. He’s a quiet, solid man, devoted to his horses and cattle. You’ll like him. Marge is a straightforward tomboy, no complexes whatsoever. Zoe, now – that’s different.”

  His voice had seemed to change, startling Clare. It was the first time he had sounded harsh, angry.

  “They’ve sent her to boarding school, but before, she was a problem,” David had continued. “At eleven years of age, she is both possessive, jealous and difficult.

  She always resented Barry. She used to give him nightmares by putting dead snakes on his face when he slept.”

  “You hate her,” Clare had said, her own words startling her, just as his had shocked her. “And she’s only eleven—”

  How uncomfortable David had looked. “I don’t hate her. I know at times—” He paused again. “It was Zoe who told Barry that his stepmother had left him. Val had let him believe she would come back.”

  Suddenly David had given an unhappy laugh. “How right you are, Clare. I should be ashamed. Zoe has her problems. She knows her parents wanted a son. My trouble is — we all share it and so will you, and you must fight it, Clare; we’re all too protective of Barry. He has to learn to stand alone, to take being teased, even a certain amount of what sounds like being bullied. We can’t, and mustn’t, protect him for the rest of his life.

  He is now a normal boy of seven years old and must be treated as such.” He had glanced at her sympathetically. “As you see, glare, this job has its problems. It won’t always be easy.”

  And now they were nearly there, she realized, watching the long rambling homestead grow closer as they drove along the dusty hot road. What sort of six months lay ahead of her?

  The car stopped again and for the fourth time David jumped out to open a gate, slide back into the car, drive through, and out of the car again to close the white, barred gate. She had offered to do it, but he said it was quicker the way he did it, and he didn’t want the sleepy boy, leaning against Clare’s arm, disturbed.

  “It’s a cardinal sin to forget to close a gate,” David warned her with a smile. “Never forget that.”

  Barry began to wake up. “Nearly there?” he asked, yawning. His dark hair was dusty, for they had driven through c
louds of dust as they approached and over-taken huge lorries, pulling long trailers behind them.

  Earlier Barry had been very talkative, deriving pleasure from pointing out things to Clare, laughing at her fascination for the kangaroos who hopped along the side of the road and suddenly bounded away through the tall grass, their heavy tails thumping the ground.

  “Kangaroos are pests,” he had said scornfully.

  And then he had told her that a pool of water was called a billabong and that the enormous trees with weird-looking tangles of branches were baobabs, and had laughed at her excitement when a flock of white cockatoos had fled screeching as the car passed. It was all so colourful and different. The tall ghost gums also fascinated her, starkly white and strangely tragic. Some had been burned by the huge bush fires that often raged through the countryside, others, David explained, had been killed by “bark-circling” and left to die slowly.

  She had also seen great herds of cattle being driven through clouds of dust by Aboriginal stockmen, their brightly-coloured shirts vivid against their black skins.

  Now they were nearly there. Would Val Johnson welcome her, or resent her authority over the small boy she apparently loved so much?

  They were driving through a large green paddock and Clare had a better view of the homestead. There was a wide screened circling verandah and everything looked very clean and tidy. The garden had velvet green lawns, weeping willows promising shade, and wide beds full of colourful flowers. The homestead itself was built up on a plateau above the ground, and surrounded by smaller buildings, and from these came tumbling a mass of women, wearing bright red, yellow or blue dresses, their black faces excited. As David pulled up outside the last white gate that opened on to the shallow steps leading up to the house itself, Clare could hear the shrill cries and laughter as the Aboriginal women and small naked children came running to welcome them.

  Clare got a very confused picture of laughing friendly faces, and then a young girl came running down the steps, her honey-coloured hair in a pony-tail, her face brown from sunshine. Her yellow shirt flapped and she wore blue cotton jeans.

  “Uncle David!” she cried, and flung herself into David’s open arms. This must be Marge, the tomboy, Clare thought.

  Behind her walked more sedately a woman with blonde hair swept up into a coil on top of her head, her face unusually long but oddly beautiful. She wore a green dress, and sandals. Her smile was warm. “Barry darling, it’s good to see you,” she said, as she bent over the small boy to kiss him.

  If she noticed the way Barry turned away his head, she gave no sign, merely turning to kiss David, stand back and look at him.

  “My word, David, you’ve put on some weight at last!”

  And then she turned to Clare, holding out her hand in a welcoming gesture. “I’m so glad to meet you.”

  The heavily-built man who had followed her out had dark hair, slightly receding and faintly flecked with grey. His hand held Clare’s firmly as he welcomed her.

  She liked his deep slow voice, his tolerant smile as Val constantly interrupted what he was saying, and the way he talked to Barry, his hand resting lightly on the boy’s shoulder.

  Marge’s eyes were bright with curiosity as she and Clare began to walk up the shallow steps to the house.

  “We thought you’d be tall and grim,” she said mis-chievously.

  Clare chuckled. “Because I’m a nurse?”

  Marge nodded, her pony-tail swinging. “You’re Barry’s nurse?”

  Clare looked down at Marge’s tip-tilted nose and alert eyes. “No, he doesn’t need a nurse. I’m here to see he doesn’t do too much too fast. In time, he’ll do everything you do.”

  The nine-year-old girl looked startled. “Ride and swim and-“

  Clare nodded. “Everything. Just give him time.”

  Marge skipped. “Gee, that sounds swell.”

  Val joined them and led the way through the screened door into the wide— also screened — verandah.

  “Welcome to Noorla,” she said, smiling at Clare. “I hope you’ll be very happy with us.”

  Clare was sure she would. Val showed her the beautifully furnished, bright little bedroom that was to be hers, and the adjoining bathroom and Barry’s bedroom. Soon Clare had showered and got rid of the red dust that had covered her, had changed into a clean dress, a grey patterned cotton, and joined the others on the wide verandah where they seemed to spend most of , their time.

  There was so much to see. Not only the view, stretching over the flat pastures to the distant line of hills, but the well-planned gardens with their wide grass paths the well-planned gardens with their wide grass paths and archways covered with purple blossom, and, of course, the house itself. Marge-insisted on showing her everything.

  How could she ever describe it to her parents? Clare wondered. There was so much luxury and comfort. The antique furniture, beautifully polished. And the col-, ours! The deep burgundy-red carpet in the passages, ‘the white carpet in the drawing-room, the cream silk curtains hanging in gracious folds. The huge dining-room with the Swedish furniture, the green-and-gold check curtains. The huge kitchen with the two scrub-

  ‘ bed tables and all the modern equipment, an enormous refrigerator, a separate deep-freeze, the great stove.

  And, of course, Mrs. Astor, the “Pommie” cook-housekeeper, her grey hair strained back from her high forehead, as Marge, jumping up and down — she was rarely still — introduced them.

  “Ma Astor came out forty years ago to visit her uncle and never went back to England.”

  The little woman smiled. “I need my head read!”

  Marge giggled. “Oh, Ma Astor, don’t pretend. You know you love it here.”

  “Sure, save when you kids drive me up the wall.”

  Mrs. Astor’s shrewd eyes surveyed Clare carefully and then she smiled. “Aussies are all right, in small doses. I keep my independence, got my own cottage.”

  Later, Val took Clare round the garden. It was beautiful. Never had she seen such large roses, such lovely sweet peas. There was an intricate system of irrigation pipes so that the garden was never short of water.

  “We have plenty of water,” Val told her, “we’re lucky. Two big water tanks and also artesian wells.”

  She paused outside a small thatched hut. “I’ll show you how this works on a really hot day. Ian built it for me when I was expecting Zoe.”

  Clare, fighting off the flies who seemed to be starving, fanned herself as the hot dry air scorched her cheeks.

  “Isn’t this hot?”

  Val laughed. “Not really hot. You wait!”

  That night Barry was fretful; he cried as if heart-broken and David spent a long time comforting him.

  Val explained. David had been on the transceiver, and while he had hoped to spend a few days with them, now he had to fly back to the hospital early next day.

  “We had a relief doctor, but he wasn’t the same, and now he’s sick,” she explained. -

  Clare was startled at the dismay she felt. No wonder Barry was crying. Somehow they had grown to depend on David.

  -After a delicious dinner, served by Rachel, the Aborigine, maid, who looked scared, giving a sudden shrill giggle when she dropped a spoon, they all sat on the verandah while the mosquitoes and moths battled and died against the screen, screaming for entrance.

  David, cool-looking in thin shantung shirt and jeans, walked up and down.

  “I wish I could stay longer,” he said frankly. “Barry has been through a disturbing time and now he must learn to adjust himself. Clare has come to form the bridge between his old life here and his new one. Before, he was an invalid, waited on.” He smiled at Val.

  “Spoiled! Now he must learn that he can do what he likes but still within certain bounds. It won’t be easy for Clare, deciding what those bounds are. If we stop him from doing too much, he may lose his faith that he’s now well. If we let him do too much, he may get over-tired, discouraged, and retreat into that silence
we suffered before. It was bad, Clare. Barry refused to talk to anyone.”

  “Except you, David,” Val said quietly. “Barry is only normal when you’re with us. Why?”

  David straddled a chair, his face grave.

  “Because I don’t try to be his father or mother. You scare the boy, Val, and yet you mean well. Don’t you see, he’s afraid to love you too much, in case you hurt him as his stepmother did?”

  “He doesn’t show much signs of loving us,” Val said sadly, “no matter how hard I try.”

  David looked at her, his stormy grey eyes concerned.

  “But you try too hard, that’s why,” he said patiently.

  “Barry knows he’s not your son, so don’t treat him as if he is. Be friendly, like Clare. Barry feels under no obligation to love Clare, so there’s no fear she’ll cast him off. Incidentally, Val, I’ve told Clare what Barry may or may not do at the moment. Now, you may not agree, but—”

  Val laughed. “I know. Don’t worry. We won’t fight about it.” She smiled at Clare. “We’ll—”

  David leaned forward. “Val,” he said gravely, “one more thing. Barry must lead a normal life, and that means being disciplined.”

  Valerie stopped smiling. “But is he normal? What about his mental outlook?”

  “That will right itself as he becomes more independent,” David assured her. “Val, just give him time.

  He’ll outgrow his troubles.”

  Before she went to bed, Clare found herself alone with David for a few moments. He held both her hands tightly and looked down at her.

  “I’ll be on the air every day, Clare. You can always ask me if anything worries you, but remember the whole world round here is listening in. I don’t want people to think of Barry as an invalid, for he isn’t one any more. I’m off first thing in the morning, but I’ll fly down over the weekend, even if only for a few hours.”