by Nick Earls
Yep, cutting chicken burgers, Ron and the Mater out of the story of this morning does improve it quite a lot. I’m sure it makes me sound at least a little like a movie guy who’s hitting the breakfast media. While his head’s still coming out of last night’s party, of course.
‘That was good,’ Ron says. ‘Wasn’t it? Back there . . .’
‘Yeah. It could really give us a kick along. It’ll be interesting to see what Sophie’s planning next.’
‘So,’ he says in a reflective way, ‘there’s a bit of hope for the World, the dental business is done . . .’
‘Yep.’
‘Okay, next issue . . . next issue. You don’t mind do you?’
Do I mind? ‘No.’ Does that question have any other answer?
‘I can tell you this,’ he says, gripping the wheel firmly with both hands and turning instantly less reflective, ‘because you’re medical and you’re a mate.’ I think I could be about to mind. ‘Actually, it’s more of a query than an issue. And it mightn’t be much . . .’
‘Mmmm.’ Minimal encourager. Damn. I should be ducking for cover, not mmmming.
‘It’s about this . . . situation, I suppose you’d call it. Just a question about this situation, and you can probably set me straight. It’s not a big issue. Just wondering, you know. I’ve, um, how should I . . . it looks like I’ve, um, I’ve lost my edge.’
‘Lost your edge? I don’t think so. You backed everyone’s plans this morning and ended up with a winner on your hands. I don’t think you have to come up with every good idea yourself.’
‘Yeah, not that edge. This’d be the other edge.’
‘The other edge?’
‘Mate, I’m talking about my edge as a man.’
‘What?’
‘The old fella, mate. He’s behaving, well, like an old fella. Like the kind of fella who’d rather take it easy early on than come to the party. If you get me.’
‘The party . . .’ He’s impotent. This is Ron Todd code for impotent, and it’s me who’s getting told about it. ‘Oh. You mean . . .’
‘Yeah. For a while, now. Quite a while. And it’s not for want of trying.’
‘Well, you know . . .’
‘No, mate, really trying. I’ve picked up a few magazines and a video or two. Some mornings I work on it in the shower, just to see if I can get anywhere. But nothing.’
The reticence—the wheel-gripping and staring into the distance—that’s all gone now. Replaced by a picture of a wet, nude Ron Todd, silently on the job alone in a Carindale ensuite. And I want to say, ‘Ron, you and the shower, it’s not my business,’ but it’s looking like I’m wrong.
‘It happened round about the time we bumped up the loan to make a move on Max’s Snax,’ he says. ‘I’ve never had a loan like this before. It was round about then, anyway. And I thought that, if I threw myself into the work, that’d take my mind off it and it’d settle itself.’
‘And Zel? How’s she responded, because . . .’
‘Oh, no, I haven’t talked about it with Zel. I can’t tell her something like that. She means the world to me. I wouldn’t want to upset her. I haven’t even told her the business stuff, and it’s driving me crazy. But why do both of us need to be crazy? That’s why I wanted to fix it. I wanted to fix it before my masculinity was seriously on the line. If that’s possible. But you can tell me—is it the kind of thing that, once it’s gone, it’s gone? Is that what I’m looking at here?’
‘No, no that shouldn’t be it at all.’
So here we are, in the Coronation Drive peak-hour traffic, and soon enough I’m taking a history of Ron’s impotence. There’s no choice. We go into the timing, into the details of his inability to achieve and maintain erections, into possible features of predisposing conditions. And I have the feeling that, if I didn’t take an interest—a clinical kind of interest—Ron might not have talked about this again with anyone, and the problem would never come close to being fixed.
I get to discover, in Ron’s own words, just how great a toll the stress of business and the recurrent dental abscesses have been taking on him. More than enough, I suspect, to be causing a whole range of problems. I tell him that sometimes that’s all it takes and, whether it is that or not, his stress problems need dealing with, anyway. And not just by playing his tapes more, or buying a new self-help book. He should get this looked at, all of it, properly looked at, and in the meantime he should assume that something will be able to be done.
‘It doesn’t look any different, I don’t think,’ he says when we’re stopped at a red light.
He starts undoing his belt buckle and shuffling around with his pants.
‘Not my area,’ I tell him as quickly as I can, but not before the driver of the big yellow brewery truck next to us has started taking an interest. ‘A good GP’d be the first person to talk to about this.’
So he keeps his pants on, and we manage to merely blur the boundary a little more than usual, rather than completely obliterating it.
Meanwhile, Ron doesn’t know it but, as we’re sorting out World of Chickens, his private life might be slipping away. The problems might be bigger and more urgent than he realises. I’m angry with Frank, and I’m angry with Zel. Frank and his dumb speculation about a war injury and his general recklessness, Zel for not doing her part to sort this out. And I’m in the middle. Only me. It’s up to me.
The lights change, and the road follows the curve of the river around to the right. On the freeway, the cold air comes in fiercely but Ron keeps the windows open.
Should I talk to Frank? Go back to Frank again and tell him what it is that might be going on? Impress upon him that Ron and Zel have a problem that should be fixable. Frank, whose fingertips wrinkle regularly from jacuzzi water, who has worn two new ties this week. Who can’t, I realise, be trusted to do the right thing since, the way I look at it, he’s been doing the wrong thing for weeks and hasn’t seen the problem. Or do I have to go over his head? Do I have to go in boots and all and do I have to do it now?
We change lanes and move onto the Stanley Street off ramp. We’ll be there in minutes. I’ll put my white coat on, I’ll call in a patient, this’ll all keep for another time. Another shot at Frank, another attempt to make him see sense.
If I say nothing now, that’s my only option.
‘My mother . . . she does some acting.’
‘Yeah? I think I’d heard that.’
‘She’s about to be in Pirates of Penzance at the Arts Theatre. They’re rehearsing it now. And I think she’s at a point with it where she could really use some style advice, particularly hair—those things can be tricky when you’re doing G&S, particularly bringing it up to date a bit—and I was wondering . . .’
‘Zel, Zel’s your girl.’
‘That’s what I thought. So what’d be the best way to get in touch with her? Her pager maybe? We’ve probably got to get her involved pretty quickly.’
We pull into the patient-drop-off zone outside the Mater Mothers’ and he says, ‘Yeah, that’s probably the best way. She’s hard to track down during the day otherwise. Here, I’ll give you the number.’ He writes it on the back of a business card. ‘The first one’s the number you call, then you ask for the other number. That’s the actual pager.’
‘Great. Thanks.’
‘No problem. Thank you. About the other thing. You really think it can be sorted out?’
‘Yes, I do. I think we should assume it can be sorted out, one way or another, and you should do whatever you can to make that happen. So you should make that call to your GP and go in and mention everything you’ve told me today. And we can’t know for sure how it’ll go, but you’ve got to do that.’
‘Yeah. Yeah, right,’ he says. ‘I knew you were the one to talk to.’
‘That’s okay. Well, good luck.’
It sounds dumb when I say it, but I don’t know what else to say. What do GPs say when they refer people to specialists? I should learn that some time.
The noise from Antenatal Clinic comes out of the open double doorway at the top of the steps. There’s the usual crowd of people clustering round the entrance: a couple of smokers having their last before going in (and lying about giving up), a woman six months pregnant punching a vending machine as it fails to deliver whatever she’s promised the two-year-old gripping her leg. Inside, someone’s name is being called.
Smokers don’t seem to know that, to a non-smoker, they just about always smell of smoke or its metabolites, and those lies about giving up don’t stand a chance if you’ve smoked the last one just outside.
I have Ron’s card in my hand, with Zel’s numbers on the back. I’ve tried sorting this out with Frank. I’ve talked to him. I’ve done the best I can, and it isn’t changing a thing. If I don’t talk to Zel, this’ll turn bad for everybody.
Frank’s judgement is out, and I have to do something.
Frank’s judgement is out. It sounds as though one of Frank’s headlights is out and I’ve taken the car to get it fixed. It’s not the same. Not the same as being straightforwardly helpful, or bailing him out of the usual trouble. Every time that’s been my job—every other time in the past four years when Frank’s judgement has been out—I’ve got involved with his consent. Even with the butt photos, my plan was to talk him out of it if they got developed. But this is a new situation. There’s no precedent.
I’ve wandered away from Antenatal Clinic, downhill towards Mater Adults’ and the on-call rooms. I can think there, and make phone calls if there are phone calls to make. But I don’t have to do anything, unless I definitely decide to. Then I’d call switch, say she’s a doctor and I need to page her. They’d give me an outside line and I’d call the paging service and she’d call me back direct on the number of the phone in the hall. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s called it before.
I stop. I put the card in my pocket. I’ll talk to Frank today. This morning. One last time.
Two men come out of the on-call rooms with large bags of used sheets and towels.
‘Dirty buggers,’ one of them says. ‘What if someone had called? Isn’t that what they’re supposed to be doing in those rooms? Waiting for emergencies?’
The other one laughs, and heaves his load up and into the already overloaded laundry cart. ‘Reckon we’re done.’
One pushes, one pulls, and the cart moves up the camber of the road and down towards the opposite gutter. Exposing—right in front of me—the bins, Zel Todd’s car and Zel and Frank. Zel and Frank, who are engaged in something that should be kept much more private. She’s standing on the broken low wall, Frank’s reclining against the car and Zel’s taking to him in a way I haven’t had to think about since I saw Alien. Any more tongue and she’ll have his head slurped into a sticky cocoon within seconds. We might never need to have that talk, if Zel’s using Frank to feed her young.
The noise that comes out of me is a genuine groan, and it’s out before I realise it. Zel turns and, suddenly, I’m part of this. Suddenly, it’s Zel and Frank again. It’s not a movie and she’s not an intergalactic predator looking at me as though I’m her next victim. She’s horrified, just as she should be.
Her head jerks away from Frank’s and she stumbles from the wall. Then he sees me, too.
‘Fuck,’ he says, taking some time over it.
I go at him. ‘What do you mean “fuck”? How can you possibly be surprised? You’re outside, you idiots. You’re next to a road. In the Mater.’
‘Yeah, um . . .’
‘Oh, right, they came for the sheets, did they? So you figured you’d have sex against the car.’
‘No, no,’ Frank says. ‘It’s just a goodbye thing. Look . . .’
‘I’ve looked. I’ve seen enough.’
‘Um, yeah. Shit. Antenatal Clinic. Thanks for reminding me, mate. Lost track of time there.’ He picks up his bag and pulls out his white coat. ‘Um, see you,’ he says to Zel, and he’s off. Across the road, into Nursing Admin, his bag trailing on the ground, one arm stuffing itself down an inside-out coat sleeve.
‘Philip,’ Zel, says, in a tone of voice that tells me she’s older and I’m to be talked into a respectful silence. Big mistake, Zel.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Are you insane?’ Not silence, nothing like it. ‘Not only is this a road in a hospital, but what the fuck are you doing with your life? Haven’t you thought about your family at all? Have you thought about what you might be throwing away, about the people who are going to get hurt?’
‘Um, I really do have to go,’ she says in an infuriating pastel-lipped voice, and she rearranges her hair and starts looking in her bag for her keys.
‘No. No. You can’t go. You can’t run away from this. Frank can behave like a complete child, but you can’t.’
‘You should just mind your own business. That’s what you should do.’
‘And you should sort yours out. I’ve got dragged into this, but I’m in it now. Right in it. So don’t give that shit about “business”. You’re going to listen to me, and you’re going to hear just how it really is. And then you’re going to sort this out.’
‘This is nothing to do with you,’ she says, her voice low and hard and angry.
She turns to the car, unlocks the door. I drop my bag and I run between the bins.
‘It is to do with me,’ I tell her as I jump down into the parking bay. ‘I know things you need to know.’
‘What rubbish. I’m going.’ She climbs into the car, swings the door shut and turns the engine on.
I pull the passenger door open, and I’m still shouting. ‘Listen, just for one second.’
‘Away, Philip, away.’ She puts it in gear.
‘It’s Ron. It’s Ron, fuck you. It’s the stress. It’s taking its toll.’ I get my right leg into the car, she hits it with her bag. As she stamps on the accelerator, and just before the tyre screech drowns out all other sound, I shout, ‘Ron’s masculinity is on the line. It’s medical.’ The car jumps from the parking bay, and No one hears me say, ‘You mean the world to him.’
Something, some part of the car, thumps into my right thigh and tosses me to the ground, the door swings open and clangs against the branch of a frangipani tree, snapping a piece of it away, and Zel is off down the road. I’m left sitting on the concrete in the last of the blue exhaust smoke.
*
‘Hey,’ Frank says when he comes up to me between patients. ‘Bit of a spin-out earlier. You, me and the lady. Hadn’t been banking on that.’
‘No, not much on the planning, are you?’
‘You, um, wouldn’t be up for a coffee, would you?’
‘Coffee’s shit here. Always has been. I don’t know why you keep suggesting it.’
I walk away to pick up the next patient’s file but he comes after me, like a dog that knows it’s in trouble and wants to slink along showing contrition.
‘So, um,’ he says, as if there’s still a conversation to be had. ‘It’s got a bit complicated all of this, hasn’t it?’
‘A bit complicated? I might have suggested that a while back.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Come on.’ Said just like an instruction to a dog.
I walk past the waiting patients, across the lino floor to the door, and Frank follows me. We go out and up the steps and across the road, across a patch of grass, on our way to nowhere in particular.
‘Hang on a sec,’ he says, and we stop. I turn around and he looks at me and then past me. He smirks, he can’t help himself. ‘We wouldn’t have done it up against the car.’
‘Yeah, that’s the issue, isn’t it? Whether she was going to be happy just pushing her tongue out the back of your hea
d, or whether she was up for more by the roadside.’
‘So, um, what do you reckon then? What are you going to do?’
‘What am I going to do? I don’t know. What do I reckon? I reckon the two of you are behaving like fuckwits and you couldn’t be more selfish. I reckon this is going to turn very bad. And I reckon I’ve tried to point that out and you haven’t been particularly interested, and I’ve had enough. You’re on your own.’
‘Yeah,’ he says, and rolls his eyes. ‘But what do you really reckon? Quit holding back on me.’
‘Okay, what you don’t know is that I still am holding back on you. I just gave you the mild version of how I feel about this.’
‘Okay.’ This time no roll of the eyes. ‘I’m getting the picture.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. So, how did it go down there after I left?’
‘Well, there’s a set of big fat tyre marks on the concrete in the parking bay. You’re not exactly good at confronting issues are you, the two of you?’
‘Who is? Who likes issues?’ He shakes his head. ‘This was supposed to be much more straightforward, you know. I only agreed to this on the grounds that there’d be no complications.’
‘Because that’s how life works, isn’t it? Maybe we should just tell Ron and Sophie what you agreed, and everyone’ll be fine.’
‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this.’
‘Yeah, but it was always going to be like this. And that’s why I’ve been telling you to fix it. Now, they’ll be missing us in Antenatal Clinic, so we shouldn’t hang around here. We can talk about this later, if you want to talk about it.’
He nods and says, ‘Yeah,’ and we go back across the grass and the road, and down the steps. The doors to the clinics slide open.
‘Either of you guys Phil Harris?’ the clerk on the desk says. ‘I’ve got an urgent message for a Phil Harris, one of the med students.’
