The Doctor Calling

by Meredith Appleyard

  ‘Jess,’ Neill said, when he noticed her standing in the doorway between the passage and the kitchen.

  ‘Dad, are you okay?’ she said, breathless from her dash from the car. She zeroed in on Doctor Burns.

  ‘He’s all right, Jess, no need to worry. I had to see a patient in the next street so I thought I’d drop in, see how my old mate was.’

  ‘Jake didn’t tell me you had stitches, Dad. When did you go to the hospital?’

  ‘I didn’t. Laura from next door stitched me up. She’s a doctor, as it turns out, and has been checking up on me each day.’

  ‘Mum?’ came a plaintive voice. ‘Can I come in now?’

  ‘Mikey!’ Jess rushed up the passage to find her son’s freckled nose pressed to the screen door. She opened the door and he came in, his eyes wide.

  ‘Is Poppa okay?’

  ‘He is, mate, for now. Doctor Burns just dropped in to say hello.’ Mikey took off down the passage and Jess followed at a more respectable pace. When she stepped into the kitchen Milt Burns was firing off a volley of questions at her father.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you had a doctor living next door? One of Dorothy Handley’s great-nieces, you say? What’s her story? Do you reckon she’d come and work for me? If I don’t cut back soon, Linda will probably divorce me.’

  ‘You’d have to ask Laura,’ Neill said, turning to hug his grandson. ‘Although I will say, she looks a helluva lot healthier than she did when she first arrived. She’s been doing up the old place: painting, pulling up carpet.’

  Jess noticed how her father’s breathing had deteriorated – he could only say a few words between each rasping gasp and the doctor’s concern was palpable. She tried to hold back the ever-present panic lurking just below the surface.

  ‘Mum, can I go play with Skip?’ Mikey pulled on her hand. When she nodded, he bolted out the back.

  ‘What did you say her last name was?’

  ‘I didn’t. It’s O’Connor. Laura O’Connor.’

  ‘She’s planning on staying a while, then?’ Milt said.

  Neill shrugged. ‘Like I said, you’d have to ask her.’

  Milt scratched his head, dislodging his comb-over. ‘I might just ask around,’ he said. ‘It’s a small world in our business. One of my colleagues is bound to know something about her and why she’s in Potters Junction.’

  ‘That’s not very fair,’ Jess blurted. ‘Surely the woman is entitled to her privacy? Why don’t you just ask her directly, and if she wants you to know, she’ll tell you.’

  Doctor Burns had the good grace to look guilty.

  ‘Jess is right,’ Neill said. ‘It’s probably not fair to go snooping around behind her back. You risk getting her offside before you start.’

  Milt scowled. ‘I’d better get going,’ he said gruffly and picked up his battered black doctor’s bag. ‘The girls at the surgery will send out a search party if I don’t show up soon. When is your next appointment with me?’

  ‘This coming Monday.’

  ‘I’ll see you then, old boy. Jess, walk me out, will you.’

  Jess swallowed. Milt followed her to the front door.

  ‘He’s a lot worse, isn’t he?’ she said when they reached the verandah, out of earshot. ‘He’s trying to pretend he’s not, but I can see that he is.’

  Milt scraped at his chin. ‘Jess, you need to talk to him about what he wants.’

  ‘How much longer has he got?’ Jess said, her voice a hollow croak. This was happening way too fast, faster than she’d ever imagined. She felt hot and cold at the same time, tears at the ready.

  ‘I don’t know, Jess, and that’s the honest truth. But, given the speed of his deterioration, he might make his birthday but I doubt he’ll make Christmas.’

  ‘Shit,’ she said, doing a quick calculation in her head. It was barely two months to his birthday and Christmas wasn’t long after. Shit, shit, shit. A tear scalded its way down her cheek. Milt reached out and squeezed her rigid shoulder.

  ‘Jess, you must talk to him, soon, find out what he wants for his last days – whether he wants to stay at home or go into the hospital; who will care for him if he chooses to stay at home; what he wants for his funeral. I’m sure you aren’t in a position to drop everything and look after him twenty-four seven, even if you wanted to. Get onto that damned brother of yours. Tell him to get his arse back here and sort out whatever it is that’s going on with his father, before it’s too late. You’re all going to need to support each other more than ever in the coming weeks.’

  Jess was too choked up to speak.

  ‘Will I see you on Monday, will you bring him in for his appointment?’

  Jess’s head bobbed up and down. She pressed her fingers tightly to her lips to hold back the hysterical sob waiting there. She’d known her dad was sick, that he was going to die, eventually, but she’d been sure they’d have one last Christmas together on the farm. She’d been sure that Jake would eventually come to his senses and come back. But time was running out.

  ‘And Jess,’ Milt said quietly. ‘If you have anything you need to sort out with your dad, now’s the time. Better to do it now than not and then regret it for the rest of your days.’

  ‘We’re fine,’ she said.

  ‘Good.’ He left her standing on the verandah feeling like the bottom had dropped out of her world.

  Laura tipped paint out of the tray and back into the tin. After two solid days of painting the front bedroom, she was exhausted. Everything ached – from the top of her head to the tips of her toes – and she had paint spray all over her clothes and face. Using the hammer she tapped the lid firmly back onto the paint tin. The colour would do for the hall, as well.

  The window was up to let the paint fumes escape so she heard the metallic clink of the latch on her front gate, the scrape of footsteps on cement, then the brusque rap on the screen door.

  ‘Yes?’ she said, wiping her hands on a rag. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Laura O’Connor? Or should I say, Doctor Laura O’Connor?’

  She squinted through the flyscreen. Whoever was there was a silhouette against the afternoon light.

  ‘Yes?’ she repeated, feeling her heart rate accelerate. The screen door didn’t lock but Laura reached out to hold it shut. She had the uncanny feeling that if she opened the door now, her life would never be the same again.

  Too late.

  The handle slipped from her fingers and she was standing face to face with Doctor Milton Burns.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘How can I help you, Doctor Burns?’

  ‘You know who I am?’

  ‘I took Neill Finlay to your birthday party.’

  ‘Hello,’ he said, his sharp brown eyes taking her in. ‘You do look like Dorothy. It’s the eyes. And your voice is similar.’ He extended his hand and if he was surprised by the strength of her grip he didn’t show it.

  ‘You knew her?’

  ‘Oh yes, I knew her. Like almost everyone else in this town, I was her GP. And I considered her a friend. I signed her death certificate, went to her funeral.’ He frowned, bushy eyebrows meeting in the middle. ‘That must’ve been, what, five years ago?’

  ‘Six years next month,’ she said, and his eyebrows headed towards his hairline.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘Where does the time go?’

  They stood staring at each other until Milt Burns broke the silence. ‘Well, aren’t you going to ask me in?’

  Laura tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Mmm, I’m not sure if I should.’ She thought of her earlier feeling of foreboding.

  He threw back his head and laughed, sending his jowls into a frenzy. ‘I think we’re going to get on just fine.’

  ‘Why would we need to?’

  ‘Because I’m going to ask you to come and work for me, with me – whichever option floats your boat.’

  ‘I don’t have a boat.’

  ‘Laura.’ His voice softened. ‘Ask me in, hear me out. Th
at’s all I ask.’

  She regarded him for several long seconds. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Come in. But I have to rinse the paint tray and put the brushes in to soak before I do anything.’

  She offered him a chair in the kitchen, and carried the painting paraphernalia to the outside tap. When she came back in he was looking perfectly at home, leafing through the dusty photo album he’d picked up off the dresser.

  ‘You do look a lot like Dorothy,’ he said and chuckled. ‘She had one hell of a temper. It took a bit to get her going, but when she did! And stubborn . . .’

  ‘You sound as if you knew her quite well.’ Laura couldn’t say for sure, because her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dimmer kitchen after the sun, but she thought Doctor Burns blushed.

  ‘I was her GP,’ he said, his face almost buried in the photo album. Then he closed it with a thud and cleared his throat. ‘I was visiting your neighbour earlier today and he happened to mention it was you who’d stitched him up on the weekend.’

  Laura gave a cynical snort. ‘And now he’s stitched me up, by the sounds of things.’

  Milt rested his arms on the table and sighed deeply. ‘As a matter of fact he didn’t. When I heard you were a doctor I was going to ask around to find out what I could about you. Neill and Jess told me to pull my head in and ask you what it was I wanted to know.’

  ‘And what is it you wanted to know?’

  ‘I’ll be frank with you. As you know I’m getting on and my health is —’ He wobbled his hand from side to side. ‘And my wife, Linda, is keen for me to retire. Me? I’m not so keen. Wouldn’t know what to do with myself. But I would like to cut down some, work maybe three days a week instead of five or six.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And? Well, I don’t know what brought you here to Potters Junction, I don’t know what plans you have, when you plan to go back to wherever you came from, but . . .’ He flapped a hand at her paint-splattered self. ‘If you’re doing the place up I thought you might be around for a while and might be interested in some work.’

  ‘Have you been talking to Meghan Kimble?’

  ‘Nope.’

  He hadn’t hesitated and Laura gave herself a mental slap for not trusting her friend. She leaned against the sink, folded her arms.

  ‘I suppose the least I can do is be frank right back. I’m not willing to share the reasons why I’m here, they are very personal. I have taken twelve months’ leave from the practice I work at in Adelaide. Six months of that time have passed already. Up until recently I’d avoided thinking about my career at all.’

  ‘I see.’

  Laura toed at the mat underfoot. Milt Burns’s quiet acceptance of her answer had her feeling unsettled. She’d half-expected him to rant and rave about GP shortages and wasted skills. But he hadn’t. He stood up and placed the photo album back on the dresser.

  ‘I’ll think about what you’ve suggested,’ she said. ‘At this stage I can’t offer any more than that. And I know what a small world GP medicine is, but I would ask you to please respect my privacy.’

  ‘I’d appreciate if you would think about it. Any help I can get would be a bonus. In six months we might be able to recruit someone permanent. Who knows?’ He sighed wearily. ‘And pigs might fly as well.’

  As Laura closed the screen door after him he said, ‘And I promise not to snoop.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Laura counted on her fingers the days since Saturday. ‘Four days, that’s all it took,’ she muttered, angrily unfurling the hose so she could water the herb pots on the back verandah. Preoccupied with Milt Burns’s conversation, she turned on the tap before she had the end of the hose in her hand. Water burst through and the hose spat and hissed across the verandah like a snake with its head blown off.

  With a howl of frustration she dived for the end and shut off the tap. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Looking down at her sodden feet, laughter won and she toed off her wet sneakers and socks and propped them up against a pot plant to dry in the late afternoon sun.

  The days were lengthening, warming up. Summer was on its way. The seedling vegetables were doing well. A couple of the lettuces looked like they wouldn’t make it, but everything else looked perky. And so did the weeds. She swore she could see them growing in this warmer weather.

  She slipped on her flip-flops, watered the pots and got stuck into the weeding. There was plenty of daylight left. After inhaling paint fumes for two days, the fresh air was wonderful. As the pile of weeds on the cement path got bigger, the dirt under her fingernails more ingrained, her thoughts kept circling back to her conversation with Milt Burns.

  She could understand that from where he and Meghan sat, it would look like she was wasting her skills and training. But from where she sat, well, things looked a little bit different. With a hefty sigh she stabbed the hand fork into the ground, rooting out the last weed without dislodging the seedlings. The sun had almost set and she was thirsty and hungry, and her muscles were screaming. She loaded the weeds into the wheelbarrow and dumped them on the growing compost pile, surveyed the garden beds with satisfaction.

  Her mobile phone rang just as she was debating whether to have a glass of wine with dinner. She didn’t recognise the number but took the call anyway. Somewhere, at the back of her mind, she was hoping Jake would call.

  ‘Laura?’ a tentative voice said. ‘It’s Jess, Neill’s daughter.’

  ‘Jess, hello. Is he all right?’

  ‘Not really, but then you would have noticed how quickly he’s going downhill. You’ve been so good to check in on him each day.’

  ‘Yes, he has deteriorated over the last few days, especially since Jake left.’

  ‘I know, and that’s what I’m ringing you about. Doctor Burns says I should get Jake home because Dad hasn’t got long to go. I’m just worried that Jake won’t come, even when I tell him how serious it is and that I need his help. I’m always on at him to come home and see Dad. I know I’ll get really upset with him, and that won’t be helpful.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I thought maybe if you could ring him, seeing you’re a doctor and all and you understand how serious things are and what needs to be done so Dad can die in peace. Jake might listen to you. Dad’s too stubborn to do it.’

  Laura’s chest rose and fell. ‘What makes you think he’ll listen to me? Maybe Milt Burns could talk to him. He knows more about your father than I do.’

  ‘Doctor Burns! Jake won’t listen him. He hates his guts, blames him for encouraging Mum to leave. Personally, I don’t think Doctor Burns did encourage her. I might have only been eleven but I remember how unhappy Mum was. She hated the farm. Towards the end I sometimes think she hated Dad – and us.’

  ‘Oh, Jess.’ Laura sank down onto one of the kitchen chairs. She closed her eyes. ‘All right, I’ll ring him. But I can’t promise anything.’

  ‘I know that, Laura. Thank you. Please let me know what he says.’

  Heart racing, and before she could talk herself out of it, Laura scrolled through her contacts. She knew Jake’s number would come up because she’d put it there days before. Without giving herself a chance to think, she pressed connect. It rang, and rang. She felt hot and then cold, and relieved and then disappointed when it went to message bank, and then nearly dropped the phone when his voice said, ‘Jake Finlay. Name and number and I’ll get back to you.’

  She stabbed disconnect and was disgusted to notice her hand was shaking. What was the matter with her? He’d never ring back if she left a message. Maybe if he saw a missed call from a number he didn’t recognise, curiosity would get the better of him. But before she’d even put the phone down it rang. Jake Finlay flashed on the screen. Her stomach dropped into her pelvis. She pressed accept and put it to her ear.

  ‘Laura?’

  So much for not recognising her phone number.

  ‘Jake?’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She felt her fingers loosen on the phon
e. ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. You?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Good, that’s great.’ She gave a nervous giggle, felt ridiculous. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Singapore, waiting for a connection to Istanbul, then on to the Syrian border. We’ve secured the money to keep going with the second documentary.’

  Her heart sank. ‘Oh, great. So we won’t see you back here anytime soon.’

  She heard him clear his throat. ‘Wasn’t planning on it.’

  ‘What about your dad?’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, dragging the single syllable out. ‘So that’s what this is about.’

  ‘He’s dying.’

  ‘So you told me once before, remember?’

  She closed her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And you told me he wasn’t your father, but I beg to differ, Jake. He thinks he is and he’s hurting because you’ve left him high and dry.’

  She could hear him breathing, noise and voices in the background.

  ‘Did he put you up to this?’

  ‘No, he did not! He might not be your biological father but you both carry the same stubborn gene.’

  ‘I can’t just up and leave. I’m one of the cameramen. We’ve been planning this for months. Raising the money, visas, all that shit. I really shouldn’t have spent time back there at all.’

  In her mind’s eye she could see him drag his fingers through his hair.

  ‘Jake, your sister shouldn’t have to do this on her own. And you need to say your own goodbye. You can’t run away forever.’

  ‘Ha!’ The sound was harsh. ‘Look who’s talking.’

  ‘How long?’ she said between gritted teeth.

  ‘Six, maybe eight weeks, who knows? Could even be three months. Too many variables to know for sure. The place is so bloody unstable.’

  Anger came, fast and furious, stabbing like a red-hot poker. ‘Well, I hope you’ll be able to live with yourself for the rest of your life because you won’t get another chance to put things right. Goodbye.’ She disconnected, slammed the phone down on the table. It bounced off onto the floor with a crack. She fought against the first sting of tears, and won. She was heartbroken for Neill and Jess, but buggered if she’d let herself shed a tear over Neill’s son.