The Doctor Calling

by Meredith Appleyard

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet.’

  Laura waited. He didn’t elaborate. She masked her disappointment. ‘Thanks for doing the watering,’ she said.

  ‘Anytime. It got me out in the fresh air for a while.’

  Anytime. As long as it was in the next week or so. Laura scanned his face, committing every line and shadow to memory. She didn’t offer her heart indiscriminately and Jake was the second man she’d ever fallen in love with. The first she’d married and he’d left her – not his choice but he was just as gone. And now Jake would walk out of her life as well. He had warned her, yes, but the unfairness of it all sent indignation vibrating through her.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Sitting within arm’s reach of where she stood, Jake was watching her intently. ‘You look like someone stole your favourite toy.’

  ‘I was just thinking how unfair life could be.’

  ‘You and me both, sweetheart,’ he said, a moment before the sitting room door swung open and Jess came in. Anything more he might have said was lost. She wanted to stamp her foot in frus­tration.

  Laura stayed, prepared food that nobody ate, made tea that sat and cooled. Jake sat opposite her at the kitchen table for half an hour and didn’t say a word, his head in his hands. She left to see an outpatient at the hospital with a tooth abscess, returned to find Jess and Jake sitting either side of their father, the only sound Neill’s stertorous breathing.

  ‘Laura, you look dead on your feet. Go home,’ Jake said.

  He was right, she should go home. She ignored the selfish pang of hurt. Now was the time for the Finlay family to be together.

  ‘Call me if you need anything, I’m only next door,’ she said but didn’t think either of them heard her.

  Laura kept her phone close, expecting, maybe even hoping, for a call from Jake, but when midnight came and there was nothing, she put away the packet of Christmas cards she’d been staring at for the last hour and went to bed. The cards she’d use next year. Emails to friends and family would have to suffice for this Christmas.

  She woke at four, her heart pounding. Without thinking she threw back the sheet, dragged on a t-shirt and a pair of cotton trackpants and went next door. The back light was on, the door open and the ute the only vehicle in the carport. Jake stood stiffly in the middle of the kitchen, staring at nothing, his eyes red-rimmed. He didn’t seem at all surprised when Laura rushed past him, only to return minutes later.

  ‘He’s gone,’ she said.

  ‘About half an hour ago.’ His voice was thick with grief and he didn’t look her way.

  ‘Where’s Jess?’

  ‘The boys wouldn’t settle at her friend’s place tonight so she picked them up and took them home. She said goodbye before she went.’

  Laura felt the well of tears, felt the weight of his sorrow, the unequivocal memory of her own. ‘Oh, Jake,’ she said and went to him, slid her arms around him.

  He was standing so rigidly and she tensed, prepared herself for rejection but then, on a sigh, she felt him relax and his arms went around her and she rested her cheek on his shoulder and held him.

  Jake sat with his father’s body and remembered all the best things about him, all the good times they’d had, and he felt a void inside because there weren’t more. He let the tears run unheeded down his cheeks when he thought of how his father had suffered. And not only because of the cancer.

  Because he was Neill’s GP, Milt Burns made the last Finlay home visit he’d ever make early on Friday morning. Laura had gone home to shower and change and Jess wasn’t back from the farm.

  Milt Burns stood uncomfortably beside the bed of his friend and former patient.

  ‘Wonder who’ll be the lucky son of a bitch to write my death certificate,’ he said.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Laura,’ Jake said and Milt looked up in surprise. Jake shrugged. ‘Play your cards right . . . She looks pretty settled to me.’

  ‘And what about you? Staying around to help out on the farm, I dare say,’ Milt said, and didn’t try to hide the sarcasm.

  ‘Be careful what you wish for.’

  Jake followed him out to his car and caught the doctor completely off guard when he extended his hand.

  ‘Thanks for everything you did for Dad, not just now but over the years. I know he had a lot of respect for you.’

  With an astonished look on his face Milt took the proffered hand and shook it.

  ‘It was my pleasure,’ he said, stumbling over the words. He cleared his throat, tugged at his jowls. ‘We were mates,’ he said, ‘your old man and I. Mates look out for each other. I couldn’t just stand back and watch her make a fool out of him any more than you could have. Everyone knew she was carrying on with that bloke, everyone but him. Or he chose to ignore it.’

  Jake folded his arms and Milt lifted his shoulders in a tired shrug.

  ‘She was unhappy, your mother. She came to hate her life out there. If she hadn’t left with that bloke, she would have left on her own or with some other bloke.’ He looked at Jake squarely. ‘I know that for a fact, and I’m sorry if you thought I interfered too much.’

  ‘What about the other little secret, the one about my paternity? A pity no-one thought to mention the fact to me. I had to overhear it.’

  Milt’s face drained of all colour. ‘Neill said he thought you knew, that’s why you’d upped and left.’

  ‘I did know. I heard you talking to Dad about it. And I was too young and stupid and headstrong to see past my anger, to see who my real father was. I wasted all those years, half of my life, ignoring him. I broke Dad’s heart.’

  Milt gaped at him. ‘I did what I thought was right at the time. Don’t think badly of your father. Neill wanted to tell you. I told him not to, primarily because she would never say who your father was, even Neill had no idea.’

  Jake was gobsmacked. Not only was Neill not his biological father, but nobody except his mother knew who was. And she wasn’t telling. Too stunned to speak, he nodded once and then turned on his heel and walked back into the house, slamming the front door after him. If Doctor Burns had hoped for absolution for the advice he’d given years ago, advice that had been the catalyst in the break-up of Jake’s family, it wouldn’t come from Jake. With that last little pearl of inform­ation the old bastard should be grateful Jake hadn’t punched him.

  Heartsick, he went and sat by his father’s bed until Jess came, put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Laura rang the local undertaker for us and someone should be here soon. In this heat . . .’ She trailed off. ‘Do you want some breakfast?’

  He shook his head. He could feel Jess watching him.

  ‘Will you be all right?’ she said.

  He wearily wiped his face with his hands. ‘Yeah, I’ll be all right.’

  ‘Jake, don’t punish yourself.’ She looped her arm around his shoulders and hugged him. ‘I’ll wait for the undertaker if you like. You were going to check the stock for feed and water. It’s been days now.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Do you want to grab some gear, stay out at the farm?’

  ‘No. Thanks. I’ll stay here. Start clearing up, take more junk to the dump.’ He needed some time on his own to try to sort through everything.

  They discussed the farm, Neill’s house and his will. Jake didn’t mention the deathbed promise he’d made to his father. He would, he just needed time to get used to the idea himself. And there was the life he’d left on hold. There were decisions to be made about his job, his lifestyle. And there was Laura. Right at that moment he felt as if his head might explode.

  He left, Jess promising to let him know if they could get an appointment with the funeral home later in the day. On the drive out to the farm he rang Laura. He needed to talk to her even though he didn’t quite know what he wanted to say.

  ‘I’m on my way out to the farm to feed and water stock. I’ll be back by one. I’ll take you out for lunch,’ he said. />
  ‘That sounds lovely,’ she said. ‘I’ll look forward it.’

  It was either the hotel or the Potters Junction Cafe and Laura chose the latter, where the coffee was passable. They ate fish and chips in one of the booths at the back and Jake told Laura about his conversation with Milt Burns.

  ‘I’m not defending him, Jake, but it would have been a hard call, in both instances. Remember we’re talking a lot of years ago. I’m beginning to appreciate how blurry the lines can get when your patients become your friends, and vice versa. And what do you do when there is no choice but to see the GP everyone else sees, unless you want to leave town?’

  Jake pushed his plate away, the chips only half-eaten.

  All these years he’d been seeing what happened through the eyes of a teenager. He’d been a man for a long time now, it was high time he grew up. Perhaps if he’d had a family of his own, he might have understood his father and the reasons he did what he did. Perhaps he would have found forgiveness easier. He didn’t tell Laura that Neill had asked him to stay. The words wouldn’t come.

  The greasy meal sat heavy in his stomach. They finished their coffee in silence. Laura dropped him off at the funeral home – a modest cream brick building two streets back from the main drag and separated from the road by a strip of manicured lawn and a border of standard roses. Jess’s car was already parked along the kerb.

  ‘Thank you for everything you did for Dad, and what you did for Jess, and for me.’

  She stared at him across the narrow space. He wouldn’t look at her because he couldn’t bear to see the hurt and confusion in her blue eyes.

  ‘Thanks for lunch,’ she said coolly. ‘I’ll see you later.’ Almost arctic.

  Jess’s black shoes were killing her and a plastic bag would have been more breathable than her synthetic frock. Sweat trickled between her breasts, down to her belly, and she prayed it would finish soon so she could go home and soak in a cold bath. And begin to get used to life without her dad.

  The minister droned on. A funeral only days before Christmas was unfortunate enough, but the afternoon heat made it unbear­able. Jess already knew what a good man Neill Finlay had been.

  Mikey tugged on her hand. ‘How much longer, Mum? I’m hot.’

  ‘Go and stand in the shade,’ Jess whispered. ‘There’s more water in the car.’

  Mikey mumbled something but resolutely remained standing beside his brother. Jess smoothed his hair and he shook her hand off. Sam rolled his eyes.

  The gleaming coffin was finally being lowered into the ground by Jake, Milt and two other beetroot-faced pallbearers, fellow farmers and long-time friends of Neill, when Mikey piped up and said, ‘Look, Mum, there’s Dad!’

  The bottom dropped out of Jess’s stomach. She caught the joy that spread across Sam’s face as he turned in the direction Mikey was pointing – Mikey, who was now jumping up and down and yanking on her hand. The people on both sides of her were staring, most she knew, some she didn’t. In a community this size word travelled fast and news of her and Darren’s split would have reached most ears. Between the heat and the perspiration at least no-one would know she was embarrassed as well as hot, that there were tears of humiliation mixed with the grief. She wished the ground would swallow her along with the coffin.

  The minister finally finished and she was filing past the coffin, walking in Jake’s shadow and dropping limp rose petals onto the pristine varnish. Laura hugged her and she wondered how the woman could look so elegant in a simple navy blue linen shift on such a stinking hot day.

  People embraced Jess, shook her hand, kissed her cheek and offered their condolences. She pinned on a mannequin-like smile, carried on through the blur of tears, when all the while she was thinking, Darren’s here, Darren’s here. The same thought looped, over and over, and she was surprised to realise how much she’d hoped he would come.

  Then he was standing beside her, one son hanging off each arm.

  ‘Jess,’ he said. ‘I am so sorry. I know how much you loved your dad, and how much he loved you.’

  He looked different. His hair was shorter, he’d lost a few kilos. He looked more like the man she’d married, not the angry, bitter husband who’d walked out on her six weeks before.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ she said, her voice wobbly.

  ‘I would never have missed it, Jess,’ he said, and when he smiled, Jess let the tiny kernel of hope she’d been nurturing grow a little more.

  Laura had noticed the handsome, blond man in black trousers and an open-necked shirt. He’d been standing at the very back of the church. At the cemetery, when Sam and Mikey launched themselves at him, she realised it was Jess’s husband, Darren. Riveted, she watched as Darren approached Jess, and held her breath when Jess turned to greet him. Jake strode over to his sister and her estranged husband and Laura gaped as he put a protective arm around Jess. Then he reached out and shook Darren’s hand.

  All through the church service and here at the graveside Laura had hardly taken her eyes off Jake. In a fashionable black suit bought for the occasion, clean shaven and with his hair trimmed, he could have stepped straight out of Men’s Style magazine. Laura’s first thought when she saw him was, Who is this man? And from the looks thrown his way by women young and old, they were all thinking along the same lines.

  At the graveside he’d stood a few steps from Jess, far enough away to appear alone, his expression remote. Laura ached to go up to him and link her fingers with his, reassure him that he wasn’t by himself in all this. But his body language screamed keep your distance, so she did. He was grieving and she knew how that was.

  But it was more than that. In the days since Neill’s death, Jake had subtly, but unquestionably, begun to distance himself from her. First there was that dreadful lunch at the cafe where he’d thanked her for all she’d done. Then there were her invitations for coffee that he’d rebuffed, the offer to help pack up things at Neill’s that was brushed off, the vegie patch untouched the two days she’d worked. And there’d been no repeat of their impromptu and, for her, unforgettable lovemaking.

  He’d never given her any reason to expect otherwise, but knowing that didn’t ease the gnawing sadness and hurt. Telling herself it was better this way didn’t make one iota of difference.

  The crowd was beginning to disperse, everyone invited back to the Anglican Church hall for light refreshments, when Laura felt a firm hand on her arm and a waft of summery perfume.

  ‘Laura, how are you? I hear from a reliable source that you’ve taken Potters Junction by storm!’

  ‘Meghan, hello, lovely to see you. You look well.’

  The two women embraced, Laura shook Sean’s hand then, with a grin, reached up on tiptoes and pecked him on the cheek. He looked embarrassed, but pleased.

  ‘Too hot to bring the kids,’ Meghan said in answer to her unspoken query. ‘We’re not staying for the afters, we just wanted to support Jess, to say goodbye to Neill. Is that the son?’

  Laura turned to where Meghan was looking. A solitary Jake was standing by his father’s grave, anonymous behind mirrored sunglasses. ‘Yes, that’s Jake Finlay.’

  Meghan nudged her. ‘Easy on the eye,’ she said, but then her eyes narrowed. ‘He’s tall, not much like his father to look at.’

  Trust Meghan to notice. Laura didn’t comment.

  ‘Come on, Meghan, let’s go,’ said Sean. ‘I’ve got stock to feed.’

  They started walking towards the few remaining parked cars. A scorching wind rushed through the native pine trees. Heat radiated off the polished granite headstones.

  ‘Milt and Linda came to dinner on Saturday night. Milt told us his news. Linda was so pissed off with him for not telling her sooner.’ Meghan glanced sideways at Laura. ‘She said you knew before she did.’

  ‘She was worried about him, she asked me to talk to him. I did. He told me about the prostate cancer.’

  ‘Milt and I talked until Linda went to sleep in the chair and Sean went to bed. I don�
��t think he’ll retire yet. Linda thinks he will. He’ll have treatment and he’ll need time off for that, but he can’t let go. It’s what keeps him alive. Even if he only does a day or two a week, he’ll come back.’

  ‘He said he’d talk to me after he’d told Linda and they’d worked things out. I offered to stay around as long as he needed while he was having the remaining investigations and any preliminary treatment.’

  ‘He will talk to you.’

  They’d reached Meghan’s car and Sean was opening doors to let out the super-heated air.

  ‘You’ve been fantastic, Laura, and Milt and I are both hugely grateful for what you’ve done. Milt doesn’t expect you to exile yourself out here unless you want to, and then only for as long as it works for you. We’ll manage, we’ll keep trying to recruit.’

  ‘I do like it out here, I didn’t think I would, but I do. Needless to say I have the remnants of another life back in Adelaide. I’m not certain I want to give that life up. Before I say exactly how long I’ll stay I need to talk with my colleagues back there.’

  ‘I think that’s very fair. We couldn’t ask for more and I’m glad you like it here. From what I hear, everyone likes you, especially one dark, mysterious man, who reminds me of a rock star in that suit and those sunglasses.’ Meghan looked to where Jake was, still standing beside the grave in the shade cast by a bank of gum trees.

  ‘How did you know . . .’ The penny dropped and Laura rolled her eyes. ‘Jess.’

  ‘Uh-huh. The grapevine around here, you gotta love it. Like I told you once before, nothing’s sacred. But you can trust Jess, she won’t breathe a word to anyone else.’

  ‘There’s nothing to breathe.’

  One of Meghan’s eyebrows arched upwards. ‘Are you sure?’

  Pain and longing squeezed at Laura’s heart. ‘Positive.’

  ‘Come on, Meghan,’ Sean said, sounding impatient. ‘I’ve got stock to feed.’ Meghan pulled a face at him. He shook his head and climbed into their 4WD.