Australia Day

by Melanie Cheng

  ‘Twelve months since that doctor in emergency said I’d be right as rain in six weeks. Right as rain? Right as rain? What does that even mean?’

  Carla wiped her hands on her apron. She pulled two mugs down from the cupboard. ‘Cup of tea?’

  ‘You know what I reckon?’

  Carla turned on the kettle, and the water began to bubble and hiss.

  ‘I reckon somebody fucked up.’

  The kettle grew louder.

  ‘Who?’ Carla asked.

  ‘One of those teenage doctors at the hospital. They should have operated on me. They put the cast on too tight.’

  Carla poured boiling water onto tea bags, watched the colourless liquid stain a dirty brown. Tony sat back down at the table and propped his leg up on a chair. There were three seats at the kitchen table nowadays. One for Tony, one for Carla and one for Tony’s leg.

  ‘This,’ he said pointing to his limb, red and shiny and smooth. ‘This is somebody’s fault.’

  Tony got an appointment with his GP that afternoon. Carla drove him to the clinic. The doctor smiled sweetly at them, totally unprepared for trouble as they walked through her door.

  ‘I want you to refer me back to the hospital,’ Tony said, his voice belligerent, before he had even sat down.

  ‘Okay,’ the doctor said, surprised at his ferocity and not wanting to provoke him further. She started typing.

  Tony was itching for a fight. ‘Don’t you want to know why?’

  She stopped what she was doing and swivelled her chair to face him. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Today’s the one-year anniversary of my accident.’

  The GP nodded.

  ‘And I’m no better.’

  The doctor wheeled her chair closer to Tony. She leaned in with a concerned face.

  ‘If anything, I’m worse,’ he said.

  ‘I know you have a lot of pain.’

  ‘Nothing you’ve ever done has helped me.’

  The doctor winced, and Tony felt bad. She had only ever been gentle with him.

  ‘I’m on your side, Tony,’ the doctor said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So let’s write this letter.’

  As the doctor typed, Tony studied Carla, sitting on a chair in the corner. She smiled encouragingly.

  Weeks had passed while they waited for the hospital to make contact. Tony’s anger waxed and waned. Once or twice, pottering around in the shed, he had looked at his dad’s hunting rifle and thought about killing himself. He mentioned it to the counsellor, who told him that if he ever had those sort of thoughts again, he should call Lifeline immediately. She wrote the number in red pen on the back of one of her business cards.

  Finally a letter arrived notifying Tony of his appointment date. Amazingly—maybe because his adrenaline levels were sky-high—the pain wasn’t bad the morning of his appointment. Tony considered cancelling, but then he saw Carla, wearing a pretty dress and a hopeful face, and he knew he had to go through with it.

  As expected, he and Carla spent two hours in outpatients, waiting to see the doctor, flicking through three-year-old copies of the Women’s Weekly, looking at the people around them and guessing who would be called next. Every so often a doctor would walk briskly past the waiting area, and the patients—growing ever more wan and listless under the fluorescent lights—would follow them with earnest eyes. But the doctors were like workhorses with blinkers, brutally focused on the task ahead. They poked their heads through doors, called names in curt voices and panned unseeingly across the sea of faces. To be fair, the doctors looked tired too. Their hair was oily and limp and their shirts were soft and crumpled. Only one doctor, a lady, looked immaculate—her navy suit shiny and pressed, her blond hair pulled into a bun.

  Tony didn’t hear the doctor call his name. It was Carla who dug her nails into his thigh and told him to get up. By the time Tony had hobbled into the room, the surgeon—a tall, brown-skinned man with pointy shoes—was already at his desk, glowering at the computer.

  ‘I’m not sure why you’re here,’ he said when Tony and Carla sat down.

  ‘The GP should’ve written a letter,’ Carla said and smiled.

  The doctor pulled a piece of paper from a manila folder, presumably Tony’s medical file. He read the letter and leant back in the swivel chair, stretching its plastic spine almost to breaking point.

  ‘It should all be there. In the letter,’ Tony said.

  ‘This is a fracture clinic,’ the doctor replied, turning back to face his computer. ‘We deal with fractures.’

  Tony could feel a cold burn, like ice on a wound, around his knee. ‘I have a fracture.’

  ‘You had a fracture,’ the doctor replied and pointed a finger at the computer screen in front of him. ‘Your X-rays look great.’

  Tony looked at the long white shadows on the black screen. They did look great—smooth and straight. He felt stupid. Like he used to feel at school when he answered a question only to have the teacher explain in front of the entire class why he was wrong.

  ‘But my husband has a lot of pain,’ Carla said.

  Tony glared at her.

  ‘Then you should be at the pain clinic,’ the doctor said.

  This struck Tony as the sort of simplistic explanation you might offer a small child. If you have pain, you go to the pain clinic. If you have problems with your poo, you go to the poo clinic.

  ‘Somebody fucked up,’ Tony said, glad to see Carla and the surgeon flinch. ‘You say you fixed me, but instead of feeling better, I feel worse. Terrible. Suicidal.’

  The surgeon changed his tone then. He looked nervous, and started using words like unforeseeable and regrettable. But it was too late. Tony’s eyes found the lanyard around his neck.

  ‘Deepak,’ he said. ‘What is that? Indian?’

  That was one step too far for the surgeon. He stopped grovelling. His momentarily pleading eyes became cold again.

  ‘I’ll write a letter to your GP. Explaining everything.’

  Tony stood up. Carla handed him his stick. Tony slapped it away.

  ‘I’ll write a letter too,’ he said under his breath as he limped from the room.

  * * *

  At the end of May, Deepak flew to the Sunshine Coast to meet Priya. Priya was twenty-eight and worked part-time as an ultrasonographer in Caloundra. She was born in Brisbane, but her father, like Deepak’s parents, came from New Delhi. Deepak’s mother had arranged a lunch by the beach so that they might get to know each other better.

  There was nobody in the taxi queue at the airport in Maroochydore. Deepak threw his bag into the boot of the first cab.

  ‘Where you headed?’ the driver asked with a strong Australian accent.

  ‘Noosa.’

  They sped off. On the radio, a woman was interviewing Bindi Irwin. Even though the DJ had just wished the daughter of the Crocodile Hunter a happy eighteenth birthday, Deepak couldn’t help but picture a young blond girl in pigtails and khaki clothes. As they drove, he imagined what it must have been like growing up at Australia Zoo. He tried to picture his ten-year-old self riding the corrugated backs of crocodiles and play-fighting with kangaroos.

  Priya had reserved a table on the deck with a clear view of the ocean. When Deepak arrived she was already there, sipping a drink, waiting for him. She had her back turned, but the little of her that Deepak could see looked promising. Glossy hair. Pink toenails. A long, loose summer dress. He touched her lightly on the shoulder. Her skin was warm and soft.

  ‘You found me,’ she said, turning around. Apart from a large pimple on her chin that she had tried, unsuccessfully, to cover with make-up, she was stunning. ‘But then again, I am the only brown-skinned woman in the restaurant.’

  Deepak laughed. He sat down in the chair beside her. They stared at the people on the beach, kids playing in the water.

  ‘What are you drinking?’ he asked.

  ‘A lychee martini,’ Priya replied. She picked up the thin-stemmed glass, inspected the liq
uid in it. ‘But what I really want is a beer.’

  Deepak laughed again. The ice had been broken. They spoke of travel and books and movies. They bonded over their disappointment with Prague and their love of Leonardo DiCaprio’s movie Inception. Deepak did an impression of his mother. Priya imitated her dad. They argued about who did the best Indian accent. They criticised the food. Deepak’s burger was too small, Priya’s barramundi overcooked. They drank. They laughed. They relaxed. The conversation turned to work, and to Priya’s experiences with doctors while she was being trained at the hospital. That was when she mentioned Simone.

  ‘Actually, you might know her,’ Priya said. ‘I’m not sure what hospital she’s at now, but apparently she’s some big shot in Melbourne.’

  Deepak drank from his pint. ‘I may have heard of her.’

  ‘She was a junior consultant at Royal Brisbane while I was doing my placement.’

  Deepak tried to picture Simone as a junior consultant—pandering to heads of department, ingratiating herself in the presence of scrub nurses—but he couldn’t.

  ‘She’s a real piece of work, that woman.’

  Deepak watched a seagull attack a chip beneath the table.

  ‘This one time, I was doing an X-ray for her in theatre—a reduction of a hip that had gone terribly wrong—and she told me my breathing was too noisy.’

  Deepak feigned a look of shock. He knew from personal experience that when Simone was stressed, which was fortunately not often, she was vicious.

  ‘I had a cold.’

  Deepak shook his head, trying to appear incredulous.

  ‘She’s a doctor. She’s supposed to be compassionate.’

  Deepak wanted to explain to Priya that Simone was not a doctor in the traditional sense of the word. She was not a smiling GP, plump from the chocolates her patients had given her for Christmas. She was an orthopaedic surgeon—one of only a few women in a club full of men with God complexes—and her steely demeanour was not a choice but a matter of necessity. But he didn’t have the energy.

  The waiter arrived with dessert menus. Priya looked at Deepak expectantly. Deepak pointed to his watch and said that he really should get going. He asked for the bill before tossing another chip to the hungry seagull between his feet.

  When Deepak turned on his phone in Melbourne, he was pleased to see a message from Simone: Come over.

  He went straight from the airport to her apartment, in a taxi. He found her in a silk robe, curled like a cat on her leather lounge. He hung his jacket on the hatstand and sat down beside her.

  ‘How was it?’

  She always said this after his meetings, always said it instead of she. Deepak hoped this spoke to some unacknowledged, deep-seated jealousy.

  ‘Don’t be like that,’ he said and slipped his hand into the open neck of her robe.

  Simone pulled away and sat up straight. ‘There have been more. Posters, I mean. Everybody’s talking about them.’

  Deepak felt his heart skip a beat.

  ‘I thought your apology would help, but it’s only made things worse.’

  He thought of the letter, its final wording edited by Simone and the complaints officer. I’m sorry this has happened to you. It was an unfortunate series of regrettable but unforeseeable events. It was the language of government agencies and eviction notices and redundancy letters. Deepak could see how it might inflame someone.

  ‘Is that why you asked me to come over?’

  ‘Yes.’ Simone wrapped her robe tight around her chest. ‘I’ve spoken to others in the department, and we all agree that it would be best for you to take some time off. Until this thing blows over.’

  Deepak stood up. He put on his jacket. It didn’t matter that he was in a suit and Simone was in a robe—he knew who held the power.

  ‘Well, if you all agree.’

  Even now he wished that she would grab his arm, implore him to stay—something. He would forgive her everything. But Simone didn’t even get up off the couch. She remained seated, statuesque.

  Deepak had a cousin, Jignesh, who was a lawyer. They met for a coffee in the Royal Arcade building.

  ‘Can you prove this Tony guy put up the posters?’ Jignesh asked. ‘Are there CCTV cameras in the car park?’

  Deepak scooped the foam off his cappuccino. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

  ‘So all you’ve got is a hunch?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  Deepak looked at the sheen on his cousin’s tailor-made suit. He felt self-conscious and underdressed. He’d only been off work for two days but had already resorted to ripped jeans and a footy jumper.

  ‘My best advice is to ignore it. These things blow over.’

  ‘That’s what my boss said.’

  ‘Well, your boss is a smart man.’ Jignesh looked at his watch, jiggling his leg beneath the table.

  ‘I’ll pay for the coffees,’ Deepak said. ‘You should go.’

  ‘Thanks, man.’ Jignesh looked relieved as he stood up. He slapped Deepak’s shoulder. ‘Remember when we were kids and we sculled shots of Sambuca in your garage?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I miss those days.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Deepak watched his cousin’s black head disappear into the lunchtime throng. He paid the waitress—who had flirted outrageously with Jignesh but refused to make eye contact with Deepak—and wandered through Bourke Street Mall. On the tram, he scoured the unnervingly familiar faces of the passengers. An old woman in a pink scarf who might have had a hip replacement. A pretty redhead Deepak might have admitted, once, for septic arthritis. A tradie with a tribal tattoo whose leg Deepak might have plastered. Everybody was a suspect.

  Weeks passed with no word from Simone. Deepak watched his annual leave dwindle on his pay slip. He was nothing without work. He was not sporty. He was not creative. He had few friends—most of whom were doctors and worked just as hard as he did. At first Deepak devoted entire days to Facebook, but after a while the photos of other people’s holidays made him sick. He moved on to watching back-to-back episodes of Making a Murderer and searching the internet for the porn star who most resembled Simone.

  For once he was pleased when his sister, Monisha, phoned. It was ten pm and he was in bed with his laptop.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asked.

  He waited for her to launch into some tirade about their parents—the only reason, these days, that Monisha seemed to call him. He wondered what it would be this time—their mother criticising her cooking, their father pressuring her to have another son. But it was neither.

  ‘It’s Mum,’ Monisha said, her voice faltering. ‘She’s in hospital.’

  When Deepak arrived, around eleven, his mother was sitting in bed, smiling. ‘Such a terrible, terrible pain, Deepak.’

  Deepak picked up the observation chart. She was afebrile. Her ECG was okay. Her blood pressure and heart rate were within normal limits. She certainly looked well, with bright eyes and waves of glossy hair. If anything, it was Deepak’s father who seemed under the weather, slumped in the corner, his skin tinted grey by the fluorescent lights.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Your mother was doing too much. As usual.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have to do so much, if your father would just help out a little.’ Much to Deepak’s surprise, his mother looked delighted with her situation.

  ‘Vacuuming? At nine o’clock at night?’ his father persisted.

  ‘Monisha was going to bring the children in the morning.’

  ‘The children would only mess it up again.’

  ‘I can’t sleep in a dirty house.’

  ‘I told you to hire someone.’

  ‘I don’t want some stranger rifling through my underwear. I just want my lazy husband to get off his bottom.’

  ‘I’m too old.’

  ‘And what do you think I am?’ Deepak’s mother said, pointing down at her gowned belly and stockinged feet. ‘A spring chicken?’

  Deepak
couldn’t take it anymore and held up his hands.

  ‘Please. Mum. Dad. Just tell me what happened.’

  His mother launched into a needlessly detailed account of her day. She had first noticed the chest pain while preparing his father’s dinner. The pain had grown worse when her sister from London called to brag about her renovations. ‘But the final straw,’ she said, waving her finger in the air, ‘was when Mr Peterson told me he had seen a poster of you at the hospital.’

  Deepak felt his cheeks burn. Luckily his parents’ elderly neighbour, Mr Peterson, was not a reliable witness.

  ‘Imagine! A poster saying my son is a bad doctor. My son! A bad doctor!’ She clutched her chest.

  Deepak’s father jumped in. ‘That man has always been jealous of us. He only has one daughter and she never visits him.’

  ‘I think he might be getting dementia,’ his mother said.

  Deepak sighed.

  ‘Anyway, I blame Mr Peterson for this chest pain.’ Deepak’s mother massaged her breastbone. ‘If I die, you can sue him.’

  ‘You’re not dying, Mum.’

  ‘I should hope not. I told the doctor I’m not ready.’ She stared at Deepak with defiant eyes. ‘I told him I had to stay alive to see my only son have children.’

  *

  It was three am by the time Deepak left the hospital. The blood results had come back: his mother had not had a heart attack. The doctors said her chest pains were probably the result of acid reflux, or muscle strain, or stress. Exhausted, he sat in the front seat of his Porsche, revving the engine and staring at the bright red emergency sign.

  Deepak didn’t see the boy at first. It was only when his eyes adjusted to the dark that he noticed the teenager, hoodie pulled low over his eyes, hiding behind a pillar while a heavily pregnant woman and her partner made their way to their car. When the coast was clear, the boy sprinted towards the hospital’s emergency entrance and rummaged in his pockets, pulling out a piece of paper and sticking it to the sliding glass door. Deepak gripped the steering wheel. He watched the boy run back to the pillar again and then scamper towards a Holden Commodore. Deepak was only metres away—he could see the shadow of another person in the driver’s seat.