Trent was watching through the window. The front doorbell rang. Dr Forster went to it and ushered a new patient—a teenage girl with her mother accompanying—into the hall. Beth stood up. She wished she’d tried the shower taps—she’d not eaten since breakfast either. She hung her tote bag over her shoulder, pulled the handle of the suitcase up and walked it to the door. Go in there now, said Dr Forster to the girl and her mother. Beth could hear the students talking in the room at the end of the hall. Dr Forster ushered Beth out onto the porch. Do you understand what’s happening? she said. You are not well, we are trying to help you. Dr Forster smiled—a faraway smile, tainted with loss and regret—then, in a move so quick it made Beth trip back, she opened her arms, wrapped them around her and gave her a big hug. It only lasted a few seconds and Dr Forster ended it by awkwardly patting Beth’s back but it was her first real human contact—real human contact with feeling—since Geoff had touched her shoulder in the café. She felt the tears stinging her eyes. Go back to the main road and turn right, said Dr Forster; you’ll find the bus stop a couple of hundred metres down. If you get lost, just ask. Beth drew back the tears. Good luck, said Dr Forster, and she went back inside.
The glaziers’ ute was still parked in the drive with the radio on. Beth didn’t want to go and she instinctively half-turned to Trent and Jason, who had all this time been watching and listening from the porch. Then she hurriedly wheeled the suitcase down the drive.
She reached the roundabout, went a little further, stopped, and sat on a low retaining wall in front of one of the houses. The day was still warm. Without the sound of the suitcase’s wheels the suburb was eerily quiet. She took off her heels and rubbed her feet; her toes were blistered and sore. She unzipped the front pocket and took out the envelope with Dr Forster’s report. She looked at the name on the front. She held it to the light and turned it over. This one had been sealed. She picked at it with her nail for a while but the glue had already dried. Oh my god, she thought. She put her face in her hands. The sky, the streets, the houses all seemed to be pushing down on her. Her shoulders shook. She put the envelope away.
When the tears came this time they came freely, dripping out between her fingers and falling into her lap. Snot poured from her nose; she found a tissue and wiped it. A car entered the roundabout and circled towards her—it was the glaziers’ ute. Beth quickly pretended to be searching for something in her bag but as the ute came close it slowed and stopped and Trent wound the passenger window down.
JASON AND TRENT
Are you okay? he asked. Beth pretended not to hear. Yes, yes, she said, I’m just looking for my phone. You can use mine, said Jason, from the driver’s side. Now she didn’t know what to say. Are you going to Fatima’s? We’re going that way, said Jason; we have to finish a job in Gladstone Park. Beth was too conscious of her red and watery eyes to look directly at them but Trent was already opening the door. Come on, said Jason, it’s no trouble. Trent put the suitcase beneath the A-frame in the back and slid across the bench seat to the middle; Beth slid in beside him and clutched her tote to her lap.
She was grateful to have the window side; she was not feeling well. The two men remained silent, still adjusting to the woman’s presence. Beth in turn was trying to process her sudden acceptance of the lift. Would she have dared get into the front seat of a tradesman’s ute in her—she couldn’t help saying it—former life?
Jason turned the radio up, then immediately turned it down. Don’t worry about Jill, he said, she can be a bit curt sometimes but she’s always got your best interests at heart. And that prick—sorry—that prick of a husband doesn’t help. They’re the worst, aren’t they? Trez? Rich men protecting their turf. They’ll wear anyone down, eventually. You remember that prick—sorry—in the papers, with the mansion on the beach? My beach, he says. No, buddy. Our beach. They think they own everything. Jill’s a top woman, I’d help her out any day—Trent’s the same. Good people are hard to find and when you do you’ve got to look after them. That’s the second brick this week. He’s an arsehole—sorry—and like all arseholes he gets others to do his dirty work for him. Sits in his fucking mansion—sorry—and does it all with a prepaid SIM. Jill’s a communist, there you go, there’s no other way of putting it; she gave up the good life to help others, to be part of something bigger. And of course he hates her for it. Despises her. Not just because she turned her back on all that but because at the same time she’s undermining him. If you start offering cheap or free consultations, treatment, drugs, even if at this stage it’s only for shitkickers like us, well, what’s that going to do to Colin Forster’s bottom line? Stuff it, that’s what. One day it’ll be the low-life from out here and the next it’ll be the botoxed, fake-tan madams from the good side of the river. I mean, if I can get my pictures looked at and reported on, said Jason, get my pharmaceuticals and treatments for next to nothing or for free, then what am I doing paying top dollar to Colin Forster and his scroogey mates?
The speakerphone in the dock on the dash rang; Jason pushed a button and a booming male voice with an accent filled the cabin. Where are you, you fuckin’ useless piece of shit? it said—I’m at the charcoal-chicken shop, the signies are waiting, you were supposed to be here an hour ago. Keep your hat on, said Jason, there are ladies present. What do you mean there are ladies present, you white piece of kangaroo shit? Give us the earpiece, said Jason. Trent took it from the glovebox and Jason put it on. The booming voice turned tinny. Jason explained how they’d been called out on another job, they’d only just left, they’d be there in twenty minutes, half an hour tops—get the sign-writers to start on the awning, he said, and we can do the window later. Are you fucking that doctor woman? said the voice. Jason hung up. Beth and Trent were staring ahead in silence; Trent had his hands set awkwardly on his knees, there was a faint smell of sweat and putty coming off him. Their thighs were touching, from the hip to the knee, and their arms from above the elbow.
Jason took off the earpiece and handed it back. Do you want to grab those sandwiches, mate, he said, we’re going to have to eat on the fly. Trent took a small esky from behind the seat and handed around a cling-wrapped sandwich each. Beth said no at first, but Jason insisted and in the end she ate it greedily. There were two green cans in the esky too, tucked up against an ice brick. Trent closed the lid and put it back.
No, I don’t care how much money the prick’s got, said Jason between mouthfuls, no-one should ever have to put up with that. Do you want to use the phone? It took Beth a moment to realise he was talking to her and for another moment her head clanged with contrary thoughts: she could ring David, she should ring David, apologise for the business back at the bus stop, maybe even arrange to meet him later. But from the front seat of a tradesman’s ute? No, she said, it’s okay. Let me know if you do, though, said Jason, you can use the earpiece, we won’t listen. He gave Beth a grin; Beth smiled back. They ate. Jason turned the radio up.
Can I ask you? said Beth. They both looked at her, and Jason turned the radio down. That mother and daughter at Dr Forster’s—where did they come from? They didn’t arrive with Thomas, she said, so they couldn’t have come from the Kolms’. And they weren’t on the 901. People come from everywhere, said Jason, from all the suburbs, all around. Where did you come from? Heatherdale, said Beth. That’s a fair way, he said. You’ve got a cousin out that way, haven’t you, Trez? They want someone who cares, continued Jason, who won’t rip them off. Some say we have developed a two-tiered health system in this country. Not true. It is three-tiered, at least. So who’s going to look after the third? Dr F’s not the only one—actually, there’s another one just down there. He was pointing down a side street: Beth could see houses, trees and parked cars. But she’s popular because of where she’s come from, said Jason. People respect people who make sacrifices. Of course there are others doing good pathways but Dr F’s from the right side of the tracks. For chrissakes, Trent, are you going to say something? I was just thinking, he said. Jason roll
ed his eyes. It went quiet again. (Beth was thinking too, about all the people, on the trains and buses, in the streets and waiting rooms, holding their envelopes, following their paths.)
The man with the big voice and the accent rang again and this time Jason stalled him by saying they’d had to stop to get some things for the job. I’m just pulling out now, he said. Near Gladstone Park they turned off into winding streets that eventually led to an industrial estate, sparsely populated, with two vacant lots to every factory built. There was not much traffic, and little sign of life. They pulled up outside a big brick building with an empty block on either side full of thistles and rocks. There was an ordinary house door in the front on one side and a big roller door on the other.
COMMPHARM
Someone had painted a white number on the wall beside the smaller door but there was no sign anywhere to say what the building was. You need to ring the bell, said Jason. Someone will come. Beth got out. Trent took the suitcase from the back, set it down and lifted the handle for her. They looked at each other. He blushed and got back in the car. Good luck, said Jason, through the open window; press the button over there. Beth watched the ute do a three-point turn and head off back down the empty street. The suitcase clack-clacked again. She pressed the bell and heard it ring, then footsteps, then the doorhandle turn. A security guard, Middle Eastern-looking, in a tight-fitting dark-blue uniform, pulled open the door. He had a gun in a holster and on his jacket pocket an embroidered badge too ornamental for Beth to read. Script, please, he said. His voice was tired, bored. Beth opened the front pocket of the suitcase and gave the guard her scripts. He glanced through them and handed them back. Take a ticket inside, he said, and he gestured for her to come in.
It was a big open space with a polished-concrete floor and a sawtooth roof above. Beth was not the only one in there. The first two-thirds was filled with row upon row of chairs with about forty people sitting in them, all facing a plastered stud wall that split the rest of the factory into its final third. The joins had been filled but the plasterboard had not yet been painted; against the grey surface was a grid of intersecting white lines. In the left-hand side of this wall, as you looked at it, was a raw-timber door with a silver handle and beside that a vending machine for snacks. In the centre of the wall was an opening like a servery window, chest to head height, through which Beth could see another wall, making a room about six metres deep. Above the opening was a sign, Prescriptions Here, and beside it a water cooler and a small bin for the plastic cups. Everyone turned to look at the woman with the pink suitcase who had just come in the door. The security guard returned to his chair.
Between the door and the last row of chairs was a deli-style ticket machine, with a number for each new customer to tear off. With all eyes on her, Beth took a ticket, found a chair in the back row and pushed the handle of her suitcase down. The others, satisfied she was now properly ticketed, resumed staring at the servery window. Some had suitcases, like Beth, some small overnight bags or packs, others carried their belongings in green supermarket bags. Beth recognised some from the Heidelberg bus, some from the Greensborough and some from the Epping, including the ones who’d got off for Dr Tayo, and three from Dr Kolm’s waiting room this morning. On the far right-hand wall was a long bench seat with another half-a-dozen people waiting. They were all holding brown paper bags. Beth put her scripts in her lap and placed her number—87—on top.
Every noise in the factory seemed to come back with an echo: the scrape of a chair, someone coughing, the shuffling of papers, coins in the vending machine, a new patient arriving, the sound of a number being torn. Beth could hear the hum of machinery from behind the partition wall. There was a chemical smell in there too, something metallic, like when you put a cold spoon on your tongue; there was also a deep concrete chill, untempered by the narrow bar heaters high up on the walls. Beth took out her jacket and put it on.
The first number called after she arrived was 79, which gave her good reason to hope. At the servery window a young woman’s face appeared—mid-twenties, wearing a hijab—and in a sharp, nasal voice she called the number out. Everyone looked at their tickets. A man stood up. So, thought Beth, confidently, there are only seven before me. But—she looked around—there are still at least forty people waiting, not counting those on the bench. So is it random? Is this why everyone is looking so intently at their tickets? I could be here five minutes, she thought, or five hours.
The man with 79 was now talking to the young woman at the window. There were deep creases on the seat of his pants from where he had been sitting so long. Everyone else was looking at him too. The young woman in the hijab was explaining something to him. She had him sign his scripts, folded down the top of a plain brown paper bag and then pointed over to the bench. The man took the bag and sat. The person beside him shuffled along, so they would not be too close.
This went on for some time; as Beth had guessed, the numbers were completely random. Mostly they were in the sixty-plus range but there seemed to be no order to it; one moment you would get 83 and the holder of the ticket would be a man in his forties, the next it would be 63 and a crippled old woman in a walking frame would inch her way to the servery window. Beth’s hopes of being called early faded; she no longer checked her ticket (it was 87—what was there to check?) or bothered to track the lucky contestant to the window. New patients arrived intermittently, took a new ticket and sat. The machine made a whining sound, as if it too were getting tired. At one point a man with a loping stride entered and instead of taking a ticket walked straight up to the window. Beth stiffened, as did the others. Was he trying to jump the queue? He spoke briefly with the young woman and she gave him a sheet of paper; he checked it, strode over to the bench where now a dozen people were waiting and said: All right, folks, let’s go. They all picked up their things, fell in behind and followed him to the door.
The windows in the sawtooth roof darkened; a long row of fluorescent tubes staggered on. The bench seat gradually filled again. At one point, to everyone’s surprise, the door in the partition wall opened and two young men came out, each with a trolley of boxes; they walked past the seats and out the front door. The boxes were plain, with nothing on them but 1/3, 2/3, 3/3 scribbled in black felt-tip pen. After the third and last trip the guard locked the door behind them. Beth heard a van door slam and the sound of it driving away.
It was some time before she realised that the machinery on the far side of the wall had stopped and that presumably the factory had finished for the day. Another young woman came to replace the first—she too wore a hijab. There was a brief handover, the first put on her jacket and left, and the new girl resumed calling the numbers. Throughout all this people still occasionally arrived, took a number and sat, and once in a while someone would get up to get themselves a drink from the cooler. Often they would linger there, beside the window, perhaps hoping to subtly intimidate the girl into considering their number next. The man with the big stride returned and took another twelve patients from the bench. Beth felt herself growing sleepy but she would not give in: she couldn’t risk her number being called. She took out the brochure Dr Forster had given her and tried to read it again from the start.
She must have fallen asleep. In fact, it felt as if whole days had passed when, suddenly, out of the corner of her ear, so to speak, she heard the new girl say: Eighty-seven! Then she was all fingers and thumbs. She grabbed her tote, pulled up the handle of the suitcase, rearranged her clothes and walked determinedly to the window.
The girl was barely out of her teens; she smiled and took Beth’s scripts from her. Wait here, she said, and after a little while she came back with a brown paper bag. Beth signed, and the girl handed it over. With her ticket resting, redundant now, on the narrow timber counter, Beth pulled the suitcase towards the bench—but now the girl was calling her back. Excuse me, she said. Her voice was soft, not like the other’s. Beth turned. The pharmacist would like to see you, said the girl, please wait over the
re. Beth was thrown—no-one else had yet seen the pharmacist. She did as she was told and waited by the unpainted timber door. There was the sound of high heels on concrete and a woman speaking briefly with the girl. Everyone was watching now, hoping to learn. The footsteps behind the wall drew closer and the silver handle turned. There was a strong waft of perfume—Elizabeth Arden, thought Beth—and the pharmacist stepped out. She was tall, and wore a buttoned-up white pharmacist’s coat. Below it were bright-yellow high heels and over-tanned calves and, above, a gold necklace, gold earrings, bouffant hair, false lashes, blue eye shadow and pink lipstick.
Beth, she said, I am your pharmacist, Fatima. Step over here, she said, and she drew Beth a couple of metres away from the door. She gently took the paper bag from her and removed the three packets of tablets. Each was plain white, a white sticker with dosage directions on the front. So what you have here, Beth, said Fatima, are the three separate medications that Dr Forster has prescribed. This one you need to take daily with breakfast, this one daily on an empty stomach, preferably two hours before a meal, and this one three times a day with or just after food. You may experience some side effects: dizziness, lethargy, confusion, and in rare cases double vision. Do not operate heavy machinery. Some of these side effects will feel like your symptoms, so don’t be overly concerned unless you are particularly unwell: vomiting, diarrhoea, blood in the stool. I would like you to get two of these in today—she was holding out the third packet—one now and another with the evening meal. She dug around in the pocket of her coat, took out some coins and fed them into the vending machine. A packet of chips came down the chute. Fatima handed them to her. Beth ate a handful, looked up at Fatima, took the tablet and washed it down with a cup of water.
Some Tests Page 10
