Turn Left at Bindi Creek

by Lynne Wilding

  ‘Save him for what?’ Wes asked, his tone unusually emotional. ‘So that he can be a vegetable? Jason would hate that. He’d rather be dead.’

  ‘Dr d’Winters won’t be a vegetable,’ the surgeon said authoritatively. ‘I can assure you of that, but he will have…umm…limitations. How severe those limitations will be is something we won’t know for some time.’ He looked at Brooke and his tone became solicitous. ‘You’ve been through considerable trauma yourself, Mrs d’Winters. I’d like to prescribe a tranquilliser for you and suggest that you get some rest. The next few days are going to be critical for Dr d’Winters, and they’ll be taxing on you as well.’

  ‘I’d like to see him,’ she said quietly. She needed to reassure herself that he was still really there, even if he was unconscious and wired up to all kinds of monitors.

  ‘Of course. Just for a minute or two. I’ll arrange it. He’s in recovery at present, then later he’ll go up to an intensive care unit.’

  She smiled a thank you at him but, inside her head, three words were repeating themselves over and over: permanent brain damage. Her emotions were in turmoil, panicking, even though she had tried to prepare herself for this possibility. The Jason she’d known, loved, made love to, had children by, might be gone forever. No! She didn’t, couldn’t, accept that. They…she…had to have faith that, with love and perseverance, he would recover completely and be the loving, wonderful man he had always been. She mustn’t, she wouldn’t give up hope.

  Wes saw Brooke’s face turn as white as a sheet and saw her gasp. For a moment he watched a single tear run down her cheek and then he was there to catch her as she buckled at the knees and passed out.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  It wasn’t until the fifth day after the operation that Jason recognised Brooke or Wes. He dozed a lot, which was natural, and when awake he was relatively unresponsive to questions and everyday casual conversation—as if he just wasn’t interested. That was also to be expected because he’d been through considerable trauma and was slowly being weaned off the pain-killers. His motor skills remained intact, which was good, because he could walk in a kind of shuffle, though he didn’t do much at first. He could also feed himself in an awkward, left-handed fashion. His right hand was encased in a plaster cast. The orthopaedic specialist had done all that was medically possible and set the several bones that had been broken. Now they had to wait to see how the bones healed. However, the specialist had voiced the opinion that even with rehabilitative physiotherapy the best Jason could expect was to have limited use of his hand.

  On the sixth day, as Brooke sat by his bed thumbing through a magazine uninterestedly while Jason rested, a bunch of flowers was thrust in front of her. Thinking it was Wes, she half-turned towards him, only to be surprised by a very different face.

  ‘Craig. Craig Marcioni!’ she gasped. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Hi, Mrs d’Winters. Gave you a shock, hey? Sorry about that.’

  Brooke recovered her composure and stared at him. Why was he here? How had he known she was here?

  As if he read the questions in her mind, Craig said, ‘Saw Wes Sinclair in the hospital foyer yesterday and got curious. I followed him up here. Boy, I got a shock to find out that Dr d’Winters was in an accident.’ He looked briefly at Jason slumbering in the bed. ‘What rotten luck, eh?’

  ‘Yes, it is. What are you doing here, Craig?’

  ‘I’m in the detox ward,’ he said with disarming honesty. ‘They’re pretty good down there. Once you’ve dried out they let you have a bit of freedom. I told the sister in charge—she’s a good sort—that I wanted to see the Doc. She said I could.’

  ‘Oh!’ Brooke studied him closely. He was slimmer, but looked neat and, more importantly, in control. ‘So, no hard feelings then? About…’ she raised an eyebrow at him, ‘you know?’

  His dark-eyed gaze swept over her and he didn’t answer straightaway. ‘Not any more, Mrs d’Winters, but at first, when they brought me here, yes. I was real shitty about it. I’m clean now. See.’ He pulled the sleeves of his pullover up to show the lack of puncture marks. ‘And I’ve had heaps of counselling. The shrinks are pretty good here. They made me see why I got into drugs, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I’m glad it’s worked out for you, Craig,’ Brooke said, and she was. All he’d needed was the chance to get off the drugs and now, looking at him, it was like seeing a whole new person. Jason would be pleased if he knew. She sighed silently. Not that it mattered now. He probably wouldn’t remember Craig, or what the drama had been about.

  ‘What are your plans when you leave detox?’ She dismissed the depression she felt about Jason’s condition and forced herself to be sociable.

  ‘I’ll be going back to Cowra. Me and Dad have talked a lot about the future…my future. The old man and I get on okay these days, because now I understand myself and why I was so insecure.’ He looked a little uncomfortable as he added, ‘I didn’t think Dad cared about me. I was wrong about that, and a few other things too.’

  Brooke made herself smile. He sounded so mature; a very different, more likeable Craig than the one she remembered.

  ‘I’d like to go to university, maybe do a business degree if I can get accepted. Dad wants me to work on the property, but I’m not cut out to be on the land and he’s now okay with that. However, I won’t make any hard and fast decisions until I’ve done the community service hours the magistrate stuck me with.’ He grinned cheekily at her. ‘Not that I mind. I had that coming—and more—for the things I got up to.’

  ‘Well, you seem to have it all together now. I’m happy for you,’ Brooke said, her tone sincere. Wait until she told Jean! Her friend wouldn’t believe the change in the ‘little shit’!

  ‘Well, I’d better go before they send a wardsman to fetch me,’ said Craig by way of a farewell. He pushed the flowers onto Brooke’s lap. ‘Here, for the Doc. I hope he gets better real soon, Mrs d’Winters.’

  ‘Thank you, Craig. Me too.’ She blinked back a tear and turned towards the bed.

  Jason was stirring. He straightened up in the bed, awkwardly because his right hand was pretty well useless. His blue eyes stared at her blankly for a moment, then recognition came and he smiled. He rubbed his chin with his good hand. ‘Hi! I’m hungry.’

  Brooke and Wes stayed in Sydney, taking rooms at the Camperdown Travelodge in Missendon Road for two weeks, and trekking to and from the hospital day and night. Brooke kept in constant touch with Jean and learned that the children were doing fine, except that Sheridan was fretting for her daddy. Brooke had known her daughter would be in a state.

  By the end of the second week, after a variety of tests, the possibility of permanent brain damage could not be discounted. According to the experts, the parts of the brain affected would in time lead to him suffering mood swings and declining general health due to a lack of mobility and uninterest in life. But the worst possible news was that the damage to the part of his brain that stored memory was extensive, and the medical staff were sure of one thing: Jason was no longer intellectually capable of practising medicine.

  While she might have appeared to absorb this information without much opposition, Brooke refused to believe it. It was early days for the medical experts to be making such a dire prognosis. She had heard and read the most amazing cases of complete recovery after trauma to the brain and in her heart she was sure that Jason would recover completely. What he needed was to get out of hospital as soon as possible and be at home with his family and among familiar surroundings to help the recuperative process. She firmly believed that with patience and love, which the family had in abundance for him, as well as certain rehabilitative therapies, Jason could be restored to full or close-to-full health again.

  To believe anything less was an agony she refused to give in to. Their love was too special, too real, to give any thought of failure a foothold, so she wouldn’t.

  Anxious to see the children, to see for herself that they were coping, she
and Wes drove back to Bindi Creek on the fifteenth day after the accident.

  They were quiet for most of the trip home, with only sporadic bursts of conversation.

  ‘Are you going to be able to manage?’ Wes said out of the blue as they passed through the flat-as-a-tack township of Blayney.

  ‘Manage?’ she queried. How did he mean?—financially or emotionally?

  ‘Well, Jason won’t be practising,’ he said. He knew her thoughts on the possibility of his full recovery, so he added, ‘for a while. Income-wise that’s going to make a difference, I’m sure.’

  ‘Of course. I need to go over our options. He has income protection insurance but I need to read the fine print to be sure of what we’re entitled to. We took out the barest minimum policy because the premiums were high. Of course, we won’t be able to live on it forever, but we’ve almost paid off our mortgage and don’t have any other debts. We’re lucky in that respect.’

  ‘I can take care of the mortgage. If the position were reversed and it was me lying in that bed, I’m sure Jason would do the same for me.’ Wes spoke spontaneously, then wished the words back. Brooke would never go for that; she was too proud.

  ‘You most certainly cannot,’ she threw back without hesitation.

  He grinned as the Land Rover took a curve with ease. This was the Brooke he was used to—the independent, fighting spirit of the woman. Jason’s accident had knocked the stuffing out of her both physically and emotionally, he knew that. For a while he’d doubted her capacity to cope because it was plain as the nose on his face that she loved his friend none the less for what had happened to him. Lucky bloke! He didn’t know what he’d give, but it would be substantial, to see her look at him the way she looked at Jason: with so much love in her eyes.

  As Brooke thought about Wes’s original question—how was she going to manage—her mind harked back to what Jean had told her two days after Jason’s operation. She still marvelled at what had been done. Three doctors from Cowra, Drs Matt Hammond, Gus Colosmo and Harry Milosovich, had come forward to take it in turns to run Jason’s surgery until he recovered. Their help would keep it viable so that his patients wouldn’t have to travel further afield for medical attention. She’d been so moved by their generosity and community spirit that she had burst into tears in the hospital foyer when told what they were doing.

  Living in the country for years, she had seen many examples of communities pulling together in times of need. This kindness reinforced in her mind how special country folk were. But she was also astute enough to recognise Frank and Jean’s guiding hands in the arrangement, though that didn’t matter. What did matter was that Matt, Gus and Harry were showing, by example, that when the occasion arose, people could and did work together for the common good.

  ‘Look,’ continued Wes, ‘we still don’t know how badly Jason’s going to be affected, or how long it will take him to recover properly. As an interim measure, why don’t you bring in a locum? You can’t expect the Cowra doctors to fill in at the surgery indefinitely. That wouldn’t be fair. With a locum, you’d keep the practice going and keep the community medical centre functioning too. You could skim some money off what you pay him or her and, when your naturopathy business takes off, you should be able to make a reasonable living for the family. Then there’s the property in Newtown. You own it outright now, so that’s nice regular money coming in, isn’t it?’

  As he gave a sideways glance, Wes noted Brooke’s expression and realised that her thoughts hadn’t progressed that far ahead, that she’d been taking things one day at a time. And he’d seen, every day at the hospital, her battling to remain confident and hopeful that Jason would make a full recovery, not allowing herself to drown in a sea of misery.

  ‘That’s good advice, Wes, and I thank you for it. I know I have to start thinking of all those things—the practice, finances. I guess I’ve put it off, hoped…’

  He touched her hand, gave it a little squeeze. ‘Hope’s important and we must keep hoping that Jason will be better than the doctors seem to think he will be, but you also have to face reality and make some plans.’

  ‘You’re right.’ She nodded. ‘I do need to bring a locum in, immediately. The people of Bindi Creek, and the nursing home, deserve that consideration. I’ll ring the AMA as soon as we get home to get advice on what to do.’ She was quiet for a moment or two, then she added with determination, ‘I’m getting Jason out of the hospital next week. I’m optimistic that having him at home with the children around will help him improve dramatically.’ No matter what the medical experts say, she added in her mind.

  Wes wanted to say that he didn’t agree with her, but he knew her thoughts on the matter. Unfortunately, he didn’t think that at this point in time she had a true picture of how difficult her life with Jason might become. It could be as bad as having another child—a disabled child—to look after. A muscle flexed in his jaw and he slowed down as he approached the township of Mandurama. A few more kilometres and they’d be at Bindi Creek. Damn and double damn! His best friend, his closest friend, was, in his opinion, gone forever. No-one could get back to being a hundred per cent again with those head injuries. Quite suddenly he realised that, now, memories were all he had left of the good times they’d shared: the escapades, the fun they’d got up to as kids. A lump rose in his throat and he swallowed hard to get rid of it. Shit! It just wasn’t fair.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ was Jean King’s first question when Brooke returned from Cowra. ‘What were they like? Will one of them do? Will one of them fit in okay?’

  Brooke had spent the day in Cowra interviewing three doctors—two males, one female—who’d applied for the locum’s position at Bindi Creek. The first male doctor, close to retiring age, had not been keen to do the country driving necessary for house calls. The female doctor had come over as too dogmatic and set in her ways to adjust to country life, and the third, Dr John Honeywell, was almost straight out of his hospital residency. Young and eager, the tall, slim man with his uncontrollable thatch of black hair had reminded her of how Jason had probably been when he’d first gone into private practice. And, most importantly, she had liked him immediately.

  ‘One man was too old, the woman was a dragon, but the young chap, John, he seemed rather nice. He’s from the country, up around Darwin way. I think he’ll do and will fit in,’ Brooke’s reply came back to Jean.

  ‘Tell me about John. Everything.’

  ‘God, you’re such a stickybeak!’

  ‘If I have to work with the man, I want to know what he’s like,’ Jean retorted, straight-faced, without taking offence.

  Brooke sighed in defeat. She felt exhausted by the drive to and from Cowra, by the interviews, by having to reshape her life and her family’s life. ‘Okay, over a cup of tea and before the kids get home from school.’ She put the kettle on.

  ‘The good thing is that he can start immediately,’ she said as she got out two cups and a teapot. ‘He’s twenty-seven and has been doing part-time locuming at a practice in Sydney for four months. His reference from the Brookvale doctor was impressive.’ She thought for a moment, then said, ‘I’m not sure about his level of expertise. Some of the answers to questions I asked were a touch vague, but he could have been nervous. In spite of that, he is bright and very keen to make a go of it at Bindi.’ She poured the tea.

  ‘I talked to Mannie at the Imperial. He’s got a nice bedsit arrangement with an ensuite and kitchenette. He’s just done it up. Said he’d rent it to the doctor very reasonably.’

  ‘Good. I wasn’t sure what to tell Dr Honeywell—John—about accommodation. I thought he might be able to board with someone and then after a while find a place of his own. I’ll need to lease a car for him, too.’

  ‘You think he might stay indefinitely?’

  Brooke’s lips tightened. ‘We won’t need him indefinitely,’ she reminded Jean. ‘Just until Jason’s fully recovered.’

  Jean looked at her friend and for once didn’t
say what was on her mind. ‘Of course, love, but full recovery could be…umm…six months away.’

  ‘That would suit John. He talked about going overseas, to England, for further studies, and he’ll be able to save while he’s working in Bindi.’

  Brooke heard scuffling sounds on the back verandah. The door was flung open and Adam came in.

  ‘We’re home, Mum. I’m starving!’ He went straight to the fridge to see if there was anything worth eating inside.

  Sheridan rushed into Brooke’s arms and presented her with a drawing. ‘That’s Daddy,’ she told her mother, in case she hadn’t guessed. Then she looked up at Brooke and asked plaintively. ‘When’s Daddy coming home? I miss him.’

  ‘Tomorrow, love. I’m going to go down early in the morning to get him and by the time you’re home from school your dad will be here,’ Brooke said gently, smiling at Jean over the top of Sheridan’s head. ‘That’ll be good, won’t it?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Hooray!’ Sheridan shouted, suddenly excited.

  ‘Well, I’m off,’ said Jean. ‘Greg will be home for dinner early tonight.’ Jean ruffled the twins’ hair. ‘You boys need a haircut, you know.’ She studied Brooke for a moment, noting that she had lost another kilo or so and couldn’t afford to. ‘So when will John start surgery?’

  ‘Monday morning. He’ll come up some time on Sunday. Said his cousin would drive him.’

  ‘I’ll tell Mannie so he won’t book the room, and make sure everything is spick and span in the surgery.’

  Brooke smiled again. She was sure Jean would. After Jean had let herself out the back door, she turned to the children. ‘Wes and Fleece and Drew are coming over for dinner.’ Convening an instant family conference around the kitchen table, she continued,