Turn Left at Bindi Creek

by Lynne Wilding

  Wes tidied up the camp, boiled the billy for an afternoon mug of tea, then doused the fire. He had already made a mental note that the surrounding bush was dense with several layers of dry-as-a-bone ground cover. A couple of sparks and the place could go up like a tinder box. Afterwards he wandered over to the creek. Once, while in his twenties, he had traced its origins to an underground stream near the top of the hill. He saw that Fleece had stopped panning. She’d found a sizeable nugget of her own, which she wrapped in a handkerchief.

  Squeals further up the creek alerted him to the fact that Sheridan had found another nugget. He grinned to himself, satisfied. Yesterday he’d come up and salted about ten nuggets, to the rough value of about five thousand dollars, in the creek, in the hope that the d’Winters would find most of them. It was his subtle way of helping them out, because he knew Brooke wouldn’t accept a hand-out. It galled him that he could do so little for the woman he loved, but she was fiercely independent and scrupulously honest, and he hadn’t been able to think of any other way to slip them some extra cash.

  By late afternoon all but three of the nuggets had been unearthed. Brooke had found several, due to judicious suggestions from Wes as to where to pan. And she hadn’t a clue that he had orchestrated the situation, which was good. He hadn’t seen her this happy and excited for a long time, and that made him happy too. Doubly so because she now had about three thousand dollars in gold with which to buy some of the things she needed.

  Jean gathered her paperwork and the additional information she had collected over the last week and a half on Brooke and her secret past. She was feeling pleased with herself over what she had uncovered. It had taken some doing, though. Two trips to the Goulburn library, hours of scanning microfiche entries of old Tasmanian newspaper articles, phone calls to the Tasmanian and the New South Wales AMA, and also to Brooke’s long-time friend Dr Janice Toombes, were needed before all was revealed.

  And now, during the lunch hour, when Brooke came home to make a sandwich for herself, and knowing that Jason and Craig were out, was the perfect time to seek answers from her friend.

  Armed with her folder, which included the envelope and papers she’d found in the surgery, Jean knocked on the back door and called out, ‘Brooke, coming in.’

  ‘Hello, Jean. Want a sandwich?’ Brooke was at the kitchen counter, fixing one for herself.

  ‘No, I’ve eaten. Umm, Brooke, I’ve got some papers to show you.’ She went straight to it. ‘I’m sure you’ll find them interesting. I found them in Jason’s surgery last week when I was tidying up.’

  The kitchen table was the long refectory type, so she spread the papers and newspaper articles she’d copied from the library over it. One article showed a photo of a much younger Brooke, considerably plumper, and with loose, shoulder-length hair—hardly recognisable as the woman who stood before her today.

  In absolute silence Brooke stared at the papers spread before her. She didn’t say a word. Just once, she emitted a long sigh. When she had looked for long enough, she turned towards Jean. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘I thought you’d be surprised.’ Jean looked at her steadily, her bright, inquisitive eyes fixed on her friend’s face. ‘You’ve got some explaining to do, haven’t you?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Brooke was quiet for several minutes while she returned to scanning the papers on the table. ‘Yes, I suppose I have got some explaining to do but from what you’ve assembled here, you already know most of it.’

  ‘I know that your name was Brodie Haskins until you changed it, that you worked as a resident at the Royal Hobart Hospital and that a patient of yours, a Thomas Peard, died due to complications after an operation.’ Jean was presenting the facts to Brooke. ‘There was a coroner’s enquiry and you were exonerated, according to the newspaper articles. What I don’t know is why you changed your name and why you stopped practising medicine. Or why you’ve kept it all such a secret. They’re the things I want to know.’

  ‘It’s…complicated,’ Brooke said bleakly. She picked up the medical licence renewal. It was still current. ‘I never knew that Jason had done this—kept renewing my licence.’ A faraway look came into her eyes. ‘He always hoped that I’d go back to medicine, but…’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’ Jean asked straight out.

  Brooke shrugged. ‘I had my reasons. When you’re younger—I’d not long completed my residency—everything seems clear-cut, black and white, no shades of grey. Sometimes even now I wonder if I did the right thing, though at the time I believed it was the only moral, honest thing to do.’

  Jean pulled out a chair and sat at the table. ‘Look, Brooke, tell me from the beginning.’

  The way Brooke looked at her, her gaze fixed on an imaginary point somewhere above Jean’s head, she could see that her thoughts were already back in time.

  ‘Tell me…’

  Hobart, winter

  As she sat on the leather chair in her living room, Janice Toombes studied her friend and noted the dark circles under her eyes, the body language that screamed fatigue. ‘Brodie, you’re not going on duty tonight, it’s crazy. Call in sick, for God’s sake.’ When her friend didn’t appear to acknowledge her words, she added, ‘You’re still grieving for your mum and Travis. The accident was only two weeks ago. You should have taken compassionate leave to give yourself time to get over the tragedy.’ She then added a pertinent observation. ‘That’s what you’d tell a patient to do under similar circumstances isn’t it?’

  ‘Got to go in.’ Brodie’s tone, though flat, was emphatic. ‘The hospital’s understaffed, what with the flu epidemic running rife. Besides, I wouldn’t give Cummings the satisfaction. He doesn’t think I’ve got what it takes but I’ll show him.’ As she spoke she twisted a strand of long brown hair behind her ear.

  Since the deaths in Brodie’s family, Dr Cummings had been watching her like a hawk does its intended prey, checking when she arrived, when she left, waiting, expecting her to break. In her heart Brodie knew Janice was right about not working, though she refused to admit it. She still grieved deeply the loss of her mother and Travis. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t be bothered eating, but somehow deep inside she knew that the only way to endure the pain was to work her way through it. When she was on duty she didn’t have time to think, or time to feel the pain. It was as if she could isolate the sadness in a separate part of her while she tended to patients, did rounds and operated under a registrar’s supervision.

  She needed to work, otherwise she would break down. It was bad enough having to attend to all the necessary things you have to do after deaths in the family: cancelling this, writing to that department, letting this and that friend know. So much red tape and so many formalities. She hated it because it was the final, formal acknowledgment that her loved ones were gone—forever.

  Brodie studied her friend Janice. For six months she had been renting a bedroom in Janice’s apartment in Battery Point, which was within walking distance of the hospital. She didn’t know what she’d have done without her support. Janice, three years older than her, had her own fledgling practice with another doctor in South Hobart. Brodie and Janice had become friends in high school, and choosing the same career paths had brought them closer over the years.

  ‘At least have something to eat before you go,’ Janice insisted. ‘You haven’t eaten all day, have you?’

  ‘I had toast and orange juice this morning, I think.’ She chuckled mirthlessly. ‘Just teasing. Okay, I’ll open a can of soup. What about you, want to share?’

  ‘I’m going out, on a date,’ Janice said, and blushed.

  ‘Not Ben, the company exec, again?’ When her friend didn’t reply, Brodie shook her head. ‘This is getting serious. Three dates in a week.’

  ‘We’re just good friends,’ Janice replied enigmatically. ‘I’m going to grab a shower. See you in the morning.’

  After finishing her term of residency, Brodie had decided to stay on at the hospital fo
r another twelve months. She was one of the few doctors at Royal Hobart Hospital who didn’t mind night duty, especially at the moment, seeing she found it hard to sleep.

  Dressed in her old woollen topcoat and with a thick scarf around her head, she made her way through misty drizzle to the staff entrance of the hospital. As she draped her stethoscope around her shoulders, after changing into her white coat, her pager went off. It was the number for the post-surgical ward. She picked up the closest phone and dialed the ward extension.

  ‘O’Mara, Sister-in-Charge, speaking.’

  ‘Dr Haskins, Sister. A problem with that hernia op I did yesterday?’

  ‘Ahh, yes, Doctor. Mr Peard’s temperature is up. The wound seems inflamed, tender to the touch. I think you should have a look at him.’

  ‘I’ll be right over.’

  Ward five was on the other side of the hospital. Chilled by drafty walkways and corridors, Brodie’s teeth were chattering by the time she reached the post-surgical ward. The patient was in bed number four and she and the Sister-in-Charge went straight to it.

  Brodie read the patient’s chart. ‘Let’s check the temperature, Sister.’

  After checking the patient’s temperature, Brodie inspected the area around the wound. It was red and there was a slight discharge around the sutures. Brodie prescribed penicillin, to be administered via a drip. Mr Peard, she noted, was still drowsy due to unusually long after-effects of the anaesthetic.

  ‘Has he complained of post-op pain?’

  ‘The hand-over report stated nothing special, except that he seemed very sleepy. The infection has come up pretty fast, I would say,’ Sister O’Mara ventured.

  ‘I don’t like the temperature being this high—40.5 isn’t good. He should have a sponge bath, to help bring the temperature down.’ She looked at the sister and barely stifled a yawn. God she was tired. Bone weary. ‘Can the staff manage that?’

  ‘Yes, but not right away. We’re expecting two post-ops from recovery—a couple of emergencies—in the next half hour. We’ll do it after they’ve been settled.’

  ‘Fine. But as he’s still nil by mouth, I’ll prescribe a Panadol suppository to kick-start the effect of the infection. I want hourly obs, too.’ She looked at the sister. ‘Page me if there’s any change, please.’

  A sense of disquiet troubled Brodie as she left the ward. She tried to shake it off as just a silly feeling. A little hiccup in Mr Peard’s recovery, nothing really to worry about, she convinced herself as she tried to shrug off the anxiety. She made her way back to casualty. As usual, in the early hours of the morning, the hospital was relatively quiet. Patients had settled and nursing staff were taking a breather. Once in casualty, Brodie began attending to the build-up of paperwork over a cup of tea. Two hours later her pager beeped again.

  Back at ward five Mr Peard’s condition had deteriorated. He had been given a sponge bath and a suppository, but his temperature had gone up another tenth of a point. He was alternately sweating and shivering, and had begun to have respiratory difficulties.

  ‘Put him on oxygen,’ Brodie instructed Sister O’Mara. ‘If there’s no improvement in the next half hour, contact me and I’ll bring in the registrar.’

  The patient’s temperature didn’t stabilise and other symptoms began to manifest themselves—a swollen face and tongue. Brodie returned and stayed at his bedside to monitor him, trying to figure out why he wasn’t responding to the penicillin. Just before dawn she checked his breathing and found isolated dull red blotches on the trunk of his body. Alarm bells rang inside her head.

  ‘He’s having an allergic reaction,’ Brodie said to the night sister.

  ‘Yes, but to what?’ asked Sister O’Mara.

  ‘I’m not sure. The anaesthetic? No, it’s been a bit too long for that.’ What else? She racked her brain, trying to fathom it. ‘The antibiotic. Does it say anything on his chart about being allergic to any medications such as penicillin, morphine, pethidine?’ She shook her head. ‘It could be anything.’

  ‘Nothing’s filled in,’ Sister O’Mara said as she handed Brodie the clipboard with the chart.

  ‘Call the registrar, right away.’

  While the sister made the call, Brodie studied the patient’s chart. By coincidence, and because they’d been short of staff, she had been the one to fill in Mr Peard’s details at admission. Every space that had to have an answer had one filled in. But the space under ‘allergies’ was blank. God, had she asked him the question, or had she forgotten to do so? She bit down on her bottom lip as she tried to remember. Her mind was blank; in fact, she could hardly remember asking Mr Peard any questions at all, as if she had done his admission on automatic pilot.

  She rubbed her forehead and eyes, to push back the tiredness. She had to concentrate. The possibility struck her that maybe he didn’t know he was allergic to anything. Could she have forgotten to ask the right questions? That, she admitted, may have happened.

  ‘Eighty-five over forty, Doctor.’ A junior nurse on the other side of the bed gave the patient’s blood pressure.

  ‘Stop the drip. We need to get him on adrenaline and hydrocortisone. Now! His body’s shutting down. His antibodies are fighting the allergens, and the allergens are winning because he’s overproducing histamine. We have to reverse that or…’ She didn’t want to say it out loud, but if he kept going this way, Mr Peard would die. His blood pressure was already dangerously low.

  Thomas Peard stopped breathing at 9.05 a.m. Adrenaline, hydrocortisone and CPR had failed to reverse the effects of the allergic reaction. By that time they knew that he was allergic to penicillin because his wife, who had been called in as his condition worsened, had told them.

  Unfortunately for Brodie, the despised Dr Cummings had been the registrar on duty. His effort to save the patient had been as desperate as hers, but afterwards a triumphant light glittered in his eyes as he informed her she should expect a coroner’s enquiry into the circumstances of Mr Peard’s death.

  Brodie went off duty devastated. How she got back to Janice’s apartment she could never remember. Her thoughts and emotions were in turmoil. Repeatedly she tried to tell herself that she hadn’t killed Mr Peard, but she wasn’t convinced. The allergy, his body’s extreme reaction, had done the deed. One could even boil it down to a clerical error—someone not filling in the question regarding allergies. But who had that someone been? Her. It could be as simple and as tragic as that! Consequently, deep inside her, guilt and self-directed rage ran unabated.

  Two days later, while on duty, she collapsed from nervous exhaustion and had to be hospitalised for a week. After being discharged she didn’t return to duty. Brodie never set foot in Royal Hobart Hospital again.

  Jean listened attentively as Brooke talked through the details of what had occurred all those years ago.

  ‘The state press latched on to the story of Mr Peard’s death and my alleged inadequacies,’ continued Brooke. ‘It became political because of an upcoming State election; the opposition was looking for ways to point out the deficiencies in health care. My life’s story was trotted out for all to read, including Mum’s and Travis’s deaths and my collapse. No doubt you read it in the articles.’ She was quiet for a moment before continuing. ‘I guess I became a little paranoid—thought people were staring at me all the time, talking behind my back. I’m sure Janice thought I was a trial.

  ‘The coroner’s enquiry was speeded up because of the political value. My record was scrutinised, my collapse and the causes examined. Grief and physical and mental exhaustion were noted as possible extenuating circumstances by the coroner.’ Brooke rose, poured two coffees and returned to the table. She sat opposite Jean. ‘The coroner decided that, from a legal viewpoint, criminal negligence wasn’t involved and I was cleared of any wrongdoing. The Tasmanian AMA issued an official reprimand for me to exercise more care in the future, but no prejudicial entry was made on my records.’

  Jean was absorbed by Brooke’s story. ‘Why did you stop p
ractising?’

  ‘That’s also complicated. It goes back to my teen years, and to my Gran. When Dad was killed at sea, Mum’s mother came to live with us. Travis was very small at the time and Gran was a wonderful help. Her being with us made life easier for Mum because she knew we were being cared for after school, while she worked. And Gran was a great cook and housekeeper. She loved being with us, ’cause she had been alone since Pa’s death four years before.

  ‘When I was sixteen, having decided to become a doctor, Gran took ill. It was so gradual we hardly noticed her loss of weight and appetite. She found a lump in her left breast and went to her doctor—she’d been going to him for years. He examined her breast and said it was nothing to worry about, just a benign cyst. Then, later, he said the same lump was fatty tissue. Mum tried to get Gran to see another doctor, but Gran wouldn’t change because she felt comfortable with him.

  ‘Six months passed and, after she’d dropped about eight kilos and was getting stomach pains, she finally saw another doctor.’ Brooke looked meaningfully at Jean. ‘Yes, I’m sure you’ve guessed by now. She had breast cancer and it had metastasised into the lymph glands and spread to the pancreas and liver. It was terminal.’

  Brooke stopped, brushed a melancholy tear away and smiled apologetically. ‘I was so angry with her doctor that I went and saw him. I told him what I thought of him, that he shouldn’t be practising medicine.’

  ‘That must have gone down well with the doctor,’ Jean put in, a smile lightening her serious expression. She could well imagine Brooke’s anger towards the doctor. Her gran’s story was not unusual: too many doctors failed to recognise crucial symptoms and refer patients on to specialists.

  ‘At least he had the grace to look guilty, even if he didn’t admit that he was. Poor Gran, she was fifty-nine when she died. Too soon. Well, being sixteen, watching Gran die and seeing the incompetence of her doctor, had a profound effect on me. I vowed that if I were good enough to become a doctor, I would be the best, most ethical, most caring doctor I could be.’ She fidgeted with the papers on the table as she spoke. ‘I thought I was until Mr Peard’s death. I’d slipped up—been slack, been lazy, stressed, whatever you like to call it—and because I had, a patient had died.’