Christmas Knight

by Meredith Webber

  Mrs Barrett was on her front veranda, waving to him as if he might, by some mischance, miss the house. It was the only visible building though he knew there were sheds behind the grove of trees at the back of the house. He leaned over to grab the bag, noting with approval the properly secured capsule harness in the back seat, then dashed through the rain to the Barretts’ front veranda.

  ‘He’s in the tractor shed. I left him there. He called me a stupid woman and pushed me away, so I left him there.’

  Mrs Barrett seemed quite pleased by this decision, but Grant, soaked to the skin again, felt she could have told him this on the phone, or at least pointed to the area behind the house, rather than waving.

  He refused her—surely inappropriate—offer of a cup of tea and raced back to the car. Backed up, and turned towards the sheds, pleased, as he approached, to see space where he could drive in and so save himself another wetting.

  George Barrett was at one end, his body dwarfed by a huge tractor. He was bent over, as if peering at the wheel studs, but Grant guessed from his pale complexion he was that way because any alternative was sheer agony.

  Grant walked towards him, reading surprise and something like relief in the man’s face.

  ‘I don’t know who you are,’ George said, ‘but can you give me a hand? There’s a camp bed in the room out the back. If you can get me onto it, I can stay there until the damned thing stops paining.’

  The thundering rain on the roof meant he’d had to shout to be heard.

  ‘I can do better than that,’ Grant shouted back, pulling the bag out of the back of the vehicle. ‘I’m Grant Bell, Doug’s son. I ended up studying medicine and I’m here helping Dr Fenton for a few weeks.’

  He reached George’s side, and rested his hand on the man’s shoulder.

  ‘Bad, is it?’

  ‘Too right it’s bad!’ George muttered, the words almost inaudible given the background noise. ‘Think I’d be here counting the cracks in the tractor tyre if it weren’t?’

  ‘How’s the rest of your health? Any other problems? Allergies? Kidneys OK? Are you on any regular medication for your heart, blood pressure, arthritis?’

  He raised his voice loudly enough to be heard, and at the same time opened the bag and searched through the neatly maintained compartments until he found the vial he wanted.

  ‘Could we discuss this when I’m lying down?’ George demanded, and Grant hid a grin.

  ‘As long as I know you’re not going to keel over on me from a drug interaction, I can give you a shot of morphine that will make getting from where you are to a bed a whole lot easier.’

  He drew the liquid into the syringe and set it aside while he found a sterile swab.

  ‘I don’t take anything,’ George finally admitted. ‘I’m supposed to take things for my back but they don’t make a scrap of difference, so why bother?’

  ‘Have you had spasms like this before?’ Grant asked, pushing up the man’s sleeve and swabbing the skin above the biceps.

  ‘No! It gets crook from time to time, and then I take the tablets and when it gets better I stop.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Grant told him. ‘Now, here goes. Hang on a bit and it should ease.’

  He slid the needle into the muscle and injected the fluid. Relief wouldn’t be instantaneous, but before long he should be able to help George to the bed. He filled the waiting time by cautiously examining his patient, but very little could be felt, and George’s assertion that all he’d done had been to bend over to check the tyre pressure on the tractor tyre suggested a muscle spasm probably associated with deterioration in the spine.

  The rain was still rattling down on the tin roof above them, so putting George to bed for a week in the shed wasn’t all that good an option.

  ‘I’ll put you in the car and drive you back to the house,’ Grant told him, as George began, tentatively, to straighten up.

  But he could only go so far and, obviously in too much pain to argue, he allowed Grant to lead him to the car and settle him in the front seat.

  ‘Sitting’s going to hurt far worse than standing,’ the older man said, the words coming out through pain-whitened lips.

  ‘It won’t be for long, and it will save Mrs Barrett having to come back and forth to feed you. You need bed rest for a week,’ he added, though he knew he might just as well tell the rain to stop. Farmers worked when they had to, whether they were in pain or not.

  Though the rain might keep George indoors for longer than he would normally stay.

  ‘I know you won’t take any notice of me,’ Grant continued, pulling up at the bottom of the steps but not moving. If they waited, the rain might lessen and the drug would have more time to work. ‘But try to rest it as long as you can. And no rubbish about lying on the floor because a hard surface is good for backs—that’s not right and you’ll do more damage getting up and down to go to the toilet than you would lying on the softest of beds. I’ll check out your bed, and show you how to lie.’

  ‘You’re really Doug’s boy? I heard your dad passed away. I’m sorry, he was a good man.’

  George was obviously feeling less pain if he’d been able to think of something else. It was as good a time as any to tell him he’d need an X-ray.

  ‘You’ll do it or the woman?’ George asked, the suspicion in his voice confirming what Katie had said about the older men’s reaction to her position as the local GP.

  ‘Actually, whoever is the technician at the hospital will do it, but Dr Fenton and I will read it. After all, she is your doctor. I’m just temporary.’

  George muttered something Grant took to be disgust at a world so changed a man had to be treated by a woman doctor, but before Grant could ask for him to repeat it, Mrs Barrett appeared, a large umbrella held above her head.

  ‘I’m already wet so I’ll come around and help you out,’ he told George. ‘Sit tight for a moment.’

  He met Mrs Barrett at the car door and opened it, then leaned in to take George’s legs.

  ‘I’ll swing them out then help you stand,’ he told his patient, who was grumbling under his breath, but more, Grant realised, with disgust at himself than with pain.

  Together, he and Mrs Barrett got the man onto his bed.

  ‘You can lie on either side with your hips and legs flexed, or on your back but propped up and with pillows under your knees. I’ll leave some tablets here to keep you going over the weekend and a script for more, should you need them, for next week.’

  Grant turned to Mrs Barrett.

  ‘He’ll probably be more comfortable in pyjamas. Do you want some help undressing him?’

  She laughed.

  ‘Me need help to undress him? Get away with you, young Grant! I’ve been undressing the useless hulk for years. Every Friday night it used to be, until drink-driving meant he couldn’t drink at the pub till closing time. But I haven’t forgotten how,’ she added.

  ‘It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it myself, young fella,’ George put in. ‘Just she was always desperate to get at my body!’

  Grant found himself chuckling at the ribald exchange, though the depth of affection behind it reminded him of his parents’ conversations, and the love they’d shared.

  And, just as his enforced holiday at Byron Bay had seemed curiously flat once he’d settled in and relaxed, now he wondered if it wasn’t perhaps his entire life that was lacking something.

  Surely not because he needed someone with whom to share a joke—someone to tease and be teased by?

  Though there was no guarantee marriage would provide the answer—he’d already learnt that lesson.

  ‘I want some X-rays to check on what’s happening in that lumbar region,’ he told Mrs Barrett. ‘But wait until he’s well enough to travel. In the meantime, if you can keep him in bed, well and good. If you can’t then walking—just gentle upright movement—is better than sitting.’

  George began growling again, and Mrs Barrett, after telling him to hush, led Grant out of the bedroom
.

  ‘Four-hourly for the tablets?’ she asked, as Grant dug through the bag again to find some analgesics.

  ‘Yes, but once the effects of the injection wear off, these mightn’t be enough. I’ll leave a couple of Valium as well, which will relax the muscles and sedate him slightly. He can take one tonight and another in the morning. If the pain hasn’t eased by tomorrow evening, call me again and I’ll come out.’

  Bursitis was another possibility, he was thinking, as he said goodbye to Mrs Barrett and again ran through the rain. Then, as he settled behind the wheel in the unfamiliar vehicle, he grinned to himself.

  It was like riding a bicycle, the way it all came back. Though he wouldn’t tell Katie how long it was since he’d done any general medical work. She’d only worry.

  Katie!

  He drove back thinking about her, replacing the mental picture he’d carried with him for so long—of a skinny, restless teenager—with one of the tall, well-built woman she’d become. Though the wild untamed hair was still the same, and the eyes, if anything, were larger and more luminous, so expressive he’d once believed he could read every thought she ever had. Her skin was pale, but that was understandable, given she was probably exhausted, and everyone was aware these days of the damage sun could do. Though the young Katie had laughed off such warnings and had tanned to a golden glow every summer.

  Then he remembered how the baby—Katie’s baby—had felt in his hands, and his mood darkened. Had he been foolish to say yes to Aunt Vi’s pleas and persuasion?

  He was happy to help out—more than happy, given how boring he’d found his ‘holiday’ and how much he’d wanted to return to Testament, in spite of his teenage vows. He was even happy at the thought of helping Katie, who’d been a close childhood friend, at first thrown at him by his father— ‘Be nice to the kid. I’ll need all the help I can get from her dad if we’re to survive’ —but later as a friend in her own right.

  More than a friend for a brief few weeks of summer heat and raging teenage testosterone…

  His body stirred at the ancient memory and he wondered if he wasn’t better thinking of the baby.

  As long as he didn’t get fond of it…

  Though that was unlikely, given Katie’s protective attitude and the fact he’d only be here a few weeks, six or seven at the most.

  The rain had eased by the time he drove back into the town. He passed the pub and considered stopping for a beer, then remembered he was, more or less, on duty and resisted the impulse. Turned towards the hospital and was surprised to feel a slight anticipatory thrill—actually, more a nudge than a thrill. To do with being back at work, he was sure, not with seeing Katie.

  The back door was open, making the dash from garage to house less hazardous, though now the rain had settled into a reasonable kind of splatter, and he was damp, not soaked, when he came through the door.

  ‘Chlorinda’s shirt’s been more wet than dry this afternoon,’ Katie greeted him, and he very nearly blew his neat idea by asking, Who’s Chlorinda?

  ‘I’ll take it off—have a shower if that’s OK with you. I gave George a shot of morphine, got him from the shed to bed, and left Mrs B. ravishing his body.’

  Katie’s eyebrows rose, but she must have decided not to go there, asking instead, ‘Did you leave medication? Ask him to come in for further investigation?’ The green eyes darkened with worry. ‘I’m not sure about this locum stuff. I mean, do you resent me asking how you’ve treated someone? Even though the person will still be my patient later, so I’ll have to know? In a group practice, notes are written on the patient cards, but it always seemed to me, although they said what the patient had come in for and how the doctor had treated it, a lot of personal but helpful stuff could be missing.’

  Grant moved towards her, aware of how attractive she looked, freshly showered, and clad in a long skirt of some clingy, shiny material and a plain green T-shirt hanging out over it. Her hair, which she’d tried to tame by ramming combs into it to hold it somewhere near the top of her head, was escaping in long corkscrew curls.

  ‘You never did have that cup of tea,’ he said, ‘and though Mrs Barrett offered sustenance, I refused. Let’s sit and talk about it, shall we? I can shower later. I certainly don’t mind you asking what I did, or how I treated someone—asking anything, in fact. Believe me, I’ll be asking heaps of questions myself. It’s a long time since I’ve done a locum, though three years in A and E has prepared me well for the kind of thing you’d get called out for.’

  ‘Prepared you well for anything,’ Kate said, concealing a shudder as she remembered some of the bizarre cases she’d experienced in a far shorter stint in Accident and Emergency, as part of her training. ‘You sit, I’ll make the tea. I’ve made some scones as well. I’m not good at scones, but if you’ve reasonable digestion, they’re a bit of solid nourishment to carry you through to dinner-time.’

  ‘You made scones?’ The words shot across the room, propelled by such incredulity she might have said she’d won the lottery.

  ‘You don’t have to sound so surprised!’ Kate fired right back at him. ‘After all, you don’t know me. People do grow up, you know. Now, do you want tea and scones or don’t you?’

  He nodded and dropped into a chair by the table, in the easy, loose-limbed way she remembered from the past.

  Turning resolutely away from loose-limbed movement and memories of the past, she made a pot of tea and plonked it on the table, unhooked two mugs from their wooden holder and put them beside the pot, then lifted the tea-towel off the scones and tried to tell herself she’d meant to make them small.

  But when they made clunking noises as she put them on the plate, she sighed.

  ‘You’ll need good teeth as well as good digestion,’ she admitted, looking into familiar blue eyes that held an even more familiar understanding.

  Which prompted her to confess, ‘You were right to be surprised—I’m still no cook. You know, Grant, I actually thought skills like making scones might come along with motherhood but, from the look and taste of these, it’s another of those myths, like instant bonding.’

  A puzzled expression swept away the understanding.

  ‘Instant bonding?’

  ‘With the baby,’ she explained, pleased to have someone other than herself with whom to debate this strange occurrence. ‘I thought, because I’d given birth to her, I’d have some instant affinity for the wee thing. Go all warm and protective and filled with overwhelming love.’

  He still looked puzzled but his easy grin was longing to appear—she could tell by the little twitches at the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Didn’t happen, huh?’

  Kate shook her head, the movement causing more bits of hair to come floating free, which added frustration with her looks to her gloomy mood.

  ‘She couldn’t have been more alien. I mean, I didn’t hate her or hold her responsible for anything that’s happened, and I still want her and love her to bits, but in the beginning it was like having a stranger come into my life.’

  She paused, then added, ‘For ever!’ in such tragic tones, Grant lost his battle with his amusement and not only grinned but laughed out loud.

  ‘I’ve often wondered about the bonding thing,’ he finally admitted, accepting the mug of tea she pushed in his direction and picking up one of the scones. ‘Nature usually gets it right, and maybe it makes human infants so totally dependent to give the parents time to bond. I mean, most newborn animals can almost fend for themselves at birth. Admittedly, mammals need milk but they get up and go find it.’

  He cut the scone, with difficulty, and reached for the jam.

  ‘Use plenty. It softens them and masks the taste,’ Katie said, and he laughed again, assuring her the scones couldn’t be that bad.

  ‘They are,’ she told him, and when he took a bite, he had to agree.

  ‘But it doesn’t matter,’ he told her. ‘Setting yourself motherhood goals like instant bonding and scone-making is setting yours
elf up for failure, Katie. My mother couldn’t make scones and she was a country wife of whom it was expected, and a great mother—still is, in fact. And my bond with her, though it may have been dependence-based originally, is now one of loving friendship—of respect, which I hope, from time to time, is mutual.’

  ‘Kate.’ She corrected her name, though absent-mindedly, continuing with her main train of thought when she said, ‘Your mother’s different. She was never a scone sort of mother.’

  She looked wistfully at Grant.

  ‘Perhaps I should use her as a role model rather than mine, who sent the scone recipe, along with various others—including of all things, a sponge cake—within a week of my shifting back to Testament.’

  Grant grinned at her.

  ‘As if you were expected to start the transformation to Katie—sorry, Kate—the perfect countrywoman, as soon as you started breathing country air.’

  His words prompted another thought—why wasn’t her mother here, supporting her at this time? But she was looking less distressed and he didn’t want to chase that mood away just yet.

  He bit into the jam-loaded scone and chewed carefully.

  ‘You know, the Americans call scones biscuits, and if you call it a biscuit, it’s perfect, just the right amount of chew and hardness.’

  That won a smile, of sorts, but he could see the sadness lurking in her eyes and wondered what had happened to his brave, confident, daring, laughing Katie to turn her into this uncertain woman.

  Not wanting to ask, he told her about his visit to the Barretts’—what he’d done, prescribed and suggested.

  ‘If we have time each day to talk over the patients, we shouldn’t have any trouble keeping track of what’s going on.’

  She nodded. ‘That’s one of the reasons I wanted the locum to live in.’

  The doubt in her voice told him she no longer considered it quite as good an idea.

  ‘Very sensible arrangement all round,’ he said, hoping a firm confirmation might banish some of her doubts. ‘And though I’m not a woman, I’m quite capable of watching over a small baby when you’re working or want to go out.’