Doctors in Flight

by Meredith Webber

  We start with a cervical conisation, where GR uses a laser to remove a cone-shaped—hence the name—segment of tissue from the patient’s cervix.

  ‘It was showing some dysplasia,’ GR explains, ‘which may or may not have been pre-cancerous. I’ll send some tissue away for testing.’

  He works so competently I wonder if I’ll ever be able to emulate his skills, but I move in closer to do the suturing and know I’ll improve, not only through working with him but because, I must feebly admit, I’ll be wanting to impress him. Pathetic, isn’t it?

  ‘Next we’ve got a D and C following a spontaneous abortion and intermittent bleeding.’

  We’re scrubbing for the next patient, side by side at the basin, hands busy with the little nail brushes, foam dripping from our elbows.

  ‘Was it a first pregnancy?’ I ask, and he shakes his head.

  ‘No, she has one child but has miscarried several times, both before that one and after. She was really hoping this time she’d carry to term, so she’s upset. That’s why I’ve opted for a general anaesthetic rather than local. She doesn’t need to be aware of what we’re doing to her.’

  There is so much genuine empathy in his voice I want to hug him but, given the water now sloshing around and our almost sterile hands, it’s not a good idea.

  It’s not a good idea for other reasons either, but I’m honestly not thinking of them at the moment.

  Well, not much.

  We’re gloved and waiting when the patient comes in, Michael hovering anxiously at her head. He introduces Becky Martin to me, and Becky smiles weakly, then turns to GR.

  ‘Will it ever happen?’ she asks, probably already sleepy from the pre-med, which explains her weepy voice.

  Like I can talk. I’m swallowing hard just listening to her.

  ‘Of course it will,’ GR assures her. ‘But remember what we talked about. Give your body time to heal for at least six months before you try again. You know that’s important.’

  Becky nods and her eyes close. Michael explains what he’s doing, attaching monitoring equipment to her body, oxygen to a mask he settles on her face. She already has a cannula taped to her left hand, and he injects in the anaesthetic he’s chosen to use.

  Nods to GR and we’re away. It’s not a pleasant job. GR has to be very careful he doesn’t damage the lining of the uterus. Again he talks as he works, educating me about the patient, explaining how she reached the second trimester this time before miscarrying. We discuss textbook cases of spontaneous abortion, and possible solutions we might eventually be able to offer Becky. Again, we keep some tissue to send to the labs to ensure there was nothing amiss with the foetus, then another patient is wheeled away.

  ‘The next’s a laparoscopy—query ovarian cysts, Blue,’ GR says, as we sit in the little anteroom and drink a cup of coffee. ‘Want to do it?’

  ‘Do I want to do it? Do cats like fish? Dogs bark? Birds fly?’

  He grins at me.

  ‘I’ve got the picture. Done one before?’

  I shake my head then assure him I’ve seen hundreds, which might be a slight exaggeration but not a big enough lie to have lightning strike me dead.

  He smiles as if he knows I’m exaggerating, and goes on to explain exactly what I’ll be doing, from the tiny incision in the abdomen to inserting the hollow tube through which we can pass a light source and a number of instruments.

  I don’t kill the patient—in fact, I do well enough to garner praise from ‘the boss’ and finish the day on such a high I float back to GR’s office and agree to do the paperwork following the operations without even a grimace by way of complaint.

  ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I really appreciate it, because Charles was discharged yesterday and I haven’t had a chance to see him. I’ve no idea how he’s going to manage on his own, unless your grandmother has found home help for him.’

  I’m about to tell him Gran’s the home help then realise he’ll find out soon enough.

  And, no doubt, figure the rest of that particular equation!

  The paperwork of operations involves writing up exactly what we did on the patients’ hospital files, checking the written orders to the nursing staff for post-op monitoring and treatment, writing a note—usually a form letter—for the patient to take home, which details what they should expect following the operation, how to look after themselves and what symptoms should be immediately reported to the doctor.

  Then, in case you thought a surgeon’s life was all Theatre gowns and scalpels, we have to write a letter to the referring doctor, usually the local GP, explaining exactly what we’ve done, what we’ve found and advising that a copy of the lab reports will be sent to them.

  By the time I’ve finished this, it’s nearly nine, and as the day started in pre-dawn darkness I’m feeling tired. That’s until GR appears as I leave the office, striding down the corridor from the direction of the wards.

  ‘I’ve seen Charles and checked on all our admitted patients,’ he tells me, ‘so, if you’re finished in there, we’re all done.’

  We don’t talk about him walking me back to the old quarters, but he does and I’m comfortable with it. Or as comfortable as I can be with desire and excitement spreading liquid fire along my nerves.

  ‘Shall I say goodnight here?’ he asks, at the bottom of the steps, and as if there’s been an inevitability in this situation right from the first touch of our fingers and clasp of our hands, I shake my head and he walks up the steps behind me.

  I’m so strung out I’m shaking, so I appreciate him taking me in his arms and drawing me close, supporting me against his body. We stand like that for a few seconds, but it’s not enough. It was never going to be enough.

  We kiss, but this time it’s not only our lips exploring, but our hands—fingertips trailing across skin, fingers digging into muscle. I want to know his body as well as I know my own. Tactile, silent exploration!

  There’s no urgency now as we make our way, two bodies moving as one, towards the nearest cell, though my fingers fumble as I strip off clothes—his, mine, mine, his—and I feel him falter as he helps the process. Then, naked, squeezed together on the narrow bed, we again explore, touching each other, raising the excitement stakes to a point where I know I’ll explode if we don’t take that final step soon.

  ‘There is still time to say no,’ he says, voice harsh with wanting, the first time either of us has spoken distinguishable words.

  I shake my head, then know he has to hear it.

  ‘I won’t say no,’ I tell him. ‘Can’t say no!’

  For a fleeting instant I wonder what my mother whispered to the polo player, then GR—Gregor—lifts his body over mine and we move to accommodate each other, finding that perfect fit so beautifully designed by nature.

  I am not going to invite you into that tiny bedroom, and tell you the intimate details but, believe me, it was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. Soft and sizzling, sweet and frantic, a pulsating mix of sensations too ever-changing and various for words to do it justice.

  I had enough, I wanted more, my mind gave in to sensation and let my body lead it wherever it wanted to go. And I must say, with all due modesty, that GR seemed to enjoy it, too. This is afterwards I’m telling you this, and I’m in the kitchen, peering into the refrigerator, mentally thanking Gran for being fixated on a balanced diet.

  I put cheese, grapes, little plums, some slices of ham and a few dinner rolls on a platter and carry it back to where—Hell! Now I’m really in a bind. Surely after such wonderful intimacy he should be Gregor but, damn it, he’s still GR in my mind. Anyway, he is sitting propped against the pillows, the light from the veranda filtering in enough for me to see him in all his naked glory.

  Well, half his naked glory. He has a sheet pulled up to his waist.

  He reaches out, not for the platter but for my hand, and pulls me down to sit beside him on the edge of the bed.

  ‘That was very special,’ he says quietly, and he leans forw
ard to kiss me on the cheek.

  I immediately go into after-sex panic, heart a-thump as the inevitable thoughts race through my head.

  That’s it? Goodbye? Is that why he’s thanking me? Because there’ll be no more?

  But as I move, needing to put the platter down before I drop it, I realise there’ll definitely be more, at least tonight.

  CHAPTER NINE

  HAVING only had one previous boyfriend, namely Pete, I’m not sure if the ensuing relationship—what happened after that momentous night—is normal or not.

  It’s kind of like things were, in that with Pete neither of us talked much about ‘the relationship’ right up until he heard the bells and whistles, when he mentioned, as if in justification for his overly enthusiastic response to Claudia, that we weren’t exactly besotted with each other.

  ‘In fact,’ he had the hide to add, ‘we’re really more like friends who go to bed together because it’s easier than finding someone else to have sex with.’

  I think I chided him about ending his sentence with a preposition to hide my pique, but in retrospect he was right.

  So now it’s hard to judge the situation I’m currently enjoying.

  We certainly don’t talk about what’s happening, GR and I, but going to bed together because it’s easier than finding someone else—that’s way off beam. We go to bed together because we can’t help ourselves. Getting through the day without touching—let alone ripping each other’s clothes off—is such a strain, we all but fly back to the quarters from wherever we’ve been, just so we can hold each other.

  I don’t know how discreet we’re being. GR parks outside the rear entrance to the hospital rather than right outside the old nurses’ quarters. Does that count?

  And he goes back to his place some time during the night, because he’s never still beside me when I wake, though that first Saturday it was a close-run thing. The sun was painting colour in the sky when we tore ourselves apart and kissed goodbye.

  We talk about other things—at least, I do. GR’s not exactly chatty at the best of times.

  But don’t get me wrong, it’s not every night we’re together. Last Monday—B (for bed)-day plus three—Gran rang. We hadn’t gone out to GR’s property on account of Charles, and I spent most of the weekend in bed—either with you know who or alone, catching up on sleep. Anyway, Gran phoned on the Monday to say would I have dinner with her the following night so she could introduce me to Charles?

  She explained she had to get some things from the quarters so would pick me up, and we had a very pleasant evening, Charles being a charming old rogue and me not being backward in questioning him about GR’s childhood and youth and family and ex-girlfriends.

  I wasn’t really that blatant but I did discover he hasn’t been previously married and, as far as his uncle knows, has no out-of-wedlock children scattered around the countryside.

  For someone like me, this is important!

  So, we reach the next weekend, and Charles is keen for Gran to see the property. GR’s on call for emergencies and as I wasn’t called out last weekend, odds are he’ll be called out. This, I reason, is why he seems reluctant to go out to the property.

  It isn’t, of course. I figure that out when we get there on Friday evening. It’s because being out there with the couple who manage the place, plus his uncle and my grandmother, sharing a bed will be out of the question.

  So we go riding early Saturday morning. I can’t be a hundred per cent certain he has sex on his mind when we set out, but when we eventually stop by a creek that spreads at this particular point to a wide, waterlily-bedecked pool, it’s almost inevitable something will happen.

  Once clothed again, we lie, my head resting on his shoulder, and look up through the fern-like leaves of a northern wattle at sky so blue it makes my eyes ache.

  ‘You’re a beautiful rider,’ he says. ‘Natural. Like some aboriginal stockmen I’ve seen who seem to mould their bodies to the animal beneath them so horse and rider are one.’

  And suddenly, weakened by a simple compliment, I’m telling him about my heritage. About my mother who lived to ride and in the end left Rosebud for Sydney where she ended up training polo ponies, working with a team owned by a wealthy businessman.

  ‘The team went to Argentina for an international competition and my mother went along as well, but didn’t return with the team. The horses were to be sold over there and Gran assumed she stayed on to look after them. She had postcards from my mother, then a letter saying she was returning to Sydney. Then nothing.’

  I’m pouring all this out, and GR’s lying very still beside me. His fingers brush against my hair and for some reason that gets me going again.

  ‘Gran contacted the man my mother had worked for, who hadn’t heard from her since she’d left his employment in Argentina. He said there was a man, a polo player, but refused to say any more. Then Gran gets a phone call from a hospital to say my mother had died, but left a child. Me.’

  I pause for a minute, then add, ‘So it’s no wonder I can ride.’

  GR shifts, propping himself on one elbow, puts on his glasses then looks down at me.

  He touches my cheek, a brush as gentle as a butterfly’s kiss.

  ‘No leaking eyes?’

  His eyes are kind, his lips soft, so I have to smile.

  ‘It’s not something I ever cry about,’ I tell him honestly. ‘I feel sorrier for Gran, who had to go to Sydney and take charge of a newborn baby. And then live with how unhappy my mother must have been not to contact her family when she was in trouble. It was Gran who suffered, and Grandad. There were times I thought I’d have liked to know something of the man who fathered me—to know I had a family, if you know what I mean—but if he didn’t care enough to find out what happened to my mother, why should I care about him?’

  GR hugs me, which is nice because it’s a warm, friendly, comforting kind of hug with nothing even vaguely sexual in it. Then we untie the horses and ride back to the homestead, and I start feeling embarrassed about pouring out my secrets to this man.

  Fortunately, he’s called out to a breech birth in progress at Amberton almost as soon as we get back to the homestead, and as I don’t want to stay out on the property, especially as Charles and Gran seem to be holding hands a lot, I go back to town with him.

  Back at the old quarters, I think about a late lunch, but decide I’m not hungry. I’d rather brood. You know how women’s minds work. I go from mortification that I’ve told him all that ancient history to thinking about the hug—was it asexual because it was a goodbye hug? He’d talked about a quick affair and somehow I’ve been managing to ignore the adjective. Now it’s flashing like a neon light in my head.

  How quick is quick? We’ve had a week. Does longer than a week move out of ‘quick’ dimensions? Back when we were just talking sex, not actually enjoying it, I joked about how long after we finished he’d be asking Lydia Dustbin to marry him, but nothing has been mentioned since.

  Is he still thinking of it? Still seeing her?

  This, of course, is when I remember the previous Tuesday. Has Charles told Gran about Lydia? Is that why Gran asked me to dinner that particular night? Why I didn’t see GR later that evening?

  Are all women’s minds so neurotic, or am I worse than most? By now, of course, I’ve got it firmly entrenched in my head that he’s just using me, and though I’ve enjoyed the experience—yeah, like I ‘enjoy’ chocolate?—OK, so I’ve found it dazzling and rapturous and indescribably erotic and exciting and sensuous and satisfying—where was I?

  I know. I’m saying it wasn’t exactly a turn-off for me, but I still feel hard done by, persecuted even.

  All of which leads to disaster when he returns, quite late this evening, from Amberton. You can probably picture the scene. Footsteps on the steps outside, a perfunctory tap on the door, then he’s striding down the veranda to where I’m sitting with my eyes fixed on the television screen, though I couldn’t for a thousand dollars tell you w
hat is on.

  ‘So, how’s the world’s sexiest redhead this evening?’ he says, swooping his arms around both me and the chair and kissing my neck.

  Sexiest! That’s what he said. Not the most beautiful, or the cleverest, or the most wonderful. Just sexiest. That’s all it is between us. Sex.

  I know you think I knew that, and I did—or thought I did—but don’t all women, deep down, believe it’s more than that? Or want to believe it’s more than that?

  ‘I’ve got a headache,’ I tell him, and, would you believe, the man doesn’t get it. I suppose it’s a measure of his niceness that he takes it literally. He’s all instant attention, offering cups of tea. Have I taken something for it? Did I eat lunch? Have I had dinner?

  ‘Honestly, Blue, you’re so casual about eating it’s a wonder your health doesn’t suffer more.’

  As I say no to tea and, no, I haven’t eaten but I’m not hungry, he’s standing behind me, massaging my neck. And my head. And it’s wonderful.

  Right now it’s better than sex because, although I don’t really have a headache, it shows he cares, doesn’t it?

  Am I pathetic or what? I’ve spent most of the afternoon figuring out he was serious about it being a quick and discreet—very—affair, and deciding I should tell him a week is quick enough for me, then one neck massage and I’m gone.

  His fingers dig into my scalp and I’m almost purring, then he bends and kisses me behind my right ear.

  ‘Stay right there,’ he whispers, and his footsteps sound as he walks back along the veranda.

  Just because he’s kind doesn’t mean he loves you, I remind myself, but I can still feel the pressure of his fingers on my neck, and now I’m remembering the other pleasures those fingers have given me. I’m on the Pill, I won’t get pregnant, so why should it be a quick affair?

  ‘I know you said you weren’t hungry,’ he announces, returning some time later while I’m still tormenting myself with unanswerable questions. ‘But you have to eat.’