Dynamite Doc or Christmas Dad?

by Marion Lennox

He was still out there.

  She lay motionless, hardly daring to breathe. Finally she heard more footsteps, leading down the steps. Silence, apart from the gentle sound of the surf.

  He was gone.

  Go to sleep.

  Pigs might fly. She flung out of bed, headed to the front drapes and peeked.

  He hadn’t gone completely. He’d walked down the beach. He was staring out to sea, tall, rigid, unmoving.

  A man with demons.

  They weren’t her demons, she told herself. He was nothing to do with her.

  So why had she kissed him?

  She was out of her mind, that’s why.

  There was a thump from the direction of Dusty’s bedroom. A small shadow waddled across the living-room floor, stopped at the water bowl and drank. Pokey. The little dog gazed at the water bowl for a moment, considering, then put her two front paws right in. She stood, soaking it up, like the man on the beach was soaking up the night.

  It was a hot night.

  Pokey had lost Marge.

  Ben had lost so much more.

  At least she could do something about Pokey.

  She stooped and clicked her fingers. Pokey swivelled in the water dish, made her decision and clicked across the tiled floor to Jess, leaving wet splodge marks behind her.

  Jess sat down on the tiles. Pokey scrambled into her lap and snuggled in.

  She sighed deeply.

  Her tummy moved.

  A belly full of pups…

  As an obstetrician, the most Jess had ever had to contend with was triplets but she still remembered the young mother, moaning late in pregnancy, ‘All I want to do is put them down…’

  That’s what Pokey’s sigh was. She was hot and tired and in an unfamiliar environment.

  She wouldn’t know where she was ending up tomorrow.

  ‘You’ll be on stage with Ben,’ Jess whispered, gently hugging her. ‘Unless you don’t want to. It’s an invasion of privacy.’

  But then she thought… Ben will have the ultrasound wand, the gel.

  ‘You’d sell your soul for that wand,’ she whispered, and smiled, and then she thought of Ben’s strong hands scratching Pokey’s tummy, his long fingers, his smile…

  ‘Obviously he’s a fine obstetrician,’ she told Pokey. ‘You can put your trust in him.’

  Put your trust in an Oaklander?

  Put your trust in Ben. It was a very different concept.

  Um, maybe she’d best go take a cold shower. A long one. Maybe there was something in her wiring that made her respond to Oaklanders. She’d reacted like a lovesick fool when she’d met Nate. She’d held onto her practicality, her sense, her instinct for self-preservation ever since. Until tonight…

  Tonight she’d kissed him.

  An Oaklander.

  Ben.

  ‘Bed,’ she said, more sharply than she intended, and Pokey jerked a little and then sighed an even deeper sigh. She hugged her, instantly repentant. ‘Sorry. I mean…it’s just that we’re all a bit tired. A bit overwrought. Tomorrow things will be back to normal.’

  Pokey sighed again.

  ‘Hey, you might have puppies. That’d be great.’ Pokey looked up at her as if she’d lost her mind.

  ‘The only way through it is through it,’ she told the little dog. ‘There’s no choice. Just take one moment after the other until it’s done. Like me being here with Ben.’

  The little dog’s eyes widened, seemingly filled with reproach.

  ‘Okay, I know,’ she admitted, hugging her again. ‘Keeping my hormones under control in the face of a gorgeous Oaklander is nothing in comparison with giving birth to four babies. But I have had had one baby. It was a long birth. In the end I needed forceps. But I’m telling you now, right this minute keeping my hormones in control seems almost impossible in comparison.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MONDAY morning. First day of the Cassowary Island International Obstetric Symposium.

  Back to professional.

  Dusty and Pokey were with Kathy, on the beach. Jess, on the other hand, was in a pencil smooth black skirt, white blouse, sheer panty hose and black court shoes with kitten heels. Her hair was dressed in the neat chignon that had taken her years to perfect. Her make-up was flawless.

  Around her neck she wore her conference lanyard displaying the conference insignia and her name card. She was a professional obstetrician, in the midst of a bevy of professional obsetricians. She even knew some of them; a few of these people had trained at her hospital; a couple of her old bosses were here. She could mingle and chat.

  She could stay away from Ben.

  She could hardly be unaware of him. He was on the far side of the reception area. Surrounded.

  Moths to flame, she thought. The man’s professional reputation made students listen, colleagues raise issues they thought he could help with, drug companies propose research ventures.

  She was trying to listen to an elderly obstetrician from the States complain about the lack of dress code of the hotel staff.

  She was watching Ben.

  He looked up and their eyes met. Whoops, that was so not meant to happen.

  He smiled.

  ‘Excuse me, I need to find a seat,’ she said hurriedly to the dress-code stickler, and practically bolted into the auditorium.

  Where to sit? Three-quarters of the way back, to the side, so she wouldn’t look like she was avoiding him, but also so she wouldn’t look like she wanted to be close.

  There were only a dozen or so people seated before her. She was a wee bit early.

  ‘Why not front and centre?’ Ben said from the doorway.

  She was stowing her conference satchel under the seat. She didn’t look up. More delegates were filing in. It was possible he wasn’t talking to her.

  ‘Hey, Jess,’ he said.

  No help for it. She looked.

  ‘Dr McPherson’s helping me care for Exhibit A,’ Ben said to the conference organiser beside him. ‘Jess, how about coming on stage to help, hands on?’

  ‘I’m here to listen,’ she managed, and thought she sounded petty.

  ‘You won’t help?’

  ‘I’d rather not.’

  ‘British,’ Ben said to the guy beside him, and the corners of his mouth twitched. ‘Once upon a time they were useful to us colonials. Now, just because we’re winning the cricket…’

  ‘You’d both be more useful if you played baseball,’ a US doctor retorted.

  Tension dissipated amid general laughter. Ben gave her a slightly sardonic look and gave up on asking her to help.

  He wouldn’t need help anyway, Jess thought. He looked in control.

  Except…wasn’t he using Pokey? She should have figured how that was going to work.

  ‘Do you want me to fetch Pokey?’ she asked. It was the least she could do, volunteer to help in a tiny way.

  ‘Sit yourself down, Dr McPherson. I’ve organised things with Kathy,’ he said. ‘As you said, you’re here to listen. I’d hate to intrude on your listening.’

  She listened—and was stunned.

  What had she expected?

  Ben Oaklander was a leading researcher, his field of expertise being births taking place outside the safe environs of major hospitals. He was here to teach the teachers.

  These delegates would be the ones teaching family doctors, midwives, even those without medical training but finding themselves in remote areas with no choice but to deliver.

  She’d expected statistics, technical data, discussions of complications.

  What he gave was Pokey.

  He must have changed the entire presentation, she thought as he spoke, because Pokey was front and centre.

  He’d taken photographs from all angles. The first shot was of Pokey just before dinner last night. Pokey had watched the unpacking of the picnic basket with hope, and then the first sausage roll had gone into Dusty’s mouth.

  The little dog was all anxiety, quivering with terror that a poor starving dog
would get none.

  Ben was using her as an analogy for a pregnant woman, needing help.

  ‘You never know how your mum will present,’ Ben said. ‘Your mum might be in a car out the back of the tablelands, her only help a retired bricklayer who stopped to help. Or she might be a fifteen-year-old who hasn’t told a soul about her pregnancy, ending up in your clinic via an appointment for a sore knee. Or there’s the forty-year-old mum who has a team of birth-partners, a spa-bath full of hot water and incense sticks. For whatever reason, the biggest obstacle you need to overcome is fear. So meet Pokey, the Pregant Pug. I met her yesterday and my priority was to make her think all was right in her world.’

  The screen changed to a sausage roll, offered and gratefully accepted. Pokey was shown Dusty’s impressive hole in the sand, and was encouraged to share digging duty.

  Interspersed with slides of Pokey were slides of very pregnant women being offered tea. Women in the outback, drinking tea from tin mugs. Women in ornate waiting rooms—but the mugs weren’t much fancier. ‘I like mugs like you’d find at your nanna’s,’ Ben said. ‘Get rid of those white cups that say “Central Coast Medical Service”. What you want is a good big mug, a bit worn, the kind your nanna would use when she’s giving you cocoa after school. Or similar. If your mum’s hungry, don’t offer her sandwiches in plastic, take them out and put ’em on a saucer. Better still, offer her an egg on toast. Make it yourself if you need to.’

  Then there was Pokey being cuddled. More analogies.

  A hand touching a hand. A hand on a shoulder. A finger brushing a cheek.

  ‘No one’s going to sue you for giving reassurance,’ Ben told his audience. ‘Touch can be better pain relief than drugs. Human contact. Reassurance that you’ll be there for her until she’s holding her baby. If she’s at the end of the phone, same thing. I know most of you can’t hold a phone for hours; but if she’s frightened then introduce someone who can. Or talk about the old guy who’ll end up being support person. Say, “Mac’ll be with you every step of the way. Mac likes being yelled at. Tell him what you really think about this force taking over your body.”’

  General laughter.

  Then Pokey and her hole in the sand. Analogy three.

  ‘Unless your mum’s in second stage there’s no need for her to stare at the ceiling and wait for the next pain. Distraction, distraction, distraction. Most human mums can’t think of anything but their baby, so work with that.’

  He had his audience riveted, Jess thought. She was riveted. Professional, competent…extraordinary.

  He flipped the screen to what looked like a jigsaw but in fact was a montage of suggestions. Pictures. Words.

  ‘Ask about names,’ he said. ‘More. Where’s the baby’s bed? How many nappies do you have? How big’s your washing machine? If your mum doesn’t want to answer she doesn’t need to; don’t push, but have the questions there so if she needs a break from thinking about the next contraction it’s a gift she can latch onto.’

  This was so simple, Jess thought with astonishment. A professor of obstetrics talking kindness… As simple and as difficult as that.

  He talked of trials where volunteers were assigned to be with anyone who’d like them. Their role? Comfort, diversion, reassurance.

  Result? Caesareans down. Forceps deliveries down. And most amazingly, postnatal depression down.

  ‘In our high-tech world, sometimes we forget the important things, and these things can be as important as the high-tech stuff,’ he said. ‘But the high-tech stuff’s great, too.’

  Then he moved seamlessly into introducing gear that could be bought and used by clinicians in remote areas. Hooked up to video links so obstetricians could read results remotely. And finally he made the introduction to the ultrasound team of the night before.

  And Pokey.

  Right on cue she arrived, carried to the stage by…Dusty.

  Jess gasped, half rising. ‘I’ve organised things with Kathy…’ That had sounded like it had nothing to do with Dusty.

  Kathy was standing back, still acting as official child carer, but Dusty needed no carer. He was carrying Pokey onto the stage, beaming.

  Ben beamed right back at him.

  Identical beams. Beams to make her heart twist.

  Jessie’s body seemed like one huge gasp.

  ‘And now it’s time to meet our mum,’ Ben told the audience. ‘This is Pokey and her birth partner, Dusty. So let’s get these steps right. First step—reassurance that this place isn’t threatening.’

  Pokey didn’t look threatened. She did look a bit wary.

  Ben produced doggy treats and she forgot wary.

  ‘A mug of tea might do the same,’ Ben told the audience. ‘Or a chocolate biscuit or an offer of a back rub, or a shower. Keep scary equipment out of sight until you absolutely need it. If your mum enters a room and sees stirrups, you’re asking for panic.’

  There wasn’t a lot of panic on the stage, Jess thought.

  Ben stroked Pokey behind the ear, then down her back, rolling her over, finding the exact spot on her tummy that made her back leg go crazy. Around Jess, the world’s eminent obstetricians were starting to enjoy themselves.

  This session was being videotaped. What an amazing lesson for young doctors, Jess thought, and then she thought what an amazing lesson for old doctors.

  Ben had them in the palm of his hand.

  ‘We can’t ask Pokey to go into labour just for this presentation,’ Ben said. ‘But we can use distractions for essential medical checks as well. Like an ultrasound. Most of you know of these new little machines that let us see what’s going on without the need to transport our mums to central hospitals. Let’s see how good they are, while we see if we can distract our mum.’ This was a risk, Jess thought. What if Pokey objected? But then she thought…maybe it wasn’t a risk.

  The examination couch was padded and comfortable. Pokey had spent a busy morning on the beach. She had Dusty right by her, plus the guy who knew her magic spot.

  Dusty rubbed her behind the ears—proud birth-partner growing more proud by the moment.

  Pokey looked up at the ultrasound wand. Her tail waggled in delighted recognition.

  She moved straight into dead-dog position.

  ‘Dusty, can you use the wand like you saw it being used last night?’ Ben asked.

  Dusty was in control?

  The woman in charge of the ultrasound team looked like she was about to protest—but then she pulled back, realising what Ben was doing.

  If Dusty could handle this machine, how much more easily could a nurse do it, maybe flying into a remote station five hundred miles from the nearest radiologist? These machines could be used by anyone.

  ‘These images can be beamed via the internet straight to someone who can interpret them,’ Ben said. ‘But Dusty can interpret them now. What are we seeing, Dusty?’

  Dusty moved the wand methodically back and forth, instinctively copying the movements he’d seen last night. Puppies. He focused the wand on each small head in turn. He paused while the technician beside him clicked to take a still image.

  ‘Okay, Dusty, tell us what we have,’ Ben said. He was asking Dusty to explain?

  Dusty looked out at the audience, then at Ben. Ben smiled.

  Dusty nodded. Firmed. Started to speak.

  Four puppies. Legs, tails, heads. He faltered at first as he spoke, but after the first couple of moments he started enjoying himself.

  ‘This is the biggest puppy. We’re pretty sure she’s a she but we’re not really certain. But you can measure the head. We did last night. My Uncle Ben says there’s room for this puppy to get out, and she’s in a great position. She’ll come out first and the rest should come out easily after.’

  This could make a real difference, Jess thought, stunned. Ben had the undivided attention of every person in the room. This recorded video would be used over and over. It could be taken to a local service club. This ultrasound demonstration would hold an audi
ence—any audience—riveted. A small community could conceivably purchase one of these.

  Its use? Measuring head size, presentation. Checking for abnormalities. Let a woman continue in labour, or organise emergency evacuation.

  This was a magnificent tool for decision-making. And, meanwhile, no panic.

  Anyone less like panic than Pokey she had yet to see. The little dog had gel on her tummy and was loving the wand. Her legs were still sticking straight up. Doggy heaven.

  She glanced at Ben and she saw his expression had stilled. And instinctively she knew what had caused it.

  My Uncle Ben…

  Could he possibly be proud of Dusty? She was so proud she was ready to burst.

  ‘I rest my case,’ Ben said, sounding a bit…different. But it didn’t matter because the presentation was done. Delegates were laughing and clapping. Dusty gathered the little dog into his arms and Jess saw her son’s small chest expand. His beam practically split his face.

  She watched Ben’s hand rest for a moment on Dusty’s head and she felt her heart twist.

  It stayed twisted. Something had changed.

  My Uncle Ben.

  Something cold and hard that had formed around her heart ten years ago was cracking and falling away.

  ‘Magnificent,’ the doctor beside her breathed.

  ‘He… It was.’

  He was.

  Ben Oaklander was.

  Oh, she was in such trouble now.

  The session was over. Delegates filed out for coffee. Jess filed out, too, but coffee was the last thing on her mind.

  She felt very, very exposed.

  This was stupid. This wasn’t about her. It was all about a successful presentation, turning patients into people. Dispelling fear.

  There wasn’t a lot of dispelled fear where she was. She felt like she was on the edge of a precipice.

  She wasn’t needed. Kathy in her hotel uniform was the official carer, beaming with pride at her charges. Dusty was practically bursting with the joy of a plan successfully executed. He was carrying Pokey in his arms like a mother would carry a baby. Pokey looked in seventh heaven. Every person who came near was encouraged to scratch Pokey’s tummy and tell Pokey how awesome she was. And congratulate Dusty on his wonderful dog.