Going Under

by Sonia Henry

  I walk to the nurses’ desk near the front of the ward, and take a few deep breaths. Is it nausea? A headache? It’s a sensation I can’t quite put my finger on.

  It isn’t until the end of the day, when I meet Max in the cafeteria and describe my round with Dr Prince, that I realise I’m not suffering from a brain tumour or viral gastroenteritis or any other kind of illness.

  ‘You must be getting used to neurosurgery,’ Max says, looking at me closely. ‘You actually seem a bit happy.’

  five

  My phone is ringing, and I’m debating whether or not to answer it.

  ‘Is it the Joh-kerrrr?’ Max asks with an exaggerated Bostonian drawl.

  ‘Just hang up on him,’ Estelle suggests.

  We’re in the hospital cafeteria at our favourite table, which is tucked into a sort of alcove, concealing us from people we’re trying to avoid. It’s Thursday, which is tantalisingly close to Friday and then the weekend. It’s almost the end of our first week and we are all still alive, as are most of our patients. The only death was Max’s, a ninety-eight-year-old man with pneumonia, leaving him, to Estelle’s and my envy, with only one patient on his list.

  ‘It’s a private number,’ I say worriedly as my phone keeps ringing.

  ‘He’s just trying to trick you,’ Max says. ‘He must realise you’ve started to screen his calls so he’s doing the old “call you through switch” move.’

  ‘The new registrar is starting today,’ I remind him. ‘Maybe it’s her. I should answer it.’

  Max shrugs. ‘It’s your funeral.’

  Angry that I am so weak, I press answer. ‘Hello?’

  There’s a short silence.

  ‘Katarina speaking,’ I say. Maybe it’s about my overdue electricity bill, not anything work-related at all, I think hopefully.

  ‘Hello,’ a male voice says, sounding slightly hesitant.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s, ah, Jack Prince.’

  I almost knock over the coffee cup in my haste to stand up, moving away from Max and Estelle’s chatter so that he won’t be able to tell that I’m at the cafeteria.

  ‘Oh, hi, Dr Prince!’ I say. ‘Do you want to do a round? I’m just heading to the ward now.’

  ‘No, that’s all right. I was actually ringing to see if you’d like to help me out in theatre tomorrow. For my Friday list.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Of course.’ I’m torn between dread and excitement at the prospect.

  ‘I thought perhaps I could try to improve your experience of neurosurgery,’ he offers.

  I laugh nervously. ‘That’s really decent of you.’

  ‘Well, the only way to know if surgery really is for you is to come into theatre,’ he points out, sounding like my boss all of a sudden.

  ‘Of course, yes, absolutely,’ I agree.

  ‘Theatre six,’ he informs me. ‘Tomorrow just after midday.’

  I’m about to thank him again when the phone goes dead.

  ‘Well, that obviously wasn’t the Joker,’ Estelle remarks, as she and Max stare at me. ‘Why is your face going red?’

  ‘I reckon Prince likes you, mate,’ Max says. ‘You obviously like him.’

  ‘Of course I like him!’ I snap defensively. ‘He’s the only person who isn’t a total arsehole!’

  Max smirks. ‘Why’d you straighten your hair this morning, Doctor?’

  Estelle raises her eyebrows. ‘You never even brush your hair.’

  ‘I am a normal human being!’ I protest. ‘I am capable of basic hygiene!’

  ‘Wouldn’t know it by your bedroom,’ Max says.

  I try to glare at them, but I start to laugh instead. ‘Guys, he’s like fifty,’ I point out.

  ‘Since when has that stopped you?’ Estelle says reasonably. It’s true that my less-than-stellar romantic history is littered with inappropriate liaisons with inappropriately aged men. ‘Remember David the lawyer?’

  ‘Though there was that guy Kitty met in Switzerland,’ Max says in my defence. ‘He was only thirty. I seem to remember her calling him her soulmate.’

  ‘Yeah, what happened with him anyway?’ Estelle asks.

  ‘He’s skiing in Switzerland and having the time of his life while I’m sitting here in this stinking cafeteria with you two,’ I reply, irritated.

  My appropriately aged soulmate, Fabien Pho, is a tall good-looking man I met on a ski holiday the previous winter. He’s so different from me that it never would have worked, I remind myself whenever I’m overcome by longing or regret. I skype with him every now and then, and tell myself the joy I feel on seeing his brown eyes and white smile is only a comparative reactive emotion, contrasting ski holiday happiness with my current stress levels, and the entire thing is just a silly fantasy.

  Still, even just hearing his name in conversation makes my heart squeeze a little uncomfortably, and I’m oddly relieved when my phone rings yet again.

  Everyone’s eyes go to the screen.

  ‘This time it probably really is the Joker,’ Max warns.

  Thankfully, it isn’t. It’s my new registrar, wanting me to meet her on the ward to go through the patient list.

  ‘Enjoy,’ Max says, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head, the relaxed posture of a man not doing a surgical term. He looks over at Estelle. ‘Hey, on a different note, have medical admin emailed to tell you when you have to go out bush?’

  Estelle nods. As interns we all have to spend ten weeks out in rural Australia, to work at Holy Innocents’ sister hospital that isn’t staffed by enough local doctors. ‘Next term, mate. Me and Kitty are going together. God, I can’t believe that they’re shipping us out to the middle of fucking nowhere,’ she continues, bemoaning the fate of junior doctors forced to go on remote secondments. ‘Do you think I could get out of it somehow?’

  ‘At least we’re going together,’ I point out, grabbing my bag. ‘Imagine if we were going it alone.’

  I’m not really looking forward to living in the bush for ten weeks either, but that’s a while off yet and, in the meantime, things here seem to be improving, what with Dr Prince becoming an unexpected ally and a new woman on the team.

  I take a wrong turn on my way up to the ward, and find myself lost near the operating theatres. Theatres are on level five, and I feel irritated with myself. The surgical ward is level seven, so I have no idea how I’ve somehow exited the stairwell two floors below it. The long corridors and fluorescent lights, connected by lifts and staircases, make the hospital almost impossible for me to navigate. I’m bad at map-reading at the best of times; I need a GPS just to find certain parts of my workplace.

  I’ve decided to use the stairwell as much as possible; at least the stairs act as some kind of familiar starting point. I feel like I spend half my day trying to find things, or places. Conveniently, there are phones everywhere. This is good and bad. It means as soon as my pager beeps the nurses know there’s no excuse to not respond immediately. Every corner has an internal hospital phone sitting on it. Even then it doesn’t really matter, because they’ll just call my mobile number anyway. All of the interns’ phone numbers are splashed all over the wards. So much for respecting my privacy. I run from the surgical ward on seven, down to theatres on five (so far the only reason I’ve gone to theatres is to give the Joker his coffee), back to seven, and the cycle goes on. My favourite level is three, because that’s where the cafeteria is.

  ‘Shouldn’t they pay for us to have a work phone, don’t you think?’ Max asked me earlier as my phone rang continuously, with the dreaded extension of the hospital switchboard. ‘You are on your phone constantly.’

  ‘They don’t even pay us overtime,’ Estelle rightly said. ‘Can’t really see the combo company–car phone deal, you know, mate?’

  Amusing myself with the memory of this conversation, I finally arrive on level seven, covered in sweat.

  I see the new registrar as soon as I enter the ward. She’s standing at the nurses’ statio
n squinting up at the patient board.

  ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘I’m Kat—’

  ‘Yes, I know who you are,’ she snaps, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Not that I could have picked there was a hair out of place; her immaculately styled blonde hair makes me all too aware of my own customary dishevelment. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been going through the blood results and there are about fifteen different things that you’ve obviously ignored.’

  I gape at her.

  ‘And where’s my list? You never meet a registrar without a list for them. Go and print one. Now.’

  Then, as if she’s just made a benign comment about the weather, she smiles. ‘I’m Rachel, by the way.’

  And just like that, my newfound happiness evaporates.

  six

  When I was fifteen one of my relatives asked me at a family lunch what I wanted to be when I grew up. I didn’t even hesitate.

  ‘I want to be a Bond girl,’ I replied.

  I was trying to sound clever, but I also actually meant it. Fifteen-year-old me wanted a life filled with European beaches, attractive and dangerous men, fast cars and dry martinis. So, tell me, James—do you still sleep with a gun under your pillow?

  Being a junior doctor has the potential for some Bond-esque moments—after all, nearly every Bond movie features an attractive female medic in some form or other—but so far I haven’t had any. Unlike me, Bond movie medics aren’t constrained by the walls or protocols of a teaching hospital. Their expertise seems to lie in the realms of the art of seduction, rather than the supposed art of medicine. The doctor in The World Is Not Enough clears Bond prematurely for fieldwork because they’d had extremely hot sex, and all I really remember is her expensive black underwear and white doctor’s coat. She doesn’t seem to have any qualms about sleeping with her patients. Where’s the medical board intervention in her case? How could she have cleared him medically anyway? She didn’t even check his X-rays properly!

  If only I’d pursued acting, I say to myself mournfully as I approach the hospital entrance. It’s been the same story every morning for the last five days. I allow myself the luxury of a small existential crisis in the short walk between home and the hospital, just to make myself feel better. Maybe it’s not too late? If I lost a few kilograms and had a nose job I could still be in the running. I have dark hair and green eyes, and men often compliment me on my bum—maybe it’s time to capitalise.

  At least it’s Friday, I tell myself as I open the door to the stairwell. The stairs, I remind myself, are good for me. The incidental exercise won’t go astray if I’m to secure an acting agent and an audition for the next Daniel Craig feature. I’m charging up the steps two at a time to increase my heart rate when the door to the fifth floor flies open, forcing me to halt in my tracks.

  I stand there gasping, demonstrating how horrendously unfit I am.

  A man in scrubs is staring at me.

  ‘Hello,’ says Dr Prince.

  I’m so out of breath I have to bend over. No doubt my face is the colour of a beetroot.

  ‘Oh, fuck, hi,’ I wheeze, dragging in a breath and wiping sweat off my face.

  ‘Are you all right?’ He looks concerned.

  ‘Sorry for swearing,’ I choke out, leaning on the handrail. ‘I’m just puffed after running up the stairs.’

  ‘Will you be right to come to theatre, do you think?’ he asks, peering at me closely. I’m relieved to see that he’s smiling.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I reassure him, attempting to look calm and collected.

  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I’ll see you later then.’

  ‘Bye!’ I bellow cheerfully, waving gaily as I resume my passage up the stairs.

  After our round together I had hoped I could impress Dr Prince with some more neurosurgical insights, but alas my nerves get the better of me. I have no idea why I can’t just have a normal encounter with the man, one in which I look together and attractive. Even better, one in which I make a sage remark on arterial supply of the brain, or something equally surgically impressive. Instead, usually when he sees me I’m either swearing my head off or covered in sweat.

  Embarrassment and poor cardiovascular fitness aside, today, I remind myself, is going to be a good day. Once I get through the morning round I can look forward to going to the operating theatre to help Dr Prince.

  The round. I grimace. Each morning it’s been the same. Me and the Joker charging around the ward, dissecting and analysing every single error that’s been committed the day before and reaching exactly the same conclusion in every case—it’s all my fault. And I have a sneaking suspicion from yesterday’s brief encounter with my new registrar that things are only going to get worse.

  I’m not wrong. Dealing with one of them is bad enough, but the double act is excruciating. I watch a lot of crime drama and recognise immediately I’m now witness to my very own folie à deux. Three patients into the morning round, I’m already exhausted by the realisation that this new game of ‘who can be meaner to the intern’ is one I’ll be forced to play every morning. I walk behind my superiors, dragging the charts, and wonder if they’ll object to me lying in front of them before the round as a little bonding ritual so they can kick me a few times and then at least we’d get it out of the way.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ the Joker sneers when I ask the new registrar to repeat which antibiotic the patient is on. ‘You look half asleep.’

  Ah, sleep. If only. What I wouldn’t give to return to the sanctuary of my bedroom and be granted a reprieve from these horrendous people.

  ‘You really need to focus more,’ the new registrar informs me. ‘When I was an intern I knew all the blood results off by heart and I’d arrive at work at six every morning to make sure I’d familiarised myself with all the patients. You should really be doing a pre-round, you know.’

  I should be doing a pre-round at 6 am? This is news to me. The round itself is horrific enough!

  Although we’d got off on the wrong foot yesterday, I’d still held out some hope that she and I would bond, both being women currently in surgery. The new thing in medicine is to support each other, after all, and be generally a bit, well, pleasant towards your colleagues. At least, that’s what the email from medical admin this morning said.

  After our first round together, I quickly dispel the hopeful illusion that we’ll ever be friends. Everything I do or say is a personal affront to her own enormous intelligence.

  ‘So, let’s try and be better tomorrow, okay?’ she says to me at the end of the round, as the Joker smirks.

  There’s something very wrong with this woman, I text Max immediately as she walks away. I get that she’s a grade-A bitch, but do her putdowns have to be delivered with a big saccharine smile? She’s like a smiling assassin, delivering her poisoned barbs with an expression of serene happiness. To make things even weirder, she looks like a cross between a friendly librarian and the pretty girl next door. Today, her outfit consists of a short bright red dress, set off by sparkling layers of expensively highlighted hair. The perfect symmetry of the layers amazes me. It took me years to accept that I can only wear my out-of-control hair in a permanently messy bun.

  The Joker, also blond and shiny and fake Bostonian, loves it. Now he has his perfectly layered comrade—the Smiling Assassin. I run my hand over my bun, almost subconsciously. Maybe I should try that keratin treatment Estelle swears by. When in doubt, sort your hair out, is one of her life mottos.

  Bad hair day aside, they’ve left me with a mountain of tasks which I have only a few hours to complete. I know if I don’t get everything done there’s no way I’ll make it into theatre with Dr Prince. He seems genuine in his desire to show me the surgical ropes, and I desperately don’t want to disappoint him.

  I rush through my tasks, and by quarter to twelve I’ve changed into my scrubs to be ready for the operating theatre. I’m about to leave the ward when Sally, one of the young nurses, approaches me.

  She looks worried.

/>   I immediately begin to feel worried too. If I need help, it’s far, far away. The Joker and the Smiling Assassin are both by now down in theatres, doing separate operations. The operating theatres are only two floors down but may as well be Siberia. A patient can deteriorate in five seconds; two floors away is as far as two light years.

  ‘Kitty, it’s Mr Waters … I think he’s sick.’

  Not Mr Waters—anyone but Mr Waters!

  Mr Waters, who has just undergone a major brain operation, is our number one, most important, must-be-kept-alive-at-all-costs, VIP patient. Both his daughters are physicians who work at the private hospital and they’re mates with the Shark. Lucy and Christine Waters come to the ward every day to ‘visit’ their father, which really means to supervise his medical care. I don’t blame them. If I was the doctor caring for my family I’d put myself under supervision too. I like Dr Waters and Dr Waters. I also like Mr Waters. I also want to impress the Shark, who as head of the neurosurgical department is essentially God on Earth. It’s only taken a week for me to start developing full-blown Stockholm Syndrome, which must all be part of the conditioning of a big teaching hospital.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ I ask Sally, trying to sound confident and together, and like, you know, a doctor. (The truth is that whenever someone approaches me in the hospital and opens with, ‘Excuse me, Doctor’, it’s enough to make my heart sink so fast I’m surprised blood doesn’t start seeping out of my shoes. I feel my testicles retracting and I don’t even have any. There aren’t really any words to describe the all-encompassing dread that grips my entire body.)

  ‘He’s shaking. I think he’s got a fever.’ Sally looks as scared as I feel. What she doesn’t look is confident in my abilities, which I find strangely comforting. It’s as if we’re soldiers together, in a situation neither of us can handle, but at least we have each other. We’re Batman and Robin. Sherlock and Watson. Dr Who and companion. We are—

  Except that, as a nurse, Sally doesn’t really have any responsibility beyond informing a doctor what is going on—and that doctor is me.