by Sonia Henry
‘Sounds pretty fun to me.’
We both grin.
‘Oops, sorry!’ I remember. ‘I’m meant to say tjena!’
He looks thrilled. ‘How was Lund?’
‘It was great,’ I tell him, sitting on the edge of the desk next to him. ‘Wolfgang and Tomas were fantastic.’
‘You know they’re coming out here in two months or so. They’ll be in Sydney for a few days before we go to this conference in Fiji.’
‘I know,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve invited them over for dinner.’
He looks surprised. ‘That’s very kind of you.’
‘Tomas had me over for dinner,’ I explain. ‘I can’t cook as well as he can, but I promised them I’d give it a go.’
He nods and doesn’t say anything. I take in his face, the grey-blue eyes and the half-smile, the wrinkles etched into his temples, not quite covered by short brown hair. I want to tell him everything—about what I overheard in the theatre change rooms, about Wolfgang and Nicole, about Estelle. I want to get to know him, properly, away from the operating theatre and the neurosurgical ward. But I can’t think how to begin. So I ask him which patient he wants to visit first, and the round begins.
We walk to bed 3, and he talks to Mrs Jackson about how she’s feeling. I check the obs chart. Stable.
He turns to me, closing the curtain behind him. ‘Did you cross the bridge?’
‘Sorry?’ I’m still recording Mrs Jackson’s respiratory rate.
‘The bridge between Denmark and Sweden,’ he says. ‘Wolfgang has told me it’s beautiful.’
I look up from the chart. ‘God, it is amazing, you know,’ I say with feeling, remembering the windmills emerging from the ocean. ‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it.’
‘Good enough to write about?’
I smile. ‘Definitely good enough to write about.’
He looks around. ‘Do I really only have the two patients?’ he asks. ‘There’s no one else to see?’
‘You’re pretty quiet,’ I explain. ‘I guess because you’ve been away and everything.’
I wish suddenly that he had every single patient in the hospital, and that the round could go on for days.
He pushes his scrub cap back onto his head, signalling it’s time to return to the operating theatre.
‘I believe this might be our last round together,’ he says lightly.
‘I know,’ I reply. ‘And to think we’re spending it here in Sydney when we could be in Lund!’
‘Maybe another time,’ he says, catching my eye as we stand there in our scrubs at the end of the ward. ‘I’m sure stranger things have happened.’
You’ve got no idea, I think.
I watch him walk away, a blue blur returning to the fluorescent lights and open brains, and take a big breath.
‘You know—’ a nurse moves to stand beside me ‘—I’ve never known Jack to round so much. On some terms you never see him. He’s really made an effort this term.’
‘He has?’
‘Admin must have had a word with him,’ she says knowingly. ‘He’s been in their bad books for years.’
I walk home from my last day of neurosurgery feeling cheerful. The feeling lasts all the way until number 19, when I enter the house and hear Estelle say, ‘Yeah, so, I’m totally screwed.’
I find her in the living room, talking to Max and Winnie.
‘The eternal optimist strikes again,’ I can’t resist saying as I throw myself down next to her.
‘Estelle really is screwed, though,’ Max points out. ‘Even more than me, and I’ve got a criminal record.’
Estelle glares at him. ‘Thanks, friend.’
I shoot Max a look. ‘I thought you were going to stay at your mum’s.’
‘I was,’ he explains, ‘but she started on at me about paying her rent and how I eat too much of her food. I just needed some time out.’
Whenever Max gets stressed, he vanishes to his mother’s place. He likes the home-cooked meals and the cleanliness. He usually stays until she starts hassling him about paying rent, which is when he reappears at number 19.
‘You do eat too much food,’ Winnie pipes up. ‘Where’s that chicken I made the other day, for example?’
Max looks irritated. ‘God, don’t you start,’ he snaps. ‘Just give me a fucking break, okay?’
‘I think we all just need to calm down,’ I say, surprised at how high tensions are running as Winnie and Max glower at each other. ‘It’s been a stressful week.’
‘And what would you know?’ Max demands, standing up and turning his glare on me. ‘I’m going to get some sleep before I start this fucking run of nights.’
Estelle raises her eyebrows as he storms into his bedroom. We hear the door slam.
‘Max is really on edge,’ Estelle says. ‘What’s wrong with him anyway?’
‘I think it’s the shift work,’ I say. ‘He really hates working nights.’
Winnie looks over at me. ‘Estelle’s been telling me what happened,’ she says, sounding worried.
‘I figured maybe Winnie could give me some advice, since she’s a lawyer.’
‘I work in tax,’ Winnie reminds her.
‘Hey, did you end up finding your keys that night?’ Estelle asks me out of nowhere.
‘Did you lose your keys again?’ Winnie is amused.
‘Yes, I lost them again,’ I snap, ‘but I found them, okay?’ I’m surprised to hear the edge in my own voice. I hadn’t meant to sound so angry. ‘It was a few weeks back.’
Winnie looks affronted. ‘All right, no need to be so aggro.’
‘I’m not!’
Winnie stares at me. ‘Kitty,’ she says gently, ‘what’s wrong?’
We’ve known each other for two decades; I don’t know why I ever thought I could hide anything from her. ‘I have to tell you something,’ I hear myself saying.
Winnie raises her eyebrows.
‘So the night I thought I lost my keys …’
I tell them everything. By the time I finish, with the Smiling Assassin warning me not to tell anyone what I saw or she’ll ruin me, Estelle is shaking her head so hard I think it’s going to fall off, and Winnie is looking appalled.
‘But of course you have to tell someone!’ Winnie exclaims.
There’s a silence.
‘Well, it’s not that simple …’ I say hesitantly.
‘It sounds totally fucked, though,’ Winnie interrupts indignantly. ‘Like, it’s a total abuse of power, not to mention unhygienic. Who blows someone in a place they’re meant to get changed in before doing an operation?’
‘Yes, okay. But what are you proposing? That I go to admin and say I heard my registrar blowing the junior consultant while I was hiding in a utility room late one night?’
Estelle, quick to understand the likely outcome of a very junior doctor going over the heads of her superiors and also adopting the usual medic approach of being a huge fence-sitter, takes my side. ‘I agree. I don’t think you have much choice other than to stay quiet. As far as I’m concerned it doesn’t leave this room. We shouldn’t even tell Max or the Godfather.’
Winnie looks even more horrified. ‘But someone’s abusing someone and getting away with it! Of course you have to report it! Kitty, you know you can’t just turn a blind eye to this stuff.’
‘I know!’ I get where Winnie’s coming from, but at the same time I can’t see an easy way out. ‘I don’t like it either, but … well, it’s tricky.’
Winnie is shaking her head. ‘You guys are always talking about the shit you have to deal with as junior doctors, but then you’re too scared to say anything that might lead to change.’
I sigh. ‘Maybe I could talk to admin,’ I say half-heartedly. ‘I guess I could at least make them aware of it.’
Estelle isn’t convinced. ‘Winnie, you don’t get it,’ she says straight out. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to actually work inside a system like that. Weird sexual shit aside, we’re all coppin
g heaps of abuse in different forms every day. The best thing you can do is stay quiet and try to survive.’
‘Yeah, but at what cost?’ Winnie sounds incredulous. I know she’s thinking about her mum and Dr George.
At what cost? It’s a good question. One I can’t answer, or don’t want to.
Estelle, tired of the argument, announces she’s going home.
When she’s gone, Winnie gives me a long look. ‘I can’t believe you, Kitty. You know what he’s doing, and you’re just going to say nothing? What has happened to you?’
‘You didn’t see her face when she realised I’d heard,’ I try to explain. I feel miserable.
‘No wonder she’s been so mean to you.’ Winnie runs her hands through her hair. ‘No wonder! I’d be being fucking mean too if I thought I had to give my boss a head job in the toilets at work to get a fucking promotion. She must be so fucking on edge and stressed out. She wasn’t in her right mind when she threatened you. You have to report this, Kitty!’
‘You don’t understand, Winnie,’ I say, feeling the anger rising—at who I’m not quite sure. At Winnie, because I know deep down that she’s right; at the system for allowing such a situation to occur; at the Joker for being such a pig; at the Smiling Assassin for wanting to be a surgeon so much she is prepared to do whatever it takes—even this.
‘You don’t work as a doctor,’ I continue. ‘You think we just go in there and heal people—that we wake up every day just not being able to wait to get into that hospital to commence the fucking healing. There’s not actually that much healing, don’t you get it? There’s so much pressure coming from every angle. And tomorrow I’ve got a ten-hour shift in emergency, with drunk people and sick people and the unrelenting pressure to SEE MORE PATIENTS. I’m barely keeping my head above water, and to deal with this on top of it is bringing me to breaking point!’ ‘Bringing you to breaking point? What about her?!’
‘If I tell anyone and she denies it I’ll be in so much shit!’ I hear my voice getting louder as I attempt to justify why I sound like such a selfish wimp. ‘And even if she doesn’t deny it, there’ll be people who don’t believe me or who’ll just blame me for causing trouble. I’m so junior that nothing I say really matters. You think you get what it’s like being a doctor because you live with me and Max, but you don’t get any of it! YOU JUST DON’T GET IT!’ I am shouting now.
Winnie is looking at me with an expression on her face I’ve never seen before.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say weakly, feeling my heart beating uncomfortably in my chest. ‘That wasn’t fair. I’m sorry.’
For a few moments neither of us speaks. Then Winnie says, ‘I don’t know who you are anymore, Kitty. I just don’t know who the fuck you are.’
Her words hang in the air. The lump in my throat and chest is the size of Everest.
She stands up and lunges at me.
Absurdly, I fear she is about to hit me and I jerk away, but instead she grabs my hand and drags me to my feet, then pulls me over to the mirror on the wall.
‘Look in the mirror, Kitty!’ she orders. I can tell she is trying very hard to make me understand, even through the waves of anger and disappointment. ‘Look in the mirror and tell me what you see!’
I look. I see my long dark brown hair, pulled back in a messy bun because I didn’t have time to brush it. I see my green eyes and my slightly too big nose, and my frame, thinner than normal because I exist on a diet of wine and coffee and overpriced salads from the cafeteria. I look afraid.
Beside me I see Winnie: short blonde hair, big blue eyes, an angry expression.
‘I …’ I don’t know what to say. ‘I don’t …’
‘What are you so afraid of, Kitty?’ Winnie’s voice is steady now. ‘What the fuck are you so afraid of? You never used to be like this. Remember my first job in a law firm, when I was too scared to quit even though I was being bullied? And I said to you, I can’t leave, I can’t. I’ll never get another job; I just have to stay and be miserable. Do you remember what you told me?’
I do remember, but I am too ashamed to say.
‘You told me never to make decisions based on fear,’ she reminds me, her words as piercing as a laser beam. ‘And what are you doing now? Tell me.’
I can’t speak. I just keep staring at the reflection of that girl with her messy hair and her green eyes, and I ask myself the same question: What are you doing now?
‘You’re making decisions and choices that are driven by fear!’ Winnie shouts, finally losing control. ‘And not just about this—about every fucking thing! I was in Switzerland when you met Fabien. I saw how happy you were! I see your face when he’s called or messaged you! And yet you can’t even bring yourself to mention his fucking name. Why? Why can’t you let yourself be happy?’
‘I …’ I can’t speak. I just keep staring at my reflection.
Who is that girl?
‘Is it because he’s not a doctor? Because he’s not as smart as you, the amazing Dr Katarina Holliday? What’s so great about being a fucking doctor anyway? All it does is make you fucking miserable!’
‘It’s not that,’ I say. ‘It’s …’
‘What is it?’ Winnie asks, sounding almost desperate. ‘Tell me, because at this moment I don’t understand. When we were younger all we used to talk about was the pursuit of love and truth and comedy and whatever else would make us happy. Love and truth and fucking laughs, Kitty, and you and me and our happy lives! Where’s the love and where’s the truth? There aren’t any laughs at the moment, I can tell you that.’
Truth and love and laughs—lost to me now. I’m in a dark place and I have no idea how to find my way back.
‘I hate this!’ Winnie says suddenly, stepping away from the mirror. She gestures angrily, and her wineglass slips out of her hand, a perfect arc until it hits the ground. It smashes on the floorboards, and instinctively I step back, like a dog with an injured paw, trying to avoid the glass, but a shard pierces my foot. I reach down without even thinking and pull the piece of glass straight out. It hurts, but part of me enjoys the pain. The blood drips everywhere, down my toes and onto the wooden floorboards.
Winnie, snapping out of her anger, looks horrified.
‘God, Kit, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’
‘No, no, it’s all right.’ I am numb, staring at the blood falling on the wood. ‘I’ll fix it.’
I limp into the bathroom, but instead of washing the blood away I just sit on the edge of the bath. I watch it drip onto the floor, the red shocking on the white ceramic, pooling on the bathroom tiles.
Out damned spot.
I lift my head up and gaze at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I hear Winnie, imploring me: Look in the mirror, Kitty. Look in the mirror and tell me what you see.
I see Alice falling down the rabbit hole.
Going under a white sea of Propofol.
Lost in blood and knives
And other people’s lives.
My intern is a poet.
I sit there, staring at myself in the mirror, the blood on my foot coagulating.
I wish I was skiing with Fabien, I think. I wish I was standing next to him on a ski slope, a bit tipsy after a peach schnapps or two, as he says, ‘Let’s just see where we end up, sexy bum!’
Let’s just see where we end up.
I bite my lip, tasting blood. Is this it? Is this where I’ve ended up?
In a daze, I wipe up the blood with some tissues, and limp up the stairs to my bedroom. I lie down and close my eyes, ignoring the light of the hospital streaming through the cracks in my shutters, and wait for the nightmares to come.
thirty-seven
I open my eyes the next morning and immediately close them again. Never, I think to myself, lying there with my eyes shut, have I been so close to full-blown melancholic depression. I feel like I’m in a very deep and dark ocean, swimming against the tide. The feeling is so strong that my limbs are heavy, and just the thought of dragging
myself out of bed and into my new scrubs, with Holy Innocents Hospital Emergency Doctor inscribed on the pocket, fills me with lead.
Emergency. Casualty. A&E. The way people on TV carry on, you’d think A&E stood for Adventure and Excitement, not Accident and Emergency.
I spent time in emergency as a medical student, so I already have an idea of what’s waiting for me. The emergency department is another world. There are no windows and the fluorescent lights are bright 24/7, because it’s a place that literally never sleeps. Whether it’s 1 pm or 1 am, it feels the same. It’s like a chaotic morgue, where the patients are alive (mostly).
Theoretically, my emergency term, sandwiched as it is between my relief and next surgical term, means a break from the likes of the Joker and the Smiling Assassin, but it isn’t really the kind of reprieve I long for. I want a villa on the Amalfi Coast, not a resuscitation bay.
The only good thing, I remind myself, picking up my phone to see the time—8 am—is that I’m starting on night shifts. This isn’t a good thing per se, and it won’t feel anything close to good tonight, but it does mean that right now I have an excuse to down a glass of wine and a valium, and drift off into pharmaceutically induced oblivion. A benefit is that it will enable me to avoid an encounter with Winnie, who might come home from work wanting to talk about our argument. Nothing will penetrate this combination, I think almost gleefully as I walk downstairs to fill my own prescription.
I wash the tablet down with wine, then go back to bed. A sense of enormous relief comes over me as I let myself go under the wonderful ocean of dense, dark sleep for ten straight hours.
As I walk into the hospital to start my first night shift in the ED, I wonder whether the odd feeling in my stomach is excitement or dread, or a combination of both. Then I step over a drunk twenty-something-year-old girl by the hospital entrance whose stream of vomit nearly hits my shoe, and I just feel tired.
I lean down. ‘Are you all right?’ I ask her, trying not to gag at the smell.
