by Sonia Henry
‘Kitty,’ the Shark says.
I stop talking immediately. I don’t think he’s ever used my nickname. Never. Not even in theatre when he laughed at one of my jokes.
‘Where are you?’
I raise my eyebrows. Now this is definitely getting weird.
‘I’m, ah …’ I don’t want to admit I’m in the cafeteria.
‘Are you with people?’
‘Yeah, I’m with my friends in the caf,’ I say, now so confused I’m honest by accident. ‘It’s just a quick coffee,’ I add defensively.
He sounds relieved. ‘That’s good. Kitty … Katarina … I need to tell you something. I would prefer to do it in person but I’m not at the hospital at the moment. I wanted to call you directly, though.’
I wait.
‘It’s about your registrar,’ he says. ‘Rachel.’
I look at the Godfather’s red eyes and remember what Estelle just said, and I feel my heart sink into my shoes.
‘She’s dead.’
I hear the words but I’m not listening. The Godfather puts his hand on my arm and I see my phone clattering onto the table, nearly knocking over Estelle’s coffee.
Dead. My mind rolls the word over. Asleep. More than asleep. Quiet. Silent.
Dead.
Just like Mrs Davies. Estelle is trying to talk to me but her words are a blur. I’m back on the ward last night, answering my pager. It’s like someone hits rewind and I swear I look up and the Croatian cleaner is coming towards me, slowly dragging her mop and bucket.
Death comes like a thief in the night and we must always be ready.
But I’m not ready, I think, panicking. I’m not ready for any of this! I feel like I am Mr Davies. He wasn’t ready either! How did Rachel die? Where’s her body now? Did it hurt? Was she in pain? Did someone have to call her family? The whys, the hows, the questions swarm through my brain. Questions that no one, not even the smartest palliative care physician in the world, will be able to answer.
‘Kitty?’ The Godfather is staring at me anxiously. ‘Kitty, are you okay?’
We always assume we understand death, I think, watching the world buzz around me in the hospital cafeteria. God knows we see enough of it. Now I know the truth. For all my medical experience, I have just as little comprehension of what death means as Mr Davies the night he sobbed down the phone when I called to tell him his wife had died.
Remember man that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.
There are few true equalisers in the world, but death is one of them. Grief—the universal adaptor, almost cruel in its convenience—can fit any human plug.
fifty-four
Rachel Copeland was born on 7 July 1985 and died on 28 November 2016. She was thirty-one years old. When she was a child she liked playing tennis and told her mother she wanted to be an actress but gave it up for the pursuit of medicine. Children always dream of being actresses or writers but, like my mum always said, actresses and writers starve and doctors don’t. Maybe Rachel’s mum told her the same thing, I don’t know. After medical school, she was set on becoming a surgeon. The only place she wanted to be was inside an operating theatre. She exchanged the ambition for one stage with another.
When she was my registrar I hated her. She reduced me to tears, belittled me, and made my work days a living hell. Other people told me that when they knew her, not so very long before I was her intern and the Joker her boss, she was funny and nice and loved doing karaoke. She missed her ex-boyfriend, who lived in another state, but she’d had to break up with him to come to Sydney to take the job of her dreams. She had a pet dog called Wolverine, and a collection of fridge magnets she’d bought on her travels through her early twenties. I found it hard to reconcile the woman I had known with the picture they painted. It made me realise that I hadn’t really known her at all.
Her friends told me about her enormous intellect and determination, that these qualities could have got her anywhere. In the end, I guess they did. The morning she died she convinced the nursing staff to let her out on leave after her morning session with the psychiatrist, and she fled the psych unit on foot. She ran to the nearest major intersection and threw herself in front of a bus. They say she died on the footpath about two minutes later, and that she didn’t utter a single word.
The hospital sends us a three-sentence email with a link to a counselling service and we keep going to work as if nothing has happened. They hold a small memorial service in the chapel which is interrupted by the constant beeping of pagers and awkward speeches by doctors who knew her and who have the same look in their eyes I’d seen in Dr Prince’s the night I sat in his hospital room.
At home that night, I look at the memorial booklet with a picture of her on the front. The photo was taken in France, the caption says, in a town called Èze. I can see the Mediterranean in the background. As well as her many other skills, Dr Rachel Copeland spoke fluent French, having lived there for a year after she finished high school. I remember the morning on the surgical ward, and the funny expression on her face when she’d talked about the south of France. I wish to God that I had asked her about it then. I wish I’d known she could speak fluent French because of a conversation we’d had at work as colleagues, not because of a photograph on the cover of her funeral booklet.
I stare at the frozen image, at her smile and her hair. In the photo it’s windblown and bleached white by the sun, not the neatly coiffed style I’d envied with perfect honey highlights. I stare at her smattering of freckles, dotted carelessly along her cheeks. An artist accidentally flicked his brush and sunlight scattered across the canvas of holiday skin, like gold poured into the crack of a finely wrought ceramic, the impossible contradiction of perfect imperfection.
I google Èze and discover it is a fortified medieval town that has been home to some of the world’s most famous artists, writers and actors over the centuries. I try to imagine Rachel there, sitting in the sun, drinking wine and being happy. The images are distorted, mixed in with the look on her face when she saw me outside the change rooms, or on the ward rounds, when she told me that everything I did was always wrong. I wish I’d met her in Èze, and that I had known her as she was then.
The symbol of Èze is a phoenix perched on a bone, I learn, and the town’s motto is Isis Moriendo Renascor—In death I am reborn.
All I can hope is that it’s true. But who knows? Maybe at the end there is just the impact of a bus going sixty kilometres an hour, metal on flesh, and then nothing.
fifty-five
I’m not surprised when I receive the email. I had a feeling that the Joker wouldn’t just let things slide. I’ve no doubt that, after Rachel’s death, a few questions are being asked—but, knowing the hospital, there’ll be a quick internal investigation and the case will be closed. I’ve already heard the usual whisperings: ‘She had issues’, and, ‘She was struggling’, and, worst of all, ‘Some people just can’t hack surgery.’ I’ve seen the Joker a few times since Rachel died and he’s been his usual self. He doesn’t seem to be particularly perturbed by what happened, and there’s no sense that he realises her suicide was largely his fault. I know he must be worried that I’ll tell the hospital what I saw, though, so I assume he’s trying to destroy my credibility before I can destroy his.
Dear Katarina,
The hospital executive and myself have had a serious matter brought to our attention. We would like to request a meeting with you to discuss.
We suggest Thursday at 4.15 pm in my office, which is on level 2 of the main hospital. Should you have any questions or wish to discuss anything prior, please call me.
It’s signed by Dr Lawson, terrifyingly, the Director of Medical Services. I notice that the entire executive have been copied in.
‘I think I’m about to get sacked,’ I tell Winnie before I walk to work on Thursday morning. I’m feeling surprisingly relaxed about it. My main worry is still Dr Prince. I’ve decided long ago to fall on my sword rather than get him into troub
le.
‘I just had a really big crush on him, and I made up the kiss because I wished it would happen, but he was always so professional there was no way it ever would,’ I practise saying to the mirror in the bathroom of number 19.
‘Nicole had a relationship with a surgeon I am now good friends with,’ I rehearse to Winnie, who’s in the kitchen as I walk out of the bathroom, ‘and I feel as if she became jealous of our friendship and has subsequently made up these vexatious lies.’
As for the Joker, well, I sought the counsel of the Godfather, who’s become our go-to legal representative, and on his advice I documented every single time the Joker bullied me.
‘I can’t believe you used to be a lawyer,’ I said to the Godfather in awe. I thought about that for a moment. ‘Actually, maybe I can,’ I corrected myself, remembering that lawyers are renowned for their copious cocaine use.
‘Your mates can be full of surprises, Kitty,’ he said seriously, putting his arm around me. ‘I haven’t even told you about the methamphetamine production line under my apartment building.’
I looked at him, eyes wide.
‘Joking!’ he said, grinning.
Was he joking? I wondered. Best not to go there …
I also wrote an account of my conversation with the Smiling Assassin about the Joker’s coercion, but I’m not sure yet if I’ll bring that up. Those are the big guns, the Godfather told me, only to be fired if things are truly dire.
‘Okay,’ I said, feeling a bit sick.
‘Be confident,’ he urged. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong. Yeah, you kissed your boss after a boozy dinner. Big fucking deal. This other guy, the Joker, he’s behaved disgracefully.’ He shook his head. ‘Look, if it gets too much, say you’d like to call your lawyer, and I’ll walk down from the ward and be there as your advocate.’
We both grinned, imagining me presenting my lawyer—another intern. At least it would be kind of funny.
The hours crawl towards 4.15 pm. I barely focus at work. I screw up cannulas on every single unfortunate patient who needs a drip on the ward because I’m so distracted.
I meet up with Estelle at 3.45 pm. I’m reluctant to tell her that the fateful night when I met her in the utility room has led to my demise, so instead I explain that Nicole has told the Joker I had an affair with Dr Prince and now I’m disgraced professionally and probably so is he.
‘God, you didn’t even have sex with him,’ she says, rolling her eyes. ‘At least then you could have said it was worth it. All you managed was a pash and a heart attack.’
‘It’s like the name of a band,’ I can’t help pointing out. ‘Pash and Attack.’
‘Or a dance move,’ Estelle says and, despite ourselves, we both smile. ‘You know,’ she muses, ‘I always did have this dream of opening a little ice-cream shop by the sea. I was going to call it Hot Licks. I think it would have been a huge success.’
I picture a nice little ice-cream place in an idyllic seaside location. I see Estelle and myself in matching aprons, with long sun-flecked hair and golden tans.
‘Man, that would be so good,’ I say wistfully, looking across at her.
‘It’s not too late,’ Estelle says. ‘By the end of this week we could both be out of a job, so why not?’
‘I wonder if Dad would lend me some money to get Hot Licks started? I could sell it to him as an investment …’
‘There’s really nothing to worry about,’ Estelle says positively. ‘Just go in there, tell them the truth—what a fucking knob old mate is—then say thanks very much you’re quitting anyway. This time next week, we’ll be looking for a nice little shop to rent in Palm Beach or somewhere.’
Estelle and I have been through a lot together. If I’m going to throw it all in to open an ice-cream shop with anybody, I’m glad it’s her.
‘Hot Licks, mate,’ are her last words to me before I leave the cafeteria to attend my own execution. ‘It’ll be way more fun than this.’
fifty-six
‘Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee,’ I think gloomily as I make my way to level two. Well, I’ve been a doctor for a little less than a year, and it looks as if the journey is about to end.
I’d like to thank my friends, my family …
A billion years of hard studying only to find myself in this stupid situation, I think as I stand in front of the door to Dr Lawson’s office.
I knock.
The door opens, and I see Dr Lawson, Nicole (to whom I give a dark look), Professor Trimby (who is the big boss overarching everything), and two empty chairs.
‘Take a seat, Katarina,’ Dr Lawson says—quite kindly, all things considered.
I sit.
‘We’re just waiting for a couple more people,’ she explains, seeing me glance at the other chairs.
This is interesting. The Joker will be one of them, I suspect, but who’s the other?
No one says anything. Professor Trimby offers me a glass of water, which I decline. Then I hear footsteps coming up the corridor. The door opens and in walks …
‘Max?’
My housemate is standing in the doorway, looking extremely nervous.
I jump to my feet. ‘Mate!’ I exclaim, too loudly. ‘I thought you weren’t back from Europe for another ten days, at least!’
Max gives me a look that says, Just shut up for a second.
‘Came home early,’ he mutters, his eyes boring into mine.
No one else looks surprised to see him. I sit back down, completely speechless. What on earth is Max doing here? I suddenly remember the few times I’d seen him before he left for Europe, how stressed and anxious he looked, as if there was something he was on the verge of saying, but he was holding back.
Another tap at the door and the Joker appears, looking bored and irritated.
Dr Lawson clears her throat. ‘Well, now we are all here, I suppose we can get started.’
I take a deep breath, and steel myself for the worst.
‘I’d like to ask what the hell this is about?’ the Joker demands, sounding incredibly angry.
I look at him in disbelief. What? Hadn’t he been the one to call the meeting, to discuss my affair with Dr Prince? I try to catch Nicole’s gaze, but she steadfastly refuses to make eye contact.
I start to feel extremely confused.
‘I think Max should begin,’ Dr Lawson says, giving the Joker a sharp look. ‘Max, would you like to tell us what you saw on the night of June the twelfth, while you were in the male theatre change rooms?’
It suddenly dawns on me: Max was present that night as well. No wonder he’s been behaving so oddly.
I stare at Max in shock as he starts to talk.
‘I stayed back late to finish some research,’ he says, ‘and the person covering theatres after hours had called in sick. Because I’m keen to do surgery, I offered to replace her so the on-call doctor didn’t have to come in.’
Everyone nods. I nod too. The Joker starts to look a bit uncomfortable.
‘And the list finished at about ten-thirty that night,’ he continues.
Yes, I think, that would have been right. That’s when Estelle sent me the call-to-arms text, and I met her in the utility room.
‘I went into the change room and then I needed to go to the bathroom. I didn’t think I could wait till I got home …’ He pauses, looking a bit sheepish.
‘It’s okay, Max, you don’t have to justify needing to use the bathroom,’ Dr Lawson says, sounding almost amused.
‘Anyway, I was just about to flush the toilet,’ Max says, embarrassed, ‘when I heard some, ah … some unusual sounds.’ He glances briefly at the Joker.
The Joker starts to speak, but Dr Lawson puts up her hand. ‘Let him finish,’ she orders.
‘I heard someone calling someone else a … slut,’ Max says awkwardly, ‘and then what sounded like people taking their clothes off. I wanted to see what was going on, in case it was something bad, so I really quietly opened the toilet
door and looked around the corner. They didn’t see me, but I could see them.’
‘What did you see, Max?’ Dr Lawson leans in.
‘I saw Dr …’ Max tips his head towards the Joker, ‘standing up with his pants off and one of the other doctors in the hospital … um …’
Everyone is silent.
‘You know,’ Max says uncomfortably, ‘ah, performing oral … sex … on him.’
At this the Joker starts shouting and Dr Lawson starts shouting back, trying to calm him down. Max looks like he’s about to be sick, and I just sit there, feeling completely numb. All this time, Max knew. If I’d said something or he’d said something, if we’d joined forces and done something sooner, together, maybe she would still be alive.
Through the numbness, I start to wonder exactly why I’m present at the meeting. No one has mentioned anything to do with me and Dr Prince. Max also wouldn’t have known I had been there, as by the time I’d encountered Rachel she was out of the change room and Max’s earshot.
‘This is bullshit,’ the Joker snarls. ‘It’s his word against mine. And just for argument’s sake, say it did happen—and I’m not saying it did—but if two consenting adults should engage in such behaviour, well, doctors have done a lot worse behind closed doors.’
Even though I know it isn’t true, I have to admit he has a point. I also know I can’t back Max up, because if I say anything then the Joker will spill the beans about Dr Prince.
Dr Lawson looks at me. ‘Katarina, you must be wondering why you’re here.’
I nod. Well, sort of, yes.
I can feel the Joker’s eyes burning into me. I feel less angry and more tired. I wish the Smiling Assassin (Rachel, I remind myself) was still alive so she could stand up and tell them what he had done to her. Unfortunately, she’s dead, I’m alone, and he’ll probably end up getting away with everything.
Dr Lawson clears her throat. ‘Katarina, we have something that we’d like you to read.’
I have no idea what she’s talking about. Crazily, I wonder for a split second if I’ve documented something incorrectly in the patient notes and that I’m getting in trouble.
