The Practice Baby

by LM Ardor

  The letter was still there on the table. There were pages of explanatory notes. She should turn on the light and look at it. As she got up to go to the light switch there was an eruption of high-pitched screams then a crash above her. Heavy footsteps ran across the roof from north to south.

  Dee jumped and gasped. Her heart thumped in her chest. It kept on thumping. It was only a possum who’d lost a territorial fight making his escape across her roof. Most nights there was possum action. After years of coexistence she usually didn’t even wake when it happened. Tonight, she was terrified.

  Alone wasn’t going to work. She went to the bathroom and tried Raj again.

  No answer but a few seconds after she hung up he rang her. The relief was wonderful. She let go and slumped down onto the floor and leant against the toilet.

  ‘Oh Raj, thank goodness. What are you doing tonight?’

  51.

  ‘Dee, I’m so glad you rang. I thought you might be in bed but I wanted to talk to you.’

  Raj sounded worried. How could he know what was going on? Maybe he’d guessed from the missed call.

  ‘Me too, thanks. You’ve been off the air—busy?’

  ‘I’ve been Skyping India. Abbi’s sick. They think it could be measles.’

  ‘Oh, Raj …’

  ‘They weren’t going to tell me. I only heard second-hand that there’s been an outbreak at the school they go to. Marina said it didn’t matter. I’ve been looking it up—children die of measles.’

  There was no way Dee could bring up the medical board letter. How could a threat like that compare to a threat to your child? She had three healthy children, thank God. She needed to get a grip.

  ‘That’s true. Most children get through it but there is a significant risk of complications. So I guess you’re going to India?’

  ‘Do you think I should?’

  ‘Of course you should.’

  ‘Priya says I’ll embarrass them and they aren’t ready for someone so “unusual”.’

  ‘Isn’t Priya gay?’

  ‘Yes but not publicly.’

  ‘Raj, you know that’s just internalised homophobia. Priya doesn’t sound too together. The kids could do with some alternative role models. What about Marina?’

  ‘They’re both devoted to the girls but scared of the consequences if anything came out about their lesbianism.’

  ‘What do the girls think is going on? That their father doesn’t care enough to see them?’

  ‘Please, Dee, don’t you think I’ve tortured myself enough with that? No one’s said anything to them—it’s not spoken.’

  Dee had to try to understand. India wasn’t like the West where the battles for gay liberation had been fought since the seventies. To be gay in India was a criminal offence. But she had also seen the harm that came from hiding. Her mother’s brother was gay. Lovely, funny, smart Uncle Frank, who’d killed himself before being sacked from his job as a university lecturer. He was outed by a student who had seen him on a beat. Her mum never spoke about the details but it sounded as though he might have weathered the storm if he hadn’t felt such deep shame about what he called his compulsion. Life was much easier now for those who were different; still not a piece of cake but easier and that ease had been won by being open, ‘out and proud’ rather than ashamed.

  ‘Raj, you need to go back and see the girls, especially Abbi. Marina has no right, legal or moral, to prevent you seeing them.’

  ‘We’ve been talking about that and she seems to be coming round to a short visit—I don’t want to push it in case she backtracks.’

  ‘Stop being ridiculous. Your daughters need you. Take charge; ruffle some feathers. Measles is a serious disease and highly contagious; chances are Marika will get it too. They were vaccinated, weren’t they?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but epidemics pop up all the time in India. The gardener’s son had it and it swept through the school. The annual death rate from measles in India—’ Raj’s voice broke; he couldn’t go on.

  ‘Raj, just go.’

  ‘Okay, thanks.’ Dee heard tears in his voice.

  *

  The possum territorial dispute continued across the roof for a couple of hours. Dee reasoned that no one had a reason to attack her physically. The threat to her career and reputation was enough.

  Raj’s news put things in perspective. She didn’t have a sick child.

  52.

  On the weekend, the kids were officially back with Dee, although their many extra-curricular activities meant her main contact was while ferrying them to and from soccer, drama, and parties. Beatrice did a lot of the driving. She would soon be ready for her test.

  Ollie had a meltdown about where his socks for soccer were. Dee didn’t rescue him. It was his job to wash the uniform and he had to deal with it. She watched as he ranted and slammed things about. He was so much like her. Once she detached and let him be responsible for the socks she even loved him for his bad temper. Like hers it happened when he was stressed, when something simple, like food, or a sleep, or even a cuddle, was missing. Then once the basic need was supplied he’d calm down, show his vulnerability.

  This wasn’t a serious episode, only an attempt to get her to sort it out. When she didn’t, he found some dirty socks in the washing basket and wore those.

  ‘Ollie, Ollie,’ Dee called as he got out of the car. ‘Come here.’

  ‘What do you want? I’m in a hurry,’ her son called back in a mildly exasperated tone.

  ‘Come here.’

  He came. Dee got out of the car and gave him a full body hug.

  ‘I love you and I’ll never stop.’ His body submitted and Dee felt him melt into her.

  ‘I know,’ he said quietly then stiffened. ‘Let me go, I’m late.’

  He wasn’t late but she let him go. Beatrice, who was driving, rolled her eyes as Dee got back in the car.

  ‘Watch out; you’re not too old either,’ Dee said.

  ‘Mum, what’s got into you?’ Beatrice smiled.

  *

  That afternoon Dee took the medical board letter outside and sat with her legs in the sun to read the rest of it. The general preamble described the duty of the medical board to protect the public from practitioners who were dangerous due to a physical or mental impairment. That was reasonable, but the presumption of innocence was different from that of a court. The protection of the public was paramount; the rights of the practitioner less significant.

  Dee had to tell someone what was going on.

  The children were too young. Their role wasn’t to care for her. It was better if they found out once it was done—whatever the outcome they wouldn’t have this agonising wait; they could get on with it; deal with the actual situation—that was always easier.

  At work she should give William and Chris some warning that their workload was about to double. The reception staff would need to know what to say to her patients. Janelle was a great sounding board. Dee felt bad about not giving her some idea of what was happening.

  Raj was the person she was closest to now but he was away with his children for the first time in years. This news would be too much.

  She considered other friends. There was no one she wanted to know while there was the slimmest hope that she would be allowed to continue in practice. The thought of the conversation was too much.

  Rob was her last resort. If pushed, she might have to tell him, ask for his help. Dreadful as their breakup had been, the years they were together meant something. She trusted him as a friend. To tell him made it real though, and Rob would tell Stephanie. Dee was uncomfortable with that. They were all civil, it was the only way, but there was still a power play between the old and the new wives. To be in need of help undermined her as independent, happy with life, free of the encumbrance of a husband. It made her vulnerable. She decided to wait till after she saw the psychiatrist.

  53.

  The psychiatrist’s rooms in Neutral Bay were in a restored terrace house in a resid
ential street. The suburb was on the opposite side of the harbour from her practice, away from any place she usually referred patients and not close to her home. A painted glass plaque next to the door said ‘Mayfield’. There was no sign that the place was anything other than a domestic dwelling. Was it his home? She checked the address on the letter again. This was it.

  The discrete entrance intensified her shame. No one knew about the medical board enquiry, not even Raj. She had told Janelle and the others that she had a dental appointment.

  The door was opened by a man around Dee’s age dressed in a conservative tie and white handmade shirt ironed to a perfection that said stay-at-home wife.

  ‘Dr Flanary?’

  Dee nodded.

  ‘I’m John Jamison. Please come in.’

  As he shook her hand he gave her a big smile, one that almost reached his eyes. His teeth were white but slightly irregular. She got a glimpse of sharp canines.

  The empathic, respectful tone and the faux-real smile were techniques used to disarm patients who were used to being in control; the ones who didn’t usually see doctors, who were too busy and self-important; or the bullies: the ones whose fear was managed by domination of others.

  She hesitated at the door, then sighed and stepped into his domain. She followed him through a reception/waiting room area that was unmanned to a room with a couch, armchairs and a desk with a phone and a file with her name on it. The furniture was Ikea, decent quality but not recent and there was the faint musty odour of a place closed up most of the time—not his house. The large window opened onto a narrow side passage and had a wooden slat blind to allow in some light while still maintaining privacy.

  Her head fizzed with flippant irrelevancies. Was he teased with his initials, JJ, at school? It was a name for a pet or a hooker. She had a pun on the word ‘neutral’ in Neutral Bay on the tip of her tongue. She bit the inside of her lips. She had to sound reasonable and concerned; not trivialise the situation with jokes.

  Try to be positive, this was a chance to put her side of the story.

  He gestured towards an armchair and asked if she wanted coffee or tea.

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Dee.

  ‘How would you like to be addressed?’ JJ asked as he sat down.

  ‘This is a formal situation with major consequences for me, so let’s stick with professor and doctor.’

  No JJ jokes.

  ‘Good.’ He smiled again.

  Dee was faintly resentful. He appropriated her protest by agreeing with her suggestion of formality—as though it was his idea to acknowledge the threat rather than hers.

  ‘You are aware of the purpose of this meeting,’ he asked and immediately continued, ‘I have been asked by the medical board for an assessment of your mental state after concern from another practitioner.’

  Dee nodded.

  ‘It’s easiest if we sort out the basics first. My usual practice is to record all interviews so I can listen properly without taking notes. They’re for my private use of course. Is that okay with you?’

  What could she say? If she refused she sounded paranoid, but the idea of a recording made her uneasy. A subpoena could release any notes, written or recorded. Her words could be taken out of context and used in evidence against her. Still if, she corrected herself, as she had done nothing wrong, it couldn’t harm her, could it? And it meant he couldn’t twist or misrepresent what she said. Her head was spinning before they’d started the interview.

  ‘No, I’d be more comfortable with you taking written notes. And a copy for me would be helpful.’

  At least that meant he’d have to take his eyes off her now and again. She couldn’t see any recording device. Was it hidden under the desk with a remote switch? Her mind was racing. She was doing herself in with these fears. If she didn’t get control she’d come across as a total nutter.

  Her thoughts spun off onto the observer effect—being examined by a psychiatrist made her have crazy thoughts and be paranoid. The other explanation was that she was clinically insane. People who were psychotic had no idea they were irrational. Why couldn’t that be what was going on with her? She didn’t seriously believe that but had to admit it was possible. Still if she were truly psychotic she wouldn’t have any doubts, everything would have the absolute certainty of psychosis. Without Raj, no one, except old Jock the eccentric neighbour, and Leah, whose sanity she herself had doubted, believed her. This was probably exactly how someone who was delusional would feel.

  How much did the observer effect come into play in her interviews with patients? She resolved to be more careful, not to be too quick to come to a judgement about a patient’s sanity.

  For now she needed to get a grip, pay attention, be in the moment—use mindfulness techniques to get control. She concentrated on his hairline. There were two-millimetre clumps of hair in a line across his forehead: a hair transplant.

  His vanity on display cheered her up. Evidence of vulnerability, a flaw in his personality, made him less threatening, just a man, not a brilliant analyst who could see into her thoughts.

  It might be better for their relationship if he didn’t see her looking at his hairline.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. This time the smile showed his gums. Dee wanted to bare hers in response but didn’t. He got up and took a clipboard and pen from his desk drawer.

  ‘Let’s start with your background first and leave the current situation till we know each other better.’

  You already have Adam’s version of the current situation in your head, she thought.

  ‘Tell me about your early life.’

  Dee was an only child and for most of her childhood her mother was a single parent. So many clichés were associated with both those situations. The professor would categorise her and her mother as in some way damaged, impaired by poverty and isolation. Her mother was a schoolteacher, and headmistress by the time she retired. After her father’s early death, Dee was cared for by a neighbour who was a full-time carer for a son with cerebral palsy.

  ‘Mum was a schoolteacher and Dad died when I was five. She never remarried.’

  ‘Siblings?’

  ‘No, but I spent a lot of time with a neighbour who had four children.’

  ‘Tell me more about your mother.’

  ‘She was a good person. Kind and affectionate.’ He wouldn’t understand that kind and affectionate could be expressed through a close, obsessive control of her daughter’s activities. ‘Before my father died she was an opera singer but she gave that up and worked as a teacher to support us. It was hard but she gave us a good life. She was a headmistress by the time she retired.’

  ‘Any mental health problems, alcohol, drug use?’

  ‘No.’ Dee wasn’t willing to go there. She’d often wondered why her mother didn’t go out with other men. Why she gave up opera, wouldn’t let it be played in the house. This man wouldn’t understand.

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘He was a surveyor. He taught at the university at night. He drowned. I only have a few memories of him.’

  ‘Did your father have any history of depression?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any other family history of depression or suicides?’

  Are you trying to suggest …? Again, Dee stopped herself from vocalising the thought. She would come across as angry and defensive. Her parents were good people—how could this brief interview get any idea of their complexity. The psychiatrist was just doing his job. She needed him to think she was reasonable, sane.

  ‘No. Dad was killed by a freak wave when he was fishing on the rocks—Mum said he kept us fed by fishing.’

  JJ didn’t write that down.

  ‘You spent time with neighbours. Any issues there?’

  ‘It was fun. Like having a family.’

  That made it sound like her mother was inadequate. She was just busy, getting on with the challenges of single parenthood.

  ‘Did you ever experience abuse?’

  ‘No
. Never.’

  JJ looked down to make a note. Each time he wrote she assumed a judgement like ‘denies abuse’ or some equally prejudiced interpretation of what she had said.

  ‘Any other major traumas in your life?’

  ‘No, no major traumas. I was probably too young to understand what happened to Dad. Mum was strong. She protected me from her grief.’

  Dee was surprised at how combative her thoughts were. This man and the medical board were supposed to be benign, disinterested, wanting to find out the facts, their only purpose to protect the public. It didn’t feel like that.

  His questions about her childhood and time at medical school picked away at what she had done to cope with having to move away from home, with a mother who sacrificed, scrimped and saved to keep her there. Coping seemed like a failure to recognise the difficulties. At the same time any signs she wasn’t coping indicated failure.

  She was in a lose–lose situation.

  She didn’t mention her relationship with Adam although she knew JJ would have Adam’s account of it.

  He wanted to know about her alcohol intake.

  ‘Two to three standard drinks once or twice a week.’ No one tells the truth to that question. ‘And no other substances. I don’t gamble.’ Dee answered all the questions she knew would follow. It saved the insult of being asked.

  Another smile with a slight twist to his mouth this time.

  ‘You are divorced. Your husband has remarried. How did you find that?’

  ‘I think we managed better than most. We made an effort to be friends for the sake of the children. We have family times, like Christmas, together.’

  ‘The children live with you. Is it stressful to be a single parent?’

  ‘No more than being married to a husband who was always at work.’

  ‘Is there anyone in the picture for you?’

  ‘No.’ Who could explain what was going on between her and Raj? She kept talking, ‘But I have several close friends. No close family. I still see the neighbour who minded me when I was little.’