I crouch down beside her, my arm round her shoulder, and look down at the expressionless face of her husband. Jerry goes to get her phone book so she can make some calls, let their adult children know their father is gone.
The man’s last words repeat in my head.
Damn this stupid cough.
Last words are not important, not like they are in movies. I’ve never heard dark secrets or clues revealed. If anything, last words are banal. Even so, some of them I can’t forget.
‘I’m telling you it’s undercooked, my dear.’
‘Just pass the remote.’
‘Anyone seen my pills?’
‘Gotta go to the toilet.’
‘Shut up, will you?’
‘Stop annoying me.’
Sudden death rarely allows for lines like, ‘I’ve always loved you, darling,’ or ‘The hour has come,’ or ‘Seize the day and believe in yourself, my son.’
It’s a pity, really. If we lived a less profane existence, if we spoke more wisely always, our last words might count. Every other important life event, like our weddings and birthdays, is scripted. But death is most often a surprise. I don’t so much fear death as fear it will be ordinary, or that I’ll utter something stupid just before I’m taken.
Jerry buys me a coffee and we give John a call to check in. It goes to voicemail. We’ve taken only a sip of coffee when Control decides to send us to an asthma attack in Bondi.
‘Went to a nasty asthma case with John the other day,’ I say. ‘She bloody died.’
Jerry leans across and flicks the siren on.
‘Better make some noise then,’ he says.
We fly past busy cafés, making such a racket that people put their fingers in their ears.
‘Look at them,’ Jerry scoffs, shaking his head. ‘We sit here with the siren blaring day and night and these soft Bondi hipsters can’t stand a few seconds.’
I take a wrong turn down a narrow one-way street and throw on the brakes. I try to reverse but three cars have lined up behind me.
‘Hope the patient’s not too crook,’ says Jerry, unhelpfully.
On cue, our data terminal updates. Our patient is no longer breathing. A friend has started mouth-to-mouth.
‘For fuck’s sake, man. I thought you knew this street?’ Jerry says. He opens his door and hops out. He walks back to direct the traffic behind us while I curse and begin reversing the ambulance with the siren still on.
Once we’re out of the one-way trap it’s only half a minute to the scene. Heaped with our gear, we plunge down the stairs of a unit block. On the concrete porch outside number two, a young man is lying on the ground surrounded by his friends. A pale girl with long hair is giving him the mouth-to-mouth. She looks up between each breath, her eyes pleading with us for help.
‘You’ve done well,’ I tell the girl. ‘Stop there and let’s see how he is.’
She backs away, wiping her mouth. ‘His name’s Billy. He didn’t have his Ventolin. He said he was having an asthma attack; we didn’t know what to do.’
But Billy is breathing just fine. His lungs are inflating with ease and there’s no audible wheeze, not even a hint. Jerry gently runs a finger over the lashes of Billy’s closed eyes. The lashes flutter in response, a sure sign he’s not unconscious.
Jerry shakes his head. He hates people bunging it on, and is clearly pissed off. But we have to be sensitive in how we resolve it. I lean down beside our patient and speak in a whisper so no one will hear.
‘Now listen, Billy. We know you’re a faker; I’ve seen a whole lot. We’re pretty hard to fool. You have your reasons and we don’t want to embarrass you. So what I’ll do is put oxygen on your face and you can wake up, okay?’
Billy gives me a subtle nod and I crank on the cylinder and let him have a minute of oxygen.
‘He’ll pull through,’ I announce to the group. ‘Any second now he’ll come round.’
Billy begins to moan. He stirs gradually, like all fakers do, as if emerging from under a spell. He rubs his eyes and looks around with comic-book confusion. ‘W–w– … what happened? Where am I?’ he asks. ‘What’re you all doing here?’
Together, Jerry and I escort Billy to his bedroom and close the door behind us.
‘What’s with the stunt?’ I ask him.
‘Sorry, I didn’t think they’d actually call you.’
‘You did tell them you were having an asthma attack.’
‘It wasn’t about that.’
‘What then?’
‘The girl.’
‘The girl?’
‘Christie. I’ve liked Christie for years and she won’t go out with me. I can’t stop thinking about her. Do you know what that feels like? To love someone and not be loved back? Anyway, she did a first-aid certificate a couple of weeks ago and, well, I got to thinking …’
‘You wanted to be her patient? You wanted her to give you mouth-to-mouth?’
He nods. ‘Kiss of life, yeah. But not just that. I wanted to see if she cared enough to, you know, save me from dying …’
Jerry sighs. I’m surprised he’s so unimpressed. Faking an asthma attack to get kissed by a girl is something I could imagine Jerry doing as a teenager.
Billy looks ashamed. ‘I really didn’t think they’d call you. I was enjoying it, and before I knew it you were there and I was in too deep. You were so quick! I’m sorry. Please don’t tell her I faked it, please …’
Some paramedics might contact the police at this point. But I like his sense of romance, his cheekiness. There’s not enough of it about these days. I too have pulled some pranks for love in my time. Once, at Heathrow Airport, I turned up in a gorilla suit to surprise Kaspia at Arrivals.
As we walk out the door I glance back at Billy, who is sitting on the edge of his bed, a victim of unrequited love, tenderly licking his lips with a smile at the edge of his mouth.
It’s mid-afternoon when a man goes under a train at Bondi Junction. Our control needs two crews for the case. My stomach is turning and I hope we’re not the ones picked, but since we’re the second-closest ambulance we’re given the job. The only relief is that it’s Jerry and me going, and not John. The similarity to his nephew’s death could have been enough to tip him right over.
I don’t do ambulance work for the gore, I never have. Even the thought of major trauma makes me sick. I still remember my first ‘train job’ on the North Shore Line. My palms were all sweaty, my heart beating hard. The man’s headless body lay on the tracks: just a torso and a leg. I found a pair of shoes and his mobile phone ten metres from his body. An audio message blinked on the screen, a suicide statement we played then and there. In the message he listed the people he loved and he sobbed through each name. He apologised for dying in the way that he had.
We put a sheet on his body and searched for his head. We looked along the tracks, poked around in the shrubs nearby.
Plenty of people hit by trains will be thrown, their bodies intact. But if they go underneath, their injuries are horrendous and few will survive. Only those completely immersed in their own sadness and pain could forget about the emergency workers who will clean up their bodies.
We arrive at the station and go down the escalators to the underground platforms. An ambulance crew is already there and Mia from Paddington gives us a wave.
According to witnesses, an elderly man in a suit and bow tie has calmly walked forward into the path of a train.
‘Where’s your partner?’ Jerry asks Mia.
‘Crawling down there,’ she says, pointing under the train.
‘Is the guy still alive?’
She shrugs then calls out, ‘Mandy! Hey, Mandy! Is he dead or alive?’
‘Dead!’ comes the reply.
A moment later we hear Mandy again, sounding distressed.
‘Oh my God! How disgusting!’
We all crouch and lean down, the police officers too, and imagine the worst.
‘What is it?’ calls Mia. ‘You good?’
/>
I’m glad it’s just us who hear Mandy’s reply.
‘Chewing gum, damn it. Stuck to my pants!’
Everyone lets out a sigh of relief.
One suicide a day is plenty for me, but we don’t get a choice to leave it at that. At six in the evening we’re sent to The Gap for a girl on the edge. Suicides peak in the lead-up to Christmas; it’s the same every year. But it’s never this bad, and Jerry agrees.
We’re late to the scene and glad the police have beaten us there. Down from the lighthouse the police rescue squad are rigging up ropes to their truck. There’s nothing much else to tie off on up here. Plan A is to talk the girl down from her perch. Plan B is to grab her if she tries to go over.
Jerry checks the glovebox then slams it shut, annoyed.
‘No Nobby’s Nuts? You and John eat them all?’
I shrug. ‘We’ve been here a lot.’
‘Would be nice to buy more, don’t you think?’ Jerry says. ‘It’s part of restocking the car. Oxygen, cannulas, bandages, nuts.’
I remember a thing I’ve been meaning to ask him.
‘You ever boiled frankfurters?’
‘Frankfurters? Sure.’
‘I boiled them last night and the jackets slipped off. I couldn’t believe it.’
Jerry cranks his seat back, thinks for a second.
‘Did you toss them right in?’
‘Sure I did. Three at once.’
He’s shaking his head, looking dismayed.
‘What were you doing? Didn’t you think to experiment first, to start with just one?’
‘When the jackets came off I turned the heat down, but they’d already died.’
Jerry closes his eyes, summoning patience.
‘You’ve got to start with your frankfurters immersed in the cold water, then increase the heat nice and slow. Understood?’
I nod.
A high-flying seagull gets my attention. I see it glide past the girl on the cliff and she watches it too, follows its course. It briefly hovers and turns to glance at the drama on the clifftop, then carries on its way.
‘You could also get a stick and put it in the end of the frankfurter,’ says Jerry, ‘then roll it in beer batter and deep-fry it. Dagwood dog’s what they call it. My brother and I, we had a tradition. Dagwood dogs on Golden Slipper Day. They don’t sound that healthy, but they’re bloody delicious.’
We see the girl climbing back over the fence and the police rescue guys leading her to us. We get out and meet her. I tell her she’s done the right thing, choosing life. It’s kind of presumptuous, but I mean it sincerely, and in any case it’s what I’m paid to say. She asks for a tissue, so I hand her a few. But as we turn onto Old South Head Road her tears have turned to laughter as Jerry recounts my frankfurter story, and wonders aloud how a man like me can mess up a meal a child could prepare.
CHAPTER 6
If I were John I’d be taking nights off, not days. But he comes in for his graveyard shift, and not just any graveyard shift: it’s a Friday night. He’s a sucker for punishment, that’s for sure. But I’m glad to see him.
‘Sorry I didn’t return your call,’ he says.
‘No worries. How’s the new place?’
He grunts. ‘Full of grandmas and stickybeaks. And the kitchen’s a shoebox.’
Before John’s breakup with Antonio, they often used to cook together in the spacious kitchen of their terrace, as Kaspia and I did in Bronte. It was one of their favourite pastimes.
‘What’s happening with Antonio?’
‘Nothing’s changed. Apart from moving out.’
‘Let’s have some fun tonight,’ I say, trying to cheer him up.
But the night starts badly.
We’re sent to Little Bay, near the southern tip of the eastern suburbs, for a violent domestic. We don’t go this far south ordinarily, but the local station is short a few cars. Sick leave on Friday nights is always hard to cover.
On the front porch of a cottage, a single orange globe is flickering with moths. The patient has seen us, and before we can knock she opens the door. She looks highly anxious when we enter the hall and fumbles to lock up behind us.
Shelly’s her name, and her eyes dart around in fear. Her left cheekbone is bruised and her whole face is swollen. She winces as she limps; her left leg is injured. Tears flood her cheeks.
‘He went totally mad,’ Shelly cries. ‘He just snapped then he hit me again and again.’
John helps Shelly sit on a chair in the hall. He’s always so gentle, so tender with patients. How well he comforts others while he himself is so broken-hearted. Seeing his hand on Shelly’s shoulder makes me wish there was someone to give him the same care.
John unzips the first-aid kit and pulls out a splint and bandages. With her good hand Shelly wipes strands of hair from her face. She looks at me and says, ‘I did a bad thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I locked him out of the house.’
We hear an ear-piercing bang and the splintering of wood. It’s coming from a room off the hall. Seconds later there’s the shattering of glass, a broken windowpane.
I take a step back, away from the sound.
John’s roller bandage unravels to the floor.
‘Fucking thing,’ he says.
Shelly stops crying. Her expression is one of horror. She begins to whimper, her body shivering in fear.
‘He’s outside! He took his cricket bat, he’s coming back, he wants to kill me, he will kill me, I know he will, he’ll do it for real. He doesn’t care. He’ll kill the both of you as well, he’s got it in him, I’m telling you! He’ll do it!’
I slide my hand to the portable radio on my belt and push the duress button. Then, just to be sure I radio in a coded mayday: ‘402, Zero 1, Code 1!’
Another crashing sound comes, this time from the sunroom, then a loud voice growling and cursing outside.
‘Gunna get you, bitch. You wait!’
Shelly grips my arm and her fingernails dig in. At the same time a shadow appears through the glass of the front door. A cricket bat shatters a small pane, spraying fragments onto the welcome mat.
The man takes another swing. We stand our ground.
Do I imagine we can take this guy on, me and John? I pick up a vase from a coffee table, thinking I might throw it. John looks sideways at me and raises an eyebrow. I put the vase back. John’s strangely serene as the door is demolished in front of us by Shelly’s angry husband. The man leans through the gap he’s made with his bat and reaches around to open the door from the inside.
Then he steps into the house.
He’s a hideous thug of a human. His face is puffed and crimson. Droplets of blood from shards of glass dot his arms and fall onto the floor. John edges Shelly behind himself to protect her. I imagine all variety of unpleasant ways the scene will play out. The man looks at our uniforms, our defiant stares. Neither John nor I makes any effort to speak to him, allowing our body language to communicate. Getting to Shelly will mean getting past us. Not that two clean-cut boys from Bondi station could offer much resistance beyond a few hopeless slaps. If Jerry was here he’d say, ‘Go easy, mate. We’re lovers, not fighters!’ But John and I are lost for words.
A bead of sweat crawls down my back. I take a deep breath. The man’s eyes flick left and right as he decides where to strike. The ticking of a kitchen clock amplifies the tension.
A moment later comes the sweetest sound: sirens, first one, then two, then three, all rapidly approaching. The man cocks his head like an animal hearing a hunter’s footfall. He glares at us for a little longer then drops the cricket bat and lumbers down the front steps and into the dark.
As we take Shelly to hospital I suggest to John that we let our ambulance inspector know what’s happened.
‘You need counselling or something?’ he asks.
‘Maybe I will, later on. Maybe you too.’
‘I don’t need counselling. This is what we do.’
; I’m surprised at John’s suck-it-up attitude.
‘Have you never seen a counsellor with Antonio?’
‘You kidding? Honestly, I couldn’t be fucked. Sitting there telling some stranger about our situation for an hour. Fifty sessions and thousands of dollars later and they might understand a fraction of the shit. Even then, what are they going to say? That we’re just not meant for each other? Great. Money well spent, eh.’
‘Might turn out differently …’
‘Might not.’
‘Glass half-empty?’
‘Completely.’
John ends the conversation by slamming his case folder shut and turning up the stereo. I realise I’m in no position to lecture him about couples counselling. A year ago Kaspia and I saw a psychologist in a small, stuffy room, a weird old woman who wouldn’t have looked out of place with a crystal ball in front of her. She was the one who told us that all couples’ arguments were intimate, selling the idea of conflict as a positive. She had a few valuable insights, but we didn’t go back. We gave up looking after that. Life’s busy and counsellors cost money, and we weren’t in the mood for shopping around. Although now I wish we had.
Earlier in the night I prayed for rain. A decent downpour douses violence, washes troublemakers off the streets. John says that even he would pray again if God answered such requests.
But there’s no rain, no cool change. Only the heat rising. And booze, lots of it.
We’re diverted to the city on what’s called ‘area cover’. All the other ambulances are occupied. We’re the only resource left. Whatever happens now, it’s ours.
Darlinghurst Road is thick with revellers. A young man from Double Bay has tripped on a Kings Cross gutter, spraining his ankle. Most drunks wouldn’t consider falling over to be unusual. Alcohol does that to people, everyone knows. But some men with trivial injuries will make a show of it. As we load our patient into the ambulance he proudly waves to the rest of the man-pack he’s been crawling the strip with. Then he takes out his mobile phone, looks through his contacts and picks a friend to call, informing them of his crisis.
The Gap Page 6
