Doctors in Flight Page 4

  CHAPTER THREE

  WE EAT in silence that’s companionable enough, by which I mean GR seems to appreciate food as much as I do.

  ‘I have to admit defeat,’ I say, pushing my bowl reluctantly away and eyeing the remaining vegetables on the serving plate with great regret. ‘That was fantastic!’

  ‘The food’s always good,’ GR responds, himself eyeing my leftovers.

  ‘Help yourself,’ I say, and finally win a smile.

  ‘I thought you’d never offer. It’s only that I’ve never ordered that particular dish but it looks and smells so good I’ve been dying to taste it.’

  He scoops a small amount into his bowl and lifts a chopstick-load towards his lips.

  Nice lips—full, without being pink or puffy the way some men’s lips get. Not that I’m an expert on male lips—it’s just that one notices these things.

  ‘You could have tried it earlier. I did offer.’ That’s me distracting myself from his lips.

  It doesn’t work as he finishes the mouthful and smiles—a real smile this time that moves those full lips far enough to press a couple of brackets of wrinkles into his cheeks, and crinkle the skin at the corners of his eyes, and make the grey eyes gleam behind the glasses. Though, to be perfectly honest, I can’t see their colour in the dim light of the restaurant, just the gleam.

  ‘Take a single morsel away from you, when you fell on it as if you hadn’t eaten for days?’

  I realise he’s talking to me. Teasing me?

  For some reason this thought causes a little quiver along my nerves, not unlike a very mild version of the zaps his touch caused earlier.

  ‘I felt as if I hadn’t eaten for days.’ I’m not going anywhere near that quiver, except to excuse it as tiredness. ‘You can’t count the plastic pack of two biscuits they gave me on the plane and a couple of minute chocolate bars I happened to find in my handbag. And speaking of food and planes, what do we do about eating on these trips to far-off places? Do we bring along a sandwich?’

  Yeah, like that’s possible. I’ve got cardamom pods, chocolate, and I’m pretty sure there’s a half-full packet of teabags in my kitchen box, but not the one essential ingredient for even the simplest of sandwiches—bread.

  ‘Of course you don’t bring along a sandwich. We’re working at hospitals wherever we go and we’re always adequately fed.’

  The words sound OK—I mean, he’s explaining the setup quite coherently—but he’s frowning again, and the look on his face, kind of intent, makes me feel there’s a hidden meaning lurking beneath the words. Though what kind of hidden meaning anyone can get out of hospital food is beyond me.

  It has to be tiredness causing these weird thoughts. Tiredness and the zap-and-quiver routine.

  I can’t help thinking of my mother. Is this how she felt when she met the Argentinian polo player?

  Was it electricity in his touch that led to my conception?

  I haven’t thought about these things for years, protected by my relationship with Pete—insured by it, you might say, against any extreme sexual reactions.

  ‘Your job description is the same whether you’re on this team or at a hospital,’ GR is saying as I set aside thoughts of the mother I never knew and concentrate on his words. ‘Only instead of being at the same large hospital all the time, you’ll be doing sessions at different smaller hospitals.’

  ‘Like working different wards, or in different rooms in Outpatients,’ I offer, to show I’m with him on this. ‘I can handle that.’

  He frowns again.

  ‘It isn’t the work that bothers me,’ he says, taking off his glasses and rubbing one hand across his face—suddenly looking even more tired than I feel. ‘It’s the situation. I’m sorry, we had a sudden post-partum bleed here in town late last night. I ended up having to do an emergency hysterectomy, then the sales started early so I didn’t get much sleep. But we should talk about this.’

  He returns the glasses to his nose and pushes them into place with a long, thin forefinger.

  ‘I don’t know what gave you the impression I didn’t like working with women registrars,’ he says, startling me back into the conversation. Though I can’t remember whether he actually confirmed this, I had plenty of evidence.

  I smile sweetly, tuck my hand under my chin in a thinking gesture and do a slow, ‘Hmm. Could it have been Michael’s jaw dropping so low I was afraid he’d dislocated it when he realised Dr Green was a woman? Or perhaps Maureen’s distraught cry of “Oh, no, they’ve sent a woman”? Then there was Georgia, choking on her half-eaten doughnut when I went to get my schedules. Just a few clues, which I think you confirmed earlier.’

  The quirk happens again at the corner of his mouth, but he obviously isn’t amused enough by my cheek for a full-blown smile.

  Pity, really. It was something, that smile.

  ‘You said you’d had trouble with women registrars in the past, though that didn’t bother me as much as your disapproval of women specialising in O and G.’

  ‘It’s the hours,’ he says, as if that explains everything.

  ‘All doctors work crappy hours,’ I remind him.

  ‘But not all specialists!’ He says this with the smug confidence of a man trumping his opponent’s ace. ‘ENT blokes are rarely called out in the middle of the night, neither are dermatologists, even ophthalmologists don’t get many midnight emergencies—’

  ‘So?’ I—rudely, I guess—interrupt his list of people who don’t get called out at night. ‘Is there a point to this dissertation?’

  He looks startled, then frowns, but says, humbly enough, ‘Sorry. I tend to get carried away. The point I was making is that there are plenty of specialties women can follow that won’t cause disruption to their households.’

  The feminist bit of me stiffens immediately.

  ‘You mean disrupt as in disturb the male of the household if one of the kids happens to wake while the woman is away delivering someone else’s baby?’

  ‘No, that’s not what I mean. I’m all in favour of joint child-rearing responsibilities, but you’ve done enough O and G by now to know that the majority of women with young babies experience a higher than normal degree of tiredness. So, even if her partner is happy to feed the baby when she’s called out, a woman O and G specialist, especially if she’s still breast-feeding her infant, might not be firing on all cylinders on the job.’

  ‘Fortunately enough, I’m not pregnant so won’t be producing an infant, and being tired on the job during the six months I’m here,’ I tell him, unable to help myself.

  He sighs, shakes his head, then adds, ‘I know I’ve put that badly, but while in principle I believe women make excellent O and G specialists, in practice it’s a hard job for them to pursue, and as a result a lot of them drop out. And that’s what really gets my goat. They’ve taken up a keenly contested spot in the specialty programme, then they give up practice to have a family, and we’re short of O and G specialists again.’

  I open my mouth to argue, but he lifts a hand to cut me off.

  ‘And don’t tell me we’re not short of them, because we are.’

  I know that, but have always assumed it was because specialties like neurosurgery or heart transplants are more glamorous. I mean, you tell someone what you do, and the usual reaction is a grimace and that ‘eugh’ noise that people make when they pick up dog do on their shoe.

  However, we’re not talking other people here. We’re talking GR Prentice and it’s my turn to say something.

  ‘And it’s because you don’t approve of women doing O and G you don’t like women registrars?’

  He sighs, studying me across the table as if I’m some new life form.

  ‘You’re like one of those sticky flies that buzz and buzz so persistently no amount of hand-waving ever chases them away.’

  I have to smile at the description, because I know those flies. They choose you as their new best friend and won’t go away. But understanding about flies is one thing, letting
him off the hook without explaining is another.

  ‘Hey, you’re the one who suggested dinner so we could discuss this.’

  He nods.

  ‘Let’s just say I’ve had bad luck with the three women registrars I’ve had and leave it at that,’ he says, but, of course, by now I really want to know.

  ‘I’m one of those flies, remember. Did they wear ridiculous footwear? Was that the sin?’

  He sighs again.

  ‘Damn fly,’ he mutters, but there’s no rancour in it. ‘The problem is that some people see a six-month posting to a place as remote as Bilbarra as an escape.’

  He pauses, no doubt so I can take it in, but I’m not with him.

  ‘From?’ I prompt.

  He waves one hand in the air.

  ‘Whatever unpleasantness that is happening in their lives.’

  ‘Do you know this for sure, or are you guessing?’ I demand. ‘I mean, Bilbarra is hardly the place any normal female would consider a safe haven from trouble. Most people haven’t even heard of the place, and I would imagine, like me, the registrars you get are not given any choice in the matter. They’re just sent, whether they want to go or not.’

  ‘So you’ve not just broken up with your boyfriend? Not escaping to the country to get over your heartache?’

  There’s a funny little smile playing about his lips—different to the quirk—and it throws me. Does he know about Pete?

  If I deny it, will he know I’m lying? Then suspect a lie in every word I say?

  ‘As it happens, I did, not long ago, break up with my boyfriend but, believe me, if I wanted to escape, I’d have gone bigger, not smaller—headed to Sydney, or New York perhaps, definitely not Bilbarra. Which is why I’m saying maybe you made the wrong assumption about your other registrars. Surely, they, too, were sent here.’

  ‘But you are nursing a broken heart?’ he persists, and I groan.

  ‘You called me a fly—what about this conversation? For your information, I am not nursing a broken heart. Yes, Pete and I had a relationship I thought would lead to marriage and it didn’t, but that’s not the end of the world.’

  ‘No? You don’t look very happy.’

  I plaster a huge, false smile across my face.

  ‘Well, I am, see! I’m happy!’

  ‘Then why are you frowning?’

  ‘You can’t smile and frown at the same time, can you?’ Boy, am I easily diverted! ‘I didn’t think facial muscles would work that way.’

  ‘Well, you can,’ he says, ‘which means you can’t be entirely overjoyed by this break-up you’re trying to dismiss.’

  It’s my turn to sigh.

  ‘I’m more puzzled than unhappy,’ I admit, pleased, in an odd way, to have someone to explain it to. ‘I mean, Pete and I are both intelligent, rational people. We met early in our years at med school and just sort of clicked. We had a relationship based on mutual interests and respect and deep affection then suddenly he meets a woman and whoom bang, bells sound, whistles blow, lights flash and he’s fancying himself in love. I know it sounds more like a jackpot going off on a poker machine, but that’s exactly how he explained it. As if!’ I finish, shaking my head because the concept still seems totally bizarre to me.

  ‘You don’t believe in love?’

  The question startles me.

  ‘Of course I believe in love—as in a deep caring for someone. It’s all around us in our relationships with family, as well as marriage. But this bells and whistles and flashing light stuff? No, I can’t say I believe in that.’

  Or electrical impulses zapping through fingers—I don’t believe in them either, but I don’t tell him this.

  ‘So this man’s defection meant nothing to you?’

  ‘Of course it did, but it also provided me with a new beginning. You were right about O and G being a specialty that’s hard to pursue when you’re married with young children, but now that’s off the agenda I can concentrate on my career.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ he says, so disbelieving I have to restrain myself from hurling my glass of water in his face.

  What with the physical problems he causes, and dragging up the business with Pete, I’m a little twitchy.

  Maybe a conversation change. He never did explain about women registrars—just diverted me into talking about Pete.

  Deliberately?

  We’ll see.

  ‘Anyway,’ I say brightly, ‘this isn’t getting me any closer to understanding your antipathy to women registrars. I’ll admit that maybe some of them might have come out here to escape something happening in their other lives, but is that so bad?’

  He grins, says ‘Fly’ softly under his breath, then explains, in a long-suffering voice clearly intended to convey he’s doing it under sufferance.

  ‘My first woman registrar—back when this service started—had just broken up with her boyfriend or partner or whatever he was. Anyway, she gets out here, discovers she’s pregnant, and not only pregnant but sick as a dog with it, and within three weeks the ex-boyfriend arrives and, whoosh, she’s off back to the city.’

  ‘Poor thing!’ I mutter, though I don’t put any heart into it, certain the woman should have organised her life a little better.

  One shapely eyebrow lifts at my expression of sympathy.

  ‘Is that underwhelming compassion for being pregnant, being sick or getting back with the boyfriend?’ he asks, and I have to laugh.

  ‘All three, I guess, but you can’t blame her for leaving under those circumstances.’

  He lifts his shoulders in a casual shrug. They’re good shoulders, not footballer broad but wide enough.

  ‘No, I can’t, but the next one who came was more trouble. She’d actually applied for my job, though I didn’t know that, and had been knocked back because she lacked experience, and she thought…’

  He stops and looks almost embarrassed, but as men rarely get embarrassed I decide I’ve misread his expression—I told you he wasn’t easy to read.

  I realise he hasn’t paused but has actually stopped talking.

  ‘You can’t stop there,’ I tell him. ‘What did she think?’

  He almost seems to be going pink and I contemplate the novel possibility of a man who blushes while he scowls at me, then stumbles into a flurry of words.

  ‘If you must know, she thought she might marry me, and I know that sounds presumptuous, but it was hardly my fault. It made working with her very difficult and it was the worst six months of my life.’

  He’s so obviously embarrassed I decide to cut him some slack so, while my mind is whirling with the idea of a nice-looking man with twinkly grey eyes being abashed by a woman’s interest in him, I steer him away from her.

  ‘And the third? I think you said three.’

  The third must have been special, for he smiles the kind of nostalgic smile people use for nice memories.

  ‘The third was great, but unfortunately she was a bit like your ex. She met a man on the flight out to Bilbarra and, according to her, it was love at first sight. She stayed six months and was good at her job, but if I’d had to listen to one more minute of her praise of her wonder-man, or hear one more word about the magical romance they were enjoying long-distance—he’s on a big cattle property north of here—I’d have strangled her.’

  He pauses, then adds, ‘And she left here to get married, and now she’s on the property, which goes to prove what I was saying earlier, about losing women specialists from the service.’

  He ends triumphantly, but I can’t let him assume he’s proved his point.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re assuming she won’t continue her career some time in the future. Surely having an extra O and G specialist out here in the outback is a good thing. This woman could provide back-up for the local GPs in her particular area. Isn’t that why the second FOG service was set up? For better services out here in the bush?’

  ‘It might be a good thing if she was working,’ he said gloomily. ‘But she’s probably having babie
s of her own by now.’

  ‘And that’s bad? Populating the outback?’

  He scowls at me.

  ‘You’re deliberately misunderstanding me,’ he growls, the deep, slow voice even deeper. ‘I don’t know why I bothered trying to explain.’

  ‘Especially when you’re tired,’ I offer helpfully, but he doesn’t appreciate my understanding and scowls again.

  ‘Let’s drop the tired,’ he says, and suddenly I’m feeling guilty.

  Guilty about arguing with him—guilty about keeping him out of bed—heavens, I could go on for ever. Has anyone ever done a study on why women are more burdened with guilt than men?

  But even while I’m grappling with guilt—and fighting the urge to apologise when none of what’s happened or is happening is in any way my fault—I stand up to show I have no intention of keeping him up another minute.

  In fact, I rather hope to convey the message that I’d have liked to have departed ages earlier. Not an easy message to convey without speech at the best of times, and virtually impossible in the confines of a busy Chinese restaurant where every second patron is calling a greeting to the man I’m trying to snub.

  GR finally makes it to the desk, pays the bill and puts his hand in the small of my back to usher me out the door.

  Now, Pete did this often enough, and I’m reasonably sure other men have made similar, polite hand-to-small-of-back contact but I’ve never previously responded as if jabbed by a cattle prod. I take an involuntary leap forward, miss the step that leads down to the exit, fall and bang my head—hard—against a case of no-doubt precious Chinese artefacts.

  Cool hands fondle first one of my feet, then the other, and I sigh at the bliss of it, though vaguely aware it’s my head that’s hurting, not my feet.

  ‘Come on, up you get.’

  A strong arm circles my back and eases me first to a sitting position then, with further urging, back to my feet. By this time, half the diners have left their tables to have a look and my head clears sufficiently to realise I’ve made an idiot of myself on my first day in town. So much for medicos being held in respect by the general population!