A Nurse In Crisis

Marsh’s other hand had crossed her back and kneaded her shoulder, and she had to arch and stretch her neck up to reach him with her own mouth, creating a strangely pleasant feeling that she’d topple backwards if he didn’t have her so tightly and preciously enclosed in his arms.

His face was a little rough. His body was firm, and still hot from his run. His mouth was confident, as if now that he’d jumped in at the deep end he’d remembered that he was good at this.

And he was good at it! She hadn’t realised until now that kissing was a talent like any other, and some people had that talent in spades.

He had a better talent than she did, too, of keeping track of a conversation, because when he finally broke away to ask, ‘Do you understand that it’s a compliment, Aimee?’ she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. Of course a kiss was a compliment!

‘I mean the fact that I needed to come,’ he explained, after seeing her confused expression. ‘It wasn’t planned. I was jogging and I was heading in this direction, and it suddenly just wasn’t possible not to come down your street and front up at your door and demand a cup of tea.’

‘You haven’t done that yet.’

‘Can I do it now? This business of Mrs Deutschkron is still eating at me.’

‘Oh, Marshall!’ She reached up and pushed a stray lock of dark hair, thickly threaded with grey, back from his forehead. ‘Of course it is! I’m so sorry, and here I am, dancing away like a maniac.’

She stroked her fingers down his jaw and neck, felt the beating of his blood briefly, then let them rest softly on his shoulder as she searched his face.

‘Don’t apologise,’ he said. ‘You hardly know her, and probably know nothing of her history.’

‘No, I don’t.’

He opened his mouth as if to launch into a story, then shook his head. ‘We won’t talk about it tonight. That’s not why I came. I really just wanted…’ he paused, then looked straight down into her eyes ‘…to be with you, Aimee.’

‘I’m glad,’ she managed breathlessly. ‘Come through, and I’ll make the tea.’

The mood had changed, but it was just as pleasant. They sat at the big kitchen table, talked about all sorts of things and drank their tea, warming their legs and hands in front of an old-fashioned electric fire.

It was the kind, at least fifty years old, that was shaped like a fireplace and had fake coals lit from beneath to make them ‘glow’, and was so ugly and silly that it had acquired the status of an antique by this time, and Aimee was perversely fond of it. It had once belonged to her grandmother. She liked it for practical reasons, too. A July night in Sydney could be chilly.

Marshall seemed to appreciate it. He stuck his bare legs out until they were so close to the heat that they practically sizzled, and when he finally looked at his watch and took note of the time his jaw dropped. ‘It can’t be ten!’

‘I know,’ she agreed. ‘But it is. I’ll drive you home.’

‘No…’

‘Yes. Please.’

‘I won’t be annoying and argue the point,’ he conceded. ‘A ride home does sound a lot more pleasant than a jog, now that my legs are so warm and relaxed.’

They went out through the lounge room side by side, and there wasn’t quite enough room as they passed the sideboard. He bumped it, and the glasses and china inside it rattled.

So did the half-empty wineglass she’d put down on the top of it two hours ago.

‘Oops.’ He reached a hand out to steady the glass and noticed the wine still sloshing inside. There was a tiny pause, then he said lightly, ‘You never finished it.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she answered him. But it came out just a little too hastily, and then she only made it worse by adding self-consciously, ‘I don’t often drink alone.’

‘Oh, no, I wasn’t suggesting…’ He didn’t finish the sentence, and there was a tinge of awkwardness in the atmosphere.

Why did I say that? Aimee scolded herself inwardly. I don’t often drink alone, but saying it only made it sound as if I did.

The moment passed as she reached the front door and opened it to let in a draught of chilly air.

‘Brr!’ Marshall said. ‘Definitely too cold for running shorts!’

They talked about the weather for the whole car journey to his place. Only five minutes between their two houses, so it wasn’t so disastrous a subject, but Aimee still felt an odd discomfort and disappointment. Was she still smarting over that silly exchange about the wine?

Surely not! What was it, then? It had something to do with the wine.

Outside Marshall’s gracious old house his kiss was brief and he didn’t ask her in.

Driving home alone, Aimee probed at what she felt in the same way that she might have probed at a sore tooth with her tongue, and finally concluded in her mind. It’s still early days. That’s what rattled me about him noticing the wine. For a moment there, he did wonder, and it’s early days in what’s going on between us. We’ve both lived full lives before this.

She thought about her twenty-six year marriage to Alan. It had been a relatively happy one. She’d entered into it with too many stars in her eyes, of course, at the age of twenty. Then they’d weathered some disappointments, disagreements, coolnesses, ongoing differences in outlook that they’d never really addressed. That sort of thing changed a woman’s perspective, influenced the person she became.

Neither of us comes without baggage, Aimee realised. We both have children. Previous marriages. Past grief. Complicated finances. It wouldn’t take much, at this stage, to make the whole thing seem wrong, or just too hard.

Letting herself into her house, she saw that the ‘on’ light was still glowing on her sound system. She turned it off. No more dancing tonight. Time to go to bed.

CHAPTER TWO

‘SORRY…I’m going to interfere, Dad,’ Rebecca said.

‘Go ahead,’ Marshall invited.

He’d known this had been coming when she’d suggested they have lunch together, but he’d accepted her suggestion with an innocent face and had proposed the local Asian noodle house. Now Rebecca was toying with a plate of Pad Thai and making a very obvious effort to be calm and pleasant.

He waited as she gathered her thoughts, and wondered with a distant sort of curiosity about how he was going to react to what she had to say.

She was still struggling.

‘It’s about Aimee, isn’t it?’ he prompted helpfully.

‘Yes.’ She looked up. The noodles were still untouched. ‘And it’s not that I don’t like her. You know that. She seems very nice and, of course, I’ve known her for longer than you have, since we met when we were both working at Southshore Health Centre.’

‘But,’ he supplied, still helpfully.

‘Just…be careful. Perhaps you don’t need me to say it. Probably you don’t. You’re an experienced, sensible man.’

‘Thank you!’

‘But I know how hard it can be when two people are working together. Harry and I nearly didn’t reach the finish line a couple of times. Well, more than a couple! And it’s not as if you’re two carefree young lovers, who—’

‘We’re not lovers at all,’ Marsh cut in deliberately, feeling a sudden need to assert himself. He wasn’t a fool when it came to human relationships, and he was a private man. This was his business.

His daughter’s uncomfortable shifting in her seat and sudden apparently starving attention to her noodles gave him a pinch of satisfaction. Rebecca had made her case, he now considered.

‘I take your point, Rebecca,’ he went on, making a conscious effort not to increase the gulf in understanding between them. ‘And, of course, you’re right. To a certain extent. Yes, we have more issues to consider at this point in our lives than a couple of twenty-year-olds. But I hope, as you say, that we have more good sense as well. I’m not sure what’s happening yet, and I don’t want office memos to be issued on the subject.’

‘Of course not! I won’t say a word. Even to Harry, if you don’t want me to,’ she promised extravagantly.

‘I’d prefer that, yes, at this stage.’ He nodded, and saw her eyes widen a little.

She hadn’t expected him to take her up on that overenthusiastic offer to keep a secret from her own husband, but he really didn’t want it gossiped about for the moment, not even between husband and wife, and if that didn’t convince her that he was being appropriately cautious, what would?

Everyone in the practice knew that they had been away for the weekend recently, of course, but he’d presented the event as what it essentially had been—a group of friends enjoying two days of winter sports, not a romantic interlude.

‘You know I’m only saying this because I care about you, Dad,’ Rebecca said, her voice suddenly husky with tenderness.

And he did know it, too. As well, he was guiltily aware that he’d once interfered in her relationship with Harry for exactly the same reason, and the result might have been disastrous on that occasion if Harry hadn’t completely ignored his sage advice.

‘Shall we change the subject?’ he offered, and she greeted the suggestion with relief.

Marshall wondered later, as they returned to the surgery together, if she realised how relentlessly her words were laying siege to his inner equilibrium. In many ways he was as wary as his daughter about this new thing that had so unexpectedly entered his life. Rebecca had no reason to accuse him of not being careful.

If dwelling on things, and replaying conversations—and silences—over and over in one’s mind were signs of being careful, then he was being positively obsessive. That stupid business of Aimee’s wineglass the other night, for example. He could have kicked himself for that unforgivable moment of hesitation.

He could tell she was afraid he suspected her of being a secret drinker, and he didn’t. She’d given him no reason to. Not at the snowfields or at work here in Sydney. Not during the three times they’d been out together. So why that moment of suspicion, flashing through his mind, that he hadn’t managed to hide?

‘Because I’m a doctor, I suppose,’ he concluded, muttering to himself. ‘I’ve had patients who did drink, when sometimes it was the last thing you’d suspect.’

Like fifty-eight-year-old Joan Allyson, who was first on his list this afternoon.

‘How are you, Joan?’ he greeted her, as she sat down in the chair opposite his desk.

‘Fighting fit, I hope,’ she answered, and she looked it. Short grey hair, trim, energetic figure, dangling earrings of a pretty red to match her red trouser suit. She had come straight from work, and was due back there after her appointment. ‘I’m just here for my annual check-up.’

She’d been very good about such things for the past seven years, but it hadn’t always been that way. She’d started drinking heavily about fifteen years ago, after a painful divorce, but she’d hidden it so carefully at first that no one had suspected. Not her grown-up children. Not her colleagues at the insurance company where she’d worked. Not even her family doctor!

Until she’d turned up one day with gout, indicated by her symptoms of pain and confirmed by the test Marshall had done, revealing high uric acid levels. At that point he’d suspected very strongly, but his questions on the issue had brought only flat denial.

After that, it had got worse and everyone knew. Her two children had each come to see him in turn to ask if there was anything they or he could do. Without her willingness to admit to a problem, of course, there hadn’t been. Her health had deteriorated. There had been more severe episodes of gout, and treatment for venereal disease. She’d lost her job.

Finally, and he still wasn’t sure what the trigger had been, although he suspected another one-night stand which had turned bad, she’d come to him of her own volition and had asked for help. She’d heard of a drug called Antabuse, which caused any alcohol intake to create strong feelings of nausea, and she’d been keen to try it. He’d prescribed it for her, but had also urged her to join Alcoholics Anonymous.

Since then, she hadn’t looked back. Now, seven years since her last drink, she had a well-paid and satisfying job in the administration of the Sydney Opera House, her health was good and on this visit she had some news as well.

‘I’m particularly hoping everything’s all right today,’ she said, ‘because I’m getting married in six weeks.’

‘Oh, Joan, that’s marvellous!’ Marshall said, and meant it. ‘Congratulations!’

She beamed, and the warmth in the room was palpable. Marshall was honest enough to admit to himself that if it hadn’t been for the advent of Aimee in his life, he wouldn’t be basking quite so strongly in the reflected glow of Joan’s obvious happiness. But, to be truthful, he did find it very encouraging that love could run smoothly on the far side of fifty!

‘He’s a violinist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra,’ Joan went on. ‘And he’s got an adventurous spirit. We’re going to East Africa for our honeymoon. Will we need any vaccinations?’

‘Yes, I’m sure you will, but I’ll have to check the most up-to-date information,’ he told her. ‘Why don’t you make an appointment for next week? I’ll make sure I have what you need in stock. Meanwhile…’

He gave her a thorough check-up, including a pap smear and a good listen to her chest and heart. In a minute, Aimee would take some blood to be tested for lipids, and he finished his own part of the check-up with, ‘How long since you had a mammogram—do you remember?’

She made a face. ‘I was afraid you’d say that.’

‘I can easily check it in your file.’

‘No, I know perfectly well I’m due for one.’

‘The mammography screening unit at Southshore Health Centre would be the easiest place to go.’

‘Will I have to wait? I’d really like to have it over with before the wedding.’

‘That shouldn’t be a problem. But do you really hate it so much? It doesn’t hurt very badly, does it?’

‘Spoken like a man,’ she teased. ‘Yes, it does hurt a fair bit, especially if you have largish breasts, on top of which it’s not remotely dignified. Oh, I’ll be glad I’ve done it, but it’s not exactly something to look forward to.’

‘I suppose not,’ he agreed on a laugh. ‘Rest assured, though, we males of the species have our own unique and painful medical indignities to endure!’

‘True,’ she conceded.

The rest of the afternoon’s patients were routine, with some more interesting than others. After over twenty years in general practice, Marshall was used to the rhythm and flow of the work. If he’d been a composer, he could have written a piece of music to express it.

Intertwining pastoral melodies for all those rather benign things like children’s ear infections, annual flu shots, blood-pressure measurements. The interest lay in the way he got to know his patients year by year as he watched the wheels of their lives slowly turn. Patients he’d known as children were now grown up and married with families of their own. Patients he’d first seen in their fifties were now making decisions about retirement homes.

Then there would be plodding underbeat for the cases that few doctors could find interesting. Patients who came once to have a cut stitched or an ear syringed and were never seen again. People who needed a medical examination for work or insurance purposes and had phoned this practice purely because it was on a list of approved ones in the area.

There would be a burst of joyful song for wanted pregnancies, good test results, serious illnesses cured. And, finally, there’d be the keening of violins for the patients that broke your heart.

Like Hilde Deutschkron. He’d spoken to her surgeon on Tuesday morning. Today was Thursday, and she’d been discharged from the hospital this morning as planned.

After his last office appointment for the day, Marshall drove to her small house several streets back from the beach at Bondi and knocked at the front door.

Mrs Deutschkron’s daughter, Marianne, answered. She was an attractive dark-haired woman of about thirty-eight, and Marshall had seen her a few times years ago for minor illnesses when she’d still been living at home. Since then, she’d led an interesting life as a journalist, with several stints of living and working overseas. She wasn’t married, and he was pleased to find that she’d taken time off work to help her mother convalesce. Mrs Deutschkron’s two sons lived in Melbourne and he knew she got lonely at times.

‘How are you, Marianne?’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you remember me…’

‘Of course I do, Dr Irwin!’ she said with a confident smile. ‘How could I forget the man who came at me with a cauterising thingy that time I had that strange lump on my little finger that kept bleeding if I bumped it?’

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I’d forgotten all about that. We never really decided what it was, did we? The cauterising didn’t work, I remember, and it came back. You had to have it cut out under local anaesthetic at Southshore Hospital.’

‘I’m amazed you remember!’

‘Only because it stumped me, and the doctors at Southshore, too. Did it ever come back after the surgery?’

‘No, but I still have the scar.’ She stuck her little finger up in the air, then lowered her voice and said, ‘Come through. Mum’s on the couch, though I think she should really be in bed. She’s not feeling very good, and she’s anxious to hear your report. Do you have all the results or whatever everyone was waiting for?’

‘Yes, I do,’ he said, following her down the rather dark corridor. ‘Uh, would it be too much trouble to ask for some tea?’

‘Of course not. Straight away?’

‘If you don’t mind.’

Marianne nodded, and he saw that she understood. There was a brief flare of well-schooled alarm in her eyes. Marshall didn’t really need tea, but he wanted to break the news to Mrs Deutschkron alone. He had no doubt she’d need her daughter later, but for those first few moments…

‘Hello, Mrs Deutschkron!’ he said, coming into the thickly decorated sitting-room. There was a floral lounge suite, photos and knick-knacks everywhere, two shelves of books, vases of silk flowers, and all of it immaculately dust-free. ‘Marianne says you’re not feeling too good?’

‘Would you be?’ she retorted weakly. She’d lost weight since he’d last seen her, just before the surgery, and it was starting to show in the loose fit of her clothing, though there had been a time, long before he’d known her, when she had been far, far thinner than this.

‘You have some news for me, don’t you?’ It came out abruptly, coloured by the accent she hadn’t lost even after more than fifty years away from her native Germany.

‘Yes, I do.’ He sat down in the armchair at right angles to the couch where she lay, her legs and torso covered in a mohair blanket. ‘And not good news, I’m afraid.’

He knew she wouldn’t appreciate prevarication. Even his tiny pause now was pounced on.

‘Don’t keep me in suspense, then!’

‘There was cancer throughout your liver, and the surgeon was unable to locate the primary tumour. That means the cancer didn’t originate in the liver. It has metastasised from a primary tumour elsewhere. Chemotherapy is an option for you, but it won’t be a cure. It’ll give you several more months, that’s all. I’m sorry, Hilde, there’s no easy way to say this.’

She’d taken a sharp in-breath as she’d understood the truth, and now she was nodding slowly. ‘I’m dying, then.’

‘Yes. It was a surprise. Had you been feeling more discomfort and pain than you told me about?’

‘Ach! Pain!’ she said dismissively. ‘It’s relative, isn’t it? Where’s Marianne? You sent her off to the kitchen, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Thank you…’

They could both hear the rattle of bone china teacups on their matching saucers, and the sound of cupboard doors opening and shutting. ‘Shall I call her in?’ Marshall asked.

‘No, let her wait for the kettle. I’ll just…digest this.’

She sat in silence, thinking, and he waited, wondering whether to reach out and touch her hand. He decided after a moment that she wouldn’t appreciate it, and stayed where he was.

Then she looked up. ‘So, may I articulate this situation more precisely?’

‘Of course, Hilde. Any questions, anything at all…’

‘I’m seventy-two years old. I am dying from a cancer that has spread throughout my body. I can choose to let death come soon…How soon?’

‘A few months,’ he offered. ‘Three or four, perhaps. It’s very hard to say.’

‘Or, by having a course of chemotherapy, I can live longer. Again, how much longer?’

‘Three or four months more. I’m sorry, it’s so hard to be specific. Everyone is different.’

‘The chemotherapy will make me sick.’

‘Probably.’

‘And I’ll lose my hair.’ She touched the grey knot on top of her head.

‘No, actually, you won’t with this particular treatment.’

‘Ah, a plus! Not that my hair is so magnificent!’

They both smiled a little. In the kitchen, the kettle began to sing. Mrs Deutschkron was silent.

‘I’ve fought death before, you know,’ she said suddenly. ‘In Berlin, in the war, and in a place in Poland which I won’t name!’

‘I know you have.’ He nodded. Of her entire extended family, she had been the only survivor of those nightmare years in Europe, and had come to Australia in 1947, aged twenty.

‘But do I wish to fight it now? That is what I have to decide.’

Marianne came in with teacups, cosy-covered pot, milk, sugar and a plate of biscuits on a tray.

‘What is it you have to decide, Mum?’ she said.

When she heard, she burst into tears.

‘She’s urging her mother to have the treatment, but I’m not sure if that’s best,’ Marshall told Aimee. ‘As you know, a lot of people react very badly to it. I hope Mrs Deutschkron feels able to make her own decision.’

‘Her daughter cares about her?’

‘Oh, very much. Which can make people selfish sometimes.’

‘And the reverse. It can make people sacrifice their own desires and needs.’

‘I have a sense that Mrs Deutschkron is going to think about it all very carefully before she makes up her mind. I’ve told her there’s no rush. She needs to be healed from the surgery first. I’ll wait a few weeks before I press her for a decision.’

‘Yes, it’s not something to rush, is it?’

They stood in silence for a moment, and Aimee felt the sleeve of Marshall’s shirt warm against her bare arm. Although it was only the end of July, this Friday afternoon was sunny and mild, and she’d taken off her light jacket to reveal a black-and-white-striped knit shirt beneath. Zebra stripes. Appropriate for a visit to the zoo.

She hadn’t understood, at first, when Marshall had suggested the idea. ‘Since we’re both off work on Friday afternoon, can I extend the dinner plan we’ve already made to include something else?’ he’d said to her the previous day, catching her during a quiet moment in the corridor at the practice.

‘That would be lovely,’ she’d answered, having had to conceal just how much her heart had jumped with pleasure at the thought of spending more time with him. Quite shamelessly, she hadn’t cared a bit what it was! An invitation to help him fill out his tax return? Delightful! A trip to the local garage to get the spare tyre fixed? A dream come true!

‘I’d like to introduce you to Felix, you see.’

‘Felix…’ she’d echoed blankly. Who was that? Not his son, she knew. A brother? Evidently someone important…

But he’d grinned. ‘Can’t quite call him a friend. More of a protégée.’

‘Ah.’ She’d nodded seriously. A young medical student from a disadvantaged background, perhaps? But that didn’t seem…

‘I sponsor him. The name’s not official, by the way. He’s a black-necked stork at the Taronga Park Zoo. I’ve told him all about you and he’s dying to look you over.’

‘Oh, Marshall!’

Another grin, quite shameless.

‘You really had me going there!’

‘I know, but I’m very fond of the zoo. I’m a “zoo friend”, and a diamond sponsor member. There’s a collared peccary at the Western Plains Zoo with whom I have a special relationship as well.’