Lilian Darcy - The Surgeon's Love-Child

‘Yes.’

‘Strangely enough, that’s normal. Quite a common symptom. It’s called referred pain, and that’s really all you need to know about it, Mrs Allenby. It should go away on its own by the end of the day. You’ll probably notice some discomfort from gas as well. Your stomach doesn’t like being manhandled, and it may take a couple of days to settle down. But the surgery went very well, and I’m not anticipating any problems. Dr Colton would like to see you in his rooms in about a week to check on how you’re doing.’

‘I’ll make an appointment.’

‘Meanwhile, you can go home as soon as you’re ready. You have someone to pick you up?’

‘My husband’s waiting.’

‘Great! All the best, then. You were special, you know—my first patient in Australia.’

‘Oh, how nice!’

Mrs Allenby went to the patients’ change-room to dress, while Candace checked on her two hernia patients, who were both progressing normally but still too groggy to leave. As she slid her stethoscope around her neck, Candace heard Mrs Allenby say to a nurse, ‘All right, I’m ready. Do I get my stones now?’

She hid a smile as she crossed to the three-bed recovery annexe where Andrea Johnson was just emerging from her anaesthesia. Steve had predicted his patient’s interest in ‘her stones’. In a relatively small community like this one, where a patient’s GP could also be present during surgery, there would be more examples of this kind of knowledge. As Mrs Allenby had said in a different context, it was ‘nice’. A difference for Candace to enjoy while she was here.

Andrea Johnson was still very sleepy and disorientated. She was lying on a wheeled hospital bed a few metres from the other patient in Recovery, the Caesarean delivery from Theatre One.

‘Hurts,’ was all she wanted to say. ‘Feels awful.’

Candace ordered some additional pain relief, and out of the patient’s earshot said to the recovery annexe sister, ‘She’s not ready to hear about what we found and what we did.’

‘Wait until she goes upstairs?’ Robyn Wallace suggested.

‘Definitely. My notes are pretty clear, I think. I’ll follow up in the morning and answer any questions she’s come up with. If she seems too groggy to be told tonight, it can wait. And, of course, there’ll be a wait anyway for the pathology results. Does she have family here?’

‘No, she’s single apparently. Drove herself in.’

‘There must be someone to tell. Could you try and find out?’

‘She was probably in too much pain to think about next of kin before.’

‘That’s usually when people want family or a friend around.’

‘True.’ Sister Wallace nodded.

‘What have we got here? Two for the price of one?’ said a new voice just behind them.

It was Steve. As anaesthetist, he was technically responsible for any complications in patients for the first twenty-four hours following their surgery, and he’d be taking a look at the two hernia patients as well as the Caesarean delivery he’d just been involved with.

Candace didn’t understand his comment about two for the price of one. She assumed it was another Australian joke, but Sister Wallace looked blank as well.

‘They’re both my patients,’ he explained. ‘Sisters. And there’s a whole posse of other Johnson and Calvert relatives upstairs, waiting to see Carina and the baby. Should probably warn you,’ he added quietly to Sister Wallace, ‘sparks will fly if they each realise the other is here. Andrea and Carina don’t get on. Andrea seems to have cut herself off a bit lately.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind, and pull a curtain across,’ Sister Wallace drawled.

‘Speaking of getting on,’ Candace said lightly, ‘I’m heading off. It’s been an interesting first day, but I’m done now.’

She should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Steve caught up to her as she reached her car.

‘Heading straight home?’

‘Yes, thanks to the existence of the frozen meals we picked up the other day, I don’t need to stop for anything.’

‘Frozen meals! Yum!’ he drawled. ‘How about steak instead?’

‘Too hungry to wait for steak.’

‘I’ll get it on the grill as soon as I get home. Walk down to my place when you’re ready, and we can call it a late lunch.’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘I know. If I had to, I’d be chafing by now. Terry said, “Look after her till Monday.”’

‘Ah, so he did say that?’

She felt the severity in her expression. Couldn’t always relax straight after surgery. He would probably think she was tight and humourless and no fun at all. From experience, however, she knew it would be worse to force a more laid-back mood. Wait until she got out of these cruel pantihose and unwound the stethoscope from her neck. She’d be far more relaxed then.

‘Yes, he did say that,’ Steve echoed steadily. ‘But it’s Tuesday now. This one’s pleasure, not duty. And I’m such a crash-hot GP I can tell just by looking at you that your iron stores are low.’

Unexpectedly, she laughed. ‘They probably are.’

‘You need steak. And a swim.’

‘The swim I won’t argue with.’

‘Neither will I, as long as it’s after the steak.’

‘All right…’

‘Then, when we’re sitting on the beach, I think we’ve got to talk about why you hesitated even for a second before you said yes to this,’ he finished.

Casual tone. Meaningful after-shock.

It was a threat. Candace was in no doubt about that. And it was a threat which sent twin curls of panic and dizzy need spiralling wildly through her blood. She stalled the car three times on the way home.

THEY lay side by side on their towels in silence, soaking up some late afternoon sun and digesting what couldn’t possibly have been called a late lunch.

Barbecued steak, a microwaved jacket potato and salad, dished up at a quarter to five? Not lunch. Delicious and satisfying, though. Steve Colton cooked steak very well.

He was going to ask me something, but I’ve forgotten what it was, Candace thought hazily.

She was too busy thinking about signals. Yes, those signals! The ones men sent to women, and the ones women, in their different way, sent back to men.

It’s been so long…So long since I had to decide if I was imagining it or not. If I wanted it or not. If a man really meant it or not. I was so sure about all those questions the other day, but now…

Some men had flirted with her, had given off signals, during her marriage to Todd. They had been signals she had casually interpreted as meaning, If you weren’t attached, I’d be interested. The key attitude on her part, of course, was ‘casually’. She had never needed to test out her perceptions, to work out whether she was right or wrong.

Because of Todd, because of her marriage, it just hadn’t mattered. She’d never had the remotest intention of responding to the possible, or probable, signals in any way. She’d never been tempted into an affair.

This time, it was different. A part of her craved the heady therapy of a successful fling. Another part of her was cynical, sceptical and just plain terrified. If I’m wrong…If I’m right, and it doesn’t work…

If I’m sure I’m right, and I throw myself at him, and he laughs, or he’s kind, or he tells me very carefully, Oh, but I’m married. Didn’t you know? My wife is away visiting her parents for a week in Woggabiggabolliga—which seemed to be the name of at least half of the towns people mentioned around here, as far as she could work out.

Candace had to suppress a gulp of hysterical laughter at this point. Am I going crazy? Who knew that betrayal and divorce could do this to a person?