Page 69 of A Home Among the Snow Gums
He stood up, the journal in his hand.
‘You won’t be able to take that,’ she said. ‘You’ll need to be absolutely still.’ Her eyes dropped to the article he had open and its super upbeat header: A COHORTSTUDY: SEXUALHEALTH& SPINALCORDINJURY.‘Oh, Tom,’ she said. ‘We’re going to have a talk about your choice of reading material. That sort of thing isn’t meant to be lying around in the patient areas. Come on, let’s go find you a gown.’
Dr Novak didn’t quite have to strip him out of his jeans and boots and wrap him into a gown, but she stood watching on critically as he did it. ‘Have you been overdoing things, Tom?’
‘Physically? Nothing beyond walking, sitting, driving, typing on a keyboard.’
‘And how do you think you are doing?’
‘I’d be lying if I said there was no change.’
‘Not your mobility. It’s deteriorating, we both know it. You’ve some muscle wastage, too,’ she said, poking a finger at his ribs. ‘No, I mean how areyoudoing?’ She tapped her head. ‘Up here. You find anything of use in those pamphlets I gave you last time?’
‘I’m not sure if your pamphlets have anything to do with it, but since my last visit, I have projects coming out my ears.’
‘Really?’ said Dr Novak. Her face was half-hidden by the mask she’d donned while he fought his way into the gown, but her voice and eyes and eyebrows had no difficulty conveying delight. ‘Do tell!’
‘I’ve been roped into organising a horse event that my father used to run before his health declined. I’ve got half-a-dozen buildings in varying states of repair that need someone to oversee their tenants, including a historic pub that needs some TLC before it can reopen, and the guy who should be doing all of that had to be sacked.’
‘That all sounds fabulous. You’ll be telling me you’ve got a job next. A life plan. Somegoals.’
‘No need to get carried away.’ But she was right. It did feel good having something more to respond to her repeated questions of ‘what have you been up to’ with something other than ‘not much’.
And that pub. There was something about seeing that pub slowly coming to life again that made him feel … contentment.
‘I look forward to hearing how your plans unfold. What about everything else?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Remember we talked about those stages.’
He sidestepped answering. He was in better shape mentally than he’d been since the injury, but acceptance was so far over his horizon it was in a foreign country. Acceptance implied you knew what in hell your outcome would be.
He was just waiting, waiting, waiting.
‘The pain meds are giving me bad dreams. Is there some sort of alternative?’
‘None with the same oomph. Perhaps you could try taking a half-dose and if that doesn’t dull the pain, take the other half. How often are you taking them?’
‘Only when I have to.’ Problem was, that was more and more often.
The doctor handed him a paper sack to put his clothes into and led the way into the room where the CT machine loomed like a giant white donut. ‘Part of pain management is working out what’s triggered it and choosing not to replicate the circumstances.’
He spent the next fifteen minutes thinking about her words. What did trigger his pain? Forget his back—he had zero expectations of that improving until the surgeon finally reckoned the time was right to cut it out, so why waste time hoping? Since he’d returned to Hanrahan he’d learned that there was another kind of pain that was even worse.
He wanted to be with Hannah, but maybeshewanted a van full of kids and a huge weekly cereal bill. He wanted her to be happy, but she didn’t seem happy. He wanted to help, but helping Hannah always seemed to end in tears.
And if he spent too much time with her and kept on having these idiotic fantasies about families and happy ever afters and naughty red-haired children rambling over the paddocks of Ironbark Station?
Well, he’d be the one in tears.
He caved at the junction of Hope and Quarry Streets. Straight along Hope to skim the outskirts of town, a merge right into Gorge Road, and he’d be at the gates of Ironbark before the evening news finished. A whiskey. An ibuprofen. With luck, Mrs L had covered some leftovers in foil and left them warming in the oven for him and …
But here he was, parking round the side of the clinic and climbing out of the car into the chill of an early autumn evening. Fairy lights lit the trees in the park across the road and light spilled from The Billy Button Café on its far side. A couple walked arm in arm down Dandaloo Street with a little poodle thing dancing along ahead of them on its lead. An everyday evening for everyday people.
It made him want what he couldn’t have.
He felt the bitterness rising and clamped it down. No way did he want to become like Bruno: angrier and more bitter as the years passed. No-one needed to be subjected to that.
The back door was unlocked, so he let himself into the clinic then made his way up the two flights of stairs to Hannah’s place. Lucky he didn’t have an audience; he had to take a breather on the landing before thumping on the door.
She opened it a scarce few seconds later. ‘Oh, hi.’ Her hair was escaping its braid and she looked rumpled, but she didn’t sound mad that he’d turned up after ignoring her text message.
