The first victim was already asleep as I scrubbed: another sweet-and-sour sixteen year old, flaccid with pentothal, her dimpled legs dead weights as the scrub-nurse lifted them into stirrups.
The anaesthetist, Max Henning, raised his head to nod: ‘Start whenever.’
I swabbed the shaven vulva, slipped a drain into the bladder, covered the dimpled thighs with green drapes: deft autopilot routines.
‘Anything but scrapes on the list, Max?’
‘You really want to know?’
‘If it’s good news.’
‘Seven in a row.’
Thursday’s theatre-list — curettes, TOPs, terminations, pick a euphemism — was the worst of the week. Even a ligation or two — gynaecology’s bread and butter — would have made for a little variety. I could have done the work blindfolded.
‘Spin me three times, Sister. And aim me towards the patient.’
‘Sorry, Doctor Fox?’
‘A joke, Sister. A small joke. You must be new.’
Her eye-corners crinkled; a smile or frown beneath the face-mask?
‘Sim’s speculum,’ I told her.
A frown: the instrument slapped my palm too firmly.
Max Henning sat at the head of the patient — the wrong end, in labour ward dialect, the boring end — a small, white-masked man rhythmically squeezing a bag.
‘Discovered a new restaurant the other night,’ he was murmuring. ‘Down on Unley Road. Vietnamese cuisine.’
Max had been my favourite among the staff anaesthetists for years. And not just for his clinical competence, his skill with the gas. His voice also was a potent anaesthetic. Soothing, gossipy, diffuse — a kind of background music.
‘You should try it, Mara. Take your mother.’
‘My mother has probably tried it,’ I said. ‘I don’t get out much.’
He wasn’t listening. ‘They have this hot fish soup. Makes your eyeballs bleed.’
Today I didn’t want to be soothed: I allowed him to get no further than the soup du jour.
‘When I was a student, Max,’ I interrupted. ‘Back in the dim past …’
‘Hagar’s dilator or Fenton’s, doctor?’
‘Fenton’s, Sister … As I was saying, Max. Back when I was a student I had a weekend job in a winery. Labelling bottles.’
‘Nice work if you can get it.’
‘Nice isn’t the word. The word is … boring. Piecework, they called it. The more labels I plastered on those bottles the more I was paid. But Max, it wasn’t as boring as this.’
He laughed, trying to humour me. ‘Maybe they’d take you back.’
‘Don’t laugh — I’ve thought about it. One factory or another: what’s the difference?’
He sensed the seriousness behind the joke. ‘Bit hard to run your research project.’
‘What research project? There’s no money.’
I had never aired these grievances publicly before. Things previously left unsaid, even to some extent unthought, or only partly thought, had grown suddenly clearer, a crystal forming around the right-shaped piece of grit: a Chair of my own, in Queensland.
‘Size four knitting needle, Sister,’ I said.
She scrabbled noisily among the instruments in her tray.
Max apologised on my behalf: ‘Another joke, Sister. You’ll get used to Mara’s sense of humour — warped at the best of times.’
How long would I have lasted without it? It wasn’t the long list of abortions that bothered me that afternoon. Quite the contrary. Every woman’s right, I’ve always believed — and backed the belief with action. Back in medical school I joined any number of Women’s Action Groups, any number of Concerned Doctors For This or Against That. The principle still stood: abortion on demand.
Although I’ve yet to see one of those scared teenagers who creep sideways into Family Planning, eyes down, or up, or anywhere except in contact with my own, demand anything. Abortion on request, describes it better. Abortion on humble petition, on supplication, on terrified entreaty.
I wiped the curette on a piece of gauze. ‘Send that down to pathology, Sister.’
My objection was simple: why was I aborting them? Midwives were trained to deliver babies; why not some sort of anti-midwife to prevent them? It would cost infinitely less, and allow me to get back to more exciting things. My in vitro programme, for one. And two, for that matter — and three. My in vitro programme, above all! Six years of medical school, two more interned in the wards, another five of postgrad work — to find myself stuck doing this. It was suddenly, overwhelmingly too much. I felt a tight knot in my chest.
‘Suction, Sister,’ I wheezed. ‘Come on, show a bit of enthusiasm.’
‘I’m doing my best.’
‘Do better. Or we’ll be here all day.’
Max looked up from squeezing his bag.
‘Easy, Doctor,’ he said, still in the same smooth monotone. ‘No need to bite her head off. What’s eating you today?’
‘The same thing that eats me every day.’
I taped a pad between the thighs, peeled off my gloves and mask, forced myself to turn to the sister.
‘Thanks for your help. And please excuse my lack of manners. I’m not feeling particularly terrific today.’
‘You don’t say.’
‘Will you be wanting afternoon tea, Dr Fox?’ one of the students asked.
Max tried to intervene: ‘I don’t think there’s time.’
I insisted. ‘There’s time.’
The silver service, as always, stood steaming in the surgeon’s tearoom: one last luxury that had not been cut by the bureaucrats. Yet. I sucked hard at my asthma puffer, twice, gulped a hot mouthful of tea and sat breathing more easily until Max came searching.
‘We’re ready to roll again.’
‘I’m not. Have a cuppa.’
He hesitated, then sat, disapprovingly, and mixed himself a cool milky cup. ‘Bit rough on the nursing staff in there, Mara.’
‘That’s the way they learn. Christmas cake?’
‘No thanks.’
I bit into a slice of rich cake, and chewed, slowly, teasing him, but also wanting to talk.
‘I had a call from Richard Pfitzner this morning, Max. Remember Pfitzner?’
He snorted. ‘Pain in the arse.’
‘He’s in Queensland. Dean of Schultz University.’
Another snort: ‘Always landed on his feet.’
‘Do you know anything about the place?’
‘The medical school has everything that opens and shuts — except patients. Why? Thinking of moving?’
‘What, and leave all this?’
He forced a smile, drained the rest of his tea and rose, meaningfully: ‘Back to the coal-face, Mara.’
I followed him out of my sanctuary, reluctantly. More victims waited in the passage outside: a freighttrain of beds, stretching around the corner, end-to-end.
‘Come over for drinks on Christmas morning,’ Max said. ‘Bring your mother.’
I shook my head. ‘Family get-together on the farm.’