THE RECEPTIONIST

Eighteen-year-old Bec offered to work at the lowest legal rate. The Doctors Kellys had just had to lay off two full-time senior receptionists who’d worked for the practice more than a decade. It was heartbreaking. Mrs-Dr Kelly found it hard to say yes to Bec, but she couldn’t answer the phones herself.

The practice was struggling. Its doctors had served a wheatbelt area of hundreds and hundreds of square kilometres, with success and respect for over twenty years.

Cutbacks in their funding from the local authorities had meant Mrs-Dr Kelly and Mr-Dr Kelly had to look after the vast practice by themselves, unable to attract doctors from elsewhere. They’d lost their special housing and subsidy for vehicles, and found it hard to meet even rent on premises in the heart of an increasingly unfriendly, violent and unruly town.

When Mr-Dr Kelly broke his hip and was out of action for months, it fell on his wife to keep the battered ship afloat in the glut of wheat. It had been a bumper year for harvests, accidents and sickness. Mrs-Dr Kelly had to remind herself of the Hippocratic oath more than once when squeezing in a councillor who claimed an urgent need to be seen, the nearest other practice being more than eighty kilometres away.

Not long in town, Bec came with scant references. But her boyfriend was working on one of the larger farms of the district, and people spoke well of him. He and Bec lived in a donga near the shearing quarters.

While ringing to make an appointment for a sore throat, Bec had detected a fluster in the voice of Mrs-Dr Kelly and sensed an opportunity. I sniffed it out over the phone, she told her boyfriend. At the end of the appointment, during which she’d reproached Mrs-Dr Kelly for neglecting to dye over grey roots, she had made herself necessary.

I was a receptionist for a while at a big city surgery. She handed over a reference – ‘she worked here for four weeks’ – which Mrs-Dr Kelly might get around to following up … but with people lined up in the waiting room and the phone crazy, Bec heard exactly what she’d expected to hear, what she’d sniffed out. Yes, yes, dear. I’ll sign you in to the computer and you can work out the rest. And so it happened.

Bec had things sorted within the week, and those who were rude to her on the phone or in person, and those who ‘just didn’t feel quite right’, found the earliest appointments they could get were weeks away. Better to travel elsewhere, she warmly advised.

Bec eventually met Mr-Dr Kelly when he hobbled in on a frame one afternoon. Getting out and about, he said. Bec smiled a fraction too long, and said lightly, You won’t be making any high-speed getaways any time soon.

*

When a woman rang asking for an urgent house call, or rather farm call, Bec didn’t hesitate before saying, I will be there in forty minutes. She bristled with approval and excitement.

Mrs-Dr Kelly wandered out to find Bec when her next patient wasn’t listed on screen. The waiting room was filled and people were angry.

This isn’t like Bec, she told herself, though she wasn’t really sure what Bec was like. Mr-Dr Kelly had taken an instant dislike to her, but he was oversensitive in his present state. And Mrs-Dr Kelly had no time to bother with such trivia as personality.

Sorry, sorry. Where’s Bec? she asked, staring over the patients’ heads, careful not to make eye contact. She became vaguely aware that her underwear was showing over the waistband of her skirt.

A tattooed gentleman … yes, Mr Irons … Mr Irons was yelling at her. She walked out forty minutes ago, doctor!

Why?

She said she had a ’mergencee, said an old lady, trying hard to hang on to her manners.

Oh God. What on earth …?

*

Bec loved driving through the countryside. It was harvest, and large machinery was frequently hogging the road. She didn’t mind, she was quite happy to pull over to let a header or tractor pass. Then she’d plant her foot on the accelerator and make up for lost time. She loved the crests, her stomach dropping to the floor as she roller-coastered her way into the unknown at maximum speed. A few times she’d lost it on the gravel, but her boyfriend had been giving her lessons and she reckoned she could handle it pretty well now, occasionally dropping the back end out and letting the car fishtail just for the fun of it.

In the city she’d been known as a bit of a party animal. She was full of life. Her favourite word was ‘zesty!’ and when she’d had a few drinks, she’d call out, Joie de vivre! Joie de vivre! She was a positive influence on all those around her. Knew how to party! In the mirror, she saw herself as vivacious, even if doubts nagged enough to make her turn away and say, I’ve got better things to do with my time than worry about my looks.

*

Plainview was a big property for the region – four thousand acres. The house was a grand double-storey stone building from the 1870s. Bec just loved it at first sight. As she rolled up before the front gate after parading down a long, treed driveway, she admired the lush green lawn enclosed within, half wondering how they managed to keep it so green. By the time she’d stepped out of her car and got her hand on the gate latch, a woman was running across the lawn.

Thank God you’re here. We should have called an ambulance but he hates hospitals. Do you have your bag with you? Her eyes searched the girl, the car, the space between car and girl. You’re not a doctor? I thought the Kellys might have a new doctor on. Was it you that answered the phone? My husband is very unwell. He’s been vomiting. I told you that on the phone, didn’t I? It was you? Can’t the doctor come?

Bec laughed lightly. Calm down. I did first aid at school. The doctor is so busy, no need to bother her with a house call. No need, is there, my dear?

The lady at the gate look nonplussed, then angry, then desperate. Well, come in. You can see my husband but I am going to ring an ambulance.

Probably no need, said Bec. It’s a zesty house you have here. I’d love to live in a house like this. Every day an adventure! I’ll find my way, she said, following the woman in.

It was a house of jarrah, stone, and period furniture. There was an aerial photograph of the property on a large corridor wall, and Bec drank it in. All this, yours.

A moan came from deep inside the house. From upstairs. Bec broke away from the Lady of the House (snooty!), and followed the sound up a grand staircase, down a corridor, to a door that opened into the master bedroom. Mild protests from downstairs faded and evaporated. A middle-aged man, far from handsome, moaned and dripped saliva into a vomit-filled bowl by the side of the bed.

Gee, I’ve never seen a four-poster bed! exclaimed Bec.

Who the fuck are you?

I’m Bec! I’ve just come out to check on you.

Who sent you? Where’s the doctor? Where’s my missus?

The Lady of the House is downstairs. Maybe she’s making us all a cuppa, I’m parched. It’s quite a drive from town.

Where’s the bloody doctor?

She’s not available, sorry. Her appointments are full. And I know, because I’ve had to work hard to squeeze everyone in. So many people trying to take advantage. They tell me they’re personal friends, or important people, or on death’s door.

Get out of here!

Now calm down, sir. You can’t speak to me like that. There are laws against abusing medical staff.

You’re not … medical! You’re a bloody receptionist!

Maybe, but without me there’d be no practice. Mrs-Dr Kelly couldn’t run a stall at the church fete, and Mr-Dr Kelly is an invalid.

Get out of my house, now! Love! Love! Where are you? Come and get this little trollop out of my room.

That’s harassment, sir. I told you, there are laws about mistreating medical people. Strict laws for our protection. I wouldn’t like to call on those laws, but don’t for a moment doubt that I will if need be. And if you get fresh with me my boyfriend will beat the shit out of you. I don’t need to put up with this – I’m out of here. It’s your loss.

*

Bec didn’t stay upset for long. That Lady of the House was a bore. Bec enjoyed her drive back to town. She played the stereo quite loud, singing along with Celine Dion in a falsetto she considered her crowning glory.

Pulling up outside the surgery, she shook her head to see the crowd spilling out the door, the town policeman calming them down. Really, people were just so vulnerable, so demanding.

Mrs-Dr Kelly looked frantic; she had clearly lost the plot. Poor old dear, overworked. And that husband of hers, breaking his hip like that. Hopeless. A couple of hours without me and the whole place falls to bits, she said to the rear-vision mirror as she unbuckled her belt and checked her face, opening the car door with her spare hand, then sliding out onto terra firma to get the show back on the road, and right the sinking ship!

Okay, all! Okay, all! she called out as the crowd clustered around her and the doctor and the policeman approached wearing grim looks. It’s okay! called Bec, who suddenly felt as if she’d been drinking a fine champagne, the bubbles rising up through her noise and deep into her head. It’s okay … Come to me! Come to me and I’ll sort it all out.