You're Never The Same

4

4It was close to midnight when Vince arrived back in Warrnambool. He parked Benny on the cracked cement drive, went inside, and switched on the lights. The old farmhouse was like Home Beautiful compared to this place. His New Year’s resolution to keep the house at least half tidy had already unravelled. Too bad. It’s just a staging post. He reached out for the broom then shook his head.

‘Forget it,’ he told his dog Deefer, who looked happy but confused by her master’s nocturnal arrival. ‘I’ll do it tomorrow after work.’

The next morning he was up bright and early. Well, early anyway. Now over two years into his exile, Vince started every day with a run on the beach. Unless there was a good swell, that was. Or he was knackered from a busy night on-call. Or if my little brother had just topped himself. Deefer whined and pawed at the back door at first light anyway, so staying in bed wasn’t an option. Sleep had eluded him last night. His body was exhausted but his mind was in overdrive—shifting dark tabloids of childhood memories and self-loathing.

He dragged himself out of bed and stood under the shower for ten minutes, struggling to bring himself back to the present. He pulled on some clothes, then swallowed two Weetbix and drained a mug of instant coffee before pouring some pellets into Deefer’s bowl. The dog cleaned it up in seconds and trotted to the back door, tail wagging.

Vince glanced at his reflection in the back-door window and a stooped, bald figure with a pale face stared back. ‘Who’s that old bloke?’ he asked Deefer, then shook himself and straightened his shoulders. He’d always been a big unit—a ruckman’s build with small, deep eyes, a crooked nose and, in recent times, a bald pate. Lydia used to say his teeth were his best feature, but his smiling muscles seemed to have weakened over the last few years. Lack of bloody use.

‘Okay, mate, we’ll go for a walk.’

Vince grabbed the lead and they wandered down Fay Street over the Merri River Bridge and cut in past the skate ramp to the path through the bush and onto the beach. It was a beautiful morning and the water looked inviting. There was a nice break with a gentle off-shore breeze. Vince breathed in the salty air, normally a balm for his soul, but the magic wasn’t working today. They trudged along the shoreline for a few hundred metres and then headed back to the house.

Time to get back to doctoring. He grabbed his bag and hit the road. Rural general practice was a big come down from his former life as a high-flying obstetrician and gynaecologist in the big league. A text from Shirley had encouraged him to take a few days off, but he knew better.

‘Don’t let that intense introspection take over, Dr Hanrahan,’ his shrink had said. ‘It’ll do your head in. Keep busy and be in the moment.’ Yada yada yada.

* * *

Vince walked straight in the back door of the Timor Street Clinic, looking neither left nor right, and marched to his consulting room. He sat down and turned on his computer. There was an immediate knock at the door and the practice manager poked her head in. Early forties, curtains of wavy brown hair, and a no-nonsense demeanour.

‘Welcome back, Dr Hanrahan. Sorry for your loss. I blocked out a few spare appointments for today.’

‘Thanks, Lorraine.’

Vince brought up his list and scrutinised the names. He was about to beckon the first patient when his door swung wide. Jesus, now what? Shirley Tiang waltzed in with a bunch of flowers and sat in the chair opposite his desk. She had on her usual work outfit—a vivid stripy blouse, chunky jewellery, black pants tapering to the ankles, and low-cut leather boots.

‘Make yourself at home.’

She sat back and looked around the room. ‘You need a painter and docker here, bud. This is like a hospital outpatient cubicle. Needs a bit of colour and movements.’ She glanced at the bare walls. ‘No family pics, even.’

Vince grimaced. ‘My family is shrinking fast.’

‘We all thinking of you, cobber.’

‘Thank you.’ Vince felt his voice break. What’s that about? Thought I was doing okay.

He hustled Shirley out, took a deep breath, then called in his first customer: a young woman with two kids in tow and one still cooking. Vince knew Tracey Cartwright well. She was the daughter of his neighbour, Carmel Harrington, and he was conscious of that extra obligation. In country practice, he’d come to realise just about every patient ended up being a special case. By the time you excluded friends, relatives, and work colleagues, there were few regular punters left.

Tracey’s voice was flat, ditto her appearance. Thin as a stick apart from her distended abdomen, her honey-blond hair was dull and unkempt, her complexion pallid. Par for the course for a pregnant young mother of two. But he knew it wasn’t just fatigue. Tracey was also sporting a bluish bruise along her right temple and around her eye. Not for the first time.

‘Looks like you’ve had a bit of a buster.’

She frowned and put a hand to her face. ‘Trod on the rake in the backyard. Happen to anyone.’

Vince shook his head. They both looked across at the boys playing in the toy corner. He leant forward, wrapped a grey cuff around Tracey’s skinny upper arm, and spoke softly. ‘We both know that’s not true. It was Dustin, wasn’t it?’

She watched the changing numbers on the blood pressure machine for a few moments before answering. ‘He just can’t settle since he came back from Iraq. When he gets on the drink, he … he … loses control.’ She put her head in her hands. ‘I know he still loves me.’

Vince motioned Tracey up onto the examination couch and palpated her belly and listened to the baby’s heart with the foetal stethoscope.

‘Bit on the small size,’ he commented as she retook her seat. ‘Heart sounded good though, didn’t it?’

Tracey gave an indifferent shrug, pulled out her phone, and started reading her messages.

‘Listen to me, Trace. I know he had a tough time over there, but that doesn’t give him the right to knock you around.’

A fierce dispute broke out about the contested possession of a red fire truck.

‘Stop fighting, you boys,’ called Tracey. ‘Over here, Toby, and let the doctor have a look at your sore ear.’

Vince could see the shutters come down.

‘When Dustin comes in next week for his methadone script, I’ll try to get him into a Department of Veterans Affairs PTSD program. In the meantime, I think you should have a talk to your counsellor and maybe the police.’

Tracey shook her head. ‘You have no bloody idea, Doc. Just have a look in Toby’s ear and let me get out of here.’ She touched her bruised face again. ‘And don’t you dare tell me mum.’

* * *

The rest of the morning flew past in a rapid procession of sore throats, blood pressure checks, and bad backs. Vince farewelled his last patient, ignored the large pile of repeat script requests and phone messages still sitting in his too-hard basket, and headed for the back door.

‘I’ll do ‘em tomorrow, Lorraine,’ he said in the vague direction of the practice manager.

‘Heard that before, Dr Hanrahan,’ she responded with a mixture of frustration and resignation.

He climbed into his car and headed off through the darkening streets. As he turned into South Warrnambool, he wound down his window and inhaled the familiar tangy breeze. Almost two years he’d been renting the house in Fay Street and had nearly bought the place a few months ago. Lucky I came to my senses. Warrnambool had its attractions, but his children were in Melbourne and so was his real career. Not to mention his wife.

Still, he liked living in the unfashionable south part of the town. It was near the beach, the people were genuine, and rents were cheap. Even though Lydia was shacked up with an upmarket plastic surgeon in South Yarra, Vince was still paying the mortgage for the Canterbury house and the twins’ school fees.

Number seven was distinguished by metre-wide vertical red and white stripes on its conite front. A previous owner had slapped on the artwork to celebrate the South Warrnambool Snappers last premiership win back in 1991. As a result, the place was known by the locals as the ‘Snapper house’.

Vince nosed Benny into the drive and discovered his dog in the front yard chewing on the garden hose. She bounded up to him as he opened the car door and slobbered all over his shirt.

‘Settle down, Deefer,’ he said. ‘How many times do I have to tell you not to eat the bloody … Oh, what’s the point?’

Golden retrievers had been very much de rigueur in Canterbury, along with Range Rovers and white picket fences. She was a gorgeous dog with a low IQ and an insatiable appetite. Vince gave her some food and took her for a brisk walk. He then bombed a frozen curry in the microwave, ate it over the sink, and fell into bed.