Australian Affairs: Seduced. Carol Marinelli
office,’ Marnie corrected. ‘We were having supper and talking…’ She pressed her fingers into her eyes for a brief moment and then recovered. ‘He just stopped talking in mid-sentence.’
‘You might need to speak to Marjorie,’ Harry said, as he headed back out there. ‘She might want to hear what happened from you.’
Marnie nodded. ‘Harry!’ She called him back. ‘I don’t know his first name.’
‘Gregory,’ Harry said. ‘Gregory Vermont.’
Marjorie was as lovely as Dr Vermont had been and, though devastated, she was very stoic too.
‘He spoke very highly of you,’ Marjorie said when she’d been in to see her husband and was sitting down in his office, which was filled not just with his many certificates but with photos of his family too. ‘He said you were going to bring a bit of order to the place…’ She swallowed. ‘Harry said that you were with him when it happened?’
‘We were in my office,’ Marnie said. ‘We were having our supper break and talking about…’ She glanced at Harry, who filled in for her.
‘The Harry problem?’
‘The staff issues,’ Marnie said. ‘He was actually talking about you. How you’d managed to have a career but how he couldn’t have been an emergency doctor without all your support.’ There was a flash of tears in Marnie’s eyes as she recalled the conversation, such a simple one at the time but it was so much more meaningful now. Marjorie gave a grateful smile as Marnie recalled Dr Vermont’s final moments, gave her the comfort of knowing he had been speaking about his wife and a marriage that had so clearly worked.
‘He was telling me how you used to keep a flask of coffee by the bedside. Then he just stopped speaking, Marjorie,’ Marnie said. ‘There was no pain, no discomfort, I promise you that. For a moment I honestly thought that he’d fallen asleep…’
She heard a sniff and looked over. It was Harry. He’d been holding Marjorie’s hand but now it was more that she was holding his.
‘He thought the world of you,’ Marjorie said to Harry, and Marnie watched as Harry nodded.
She felt as if she was glimpsing something incredibly private as, just for a moment, Harry gave in to his grief and screwed up his face, trying and failing not to weep.
‘When you came to do your residency, he said what a great emergency doctor you’d make,’ Marjorie said, and Harry nodded again but pulled himself together, when perhaps he didn’t have to. Dr Vermont and Marjorie were, Marnie was fast realising, so much more than a colleague and his wife to Harry. They clearly went back years.
Marjorie went to sit with her husband again and to speak with her family, who were starting to arrive.
It was a wretched night and looked no better by morning. Marnie had placed the department on bypass so that no ambulances were bringing patients in, though the walking wounded still trickled in. There were a couple of ward nurses helping out and one of the surgeons had come down to assist too. The nursing staff had known Dr Vermont for a lot longer than she had and needed each other more than they needed her, so Marnie took herself around to the observation ward and sat with the twins. She went through the doctors’ rosters and tried to work out how the department could possibly work without even one senior doctor.
‘Are you okay?’ Harry came in a little later to check on the twins. He didn’t want to wake them again and also wanted to be there to tell the day staff the sad news himself when they started to arrive.
‘Of course.’ Marnie nodded. ‘You?’
‘I just can’t take it in,’ Harry admitted, sitting down at the desk beside her and talking in a low voice so as not to disturb the twins. Harry picked up the doctors’ roster. It was already a mess—a mass of red crossings-out and locums and gaps in the schedule, and that had been before Dr Vermont had so suddenly died.
‘So much for leaving,’ Harry said.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ Harry admitted. ‘I’ve just about used up every last favour. I’ll have to do something, though. I simply can’t imagine this place without him. He and Marjorie were so good to me when Jill had her accident…’ He hesitated, not sure if Marnie was interested in hearing his thoughts or if she was just being polite.
‘Go on,’ Marnie offered, but Harry looked over at the sleeping twins and shook his head. ‘Not here.’
They moved to the small kitchenette where they could talk and still keep an eye on the children.
‘Jill was on ICU for two weeks after the accident.’ Harry paused for a moment, which he so rarely did—he simply didn’t have the time or the reserves to examine the past, but the emotion of losing such a close friend and colleague forced a moment of reflection. ‘Jill had massive head injuries.’
‘How?’
‘A car accident. The only saving grace was that she didn’t have the twins with her at the time. I knew as soon as I saw her that things were never going to be the same again and so did Dr Vermont. Even if she had lived, her injuries were so severe that things would never have been the same,’ Harry explained. ‘Dr Vermont told me that the time Jill was on ICU was my time. I can’t really explain it, but we both knew at some level how difficult things would be, whether she lived or died. Cathy, my sister, had the twins and brought them in now and then to see their mum.
‘Dr Vermont took care of the department. Marjorie brought dinner in for me every night and clothes, and just did so many things for me that I didn’t even notice. I was so focused on the time I had left with Jill. I think I did all my grieving in ICU. I have bad days of course, but, really, when she died it wasn’t about Jill, or Jill and I any more, or me, it was about the twins and work and just surviving.’ He looked at Marnie, suddenly aware that his words might be hurting her for reasons of her own. ‘Was it the same for you?’
‘No,’ Marnie admitted. ‘The whole time Declan was in ICU I was convincing myself that he’d live and making plans for taking him home. Right till the last day I thought that he’d make it.’ Marnie shook her head—she just didn’t want to go there.
As the day staff arrived and the news was broken there were tears on the floor and more tears in the staffroom. Marnie worked her way through the contact sheets, ringing the staff who were not on duty today, or not due in till later, to let them know what had happened.
It was a department in mourning but, of course, the patients continued to arrive.
‘I’ve come to get the twins.’ It was Harry’s sister, Marnie could tell. Her face was strained and yet she gave Harry a hug when he came over.
‘I’m sorry, Harry. I know he meant the world to you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘The thing is…’
Harry halted her.
‘I know you can’t keep doing this,’ Harry said for her. ‘If you can just help me out till the funeral.’
It was close to eleven by the time Marnie got home and she had to be back there at eight for her night shift.
Despite the warmth of the house, Marnie was shivering as she climbed into bed and recalled her last conversation with Dr Vermont.
This too will pass.
Yes, Marnie thought, her body tired but her mind just too busy for sleeping.
When?
THERE WEREN’T JUST cracks appearing, there were gaping holes in the roster and a couple of nights Marnie was close to putting the department on bypass again. Harry’s sister had taken