Chocolate Cake for Breakfast (18 page)

‘What star sign are you?’ Keri asked that afternoon, picking up the newspaper on Thomas’s desk. Jill Murphy was due any minute with a constipated Maltese terrier, and we were hanging around out the front waiting for her to arrive.

‘Aries,’ I said.

‘
With Venus and Mercury about to leave your work sector, now
is the time to say what you mean and mean what you say
,’ she read.

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘That’s so helpful.’ My personal theory is that next week’s horoscopes are a collaborative effort between everyone in the newsroom, written late on Friday afternoons after the first half dozen beers.

‘Read mine,’ Thomas ordered. ‘Aquarius.’

‘Aquarius,’ said Keri. ‘Hmm. Oh, here we are. You’re under the influence of the waning moon, and you need to be careful not to take your loved ones for granted.’

‘So it’s okay to take them for granted when the moon’s waxing?’ I asked.

‘S’pose so.’

‘What a heap of shit,’ Thomas said.

The automatic doors slid open and Jill Murphy came in, small fluffy dog under her arm. ‘With any luck,’ said Keri brightly, ‘that’ll be just what we say when Buffy’s had his enema.’

Buffy, as it happened, was quite impressively constipated. According to his owner he had spent most of the previous weekend working his way through a rotten possum – which was no mean feat, seeing as he was only the size of a medium-sized possum himself. Sadly, though, the possum’s fur had failed to navigate the length of his digestive tract, and his large intestine was blocked from end to end. We could feel the hard, distended loops of bowel through his abdominal wall. Why, I wondered, hadn’t he left the fur behind? Surely it’s not all that tasty. And imagine the feel of it in the back of your throat . . . I did imagine it for a moment, and then wished I hadn’t.

We knocked Buffy right out to unblock him. It’s not a very sophisticated job; you administer enema solution per rectum to grease everything up a bit, knead the abdomen to break the blockage down and winkle the bits out with a gloved finger. Keri and I took turns kneading and winkling, swapping every five minutes or so, while Zoe stood at the patient’s head to monitor the anaesthetic.

It was hot in the treatment room and I was concentrating on keeping my Vegemite sandwich down when Keri shouted, ‘
Zoe!
Turn him
down
!’

Zoe jumped and dropped her cell phone into the pocket of her scrub top. ‘What?’

Keri yanked off her gloves and made a dive for the anaesthetic machine’s dial. ‘He’s on
four
! Is he still breathing?’ She turned off the gas, pushed the button that floods the machine’s circuit with pure oxygen and began to squeeze the rebreathing bag.

I snatched a stethoscope off the table and pressed it feverishly to Buffy’s chest – his heartbeat was slow and faint, but it was there. ‘His heart’s beating.’

‘What’s his colour like?’ Keri asked.

I peeled back the little dog’s upper lip. His gums were pale grey. ‘Terrible.’ And offering up a fervent prayer of thanksgiving for having put the dog on IV fluids before anaesthetising him, I increased the flow from his drip.
Shock rates are ninety mil per kilo
per hour – he’s seven kilos – nine times seven is sixty-three – six hundred
and thirty mil per hour is about ten mil a minute – a hundred drips
in sixty seconds – almost two drips per second . . .
There’s nothing like panic for speeding up your mental arithmetic.

For several tense minutes Keri breathed for Buffy while I listened to his heart. ‘Eighty beats per minute . . . ninety . . . a hundred and ten . . . He’s getting pinker. Stop breathing for him for a minute, Keri – see if he’ll do it himself.’

He wouldn’t, but after another five minutes we tried again, and were rewarded by a quick heave of breath. I turned down the drip and we regarded one another wide-eyed across the patient. And then, as one, our gazes swivelled towards Zoe.

‘Did you look
once
at that dog?’ said Keri in a soft, menacing voice.

Zoe opened her mouth, shut it again, burst into tears and fled. Bel does that too – defensive crying in an effort to divert blame from its rightful source.

‘She never looked away from that bloody phone,’ said Keri.

‘Nope,’ I agreed.

‘And if he’d died it would’ve still been our fault.’

I nodded. Ultimately, the responsibility lies with the vet, not the nurse. ‘I didn’t look at him either. If you hadn’t noticed he’d be dead.’

Keri let out a long, shaky breath. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll watch the anaesthetic; you look after the back end.’

By half past four the aftershocks of Buffy’s near-death experience were fading. He had gone home, de-constipated, along with a prescription for laxatives and some anti-inflammatories for his poor pummelled colon. Zoe was folding washing out the back in icy offended silence, and Nick had agreed to have a word with her about the advantages of the nurse monitoring the patient rather than the social lives of her forty closest friends. He had then hurriedly left the building, muttering something about needing to revisit a sick bull.

‘He won’t say anything to her,’ said Keri, jumping up to sit on the counter and glaring at our leader’s departing back. ‘He’s such a wimp.’

‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘She’s had a fright. She won’t do it again.’

‘Of course she will. That bloody phone should be constipated.’

‘Confiscated,’ I corrected, grinning.

‘Oh, whatever. What’s on tomorrow, Thomas?’

But Thomas’s attention was elsewhere. ‘Hey, Helen,’ he said. ‘Your boyfriend’s here.’

I turned in surprise and looked through the window. Mark was crossing the car park, looking unusually respectable in dress trousers and a white business shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows. He had been scheduled to spend the day with his management team (he had not one but three people looking after his contracts and sponsorship deals and investment portfolio; it was scary), so he must have come straight on from there. I’d never seen him in corporate get-up before, and I wasn’t at all sure I liked it. He looked like he belonged not with me but in the kind of trendy waterfront bar where Beautiful People hang out, with a martini in one hand and a supermodel in the other.

Nick changed direction and hurried towards him, hand outstretched.

‘God, he’s gorgeous,’ said Keri dreamily. ‘Mark, I mean, not Nick. Helen, what’ve you got that I haven’t?’

‘Tits, for a start,’ Thomas said.

She scowled at him. ‘When I want your input, zit-face, I’ll ask for it.’

‘Careful,’ he said. ‘I’ve only got to say the word and you’re dehorning Joe Watkins’ calves.’ A horrible, horrible threat: Joe liked to wait until the calves were at least six months old before they were dehorned, and you had to chase them around a tumbledown shed through bits of old machinery to catch them.

Luckily the automatic doors opened before hostilities could develop any further. ‘Thomas!’ called Nick. ‘Grab a box of beer out of the chiller, there’s a good chap.’

‘What about that bull?’ Keri asked, but she spoke too softly for him to hear.

Mark came and leant on the counter beside me, and I rested my head against his white cotton shoulder for just a second. ‘Hey.’

He gave me a swift one-armed hug. ‘Hey. Hi, guys.’

‘Hi,’ said Keri. ‘How was the UK?’

‘Great. Freezing cold. It’s good to be home.’

‘More importantly, how’s that shoulder?’ Nick asked.

Entirely preoccupied with pregnancy, I hadn’t even asked, and it occurred to me that I really was a lousy girlfriend.

‘Coming right,’ said Mark. ‘By the time it’s had a month’s rest it’ll be good as new.’

‘What’d you do to it, exactly?’

‘It’s the AC joint,’ Mark said, digging his left thumb into the point of his right shoulder. ‘Round there somewhere. They X-rayed it this morning. The doctor called it a grade-two dislocation – it shouldn’t need surgery or anything like that.’

‘So you’ll manage it with physio?’ Nick asked.

‘Yeah.’

Thomas returned with a box of beer and fished in the drawer under the till for the bottle opener he kept there in readiness for just such occasions. Opening the first bottle, he passed it to me, since I happened to be closest. I passed it on to Mark.

It was five thirty when we extricated ourselves, and since Thomas never believes anyone who says they’re not in a beer mood, Mark had drunk mine as well as his. I swapped bottles with him at intervals and took the odd micro-sip, and was quite proud of my powers of deception.

‘How are you feeling?’ Mark asked as we crossed the car park.

‘Oh, alright,’ I said. ‘Are you going to be the new face of Tip Top ice cream?’

‘Yes.’

‘Congratulations. Wearing only a pair of Speedos and three girls in teensy little bikinis?’

‘Just the one girl, actually,’ he said, pulling his keys out of his pocket and tossing them idly on the palm of his hand. ‘Tam Healy.’

A vision appeared ready-made in my head, in which he and the delectable Tamara were frolicking in the surf with an ice cream apiece. Or, even worse, an ice cream between them.

‘Want me to pick something up for tea?’ he asked.

The Tamara of my imagination shook her hair out of her eyes, laughing, and the evening sunlight turned her smooth wet skin to gold. ‘Hmm?’ I said. ‘No, don’t worry, I’ve got stuff at home.’

‘Okay,’ said Mark, ‘see you there.’

I walked into my kitchen ten minutes later to find him trying to feed my cat. This would have been simpler had Murray’s head not already been in the bowl.

‘Don’t you ever feed this poor animal?’ he asked, trickling cat biscuits between Murray’s ears.

‘I didn’t have time to come home before work this morning,’ I said. ‘I left him heaps to eat, but he’s never grasped the concept of rationing. Breathe, little dude.’

‘Can’t breathe; must eat,’ said Mark, putting the cat biscuits down on the bench.

‘How
is
your shoulder?’ I asked abruptly.

‘Bit sore. It’ll be right; it’s no big deal.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Alan and Saskia have invited us out on their yacht for a few days after Christmas,’ he said. ‘Are you keen?’

The mere thought of a few days on a boat made my stomach stir uneasily. ‘I think it’d probably be the end of me,’ I said. ‘I get seasick even when I’m not pregnant.’

‘Right.’

‘You go,’ I said. ‘It sounds wonderful.’

He shook his head, and my tears welled up quietly and overflowed.

‘Look, it’s no big deal, we’ll do something else,’ he said, just a trifle impatiently.

I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand. ‘Sorry. Ignore it, it’s just h-hormones, and I feel so s-sick . . .’

Mark sighed and put his arms around me. ‘I know,’ he said.

‘Are you going to tell them why I can’t go?’

‘I won’t if you don’t want me to.’

‘I guess you might as well,’ I said. ‘It’s going to become obvious in a few months, anyway.’

‘Mm,’ he said. ‘You know, I think your breasts are getting bigger already.’ And he ran his hands up my front in an investigative sort of way.

‘Bigger than Tamara’s?’ I asked, regretting the words even as they left my mouth.