Chapter 11
Dirk
Walt greets me at choir rehearsal in his usual, hearty way, with the same huge handshake, a slap on the back and a laugh like we’re teenagers again; like he’s dreamed up some new game I can’t refuse; like life’s for living.
It was Walt who got me onto the soccer team back in college, goalie, Walt who convinced me to take my medical exams again the year I failed – after the head injury – and Walt whose recent endorsement got me to move back to the city again from Franklin when the rest of the family forcefully suggested it.
“Why the heck not, Dirk, old boy?” he said. “Why stay in the middle of nowhere and drown in misery? You never actually liked the place.”
That’s the trouble with Walt. He remembers everything.
I’d forgotten I only moved to Franklin cause Millie was in love with her family home and thought it the best place to raise our family.
She was right. At least the kids had a textbook childhood – all bike-riding and jumping in the leaves, and snow fights and ponies.
But they were in college themselves before we knew it, the big house almost empty, and Millie slowly signing out.
Walt’s friendship was a lifeline, and the minute I moved back to the city, he hauled me into this Christmas choir.
“Nothing to it, Dirk,” he’d said. “All you gotta do is turn up and open your mouth.”
It’s been a bit more than that, like learning parts, but at least the rest of the choir made me welcome.
That first rehearsal, I worried they’d mob me like Millie’s friends, all doe eyes and sympathy, but city folk are different.
Everyone smiled and sang, and then rushed away, back to their busy lives.
They left Walt and me to stack the chairs.
I’ll admit I like our rehearsals, turning my brain off for a couple of hours to follow the conductor’s baton, and Walt is mischievous as ever afterwards.
“Come on, Dirk,” he says. “One for the road. Rhonda doesn’t mind. Likes it when I leave her in peace a little longer. New bar. Fancy.”
He takes me by the arm and steers me away, two blocks behind the church hall, and there it is, the lights behind the bottles glowing like honey, beckoning us inside, and a young crowd in there; city people, dressed in black, tossing back expensive wines and whiskies.
“Just one,” I say. “Something red” and he’s back a few minutes later with one of those fancy glasses without a stem, as if wine and wine glasses have only just been invented.
A waiter turns up with a small black dish of green olives, and Walt dives straight in. I pick one up, admire the glossy orb, stick it in my mouth and wince at the salty assault, even stronger when my teeth pierce the skin.
“Met anyone yet?” he says.
“Only if you count the woman I spilled coffee on a few days ago. In Jill’s store – Jill was not impressed.”
“Ah Jill. Your sister. How’s she doing?”
“Store’s looking great. Boys are giving her the runaround.”
“You’re a good man, Dirk. Gonna go sort 'em out?”
I shrug. My own children brought themselves up, or Millie was a magician.
Either way, I wasn’t there to see it, almost always busy in my practice or at the hospital handling decades of need; a flow of illnesses and injuries that never stopped.
I loved my work – healing the injured and improving lives was a great privilege when the treatments were effective – but I was over it by the time I sold my clinic.
“You’re doing it again, Dirk.”
“Huh?”
“Going silent on me.”
“Oh. That.”
“Where’d you go? You thinking about that woman?”
“What woman?”
“The one in Jill’s store.”
“No. I wasn’t.”
“Well?”
“Lucky I didn’t burn her. Turns out she lives in the same building, at Brighton Court. Can you believe it? Gave me coffee earlier today.”
“No way! She following you? Watch out, man.”
“Why?”
“Retired doctor? Bachelor? Good looking? Flush with cash. You are eligible, my friend.”
“Not interested.”
Walt doesn’t believe me. He gives me a nudge and laughs, and I down my wine and get up to go.
“Hey, Dirk.”
Walt winks. I laugh and sit back down again.
Am I interested? I was a one-woman man, and with Millie gone, I don’t know what I want. I tell Walt Lucy is divorced, and he asks whether she wears many rings.
“Well, now you mention it, Lucy does wear a lot of diamonds. So what?”
Walt shakes his head.
“Prognosis is bad, Dirk old boy. Watch it. Fortune hunter for sure. But no reason you can’t have a bit of fun. Play the field like in our olden days.”
I never played the field. Millie zeroed in on me at college and we were an item.
She stuck with me after the big head injury, too, even when my sporting career was shot.
Helped me through my medical degree, with all those hours of study.
We were married and raising Jamison and Dee in that big old country house before I noticed.
Next day is Thursday. Dee insists I meet her at ten for a catch up once a week at her gym, for a free workout, as well as on Sundays for a family lunch. My grandchildren give me more of a workout than all of Dee’s shiny machines, that’s for sure. Baby bootcamp. I turn up and they jump all over me.
“So, how are you, Dad?” Dee says. She’s wearing a blazer over her fancy gym clothes. She tells me about a promotion; something to do with her now managing several gyms; beyond consulting and giving classes. I’m proud of her.
“Dad?”
I raise my eyebrows. What had she asked me? How am I?
“That’s my question, Dee. How are you?”
“Actually, anyone can ask it of anyone else, and there’s no right or wrong answer.”
I try hard never to ask myself how I am. That was the whole point of moving to the city, to get away from that question, to get away from all that pity. Millie’s friends were everywhere in Franklin. I was drowning in their sympathy – couldn’t take any more of it.
After Millie, my silences alarmed everyone, especially the patients.
I’d refused to take time off – couldn’t stand the empty house, and knew that my patients still needed my care.
So I ran my usual, slightly out of control clinic, with urgent extras and all the old faithfuls keeping me busy.
And I nodded and smiled and prodded and peered and tapped and listened and kept prescribing as usual, but occasionally, I’d stop in the middle of a consultation.
“Doc? Everything okay?” they’d say. It happened once.
And then again. The receptionists started knocking on my door.
Cases ran over time. There was standing room only in the waiting room.
Someone must have contacted Jamison and Dee, and next thing I knew they were both at my door, the two of them, successful youngish professionals, not accepting silence and not accepting “no”.
Yes, I’d been forced to admit. I’d been drowning in grief, surrounded by the never-ending needs of others and smothered by the sympathy of Millie’s many friends – couldn’t go anywhere in Franklin without being recognised, without having my loss reflected in everyone else’s sad faces.
So, I’d agreed. The only way forward for Dirk “the Doc” O’Connell, after a lifetime of serving his community, was to sell my practice and move away – to make a fresh start, in the city, close to my loving, insistent children and sister.
So I moved. But now I’m a stranger in a strange land, in a city I barely recognize, so changed it is, with its new freeways and tunnels and high-rise buildings and fancy precincts.
But at least friends of Millie no longer lurk at every corner offering me casseroles.
They were so thoughtful, but they kept reminding me of my loss.
Fresh vistas carry no memories. Strangers never ask about Millie. Nor do they even know I was a doctor. There are no impromptu conversations about bunions, bad backs or rumbling coughs that refuse to clear. I’m a free man.
“Dad?”
“I’ve joined a choir.”
“Oh, that’s great, Dad. I didn’t know you could sing.”
“I didn’t know either. Walt insisted. You remember my friend Walt? From college. He convinced me there are never enough baritones and all I have to do is turn up each week and open my mouth.”
Dee laughs. I crack a smile and she seems pleased, pushes her hand across the table and puts it over mine, warm and pleasant. And then she holds hers up in the air.
It takes me a while to register. A high five. I’ve high fived hundreds of miserable children, summoned their bravery when their broken limbs were finally encased in plaster, forced them to smile through their tears.
I high-five Dee back, hating the realization I’m no longer the Doc, the one to make others smile.
“Still super serious, Dad.”
“Do I have to apologize?”
“No. We all just want you to be happy.”
“Kind. Thanks. I’m not unhappy.”
“Not the same as being happy, Dad. How’s the apartment?”
“Still great. Thanks. Clean. Quiet. Comfortable. Everything’s in order, thank you. Housekeeper leaves me food and does most of the laundry. I make my own toast and eggs; order takeout. I’m not starving, as you can see. And the cherry pie was the best I’ve ever tasted.”
“What cherry pie?”
“Mrs West’s, I guess. Oh, Carla sends you her best wishes. I bought one of her paintings.”
“That’s great, Dad. Oh, did you hear about the fund-raiser for dementia research?”
“No?”
“You remember the Fontaines, don’t you, Bettina and Raymond?” says Dee.
“Friends of Millie’s, yes.”
“Raymond died a year ago. Bettina’s set up a foundation.
There’s a ball. Matt can’t come. He has to go to the Caribbean for a conference first thing next morning.
Will you come with me, Dad? It’s no big deal.
I know you still have a dinner suit. I made sure we packed it for you in case an event like this came up. Just say ‘yes.’”
“When is it?” As if my calendar is full.
As if there’s anything in my life beyond sitting in my perfectly renovated, perfectly clean apartment and staring out the window, walking now and then, and catching up with my children, and choir once a week.
I’m still not used to it. My life was a whirlwind. Now it’s too quiet.
“A week from Thursday. I’ll text you the details. It’s at the Town Hall.”
“Okay.”
“Maybe get a haircut, Dad?”
“What’s wrong with it?” I pat the back of my head and Dee shakes her head and laughs.
“Just get a haircut. Please?”
I nod. I might or I might not. Millie used to cut my hair, and one of her friends did it ahead of her funeral; all over me with her pity and powder and polished pink fingernails, as if she could step right in where Millie left off.
She meant well, but it was too soon, and she reminded me too much of Millie. I shudder and shut out the memories.