Matthew Flinders' Cat (13 page)

‘Hangover,’ Billy explained. Then, changing the subject, he said, ‘Sanfrancesco? Is that Italian? It sounds rather more like Spanish.’

‘Hey, how come you know that?’ Ryan appeared genuinely impressed. ‘’Cause it’s true. Me nana says me grandpa come from Spain to Australia to work on the Snowy River where he built this big dam we learned about at school and his brother went to Italy where Mr Cesco was born and was a great boxer, then he come out here, not me grandpa’s brother, Mr Cesco. He was sponsored by me grandpa when he become a wharfie after building the dam, only now we don’t see him no more ’cause me grandpa’s carked it, and me nana’s real crook and says she’ll soon be dead and he can go to buggery, he’s not worth the bother and only wanted ter know us when we was useful and he’s a flamin’ wog, so what can ya expect.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,’ Billy said, confused at the battery of words issuing from Ryan, who was proving to be a regular chatterbox. The coffee was still too hot to calm his nerves and his wrist was now extremely painful, so that he was having trouble concentrating.

‘Anyway, that’s why he gives me coffee when he won’t nobody else who’s a kid.’

They’d reached the lights at the corner opposite the hospital when an ambulance, its siren blaring, turned into St Vincent’s Casualty. They watched as the ambulance stopped, the siren died and its back door was flung open from the inside. Two men came out of casualty to help remove the patient strapped to the stretcher.

‘Artitak,’ Ryan said casually, ‘that’s a priority one,’ though Billy couldn’t imagine how he could possibly know it was a heart attack. Ryan pointed to the park opposite the hospital. ‘No use goin’ in jus’ yet, best wait ten minutes, yiz a priority four. Chance to get yer coffee down the gurgler.’

They sat in the park and Billy sipped gratefully at the coffee, the caffeine steadying his nerves. Ryan removed the Florentine biscuit from the paper bag and took a bite before offering it to Billy. Billy declined but Ryan persisted. ‘It’s yours, I only took a little bit. Garn then, you’ll like it.’

‘No thanks, Ryan, this coffee’ll do me nicely.’ Ryan held up the biscuit and grinned. ‘Me nana says it’s all the bugger’s good for, biscotti and Florentines, and the one’s too bloody hard and the other’s too sticky for her choppers.’ He took another bite and, with his mouth full, he explained, ‘See, me nana, she don’t wear her false teeth no more, don’t eat nuffing ’cept it’s mashed up before.’ Ryan laughed, ‘She goes real crook if there’s lumps in her potatoes.’

Ryan pointed across the road to the gate leading into casualty where the ambulance was leaving. ‘Give it a bit longer, always tell an artitak ’cause the ambulance blokes don’t run like an overdose, they already done the stuff they need on the way. You want some good advice, Billy?’

‘Always use a bit of that, Ryan.’

‘Well, if yer havin’ a artitak don’t call the doctor, yer call the ambulance, them paramedics know what to do better’n any doctor. Drugs too, overdose, they’ve got the goods in the back.’

‘Well, thank you, next time I’m having a heart attack I’ll remember that. You seem to know a lot about hospitals. Is it your grandmother, has she had a heart attack?’

‘Nah, me mum, asthma, she’s . . .’ Ryan stopped short and Billy glanced over at him, waiting, but the boy didn’t continue. ‘Let’s go,’ he said instead.

At the entrance to St Vincent’s, Ryan halted. ‘Inside they’ve got these chairs like in two levels. Sit on the bench in the front closest to reception and, don’t forget, yiz real crook.’

‘Don’t you think I should do this myself?’ Billy asked.

‘Nah, best leave it to me, they know me here,’ Ryan said confidently, then repeated, ‘Remember, you’re real crook, practically dying, lotsa pain. Don’t say nuffink until I tell yiz, you hear?’

‘It’s only a sprained wrist, Ryan!’ Billy protested.

‘It’s broken and you could be getting lockjaw from the tetanus, remember?’

Billy sighed, ‘I’m not at all sure about this, lad. Besides they don’t call it lockjaw any longer, tetanus causes severe muscular contraction and I haven’t got that or I wouldn’t be able to talk. Perhaps we should just go to the nearest chemist and buy a roll of elastoplast to strap it?’

Ryan looked disgusted, ‘What about the needle? Can’t take no chances. Pretend yiz can’t talk.’ He smiled. ‘C’mon, Billy, they know me here, it won’t take long, I promise.’

He held the door open and Billy, clasping his arm against his stomach, entered reluctantly. They climbed down a short set of stairs, passing two levels of chairs, a bit like the seating for a tiny amphitheatre. There was a door into the emergency area proper that was e lectronically locked and controlled from the reception window, which was made of bulletproof glass with a slot for pushing stuff to a client onto an outside ledge. There were a series of holes in the glass at voice level for communication to take place.

A very obese woman sat on one of the chairs smoking even though a sign on the wall read ‘No Smoking’. She was using a small paper cup from the water dispenser as her ashtray. Two small girls, still dressed in their pyjamas, sat with her. The smaller one appeared to be about three and was sucking on a dummy, while her sister was swinging her legs and singing softly to a rather beaten-up doll. On another chair, his legs extended and his chin on his chest, was a man in his late seventies. He was wearing a white shirt and brown flannels hoicked up to his chest and held up with braces. None of them looked up when Billy and Ryan entered.

Billy sat on the chair in the front row clutching his arm while Ryan removed the handcuff from his wrist and placed the case on the floor. ‘Yiz real crook, remember,’ he whispered before he walked over to the reception window, behind which stood a thin unremarkable-looking woman in her fifties with iron-grey, closely cropped hair. Her breasts were the only exceptional thing about her. Too large for her slender frame, they stuck out in sharp points under a blue angora sweater. It was as if she’d borrowed someone else’s tits before coming to work.

‘Mornin’, miss, I got a ’mergency,’ Ryan called out rather too loudly when he was still two steps away from the window. The receptionist clerk looked up, surprised to see someone so young standing in front of her. ‘It’s me friend, he’s real crook, got a broken wrist and suspected lockjaw.’

The woman tapped the blue and white plastic name tag pinned to her breast with her forefinger, ‘It’s
Mrs
. Mrs Willoughby!’

‘Sorry,’ Ryan said, smiling.

‘Well, broken wrist or not,’ she glanced over at Billy and then back at Ryan, ‘we have to complete the admission form first.’ She raised her chin and this time took a longer look at Billy, her expression indicating that she was not too pleased at what she saw. ‘Over here, please!’ she called out, ignoring Ryan.

Billy started to rise but Ryan signalled with his hand behind his back for him to remain seated. ‘Nah, he can’t, Missus.’

‘Can’t what?’

‘Do paperwork, I told ya, his wrist is broke.’ The receptionist sighed, impatient. ‘Well, if he’ll come over and give me his personal details, I’ll fill them in for him.’

‘Nah, can’t do that neiva, I told you already, he’s got lockjaw.’

‘You said suspected,
suspected
lockjaw!’ It was Ryan’s turn to sigh. ‘That’s why I said “suspected” because he can’t say nuffink!’

The woman and the boy locked eyes and Ryan, holding her gaze, spread his hands and shrugged. ‘He needs a tetanus shot real bad, Missus.’ Sudden tears welled in his eyes and his voice grew small, ‘It’ll be your fault if he dies.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ the receptionist said, raising her voice.

Ryan took a deep breath, ‘I want to make a complaint!’ he said loudly. ‘I’m not getting no co-operation! I want to see the triage sister!’

‘Not until I have the particulars. Besides you’ll have to wait, this is a fracture, that’s a priority four, she’s busy with a cardiac arrest.’

‘HELP!’ Ryan suddenly yelled at the top of his voice. ‘HELP! HELP!’

Billy damn near jumped out of his skin. The receptionist had had enough and pressed a buzzer under the lip of her desk. In a matter of moments two security men appeared, coming down a passage on the other side of the electronically locked door. The receptionist pressed the buzzer and the door opened and the two men stormed through.

Billy jumped to his feet, looking at the entrance and back at them, ready to make a run for it.

The two security men converged on him, one grabbing his arm, the other his bad wrist. Billy screamed as the security man who was holding Billy’s wrist twisted his arm behind his back. ‘Not him!’ the woman shouted, ‘The boy!’ The two men released Billy, who fell to his knees whimpering.

‘Sorry, mate,’ one of them said, bending over him and offering his hand.

‘Leave me alone! Please leave me alone!’ Billy sobbed as he lay doubled over on the floor, his stomach protecting his wrist.

Ryan turned back to the receptionist, ‘Now look what yiz done!’ he said accusingly.

The receptionist arched her eyebrow slightly, ‘Well, that’s one good thing, we seem to have cured his lockjaw.’

‘Well, well, look who the cat brought in! Gidday, Ryan,’ the second security man called out, coming over. ‘Your mum, she okay?’

‘Oh, hi, Johnno,’ Ryan said slowly and pointed to where Billy lay doubled over on the floor with the other man squatting beside him. ‘No, it’s me friend, he’s broke his wrist and he’s real crook.’ He turned and looked at the receptionist, ‘She give us a hard time just because he’s a derro and can’t read and write!’

The receptionist brought her hands to her hips, ‘I beg your pardon, young man!’ she expostulated, ‘You said he had lockjaw when I wanted to help him fill out his admission form. You were lying to me!’

‘Yeah, well, nobody likes to admit they’s ignorant, do they?’ Ryan replied.

‘It’s okay,’ Johnno said to the receptionist, placing his hand on Ryan’s shoulder. ‘Ryan knows Dr Goldstein and is well known here.’

The receptionist clerk drew herself up, her back ramrod straight, breasts sticking out like two traffic cones. She was furious and, refusing to be mollified, proceeded to rearrange the papers in front of her, slapping each piece on top of the other, her lips pulled tight. ‘I was just doing my job,’ she said primly, ‘I don’t expect to be insulted by children!’ She pointed to the obese woman who was smoking, ‘It’s bad enough . . . She told me to
ef-off
when I asked her not to smoke.’

Johnno looked sympathetic, ‘I know,’ he said soothingly, ‘You’re new here, ain’t ya? That’s Stella, she’s beaten up her husband again, they came in before you came on shift, she’s waiting for him to be patched up so she can take him home. It can get pretty grim in here sometimes.’ The woman at the desk missed the irony in his voice. Johnno was secretly amused. If she felt insulted by Ryan and Stella, then the future guaranteed a rough passage for the new receptionist, verbal abuse, physical attack, hysteria, histrionics, bad language, threatening behaviour, spitting, vomiting, choking and enough blood in a month to fill a suburban swimming pool. She’d come on duty at seven, the changeover shift known as happy hour, when most of the heroin overdoses and the ecstasy heart attacks, stab wounds, bashings and traffic-accident victims had already been brought in and processed. This was the quiet after the storm, when burns, domestic violence, broken limbs and suspected angina patients politely turned up for treatment and only the occasional geriatric heart attack arrived in an ambulance to disturb the comparative calm of sunrise in an inner-city hospital. ‘Christ help her if she ever does a pay-day night every second Thursday,’ Johnno thought to himself. He decided he’d open a book on the new receptionist clerk, where he’d offer odds of ten to one in the hospital canteen that she wouldn’t last a week. She wasn’t the first and she wouldn’t be the last.

The remarkable thing about the security men was that they were Bib and Bub, both gay, though one was slightly taller than the other, with gym-muscle physiques, tanned faces and identical peroxided brush-cuts.

‘Can you do us a favour, darling?’ Johnno now said.

‘The triage sister is flat out with the cardiac arrest, will you page Dr Goldstein, please?’

‘I’ve been told I have to process the patient before he sees the doctor,’ the receptionist said stubbornly. She paused, ‘And for your information, I’m
not
your darling!’

Johnno drew back suddenly, he could usually tell a lesbian. Surely not, he told himself, not with those norks and the blue angora sweater, though the hair was questionable. ‘Well, I-am-so-sorry!’ he mocked, ‘We
are
a bit sensitive then,
aren’t
we?’

‘I’ve been a medical receptionist/clerk for twenty years and I’m not accustomed to being treated like this by anyone.’ She looked over at Ryan. ‘Let alone a precocious little brat like him!’ The second security man had come to stand next to Johnno, ‘Private practice, was it, darling? You’ve obviously never worked in casualty before.’

Johnno turned on him, ‘Kevin, you’re
not
to call ...er...’ he turned and bent forward, squinting slightly as he pretended to read the name tag which lay almost flat on the receptionist’s sticking-out left breast, ‘Mrs Willoughby “darling”,’ he scolded. He straightened up and his voice took on a more serious tone. ‘There’s nothing to process, Mrs Willoughby.’ Johnno indicated Billy, who was now seated back on the chair looking very sorry for himself, ‘He’s an alcoholic, he’ll have no medical benefit card, no fixed address, no hospital insurance. He won’t give you his social security registration number or even his correct name. You’d have done much better with Ryan here helping you.’