Page 1 of Doc Defence

CHAPTER 1

HEL

DoctorEthelRayleighsaton the bench, watching the ice hockey game in front of her. Although it would take a brave soul to call her Ethel, as she refused to answer to that travesty of a name, instead insisting on being called Hel.

Her usual—more than full-time—job was as a Consultant in the Emergency Department of Kookaburra Creek Base Hospital. And now, somehow, she was also the doctor for the local ice hockey team, the Kookaburra Creek Wombats, aka the Burra Wombats.

Hel couldn’t lie to herself, she knew how it happened. Her inner people pleaser came out when the doctor who had done it for the beginning of the season needed to drop out and asked her to take over. She was already overworked and exhausted. Unfortunately, her mouth said the word yes, even as her brain screamed no.

So here she was, committed to coming most Saturdays to freeze half to death in an ice rink.

Today was her first game, and Hel couldn’t stop the wince that crossed her face every time the players collided with each other.

She physically jumped backwards when two of them hit the glass hard right in front of her. She scanned the Burra Wombat pressed against the glass—or maybe they were called boards?—for any sign of injury, as he had taken a punishing blow.

He must have been fine because he shoved the other player off and turned his back on her, skating away at top speed to chase the—she wanted to say puck—although it could have been called an ice biscuit for all she knew.

She read the back of his shirt as he rushed away from her. Forster. She mulled his name over. That was the famous one, right? He was American, oh, actually Canadian, and he was the reason the team had a full house tonight.

Evidently, he was over from the NHL, and his time in Australia was to film a documentary and strengthen the sport in the country.

To Hel, it made no sense whatsoever to try to strengthen ice hockey in the land of beaches and surfing. But from what she had seen online, the documentary makers were paying him a boatload of money, so here he was.

Hel pondered what it would be like to be really wealthy. She was well paid—which she had worked long and hard to achieve—but each month, she set aside a large chunk of her money for her parents. It started only as a small amount when she first began work as a doctor, enough to give her parents—who had sacrificed so much for their three kids—a few luxuries in their otherwise frugal existence.

A little bit of money each month increased to a lot of money when it became clear that the back pain her dad suffered every day, from a lifetime spent as a building labourer, was serious and required surgery that the public health system—the same system Hel gave her blood, sweat and tears to—wouldn’t cover.

Hel refused to listen when her dad said it would be okay, that he would be fine without surgery and she found a private spinal surgeon who could do the operation. The only problem was they now had to scrape together enough money to pay for it.

Hel tried not to think about the lack of help from her two siblings as it upset her too much.

Her older brother, Ken, left Australia the minute he turned eighteen to travel the world, which he had done for nearly two decades.

He was now forty years old and had finally settled down in Indonesia with a Balinese woman and had two adorable kids. They owned and ran a small yoga retreat, which kept their family comfortable in Bali but didn’t give them any extra to spare for their parents. In fact, each year, Hel paid for her parents to visit him, and once a year for Ken and his family to visit Australia.

Maggie, her younger sister, met a boy at sixteen. They were pregnant at seventeen and married at eighteen.

Luckily for Maggie, he was from a generationally wealthy family, so she was set for life. Unluckily for Hel’s parents, this family were snobs, unable to accept that their son married so far ‘beneath’ him, and Maggie made very sure to keep her ‘embarrassing parents’ away from her new family and friends while she lived the high life.

Hel was the only one vaguely accepted by the stuck-up in-laws, who, while they couldn’t imagine working for a living, saw how a doctor could have a certain status in society.

She had tried talking to her sister when they went for lunch together at Maggie’s exclusive country club about giving their parents an allowance to help them out or some money for the surgery.

Maggie had shot her down, informing Hel that it wasn’t her money to give away, there was no way she would be asking her husband for anything, and she couldn’t afford to dip into her allowance.

Maggie then paid for their lunch—very generously—from her spending allowance, picked up her ten thousand dollar handbag, and swept out the room, towing Hel along and lecturing her on pulling oneself out of the gutter and how they shouldn’t be giving their parents handouts, as it was up to the parents to support the children and not vice-versa.

Hel had been left open-mouthed. She didn’t know what her sister’s ‘allowance’ actually was, but from the clothes Maggie wore, Hel assumed it was in the thousands, if not tens of thousands, a month, and she couldn’t ‘afford’ to give five hundred bucks to their parents.

So each pay cheque, Hel sent some money to her parents and set aside the rest for the surgery. Keeping her own expenses down by living in a shared house and only going out once a week with her friends to the pub quiz.

As she stared at the ice in front of her, she let her mind wander to her friends, who she was sure would enjoy the spectacle of the ‘man mountains’ skating past at high speed. She snapped a quick picture and sent it, not waiting for a reply as they usually weren’t quick in answering.

Sadie, who was the head of the anaesthetic department in Burra Base Hospital, was married with two kids and always occupied. And now her other friend Clara, who was also an anaesthetist, had met Taylor Anderson—Hollywood megastar and love of her life—she never seemed to be home. Flying off for days or weeks at a time to wherever Taylor was filming.

Taylor and Clara had bought a house outside Burra Creek, which had three cottages in the grounds. Hel had opened her mouth several times to ask them if they would consider renting one of them to her. But she didn’t, as it felt like taking advantage of their friendship, so she continued to live in her cheap room in a shared house with a rotating collection of junior doctors who had varying levels of cleanliness.

She often wished that Clara would notice her shit living conditions and offer a solution, but she was totally caught up with being in love and planning her wedding.

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