Dangerous to Know Page 2

  Natalie nodded and took the coffee he poured; luckily she liked it black and unsweetened.

  ‘But,’ Frank leaned forward so she could see the flecks of green in his irises. ‘I could easily get you some clinical sessions to top up your income.’

  ‘How about I try out the research first?’ asked Natalie.

  Frank smiled. ‘Of course. We…I…look forward to it.’

  He made no move to touch her. Why did it feel as if he’d patted her hand?

  At that moment a pretty blonde woman Natalie recognised breezed into the office and stopped dead when she saw who Frank was talking to. She was obviously pregnant, probably early third trimester. Her skin had the glow that women get when the hormones agree with them, and she exuded a kind of satisfaction; her life was apparently on track. Her outfit was tailored, in a pale blue that offset her eyes, with whimsical lace at the sleeves and hem. Feet in strappy heels, light blonde curls framing her face. The blue eyes narrowed as they moved from Frank to Natalie.

  At that moment something Declan had said flashed into Natalie’s mind. Something about what she was making sacrifices for, but she lost the thought with the final realisation.

  Alison was not happy to see her.

  2

  Natalie was more attractive than I expected her to be. I like beautiful, striking women, women who make a statement with their presence; life is too short to bother with the others. And women like me. Really like me. Alison, for example, was interested in me from the first time we met, even though I was married at the time. I take care of myself, and women appreciate that. Italian designers, fair trade coffee; a balanced intake of omega three.

  I could tell that Natalie was a man’s woman. I hadn’t expected that either. Ten years or more in the medical course and specialist training, trying to prove they belong, is rather at odds with developing an alluring manner. Desperate and lonely is more common—supposed professionalism shrouding fear and lack of imagination. She was not as opinionated as I had been told to expect, either. Perhaps my colleague got it wrong about her, or she was just on her best behaviour.

  She wasn’t as confident as she wished to seem, but of course women rarely are, not in both aspects of their life. If they are beautiful then they fear they aren’t clever enough. If they are intelligent, they worry about their looks. And she isn’t young anymore. Thirty-three and single. The biological clock was evident behind the uncertain look back at me when she entered, the casual glance at my ring finger.

  I understand, of course. Age and women and the whole children thing. I didn’t think much about it until I had my career well established. I had the male advantage, could bide my time and play the field. But then, I became tired of the endless small talk and bored by inane smiles. Tired of games.

  I wondered, when Natalie arrived in my life, at the similarities between her and my first wife. A similar look, the same sharp intellect, but with an underlying insecurity. If I believed in fate, I would have read much into Natalie’s sudden need for a sea change. But I didn’t ask. When she came into my office I saw Reeva; and I was missing Reeva.

  3

  ‘Natalie. What a surprise.’ Not a pleasant one, judging from Alison’s expression.

  Frank had stood up and was looking at them with a coy smile; probably his way of dealing with tension. Natalie had the impression he’d be happy to let her and Alison slug it out rather than get his hands dirty.

  ‘You know each other?’ he asked.

  ‘We were interns together.’ Alison’s tone was tense.

  ‘We were just finishing up talking about possible research projects,’ said Frank, his smile now almost provocative.

  ‘How interesting.’ Alison’s lips were stretched tight, her eyes wary.

  Frank turned to Natalie, smiling. She wondered whose reaction he was testing. Or was she reading too much into the scenario? She wasn’t completely certain that shock therapy hadn’t messed with her judgment along with her short-term memory.

  ‘We have an appointment to get baby photos,’ Frank said, adding ‘…via ultrasound,’ as Natalie shot him a bemused look.

  ‘Yes of course.’ She stood. ‘I’ve got plenty to think about. Maybe I’ll email you?’ As she left she turned to Alison. ‘Congratulations. I had no idea you and…Well, you look great.’ She didn’t wait for a reply. Academe was probably not a good fit for her anyway.

  Natalie and Alison hadn’t been close friends in their first year working as doctors. But the end-of-year revue—a hospital-themed spoof of The Rocky Horror Show—had meant nightly rehearsals together, along with Alison’s fiancé, Oliver.

  It was in the last rehearsals that things started to derail, with Oliver’s suggestion he could down more vodka shots than Natalie and still be under the legal limit.

  ‘Fighting words,’ Natalie said with a giggle. She’d been giggling a lot lately; completely out of character.

  Next day, despite the hangover, she didn’t seem to be able to stop talking.

  ‘Jesus Nat, what have you been smoking?’ asked Tom, her on/off boyfriend and the drummer in her band. He was still pissed off at her for coming on to one of the groupies the week before; it had seemed a good idea at the time.

  ‘You know I don’t take any of that shit.’ She hadn’t gone home the night before the revue. Just a couple of hours sleep on the X-ray table next to the emergency department. Too much to do.

  Like the backdrops.

  ‘Pretty wild, hey?’ she said when someone commented on them. The colour enlargements of scenes from the emergency department had cost her most of a week’s wage. It was possible that she had gone a little overboard with them.

  She’d held it together until after the performance, which felt brilliant. There had been lots of laughs, and that was what it was all about. Unwinding after a year of almost unbearable pressure.

  She had vague memories of Alison looking pissed off with Natalie’s after-party performance of Alison’s big number from the show, along with the pelvic thrusts the song called for. But Natalie hadn’t made Oliver leave with her afterwards; or at least she didn’t think so. Her mind hadn’t been able to hold onto any one idea long enough to consider consequences.

  Afterwards she would never be able to put together exactly what happened. A splash through the moat around the National Gallery and a wild drive along the coast road, a stop somewhere for a skinny dip. Oliver had given in to exhaustion long before her and she had no idea how he got back to Melbourne. She returned two days later—via the police station. She gave them Tom’s number and it was Tom who called Declan.

  In the whole horrible mess that followed, including a four-week inpatient stay, Declan’s role changed. No longer just the therapist who had helped her recover after a motorbike crash at sixteen, he became more like her minder.

  That was her first bipolar episode. Not her last. None since had ever been so out of control, though.

  At the time she thought she would never speak to Tom or Declan again. Later, after the lithium kicked in and Natalie realised just how the night shifts had destabilised her, she came to thank them, albeit grudgingly. She hadn’t thanked anyone for her diagnosis, and still railed against it at times. But as a psychiatrist, she was now well aware how sleep deprivation could trigger manic episodes.

  In the end, the only ones among her colleagues who really knew how far off the rails she’d gone were Alison and Oliver. Oliver wasn’t going to tell anyone because he was just as embarrassed as she. And Alison? Eight years later in Frank’s office, her tight-lipped smile told Natalie she hadn’t forgotten—and she sure as hell wasn’t forgiving.

  The next morning there was an email from Frank. She figured it would say, On reflection…or It doesn’t look like I’ll be able to fit you in after all. She left it while she filled Bob’s feed container—indoors where the local flock wouldn’t harass him—grabbed a towel and wandered down to the beach.

  The water was still warm enough but there was an icy chill in the early autumn
air when she resurfaced. It felt good—she needed the wake-up, needed to think about her other options. She had the triggers for her depressive episode mostly in hand: medication—tick. Calmer lifestyle—tick. But the assault in her warehouse the previous year by the man she called the Worm was still giving her nightmares. And there was Liam.

  She knew she couldn’t avoid him forever. He was running the prosecution case against her patient, Georgia, charged with murdering her three children. It was due to go to trial in two months. Natalie wanted to avoid testifying but suspected Liam was relishing the idea of a cross-examination. Liam O’Shea, with his deadly Irish brogue and cocky smile, the black curl that hung over one eye. She dreaded the reminder of what had been between them. Something she had hoped would become a distant memory still felt raw.

  When she got back she made herself a coffee and sat out on the balcony with her laptop to read Frank’s email. Then read it again.

  Frank was welcoming her on board. Almost effusively: It’ll be wonderful having a fellow psychiatrist working here. He’d already lined up some sessions in the acute ward whenever she wanted to start. There was no doubt he was keen.

  She doubted his wife was so enthusiastic. But Alison was remembering the old Natalie. Declan said she had to change her lifestyle in order to stay well, and that was what she was doing. She didn’t know how her life would end up looking, though. Husband, family…the white picket fence—Alison’s ideal?

  Natalie couldn’t quite picture herself with a domesticated suburban new-age guy. And she didn’t want to think about Eoin, who had died in the motorbike accident that nearly crippled her at sixteen, still wanting everything. Or Liam, who she wanted and couldn’t have.

  She went to get dressed to meet with her new supervisor.

  Nine a.m. and no one had bothered turning on the lights. She understood that research didn’t have the urgency of clinical work, but surely Frank’s team should be here by now?

  ‘If you’re looking for Frank,’ Wei’s voice echoed out of the darkness, ‘he does a teaching round Monday mornings.’

  Natalie hit the light switch. ‘Where is everyone?’

  ‘Everyone?’ Wei squared his glasses. ‘I am everyone. PA, RA and general dogsbody.’

  Natalie took a moment to process this in the context of the deserted space, and Frank’s list of publications. ‘But there were more of you once, right?’

  ‘Eight of us when I started.’

  ‘Research money ran out?’

  ‘I’m finishing the tail end of the final five-year grant, writing up the last papers. After that…’ He indicated the door.

  Natalie nodded. Her clinical sessions could pay for her time with some research on the side if she wanted; the funding wasn’t such an issue for her. But poor Frank. And there was an uneasy sense of loneliness about the space. She had pictured a vibrant group exchanging ideas and inspiring her.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Wei looked at her suspiciously.

  ‘Thinking of doing some research.’

  ‘Well you’ll have to do it on your own.’ Wei zipped up a satin jacket. His eyes had a line of kohl under them today. ‘Why here?’ he said. ‘Why now?’

  Questions Frank hadn’t thought to ask.

  ‘A change of scene. I have a touch of PTSD. After an assault.’

  Wei’s expression softened fractionally. ‘Maybe,’ he said, watching Natalie carefully, ‘you’ll turn out to be another whizz-kid medico.’

  ‘I’ve never written a research grant.’ Natalie shrugged. It wasn’t like that would stop her, even if Wei wasn’t going to be much of a help. ‘Another?’

  ‘Frank’s first wife was the grant queen. Sadly, his second isn’t.’

  First wife. And one that Alison couldn’t match on the work front.

  ‘Reeva, you understand,’ said Wei, ‘was responsible for the grant that got this lab up and running. She was brilliant.’ Wei’s tone left no doubt about his admiration for the absent Reeva.

  ‘They’re divorced?’ Natalie asked, wondering how research grants could be part of the alimony.

  Wei had turned back to the computer. ‘No. She died.’

  4

  Reeva was not beautiful. At first I didn’t think she was attractive enough, truth be told. Nose a little too prominent, eyes a fraction too close. And worse, it bothered her. I like women who are confident in their femininity. Who aren’t surprised to turn heads and would not question that they deserved such attention.

  Once a girlfriend caught me looking into a mirror and called me vain: rolled her eyes and sang a line from the Carly Simon song. But I was not looking just at myself; I was looking at us as a couple. If I was guilty of vanity, it included her. While attractive enough, she was, regrettably, also stupid. An arts degree from a minor college that she kept mentioning as if it proved something, but her stupidity was mainly about human nature. She underestimated me and overestimated her own power. Thought that being young and attractive was enough. It isn’t. We looked good together, but that was all.

  When I glanced into the mirror at Reeva and myself, I saw something she gave to the relationship that was beyond the superficial. It radiated out of her. She may have lacked the showy confidence that men would want to be with her, but there were depths to her self-esteem, not beset with questions about her worth as a human being. It was a look that developed in tiny steps and I watched her as if she was a bud developing. Her delight, quickly tempered, when I asked her out on the first date; the hesitancy in her when it became clear I wanted her to share my bed; the steady glow that each encounter added, until that point when she finally knew I was the one. When the mirror showed us as almost perfect.

  5

  After a restless night, Natalie managed a full hour of something that approximated meditation, though it was more mindfulness mantra and enjoying the sounds of the water breaking, the smell of salt, the cold air rustling her hair, than blank mind. She had read that it was possible to come off medication altogether by managing your circadian rhythms and meditating daily. She suspected that this also required giving up a desire to live life on the edge, and she had a long way to go before she’d be ready to accept that. Mindfulness was living in the moment and here the moment was a wonderful place to be. Bit quiet, maybe, but that was what she was after. She could do this.

  After a herbal tea—if she was going to be health conscious she might as well do it right—she went for a jog along the road behind the house that wound through the national park. No one else was about, but the birds were alive and active, and several koalas observed her with interest from the trees. The road finally turned south and back to the main road by the ocean that in summer was cluttered with tourist buses. As soon as she could, she cut down to the beach, the run harder but worth it, the sand and water bringing home the lesson of celebrating the present time.

  She’d been running for over an hour when she decided it was time to head back along the main road. It was a mistake. The pack of bikers riding past her took her back in an instant to living with Tom and always being on the edge of something dangerous. One rider wobbled as he was showing off and made her think of Eoin, just before the fatal crash. A lone man at the café, sitting watching her, made her heart accelerate even as her pace slowed. And all the good of an hour’s meditation was gone in an instant.

  After a month of her new life Natalie had lost track of the days. Each seemed to roll into the next. She was spending nights alone with Bob playing guitar and reading, and days at ‘work’—still waiting for ethics approval to come through before she could start any research. The drawn-out process added to her feelings of depression. It was so safe and predictable; it made her feel like she was edging closer to the black hole that had swallowed her only weeks earlier. She remembered the days before being hospitalised. Taking all the pills out of their bottles, counting them. Calculating their effect, the risks if her calculations were wrong. Hated her weakness and found herself shaking now as the memory taunted her. She’d played Passe
nger’s Let Her Go Go on repeat in the darkness of her warehouse for weeks but she wasn’t entirely sure she had completely let Liam go, even though he’d never been hers in the first place. Now even Bob quoted her version of some of the lyrics. Jesus, she had been sick. What had she been thinking? Passenger? Really?

  Now, looking in the mirror, she wasn’t sure she even recognised herself: had she really bought this top with flowers on it? Who the fuck was she?

  At least she found the work easy. She was already well into the second chapter of what would ultimately be her thesis if she continued, but it was a big if. She hadn’t started clinical sessions—her income-protection insurance would last for another couple of months at least—but the lack of patient contact, apart from her Mondays in Melbourne, was taking its toll. The lab was empty except for the uncommunicative Wei and the silence wasn’t helping. She was deeply bored.

  ‘Free for a drink before you go home?’

  Frank’s smiling face tilted past the door frame. He had the ability to smile innocently and provocatively all at once. He played it, she figured. Emphasising the long eyelashes and dimples when he grinned a certain way.

  The computer clock said 6.30 p.m. She remembered Wei leaving earlier with a stunning blonde woman who’d looked at her curiously, but they’d disappeared without introductions. She’d thought she was alone but here was Frank smiling a cub-scout grin. They’d had coffee at least once a week in the month since she’d started; three times last week, now she thought about it. She had the impression he was lonely. Probably not getting much at home, with Alison in her third trimester.

  ‘A drink? Not sure that’s a good idea.’ Actually she was completely sure it wasn’t. A drink after work was different from a coffee date. Particularly if he was sensing her sexual frustration.

  The last time she was in Melbourne had only made it worse. It was great Tom and the rest of the band wanted her back singing while they did a stint along the coast, but it turned out Tom was no longer a friend with benefits. He’d awkwardly announced that he’d moved in with Maggie, the bartender at Natalie’s Collingwood local. Shit, why was everyone settling down when all she wanted to do was burn the speed limit on her Ducati and shag someone silly?