Chapter 5. Kane and Isobel

Kane drove north from the hospital and turned left across the narrow-gauge railway towards Freshwater. Further on, the road opened to the brilliant deep green of the Barron River valley and the gorge beyond. Past Freshwater, he turned up the sharp rise of Charlekata Close. Then came a short, steep driveway, which still alarmed Isobel every time she used it. At the top sat the family home, almost hidden amongst the rainforest, dim and dank in the wet season. With its darkly stained wooden floors and the kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms at the back against the hill, the house seemed to wrap around him as he entered. At the front, the family area opened to the light of a wide veranda looking north. This evening, the clouds lay low and heavy, pressing down on the dense trees marking the river meandering across thick cane-field plains. Soon, water would be thundering down the gorge, flooding it all. In the distance were the twin hills overlooking Trinity Beach. Whenever the weather cleared, Kane and Isobel imagined they could see the sea beyond, one of the few pleasures they still shared without tension.

Kane thought about the first time he saw Isobel. He remembered her faint, slightly musky smell as she brushed past him, entering a ward. She used little perfume. An impression of a tall, well-proportioned young woman with short red hair, lightened with a touch of straw, and big blue eyes that glanced at him and moved on. Afterwards, she didn’t avoid him but showed no interest if he smiled as they passed. When they occasionally shared patients, he saw that she cared for them and treated them well. Kane found it hard not to stare at her face, quickly looking away if she appeared to notice. Isobel was smart and knowledgeable, although she occasionally seemed uninterested and distracted. He brushed off as insignificant that she was not popular with her fellow residents. He had no idea then about the depression she was fighting. It was not until after they were married that he learned there was a ghost in their marriage and that he would always be second-best.

The humidity pressed against Isobel’s skin as she stood waiting in their kitchen for Kane to come home. The ceiling fans whirred uselessly overhead, no match for the wet season mist folding around her. She heard Kane’s car in the driveway before the girls did.

Kane reached the kitchen and kissed Isobel lightly on the cheek before the children, Millicent, Eleanor and Olivia, discovered he was home. Olivia saw him first and rushed towards him.

‘Daddy!’

He bent down and was soon kneeling with his arms around her. Milly and Ellie joined the crush, and he allowed them to force him onto the floor as they bounced on him. When it hurt, he didn’t protest but just struggled onto his back, then his knees, and hugged them all.

‘Ollie broke my cup!’

‘No, I didn’t!’

‘I got a stamp at school!’

‘Toby jumped on the table and ate the cake!’

Toby, their beloved Jack Russell terrier, appeared from the hallway, tail wagging without a trace of guilt.

‘Naughty Toby.’

‘No, no, no!’ cried the children. ‘Mummy shouldn’t have left the cake on the table.’

If Kane gave his opinion on anything, he was always pronounced wrong.

Kane rolled on the floor with them, the girls screeching and laughing. He loved them like no other thing.

Isobel watched his easy relationship with them, how he could turn their moods with silly poems and games. Malcolm would have been different, more measured, more spiritual in his fathering. But Malcolm was just a ghost now, though one she knew she still conjured too often.

In the wet, the days are seemingly forever hot and steamy. For some, the sticky nights are intolerable.

With a dense cloud of mosquitoes outside and avoiding air conditioning for environmental reasons, the family sat indoors for dinner at a large, plain wooden table. Sweat poured down their backs.

‘I’m sorry,’ Isobel said as she dished out strawberry ice cream after their cold chicken salad, ‘there’s not enough. There was a downpour, and I wasn’t going to get soaked just to get more. You’ll have to make do.’

The children were convinced that the only relief from the heat was ice cream—even ice cream that melted as they watched it on their plates, unable to eat it quickly enough before it was warm and runny. Although Isobel tried to be even-handed, each child felt they had got less than the others.

‘Milly got too much.’

‘Mine’s slushier than hers.’

‘I’ve hardly got any.’

As they loudly voiced their discontent, Kane silently rose and went to run their bath.

‘There,’ Isobel said, glaring at them, ‘now it’s an early night for you all.’

Later, as the children lay despondent on a thin rug under a fan, Kane came over with a crumpled piece of paper and waved it in the air, demanding attention. ‘I understand your disappointment,’ he said, ‘but we won’t tolerate such bad behaviour. I didn’t get much ice cream either. Instead of screaming like you, I thought I’d do something positive.’

If they’d had a penny to drop, they would have heard it.

‘A poem,’ cried Milly, ‘a poem!’

They all jumped and shrieked with joy.

‘Yes. You don’t deserve it, but I do.’ Kane made a dramatic flourish and began:

There was a man

With daughters three,

Who often felt,

But could never see,

That if ice cream melts,

There was less for he.

It isn’t right,

Said Daughter One,

That every night,

With dinner done,

We always sight

The ice cream run.

And when it’s hot,

Claimed Daughter Two,

Like it or not,

It’s often true,

Deep in the pot,

There’s less for you.

It’s most unfair,

Cried Daughter Three,

In heated air,

Ice cream runs free.

Does no one care,

There’s none for me?

No longer gloomy and grumpy, three little girls were shepherded to bed. ‘Sleep well,’ Kane murmured, kissing the top of each damp head.

As Isobel mechanically cleaned up after dinner, the thought of Malcolm brought back a familiar surge of regret, not just for what might have been with him but for what she’d lost professionally by marrying Kane.

She had wanted to specialise in geriatrics and had mapped out her career path clearly before Kane’s rushed decision to take the position in Dunedin. Now, here she was, trapped in the endless cycle of domestic life while Kane’s career flourished. She had watched him comfort their squabbling daughters over melting ice cream with another improvised poem. His way was to rush to fix things, never thinking through the consequences. Just as he’d done with their marriage, with her career.

The early days of their relationship played through her mind as she stacked the dishwasher. She’d noticed him immediately at the Melbourne hospital, she a new intern and he a second-year resident. His hands were beautiful, though she hadn’t been physically attracted to him otherwise. She’d been distracted then, still entangled emotionally with Malcolm, though they’d already decided they couldn’t marry. Malcolm and she had shared a deep connection through their faith, but their different interpretations of God and healing made the thought of marriage untenable. Kane had never understood that part of her.

Isobel was aware of Kane’s interest in her from the very first time she saw him. She liked the way he dealt with patients, seeing him as the ideal resident and resolving to copy him. She didn’t respond to his obvious attraction to her, having enough concerns of her own with the complex, unresolved problem with Malcolm. The man she loved.

One day, she found a short letter from Kane in her mailbox.

I do not know you well,

Fair Isobel.

The purpose of this letter

Is to get to know you better.

Could you possibly think it right

To dine with me on Friday night?

Why not? she thought. I can’t come to any harm, and I could do with some light relief. She wrote back:

Thank you for your missive,

I will not be dismissive.

For you, be it true,

Friday,

Is my day.

What time will you pick me up?

Kane’s courtship of her had been playful: poems in her mailbox, early morning drives into the country. They had fun together, enjoying dinners and movies and rising early in the morning to drive into the country on their days off. They kissed and cuddled, but Isobel refused to go any further. She was saving herself, she said. For what, Kane didn’t know. Isobel didn’t tell him that she and Malcolm believed they should marry as virgins—and she still hadn’t quite given up on Malcolm. They drifted apart, neither ready for any long-term commitment.

The next year, Kane, now a junior orthopedic registrar, was asked to see an elderly patient who had fallen in the geriatric ward. Isobel, now a second-year resident, was looking after the elderly man. Her smile of welcome was enough for Kane to ask her out again. For two months, they saw each other regularly, and an impatient Kane didn’t want to let her go. He asked her to marry him, and she accepted. But there was something he didn’t know. On the weekend before his proposal, she’d said a last farewell to the man she loved.

Isobel had met Malcolm in her final year of school in Cairns. An intense boy, deeply involved with his family and faith, he was the only person she felt close to. Their shared interest in religion brought them together, but their radically different perspectives pulled them apart. She was an Anglican and a believer in rational medicine; he was a Christian Scientist and a believer in the power of prayer to heal. They talked for hours about their different versions of faith and morality, unaware that one day it could be a barrier between them. Neither set of parents approved of them being together. Isobel moved to Brisbane to study medicine, going further south once she graduated. They wrote regularly to each other and came together to talk and cuddle when she returned to Cairns for the holidays. Their religious views firmed. Both intransigent, they eventually resolved not to marry. Separating was more Malcolm’s decision than Isobel’s, though, so she still felt the pain of what might have been.

It didn’t bode well for Isobel and Kane’s marriage. Malcolm, untried as a real husband, was always the benchmark for what a good husband should be. And she told Kane so. He could never measure up. It took Isobel years to tell Kane she loved him.

Four months after they were married, Kane’s application to the orthopedic training scheme was not accepted; he was advised he needed more time to mature. He worked for a year teaching anatomy and studying, after which he applied again for orthopedics and was told he had been out of the system for too long and needed to prove himself. He was offered a job in Dunedin. Isobel was six months pregnant.

‘Where does this leave me?’ an anxious and angry Isobel asked over coffee in Lygon Street. Just a few weeks before he was due to fly out, Kane had told her he had accepted the new job.

‘What do you mean?’ Kane paused mid-sip.

Isobel glared at him. ‘What do you think? My own career. You know I want to do geriatrics.’

The priorities were clear to him. ‘I’m further along than you. I’ve got a job lined up. If I don’t go now, it will be the end of my career in orthopedics.’

Isobel butted in. ‘I haven’t started my career. I won’t be able to join a training programme.’

Kane put his elbow on the table, bringing his face nearer to hers. ‘Can’t you wait? Can’t you do it later?’

Isobel bent even closer and whispered. ‘We’re starting a family.’

Kane leant back, clenching his hands on the table. ‘One of us has to give way. I can’t wait around for you to start your career. Don’t you want children?’

Isobel thrust forward angrily. ‘Yes, but there’s more to looking after them than you think. Now I’m having one, I won’t be able to work full-time without a lot of help. You won’t be much use.’

‘You’ll have to compromise.’

Isobel pushed away from him. ‘What about you compromising?’

‘How can I?’

‘How can you indeed? You should have thought more about that instead of rushing in. You’re always in a hurry and never think things through. Malcolm would have—.’ She broke off and glared at him, blaming him for what she had almost said.

Kane clenched his fists in anger, knowing what she meant and not knowing how to reply.

The evening Kane flew to New Zealand, the wind was blustery, the rain cold, and the sky darkening. He flew to a city where he knew no one, and the next day, Isobel flew to Cairns to be near her family for the birth—which also meant being a captive in her old home with no job. It’s like on our honeymoon, she thought as she glimpsed Cairns through the clouds. He decided where to go. The sex was good but embarrassing. He wanted to make love on the beach; it was uncomfortable, and I was frightened of being seen. He wanted me to touch him. I didn’t like that. I didn’t know what an orgasm was like. I’m still not sure. I wish I’d done it with Malcolm.

Kane worked through the empty days and wrote to Isobel every night. She replied with domestic news, mentioning the difficulties of living with her parents but not that Malcolm had gone to train as a minister in his church. When she was due, Isobel resisted Kane’s suggestion that he be there for the birth, but nothing would stop him from coming. He cradled Milly lovingly, only vaguely aware of Isobel’s hostility to them both. Within a week, he’d gone. A month later, Isobel joined him in Dunedin in a house Kane had chosen and which she hated, in a strange city with no support and with post-natal depression. Milly’s life was off to a bad start. Nine months later, they were in Melbourne and a year later in Canada.

The girls had come along, Millicent, Eleanor, and Olivia, each birth marking another chapter of increasing isolation. Kane worked long hours while she struggled with the weight of motherhood and resentment. Her own medical career gathered dust, a sacrifice she hadn’t fully agreed to make.

During Kane’s years of training, Isobel became increasingly isolated. Her mother stayed with her for a few weeks when Eleanor was born, and Kane took no time off at all. He liked to get home for dinner, but he was usually tired and often went back to work in the evening. He was moody and irritable when he was on call.

Isobel made friends in each place they lived, corresponding with them in gradually decreasing frequency until they dropped into distant memory. Olivia was born three weeks before they returned to Melbourne.

Isobel struggled hard to support Kane and raise their daughters while he worked enthusiastically to build a strong private practice and develop a reputation for treating bone tumours. But Malcolm was never far from her thoughts, his ghost flogging Kane whenever she was displeased. She knew how to punish her husband. She would take the children away to a hotel or a friend’s house for a few days until he came to beg her to bring them back, or the children cried to go home. Exhausted and lonely, Isobel demanded to return to Cairns, the home of her childhood, the place of her family and early friends.

She knew it wasn’t fair to use Malcolm’s ghost to punish Kane for his perceived failings, and she was beginning to recognise her own part in their dysfunctional marriage. But recognition didn’t ease the pain of losing her career or knowing that Kane expected her to adapt to his choices.

And in Cairns, her old friends had moved on.

The rain started hammering on the roof as she finished cleaning. Wafting through the screen doors on the night air, she could hear Kane’s voice rising and falling as he read to the girls. Despite everything, his rushing, his single-minded career focus, his inability to fully understand her, she knew he loved them fiercely. And somewhere beneath the layers of resentment and regret, she knew he loved her too, in his imperfect human way. Perhaps it was time to let Malcolm’s ghost rest, to stop measuring Kane against an idealised memory.

But the career she’d sacrificed was no ghost. That was real—and the anger over it was real, too. They were trying to make their marriage work in this house, which alternately closed in and opened to the valley. But they still had far to go.