Professor Ranger eyed Finn suspiciously. ‘That’s confidential. Who are you?’
‘Her husband.’ The lie rolled off his tongue so naturally, Ranger didn’t even blink.
‘All right, well, I can tell you, then. I don’t know the details but apparently your wife has caused some trouble for the Society in Melbourne and they want to make sure she has no claim at an Advanced Traineeship. It’ll be a lot harder to take it away if she passes her exams, but if she never sits them in the first place, she wouldn’t be eligible at all.’
Finn suspected Ranger didn’t love this proposal. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘You asked.’
‘But you don’t support it.’
Ranger shook his head slowly. ‘Listen, mate. This is medicine. It’s more political than the fucking UN. Do I want to see a junior doctor dragged out of an examination? Of course not. And not just because I’m some sort of patron saint of trainees. Interrupting the schedule now will throw everyone into a spin. Hospitals are monoliths for a reason. They don’t cope well with sudden change.’
Finn felt a spark of hope. ‘So just let her finish the exam.’
Ranger chuckled. ‘You weren’t listening to the UN part. I might not want to see her exam derailed, but I don’t want to see my career kneecapped either.’
As the last reserves of the cocaine in his bloodstream gave Finn a final hit of confidence and bravado, he nodded knowingly. He lowered his voice. ‘I’m sure we can come to an arrangement. What would it take for you two to say there was nothing you could do? You tried but got dragged away by an emergency or something?’
Clipboard man’s eyes widened in horror. ‘Are you offering us a bribe?’ he spat.
Professor Ranger turned to him. ‘He’s trying to help his wife, Graeme. We’re not taking any bribes.’ He faced Finn square on and there was genuine regret in his eyes. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I know the toll the prep for these exams takes on families. You’ve probably hardly seen your wife in years and you want this over as much as she does. But my hands are tied. We can’t lie about an emergency in a hospital. Emergencies are what we do, and everything, I mean everything, is documented. No way to fake it.’
In that instant, Finn realised what had to be done to save Kelly. ‘Thank you, professor,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait here.’
Ranger nodded, a gesture of respect and regret. He and the clipboard man turned away and walked slowly down the corridor.
Finn dropped to his knees, tore the plastic bag out of his jacket pocket and ripped open the two bags of coke that were left. He poured it all onto the chair and used his pinkie fingers to crudely arrange the powder into two lines. He didn’t have time to roll a note, so he put his nostril right over the monstrously thick lines of powder and snorted the first up with maniacal fury. He swung back down the other line and hoovered it into his other nostril. He licked his fingers to mop up the remains and rubbed the powder on his gums. This was more than double the amount of cocaine he’d ever taken in one hit and he felt the roar of his blood boiling and fizzing in his veins, tearing through his body like whitewater rapids building to a tsunami.
He stood up and called out to the departing men, who were just about to reach the corner around which Kelly had disappeared. ‘Professor!’ he yelled, his own voice like the sound of thunder in his ears.
Then the room swayed violently and Finn stumbled towards the men, who were now running his way. He was thrown against a wall and put his arm out to brace himself. He bounced to the centre of the corridor as the rushing waters built up more and more and more. The pressure was so wildly intense that his body felt like a geyser just waiting to explode, his head about to be blown off in a spray of blood and cocaine.
His vision blurred. He could see the figures but not make them out. Feel their touch, but not know where they held him. Hear their cries but make no sense of the sounds. The pressure reached cosmic proportions and blew open Finn’s universe like the explosion that started it all.
Finn overdosed right there on the floor of the children’s wing of the Newcastle hospital.
His last thought before he departed was that he’d finally done it. He’d finally saved her the way she’d saved him so many times before. He tried to say,I love you, Kelly, but his words were gone now. There was only a vague, dark consciousness that was slipping, slipping, slipping away.
He saw her turn around and look at him from her school desk. Eleven-year-old Kelly with the eyes of a fighter and the face of a queen. He found his voice one final time.
‘It means warrior.’
The first and last words he would ever speak to the girl he loved more than life itself.
Chapter Forty-eight
‘They let me finish the exam,’ Kelly said to nobody who could hear. ‘Can you believe that? I guess once they figured you weren’t really my husband, they didn’t know how you fit into the picture. And I got the feeling Professor Ranger wasn’t keen on taking orders from the Society anyway. He’s not a bad guy, actually. Was kind to me when he told me what had happened to you.’
Kelly wiped a tear away from her cheek. Sniffled. ‘I miss you, Finley.’
She sat quietly then, trying to process everything that had happened. All that she had gained and all that she could still lose. The whirr of machines was a hypnotic soundtrack that invited sleep like a child’s lullaby.
She closed her eyes. She was tired now. So, so tired.
‘Kelly.’
It was Finn’s voice, beckoning her from somewhere far away.
