FOLLOW THE MORNING STAR (5 page)

Patience. Give it time. Only time can tell. That was all the experts could offer. Queenie hated the vagueness, the cautious doling out of information, the cloaking of the stark fact that the medical profession didn’t have a clue as to when, or even if, TR’s mind and memory might function properly again.

As she paced, Queenie tried to think laterally. What should she do? She tried to break down the giant and claustrophobic picture of the whole situation into smaller fragments and to deal with them one by one. First there was TR’s physical wellbeing. His injuries were still major and the prognosis unclear. Doctor McConnell wanted to see how well the bones knitted before considering the possibility of replacement of a bone in the hip or knee. TR’s muscles and tendons were so badly ripped that full mobility was a long way off. He would be in hospital for some time. That meant she would have to take over his work. That would
be all right, he would have to explain to her where he was at with the . . . then the realisation slammed into her again. TR couldn’t tell her anything. They couldn’t talk over business matters at all. He remembered nothing.

Queenie drew a deep breath. Tango. He’d have to take over Guneda completely. She would have her hands full with Tingulla and Cricklewood. Cricklewood was their second property, further out west. Her father had acquired it and now it was a profitable prime beef producer. It carried stud bulls and Queenie had introduced new breeds, artificial insemination and an embryo implant programme.

Saskia. Saskia had to go back to university and concentrate on her veterinary studies. Queenie suspected her devoted but determined daughter would want to stay and help her, but she had to forestall that at all costs. Saskia was so impetuous. She’d insist on taking leave or deferring the university term somehow so she could help. And the irritating fact was both she and her mother knew her help would be invaluable.

Queenie brushed a hand across her eyes. She was tired and the heartache of TR’s accident lived inside her like a constant pain. She drew a deep breath and tried to focus her thoughts.

TR’s longer-term care. She had to get him out of the hospital as soon as she safely could. Queenie had been told it would be several months at least before he could be moved. She tried not to think about that. And as for the
amnesia, Queenie was convinced it was only temporary. It had to be.

So that left her. She would have to divide her time between running two properties and TR in hospital hundreds of kilometres away. She knew she would have to keep well and look after her own health — she could not afford to cave in under any circumstances.

She thanked her lucky stars for the loyal and efficient workers they had on all three places. Tango and TR had trained the staff at Guneda well. Mick, their head jockey who helped train the thoroughbreds, had two strappers and two other young riders and stablehands under his wing. The slightly built Aboriginal jockey who looked like he’d blow away in a faint wind had a powerful reputation having won the Melbourne Cup on their star stallion, Sweet William. From the shy young bush jockey the legendary trainer Bobby Fenton had brought along to be a winning rider, Mick had developed into a gentle but iron-willed taskmaster.

Millie and Ruthie in the house and Jim, Snowy and Ernie on the property were invaluable at Tingulla. Ernie spent a lot of time at Cricklewood and had graduated from stockman to stock manager. The handsome Aborigine still loved the hands-on dealing with stock at Tingulla but had done a few courses and now spent several hours a week doing the paperwork.

Queenie decided, however, that she’d better send another hand over to Cricklewood. Too many beasts were about to give birth and a muster was looming. Feed had been good, the
steers had gained weight and were nearly ready for sale. The surrogate mothers carrying the valuable implanted embryos were also near to birthing.

And then there would be shearing at Tingulla. They’d been so busy, TR had given her a quick hug and said they’d have to sit down and discuss future projections for all three properties very soon. Queenie sighed. When would that be now? And when his memory came back would it be complete or would there be gaps?

So many fears and questions crammed into her mind. Again she addressed these. The doctors here were concerned with dealing with TR’s condition; they told her as much as they thought she needed to know, reluctant to admit they simply didn’t have all the answers. Queenie decided she would find the best neurosurgeon in the country and talk through her situation with him so that she had some inkling of what to expect.

Queenie sighed and looked around her. She had wandered to the very bottom section of the beautiful grounds of the old hospital. The Brisbane River, even though an unattractive sludge colour, shone in the sunlight; magnificent old trees lined its bank and a team of school oarsmen sculled swiftly past, the knife-thin craft barely leaving a wake.

Having sorted through the pieces of the dreadful picture of her life, Queenie felt no better, but she felt a little more in control. Slowly she was gathering the reins and somehow she would steer them all through this
nightmare until TR was well and himself once more. She ignored the swift thought — would he ever be totally himself again? — and squared her shoulders, lifted her chin and turned away from the river back towards the hospital buildings. Despite the determination in the set of her body and her purposeful strides, her heart ached and she felt deeply lonely.

Queenie had stood on her own two feet since she was a young woman when, after the death of her parents, she had taken over the running of the family properties; but with TR at her side these past years, she had felt comforted and, while not dependent, it was a joy to know she had someone she could turn to in times of confusion and doubt. Queenie knew she had the greatest support from Millie and Jim and the love of Saskia and Tango, but she always felt she had to be strong for them, and it was difficult to lean on them and appear vulnerable. It was at rare moments like this that she longed for her family. The gentleness and caring understanding of her loving mother Rose, and the wisdom and humour of her father Patrick had left their mark, but oh, how she missed them.

Alone in the shuttered bedroom of their rented villa, yet another in a succession of European homes, Colin slumped into a
chair moderno
picked out by Dina. It might be an example of avant-garde Italian design, but it was damned uncomfortable, he thought crossly.

Colin ran his fingers through his hair. Where the hell had his life gone so wrong? He had no money of his own — he was dependent on his wife for everything, and she never let him forget it. Now he had a pregnant girl on his hands. How different things might have been had he become the master of Tingulla.

Colin had always taken it for granted that as the only son he would inherit the family properties — during the fifties daughters didn’t figure in the division of property. But then most girls weren’t like Queenie. Her tie with Tingulla was forged in steel, bred into her veins from birth. When they were quite young she’d talked about Tingulla in a way he never truly understood or shared. His father had recognised this and broken with tradition. Recalling the letter Patrick had left to him in his will, Colin realised that his father had also known Tingulla was not in Colin’s blood as it was in Queenie’s.

Colin had a jealous and possessive nature and his anger and resentment of Queenie’s bond with their father had seethed within him for years, made worse after the death of their mother when he was away at college and Queenie had supported their father physically and emotionally. When it became public knowledge that Queenie could outride, outshoot and outwit most men in the country, he’d been teased endlessly and had found the Hanlon name impossible to live up to.

Colin swore to himself and leapt angrily to his feet. He didn’t know how, or how long it would take, but he was determined to get even
with his sister and get back what was his. Queenie had had it too easy for too long, now his time had come.

Chapter Four

Queenie sat in a deep leather armchair in the darkly panelled room where floor-to-ceiling windows were shrouded in tasselled drapes and serious medical tomes lined three walls. An antique glass-fronted cabinet held a skull, the vertebrae of a human spine and a plastic replica of the human brain. There was unidentifiable matter in glass jars of what she assumed to be formaldehyde, but she swiftly averted her gaze from these. The room was a movie-set version of Sigmund Freud’s office.

Doctor Kleindorf was short and balding with a silver goatee, rimless round glasses, fleshy red lips and watery eyes. He was dressed in a pinstriped suit, polka dot bow tie, and his main accessory was a fob watch on a heavy gold chain. A small circular gold pin with a dot of sapphire in its centre signified he had been awarded the Order of Australia. Queenie had no doubt braces held up suit pants that were creased knife-sharp.

The room was claustrophobic and depressing. She wondered how patients suffering from depression must feel in here. She almost wished she hadn’t made the appointment and flown to Melbourne to see the man considered to be Australia’s most eminent neurosurgeon and neuropsychologist.

As if sensing her feelings of disquiet, Kleindorf began speaking softly and it took a few minutes for Queenie’s ear to adjust to his voice. ‘I have studied your husband’s X-rays and medical report. It does seem a somewhat straightforward matter . . .’

‘Straightforward! I wouldn’t say . . .’

‘I was referring to his physical injuries, my dear. I understand how distressing the effects of it all must be. But frankly, post-traumatic amnesia is quite common as a result of the sort of head trauma your husband has suffered. So, we can consider this aspect as being a positive one, yes?’ He gave a strange chuckle, which Queenie soon realised was a form of punctuation to his speech and had the curious effect of seeming to minimise the seriousness of the words he spoke. It occurred to her it was rather like a judge sentencing you to forty years behind bars. The words, delivered in a friendly tone with this chuckle, made you feel positively warm and glow with pleasure. After all, it could have been life. A clever psychological ploy no doubt, thought Queenie, trying to concentrate on what the doctor was saying.

‘Two brain areas are most vulnerable to injury with closed-head trauma — the inferior-medial and anterior segments of the
temporal lobes, and the inferior and polar areas of the frontal lobes bilaterally.’

‘Doctor, please, speak English. Tell me in plain words what I want to know . . . namely, how bad is my husband’s problem, will he recover and if so, when, and what can I expect during this process?’

‘Not even God can give you a time and a date or a full and accurate prognosis, my dear.’ He held up a pudgy white hand. ‘Please allow me to continue and explain a few things to you. A little more understanding will help you come to terms with his disorder.’

Queenie relaxed and let his whispery accent lecture her.

‘Be glad that in recent years the study of memory problems has surged due to our increasing interest in dementia. We have an ageing population that is living longer than in any previous time. We have come a long way in these studies since the Russian physician Korsakow made his findings and Ebbinghaus started a new era of investigation into memory. Today we have fields such as cognitive psychology.’ He chuckled. ‘We all possess a collection of individually acquired, learned and stored information particular to each of us. Our ability to retrieve at will selective portions of this reservoir of personal and formal knowledge is an unique human attribute. I won’t go into the types of memory function — such as repression and immediate recall, learning and retrieval — but let me say that with closed-head injury a variable degree of improvement occurs with the passage of time. Rest assured the memories
and knowledge stored by your husband remain intact. It is his ability to retrieve these that is impaired. Long-standing social habits, motor skills, language and so on are undamaged — they are virtually automatic skills.’

‘That’s all very well, but if he has no recollection of his past life it makes dealing with the present very difficult,’ said Queenie sadly.

The doctor agreed with a chuckle. ‘Now, what your husband is suffering from is known as retrograde amnesia. He may have permanent amnesia — either partial or total. There are instances where total recovery has been spontaneous, others where recovery has been gradual and sporadic. Often there is some learning loss or impaired function to a lesser or greater degree.’ Kleindorf spread his hands and lifted his shoulders. ‘That is the unfathomable quotient — the fate factor’.