My August

The rent is nothing – literally nothing. Also, it’s all I could find at short notice. The job at the clinic is mine as long as I start right away. In less than two days.

My predecessor, who'd been the town’s doctor for fifty-two years – who’d delivered babies and then those babies’ babies, died on Wednesday. The day I start work is the day almost everyone here will be at his funeral.

The car drops me on the unsealed outskirts. Mrs Amis’s house is a double-story weatherboard, painted white. Massive, with a veranda running the whole circumference, a neglected garden, a couple of trees overhanging the house and a low picket fence with the paint peeling off. As the little gate drops off its hinges, I have the urge to get back in the car. But it’s already a dot of dust on the horizon, leaving me picking my way up the weedy path.

The front door opens as I walked up the steps. A tiny lady with hands clasped into white knuckles steps on to the veranda. I put my bags down as her eyes regard me for several long seconds– inspecting me like a piece of machinery.

‘You’ll need to do your share here.’

Accepting this statement as a successful interview, I pick up my bags again.

‘There’s plenty of outdoor work to be done – firewood and such. And there’s chooks and a goat.’

She turns back towards the house. I look around with dismay. There’s so much to do here. I'll be working all day. I don't want to come back here to work for what I’m more than capable of paying for.

I follow her in to a hallway from an earlier century. Dark polished wooden floors, thick woollen carpet runners. Heavy oil portraits of people wearing stoic expressions on the walls. We pass an enormous loungeroom; two full-size suites fitting comfortably - a piano, sideboard and other old-fashioned pieces. Everything is immaculate and gives the impression of not being in use.

‘This is the dining room. All your meals will be served in here.’ Mrs Amis says, leading me in to a room with a long, rectangular formal dining table; even when we are seated, a vast expanse of unoccupied space. While I am picturing this, she adds,

‘My August keeps to himself.’

He must have been waiting for his introduction, August, because he appears at the doorway.

He’s younger than I expect; her son.

‘You don’t need to go wandering about the house but I expect you to keep your room clean and tidy.’ Mrs Amis says to me.

August doesn’t come right in to the room but stays leaning against the doorframe. He looks roughly my age (approaching thirty) - pale, underweight. Clothes hang loosely from bony hips and shoulders. His hair is sandy-coloured, thin and long at the back. A few wisps remain on the top of his head.

He looks at me for a moment then folds around the door frame out of sight. His mother continues the tour – room after empty room. Eventually, I’m shown a bedroom on the second floor that I have to assume is my own because it's here we part company.

‘Dinner is at seven.’ The door is pulled shut.

I unpack what few possessions I have and wait. The view out the window is beautiful but desolate. The road disappears in a haze and on either side - flat, grassy paddocks meeting the sky.

Dinner is not surprisingly an awkward, silent occasion although Mrs Amis surprises. She is more generous with her provisions than with her words - there's enough on my plate for two. I don't want to offend her; the problem exists. When she isn’t paying attention, I slip a potato or a piece of meat from my plate into the pocket of my dress. I’m so intent with this furtive operation that when she speaks, I think perhaps I’ve missed the preamble that could explain her remark.

‘Bandages, gauze and stitching thread.’

August doesn’t look up but pushes his food gently with his fork, waiting for my response.

‘I’m not sure I know what…do you mean at the clinic?’

‘Dr Petersson always looked after August.’ Mrs Amis says accusingly.

Dr Petersson looked after everyone. We finish our meal in silence. When Mrs Amis gets up to go out into the kitchen, I’m sure I see August take some items from his own plate and wrap them in a napkin. If Mrs Amis notices his reduced portion when she returns, she doesn’t say so. Maybe they live in silence, the strangeness of conversation reserved for guests.

Instead August pushes back his chair and Mrs Amis says, ‘goodnight’ even though it’s still light outside. She picks up all the plates and says to me,

‘You won’t forget those things I mentioned.’ A statement.

Up in my room, I lie on the bed for a long time. The sounds are unfamiliar and don’t occupy enough space. I’m used to the city with traffic noise, people fighting and sirens wailing. I open the window. A few dusk birds are chirping. The sound of far-away generators or machinery of some kind. I bring the food out of my pocket and put it on the window sill.

Why does she want those things for August? What is wrong with him? Dr Petersson knew.

I stand perfectly still. After it grows dark, a rat edges out on to the window sill, interested in the piece of meat. It circles around the meat then both the rat and the meat are gone so suddenly; I doubt whether either of them were there at all.

I step quietly over to the window and look out towards the tree. An owl sits motionless on one of the branches. The rat – now limp – hangs from one of its claws. We stare at each other for a long time. The owl opens its wings – as wide as a child’s arms - and flies soundlessly from the tree past my window.

In the morning I leave for the clinic early, catching the only bus in to town. I finished my training in a busy city emergency department but this town’s little surgery terrifies me. I discover country people don’t bother coming in with minor ailments. A broken arm with the bone jutting out, a wide-open gash from barbed wire fencing, a baby limp with fever.

They tolerate me.

At the end of the day, the publican – still in his funeral black – offers to drive me home. Exhausted, I accept.

Mrs Amis has removed the need for verbal communication altogether by leaving a handwritten list of chores on my desk. ‘rake leaves, weed path, bring the chooks in.’

I change my clothes, pull some weeds and rake the leaves in to smallish piles next the house. I hadn’t noticed before but there is a kind of third story – like a basement. A tiny black window tightly shut at ground level. Even from where I’m standing, I can see scratches on the glass. The timeworn image of news footage flashes through my mind. Police tape surrounding the house, August and Mrs Amis being led out in handcuffs.

The chickens are not so easy. I think there are a dozen or so but every time I lunge for one, it flaps and squawks away from my grasp. I thought chickens were mild until I have to chase them around and witness them goring and pecking at each other. A fluffy-headed one with a hole in her neck.

Again we sit at the table with enough food for the expectation of more visitors.

‘Did you bring those things I asked for?’

I think about the bandages and stitch material. I don’t have them. The nurse at the clinic has been there almost as long as Dr Petersson. I couldn’t just take the supplies or ask her what Mrs Amis wanted them for. I feel like everyone here knows something except me.

‘It’s not too much to ask.’ Mrs Amis says, ‘It wasn’t a problem for Dr Petersson.’

Nothing was a problem for Dr Petersson. I’ve been hearing that all day. Mrs Amis picks up her plate and disappears in to the kitchen. I slide the extra food into the pocket of my dress. This time, August doesn’t attempt to conceal taking food from his plate after his mother leaves the room.

In my room, I place a piece of meat on the window sill and wait in the dark – half an hour, an hour. Just when I shift my gaze for a second, the food is gone. Looking out in to the dark, I see the owl in the same position as the previous night, with the meat in its claw, motionless, staring.

Lying in bed, unable to sleep, the animal sounds are becoming more distinct to me. Foxes, dogs, geese, cows. And something else. Closer. High-pitched sounds, muffled. Without traffic noises, my ears are tuning in to the tiniest sounds, trying to place them in the dark.

For the next two weeks, the owl is my only moment of peace. I am confident in my work but people are suspicious of me. Then at the end of each day, Mrs Amis seems to resent my presence but her handwritten lists kept me from finding any alternative.

I take supplies from the surgery for August. The nurse says nothing.

Dr Petersson's records tell me nothing. Nobody says anything here.

I hand the supplies to Mrs Amis, who accepts them in silence. The news image disturbs my mind. Pictures of police coming up from the basement, blinking in the daylight, holding evidence bags.

Each day passes this way; I go to work, come back to the house to do chores, eat dinner in silence then wait for my owl at night. Sometimes I see August tending the chickens or the goat but after dinner, he slips away without a word, half his meal wrapped up as I do. Perhaps he's afraid to offend his mother as I am. I shudder at the thought of a lifetime in this heavy, silent house that is making me feel tired and worn already.

Then early on the Friday of my fifth week, before I open the surgery door, a man I don’t recognise knocks gently on the door, holding something wrapped in a flannelette shirt, a circle of blood starting to soak through. I unlock the door with trembling fingers, prepared myself for a finger or a hand and for the owner of the amputated limb to follow at any moment. The man places the shirt down on the bench.

But inside the folds is my owl - alive - perfect except for one wing askew.

‘Oh.’ I’m relieved, then embarrassed when tears prick the back of my eyes.

‘I found it just out of town.’ The man says, ‘on the road.’

‘But how? I mean, owls don’t usually- ‘

‘I know, I know. Could’ve been a fight though. Or he could’ve been bitten by a snake, then hit by a car. All I know is to bring him here.’

‘But I’m a doctor of people. I don’t know if I can do much…’

‘No. no. I know that.’ he shakes his head, ‘August.’

‘August. Oh. Oh. August.’

I bend down to look at the owl up close and the man is gone.

All day, my owl stays wrapped in the shirt, a little bundle in the corner of the surgery. I’m grateful for no questions and anxious for the moment I can lock the front door and take him home. On the bus I hold him close.

At home, I walk straight around to the basement steps below the tiny black window. August opens the door and puts his hands out for the shirt. I follow him inside and down several more steps. Three or four birds are walking around on the floor. A cat with a collar is asleep in a basket. The fluffy headed chicken - sitting in a fenced-off area, a row of perfect tiny stitches in her neck.

August unwraps the shirt and slides his fingers under the broken wing without moving it.

‘Can you fix it?’ A question I’ve been asked a thousand times.

He stares at the injured bird.

‘I can, but…’

August covers the owl. I hold a piece of flannel in two fingers.

‘He won’t be able to hunt.’ August stares at the piece of flannel.

‘You’ll have to feed him.’