Mr Smith to You

by Kerry Anne Taylor

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

For most of his 76 years, Bill Smith preferred solitude over socialising, horses over people and confidentiality over confidantes. As a jockey, he was known for always turning up already fully kitted out in his silks. But now, in his advancing years, a fall lands him in full-time care and it becomes impossible to maintain his privacy. Nurse Maureen Bannon resents having to look after 'the geries', especially grumpy old buggers like Mr Smith, but when she discovers Bill's secret an unlikely alliance is formed. Bill was assigned female at birth, a fact that shaped his life but never limited his ambition. With Mr Smith's health declining and time running out, Maureen wants to find someone who knows and loves him, but only one name seems to mean anything to Bill - Catherine, his first love. Can Maureen find out more to help Bill find peace?

Mr Smith to You is a beautiful and tender novel about identity and a powerful testament to kindness and the human spirit.

Release date: May 30, 2023

Publisher: Affirm Press

Print pages: 304

Sample

1

Bill Smith’s life felt like one long fight. He had been in this position before. He hadn’t let them win then, and he wasn’t going to let them win now. His liver-spotted hands gripped the top of his pants and, body contorting and legs flailing, Bill struggled to fight off his assailant.

‘Bugger off. Bugger off, the lot of you.’

Nurse Maureen Bannon looked around, wondering who ‘the lot of you’ were, given that she was alone. She stepped back from the patient’s bedside as if to signal her surrender, her hands held out open-palmed in a battlefield show of peaceable intent.

‘Come on. Be a good boy now, Billy. We need to get you changed before Doctor can see you.’

Her voice was singsong, infantilising. A voice some would use when talking to the elderly. Like nails on a blackboard, and with much the same effect on Bill Smith.

‘Who are you calling “Billy”? It’s Mr Smith to you, you cheeky little twerp.’

The forced smile dropped from Maureen’s face.

‘That’s right, Missy,’ he continued. ‘That might work on some, but not on this one.’ He swatted away her cajoling, leaving her in no doubt that this fellow was not like the docile, compliant characters she might usually encounter.

‘Going to be like that, is it?’ Hands on hips, Maureen addressed her patient with a solemnity that her age rendered comical. ‘Alright, Mr Smith,’ she said, with emphasis on every syllable. ‘But we will get you out of those clothes one way or the other. They smell to high heaven. Doctor won’t be examining you like that, let me tell you.’

‘Just piss off now, before I— you should show some respect for your elders,’ said Bill Smith. The same Bill Smith who had always prided himself on his appearance, had never left the house anything but clean and smartly turned out. When Nurse left the room, he pulled his shirtfront to his nose and sniffed. The mix of sweat and old vomit elicited a begrudging agreement, but he wasn’t about to tell her that.

Bill surveyed his surroundings. He was in hospital – Leichhardt Memorial, he assumed, the small rural hospital at the far edge of the Atherton Tablelands. He could smell the rich, black soil that permeated the air so completely that it cut through his disinfected surroundings. But there was no escaping the hint of old man’s bowels that also wafted past now and then. Bill felt his mouth fill with saliva and swallowed hard. Through the louvred windows, he could hear a choir of cane toads enjoying the end of an afternoon downpour. At least he wasn’t down in Cairns Base. He could walk home from here.

He scanned the room, noting the other occupants, who seemed unperturbed by the ruckus. The gentleman to his right made Bill ponder whether they hadn’t already departed this world – mouth agape, yellow-purplish skin that looked like it would tear if touched. He certainly wasn’t someone who would be up for the physical battle Bill had just engaged in. The old bloke in the far corner was asleep, but cradled a transistor radio to his ear, its failing battery making it sound like a rundown gramophone record as the music heralding the four o’clock ABC News bulletin played forlornly.

The news warned of an unseasonal tropical cyclone building off Cairns. Bill thought about his sheds and hoped this one would not cross the Gillies Range like some cyclones managed to do. He didn’t miss living down on the coast, where he had been through his fair share of destructive cyclones. Still, he thought, the timbers holding the stables together had seen better days. One more big blow could bring them down, even if the rainforested mountains might take some of the puff out of the wind. He didn’t have the horses to go in them these days, but those sheds held something almost as valuable to him: memories – rich, sensory memories.

Directly across from him was a gentleman who, save for the few wispy strands of white hair above the blue hospital blanket, resembled a bag of bones in the bed. Considering the company, Bill began to wonder about his own condition, having been placed in what he thought could be God’s waiting room. He tried to recall the events that had brought him here.

As he shifted position, his body provided some painful reminders. A fall, was it? But how long ago? It wasn’t from a racehorse – he knew that much. Those days were behind him. No, this was from doing something meant to be far less risky than riding. He had leant down to take off his shoes, and tumbled forward between the bed and the window – and that’s where he’d stayed. He thought he remembered at least two sunrises through partly opened curtains before experiencing uncharacteristic relief at hearing his closest neighbour, Ivy Jenkins, yoo-hooing from his yard. He was missing time. How much, he didn’t know. A wave of nausea sent sweat running down his face.

Bill had managed to avoid hospitals – and neighbours – for most of his life, despite having lived through far worse than a fall in his bedroom. He’d even set the odd broken bone or two himself. Not the most elegant of jobs, he’d have to admit, but no need for wasting the doctor’s time. He didn’t belong here, in a hospital. He didn’t need people fussing and pulling at him, this way and that. He would be quite fine back home, thanks all the same. Bill pulled the sheets up as high as they would go, as if by hiding behind them he could make himself disappear.

But there was no disappearing, and no relaxing. He tossed and turned in his hospital bed, unable to settle. The large ceiling fans did nothing but move hot air around the ward, flecks of peeling paint hanging on tenaciously beneath their whirring blades. The fan above him wobbled in its orbit, while the living dead around him snored so loudly as to make sleep impossible. Every now and then there would be a long silence, when Bill wondered whether one poor bloke hadn’t breathed his last. But just as he considered whether to call for that cheeky miss to come and check his roommate, there would be another sucking sound and the chorus would start again. No, Bill certainly didn’t belong here. What business did those bloody ambos have, bundling him out of his own home?

A fragment of memory. Yes, that’s right – two burly blokes with Queensland Ambulance insignia. Ivy must have contacted them. He recalled being taken out on a stretcher, when all a man needed was a hand up off the floor and maybe a cuppa and some toast before they left. Home was where he should be, not whisked away to be tormented by some young upstart pawing at his trousers.

~

Bill loved his miner’s cottage in the hills behind Leichhardt. It had been his reward after a life of hard slog, spent moving around with no real place to call home, until a final winning purse and an aged pension had meant he could retire to the little house he’d bought for a song. Bill thought it a bargain. All he wanted now was to be able to see out his days there in peace. Keep to himself. Mind his own business, and hope others would mind theirs.

There was much to love about the timber and tin building nestled on the banks of Pannikin Creek, just above the ’57 flood line. Bill called it a home. Some of his neighbours called it a shack, and a ramshackle one at that in later years, but he didn’t see it that way. There was a wild-growing veggie patch that pretty much looked after itself, having emerged without any effort from scraps thrown from the verandah. If you stood still too long in that volcanic landscape, Bill was certain, something would grow over you. Tomatoes self-seeded there, as did watermelons, corn and pumpkins, and when he made a small effort there would be spinach and a few other offerings too. There was a mature mango tree, hunched over by the weight of the flying foxes that congregated in it each night. Bill didn’t mind sharing the fruit with them when it was available, but he was less fond of the noise they made, especially during mating season.

Most loved of all, however, were the stables and the little blacksmith shed down the back. For the first few years of his retirement, Bill still had two mares to look after, so he’d earned a few quid for their feed by making leatherwork, horseshoes or cattle brands for anyone who’d asked. There were no horses left now, but Bill could still smell their memoried presence every time he went there, and he went there often.

The closed-in verandah needed restumping, but it was where he watched the world go by without having to interact with anyone unless it suited him. A few local trainers would pass by on their way to the creek, when it was high enough to exercise their thoroughbreds in the strong current. Although he was no longer active in the racing industry, there were some who would still seek Bill’s advice when it came to their animals’ welfare. He would study each horse’s gait as they came and went and, if asked, would call out his assessment and suggestions from a distance, never inviting anyone in. Not that anyone tried to come in these days – most accepted Bill’s hermit-like ways. Apart from Ivy Jenkins, who was always angling to get a look inside her neighbour’s house – without success, until now, it seemed. The thought of people poking around his home prompted Bill to sit up straight in his hospital bed.

‘I’ve got to get out of here,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘This is bloody ridiculous.’

Bill pushed back the sheets and felt along the bedrails with arthritic hands, trying to work out how to put the sides down. He rattled them in frustration when he found himself unable to press hard enough on the lever. Hands that had once commanded a thousand pounds of racing thoroughbred now could not muster enough strength to push a lever on a hospital bed. For Bill, that realisation was worse than any pain.

He sank back, exhausted, wishing for the sleep that had eluded him while he’d lain on his bedroom floor. How long ago had that been? Before or after he’d collected the eggs? The eggs his neighbour left on his front steps were part of their weekly routine. An exchange without words. Bill would put half a dozen tomatoes or whatever else was in season on his front steps, and Mrs Jenkins in turn would leave him produce from her Isa Browns. But he’d never made it outside to collect them that day.

Bill rubbed his hip, reliving the pain and panic of trying to get up from his bedroom floor and finding himself unable to move. As had been the case back then, he now finally had to accept that he would not be going anywhere soon. He took advantage of the young nurse’s absence to close his eyes. The radio playing in the background was reviewing the weekend races, which turned his mind to the time when he’d ridden for one of the top trainers in the north – old Charlie McInnes, the man who’d given Bill his first job as an apprentice jockey, in Cairns in the early 1920s.

‘Make sure you hold him back until the final turn. Give him too much, he’ll want to get in front and exhaust himself. Bastard of a horse – can’t stand staring at other horses’ arses, so don’t let him go too early.’

‘I’ll hold him. No problem, Boss.’

‘You flaming well better, Son, or we’ll be staring at your arse as it goes out the gate.’

~

Cradled in crisp, white hospital sheets, Bill’s hands reached out in front of his body, as if on reins, his arms employing old, familiar muscles. The clunky rhythm of the ceiling fans sounded like galloping in the distance. The cane toads in full voice outside the window echoed the high excitement of a crowd on race day. Bill was smiling at the memory – until he was startled from his recollections by Nurse Bannon trying to adjust his pillows.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said. ‘Good, you can take these bloody rails down and show me the way out.’

‘That won’t be happening, Bill— Mr Smith,’ she said. ‘You’re in no state to go anywhere, I’m afraid. Now, those clothes.’ She moved towards him once again, but the look on his face gave her pause.

‘Over my dead body, Missy.’

She took a step back. Defeat or strategic withdrawal, Bill wasn’t sure, but he was pleased that he seemed to have won this round.

‘That can always be arranged,’ Maureen said under her breath, as she retreated to check on the gentleman with the radio.

‘I heard that, Missy!’

Mr Smith might have won this battle, but he sensed the war was far from over.

2

Maureen Bannon sat down at the nurses’ station. The shift was still young, but she dropped onto the chair as if it was the end of a long and difficult day.

‘Anyone want to swap patients?’

No one answered. All her colleagues were suddenly very busy writing up their patient notes. Things had been frantic all day – the casualty department had been overwhelmed since early morning by a multiple-vehicle accident on the Gillies Highway, and the wards had been asked to triage the less-serious cases directly to help with the bottleneck. With no one making eye contact, Maureen reluctantly took out the scraps of paper that formed her first notes for this latest admission and began to write them up.

Getting a patient history from Mr Smith had been as challenging as getting him changed was proving to be. Bill Smith didn’t have an existing record at Leichhardt Memorial, so she’d had to ask him all the basics. ‘It was like pulling bloody teeth,’ said Maureen to her workmates. ‘Next of kin? None. Marital status? No answer. Past medical history? None. How does someone get to be his age without ever having seen a doctor?’ But she was talking to herself. No one was interested in her mysterious patient. Maureen had found early in her nursing career that sometimes, if she feigned incompetence or vulnerability, one of the Year Three girls would feel obliged to offer help. But not today. They weren’t buying. She continued transcribing her notes.

Nursing notes: 2/5/78 16:40. Name: Bill Smith, 76 yrs, male, DoB 7/2/1902. Next of kin: Nil known. Religion: Unknown. Direct admiss. Monitor on ward. Uncooperative, noncompliant with efforts to assess. Hx query fall at home, found by neighbour × 3 days, dehydration, confusion, risk pneumonia. Fluids not commenced. Awaiting review by Dr.

When she’d finished, Maureen scanned the team once more, spinning herself around on the new swivel chair recently donated by the Country Women’s Association. She swung left, reaching out her hand to colleagues, Shirley and Jen.

‘Swap with me?’

The pair exchanged glances and, in perfect coordination, shook their heads no. It had been a long shot, Maureen knew – especially since she’d called them a pair of stuck-up cows only two days before.

She swung the other way, towards Franny and Petra, both of whom remained absorbed in their notes. Maureen was about to implore her best friend for help when she noticed that Franny was scribbling furiously on her own patient’s file, head down, avoiding any attempt at communication except for the unambiguous middle finger that was pointing straight up. Petra was her last hope.

‘Petra, mate, you’ve got a way with the grumpy old buggers. I’m hopeless with geries – they don’t like me. I swear Matron just puts me there to break me. That old person smell – ugh,’ she said, holding her nose in mock disgust.

‘You’ll be old one day, you know, Maurs,’ said Petra.

‘With my teeth in a jar – put me down before that happens!’ Maureen responded, following up with an imitation of a gummy, toothless mouth, opening and closing wordlessly.

Scattered giggles rippled through the room. Maureen swung around and around on her chair, like a preschooler on a merry-go-round, until something in her peripheral vision brought the game to an end.

‘Is that so, Nurse Bannon?’ said a voice from behind her. The room felt like the oxygen was being sucked from it, and all life waited for permission to breathe again. Matron Kelly was old-school. Not a hair out of place, starched veil crisp enough to cut a sandwich. The kind of matron that kept tissues in her office for baby nurses who inevitably left in tears. ‘Pan room then, Nurse,’ said Matron. ‘Perhaps the aromas in there will be more to your liking.’

Without meeting Matron’s unyielding stare, Maureen sprang up and marched off down the corridor, leaving the chair spinning slowly in her wake.

~

‘You know who you’ve got in there, don’t you?’ said Franny.

Maureen jumped at the unexpected presence.

‘Gawd, don’t do that! Don’t come up behind me like that – I thought it was old Kelly,’ she said, relaxing her shoulders. ‘Yes, I know who I’ve got – it’s Mr Pain-in-the-Bum. Why do I always get the difficult ones?’

‘It’s Bill “Girly” Smith, Maurs – the jockey. Your granddad probably knew him. Girly,’ she said again, as if that explained everything.

‘Girly?’ Maureen repeated, without recognition.

‘Not sure how he got the name. Some people used to think he was a little bit … flighty,’ said Fran, flapping her wrist and giving a knowing wink.

‘Flighty? You mean … a poof?’ said Maureen, scanning the corridor before allowing the word to fall out.

‘You don’t say that these days, Maurs – you say “gay”.’

Maureen looked at Franny, standing there with her wrist still bent at a right angle, and wondered why that gesture was acceptable but not her own expression. She shook it off. Her friend had always seemed more worldly than her about most matters. Fran had lived in the city for a bit, while Maureen’s only trip out of North Queensland had been on a cruise to Fiji with her family when she was thirteen – and she’d spent most of it in her cabin with terrible seasickness.

‘I don’t know if he actually was,’ continued Franny, unfolding her hand. ‘Doesn’t matter, anyway. I just remember hearing about this funny fella, Girly Smith, who never got changed at the track. Always came and went from meets with his colours under his clothes.’

Maureen pulled Franny into the pan room and closed the door. ‘That is queer. Strange queer, not gay queer,’ she said, as she contemplated why someone would do that. ‘Anyway, I don’t care. He’s still a grumpy old bugger, and I need him changed before Doctor comes.’

Fran Patterson sat up on a bench and watched Maureen fish a bedpan from the trough of boiling water, holding it out at a distance with the large metal tongs, even though it had just been sterilised.

‘You’d be grumpy too if you were in his shoes,’ she said. ‘Some young girl trying to take his gear off. He wouldn’t get changed in front of other jockeys – he won’t appreciate you trying to get him undressed.’

‘That may be so, but what am I supposed to do? Can’t you give me a hand?’

‘Have you seen my load? A fractured hip and a gall bladder, for starters,’ said Franny. ‘Try telling him who your granddad is. That might win him over.’

‘No thanks.’

‘Are you still not talking to your Pop? Talk about stubborn.’

Before Maureen could respond, a third person joined their conversation.

‘Those pans have cleaned themselves, have they, Nurse Bannon?’

Franny leapt down off the benchtop, grabbed a clean urinal bottle and squeezed past the substantial frame of Matron Kelly, leaving the door swinging behind her. Maureen stood fixed to the spot, unsure of what to do next. She finally turned towards Matron, hands behind her back, assuming the expected stance for another admonishment.

‘I was just getting some background on Mr Smith, Matron. Franny – I mean, Nurse Patterson – knows him; or knows about him, at least.’

‘Good. Then I’ll expect to see him in a hospital gown some time this side of Christmas.’

‘Yes, Matron.’

‘And fix that cap, Nurse. You look like you crawled in through the window.’

‘Yes, Matron.’

At least I could fit through a window, Maureen thought to herself as the sound of Matron Kelly’s court shoes faded along the corridor.

~

Maureen had finished her rounds and was heading back to the nurses’ station when Matron called her into her office. Three encounters in one shift. Nothing positive could come from such a request. Maureen’s hands were trembling. She tried to hide them by putting them in her pockets.

Since starting her training, Maureen had been in old Kelly’s sights on numerous occasions. Mostly for her slack standards of dress, it seemed, but also because of her obvious lack of enthusiasm for certain aspects of practice. Maureen had thought nursing was going to be better than high school. A nice, fun job for a little while – or, as her mother was fond of saying, ‘something to fall back on until you meet Mr Right’. But as she entered her second year and found herself mostly in the company of elderly men like Mr Smith, she wasn’t quite so sure.

‘Mr Right-Over-the-Hill,’ she would say whenever she recalled her mother’s optimism about her finding a potential husband. Not that she was searching. Maureen had things to do, places to go – like Sydney, or even London – before she followed the path of most local girls into marriage and children. Besides, the pool of local males was more like a very small and stagnant pond.

‘Nurse Bannon, we are not in the playground. Pleas. . .