Top-Notch Men!: In Her Boss's Special Care

His smile was crooked. ‘I do, don’t I?’

Allegra found the friendly, more approachable side to him totally refreshing and wondered if he was trying to make up for the bad start they’d had. Without the stark backdrop of the hospital and without his white coat and tie, he looked like any other good-looking guy in his early to mid-thirties. His face was marked by fatigue but, looking around the bar, most of the hospital staff who were still here looked much the same. It came with the job. Chronic tiredness was a given, especially in ICU, where the shifts were long and the work intense.

‘I heard you’ve been working overseas,’ she said, toying with the straw in her empty glass.

Joel’s eyes went to her hands before returning to her face. ‘Would you like another drink?’

‘Um … why not?’ she said, deciding she was starting to enjoy herself for the first time in ages. ‘Vodka and lime.’

‘Coming up,’ he said, and got up to get their drinks.

He came back and, placing her drink in front of her, took his seat opposite. ‘Yes, I was overseas for a while.’ He returned to her earlier question, his expression clouding a fraction.

‘Where were you stationed?’

‘In the Middle East.’

‘That would have been tough, I imagine.’

He took a sip of his drink before answering. ‘Yeah, it was.’

Allegra could sense he didn’t want to talk about it in any detail and wondered if he’d been involved in any of the skirmishes that had seen countless people injured or maimed for life.

She took another sip of her drink and changed the subject. ‘Are you a Melbourne boy?’

‘Yep, born and bred. What about you?’

‘I’m a bit of a crossbreed, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘My father is originally from Sydney and my mother is a Melbourne girl. They both live here now but not together. I’ve spent equal amounts of time with them over the years.’

‘They’re divorced?’

‘They never married in the first place,’ she said. ‘But they’re the best of friends. They never went down that blame-game route. They’re what you might call … progressive.’

‘Progressive?’

‘They have a sort of open relationship. They don’t live together but whenever my mum needs a partner for some function or other, she takes my dad, and vice versa.’ She gave him a little embarrassed glance and added, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if they still occasionally sleep together.’

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘That’s pretty progressive.’

‘What about you?’ she asked, picking up her glass. ‘Are your parents still together?’

‘Yes, for something like thirty-five years.’

‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’

His eyes moved away from hers as he reached for his glass, absently running the tips of two of his fingers through the beads of condensation around the sides. ‘I have a twin brother.’

There was something about his tone that alerted Allegra to an undercurrent of emotion. His expression was now shuttered, as if he regretted allowing the conversation to drift into such personal territory.

‘Are you identical?’ she ventured.

‘Yes and no.’

Allegra frowned at his noncommittal answer but before she could think of a response to it he met her eyes and asked, ‘What do your parents do for a living?’

‘My father’s a psychologist, who specialises in dream therapy, and my mother is a Tai Chi and yoga instructor.’

His eyebrows rose slightly. ‘No wonder you have a tendency towards the other-worldly.’

‘I would hardly call what I do that,’ she protested, with a reproving glance.

‘So what exactly is it you do?’ he asked, settling back into his seat once more.

‘You’ll only rubbish it so what would be the point?’

‘I promise to listen without comment,’ he said. ‘Look, right now we’re just two overworked, tired people in a bar, chatting over a drink, OK?’

She let out a tiny sigh after a moment’s hesitation. ‘All right.’ She took a little breath and briefly explained her theory of how human sensory touch could strongly trigger memories that might be integral to stimulating consciousness in a comatose patient. ‘There is evidence that skin sensation is wired up as our most primitive memory system, plugging more directly into primitive brain areas. If you think about your dreams, and record them after you wake up, the sensations you were experiencing just before you woke up are nearly always touch-related sensations. So—in this study, I encourage the relatives, particularly those who are most intimately involved with the patient, to touch them in predetermined ways. I teach them how to massage and touch their loved one in ways we think will trigger strong memories.’

Joel remained silent as she talked passionately about some of the trials she’d done, including one involving a post-heart-surgery coma patient.

‘It was striking,’ she said. ‘The relatives were advised to consider turning off his life support. There was virtually no sign of brain activity. But then his wife told me their daughter was flying back from Canada to say goodbye to him. She hadn’t seen him in fifteen years. When she arrived I got her to touch him on his eyebrows, nose and lips and talk to him just like she did when she was a child and he used to put her to bed with this little routine. His eyes opened, he looked directly at his daughter’s eyes for about thirty seconds, and then a few minutes later died peacefully.’

‘So he didn’t recover.’

Allegra tried not to be put off by the inherent cynicism in his tone. ‘No, but that’s not the point. He woke up in time to say goodbye. He recognised his daughter’s touch—some powerful memory was triggered that induced momentary consciousness.’

‘There’s no way of testing that scientifically,’ he pointed out.

‘I realise it’s just one case, and there was no measurement of brain activity being done on him. But that’s the whole point of my study now—to get some measurements of these effects. And other triggers, too. Some of the other therapies I use involve other body memories, such as smell and sound. Haven’t you ever heard a piece of music and found it took you back to a time that was significant to you? Music stirs emotions, so do certain aromas. And emotional memories are the most powerful, centred in the amygdala of the brain. The so-called healing properties of essential oils such as neroli, Roman chamomile, frankincense, bergamot, clary sage may have more to do with how they neurologically trigger emotional memory.’

‘Yes, but none of these are controlled substances—they could have contaminants. There are cases where clary sage used topically by pregnant women were associated with birth defects. Peppermint oil can trigger epilepsy. My concern is that you are introducing therapies into a high-tech area that have never been through any approval or evaluation process. If there was even the suggestion of some adverse reaction, we’d be crucified.’

‘I’m following strict guidelines—they’ve been approved by the ethics and research committees. My goal is to make a substantial breakthrough in coma recovery. I don’t want to be stopped by closed-minded bureaucracy.’

‘I suppose by that comment you’re referring to me.’

‘Well, you’ve hardly been encouraging,’ she said with a hint of pique.

‘It’s not my job to win a popularity contest. I have to run this new and very expensive department according to the guidelines laid down in my contract. And it boils down to, one, dollars and cents, keeping within the budget. And, two, best practice, with significant benefits from the expense of the new layout. I can’t be seen to be dabbling in pseudoscience with hard fought-over hospital money.’

‘So you still think it’s a worthless enterprise to touch a person who is ill or dying, or in a coma, do you?’ she asked, unable to remove the stringency from her tone. ‘For relatives and friends to spend hours by their bedside, holding their hand, stroking them and telling them how much they love them?’

He frowned at her censure. ‘No, of course not. It’s just that ICTU is cluttered enough as it is. It’s not the place or the right time to bring in alternative therapists and their potions and sounds. And think of the increased risk of infection if people came and went all the time without proper regulation.’

‘I don’t often introduce other therapists,’ she said. ‘I do most of the work myself.’

‘So you’ve got a degree in quackery as well as medicine, have you? What a busy little bee you have been over the last few years.’