The Godfather has slept with nearly every single nurse in the hospital and is feeling the pressure. ‘I don’t think people really like me out here,’ he says nervously over a beer in our living room. ‘The nurses are all banding together against me.’

‘Well, you didn’t have to sleep with all of them,’ Estelle points out. ‘You didn’t have to take such a mass destruction approach.’

‘Or mass seduction,’ I pipe up, smiling.

I spend every waking minute that I’m not at the hospital reading about glioblastoma and trying frantically to finish the literature review for Wolfgang Dietrich. It’s becoming incredibly tedious. Wolfgang tears to shreds every draft I send him but offers only vague suggestions for improvement. I’m starting to wonder whether I should bother persevering; his feedback has been largely negative, and I doubt I have a chance of the paper being accepted into the conference line-up. I’m halfway through a draft email suggesting that I withdraw from the project, when Wolfgang beats me to the punch.

Great news, Katarina! The abstract has been accepted! We have prevailed!

The word ‘we’ is a little galling, considering I’ve done all the work—but, as Max points out, that’s the beauty of being a senior consultant surgeon.

‘Everyone does the work for you and you take most of the credit,’ he tells me. ‘Don’t worry, Kitty, only another twenty-five years before we get there ourselves.’

I send admin an email confirming I’m going to use my study leave to fly to Sweden to present the paper, and they respond more positively than usual, knowing it will reflect well on the hospital to be seen as a centre of research excellence that offers its juniors such wonderful opportunities.

I ring Mum to tell her the good news. She is over the moon. ‘My daughter, the future surgeon, off to present at an international conference!’ she says. ‘I’ve told you that story about when you were born, haven’t I? About your fingers being long? Surgeon’s fingers!’

‘Yes,’ I say, refraining from adding, Like a billion fucking times. Why do you think I’m doing this?

I’m so focused on surviving Wingabby and finishing the research on time I can barely think about the fact that I’ll return to Sydney only to get on another plane to fly straight to Europe. I want to be excited but only feel anxious.

The good thing about being so busy is it makes the time go much more quickly. The days are long, but the weeks are becoming shorter, and shorter again. Before I know it, Max’s calendar has only six days and one remedial drivers’ lesson remaining.