Faridah’s legs were aching. She’d been standing in this line for fifteen minutes and felt like it was a python and she was the rabbit it was taking weeks to digest. She leaned her swollen belly against the stroller. This baby felt heavier than Rafi. She supposed that meant it was another boy. Of course the doctors knew, and the woman who did the ultra sounds. But Sahl had insisted they weren’t to be told. Please let it be a girl, and make her come out quickly.

 Faridah’s silent prayer winged its way over the heads of the Medicare staff and hopefully reached its intended destination. Though her faith in prayer was sorely tested these days by Rafi’s pain. Why should a two-year old suffer so much with swollen, arthritic joints? Where had this curse come from?

“We can’t confirm a diagnosis right now Mrs Mansur, the specialist said. “We know that Rafi is manifesting symptoms of juvenile arthritis, but we’re hoping it will disappear within weeks and won’t turn out to be true JRA. It could be the temporary result of a viral infection. This happens in adults, but it’s very rare in children. If it lasts longer than six weeks we will have to create a long-term treatment programme for the little guy.”

Faridah tried to console herself with the fact that there had been cases of what the carers called ‘slapped cheek syndrome’ at Rafi’s centre, which she now knew was more rightly called ‘human parvovirus’, but none of them went beyond the bright red faces that gave the virus its silly common name, so she had continued to drop Rafi off on her way to work every morning.  Then, a week before Faridah was due to stop working, the awful swelling in Rafi’s hands appeared and he started crying out in pain.

That was four weeks ago and her little boy had been suffering since, unable even to lift his spoon let alone indulge in his favourite thing, making shapeless car-cars and unrecognisable ephelents from play-doh. That’s why these visits to the Medicare office had become regular events. Between the looming costs of the birth and Rafi’s need for an expensive paediatric rheumatologist, Faridah watched the dream of a place of their own fading.

Living with Sahl’s parents had started out as a short-term arrangement, while they saved Faridah’s wages towards a house deposit. But she’d quickly found herself pregnant, and taken months off after Rafi’s birth. Even when she did go back to the job she loved, as liaison officer to foreign students at the university, it was only for three days a week. The baby costs skimmed the cream off the top of the savings account, but they’d just about made up the difference when it happened again, no period!

Faridah had conceded to Sahl’s pleas to switch from condoms to a diaphragm, but sometimes;….she thought about how passionate their lovemaking was, how her tall ebony-eyed husband drew longing gazes from women in the street, the supermarket, even the child-care centre. And she thought about how this wonderful man looked at her with such love, such desire, even now, when she was rounded and heavy. When she removed her headscarf and let her lustrous hair fall around her shoulders it always brought Sahl to her, always temptation lingered in the air for those first seconds.

The draped scarf so many women see as sinister, a symbol of subjugation to men, Faridah had freely chosen to wear, even though her mother and sister did not. Coming from an Australian Sunni family, she married into another. But her mother-in-law had always chosen to wear Hijab and when she decided to don the headscarf she could see that Sahl was pleased. Now she had a rainbow collection, colours and patterns to suit her stylish taste in clothes. Then, there was the bonus of removing the scarf for Sahl.

Suddenly the snake took another swallow and Faridah lurched forward into the stroller as the impatient woman behind bumped her out of her reverie. In turn, the stroller clipped the heels of the man in front.

“Sorry”. The tone of the voice from behind belied the word and Faridah didn’t bother to acknowledge it. She already knew the kind of look she’d get if she turned her covered head. But the man in front of her leaned out on his crutches and glared at the main offender.

“So you should be. We’ve been waiting longer than you anyway.” He smiled at Faridah and the sleeping Rafi. “That’s a beautiful boy you have there” he said, looking into Faridah’s face for as long as he thought he might safely get away with. She smiled a response and he was mesmerised by the dimples that appeared in her cheeks and the warmth in her huge tiger’s eyes.  When Faridah looked down, to study the papers she was holding, he knew he had pushed the limits of politeness and turned back to the line.  

Sean Duffy was also getting pissed off with all this waiting and his broken foot was itching like crazy under the plaster. He took the wooden spatula out of his backpack, leaned down and squeezed it between the plaster and his skin, scratching. When he looked up he met Rafi’s eyes, now wide awake and staring at the skewed version of the Aussie flag, with its Union Jack, decorating Sean’s cast. The colours were all wrong, not red, white and blue but red, black and yellow, the colours of the Aboriginal flag. Even the two-year old knew there was something funny about it. Sean kept scratching and winked at the little boy. Too young to get the message though. Sean’s grandmother was one of the Stolen Generation, and he had no intention of letting anyone forget it.

“Just as well it was your left foot lad, what a fluke! If it was your real kicking boot that busted on that round ball the club might be shitting themselves. But with them now stepping up in the Federation table, thanks to the game you won for them, well I’ve put the screws on. You’re moving to the big time boyo. I told you I’d get you to the World Cup. This is a giant step along the way.”

The best orthopaedic man in the country operated and assured Sean the foot would soon be as good as new. But this famous doctor charged like a wounded bull and, in his youthful arrogance, Sean had never bothered with private health insurance. He’d paid out thousands to get his surgeon of choice. Now he was standing in this stalemated line… to get back what, hundreds?

He leaned to the side again and looked down the counter. Five terminals were open but only the one at the end had a claimant at the counter, and four people seemed to be serving her. What is going on here?

 “Excuse me”, when no answer came Sean upped the decibels. “Excuse me!” Everyone in the queue turned to where Sean’s exclamation was aimed. The tallest of the group at the terminal looked reluctant, as he walked down his side of the counter to where Sean stood.

“Is there something I can help you with sir?”

“Well of course there is. You can help me,” Sean turned and waved his arm expansively to include the whole room, “and everyone else who has been waiting here forever, by manning the empty terminals and processing our claims.” Applause broke out along the line. Sean took a bow and grinned into those tiger eyes as he came up. Faridah smiled back.

The supervisor looked at the burly young bloke and thought twice about telling him where to stuff it, in spite of the crutches. “I apologise for the delay. We have a particularly difficult claim and I’m calling on all our resources.”

“Resources, you mean your staff,  all your staff for one customer and the rest of us can go to hell?”

The woman making the claim suddenly burst into tears and walked down the line, stopping in front of Faridah. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. But they won’t pay, and I’m desperate for money.” She looked at Faridah’s pregnant belly and the child frowning at her from stroller and tried to pull herself together. “I’m sorry you’ve had to stand for so long” She turned to the rest of them. “…all of you, I’m so sorry. I just don’t know what to do. I have to have that refund.” Then she started crying again.

Instinctively Farida reached an arm around the woman’s shoulders and the short stranger leaned in and cried all over the baby’s sanctuary. The baby didn’t like it and kicked hard, causing the woman to pull back in shock.

The supervisor’s life suddenly passed before his eyes, as the line broke up, becoming a crowd of sympathisers. “It’s just not right…little Hitlers all of ‘em…give them a bit of authority and they think they’re God…look at the state they’ve got her into”; the words came at him like bullets through the air and Sam Lee wanted to run for cover.

“Just what is the problem mate. Why can’t you give this woman her money?” Sean turned to the little middle-aged woman whose face was now streaked with mascara. ‘You do have the doctor’s bills don’t you, registered doctors, not quacks or anything like that?” The woman nodded and Sean asked again. “So what’s the problem?”

Thirty pairs of eyes bored into Sam Lee. He was buggered if he was going to take all the flak. “Ask her, why don’t you? Better still ask him, Mr Paul Zanetti.” He waved the sheaf of bills in his hand. “All of these bills are for services to a Ms Pauline Zanetti, a woman who doesn’t exist on our system, or on any official government record as far as we can discover. They are for hormone treatments, breast implants, and sex-change surgery for a non-existent patient.”

 Silence settled, like a wet blanket. Feet shuffled, coughs broke out, noses were blown, but no words were forthcoming. “Confusing isn’t it?” Sam Lee was delighted to be getting his own back. “So does the sex-change mean it was a woman and is now just a bloke in drag, or is the mystery patient Paul, who does exist, according to government records, but was never billed for any of the medical treatment on these claims.” Faridah looked like she might faint and the woman who had pushed her earlier carried a chair over and helped her lower herself onto it.

“Bloody hell.” Sean leaned heavily on his crutches and pondered the ways of a world beyond his imagining. Pauline, aka Paul,  grabbed the bills back and started waving them about.

“ I do exist. I am real, a real woman. I’ve always been a woman, in my heart, in my mind, my soul. The fact that I had balls didn’t change that. All the doctors agreed. But the bureaucrats stuffed it up. They haven’t changed the records, in spite of the hundreds of papers they made me sign, and all the doctor’s reports they demanded. They said Medicare would cover me and I wouldn’t have to go to Thailand for the operations. I’ll be out on the street if I don’t pay my rent today. I’ve paid out all this…”Pauline’s voice wavered and she spoke softly “I’ve only got six dollars left in the world.”

 A cloud of helplessness floated above the room. Then Faridah spoke from her privileged sitting position.  “Is there a JP here?” She looked across at the tall Asian, Sam Lee. “You, you must have to certify documents sometimes, in the course of your work.”

“Yes I do. I am a Justice of the Peace, that’s right.” Sam expected respectful looks, but no on seemed impressed.

“Are those accounts for the sex-change really obscure?” asked Faridah. “There must be medical terms on them that make it quite clear.” A young blond girl on the staff side of the counter handed Sam a print-out.

 “ Yes, the reference is to ‘sexual reassignment surgery inclusive of vaginoplasty and labiaplasty.’ ”

“Yes . But that still doesn’t alter the fact that these bills are made out and payment was made in the name of Pauline Zanetti. We cannot rei-imburse them.”

“Call it a simple clerical error, just three letters, an easy mistake. Once it’s made on one, it tends to get repeated on the records. It happens in my job all the time. Foreign names of students are often misspelled and just as often that appears to change their sex. Then the details are copied on all records throughout departments in the university and lecturers are presented with female students when they were expecting boys and vice versa. When the students come crying to me I simply change the spelling and have the documents witnessed and certified by a JP.”

“I can’t do that!”

“Why not? It’s perfectly legal I assure you. The Department of Immigration has no qualms about it and I promise you, those fat-cat bureaucrats make yours look like fuzzy kittens.”

Sean looked at the gorgeous woman with even more admiration, then threw in his ten cent’s worth. “We have plenty of witnesses. I’ll swear that the person presenting those bills is Paul Zanetti. It seems legally he…she still is anyway.”

Sam Lee shuffled the bills. He well knew that if he put them through under Paul Zanetti’s Medicare number and certified a simple tying error, no one would question it. Hell, probably nobody would even notice. He was tired, these people were tired, they