by John Clanchy
But after a while he did start talking to her, even though he kept fiddling with his tie – it must have been loose or choking him or something and sometimes he fiddled with it so much I thought he was going to pull one end of it out completely, but he never did all the time we were in there with him, so I figured he must have practised tie-pulling a lot. He had a clipboard and some paper on it, and he came out from behind his desk and sat in an armchair near us and took out his pen and said to Mum they’d just do some simple clinical stuff first – but it looked to me like he was going to do it with his pen ready and everything, and not Mum at all. The place wasn’t like a doctor’s either. It was like a lounge room or a family room with armchairs and rugs and things, but no TV or CD player anywhere.
‘Now, Laura,’ he said. ‘I’m going to ask you some simple questions. And I want you to take your time. And I don’t want you to worry –’
And this is where Grandma Vera leaned over and grabbed my hand, and she nearly broke it off she was holding it so tight.
‘If you don’t know the answer to the question,’ the doctor said, ‘just try and guess. Give me your best guess. Okay? If they’re too hard, maybe your mother or even Mrs Harcourt –?’ And this was the first time he really looked at Grandma Vera, and he had this weird grin on his face that you could tell straightaway was false, and he was like a shark or something who was going to eat her. ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘Mum or Grandma could help you.’
‘Right, then,’ he said. ‘Let’s start. Well the first one’s easy. We know your name, don’t we?’
‘Laura,’ I said.
‘Laura Trent-Harcourt,’ he said, writing it down, and I could have said, ‘No, Vassilopoulos actually,’ and I was going to because he was so smart and had that false smile and thought he knew everything before you even told him. But he was already on to the next question.
‘How old are you, Laura?’
And it must have been summer and this time of year because I remember saying I was ten but I was going to be eleven in a few months.
‘Eleven,’ he said, and made a click with his tongue. ‘You’ll be a young woman before you know it.’ And I saw Mum frown at that and Grandma Vera nearly broke my little finger off she was hanging on so hard, and I wondered if it was because she would have got that question wrong on account of she’d sent me a birthday card at Xmas instead of a Xmas card – and Philip had laughed and said, A birthday card at Xmas? She must think you’re Jesus,’ but Mum said she didn’t think that was funny – and anyway the card was for a ten-year-old. It had this stupid dog on the front and said, For a big girl who’s about to reach double figures. When I’d been in double figures for nearly a whole year already.
‘And do you know what time it is, Laura?’ the doctor said.
‘Time?’ I said.
‘Yes. Do you know the time?’
‘Do you mean, can I tell the time?’ I said. And the questions were stupid because I’d been telling the time since I was five. When I was five I could even tell the time in Greek, though I couldn’t now.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I mean what’s the time now. But I see you haven’t got a watch. Perhaps your Grandma can help you. Mrs Harcourt,’ he said, ‘what’s the time?’
And that’s when my little finger nearly got screwed off completely.
‘Time –?’ Grandma Vera says, and she’s looking round like a murderer’s come into the room or a serial killer or something instead of just looking at her watch. And I lean across her to grab her other wrist and turn it over so she can see her watch, but Mum signals no, and Grandma Vera’s lips are trembling and she’s still going: ‘Time?’
‘Oh, not the exact time,’ the doctor says in this real oily voice like he’s the son of a man who’s dying and he’s trying to get his father to change his will at the last minute. ‘The time of day will do,’ he says. ‘Is it morning, Mrs Harcourt, or evening? Or afternoon perhaps?’ Which is all stupid because you only had to look out his window to see it was about ten o’clock because the sun hadn’t even got into his yard properly yet but was just in the top of the bushes and trees.
‘Afternoon,’ Grandma Vera says, and I don’t know whether she’s just joking because the question’s so stupid or if she just repeats the last thing she hears in his question. All I know is, I’ll never be able to play the piano again.
‘And what day of the week is it?’ he goes. And what date, and what month, and he’s writing the answers each time on his clipboard and he’s going ‘Good, good’ all the time, which is how I know he’s a fake because the answers Grandma Vera’s giving are all completely wrong and Mum’s looking at me and her face is saying Don’t-move. Just–sit–absolutely–still–where–you–are. And poor Grandma Vera, and this is where I begin to get really sorry for her, because I can feel how frightened she is – the fear’s running right through her body and down her arms and into mine, and I wouldn’t move now even if I could. And she’s looking at Doctor Gerontics or whatever he’s called and she can’t take her eyes off his face and she’s like a rabbit I saw once on TV and it was in its cage and there was this weasel that had got into the cage and was just sitting there and looking at the rabbit like it was asking it questions, and the rabbit had made itself into the tiniest ball it could and scrunched itself down in one corner of the cage, like it was pretending it wasn’t there at all, and the weasel was just looking at the rabbit while the rabbit shivered and only looked sideways with one eye and sometimes looked away altogether, like it was thinking if I don’t see it, it’s not there, and that’s when I started hating some of those animal shows on TV because if they were filming the weasel, they could have stopped it and switched the cameras off and saved the rabbit, but they didn’t; it just went on and on, until the weasel got bored, and it pounced and tore the rabbit’s throat out.
‘Tell me,’ the doctor said, ‘can you identify the three persons in this room?’
And Grandma Vera went: ‘Miriam –’ And it wasn’t just Mum’s name she was saying, but it came out like a squeal. And she looked at the doctor again, and he said:
‘And me. Who am I, Mrs Harcourt?’
And Grandma Vera just shook her head and started to cry, but he didn’t stop then. He just kept looking at her and saying in that smarmy voice, ‘Just a few more, and we’re finished.’ And he asked her her age and she said ‘Forty-seven,’ and ‘My’ was all he said, but he didn’t know Grandma was almost right because she’s seventy-four. And all these things from ancient history he wanted to know as well, like the school she went to and her date of birth and the name of Grandpa Bill and it took her ages to remember even that – when they’d been married for centuries – plus the date of the War, and the name of the present Prime Minister and that was funny because she said ‘Bob Mendes’ or Menges or someone who nobody had ever heard of, and then when he got to the last question, he said:
‘Can you tell me the months of the year? Not in their usual order, mind,’ he says, ‘but backwards?’ And Grandma Vera only got September and June and she was starting to cry again, and I hated him, and I didn’t care what Mum said, and I started shouting:
‘December, November, October …’
And by the time I got to January, I was still shouting and nearly crying myself, and the doctor was looking at me like I was mad, and Grandma Vera had stopped crying and she was patting my hand and going TT-tt with her tongue, and saying, ‘Don’t, don’t.’ And I wouldn’t look at Mum. In the end the doctor said:
‘That’s very good, Laura. You got the whole lot. You’re not only very pretty, you’re clever as well.’
And that’s when I thought how stupid doctors really were, and they dress up like they’re so smart and famous and everybody just goes, Yes, Doctor or No, Doctor like they’re the Pope or the Dalai Lama or something, but if they’re so smart, how come they say such stupid things?
Anyway at this point Dr Gerontics escapes back behind his desk, and now he doesn’t talk to anyone but Mum. It’s like Grandma Vera
and me have peed on his carpet or something and we’re standing in the corner with our backs to him in disgrace and we don’t even exist any more. That’s what doctors are like. Because when they’re asking you questions and want to know something, they’re all over you like a rash but as soon as you’ve given them the answers, they’re saying, hey, you, garlic breath, you go and blow in the corner and see if you can’t knock yourself out that way. But Grandma Vera was all happy again, and she kept patting me on the hand and saying, like she was Gerontics or something: ‘Very good,’ she’s going. ‘Very good, you were very good.’
‘Well, you can see for yourself,’ Gerontics was saying to Mum. ‘Of course, this is just a very basic clinical screen …’
And I looked around, but there wasn’t even a screen in the room, just his own big fat desk and these chairs and some paintings of red desert and stuff on his wall or people on verandahs in the outback when I bet he’s never been north of Penrith.
‘We’ll have to start a battery of technical tests,’ he says. ‘Histolory, NRMA, CAT scans and so forth …’
It was like he was suddenly a foreigner or had forgotten how to speak English and had to learn how to spell.
‘… but even now, you’d have to say we’ll be looking for evidence that it isn’t what you and I have suspected.’
‘Why do you need a cat scan?’ I said. I was sick of all this talking, and all this what you and I have suspected, like they’re together in this and no one else counts, and he’s looking at Mum like Philip sometimes does, or he used to, like all over her, and Katie and I knew we could do whatever we liked for the next hour or so, but he’s not Philip, and I remember thinking, why is it that men look at Mum like that? And in my mind, even though I’ve just asked about the cat scan, I don’t wait for an answer but sit right back for a moment, just like Dr Gerontics is leaning back in his chair behind his desk, and I look at her. And I swear this is the first time in my life I see it. Till that moment she’s just been my mother, and I love her and that, and I like the way she looks, and she’s always bright in the face and looks straight at you like she really thinks you count and she wants to know whatever you’re thinking, but this is the first time I look at her – from the outside, if that makes sense. I mean, it’s difficult if someone’s your Mum to see her from the outside, but just then I do, and I don’t look at her – I mean as my Mum – but just as a person like on the bus that you’ve never seen before, and her hair’s short and it’s kind of cropped like a boy’s round her ears, because that’s how Philip likes it now, and it’s brown with these blonde streaks like people have to go to the hairdressers to get put in but with her it’s natural, but because everyone else has to go and get it done, she doesn’t say it’s natural any more cos people just go Oh, yeah? And she’s got these weird eyes that are a bit like Yogi’s, that aren’t blue at all like Katie’s or Philip’s or black like mine or Dad’s but are nearly green, like a cat’s. Except they’re not green either, and have a bit of yellow in them. And I’m looking at her and thinking about this, and that’s when I realize this thing about Mum I’ve never noticed before, and that is she’s very beautiful. And I suddenly realize why men always look at her and want to talk to her and ignore everyone else, like Dr Gerontics, but they’re also a bit frightened of her and want to stay, and don’t want to, behind their desk. And the other thing I notice is that people are always talking to her in this fake way. Men especially. Like the fact that she’s pretty means they can’t talk to her like a normal person. And this makes me unhappy, and that’s why I go again:
‘Why do you need it, and what’s a cat scan anyway?’
Which sounds a bit rude, I admit, coming out like that, but that’s how I feel. And Grandma Vera wants to go, I can tell. The way her hand keeps plucking at her skirt like it’s covered in lint or something and it’s a competition to get it all off before she leaves the room, but there’s nothing there and Mum cleaned her skirt before we came. But she always does that, plucking at things, when she wants to go, and it makes me want to go too. But Dr Smarmy Gerontics is laughing this pretend laugh, and I know underneath he thinks I’m rude too, but the laugh is for Mum to show how he understands children, and underneath all the time he’s thinking, What a rude little girl. But I don’t care.
‘A CAT scan?’ he says. ‘Well, it’s nothing you’ll need to worry your pretty little head over,’ he says. ‘Or we certainly hope not …’ He’s blabbing on like this, and suddenly his eyes light up behind his glasses like the man on TV in the ad when he hears he’s just won Lotto and has won millions and won’t ever have to work again but can be on holidays for the rest of his life, and he laughs again and says: ‘But I’ll tell you what it isn’t. It isn’t a system of scanning for cats.’ And he goes into this ho-ho-ho like he’s practising for Santa Claus or something, and that’s when I get really rude and say:
‘I didn’t imagine it was.’
And I don’t look at Mum because I think she’s probably got her Behave yourself, Miss face on, and that’s why I get such a surprise when she says:
‘The child’s asked a perfectly reasonable question. I get sick of all these horrible acronyms as well.’
And that really wipes the smile off his face. It’s like his favourite reindeer’s suddenly fallen over and died or something. And his mouth’s down at the corners now instead of this big cheesy grin he had on a minute ago, and you can see he’s changed his mind, just like that, and doesn’t like Mum at all and thinks she’s difficult and starts calling her Mrs Trent-Harcourt where, a minute ago, he was telling us he liked things to be friendly and we all had to work on this problem together and he didn’t like titles and did she mind if he called Grandma Vera Vera and Mum Miriam. What a hypocrite. And you can see this is the real him when he sighs and taps his pen on the clipboard and sits up straighter in his chair and says:
‘Of course,’ he says. ‘CAT stands for computerized axial blahdeblahdeblah …’
And I’m already starting to feel sorry I asked cos you can see, just from looking at his mouth, he’s going to blab on for ages and say all these long words that nobody understands – he probably doesn’t understand them himself – just to show he’s smarter than anyone else and to punish you for asking.
‘And via these imaging processes,’ he says, ‘via CAT scans and the NRMA’ – and that’s weird, I remember thinking, cos what’s car insurance got to do with it anyway? – ‘we can get some idea of how far the degeneration in the Sarah Bellum …’
‘The brain,’ Mum says, and he looks shocked that she’s interrupted.
‘Quite so,’ he says. ‘We can see how far it’s progressed. The brain,’ he says, ‘will normally show some signs of shrinkage and a trophy.’ And I remember sneaking a look at Grandma Vera’s head and thinking it doesn’t look any smaller than normal, and there’s absolutely no sign of any trophy. And then he discusses all about history tests and fibillaries, and plaquing and tangled masses in the cytoplasm, which for years after I still hear as the sight of Plasm – and I’m wondering who this Plasm’s supposed to be when he’s at home – and all that blah.
Atrophy.
Cytoplasm.
It’s not all that hard actually. Not if you know where to look things up.
But then, back then, it was like he was giving a lecture in Russian or Latin or something, and you know how it is, most of the time he’s not even looking at us but at the wall behind us as if there’s this huge fly-spot on it that he’s just noticed and now he’s seen it he can’t leave it alone but still needs to finish his lecture before he can do anything about it. And maybe that’s what it is because at that point he just gives up, and says to Mum:
‘If you follow me …’
‘Yes,’ Mum says, in this brisk voice, like she hasn’t been asleep with the rest of us for the last hundred and fifty minutes. ‘Thank you,’ she says, ‘that’s very helpful.’
And he nods his head and gives this little smile like he’s really thinking I bet you
didn’t understand a word, and that’s when Mum goes:
‘And this plaquing of the blood vessels …’ And this bit I do know cos I ask her to write it down for me later, and she says, ‘Write it down – why?’, and I say, ‘No reason, I just want to know,’ but it’s actually so I can learn it off and say it to Toni and see if her face changes like Dr Gerontics’.
‘This plaquing …’ she says. ‘It’s often implicated in multi-infarct induced dementia, isn’t it?’
This is what she actually says – multi-infarct induced dementia.
And you should have seen Dr Gerontics’ face then, and the way his jaw drops open. It’s like he’s just seen his second reindeer fall over, and he’s starting to think his whole team’s got TB or something.
‘Yes …’ he says. ‘That’s right.’
‘And evidence of that might show up on a CAT scan or an MRI?’
‘Yes …’ he goes. ‘It might.’
And I’m not that surprised because I know how smart Mum is, and I know she’s been reading all these books and articles and things and telling Philip about it when he just wants to eat his dinner in peace for the last two months. But Philip always goes Really? when Mum tells him something new she’s learned and says it’s fascinating – once you get deep inside it.
And Mum’s so polite and agreeing to Dr Gerontics after that, and if you just listened to it without knowing, you’d think maybe she was over-polite or crawling but it’s not like that at all, cos something’s really changed and it’s like she’s in charge now and running things, and all the time she’s saying things like: ‘That’s been very helpful. And now I suppose we should arrange some dates and times for the CAT scans and so on …’ and Dr Gerontics is going, ‘Yes, yes, my secretary will contact you after she’s spoken to the hospital,’ and he’s getting up from behind his desk and can’t get rid of us soon enough.
