The receptionist brought her tea. He walked with very short steps and with his knees very close together. Here you are, he said, offering her the cup with both hands and showing his teeth again. The doctor won’t be long. Beth blew on the tea and sipped.
There was movement in the room. A woman, another woman, was standing at the counter, getting ready to pay. Beth heard the card reader whirr and the receptionist tear off the receipt. Dr Helen’s here Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, he was saying: will you need another appointment? The two other patients sat up. The receptionist gave the woman her appointment card and she headed off back down the hall. Then, from another short hallway past reception where by leaning back Beth could just now see another oil burner and another silk screen on the wall, another woman appeared—tall, lean, early sixties, with loose, brightly coloured clothes and thick white shoulder-length hair. There was an aura of calm about her; even from the far side of the room Beth could feel it. Mr Padoni? she said, in a soft, breathy voice. The man stood up; the receptionist took his cup and Mr Padoni followed Dr Helen Twoomey to her room.
It’s annoying, isn’t it? said the woman sitting three seats down. She was well spoken, with lips that chewed and savoured every word. She was well dressed, too: clothes, makeup, jewellery. Beside her Beth felt even more sticky and crumpled. I’ve been waiting an hour, she said, and now he’s jumped in before me. Is this your first? Second, said Beth—or third if you count the locum. This is my fourth, said the woman. (They could hear the receptionist typing, humming a tune.) She’s not my usual, said the woman, but they insisted I come here. I’m from the other side of the river, you see; I don’t feel particularly ill. But they know best, don’t they? She flicked something from her sleeve. You’ve had four tests already? asked Beth. Five including the locum, said the woman, but they were all over there, on the other side. I’m out of my comfort zone here. She snorted, and put a hand over her mouth. Oh god, she said, I’m sorry, I’ve not been home for days. The receptionist put a box of tissues on the counter.
I mean, said the woman—I’m sorry, she said—and to the receptionist, Thank you—I’m sure there is something wrong with me and that they’re not all wasting my time but I do wish they’d give you a little more to go on. Do they have to hold it to their chests like a secret? She looked up at the tissues but resisted and instead held a flat palm to her nose. She left it there, quivering, then with the index finger of her other hand she wiped once delicately under each eye. Oh god, she said, oh god.
Beth Own? said a voice, a completely different voice, a male voice—it was coming from over there. By the time Beth looked up, Dr Tim Twoomey was on his way back to his room. The receptionist was at the counter, jerking his head. Beth stood. I’m sorry, she said. The woman looked at her, neither consoled nor quite able to forgive the fact that again someone else had been called. I am sorry, said Beth, and she followed the tilt of the receptionist’s head towards Dr Twoomey’s room.
He was waiting at the door. Like his wife he was tall, with wispy strands of blond-grey hair combed back over his baldness. He wore blue-grey pants, white sneakers and what looked like a chef’s jacket, double-buttoned from the neck to the waist. He gestured from the door towards a chair with a soft, languid hand. His voice was languid too. Good afternoon, Beth, my name is Tim; please take a seat—and he closed the door behind them.
His desk was a big old wooden thing, at one end a bone-coloured porcelain head split into segments by broken black lines and at the other a photo of the Twoomeys and their children in skiing gear with a mountain peak behind. In the centre was a computer screen, angled slightly away from the patient with a black keyboard and mouse, and beside it a spider orchid like the one in the hall. Twoomey tapped the keyboard.
On the near wall Beth could see a Chinese chart showing the body’s meridians and, opposite that, on glass shelves in a glass cabinet, a selection of antique medical instruments—it was hard to tell by looking at them what on earth they could have been for. The cabinet had a brass lock with a brass key hanging from it; most of the instruments were brass too. In the near corner of the room was a hand basin with a soap dispenser above and in the centre—or slightly off-centre—an examination table covered by a clean white sheet with a small pillow at one end. On the far wall was a fold-out Japanese screen and above it, limbs splayed, a Balinese shadow puppet.
I left my referral with your receptionist, said Beth. Don’t worry, said Dr Twoomey, I have it all here. He continued looking at the screen. There were rainforest sounds in here too, but at a much lower volume—you had to strain your ears to hear. I see, said Dr Twoomey, swinging from the screen back towards her. All right, he said, let’s get you up. He was gesturing to the table. But aren’t you going to ask me something first? Twoomey must have sensed it. It’s all here, he said, smiling. Just pop around there, behind the screen—bra and undies only, please—and we’ll have a little look.
She did as Dr Twoomey said, hanging each item of clothing on the chair behind the screen. On the wall below the puppet was a laminated sign: The Heavens Continue, And The Earth Endures. She heard Twoomey tapping at his keyboard, then him getting up, then the door opening and closing. She listened for a moment with her skirt half-down but there was nothing now except the spacious notes, the croaking frogs and the sound of water over rocks. She let the skirt drop and put it on the chair too. She took out her earrings and wrapped them in a tissue, then sat in her bra and undies and thought about the laminated sign. What did the man outside on the bench say? Patience. She would need that, it was true. It would be silly to think that all the answers will be found here, with Dr Twoomey, and whatever tests and—who knows?—cures he might offer. It was just as possible, in fact quite likely, that he would send her off for another test somewhere, or at least a second opinion. If she hadn’t learned patience yet she would need to. Was she up for it? A part of her answered firmly Yes. But another part just as quickly thought of David and the girls—what they were doing, whether they missed her—and with that all her confidence crumbled.
She remembered her mother, and one particular day when she came back from one of her wanderings—it drove their father mad. Beth asked where she had been. Where I don’t need to care, she said. Beth had often wondered what this place might look like and what it would be like to go there. Where I don’t need to care. Her mother had complained of a few headaches, but that was it. When her brother Chris found her that day on the kitchen floor she still had the supermarket receipt in her hand and the shopping was on the bench. Beth was fourteen. Her mother lay beeping three days up in that sixth-floor ward before the doctors told the family she wouldn’t wake. The talk was hushed and a last visit arranged; the three of them stood around the bed in silence. Then Chris and her dad went off to find the doctor. The curtains were open at the window and as Beth held her mother’s clammy hand and looked across her perfectly still body to the lights blinking all the way to the hills she saw in the east a bright moon rising. No, she thought, my mother is not going to travel far away to the other side of the universe, past where the last stars blink and everything turns to nothing, she’s going there, just there, up there.
The moon rose, turning the dark room silver. Beth heard her father and brother return and the doctor talking quietly to them in the corridor outside. Then she felt her mother go. The moon hung weightless in the window, the room felt weightless too. The doctor led the party in, shouldering weighty matters, but when they stopped in the doorway they too felt the lightness. Nothing was held down—not even Beth. Everything was floating, free. She’s gone, said Beth. Up there, to the moon, she was going to say, but then she thought better of it.
Are we okay back there? said a young woman’s voice. Your clothes can go on the chair; let me know when you’re done, the doctor will be back shortly. I’m Madeleine, she said. Beth poked her head around the screen: a nurse, young, pretty, with smoky eyes and glossy lips. She wore the uniform too, like Twoomey and the receptionist, blue-grey pants and a
white jacket with her name embroidered on the pocket. Hello, she said. Underwear only? Yes? When you’re ready we’ll get you up. She tapped the table. Beth came out from behind the screen with her hands over her stomach and her shoulder turned. Madeleine was waiting with a rolled-up towel. Pop up, she said. That’s a lovely colour. She put her foot on a button and the table lowered. On your back, she said, and Beth lay on her back.
The towel was warm; Madeleine unrolled it. Ah, said Beth. Madeleine smiled and tucked in the bottom end. Are you comfortable? she asked. Beth nodded. Is this going to take long? It just depends, said Madeleine. I’ve been out since late morning, said Beth, so it’s certainly nice to lie down. Madeleine tucked the towel under her shoulders and hips. Can I ask you, said Beth, if you don’t mind—what kind of specialist is he? There was silence while Madeleine fussed around the table. You don’t need to worry about that, she said, but—she was now at Beth’s head, whispering; her scent was very strong—I can tell you he’s good. My dad’s a specialist too, he got me the job, and he says the Twoomeys are hands-down the best. (But the best at what? thought Beth.) I mean, these days they’re away half the year lecturing, said Madeleine, they don’t even need to practise if they don’t want. You’re very lucky to get in at short notice; you need to be an important case to jump the queue like that. There are specialists and specialists, says Dad, said Madeleine, smoothing down the towel, and then there are the Twoomeys. Some people are waiting a year and a half. So don’t worry, she said, leaning right over so she could look Beth in the eye: you’re in good hands. (But what hands? Why am I important? Why am I here?) Just as Beth was starting to roll these questions out in her head, with a gentle touch on her ankle Madeleine was gone. Beth heard the door open and close, the frogs croaking, the whip-wee bird call, one sustained note, then another. She closed her eyes, heard the door open again and the basin tap going on. She heard Twoomey lathering and rinsing his hands, then drying them on a towel. Then he appeared beside her.
All right, Beth, he said, the examination will take approximately twenty minutes. Please relax. She heard him rubbing his hands. The door opened again; the lights dimmed. And the sound to five, he said. The volume went up. Thank you, Madeleine, said Twoomey, in a calm, measured voice. The door closed again. Beth felt his warm hand on her shoulder; a soft, reassuring hand. Relax, he said, again. She felt the towel getting turned down to just below her collarbone and Twoomey taking up a position behind. He slid his fingers under her head. Then, for a while, he did nothing but gently, almost imperceptibly, move his fingertips over her skull.
Beth drifted off. Like the early days with David, she thought, watching telly after the girls were in bed, her head in his lap, he stroking her scalp. Yes, Twoomey’s hands were soft, sensual (there was no other word for it); and, while he worked his fingers now into the base of her skull, now along the tendons of her neck, now across her shoulders, down her flanks, beneath her breasts, over her stomach, rolling back or pushing aside the towel as he went, Beth found herself drifting even further into that dank green jungle where the shafts of light slanted through the canopy and where, eventually, tired and wan, she lay spent on a bed of bright green moss.
She had soon wandered so far into this personal rainforest that she no longer wondered what the examination was about, what Twoomey was looking for or whether he’d find it, whether this was a test—was it a test?—and if so whether it would deliver any answers. Every now and then he put the towel back over the part he’d examined and returned to his desk to take notes. At one point—again, it seemed at a great distance from her—she heard the door open and him discussing something with his wife. The white fish are swimming with ease, she said. Or something like that. Then Beth drifted off again.
After what Beth guessed was about twenty minutes, although her sense of ordinary time was lost, Dr Twoomey tucked the towel back under her as Madeleine had done. She heard the door open. Again she smelled Madeleine’s scent and felt her putting a second warm towel over the first. Relax, said Madeleine, get up when you’re ready; the doctor will be back to speak with you soon. I’ve left a glass of warm water here. Beth felt Madeleine’s hands smoothing down the towel and, suddenly, in an unguarded moment—where did it come from?—she released her own hand and grabbed her by the wrist. Madeleine pulled back. What’s wrong with me? said Beth, almost spitting out the words. I don’t feel that bad, I could have gone to work, I’ve felt much worse, if I’d stayed at home and rested I’m sure I’d be better by now. I should have stayed at home. She squeezed Madeleine’s wrist harder; Madeleine carefully prised the hand off. She stroked it, saying nothing, then slid it back under the towel. Don’t worry, she said, the doctor will explain.
Beth listened to her footsteps going and heard the door close. She shouldn’t have done that—what was Madeleine going to tell her anyway? Something was wrong: that’s why they were sending her on, doing their tests. It was not up to the young nurse to explain what worm had got inside, what cell had wrongly divided, what switch had been accidentally flicked.
She heard the door open, felt the light brighten, heard the rainforest music go down, then Dr Twoomey’s voice. You’re not dressed, he said, please get dressed, you need to get up and get dressed. Beth pushed the towels off and put her feet on the floor. She felt unsteady again. Dr Twoomey was sitting at his desk. Beth drank the glass of water, then went behind the screen. She dressed, put her earrings back in and checked herself in the mirror. Ah! said Dr Twoomey, when she came out from behind the screen: good, take a seat.
The Heavens continue, he said, and the Earth endures, and that in them which makes them permanent is that they do not live for themselves: thus it is that they can live so long. Another: The reason why I have great trouble is that I have a body and am attached to it: if I have no body, what trouble could I have? You see? This sack of flesh and bones and blood, Beth, that we carry around every day, said Twoomey, in the end we put it down, leave it behind and go on without it. Thus we become pure spirit, the non-being from which being sprang. And into the dusty world our body returns. What’s wrong with you? I cannot say. The results of the blood tests Dr Yi has taken—I have them here (he pointed at the screen)—show a couple of little anomalies but nothing particularly abnormal. The liver’s a bit high, true, he said, but that could just be the result of a glass of wine the night before. You’re running a slight temperature but that’s okay. No, he said, it’s all pretty much within the normal range. I myself, he continued, have given you a thorough physical examination and find you in fundamentally good health. I won’t say rude health, but good health, yes. So what is wrong? Can there be an answer to every question? And if not, what would be the quotient? Sometimes to not know is best: to pretend to know when you do not know is a disease. Do you know, Beth, why Dr Yi sent you here?
She took a long time to understand the question—or for that matter anything he’d said. I mean, said Dr Twoomey, did Dr Yi give you any specific diagnosis? Was there something she mentioned specifically that made her refer you to me? Still Beth couldn’t grasp the question. Wasn’t he the doctor? Shouldn’t he know? Wasn’t that what the referral was for?
Well, he said, as if Beth’s confused silence had been answer enough, I suppose then we must try to assemble a diagnosis in light of the available facts: little more can we do. The phone on Twoomey’s desk buzzed. It was the receptionist, reminding him his next patient was waiting. Twoomey looked at his watch. All right, he said. He hung up, hit a button—then he stopped, frozen, thinking. Beth watched his face for a sign. Was he, in spite of everything he’d just said, now coming up with some kind of diagnosis?
And you have family? he said. Children? Beth nodded. He opened a desk drawer and took out a small bottle of pills—there was some indecipherable writing on the label. He shook the bottle a few times between finger and thumb. Beth could hear the pills rattling inside. Then he stopped and stared past her at the wall. No, he said. He put the pills away. He looked at Beth—or rather, through her. He t
ook a long time to speak. I think, he said, we need to send you off for some more tests.
RECEPTION / EMILY IN THE GARDEN
Everything seemed urgent then, after all the calm. Beth watched on, confused. Twoomey made a call, and conferred with the voice at the other end. But that’s the problem, he said. He hung up, turned to his keyboard, typed furiously, ran a page off and handed it to her. I want you to see Dr Tallafield, he said, to get another opinion. Dr Tallafield. He’ll fit you in today. Twoomey stood up; this was Beth’s cue. Madeleine came back, gave the patient a brief consoling smile, stripped the sheet, towels and pillow case off the examination table, bundled them into her arms and went out again. Dr Twoomey motioned, unsubtly, to the door. Thank you, Beth, he said.
Out in reception three new patients were waiting; Padoni must have finished and the plummy-voiced woman had gone in. The three new ones, all middle-aged women, looked up at Beth as she entered and then in unison at the receptionist. Carlisle? he said. A tall, forty-something woman with a white silk blouse stood as if fired from her chair and strode in the direction of Twoomey’s room.
At the counter the receptionist gave Beth her bill, turning it around with his fingertips so from her side she could see. She went a little weak at the knees. Three hundred and eighty dollars? she said. She felt her cheeks flush. She wasn’t even sure she had that much on her card—she certainly didn’t have it in her purse. Three hundred and eighty dollars? That’s up front, said the receptionist, but you’ll get a hundred and twenty-six back on rebate. He stood waiting, head cocked. I’ll pay, said Beth, taking out her card and fumbling with it, don’t worry, I’ll pay, but I have to say—the engine in her head was overheating—the way things have gone so far today it doesn’t surprise me. Everyone keeps telling me to do this or that and I do but I don’t know if they know what they’re doing or whether I should do what they say. I already feel like I’m being cheated. I certainly haven’t seen anyone who cares. About me, I mean. My situation.
Some Tests Page 4
