by Lissa Evans
At work that afternoon, she unpinned the staffroom copy of the article to make room for a Department of Health memo on headlice treatment. She was deep into an administrative blitz, prompted by Dr Petty’s absence. He was in Lisbon on a two-day drug freebie (or ‘much needed international forum to discuss the place of Lamazol in the treatment of senile insomnia’ as the brochure had put it) which meant that she could work in relative peace, free from the continual chatty interruptions in which he specialized.
She tucked the boys’ picture into her handbag and stuck the headlice memo in its place, highlighting the key points with a marker pen. Then she drew three little boxes in the margin and stuck a post-it note on each of the doctors’ in-trays, telling them to look at the noticeboard and tick the box when they’d read it. Her method was fantastically pedantic, she knew, but it kept office paper bills within reasonable limits, and moreover ensured that memos were actually read, rather than just photocopied, stacked and binned. The internal phone rang just as she had steeled herself to start the monthly drug accounts, and she picked it up with a twinge of relief.
‘There’s some Indian doctor calling for Dr Spencer,’ said Ayesha. ‘I told him to phone back after surgery but he says he wants to leave a message and I can’t understand a single word what he’s talking about so I told him you’d deal with it. All right?’ Before Iris could answer there was a click, and the wail of an ambulance filled the earpiece.
‘Hello?’ she said, cautiously.
‘Good afternoon,’ said a precise, slightly accented voice. ‘I’m trying against tremendous odds to get a message to Spencer Carroll. I received a –’ The siren was momentarily eclipsed by a gigantic voice shouting, ‘Spleen. It’s his spleen,’ and the unmistakable crash of a hospital trolley hitting a door frame. ‘Excuse me,’ said the man, and after a few seconds she heard a door closing, pushing the noise into the background. ‘I do apologize,’ he said, a moment later, ‘but that woman is beyond non-pharmaceutical methods of control. I had better talk quickly.’
‘Right,’ said Iris, for once empathizing with Ayesha. ‘I’m listening.’
Spencer was also listening – albeit not very attentively – and watching Alfred Hickey’s finger as it traced the route of an ancient byway that snaked right across the Sarum Road estate and over the railway line into the marshes beyond. The map on which it was marked was so big that it covered Spencer’s desk and drooped over the edge at either end, and it was patched with white stickers each marked with a Roman numeral. These were cross referenced to a chart drawn up with six different colours of felt pen and covered in minute handwriting; Mr Hickey had propped it against the examination couch for ease of reference, and had thoughtfully brought a magnifying glass with him so that Spencer could read it in comfort. Eight minutes into the consultation he was still only up to V, and Spencer’s attention was wavering.
‘You can see,’ said Mr Hickey, his nose hovering just above his finger, his eyes darting up to check that Spencer was watching, ‘that the back gardens of numbers 1 through 15 were actually built right across the byway, whereas 17 to 31 incorporated the byway at the end of the garden, allowing partial access, but only partial. Of course, the key access point is the garden of Number 1’ – he pronounced the words with loathing – ‘abutting, as it does, the… the –’ he slid the map towards him, knocking Spencer’s pot of tongue spatulae onto the floor ‘– the A44 which is the old trading route out to the west, previously the B243.’
His voice was a hoarse vibrato, the result of a stroke which had also left him subject to bouts of extreme agitation, bordering on mania, and intermittent paranoia. Spencer knew his history almost off by heart, having whiled away several previous visits by surreptitiously reading Mr Hickey’s notes while pretending to listen to Mr Hickey’s personal obsession. He was a regular visitor to the surgery, turning up at least once a week, but although he presented each time with a different symptom – a painful elbow on this occasion, but ranging in the past from insomnia to piles – the treatment required was the same in every case: twelve minutes of close attention to the latest round of his knock-down drag-out boundary dispute with the owner of Number 1.
‘I’ve got a letter here –’ Mr Hickey continued, opening a box file and rummaging through four years’ worth of correspondence with the local council ‘– that clearly states that the fault lies with the original estate plans, but it’s actually the owner of Number 1 who’s blocked my application over and over again…’
Mr Hickey was one of several patients that Dr Petty had eagerly shovelled over to Spencer under the guise of offering him a full range of clinical experience; all of them could loosely be classified as ‘difficult’ and most of them had initially resented being fobbed off with a trainee. Mr Hickey, on the other hand, had been delighted – a fresh acolyte meant that he could start his explanations from scratch, and he had seized the opportunity with croaky intensity. And while it was sometimes hard for Spencer to feign concentration when he knew that there were another eight patients to see before the end of surgery, and only an hour to see them in, he at least had the feeling that he was providing a real service – a pressure valve that kept Mr Hickey in the community for another week.
At a calculated ten minutes into the consultation Spencer directed an unsubtle glance at his watch, and Mr Hickey took the hint and with incredible slowness began to fold the map, talking all the while. At eleven minutes he starting packing his paperwork into the wheeled shopping bag that accompanied him everywhere, and at eleven minutes forty-five seconds he levered himself to his feet and, in an unexpected move, started taking off his jacket.
‘Is anything the matter?’ asked Spencer, thrown.
‘My elbow,’ said Mr Hickey, reproachfully, ‘you haven’t looked at my elbow yet.’
The knock-on effect of this omission was that evening surgery overran by twenty-three minutes and by the time Spencer emerged into the empty waiting room Ayesha had already slammed down the desk shutters with audible pique and was standing by the door with her coat on.
‘Could you walk me to my car, please,’ she said with deliberate over-politeness, before he could say anything. ‘Your friend’s outside.’
‘Oh God, not again.’ It was the third time in as many days. Sighing, he held the door open and Ayesha stalked past him into the darkness; there was an icy wind and he buttoned his jacket as he hurried after her. The car park was at the side of the building between the bins and the railway embankment, and sitting on the low wall that divided it from the road, his face pale green in the glow of a street lamp, was Callum Strang. He was in the middle of a coughing bout but managed a wave before gobbing on the tarmac.
‘That is disgusting,’ said Ayesha averting her head theatrically and opening the car door by touch alone.
‘Shorry. Asha. I carn –’ his lips laboured slowly to form the thickened words ‘– I carn…’ He blinked a few times, appeared to forget what he had been about to say, and instead leaned forward and drooled a long, flecked string of saliva onto the right knee of his trousers. ‘Shick,’ he said, his mouth stretched ominously wide.
‘My husband says I shouldn’t have to put up with this,’ said Ayesha, sliding into her car seat. Her voice was jagged with tension and Spencer could see her hands were shaking as she tried to insert the keys into the transmission. ‘He says it’s way outside my job description. He gets really mad when he hears about it, I have to hold him back.’
Spencer gestured hopelessly. ‘I don’t know what to suggest. You know he’s banned from the surgery and I can’t help it if he keeps turning up –’
‘You shouldn’t even talk to him. I’ve seen you talking.’
‘But I –’
‘We should just call the police.’
‘The police have already said they’re not in the slightest –’
‘Look, I can’t take it!’ It was almost a shout and Spencer was shocked by her vehemence.
He held out his hands pacifically. ‘OK. I’
ll phone social services again tomorrow and –’
Callum started retching, and Ayesha grabbed the door handle and slammed it shut in Spencer’s face. Staring rigidly ahead, she reversed with a screech and then revved into the night.
‘Bye. Bye,’ said Callum, raising his head as though it were lead-plated. His eyes drifted until they met Spencer’s. ‘Hey tsocta. Tsocta Carra. I bin bad. My shest bin bad.’ He started pawing at the zip of his jacket. ‘Lissen to my shest.’
‘Callum, you must stop turning up here.’ He spoke slowly and clearly. ‘There’s no point. I’ll only examine you at the hostel clinic and nowhere else.’
‘Shucked out. Shucked me out.’
‘Of St Clare’s?’
‘Fuckers.’ His head dropped forward with a brutal suddenness that made Spencer flinch. ‘Fuckers,’ he said again, the word muffled against his chest.
In the staffroom, Iris was addressing a pile of envelopes, flipping back and forth through a broken-backed notebook with her free hand.
‘Hi,’ she said over her shoulder as Spencer entered, ‘I’ve got a message for you.’
‘Oh yeah?’ He slumped into a chair and clasped his hands behind his head. ‘I think I should warn you first that Callum’s outside again and Ayesha’s threatening to send her husband round.’
‘To do what?’
‘She didn’t specify, but apparently he’s a wild man when roused.’
Iris smothered a smile. ‘I met Terence once. He’s a bit roly-poly and he told me all about his upholstery evening classes. Was Callum sick, incidentally?’
‘Yup, all over the pavement as per usual. Why?’
‘Well…’ She straightened her shoulders as if about to make a presentation. ‘I think Ayesha’s phobic about vomiting. She almost fainted once when a child threw up in surgery and it might explain why she gets so panicky about Callum – after all, he’s not violent and she’s never been afraid of anyone or anything else.’
Spencer paused, turning the diagnosis over in his mind, and she waited with the air of someone having their homework marked.
‘I bet you’re right,’ he said, and she looked pleased. ‘I’ll have a chat with her. Good call.’ He tipped an imaginary hat. ‘You realize that you’re wasted addressing envelopes?’ Or repairing the coffee-machine, he thought, or sorting the post, or typing memos, or pointing Dov Steiner in the general direction of his next appointment, or the ninety other jobs she carried out without effort or fuss or much apparent satisfaction during the average day. ‘You do realize that, don’t you?’ he added.
She looked at him for a moment. ‘I’m beginning to,’ she said. ‘Do you want your message now? It’s fairly complicated and I had to use a sort of shorthand.’
‘Go on then.’
She took a closely written piece of paper from the desk and scrutinized it for a few moments, her lips moving soundlessly. ‘Right, I think I’ve got it. Vincent Jayaram called.’
‘Vincent? I haven’t spoken to him for ages.’
‘He said that a very flamboyant American man named Reuben had rung Casualty and asked if anyone knew a doctor named Spencer. Vincent didn’t have your work number so he took the message and then tracked you down through the GP Training Scheme office. Anyway, this man told Vincent he’s back in London on nun-related business, that’s definitely N-U-N – I checked –’ she glanced up, bemused, as Spencer laughed ‘– for one night only, and did you want to meet up with him and Miles and another name that Vincent didn’t catch for a good old knees-up –’
‘A what?’
‘– and he said they’d be at The Cockney pub from eight onwards, and that you’d definitely know where that was because it was on your list and that the only excuse he’d accept for your absence was a motorbike accident.’ She paused and looked at him. ‘That all makes sense, does it?’
‘Perfectly,’ said Spencer. He realized that he was grinning.
‘And he – Vincent – said that even though it sounds like the worst night out he’s ever heard of, as your unofficial psychiatrist he thinks it’s about time you got off your backside and re-embraced life in all its forms, and that having a good time does not in any way constitute a betrayal.’
‘I see.’
‘And he also wanted me to tell you that Mrs –’ She checked the note again.
‘Spelko,’ he supplied.
‘Thank you. That Mrs Spelko recently removed a spleen in twenty-six minutes from first cut to closure and that her sole raison d’être now is to beat her own record.’
‘Right.’
‘And that’s it,’ she said, folding the note. ‘I’m glad it made sense; I felt a bit like a Bletchley Park stenographer.’ She handed it to him and he felt the odd liberation of being under orders.
‘Thanks, Iris. Mr Turing’s very grateful.’
‘I don’t know where this pub is, but you know it’s already a quarter past seven?’
‘Is it? I’ll have to go straight there.’ He checked what he was wearing. ‘Is this all right? No stains I haven’t spotted? No dangling threads?’
She shook her head. ‘You look very smart.’
‘Iris, this is a date.’
‘Oh.’ She blushed. ‘Then you look very nice.’
‘Thank you. And so do you, incidentally,’ he added, remembering that he’d meant to say something. That morning, for the first time since he’d met her, Iris had been wearing an item of clothing that wasn’t completely unnoticeable. ‘That colour really suits you. Is it new?’
‘Um. Yes.’ She looked down at herself and warily fingered the royal-blue shirt. ‘I bought it last weekend.’
‘It really brings out your eyes.’
She gave him an odd look. ‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome.’ He stood up and stretched and was surprised by a sudden burst of energy; he felt as if the top of his head had been uncorked and a youthful fizz was rushing through it. ‘So how come you’re working so late?’
‘I’m doing some invites of my own. Actually,’ she looked up at him hopefully, ‘I don’t know whether you’d like to come.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s my father’s seventieth birthday. We’re having a surprise party.’
‘Really?’ He had met her father a couple of times at surgery, and he hadn’t struck him as the soul of spontaneous enjoyment.
‘I think he’ll hate it,’ she added, as if reading his mind.
‘So why…?’
‘It wasn’t my idea,’ she said, a little grimly, ‘but I couldn’t veto it without seeming a complete killjoy. Ayesha’s coming. And Dov – you’d be someone for him to talk to,’ she added hopefully.
‘Oh goody. There’s a tempting prospect.’
‘Please. It’ll be just after work and it’s only five minutes away, and I know Dad would really love to have two doctors there.’
‘Is Tammy going to be there?’
Her mouth twitched. ‘Yes.’
‘I’m coming,’ he said. ‘Just you try and stop me.’
*
‘Outside he was relieved to see that Callum had gone, leaving only a scattering of splashy mementos. He picked his way between them to the car and then sat for a while with the A to Z open at the narrow streets of the City, trying to remember the route which only a year ago he could have walked blindfold.
It was The Cockney Pub that had triggered the entire list. From his fifth-floor hospital bed, and with the aid of binoculars to enhance his failing vision, Mark had been able to make out the pub façade with its ineptly painted frieze of dancing pearly kings, and after a few days of ribald speculation had demanded that Spencer make a special trip to find out what went on there and what, specifically, was written on the blackboard outside.
‘Eight p.m. Singalong with Mrs Harris,’ he had reported back. ‘Nine p.m. Roll out the Barrel, all draught beers a third off. Ten p.m. Knees Up with Andy.’
Mark had been drinking a build-up milkshake at the time and had sprayed it clear a
cross the room on receipt of this information. From then on it had become a daily detour for Spencer, a chance to present Mark with a nugget of diversion on every visit.
‘Seven thirty tonight, Cockney Bingo,’ he’d announced one evening. ‘And it’s followed at eight thirty by Get Out Your Pearlies.’
‘What the fuck’s that?’
‘It’s a smile competition.’
‘Who goes there? You’ve got to tell me who goes there.’
Spencer had found out the next evening when, sidling into the bar, he had witnessed a group of Japanese businessmen being taught the words to ‘Knocked ’em in the Old Kent Road’ by a man dressed as a chimney sweep.
‘God knows what they must think of London,’ he’d said to Mark afterwards. ‘One of them had a brochure from Madame Tussaud’s so they’re really plumbing the depths.’
‘Madame Tussaud’s is brilliant,’ Mark had said.
‘Is it? I’ve never been.’
‘You’ve never been?’ He had started the list that evening; he had died five weeks later.
It was as he locked the car that Spencer began to feel a creeping sense of unease: a slight lurch in the stomach, a tattoo of little pinpricks across the back of the neck. He had found a parking space in a deserted street behind St Paul’s and as he walked past the darkened shops – shops that sold hunting prints and furled umbrellas and pipes of pointless curliness – the sensation gradually increased. He checked behind him but the street was empty and unthreatening, the only noise his own footsteps and the blurred roar of traffic.
He walked on, aware that with every few yards the feeling was intensifying. Cold hands, dry mouth, increased pulse rate, shallow respirations – one adrenaline-related symptom succeeded another, as his body prepared for… for what? This wasn’t pre-date nervousness but a growing sense of dread, formless but intense, and as he turned the familiar corner and saw the hospital entrance across the square, he realized with a shock what was happening: it was a visceral time-slip. His body thought that he was visiting Mark, and had cranked up the usual awful anticipation.
His heart was pounding so hard that he could feel his sternum jump with every beat, and he took some deep, rather shaky breaths and then crossed to the centre of the square and sat for a while on a bench beside the dried-up fountain. The feeling ebbed slowly. He could hear a noisy group of men approaching along a side street, but for the moment the only other person visible was one of the meat porters from the nearby market, taking a quiet fag break beneath a street lamp. During the final days of Mark’s life, when he could no longer see, or speak, but seemed to like to hear people talking, Spencer had sometimes filled the silence by giving a running commentary on the view from the window. From the fifth floor it was impossible to see people’s faces, but during the day the square was busy and there were hats and bald spots and paunches to describe, and during the night there was always a white-overalled porter to be seen, for whom he could invent a name and a history and whose shoulder breadth could be awarded marks out of ten.
