Taken For Granted

by Caroline Anderson

  ‘Don’t forget mother.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t—I never forget I’m a parent, but I think you do, very often. And a husband.’

  ‘Well, I like that! I work damned hard to provide for you all, and what do I get in return?’

  ‘A clean house, well run, a lovely garden to relax in if you were ever here, children who’ve been brought up to know the meaning of the word respect, a balanced diet to keep you fit while you go out there and slave your fingers to the bone in your chosen career…’

  He had the grace to blush. ‘Look, Sally, I’ve apologised. Give it a rest.’

  ‘No, I won’t—not until I’ve had my say. I didn’t choose my lifestyle, and I don’t like it. I feel frustrated, under-valued and worthless, and I hate that, Sam. I can’t take it any more, and I won’t!’

  He set his glass down very carefully. ‘What are you saying, Sally?’

  He looked rattled. Did he think she was going to leave him?

  Perhaps she was. She had no very clear idea.

  ‘I just want—recognition.’

  ‘Of what? Your cushy lifestyle? Give it a rest.’

  ‘My cushy lifestyle? You haven’t lifted a finger since Friday night!’

  ‘And the last thing I had to do was admit a child to hospital with query meningitis!’

  ‘Lucky you. The most important thing I’ve had to do in the last twenty-four hours is remember to put the chicken in the oven!’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re complaining! You want for nothing—absolutely nothing. Anything you need, you have. Money, clothes, holidays—all you have to do is ask—’

  ‘Exactly.’ she met his eyes, her own burning like bright stars. ‘All I ever have to do is ask. Maybe I don’t want to have to ask you for money to buy you a birthday present! Did that ever occur to you?’

  ‘Dear God, woman, you think you’re so hard done by! What you need is a real day’s work—that would soon shut you up! A short spell in the real world, just to show you how lucky you are.’

  ‘Done!’ She set her wine down and turned towards him. ‘We’ll swap jobs. You’ve got some leave owing to you—take it. Take three weeks. I’ll do your locum, and you—you can put your feet up and do my job!’

  The challenge vibrated in the air between them. Sally could feel the blood zinging in her veins. It had to work. He had to pick up the gauntlet.

  ‘You’re on,’ he said softly. ‘We’ll start on Monday morning.’

  She shook her head. ‘Oh, no,’ she said, just as softly. She picked up her wine and the evening paper. ‘There’s no time like the present—we’ll start now.’

  And with a smirk of victory, she walked past him and into the sitting-room.

  He followed her. ‘I wouldn’t dream of leaving my desk covered in coffee-cups and clutter for someone else to take over. We’ll start on Monday—and we’ll spend tomorrow putting our mutual houses in order. I think that’s only fair.’

  He lifted the paper off her lap and walked calmly across the room, flicking off the television and switching on the CD player.

  ‘I was watching that!’

  He raised an eyebrow just the tiniest fraction. ‘Were you? Before you do the dishwasher, or afterwards?’

  It was all she could manage not to smash every single plate in the house.

  Monday was one of those funny old spring days that was freezing to start with and by lunchtime was hot enough for a T-shirt. In a smart tailored suit that stilljust—fitted, and tights and court shoes and a slip and all the paraphernalia of power dressing, Sally was boiling.

  Boiling, and exhausted. She had hardly slept a wink for worrying about their rash exchange of jobs. What if she slipped up? What if she found she was so out of date that she couldn’t tell an ingrowing toe-nail from a case of dysentery?

  She had kept up, of course, out of interest—or so she hoped. But was reading all the professional journals that came into the house an adequate substitute for clinical practice?

  Probably not. In three weeks, she could do an enormous amount of harm.

  Then there was the reaction of the practice staff.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Alexander,’ the receptionist had sung when she went in.

  The practice manager looked up and echoed the remark.

  Sally shifted her bag from one hand to the other. ‘Um—Dr Alexander, actually. Sam’s Mrs Alexander for the next three weeks. We’ve swapped.’

  Their jaws dropped.

  ‘Swapped?’ the practice manager said with a gasp. ‘But—what about your insurance?’

  ‘It’s up to date, Mavis, it’s fine.’

  ‘But what about the payroll? What do I do about paying you?’

  Sally smiled. ‘That would be wonderful, of course, but in the circumstances I think we needn’t bother with that. It would only go out of our joint account into our joint account.’

  Mavis grappled with that for a moment, then tutted. ‘It really is too bad of Dr Alexander not to have said anything. What about the patients?’

  ‘What about them? He’s on holiday, tell them. I’m doing his locum.’

  Jackie, the receptionist, grinned. ‘Mr Lucas’ll hate that. He doesn’t approve of working women. Tells me that every time he comes in, now he knows I’ve got children.’

  He hadn’t liked it, either. He had grumbled and complained the whole time she sounded his chest, and when she told him the only cure for his persistent bronchitis was to give up smoking he harumphed and stalked out, muttering about interfering busybodies and not knowing your place as he went.

  The other patients were less overtly offensive, but she could tell that Sam’s sudden defection was unwelcome.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, dear,’ one elderly lady said kindly. ‘I’m sure you’re a perfectly good doctor, but Dr Alexander has been so understanding and helpful about my condition—perhaps I’ll wait and see him when he comes back. When is he coming back?’

  ‘Three weeks,’ Sally told her, and watched her face fall.

  ‘Oh. Well, perhaps I’d better not wait. It’s my dizzy spells, you see, dear. They seem to be getting worse.’

  Sally took her blood-pressure, checked her history and asked for a more accurate description of her ‘dizzy spells’.

  ‘Oh, my legs go all funny—I feel weak all over and then sometimes I just go down plop.’

  ‘You fall?’ Sally asked.

  ‘Oh, yes, sometimes.’

  ‘Do you pass out, do you think?’

  She looked doubtful. ‘I don’t think so—no, dear, I’m sure I don’t.’

  ‘Could you do something for me, Mrs Wright? Could you walk over to the door and back for me, please?’

  Sally watched as the woman did so, noticing that as she turned sharply she reached out for the doorknob, steadying herself for a moment before looking up with a shaky smile.

  ‘Often happens like that, when I turn. Oh, dear…’

  Sally helped her back to her chair, and watched as the woman removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes.

  The glasses caught Sally’s eye. They looked very modern in contrast to Mrs Wright’s clothes, almost as if they didn’t fit, or belonged to a different era…

  Something clicked in Sally’s memory. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve had new specs recently, have you?’

  ‘New…? Well, I have, dear, actually, a few weeks ago. These are bifocals—vari-something, they’re called. As a matter of fact they’re a bit tight, so I only wear them on special occasions or if I can’t make something out. Usually I wear my old ones.’

  ‘I wonder,’ Sally said thoughtfully. ‘Did you ever have dizzy spells before you got the new glasses?’

  ‘Before?’ Mrs Wright thought for a moment. ‘Well, now you come to mention it, I don’t believe I did, not really. Only when I go to my sister’s and we get the sherry out, but I don’t suppose that counts, does it?’

  Sally smiled. ‘Probably not.’

  Mrs Wright’s face creased in worry. ‘You don’t suppose my eyes got
worse because of something like a brain tumour, do you?’

  Sally hastily reassured her. ‘No, not at all. I think you may have had a different prescription, so your brain’s having difficulty making sense of what it sees, especially with them being varifocals as well. It’s quite a common reaction. Would you mind giving me the name of the optician? I’ll ring them and find out if they’ve changed your prescription. Often if one eye changes more than another, that can cause dizziness.’

  Mrs Wright fished in her bag and brought out a tatty old appointment card. Sally rang the number, asked about the prescription and then set the phone down with a smile.

  ‘They’ve made the right eye much stronger. That could easily give you symptoms of dizziness at first.’

  ‘So what do I do? I can’t really see at all well now with the old ones, and to tell you the truth, I’m afraid to wear the new ones too much.’

  ‘I think you should. Actually it’s the chopping and changing that’s confusing your brain, and if you stuck to the new ones, you’d probably find you were much better very quickly.’

  ‘Well, if you say so, dear,’ Mrs Wright said doubtfully. ‘I could always try it.’ She sounded highly sceptical, as if it couldn’t possibly be so easy.

  Sally crossed her fingers under the desk. ‘I hope it works. Come back if not and we’ll have a closer look, but I’m fairly confident that’s the cause of your problems.’

  Mrs Wright headed stiffly for the door, then turned carefully to say goodbye. ‘Shall I send in the next patient, dear?’

  ‘If you would, please.’

  The door closed, and Sally leant back, her teeth worrying her lip. What if she was wrong? What if it was something much more major and the glasses were just a distraction?

  She didn’t have time to worry. The next patient came in, and the next, and the next, and the temperature climbed steadily.

  By the end of her surgery she was hot, bothered and ready for a nice, long shower. She hadn’t had time this morning, because she’d been awake so much in the night that she’d slept through the alarm, and Sam, so used to her getting up and bringing early morning tea, had slept in as well.

  Consequently there’d only been time for one of them to shower, and guess what?

  She stuck her head round the door of the reception office. ‘Anything urgent for me?’ she asked.

  The practice manager, Mavis, shook her head and continued her phone conversation with a patient.

  ‘I’ll be at home, then,’ she told them, and headed for the door.

  It was cooler outside, but she still felt sticky. It was nearly twelve. If she hurried she should still have time to shower and change into something more comfortable before going back for two.

  Sam was in the garden when she arrived, and heaps of black bin-bags were stacked on the edge of the drive.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘Scarifying the lawn. How did it go?’

  ‘OK. What’s for lunch?’

  ‘Lunch? I don’t know—what did you have in mind?’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘What did I have in mind? How about coming home, having a plate put in one hand, a mug in the other and told to put my feet up?’

  Sam snorted rudely. ‘You’re joking—I’m busy.’

  ‘No you’re not. We’re swapping roles, remember? It was bad enough not getting early morning tea today, without having to forage for my lunch. Anyway, I want a shower. That should give you a few minutes to knock up something fascinating.’

  Tossing him a cheeky grin, she turned on her heel and headed for the door.

  ‘Sassy little mouth,’ she heard from behind her, and the grin blossomed into a full-blown smile. This was definitely going to have its up-side.

  At one-thirty the phone rang.

  ‘Mrs Alexander, you forgot to sign the repeat prescriptions before you left. They’re due out after two.’

  Sally sighed. ‘OK, Jackie, thanks. I’ll be back in ten minutes.’

  She gave her cup of coffee a regretful glance and stood up.

  ‘Problems?’

  She looked at Sam, sprawled comfortably on the sofa in the little sitting-room off the kitchen. Not for the world would she admit she had fouled up.

  ‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ she said breezily and, picking up her bag, she headed out of the door.

  The afternoon was busy, followed by a hectic evening surgery.

  Mavis caught her on the way out of the door. ‘Sam rang,’ she told Sally. ‘He said the car needed filling up and don’t forget to do it or you’ll run out.’

  ‘Doesn’t he trust me to do anything?’ Sally muttered. She wondered how he’d got on with the children after school. Would he have sat them down and done their homework with them, or just let them watch telly? Well, she couldn’t do everything…

  She drove to the nearest garage, which happened to be where they’d bought the car, and pulled up beside the pumps. The filler cap was on the other side, of course.

  Cursing mildly, she backed out, crashing the gears she had grown unused to, and pulled up on the other side of the pumps to fill the car.

  The down-side, she reflected, was that Sam had the big automatic Mercedes estate, and she had his little Peugeot diesel runabout. More sensible for town work, easier for parking in little spaces and far more economical, but she wasn’t used to it and frankly didn’t want to be. She missed her luxuries.

  The pump switched off, and she paid for the fuel and got back in the car. Nearly seven. She was starving. Lunch had been a bit hasty and seemed a long time ago. She wondered, as she crashed the gears again, what Sam had dreamed up for supper.

  As she pulled away up the road, she became gradually more and more aware of the horrendous noise from the engine. Great clouds of black smoke poured out of the exhaust, and the engine was misfiring like a pig.

  She pulled up immediately and switched off, staring in puzzlement in the rear-view mirror as the inky fog behind her sowly disappeared.

  What ever could be wrong? She’d only just filled it up…

  Oh, hell.

  Furious with herself, anticipating Sam’s initial anger and then the endless miles he would extract from the incident at dinner party after dinner party, she made her way back to the garage on foot.

  Fortunately the service receptionist was still around, and managed to hide his amusement well. He gave her the keys of a courtesy car, asked her to sign the insurance form and promised to deal with Sam’s car.

  She drove home in a mixture of defensive anger and self-recrimination.

  Sam greeted her on the drive. ‘What the hell have you done with my car?’ he said in amazement.

  ‘I filled it up,’ she said through gritted teeth.

  ‘So?’ Sam said patiently.

  ‘With petrol.’

  She closed her eyes and waited for the explosion.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE silence was palpable—for as long as it lasted. Then Sam found his voice.

  ‘WHAT?’ he roared. ‘How the bloody hell could you possibly do anything so stupid?’

  ‘Easily. I never drive your car—I certainly never fill it up—’

  ‘Perhaps that’s just as well, if this is what you’re going to do to it!’ he ranted. ‘Do you have any idea of what you’ve done, putting petrol in a diesel car?’

  Sally sighed inwardly. This was going to be every bit as difficult and awkward as she had imagined. ‘The mechanic did explain. He said all they have to do is flush out the fuel tank and rinse through the fuel lines—’

  ‘If you haven’t damaged the engine, which is quite likely. At the very least I expect you’ve wrecked the fuel injection pump and that’ll be hundreds of pounds. I expect you drove it about four miles before you realised—had it overheated?’

  Sally controlled her own temper with difficulty. ‘I had driven about a hundred yards when I realised something was wrong. That’s all. It’ll hardly cost anything.’

  Sam harumphed and stomped into
the house. ‘Well, you’d better be right, lady, because you’re paying for it.’

  ‘With what, dear Liza?’ she called after him. ‘My locum pay?’

  The door slammed in her face.

  With a sigh she opened the garage, put the courtesy car away and went into the house, to be greeted by the children in tears.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, her motherly instincts roaring guiltily to the fore.

  ‘Daddy threw out Molly’s painting, and I tried to stop him and he pushed me out of the way and I hit my arm on the cupboard,’ Ben told her, his chin wobbling.

  ‘I did a picture for you,’ Molly hiccuped, ‘of a big shiny sun and a tree and a pony in a field and he said it looked like a pregnant camel anyway and he screwed it up and said it was bedtime…’ Fresh tears spurted from Molly’s eyes, and Sally scooped both children up against her chest and held them, washed with guilt and anger and remorse.

  After a while they calmed down, and she took them upstairs, chivvied them gently through their bedtime routine and tucked them up.

  By the time she got downstairs again she was exhausted, starving and wondering what on earth she’d let herself in for. Sam was standing in the utility-room, ironing a sheet of gaudy, crumpled paper.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said gruffly. ‘I was so mad about the car. I shouldn’t have taken it out on the kids. I’ll go and apologise.’

  ‘Forget it, they’re asleep,’ she advised him, studying Molly’s crumpled painting with affection. Sam was right, the pony did look like a pregnant camel. ‘What’s for supper?’ she asked.

  He stabbed his hand through his hair, switched off the iron and sighed. ‘There’s some pizza left. I didn’t get round to doing anything for us.’

  Sally wrinkled her nose. Instant frozen pizza was probably her least favourite meal—especially cold, leftover instant frozen pizza. ‘I’ll heat some soup,’ she said tiredly.

  ‘You need more than that. Do you fancy a takeaway?’

  ‘Can we afford it—with all that money we’ve got to spend on the car?’ She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice, and frankly she was too tired to try.

  ‘I imagine the cost of a take-away is just a drop in the ocean by comparison,’ he muttered.