by Stan Mason
The physician stared at him for a few moments and then scratched his head. ‘Let’s get one thing straight!’ he muttered, removing his hand from underneath that of his patient. ‘I’m a doctor healing the sick and infirm... not a faith healer or miracle worker who can rub my hands over your forehead and cure you instantly. I examine people, diagnose their problems, give them advice, and offer medicines, lotions and drugs. That’s all I have at my disposal. For anything more serious, I send them to hospital to be dealt with there. Can you understand what I’m saying?’
‘I came here to be cured.’ insisted Purdy curtly, his voice moving to a much higher level. ‘There must be some quack who can help me! If you can’t, point me in the direction of someone who can!’
The physician took a deep breath and decided to follow the lead given to him by his patient. ‘As it happens, there is someone who can help you here. He’s a psychiatrist who’s fully trained in dealing with your sort of problem. I can arrange an appointment for you if you wish. I presume you’re a National Health Service patient and don’t have a subscription with a private health organisation. I’ll arrange it for you and let you know.’
‘How long will it take?’
Approximately four to six weeks I should think.’
‘Four to six weeks!’ exclaimed the truck driver in disbelief. ‘I can’t wait all that time for a lousy appointment with a shrink. I want help now. Right now! Don’t you understand English?’
‘Will you kindly lower your voice,’ chided the doctor sharply. ‘There are people being examined by other doctors in the surgery. I’ll not permit you to shout!’
‘I’ll shout whenever I bloody-well want to and whenever I bloody-well like!’ yelled Purdy starting to lose his temper. ‘I’m telling you, you’d better do something before I get really mad!’
‘Does that mean you’ll start smashing the furniture?’
‘Don’t be bloody facetious! If I want to smash the furniture I’ll do so.’ The truck driver snorted as though blowing steam from his nostrils.
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ agreed the medical practitioner, realising that he had a serious problem on his hands. ‘Maybe you are going mad. I mean you’re certain over-stressed which can bring on insanity. The problem is how to deal with it. You see, your malady can’t be cured simply by turning a switch. It has to be treated carefully by experts. With you it might just be anger management. How would you feel about attending a rest clinic. You could be placed under surveillance and treated there.’
‘You mean a mental asylum. I’m not going to any bloody mental asylum!’
‘You won’t rest and you won’t go on holiday. What do you want to do, Mr. Purdy? It seems to me that you don’t want to take any advice if it doesn’t suit you.’
‘I’m not letting my business go down the drain to go on holiday. I don’t care what you say!’
‘Then there’s only one alternative.’ He reached into the drawer of his desk to remove a white container. ‘A new drug developed about six months ago which has been quite successful in relieving pressure from the mind. There are no side-effects with the exception of a little drowsiness.’ He opened the container and took out a tablet before pouring some water into a glass and passing both of them to his patient. ‘Take this! You might find that it’ll help you.’
‘Now we’re getting somewhere,’ muttered the truck driver. Satisfied that he had intimidated the other man sufficiently into forcing him to revealing a secret cure. He picked up the tablet and placed it on his tongue before swallowing it with the water. ‘How long do I have to wait for it to work?’ he asked calmly.
The doctor glanced at his wristwatch and nodded his head slowly. ‘Not long. It’s a fast-working drug. Shortly you’ll start to feel drowsy and then we’ll see what happens. I suggest that you start counting backwards from sixty.’
The truck driver stared at him thoughtfully. ‘All right,’ he said abandoning his menacing attitude. ‘Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven, fifty-six, fifty-five fifty- four, fifty... ’
He tailed off as the drug began to affect him. A few seconds later, his eyelids fluttered and his mouth fell open. After that he collapsed in the chair in complete oblivion.
The doctor moved quickly to a microphone and pressed the communication button. ‘Miss Goltz!’ he called out, trying to keep his voice on an even keel. ‘To surgery number two. Right away please.! When the door opened, the nurse stared at Purdy’s body with concern. ‘Don’t trouble with him,’ the doctor told her smartly. ‘He started to become violent so I gave him a knockout tablet. It’ll keep him occupied for a couple of hours. Can you get someone to take him home? We don’t need patients like him in this practice. Write him a letter suggesting that he seeks medical attention from another surgery in future.’
She hurried away and returned with two men. They took the sleeping man outside and drove him home, leaving him in the care of his wife. It was the second time in two day her husband had to be brought home in an unstable condition. Events in the lives of the Purdy family were becoming unnatural. It was a nightmare living with a situation where nothing was certain any more and everything continuously erupted like a violent volcano. It had become a nightmare! Wendy Purdy had nursed the idea of cutting her losses and going to live with her mother. Life with Jim Purdy was no longer bed of roses. Any other woman would have no hesitation in doing the same thing!
Purdy enjoyed his state of unconsciousness for almost three hours. He came to eventually believing that he was still in the doctor’s surgery and rubbed his eyes when he realised that he had been transported to the front room of his house. He could hear movement in the bedroom upstairs and stumbled drunkenly towards the door. When he managed to climb the stairs, he discovered his wife packing two suitcases.
‘Are we going somewhere?’ he asked innocently, still not in full possession of his faculties.
‘I don’t know about you,’ she told him, ‘but I’m going to my mother!’
‘Your mother... in Bolton! Why do you want to go there?’
‘Because I’ve had enough of this life with you, Jim. I’m sick of living from hand to mouth and being continually threatened of losing my home to the bank because you insisted on running your own business! I’m sick of you sleeping with other women and I’m sick of hearing you bleating about the bank all the time. So I’m leaving you!’
‘You can’t be serious!’ he responded with concern, feeling that his mouth had been filled with cotton-wool. ‘You can’t leave me!’
‘Read my lips,’ she retorted. ‘I’m leaving you!’
He stood unsteadily in the doorway, the effects of the drug still making him feel drowsy. ‘I’ve not been with another woman,’ he lied blatantly. So your argument’s wrong from the start. You can’t leave me for something I didn’t do!’
‘You’re a damned liar!’ she shouted angrily. ‘How do you account for Katy Morrell, a prostitute, who you slept with for a night in Manchester?’
He stepped into the room and slumped on the bed. ‘How do you know her name?’ he gasped.
‘There’s a lot of people I know in Manchester who know all about that prostitute and you. I know she’s the one your slept with. I could smell her perfume. You can’t fool me. You’re disgusting! Disgusting!’
He stared at her with appealing eyes hoping that he could make her change her mind. ‘Don’t leave me, Wendy!’ he pleaded. ‘Please don’t leave me!’
‘It’s your own fault,’ she returned bluntly. ‘You don’t know how to treat a woman properly, that’s for sure!’
His face clouded over and he began to look angry. ‘Yeh, why not!’ he snarled. ‘Why not hit Jim Purdy when he’s down and out! Everyone else has done it so why not you? You’re like a rat leaving a sinking ship!’
She placed some more dresses into one of the suitcases and glanced at him sadl
y. ‘It’s no use blaming others for your own shortcomings, Jim. There’s nothing left between us any more. I think we’ve both seen it coming for a long time. No love, no warmth, no harmony, no communication. It’s like being in Purgatory... a living death!’
‘I didn’t know you felt that strongly,’ he told her miserably. ‘The worst job in the world is being a long-distance lorry driver. The hours are long and erratic. You’ve got to spend nights away from home. The pay is miserable. And you’re never there when your wife wants you.’
She started to pack the case with the few pairs of shoes in her possession. ‘It doesn’t matter what business you’re in if you show your wife love and care for her and pay her attention. For some reason, Jim, you were always too busy for me. Someone pretty to have on your arm... nothing more. Someone you could show off when you went stock-car racing. I wasn’t a woman, or a wife, or someone with whom you wanted to share your life with. I was your cook, your washer-woman, your housekeeper. That’s all I ever was!’
‘I swear I never thought of your that way,’ he defended weakly. ‘I may have concentrated to hard on stock-car racing or the truck driving business I started but that was to survive. I always loved you. I swear it!’
‘What a shame the business didn’t fold months ago. There might have been some hope for us. But on top of that you slept with another woman. I can’t forgive you for that! That’s how much you love me, you bastard!’
‘Only once, Wendy! Only once!’
‘One... ten... a hundred! What does it matter? When you cross that line it’s finished. Trust is like an egg. Once it’s broken, you can’t put the shell back together again. The moment you slept with that woman, you put the death knell on our marriage. You killed it stone dead!’
Purdy shrugged his shoulders disconsolately. ‘It only proved that I was human,’ he muttered in his poor defence of infidelity. ‘Driving up and down those motorways every night is not something you get to like. A man sits at the wheel of his lorry, driving long distances away from his wife. It’s difficult to control emotions sometimes. It gets to a point where he wants to make love to his wife but she’s two hundred miles away. Then he meets someone else who shows him a little bit of attention. Someone he doesn’t care about. A person who means nothing to him. And all the time the frustration’s building up inside him like water against the wall of a dam. It has to be released. That’s not infidelity. It’s using another person to relieve the frustration. Don’t you understand? It doesn’t take one tiny bit of love away from you!’
She smiled with chagrin and closed the lid of the first suitcase, snapping the locks shut. ‘Do you remember the last time you told me you loved me?’
He shrugged guiltily. ‘When two people love each other like we do, there’s no need to keep saying it.’
‘When two people love each other as we do?’ she mocked contemptuously. ‘You’re a real scream, Jim. A real scream!’
‘How can I make you change your mind?’
She shook her head slowly to impress upon him that the answer would always be negative. ‘It’s not what I want to do,’ she admitted candidly. ‘It’s the only thing I can do!’ She tipped the top drawer of the tallboy into her second suitcase/
He shook his head twice to drive out the drowsiness. ‘My head feels like a balloon. I remember going to the doctor but I don’t know how I ended up back here.’
‘Apparently you caused quite a stir in the surgery. Threatened to break the place up if they didn’t do something for you there and then. So they gave you a knockout tablet to put you to sleep and then brought you home. It seems to be the story of your life, doesn’t it?’
‘Bastards!; he swore vehemently before turning to her again and continued to plead with her. ‘I’ll make it up to you , Wendy. You see. Just give me one more chance. I’ll do anything you say.’
‘What do you want a rat for when the ship is sinking? Personally I think you’ll be far better off on your own. You won’t have a wife hanging on your arm, dragging you down all the time. You can spend all the time you want with Katy Morrell. You’ll have a ball. When I leave in ten minutes time, the world will be your oyster. Freedom... a new life!’
He lifted himself off the bed. ‘Okay, I’m not going to fight you. If you feel that way then go! I’ve got my pride, you know. You go your way, I’ll go mine! If you feel you want to end it, don’t let me stop you!’
‘You and your pride!’ she guffawed. ‘What pride? You don’t know the meaning of the word. You only know of one thing to do with women and you’re not good at that either. My father told me to marry Harry Timson. How right he was!’
She completed packing the second suitcase and went downstairs to ring for a taxi. Then she sat down in the front room waiting for it to arrive. It was the end of an era for her.
Her husband ambled into the front room and fell into his armchair. ‘Phew!’ he gasped. ‘That tablet was so powerful it knocked the hell out of me. Is there anything you want me to do before you leave?’
Her anger smouldered as she blamed him for ruining her life. ‘You can bring the suitcases into the hall. I’ve taken everything I want. You can have the rest.’
‘Huh!’ he muttered unamused. ‘That bank will take it all anyway.’
He rose and went up stairs to fetch the suitcases one at a time. After that, they sat in silence for a few minutes until there was a knock on the door. She got to her feet and stood by her suitcases.
‘Goodbye, Jim Purdy,’ she told him starting to sob. ‘All those years! What a waste!’ She opened the front door and struggled with one of the suitcases along the path to the taxi-cab. Before she got to the vehicle, she dropped it and dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. It was too much to bear. She was leaving her home and her husband for the very last time... never to come back again! Purdy followed her with the other suitcase which the taxi driver placed in the boot of his car.
‘Euston Station,’ she told him flatly.
‘Goodbye Wendy!’ shouted Purdy from the doorway. ‘Good luck! He though she might want to kiss him for the very last time but she failed to look back as the taxi drove off.
The truck driver had still not recovered fully from the tablet given to him by the doctor. He was still somewhat drowsy. His wife had left him and he was on his own before he realised truly what had happened. He went into the bathroom and stared at his face in the mirror. He didn’t look well... not at all. As he shaved, he considered his future. Wendy was right. Now that she had gone, he was a free agent, able to do anything he wanted without shielding secrets or having to temper thoughts and actions. Indeed, the world was his oyster! He dressed in some of his better clothes , added a final touch to his hair with a comb, and went out to climb into his truck.
When he arrived at Consolidated Stores, Brenda took a long hard look at him.
‘We’re all spruced up today, are we?’ she commented, continuing to show her rugged exterior. ‘To what do we owe the pleasure?’
‘It’s a special day, Brenda,’ he responded, leaning heavily on the counter. ‘My wife just left me. She’s gone for good!’
‘Is that for real or are you having me on?’
‘It’s real all right.’ He moved his index finger from one side of his chest to the other. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die! She’s fed up with me lorry driving. Wants someone to hold her hand all the time showing her lots of affection. You know the situation. I don’t nee to spell it out to you.’
‘Meaning that I don’t need lots of affection,’ she countered curtly. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
He shifted his body uneasily on the counter. ‘I’m not saying that at all. I’ve not had a great deal of luck with women. I should have stayed single and spread it around.’
She nodded her head sagely with a wry smile appearing on her lips. ‘Tell me something I don’t already know!’
‘Yeh,’ repeated Sally from behind the computer. ‘Friggin’ tell me something we don’t already know!’
They both stared at her blankly before looking back at each other. ‘So what do you have for me today?’ asked Purdy with an amorous grin on his face. ‘Of course, I could make a couple of suggestions that might interest you.’
‘Typical, isn’t it!’ accused Brenda coldly. ‘A woman leaves her husband and two minutes after she’s gone he’s chasing everything in skirts.’
‘Not true,’ he protested defensively. ‘I always thought there was something warm and exciting between us, Brenda. Okay, you give me a hard time but you’re a rough diamond. Underneath that harsh exterior lies a heart of gold. We both know that. And now I’m free, we ought to take advantage of the situation.’
‘You’re not free, Jim Purdy. Just because your wife left you, you’re not free. Has she talked to you about a divorce?’
‘We never got that far. It all happened so fast we never got time to talk about that. What do you think I should do?’
‘Don’t ask me, it’s your business not mine!’
‘But what if I made it your business? How would you feel about it then. I mean I could take you in my arms and we could snuggle down somewhere so I could kiss you all over your body... slowly... passionately... and then make violent love to you. How would you feel about it then?’
‘Friggin’ sick, I’d say,’ cut in Sally sharply. ‘How can I type these friggin’ manifests with you two cooing and makin’ love? Why don’t the pair of you go into the store shed and go to it together? Then I can be left to do the friggin; typing!’
Purdy and Brenda burst out laughing at her outburst and turned to face each other again. ‘Jim Purdy,’ she admitted in a moment of weakness, ‘I can honestly say I really dislike you. In fact I can’t stand the sight of you. But there’s something about you that baffles me. Whenever I see you, I want to tear the clothes off you and do things I wouldn’t do with any other man. But. Having said that, work comes first. I’m giving you another consignment for Manchester.’ She handed him the usual three sheets of paper. ‘Here you are...’
