He assessed the woman on the couch, she wasn’t a pretty sight. He appreciated her illness, but he’d expected some improvement in her physical state. The furrows on her forehead looked deeper than they had the last time he saw her. Her lips looked like smokers lips — fine lines splayed out around her mouth, not the slightest bit attractive. And her cheeks, sunken and sallow, dropping like the beer gut on Homer Simpson. Unease crawled over him. Was his formula losing its effectiveness? He didn’t want it to believe it but the evidence pointed that way. Maybe a larger dose was the answer? He needed to get her out of here and to his surgery, or to the lab, somewhere where no one could hear her, although from what he’d seen of this place, a woman screaming wouldn’t bring the emergency services running. No one would interfere, not in a place like this, somewhere abandoned by the civic authorities, ignored by town planners. Owned by parasitic landlords for profit and profit only. Dosing her here would be easier…
Doctor Perry cleared a space on the cluttered counter, ignoring the cockroach who scuttled out from under the trash and disappeared over the side of the kitchen cabinets. He searched the cupboards for a clean glass, choosing a Hard Rock Cafe souvenir glass at the back, and then pulled his tonic bottle from his battered leather doctor’s bag,
Normally his doses were based on his patient’s weight and wellbeing but time was running out. The walls were closing in on him. He could just leave Sarah Miller to succumb to her illness with no one any the wiser. The idea appealed but moving to a new state with a new identity was costly and lately his clients had been more pushy, more demanding, so the pressure was on to deliver. Adding Sarah Miller to his list might relieve the pressure, keep the wolves from his door a little longer, until he left.
Satisfied he’d made the right choice, he poured a liberal dose into the tacky souvenir glass. More than he’d poured for old Johnny Paulson from the retirement home, who, even though he’d only been skin and bones, required more than he should have. Paulson was the first one he’d messed up for a long time. An utter waste of tonic and disposing of him had been costly. Doctor Perry tried not to think about the mess it’d made in the surgery. He’d spent hours cleaning it up, and his clients weren’t happy getting involved in that side of things. His formula was failing.
Doctor Perry carried the glass to Sarah, who resembled an opioid addict awaiting their next hit. Eager eyes and hands outstretched, she grabbed for the glass but Doctor Perry held on a moment longer.
“Now Sarah, this dosage is stronger than what I gave you last time, you need to understand that the side effects might be uncomfortable. Do you understand?” he asked, emphasising the word might. He knew full well what the side effects were. Her pain didn’t bother him, only the potential noise she might make.
Sarah nodded, salivating at the sight of the milky liquid in the souvenir glass.
“Small sips then, Sarah,” he directed, and as he loosened his grip on the glass, the doorbell rang and an unfamiliar voice shot out of the intercom.
“Sarah? Sarah, it’s me, Gary.”
If Sarah had resembled a drug addict in the late stages of withdrawal before, now she looked like a prima donna on a stage. At the sound of the man’s voice, her face lit up, breaking into a beaming smile, her shoulders straightened and she glowed.
“It’s Gary,” Sarah gushed.
Doctor Perry snatched the glass out of Sarah’s hand. He didn’t care who Gary was but whoever he was he didn’t want any questions being asked about his tonic or his treatment of his patient. An annoying interruption to his plans, to his delivery schedule. He preferred patients with no encumbrances — no family, no friends, no interference’s.
He fumbled as he tried pouring the tonic back into its bottle, every drop was valuable since making more was becoming difficult.
The intercom squawked into life again.
“Sarah, please let me in. We need to speak. I’m sorry and I’m worried.”
“Could you let him in please, Doctor?” Sarah wheezed, her lungs irritated by the sudden increase of her heart rate.
Doctor Perry ignored her, his mind racing ahead. It paid to prepare for all eventualities but for the moment he struggled to find a solution. He’d have to let him in and then leave. And abandon Sarah, which was a shame but sometimes you had to cut your losses and this was one of those times. It was probably for the best, the illness had weakened her lungs and his tonic had made no difference. She wasn’t the best candidate for what his clients wanted. His line of work had been much easier in the days before technology. With so much connectivity in the world, finding patients who were truly alone was near impossible.
Snapping shut his leather bag, he pressed the intercom button. Turning to gaze at Sarah, he shook his head. Such a waste.
“I’ll going now, Sarah,” Doctor Perry said. “I’m sure your visitor can take care of you from here.”
Sarah pushed herself up off the couch. “No, you have to stay, to tell him how sick I am, he won’t believe me otherwise. He always accuses me of exaggerating, of being a hypochondriac. That’s one reason we broke up, and if you don’t tell him how sick I have been, he’ll walk out again, I know it,” Sarah said. “Please?” she begged.
Doctor Perry stepped over the door, and arranging the right words in his mind, he opened the door.
“Sarah—” said the man at the door before recognising Sarah hadn’t opened the door.
Doctor Perry stepped back to allow Gary into Sarah’s apartment.
“Hello Gary,” Sarah said.
“Sarah, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, well I’m not fine, I’ve been very sick—”
Gary interrupted and Sarah shushed him. “But before you say anything, Doctor—”
At this, Doctor Perry himself interrupted. “I’m Sarah’s doctor and can confirm that she has been suffering from pneumonia. She’s recovering well so you’re welcome to stay and help her. This will be my last house call. She’ll need a check up in another week. You can do that at your local medical centre. She needs rest and good food. I’ll be off, more clients to see.”
Sarah tried protesting but a coughing fit took hold. And without a backwards glance, Doctor Perry slipped out the door and vanished down the emergency stairwell, not trusting that the elevator would turn up in time to remove him from the premises before Gary questioned him any further.
Locking himself in his sedan, he chanced a look up at Sarah’s apartment window. As he suspected, Gary was standing at the window looking down. That wasn’t good, not good at all.
Doctor Perry turned his car key and fighting the urge to gun the engine and drive away as fast as he could, he pulled out from the curb and drove off, never once looking back.
Gary watched the sedan disappear round the corner, his gut humming with vague distrust. There was something off about the man, his manner, his flight from Sarah’s apartment, he couldn’t place a finger on it.
Sarah’s coughing behind him broke the spell, and he turned away from the window, cringing at how he’d treated Sarah. He’d thought he was doing the best thing for them both by breaking if off but hell he’d missed her. Their long conversations on the most inconsequential things, walks through the park, ducking under trees and laughing at the crush of humanity sharing the world with them. It had been on his morning walk he realised why he felt low, he was missing Sarah and her weird and wonderful ways. He’d never get used to the smell of incense or the random meals she cooked, and how she blew small things up into giant mountains, but mostly he loved her, hence why he was here.
Gary rubbed Sarah’s back until her coughing eased. He wasn’t a doctor but even he could hear the rattle in her chest as she fought to control the spasming in her lungs.
“I don’t think the doctor knows what he’s talking about,” Gary said, searching for a glass of water for Sarah.
“He’s been great. I should have gone earlier, but I didn’t realise how bad things were until it was too late, so I went to the closest clinic I could
find online. Doctor Perry has looked after me well,” Sarah wheezed.
“Doctor who?” Gary asked, his face a picture of surprise.
“Doctor Perry. You know I don’t go to the doctor’s, can’t stand them being under the thumb of the big pharmaceutical companies, but he’s not like the rest. His remedies are natural. He’s been treating me with—”
“Sorry, but did you say Doctor Perry? So that was Doctor Perry just now? In your apartment?”
Sarah’s eyes widened, “Yes, why?”
Gary’s mind raced. He’d just met the man they were trying to interview. He’d been in the same room as him and he hadn’t even realised. Admittedly, the man wasn’t a suspect, so no one had bothered pulling up a photo of him but still.
“Will you be okay on your own for a while? I promise I’ll be back soon. I have to shoot into work, there are a couple of things I need to sort out,” Gary asked.
He washed out a Hard Rock Cafe glass he found on the kitchen bench. God knows what Sarah had been drinking out of that but whatever it was, the milky liquid clung to the sides of the tall glass and he had to use the sponge to wash it out before refilling it with fresh water.
Placing the glass on the table next to Sarah, he took her hands in his.
“I’m sorry for not calling, I am and I promise I will be back. I’m going into work, then I’ll swing past the grocery store and buy you all the things you need. You stay here and sleep. He was right when he said you need to rest, but I don’t think Doctor Perry is the right doctor for you. Promise me you won’t see him again?”
Sarah tried protesting but lost herself in Gary’s concerned eyes, eyes she’d dreamt about night after night. It was enough he was back, so she didn’t want to upset him, but Doctor Perry was a good doctor and his tonic made her feel better. And she wanted to feel better now that Gary was back, for him. She smiled at him but in the back of her mind she was planning to ring Doctor Perry’s office for an appointment to see him again. Gary deserved to have the healthy her.
45
Pauline stamped about in the kitchen, a small radio blaring out hits from the eighties. Normally the radio soothed her fiery temper but not today. Today she’d turned up at work at the crack of dawn, to find a note in the kitchen saying her budget was cut by a further five percent and that she had to find the savings by the end of the month. Five percent. She was bloody livid. No consultation, no discussion, it was a crime and without a doubt she’d be blamed for the rubbish food by the residents. The menu was already as lean as she could make it without putting everyone on a starvation diet. This was the worst place she’d ever worked at, with no humanity at the top. If management worked out a way to feed the residents remotely, like a cat feeder, they would.
Her mood deteriorated even more when after her weekly stock take of the cupboards, she found a some key ingredients depleted far beyond her expectations.
“Shit and bloody hell, who’s been in here?”
Someone had been buggering around in her cupboards but Pauline couldn’t imagine who’d want to steal any of the substandard ingredients they made her cook with, although cook was a loose enough term for what she did.
“Jesus bloody well wept, didn’t he, eh?” she ranted, slamming cupboards and crashing drawers until she flopped into a chair. She flipped through her tattered recipe book trying to find something to cobble together for the lunch prep. She’d sorted breakfast, but for some residents, lunch was their main meal so it needed to be substantial.
Turning the pages, her frustration grew as she calculated how many recipes she’d had to ditch with all the budget cuts. More than half the recipes she’d started with were no longer practical because she couldn’t buy in the ingredients she needed for the money she had. She’d quit and fly back home to her Mam if she didn’t need the money this job gave her. Too old to start again now, no one would have her, not even her useless jazz playing husband she’d followed here to the other side of the world. He was a player, no question. He’d played the bars round where she lived, touting himself and his band as the biggest thing since the Beatles. She’d fallen head over arse and then like a twit, had married the unfaithful bastard and gave up her life to follow him to America. She’d followed him round the all the bars here too, until realising she wasn’t the only one he was playing.
As Pauline wallowed in her own private pity party, Benson’s notes fluttered onto the floor at the same time as Bart Stubbs wandered into the kitchen.
“Any food going, Pauline?” he asked, leaning against the giant chiller, fiddling with a crumpled packet of cigarettes.
“You ain’t smoking in here and get your filthy behind off my fridge,” Pauline admonished, shooing him away from the gleaming white beast. Pauline kept it immaculate as she did everything in the kitchen. She had pride in her work and her workspace, unlike Stubbs - a filthy mess, a walking cesspit of disease for sure.
“Calm yourself, I only asked for something to eat, wasn’t trying to get in your pants.”
Pauline sniffed, it wasn’t worthy of a reply. She opened the fridge and pulled out a plate of yesterday’s brownies. Made with half the sugar the recipe said but still okay. She’d warm them through and they’d do for dessert.
“Here you are,” and she tossed one to Bart, to keep him happy and quiet. From experience, that was the best way to treat him.
Between fiddling with his cigarette packet, and itching at the rash he’d developed on his upper thighs, he missed the brownie and it hit the floor next to the paperwork Pauline had forgotten to pick up.
They both went for the papers heads colliding. Bart snatched the papers from Pauline’s hands.
“Eh, you give them back Bart Stubbs. They’re naught any of your business,” Pauline said, trying to control the panic in her voice. When stressed, her accent grew stronger, making her unintelligible to the Americans.
“Don’t look much like kitchen stuff,” Bart said. He might have a job but he didn’t get it through being able to read anything beyond primary level. He squinted at the tiny writing he knew to be Tala’s. “Why have you got Tala’s paperwork?”
Pauline replied, “They’re notes about the dietary requirements of the patients, information I need to do my job. Gimme back them bloody papers and get on with your own bleeding job. Take another brownie and I’ll clean up the mess you made. As if I don’t have enough to do without having to clean up behind you lot, eh?”
Bart kept running his eyes over the words in front of him. Pauline suspected he couldn’t even read half the words on the page. He threw the paperwork onto the table and snatched up two brownies, shoving a third one into his mouth.
Pauline kept her thoughts to herself, it wasn’t worth antagonising the man, and she watched him leave the kitchen, a trail of crumbs in his wake. She swore under her breath and folded up the papers Benson and Tala had left in her safekeeping. That was too close for comfort. Searching around the kitchen, she settled upon the drawer where she kept her baking paraphernalia and slipped the papers under the rolls of foil and baking paper and turned her mind back to the problem of the missing ingredients. She didn’t for the slightest moment consider that Bart Stubbs was responsible. He didn’t have the skills to use the ingredients for cooking, being more a takeaway for dinner every night guy, plus he ate at the Rose Haven for the free food. Had been for years, skiving off work to grab a plate of free grub. He was a freeloader, not a thief. No, it was someone else.
She didn’t have time to deal with it now, there was breakfast to serve and the lunch to prepare. After that she’d think on it, but bugger her if it didn’t prey on her mind. What if Tracey accused her of stealing? She couldn’t afford to lose her job, not now.
During breakfast, the dining room was filled with quiet apprehension. The empty chairs in the room did nothing to improve the overall vibe. Several residents hadn’t made it to breakfast today.
The Rose Haven Retirement Resort was one of those rest homes which tried to pretend its residents didn’t die
, quietly ushering the bodies of the deceased out the back, away from the curious eyes. Pauline presumed that’s what had happened. She bussed to work every day, so had no reason to go out the back. Apart from one old codger who’d died at during lunch, she had nothing to do with the residents once they died.
Pauline was worried about one resident who hadn’t made it down to breakfast - Muriel Lincoln, originally a Northerner like her. Muriel had been living in America since she’d come here as a teenage bride on the arm of an American soldier at the end of the war. Ancient and well past her use-by date, but still in fine fettle at breakfast the day before and Pauline looked forward to their daily chats every day. It was a small spark of home in a foreign land, despite neither of them having lived in England for too many years to count.
“Where’s Muriel today?” she asked the nearest orderly.
“Did my job title change to Social Coordinator?” he replied, scratching at his arm. “Check out back, could be as stiff as a board waiting to be toasted with the rest of the wrinkly’s out there stinking up the place.”
Pauline would have slapped him but there was a strange sheen to his skin and something in his eye which stayed her hand. Not that she really would’ve hit him, she’d have lost her job if she did, but before the temptation consumed her, she stepped back. He wouldn’t last long this one. Working with the elderly wasn’t for the fainthearted and it had taken her a good few years to become comfortable herself. It was a hard slog, and you needed buckets of patience, compassion and empathy. This guy had none of that.
“You keep your voice down laddie, and don’t talk that way about the residents,” Pauline said.
Doctor Perry Page 18
