by Sarah Bourne
She pulled her panties back up, smoothed her skirt over her hips and checked her hair.
‘See you,’ she said as she opened the door.
Clare opened her eyes and fanned herself with her notebook. Then she took out her Kindle. Fifty Shades of Grey wasn’t the kind of book she wanted people to know she was enjoying. Thousands of women were reading it, but she hadn’t seen too many of them reading it in public. It was like their guilty secret. She smiled to herself at the idea of a covert greeting shared only between the initiated. A wink, a knowing nod. A sisterhood of sexually-empowered women.
She laughed at herself. No one would call her empowered in any way.
Looking around, she wondered what the other people in her carriage did in their lives. It was one of her favourite things to do. She called it research.
That teenager over there with the eyeliner and upright – no, statuesque – posture sitting across the aisle, she was a dancer, going to an audition at the Royal Ballet School. Clare knew it was all rubbish, of course, but it was nice to imagine, to give people histories they might have enjoyed. More likely she was on holiday from Sweden, judging by the attractive Scandinavian woman (blonde hair and long legs) next to her who was probably her mother, although they didn’t talk to each other. The older woman couldn’t stop fiddling with the buckle of her bag and Clare noticed that the polish on one of her thumbnails was badly chipped. Maybe she was a corporate mother who thought the best way to bond with her daughter was a day out in the city but, now they were together, they had nothing to say to each other. She certainly looked smart with her pearl earrings and nine nail-polished fingers. She had a hard face, though, as if she’d had to fight for everything she had.
Clare sucked in her lips. They were dry so she dabbed some lip balm on. Travelling on trains always dried her out so.
The black man opposite her was a drug dealer. No, that was a cliché. He was the head of a charity for homeless people on his way to deliver a conference paper on funding alternatives for homeless youth in the South of England.
Clare smiled to herself. She was good at this. And so she should be after all the time she spent on the train making up lives for people. Sometimes she considered actually engaging with people and finding out what they really did but always talked herself out of it, preferring to imagine – it did away with the tedium of hearing about their empty lives, or the envy she might feel if she discovered they had more than her. She put her Kindle away unopened and reached for her notebook again to jot down her ideas, and add a few more details for each person, trying not to stare at any one of them too obviously as she searched their faces for clues. Of course, she never knew if she was right about people, but it didn’t matter; it was the creativity that was important. Like the sex-on-a-train scene she’d just written. She felt herself reddening again just thinking about it.
She looked up from her writing to see that the Scandinavian woman was now talking to the girl. They seemed to be sharing a joke. She edged closer to the aisle, hoping to hear what they were talking about but they were leaning into each other and speaking in low voices so she only heard snippets; something about a driver winning a cup, singing a song to someone and making toast. Or a roast. It was all rather odd. Clare shifted to the very edge of her seat, but to her frustration, they leant closer to one another and lowered their voices even further. Clare sat back again and pretended to look past them out of the window on their side of the train. It didn’t really matter what they were talking about, but she did like to listen in to other peoples’ conversations. More research.
The black man opposite shifted in his seat, drawing her gaze. He was reading The Sun. Or rather, the newspaper was in his hands, but his gaze was roaming around the carriage and he sighed from time to time, closing his eyes momentarily, as if he was in pain. Perhaps he was a drug dealer after all, or a junkie needing a fix. People who read The Sun were, in her opinion, the sort who would go in for that sort of thing.
Clare sat back, notebook in hand. It had started raining, blurring the scene outside as fat raindrops streaked the grimy glass. She sighed and closed her eyes, waiting for her imagination to project its images onto her eyelids, but for once, nothing happened. Instead, she heard someone in the seats behind her wondering if the stoppage was because of a suicide on the line. Alarmed, she opened her eyes again and caught the black man looking at her. She smiled but looked away again, reaching into her bag for her phone. She had to let work know she’d be late in.
Of course, no one answered – that was her job, and she was stuck on the train. She left a message.
‘Sorry, Dr Moncrieff, I’m stuck on the train. There’s been a suicide on the line, I think. I’m not sure when I’ll be in.’
Was it really a suicide? Suddenly there could be no other explanation for the stop. A death. It knocked the wind out of her.
She threw her phone back into her bag and sat, head resting, eyes closed, breathing in, out, in, out to a slow count of four, like her counsellor had told her to do when she felt a panic attack coming on.
I focus on my breath. I am not panic. I am not anxiety. I am bigger than them, I can contain them. I focus on my breath, in, out, in, out.
It wasn’t working. Her breaths were shorter, her heart thumping painfully against her ribs. She was having a heart attack this time, she was sure of it. All the breathing exercises in the world weren’t going to help now. She bit her lip to stop herself from screaming. A tear squeezed out from between her tightly closed eyelids.
She was going to die on a train to London surrounded by people who didn’t care.
She didn’t die. The black man sitting opposite her reached over and offered a crisp white hanky. She looked at it, at the man, and in the absence of any other choice, took it and wiped the sweat off her face and held the damp cotton over her mouth, forcing herself to take long, deep breaths. Eventually she was able to look around and name some objects in her vicinity to anchor herself to the present – a jacket lying on the floor, the dirt-smudged window. She felt the seat beneath her thighs, wriggled her toes in her sensible brown shoes. Finally, she lowered the hanky and thanked the man who was leaning towards her, concerned.
‘Keep it,’ he said, nodding towards the hanky scrunched in her hand.
Embarrassed, she thanked him again and got her Kindle out. She didn’t want to talk, to explain to this man that she was barely managing to breathe, to sit upright, to prevent herself from running, screaming from the train and her life. She could so easily have been the person on the track. Perhaps not this morning, but there were other mornings when she had to drag herself from her bed, force herself to wash, dress, drink a cup of tea. When she had to paint on a face she could show the world, build herself up in order to get out of the house. There were days when even her minimal contact with Dr Moncrieff’s patients required superhuman effort, when she had to remind herself to talk and smile, when she crept into the kitchenette or the bathroom and curled herself into a ball to stop herself shaking, or just to feel safe.
The rain stopped. The train shuddered and started moving again. She let her head rest against the back of the seat and took deep breaths, eyes closed, feeling the watery sun trying to warm her cheek through the window. She repeated her mantra, I focus on my breath, and finally she felt calm enough to turn her Kindle on and start reading.
Clare rushed through the ticket barrier at Euston and plunged into the underground, stepping onto a Victoria line train as the doors were closing. Being later than usual, commuters had been replaced by tourists with maps out or suitcases parked in front of them, talking in loud voices in a dozen languages. Clare recognised Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish, Arabic and Dutch. Or imagined she did. Some, she had to admit, she guessed from the look of the person or the little flag stitched on a backpack. She wished, as she always did when confronted by foreigners, that she had travelled more, that the parameters of her life were not confined to home, London and the occasional holiday in the Lake District or Cor
nwall. Although she hadn’t even been to either of those places recently. She thought about exotic-sounding places like Marrakesh or Timbuktu, though she had to admit she would probably hate the realities of them – the dirt, the heat, the insects.
At Oxford Circus she took a deep breath as she reached street level. It was a primitive response to being outside again, and entirely beyond her control. She knew the air was not fresh, that it was filled with exhaust fumes and sweat, the cast-off cells of the people shoving their way past her in their hurry to get wherever it was they had to be. Drawing in lungfuls of this pollution was not particularly healthy, but she couldn’t help herself. Shaking her head, she set her course along Regent Street, Margaret Street, into Cavendish Square which was hosting a picnic for a group of young language students all glued to their phones, and on into Harley Street.
In the plush reception area of Dr Moncrieff’s private consulting rooms, sound muted by triple-glazed windows and deep-pile carpet, Clare hung her jacket in the cupboard, stowed her bag under her desk and took her seat. There were files scattered across the desk in what she interpreted as the doctor’s annoyance at her tardy arrival. He was a man who liked routine, for whom the late arrival of his secretary-receptionist was an inconvenience almost too great to bear. She thought once again how she would happily resign if it weren’t for the money. Dr Moncrieff paid generously.
She tidied the notes into a pile and opened the first one to find a note written in his precise handwriting. Logging on to the computer, she typed it into the electronic records and filed the hard copy, wondering for the thousandth time why the doctor insisted on hard copies as well as the digital files. Maybe it was his age, she thought. He belonged to a generation for which computers and storage clouds were newfangled and therefore untrustworthy. It didn’t matter how often she explained it all to him, Dr Moncrieff wanted things done his way.
A man entered reception and approached the desk, the worried look of a recent diagnosis on his face.
‘Good morning, sir. Can I help you?’ He looked vaguely familiar but he hadn’t seen the doctor before.
He smiled the thin smile of one condemned and said, ‘I hope so. I have an appointment at ten thirty.’ He pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket. ‘Here’s my referral. Ray Dreyfus for Dr Moncrieff.’
He looked a little ruffled, as if he’d been rushing, and the referral letter he passed to her was creased and had a coffee stain on it.
‘Sorry,’ he said, looking at it in her hands. ‘I hope it’s still all right.’
Clare smiled one of her real smiles; not the encouraging smile, the comforting smile, or the smile saved for the dying which was a smile that at the same time creased the area between her eyebrows.
‘Not a problem,’ she said. ‘Coffee cups have a way of leaving their mark.’
Ray laughed. It was a nervous chuckle rather than a full-throated laugh and Clare felt sorry for him.
‘Dr Moncrieff is the best there is,’ she heard herself saying, although in reality she had no idea if she was right; he might have a higher mortality rate than others for all she knew, but she wanted to believe she worked for one of the best and so she sounded confident when she said it.
‘Yes. He comes highly recommended,’ said Ray before lapsing into silence. It was as if mentioning the doctor’s name had reminded him of why he was there. Clare was pleased to see that at least he allowed himself the comfort of a sofa rather than one of the hard chairs to fill in his paperwork.
‘I thought I was going to be late,’ he said as he stood and handed it back to her. ‘My train was delayed, and I had no idea how long it would take to get here from the station.’ He ran a hand through his hair and then patted it down as he spoke, as if expecting it to be sticking out at odd angles from the stress of the journey.
‘My train was delayed too.’
Ray looked at her, wide-eyed. ‘A Milton Keynes train?’
‘Yes. Same one?’
‘Yes. A suicide on the line. Terrible thing to happen.’
Clare noticed the patient had started sweating.
‘Take a seat, Mr Dreyfus. Can I get you a glass of water?’
‘No, thank you. I’ll be fine.’ He sat and took a few deep breaths, his head resting against the back of the sofa.
The intercom buzzed and Dr Moncrieff asked her to step into his room.
He was a good-looking man, even though he was well into his sixties. Tall, upright, his grey hair neatly cut, his tie always matched by the handkerchief in his top pocket. He inspired trust and confidence in his patients, even though Clare knew he couldn’t save them all.
‘Ah, Clare. Finally.’
‘Yes, doctor. Sorry. As I said in my message, there was a delay on the line this morning.’
‘Very unfortunate.’ He handed her the file he’d been writing in. ‘I haven’t had my coffee yet.’
And thank you for your concern over the incident on the train, she thought to herself.
‘I’ll make it now. And your next appointment is here. Mr Dreyfus.’
She swept out, hands clenched. How was it that he was such a competent doctor and yet he couldn’t work the coffee machine? Or wouldn’t. She put in more sugar than the half teaspoon he liked and took it in to him with the new patient’s file, pausing long enough to see him take his first sip and grimace slightly before asking her to send the patient in.
‘You can go in now, Mr Dreyfus.’ She watched him walk, stiff-backed, through the door to the executioner. Or his saviour. They could never be sure before the first appointment. His referral suggested prostate cancer. There had been tests. Now a second opinion was sought as to whether surgery was an option. Clare sighed. Cancer was such a terrible disease, eating away at you sometimes for years before it offered up any symptoms, before it alerted you to its deadly presence. She herself had regular mammograms and Pap smears, and visited her GP for blood tests designed to discover minute changes in her blood that might be due to some silent danger.
She hadn’t always been so cautious, but since working for a urologist, she knew life was delicate, that you could be struck down at any moment. It had caused many of her panic attacks. She had learned with the help of her therapist to manage them, by and large, but the anxiety still lurked. She and the counsellor had discussed many a time her determination to face her death anxiety by working for a doctor. She said she felt somehow inoculated from her own fate if she faced it in others day in, day out. If she could make the last weeks or months of others’ lives even a little bit more pleasant by way of an encouraging smile or a kind word, perhaps death would leave her alone.
A suicide. She’d known it, of course, but Mr Dreyfus said it so nonchalantly as if these things happened every day, and of course they did, but not to her. Not in front of the train she took to work. Someone had actually died not far from where she’d been sitting. Her hands started shaking and she couldn’t breathe properly. She tugged at her collar to loosen it and tried to suck in air, but her chest seemed to have solidified, her diaphragm suddenly immobile. She darted into the kitchenette and ran the cold water. Sometimes letting it run over her wrists soothed her. Not today. She doubled over, sliding her bottom down the cupboard to the floor and started repeating her mantra: ‘I focus on my breath. I am not panic. I am not anxiety. I am bigger than them, I can contain them. I focus on my breath, in, out, in, out.’
When she was able to go back to her desk, Mr Dreyfus was coming out of the doctor’s consulting room.
‘All done?’ The last traces of the panic attack caused her voice to tremble.
He turned. His cheeks were wet. ‘All done,’ he said.
She hated it when they cried, especially the men. And most of Dr Moncrieff’s patients were men. She felt impotent in the face of their pain, unable to alleviate it. She never had an adequate response, even though she practised phrases in private; ‘I hope you have good support around you at this difficult time,’ or, ‘there’s great benefit in looking after your genera
l well-being with a good diet and plenty of sleep.’ Neither were appropriate really, just things to say because she couldn’t say nothing, and she certainly couldn’t take them in her arms and let them weep while she quietly had a panic attack as, together, they faced their mortality.
‘Can I get you anything?’ she managed.
His features were mask-like – set into a look of terror. ‘No. Thank you.’ He walked out the door, his arms tight to his sides.
When he’d gone she sat at her desk going through the mail. She frowned when she came across a letter addressed to Pauline de Winter. There was a Post-it note stuck to the front and a message in Dr Moncrieff’s neat writing: You promised this would stop. She could almost hear the implied, ‘Please see me.’
Two more patients arrived, one extremely early for his appointment. Neither acknowledged the other, each submerged under the weight of their diagnosis, the hope that their faith in the doctor hadn’t been misplaced, the fear of ‘what next’.
Clare tapped away on the computer, followed up on the results of tests ordered, offered teas and coffees, looked compassionate. There was, she had learned, a fine line between professional compassion in which a patient may be reassured by a ‘there, there’ or comforted by a cup of tea, and the compassion that invited an unburdening. Clare was not interested in listening to details of symptoms and tumours, surgery and drugs. Not at all. So she’d learned to apply just the right amount of sympathy to her features and the timbre of her voice. These days, a patient had to be really desperate to try to talk to her.
