Since she always saw Mrs. Kochinsky for an hour, no patients were scheduled before two. But her two o’clock patient arrived at one-thirty and it was fivethirty before the procession of patients let up. She had been distracted all afternoon, but it wasn’t until a perceptive patient asked her how she was feeling that she realized something was bothering her. Now, with a moment to herself, she thought of Mrs. Kochinsky flying into the office yesterday, breathless and erratic. It was only the second time she had seen the poor woman since resuming her practice. Had Mrs. Kochinsky’s mental health degenerated over the winter? There was no immediate family to call. Her sister had been taken to the nursing home.
She approached Iris’ desk and handed her the last patient’s file. The waiting-room was empty. The Van Gogh roiled above the upholstered mauve chairs.
“Am I finished?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“No word from Mrs. Kochinsky?”
Iris shook her head.
The phone rang. “Dr. Temple’s office,” said Iris.
After a moment of listening, she turned to Rebecca. “It’s Mrs. Morgan. She wants to renew her prescription for cardizem on the phone.” One winged eyebrow climbed in disapproval.
Rebecca took the receiver. “Mrs. Morgan? Was that Dr. Romanov’s prescription? Is your angina acting up, then? You’re on 60 mg. No. You’ll have to come in so I can check you over. Well, I understand, Mrs. Morgan, but I can’t prescribe the drug without examining you. I’ll give you to Iris and you can make an appointment.”
Rebecca fell into the other chair behind the partition and peered over the test results of Mr. Batner’s blood sugar, Miss Chow’s urine.
“You look bushed,” said Iris after hanging up.
“Better skip the jogging today.”
“I just walk around the block.”
“Better watch yourself. You don’t want to get any of those knee injuries.”
“I’m not jogging. I’m not even running.”
“Keep it that way,” she said. “I need this job.”
Rebecca gave her a crooked smile. But she was tired. Automatically she took out some charts and began to update them with the latest test results.
Iris went back to filling in the day’s health insurance chits. She had taken off her tailored grey suit jacket and sat demurely in a white silk blouse. Rebecca was grateful Iris was still interested in working for her — she didn’t need the money judging by her wardrobe and regular visits to an expensive hairdresser.
After twenty minutes, Iris looked up over her glasses. “I know what’ll put some colour back into those cheeks. What do you say we go for some Chinese.”
Rebecca grabbed her gabardine jacket and locked up. They made their way down the stairs.
“Parents coming home soon?” Iris asked, her patent leather heels clunking down the steps behind Rebecca.
“They’ll be back next week for Passover.”
She pushed open the back door of the converted house. What little yard had existed was paved over with asphalt. Iris’ Buick and Rebecca’s Jaguar coupe stood in the waning sun. Behind the buildings opposite, a common laneway of cracked cement ran between rows of garages; their wood, grey with age, leaned in various stages of decay. Rebecca’s heart dipped at the sight of the backsides of these houses, always shabbier than the fronts, always the last resting place of things that had outlived their usefulness. The houses, made up like dowagers on the street-side, with lace trim and correct sashes in place, sagged in the rear, so to speak. Rusting tools lay where they had fallen, wood buckled from the sun. Last year’s chrysanthemums, desiccated, pathetic, crumbled sideways in overturned pots.
“Do you ever watch The Fonz?” Iris said as they stepped onto the sidewalk of D’ Arcy Street.
“The what?”
“You must’ve heard of ‘Happy Days.’ It’s on Tuesday nights. My kids watch it every week. The Fonz is this high-school drop-out with an unpronounceable name. He wears a leather jacket and does this funny thing with his thumbs.” She demonstrated, making fists and sticking both thumbs up in the air.
“Is that the one that’s set in the fifties?”
“That’s the best part. Remember the clothes? Those tight sweaters! Well, you were younger than me — I was in my twenties. They’re too happy — I know things weren’t as good as that — still, it gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling watching it.”
Maybe that was what Rebecca needed. A TV show with a laugh track. Couldn’t hurt.
The evening sun warmed Beverley Street. They passed Lambton Lodge, the mansion built by George Brown, brick-solid with its mansard roof and the windows set in. What one would expect from the founder of The Globe and a Father of Confederation. Looking up to the third storey, she wondered in which room he had died from that gangrenous wound. The violence was out of place; he’d been shot elsewhere by a disgruntled employee and carried to this gentler street to die. Lambton Lodge. Even the name was soft. It was a private school now, with trendy awnings.
They walked up Baldwin Street past the narrow painted-brick homes, their chain-link fences protecting dollhouse lawns of drab brown grass. One bore a single ragged tree; another grew patio stones end to end. The house on the corner had been painted apple green and converted into the Sun Yat Sen Chinese school.
Spadina Avenue swarmed with evening traffic. It was still bright daylight but the pedestrians on the other side were faceless in the expanding distance.
“There’s the El Mocambo.” Iris pointed north to the tavern. Its stylized palm tree sign was a neighbourhood landmark. “Did you see the picture in The Star — Margaret Trudeau hobnobbing there with the Stones? In a tavern, no less. Now that girl’s got a social life.”
Rebecca smiled at her immaculately groomed friend and turned her attention to the street. The heat rising from the cars made the air fluid. They walked toward the push-button stop-lights where even inveterate jaywalkers waited. Trying to cross the six lanes of the street without lights was a quick route to eternity.
They began to walk on the green light, but halfway across the light changed and Rebecca dashed forward. Iris trailed behind, gingerly stepping between the streetcar tracks in her elegant heels, until she reached the other side.
A truck driver stuck his head out the window. “Hey, lady, want me to get behind and push?”
She struck a pose at the edge of the road, hand on her hip, and yelled out, “That depends on what you’re going to push with!”
In the Spadina Garden restaurant Rebecca picked at her meal of spicy cashew chicken in a restless silence. In restaurants lately, the food on the menu always seemed so appetizing, until it arrived. She would take a few bites then realize she was going to gag if she ate anything. She spent the rest of the time pushing food around on her plate, hoping no one would notice she wasn’t eating. But she couldn’t fool Iris.
“No wonder I’m getting fatter,” Iris said. “I keep finishing your meals.” Once it was established that Rebecca was not going to eat what had arrived on her plate, Iris speared her fork into the chicken pieces across the table.
Rebecca tried to smile. “Maybe you need to walk around the block with me.”
“Maybe you need to eat more.” She observed her friend across the table. “You seem distracted.”
Rebecca glanced from Iris’ upswept blonde hair to an old Chinese woman walking past the window. “I’m wondering what happened to Mrs. Kochinsky.”
Iris jabbed her fork into the air. “If we worried every time a patient missed an appointment.... You need to take care of