The telephone rang constantly. I found I was entirely lacking in psychological insight. Every caller wanting an emergency appointment described their symptoms so colourfully that I soon felt sick, imagining streams of vomit, blood-laced evacuations, pus-filled carbuncles and gangrenous limbs. I searched in vain for a means of turning off the fire that continued to sear my brains. I gulped down the lemonade. It had a slightly bitter taste, no doubt produced by the lemon pips which swam about among shreds of pith. Patients not only came to see my father but to make appointments with Nurse Bunker and Nurse Keppel for vaccinations, ear syringing, blood tests and verruca removal. A good many of them recognized me as Doctor Savage’s daughter and wanted a thorough debriefing about my career, my boyfriends, my salary, my health, and my opinion of the north of England as opposed to the south. I quickly learned that any tentative suggestion that there was anything to be said for living in the south, such as less rain or a greater variety of shops, gave grave offence. Meanwhile the telephone screamed incessantly.
A man so thickly muffled in coats and scarves that I could only see a pair of sad brown eyes beneath his bobble cap muttered something indistinguishable and disappeared into the other consulting room. I gathered this was Dr Chatterji. I remembered my mission to get him some patients.
‘You’ve broke your leg, I see,’ said Mrs Niddercombe, after she had explained in unnecessary detail about her troubled waterworks. ‘All that nasty concrete in London. It’s surprising it’s only the one. Most likely you’ll have a limp. My sister’s eldest boy broke his leg two years ago. Now all the dogs bark at him. Dogs don’t like handicapped people, do they? They sense they aren’t like the rest of us.’
‘Would you excuse me while I answer the telephone? Hello. Surgery. Is it an emergency? We’re very busy this morning. How old is the patient? Four months? Green stools? Good heavens! Oh, no, I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about – yes, all right. Bring him in at twelve.’ I put down the receiver.
‘Are you okay, dear?’ Mrs Niddercombe asked solicitously. ‘You’re looking a bit green yourself.’
I did not feel at all well. The room was going round and I was having difficulty focusing my eyes. ‘I feel … giddy … and a bit sick—’
‘Sick!’ said Mrs Niddercombe. ‘There’s nothing you can tell me about that! Every pregnancy I’ve been sick as a gissie! Couldn’t look at a cream cake. Them ones with butter cream and chocolate icing with a glassy cherry on top used to be me favourite, but whenever I was expecting just one look int’ baker’s shop window and I’d feel me gorge rise … where are you going?’
I hobbled as fast as I could towards the cloakroom.
‘I’ll answer this phone, shall I?’ she called after me. ‘Surgery. No, Doctor’s too busy to see anyone,’ I heard her say as I leaned over the lavatory. ‘Well, I can’t help that. Give him a dose of castor oil or some senna pods …’ was the last thing that was audible above the sound of my own retching.
Afterwards I felt marginally better. I finished the lemonade, pressed a Kleenex to my perspiring brow and addressed myself to the task of removing something unpleasantly sticky from the pencil which made writing in the appointments book unnecessarily difficult. It looked horribly like a body secretion. I was relieved to discover later a lidless pot of glue in the drawer from which I had taken the pencil.
‘Hello,’ said a cool voice as I tried to scrape the stuff from my fingers. Standing in front of the desk was a woman wearing a coat of what I thought might be mink. Concealing her hair was a cone-shaped hat of dark brown suede trimmed with matching fur. Her eyes were hidden by sunglasses and her mouth by scarlet lipstick. The waiting room had gone deathly quiet as everyone stared at this modish apparition. Amid the anoraks, cycling capes and woolly hats, she looked like a peacock among crows. ‘You have got yourself into a state. Why don’t you answer that telephone before we all go crazy?’
It was Nurse Bunker with a message for Doctor to say that 02 was now 4B and would he pop down later and do the DC.
‘When you’ve finished,’ said the cool voice as I scribbled all this down, ‘I’d like to see a doctor.’
‘Is it urgent?’ I asked.
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘Name, please.’ I swivelled round to the cabinet.
‘Marcia Dane.’
Between C and E were nothing but L’s. ‘Address, please.’
‘The Old Rectory. But you won’t find me in your files. I’ve only just moved in. I was rather hoping that I’d be able to register with the local quack if he’s at all house-trained. It’d be a bore to have to go all the way to Carlisle.’
The waiting room pullulated with interest.
‘I’ll take your details.’ I wished I could focus my eyes on her face. Whenever I tried the room seemed to buck and rear in an alarming way. ‘Miss or Mrs?’
‘Divorced. So let’s settle for Mizz. I like ambiguity.’ She laughed, a long peal that descended the scale.
‘I’ll ask Dr Chatterji if he’s got room on his list and let you know. Telephone number, please?’
‘The dhoolie-wallah? No thanks. I hear Dr Savage is competent. But I need to meet him first to see if I like him. After all, I might have to take off my clothes in front of him. One doesn’t want just anyone exploring one’s secret places.’
A current of excited whispering ran round the waiting room.
I stared up at the black lenses that seemed slowly to revolve. ‘If you’ll wait until the end of – hic – surgery, I’ll ask if he’ll see you before he rows on his grounds.’
The buzzer sounded like an angry bee trapped by a window pane.
‘Don’t bother. I’ll go in now.’
Before the next patient could straighten his arthritic joints she had undulated into Tom’s consulting room and closed the door behind her. I closed my eyes and waited for the explosion. The waiting room seemed to hold its breath. Even the telephone ceased to shrill trilly. Or was it trill shrilly?
‘Marigold? Marigold!’ I sat up with a start.
My father was leaning over the desk shaking my arm. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘Nothing … just the heat … if only I could turn off the fire.’
‘I think she’s drunk.’ Marcia Dane’s scarlet lips were stretched wide with amusement.
My father picked up my glass and took an experimental sip of the pips and pith that lay in the bottom. ‘Mm. Lemonade. Heavily laced with vodka. Where did you get it?’
‘I found it in the kitchen.’ I stared miserably at a pile of glue-bound paperclips, feeling sick again. Wherever I looked, those red lips hovered in the middle of my vision.
To my surprise, my father began to laugh. His eyes crinkled, his mouth opened, his face was convulsed with amusement. For the first time I understood why women found him attractive. With us, at home, he was always cold and sarcastic. But when he was in a good humour, he had a vitality that was alluring.
Marcia Dane tapped on the desk with a long red fingernail to attract my attention. ‘Make me one of your little folders, darling. I’ve decided to sign