by Archer, Sam
It was this last complication that was of most concern to Tom. His patient had come in for a routine check, and his cheery manner and ready smile was at first reassuring to Tom, suggesting that all was well. But when he unwrapped the dressing from around Mr Biswas’s left foot towards the end of the consultation, his heart sank. The ulcer on the man’s heel, previously mending well, had now reverted to an ugly crater.
‘Everything all right, doc?’ Mr Biswas asked.
Tom glanced up at him ruefully. ‘Afraid not.’
‘Not the ulcer again?’
‘Yep.’
There was nothing for it. The wound needed immediate swabbing, cleaning, dressing and covering with oral antibiotics, at least until the culture from the swab came back in a few days to reveal the nature of the infection. Tom knew for a fact that the practice’s nurse had left early for the day, and his fellow doctor, Ben Okoro, was busy with other patients.
Tom moved swiftly through the building, gathering the materials he needed, glancing as discreetly as he could at his watch. Five twenty-five. He’d need to finish sorting the wound out in ten minutes, tops, if he was going to make it to the nursery before it closed. Those ten minutes included getting the notoriously talkative Mr Biswas out the door without being rude to the poor man.
As Tom worked briskly, he was struck by his patient’s complete lack of reaction when he prodded and poked the wound. Most people would have hit the roof with the pain, but it was an indication of just how advanced the peripheral neuropathy was in the elderly man’s foot that he seemed not to feel a thing.
‘All done,’ said Tom, as measuredly as he could, dropping the various bits of waste into their particular containers. He scribbled a prescription – like many doctors, he’d started his career with impeccably neat handwriting which had over the years degenerated into a childish and almost illegible scrawl – and surreptitiously checked his watch again.
Five forty. He wasn’t going to make it.
A thought struck him. ‘Who brought you here, Mr Biswas?’
‘My son,’ said the old man. ‘He’s driving round the block. He couldn’t find parking.’
Tom tried not to let his dismay show. He’d have to wait with his patient until the son arrived, because he needed to talk to him about the importance of dressing his father’s wound regularly in a certain way.
Tom helped Mr Biswas with the crutches he’d supplied him – fortunately the man had used them before – and guided him slowly out into the waiting room. A couple of patients looked up from their magazines, smiled and nodded at him. Dr Okoro’s patients, whom under other circumstances Tom might offer to see on his colleague’s behalf. But not today.
At five forty-seven by the clock on the wall, the door to the surgery opened and a young Asian man came in, out of breath as if he’d been running. He stopped when he saw Tom and his father.
‘I’m so sorry I’m late. Had to park down the hill in the end.’
Tom had a quick word with him about the dressings, then hesitated. ‘If you’re parked down the hill... Mr Biswas, I’ll give you both a lift to your car.’
The elderly man shook his head.
‘Doctor, you are in a hurry. You have been very patient with me. Please, go. My son can bring the car up and keep it running while I come out.’
‘Mr Biswas, it’s really no problem –’
‘Thank you, we will be fine.’
Burning with guilt, Tom thanked him, pulled on his coat, said goodbye to Davina the receptionist and hurried out. Had it really been so obvious that he was in a rush? Had he appeared impatient? It wasn’t Mr Biswas’s fault, after all, that Tom was on a tight schedule.
As he dashed to his car, a three-year-old Ford station wagon, he speed-dialled the nursery on his mobile phone. It was answered before the first ring finished.
‘Megan? Tom Carlyle here, Kelly’s dad. Look, I’m really sorry. I’m running a bit late.’
He pictured rather than heard her sigh.
‘Tom... how late?’
‘Just leaving now. I should be ten minutes. Fifteen max.’
‘Since when did it take you ten minutes to get across town in this traffic?’
‘I’ll get there by magic carpet if I have to.’
‘This is, what? The fourth time now?’
‘Hello... hello?’ Tom rubbed his cuff across the mouthpiece to simulate static. ‘You’re breaking up.’
He put the phone away, dropped into the front seat of his car and took off.
In the event, he pulled up outside the nursery at six twenty-two. The place was deserted apart from two figures in the front garden: Megan, the nursery manager, and a little girl of four. As always, Tom felt his heart leap, doubly so as he climbed out and she caught sight of him and yelled, ‘Daddy!’ in a voice of unfeigned delight. She ran to him, a tall child for her age with her fair hair in a plait – one of the staff must have done that during the day, as Tom certainly hadn’t when he’d got her dressed that morning – and collided with him like a missile meeting its target.
As his daughter babbled excitedly in his ear, cramming one anecdote about her day into another so that they made little sense, Tom winced an apology at Megan. The nursery manager looked exasperated rather than angry.
‘The last time,’ Tom said, having to raise his voice to make himself heard. ‘Promise.’
‘You said that before,’ chided Megan, fishing her own car keys out of her pocket.
Embarking on the journey home, with Kelly strapped into her seat in the back but still chattering unstoppably, Tom drew deep breaths, trying to force himself to relax. Megan was right. He’d promised before, and he couldn’t guarantee he’d always be on time in the future. Two days a week he collected Kelly from nursery in the afternoon, and left her with a babysitter later when he went to do his evening surgery. Those days weren’t a problem. It was the three days on which he had to be there before the nursery closed at six that were becoming increasingly difficult to manage. He could, he supposed, ask somebody to pick his daughter up from nursery on those days, but Tom had an aversion to the idea, and felt he couldn’t trust anyone to fetch her and bring her home safely. It was irrational, he knew, but it was there nonetheless.
Single parenthood. He’d heard it was difficult, had sympathised with those of his patients who found themselves in a similar position… but his understanding of it had been merely theoretical before. Now, living the life, he had a new appreciation for those who coped with it for years on end. Did it get easier as one became more accustomed? Well, he supposed he’d find out in time.
Tom found himself thinking about the new patients at the practice today, Chloe Edwards and her son Jake. Mrs Edwards herself was a lone parent, Tom assumed, otherwise her husband or partner would have registered at the same time as the rest of the family. She’d seemed distracted, harassed even. Had she too found herself recently left to raise her family single-handedly? Or was her unsettled air simply the result of the upheaval of moving house and the numerous hassles, minor and major, that inevitably came with such a big life event?
Tom didn’t think he was a particularly self-deluding man, and he recognised immediately that his thoughts had drifted to Chloe Edwards not just because of what they perhaps had in common. He had to admit she was an intensely attractive woman, even with her slightly offhand air. Thirty years old (he felt a twinge of guilt that he didn’t need to guess her age because her date of birth was on the registration form she’d filled out), there’d been an elegance about her despite the casualness of her clothes, a thin black sweater and jeans. Long, straight dark hair, a deep black, framed her pale, unlined face, and her eyelashes appeared naturally thick and highlighted the hazel of her eyes.
‘Now, now, Dr Carlyle,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Behave.’
He pulled in to the short driveway at the front of his house and, freeing Kelly from her seat and helping her down, he started rummaging in his mind for ideas about supper for them both.
Chapter Two
The email was waiting for Chloe when she logged on.
Dear Ms Edwards, it ran. Thanks for your submitted articles, which we enjoyed very much. I particularly liked the one from the Camden Express about the plight of the homeless population in the area – very insightful, and dare I say it, quite moving. You’re clearly a writer of considerable talent.
I’m afraid you might find Pemberham a little parochial for your liking, but I’m intrigued by the proposal that you made for a one-off article, about a journalist from the city who relocates to a country town. It’s the kind of human interest story that would go down well with our readers, and I’ve no doubt your style would be popular. How about a 2,000-word piece on this theme? If you’re still interested, email me back for our terms and conditions of service.
Look forward to hearing from you.
Best wishes,
Mike Sellers, Editor-In-Chief, Pemberham Gazette
Chloe felt a small fist of triumph raise itself in her chest. It was a start. A 2,000-word article didn’t give her much breathing space to be creative, but that was the essence of good journalism: brevity with style. She’d been in town for a day and a half, and already she had paying work. That was what mattered.
An early riser, by habit but also by necessity since Jake had learned to walk, Chloe had got up at six, just like on any normal working day, and after breakfasting with Jake she’d sat at the tiny dining room table with a mug of coffee and opened her laptop. Yesterday had been spent unpacking and neatening the cottage up, and although it needed a touch of finesse and a lick of paint here and there, those were details that could wait.
She began to outline her article while Jake played happily on his own on the rug where she could see him. Already she’d decided on a mildly self-deprecating tone, portraying herself as a big city girl haplessly out of her depth. It certainly wouldn’t do to come across as brash or cocksure; that would put readers off from the word go. The trouble was, she hadn’t been in town long enough for any amusing episodes to have occurred that might illustrate the culture clash between city and country at which she was aiming. And she didn’t want to make anything up.
Chloe took a sip of coffee and stared at the floral print wallpaper, thinking vaguely that that would most likely have to go at some point in the future. A thought drifted unbidden into her awareness.
Why not use the encounter at the doctor’s surgery?
As always when an idea occurred to her, she began typing notes before her analytical thought processes had a chance to get to work and possibly ruin the concept. GP surgery – expecting conveyor-belt treatment – instead, personal greeting by name from one of the doctors and invitation to drop into his office.
She looked at what she’d written. No, it wouldn’t do. The readers might get the impression she was suggesting doctors in Pemberham were at best underworked, at worst lazy. Plus, it was a small town, with only two GP practices. Many readers would work out, or guess, who the doctor was that she was referring to. That would be too personal an element for an article like this, and Dr Carlyle himself might hear about it and take offence.
So, over the next couple of hours, with occasional interruptions to attend to Jake when he needed to use the potty or simply wanted a hug, Chloe concocted a wry tale of a rather naïve professional woman rediscovering the simple pleasures of everyday life, of interactions with a community that existed quite successfully and happily outside the hurly burly of city life. She took pains all the while to avoid sounding patronising or sardonic, except when referring to her own mild ineptitude.
She wrote, and rewrote, and polished the article until it gleamed. Then, conscious as all experienced writers learn to become that too much revision could rub the life out of a piece of writing, she pronounced it finished.
Rereading it, this time with a potential reader’s eye rather than an editor’s, she felt a glow of pride. The style, the lively, quirky prose, were undoubtedly her. And the details of the story, while carefully selected and often embellished, were true to life.
But the narrator of the piece, the woman relating the tale, most emphatically wasn’t her.
The woman gave no indication that she was weighed down by a grief like a set of medieval chains. Or that the future, in truth, terrified her, because she was going to have to provide for her infant son, and was going to have to do it alone.
Or that her every emotion, every action, was being acted out on a bedrock of that most corrosive of all human afflictions: a profound bitterness which nobody, not her parents or her closest friends, could possibly guess she harboured.
Chloe shut her eyes for a moment. She was aware she had let herself down. Long ago, she’d vowed that part of her new life with Jake would involve her never brooding, never dwelling on what had happened, and what might have been. Brooding created fertile ground for the weeds of apathy and despair to take root. And she couldn’t allow that to happen. She owed it to Jake, even more than to herself, not to permit it.
She drained the last dregs of her third mug of coffee and fired back an email to the editor of the Pemberham Gazette with her article attached, then opened a blank document and began to jot down ideas for further pieces.
***
Tom stepped out of the surgery door into brilliant sunshine, the kind of fresh golden light you only really saw for a brief period at the beginning of the spring before the haze of summer set in. For a moment he stopped, savouring the prickle of the blossoms in his nostrils, the gentle intermittent breeze on his face.
It was 12.30 in the afternoon. He’d finished his morning surgery on time, and had a leisurely half hour to wend his way across town to pick Kelly up from the nursery. There were a few errands to be done this afternoon, including a visit to the supermarket, but he enjoyed even mundane tasks such as these when he had his daughter as company. Four precious hours with her, and then the sitter would take over and he’d be back at work for the evening shift.
He’d turned the key in the Ford’s ignition when the phone rang on the seat beside him.
Tom glanced down, saw the name that came up on the screen. He hesitated through one ring. Two. The vibrating phone shuddered in a slow circle on the seat.
He could ignore it, let it go to voicemail. Pick Kelly up, have a nice afternoon with her. Then, when it was time for him to go back to work, listen to the message. But he knew it wouldn’t be as straightforward as that, knew there’d be another call, and another, until he relented.
Sighing, he killed the engine and picked up the handset, thumbed the green button.
‘Hello, Rebecca,’ he said.
‘Tom.’
The sound of her voice made him close his eyes, a complex mix of emotions flooding through him as always.
‘I’m just on my way to pick Kelly up from nursery,’ he said.
‘I’m fine, Tom, and thank you for asking,’ she said. He closed his eyes again. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t keep you long. I just wanted to remind you about the twenty-fifth.’
She fell silent. Tom said, ‘The twenty-fifth?’ It was next week Friday. ‘What’s –’
‘You have forgotten. I thought so. Just as well I’m ringing, then, isn’t it?’
‘Hang on. Give me a minute.’ He racked his brains. Down the line he seemed to sense her enjoying his discomfort.
After thirty seconds he gave up. ‘Sorry. Remind me.’
‘Andrew and I are going away to Paris for the weekend, and we’re taking Kelly with us. Remember?’
It hit him like a spotlight being turned on full beam. ‘Oh, God. Is that next week?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you said it was months ahead.’
‘It was. When we discussed it. Before Christmas.’
‘Before Christmas? Surely not.’ But he dimly recalled the conversation, the sleet falling outside as he struggled to get Kelly ready for some outing or other, desperate for his ex-wife to finish her phone call to him so that he could get on. And she was absolutely r
ight. He’d agreed to send Kelly away with Rebecca and the other man. Now, with the prospect looming of being separated from his daughter for a full two and a half days, he felt sick with anguish.
‘Andrew will come and pick her up on Friday afternoon –’
‘No.’ He spoke more forcefully than he’d intended. ‘Where are you flying from?’
‘Stansted, but –’
‘I’ll bring her there. Let me know the time.’ He hadn’t planned for this, so he’d have to find some way of taking next Friday afternoon off. It wouldn’t be easy. But he didn’t want that other man spending any longer with Kelly than was strictly necessary.
‘All right.’ She sighed heavily. Theatrically, Tom thought.
‘One more thing, while you’re on the line,’ said Tom.
She waited.
‘You haven’t given Kelly a toy monkey at all, have you?’
‘She hates monkeys,’ Rebecca said, an unmistakeable edge of scorn in her voice. ‘You should know that. Why do you ask?’
‘No reason. Bye.’
He dropped the phone on the seat once more and set off.
Kelly was as thrilled to see him as ever. Tom knew he should bring up the subject of her trip away with her mother and Andrew next week, but he couldn’t bear to on this glorious spring afternoon. He couldn’t face the excitement she’d display.
On the way home he fumbled in his attaché case which he’d propped in the passenger footwell and held up the soft toy monkey for her to see.
‘Is this yours?’