The Game of Shepherd and Dawse

by William Shepherd

  Penny also had a new sense of freedom, as it would be her who would have to run all the errands and do all the food shopping and such. Though many a child would have found this such a burdensome task, Penny very much enjoyed being outside the walls of the concentration camp council house, even though Maude always set strict time limits for which she had to complete each task and be back home.

  Surprisingly, Penny had a good reputation at school for being a dedicated student and was indeed a quick study, especially for a child with the enormous weight and burden her mother placed upon her on a daily basis. As Penny grew older, she learnt very well how to deal with her mother’s tyrannical ways and in fact had effectively become her mother’s mother. To some degree, this had given her the whip hand. Although there would be no more physical violence from this time on, Maude made up for lost ground in other ways with her constant put-down comments about how nothing Penny did was ever up to scratch – even though Penny’s standards were so much higher than anything her mother could ever have achieved. Over the years, Penny had learnt how to block out the constant bile oozing from her mother’s mouth and by and large was a lot happier than she had been when so very young.

  Malicious Maude was ecstatic when Penny finally left school with a rather impressive four A grades and five B’s, though not because of her daughters rather impressive marks, mind you. It was because now Penny would become her full time carer, attending to her every whim and need, and not disappearing for the six to seven hours each weekday that every child does while going through the educational brainwashing system called school.

  Penny was five foot four with a wispy build; she had big blue eyes and natural blonde hair. Her tiresome mother and absentee father were both dark haired, so no one really knew where her rather angelic features had come from down the Crabtree gene code. At first glance, you probably wouldn’t take a second look at Penny if you saw her walking down the street, even though she had the classic features most women would love to have. Her dowdy sense of dress and the constant slightly-strained look on her face that she had inherited from years of nagging from not-so-dear mother Maude gave her a rather drab look, some might say. Penny’s hairstyle didn’t do her any favours either. It was a plain bob that came just past her jaw line, which was about as racy as she dared go for. There would have been, no doubt, endless insults about looking like the devil’s tart from not-so-motherly Maude had she experimented with anything more daring.

  Penny’s carer’s allowance wasn’t up to much either especially considering the hours she had to put in, not to mention the overtime on the overtime. It really was quite a pittance. Had Penny been part of a workers’ union, the likes of which managed to get so many industries shut down in the north, she too would have no doubt been put out to strike. But there were no unions in Penny’s life: not the working kind, the loving kind or even the sexual kind. Penny’s life consisted of me myself and I – mother Maude with Penny by the side.

  The year Penny turned 18, mother Maude had very kindly decided to make herself incontinent. As if having her arse wiped twenty-four seven wasn’t enough already, she had literally decided to get it wiped on a daily basis. And, when Maude was feeling particularly neglected, she would make at least three trips to the missed loo.

  Because of this poor Penny had a slight pooey whiff about her, not that she knew of course, as her nasal receptors had gone on strike in that department some time ago. The unions would have been more than proud. And as all long-term strikes go, there would be a price to pay for this lack of smell that permeated from her filthy mother into every pore of poor Penny. Many times over the years, Penny had experienced people moving away from her in such situations – such as sitting on the bus or sitting on a park bench – but had never put it down to the smell that she couldn’t smell. Instead, Penny just thought that she wasn’t a very likeable person. After all, it was what she had been conditioned to believe. Because of this Penny never got close to many people and never knew much about human touch. The closest she ever got to being touched was by Fred, the elderly gentleman who would often come and sit next to her on the bus on a Wednesday whilst doing his library run.

  Fred was a very well dressed and very well spoken man. He was in his mid-seventies but had a youthful vigour about him. Even at his age, he very much enjoyed charming the ladies and did it very well.

  Penny liked Fred. He was a gentleman through and through and would often give Penny a little flower he had picked on the way to the bus stop. Penny kept every one of those little flowers and pressed them between the books on her book shelf and then placed them on a piece of cardboard and covered them with thick cellophane. Fred would always ask how Penny was and mostly let her do all the talking. Fred was, by default, a fantastic talker by being a fantastic listener and knew more about Penny than anyone else in the whole world. Fred would always give Penny’s hand a little squeeze when his stop came up and say the words, “Well, goodbye my dear. Keep smiling won’t you, even if just for me“.

  This would always make Penny smile, even if only because it would have been rude not to, and every now and again it would glaze her eyes slightly that someone could be so compassionate with her, when so very few others would even think to try.

  Penny often wondered why such a nice, well dressed gentleman took the bus. She always imagined him driving one of those beautiful classic cars. Penny often fantasised about having Fred as a grandfather and how much fun it would have been when he would have popped around the house when she was a child and also how safe she would have felt, as this sturdy, good hearted man would never have put up with her mother’s antics. Penny fantasised about many things and often slid off into many a dream world that she had created as a coping mechanism to deal with the miserable drudgery of her everyday existence.

  Thus, Penny’s life was the same old, same old – the same old routine that had become the same old routine: day in, day out; week in, week out. Until that was, the day that Penny had gone to see the family doctor, Dr Saunders.

  Penny had arranged an appointment with Dr Saunders to try and get some advice or help for the way that she had been feeling for quite some time now, and the feeling that she was feeling was our not-so-dear friend, Mr Suicidal. Penny had coped amazingly well with all of the misery that had been heaped upon her throughout her life, but there is only so much any human can take and Penny had reached and breached that very point.

  Fortunately for Penny, Dr Saunders was a female doctor and as such was a much more caring and compassionate physician than 99 percent of the male GP’s in practice. Dr Saunders had been her family doctor for as long as Penny could remember and was fully aware of the acute situation that Penny lived in and had to face on a daily basis. When Penny was young, Dr Saunders had suspected that Penny was being abused, but never had any hard evidence she could do anything with. Dr Saunders had also witnessed first-hand the ever demanding nature of mother Maude.

  That being said, mother Maude was no match for Dr Saunders and her sterner than stern yet very professional approach when it came to mother Maude’s moans and groans. After all, Dr Saunders was the gatekeeper to all of those wonderful painkillers Maude had grown to love and addict herself to over the years. Even Maude knew that Dr Saunders could cut off her well-needed supply of legal highs at any point and she certainly wouldn’t bite the hand that fed her in that arena. Dr Saunders was one of the few people who could actually do most of the talking where Maude was concerned and was certainly not going to be bullied and told what to do by this patient or any other for that matter. And Maude knew it.

  “Miss Crabtree, please,” called out the duty nurse.

  Penny made her way into Dr Saunders’ exam room. Dr Saunders was seated at her desk, glancing through Penny’s file.

  “Have a seat, Penny,” Dr Saunders said while she finished reading over the last of her notes. Penny awkwardly sat herself down in the closest chair and began fidgeting slightly. “So then”, Dr Saunders asked, as she glanced up with a quick,
easy smile. “How are you today?”

  “Ohhh, not too bad, thank you,” replied Penny hastily, not wanting to seem a burden.

  Dr Saunders looked back to the file and made a ‘Hmmm’ sound as she read. “Well, it would appear then that someone has been telling me little fibs, I think”, Dr Saunders replied, in a tone of voice that didn’t really imply she was being lied too but in more of a teasing manner.

  Dr Saunders slowly swung her swivel chair around and placed both elbows on the arms of the chair, making an upside down V shape. She brought her hands together and rested her chin on her hands, while leaning back in the chair in a relaxed fashion. She studied Penny’s slightly worried and confused face for a brief second.

  “Well, Penny. You must be telling me fibs because if EVERYTHING was absolutely ok, then you wouldn’t be here today, now would you“? Dr Saunders smiled and winked as she said this. This was one of many techniques Dr Saunders had learnt over her many years in practice to break the ice with her more nervous patients she had on her books, and it worked well.

  Penny suddenly felt rather relieved to know that she wasn’t lying to Dr Saunders after all and her face that had gotten a little more intense looking than usual now relaxed slightly.

  “So, then what is it really that you’ve come to see me about today, Penny”? Dr Saunders voice sounded a bit more caring and motherly now, as she rested her chin atop her left hand while placing her right arm gently across her belly.

  As Penny looked into the caring gaze of Dr Saunders’ eyes and went to speak, she couldn’t hold back any longer the flood of tears that had been brewing for so very long, and instead of words coming out, all that came out were tears. Penny did manage to get out a few inaudible, garbled words that when pieced together resembled: depressed, sad, lonely, angry, desperate and all of the other feelings that we feel when one has come the end of their tether.

  Dr Saunders didn’t interrupt or try to hold Penny’s hand to comfort her, as she knew the importance of giving someone their own space to off load any negative emotions they were holding onto when a person was in such an emotional state.

  All that Dr Saunders could do was to keep looking at Penny with as much a motherly caring gaze as she could muster. It was another technique she had learnt to master over the years, for such patients, and the warmth and kindness that radiated from Dr Saunders into Penny’s very weary soul acted like a sweeping brush for all of those tears that so desperately needed letting go of.

  Penny must have cried for a good 15 minutes before Dr Saunders finally handed her several tissues to mop up the Niagara Falls of her tears.

  “Ohhh! I’m so sorry”, Penny apologised while blowing her nose.

  “Right, then. Firstly, my girl”, Dr Saunders said in a stern but still motherly way and slightly leaning forward in her chair, “Never apologise for crying. It’s the best medicine out there – much better than anything I could ever give you or any pharmaceutical company for that matter”. Dr Saunders finished off with a tone in her voice that implied she didn’t have as much faith in big Pharma as the rest of the woolen masses.

  Dr Saunders went back to Penny’s records for another quick browse and made a slight sucking noise with her teeth followed by a sharp exhale. “So then,” the doctor said slowly, looking up, “I can see by your records it’s been quite some time since you last had a good check-up. What I would like you to do is pop that rather lovely dress of yours off and lie on the couch so that I can do a quick overall examination”.

  Dr Saunders turned her back to scribble some notes as Penny got undressed – more to save Penny’s blushes than to write anything that needed writing.

  By now, Penny had regained her composure and had laid down on the bed and taken on a different composure. She had moved from one of a gibbering wreck to someone much more relaxed and content. In fact, she looked rather serene, even if she did have odd matching underwear on.

  Dr Saunders gave Penny a thorough examination. She checked her heart rate, her blood pressure, she checked that all of her joints worked properly, looked in her ears and mouth, tapped her back while listening with her stethoscope and anything else that she could think of to do without being invasive. Dr Saunders knew that Penny was in pretty good shape and probably didn’t need such a thorough examination, but she also knew of the important of human touch and how the healing properties of it could work wonders, especially for someone who had experienced so very little of it, like Penny Crabtree.

  There was also another reason why Dr Saunders wanted to examine Penny: She was looking for something. It was a birthmark in the shape of a heart that would have sat just above the knicker line had Penny been one for wearing the fashions of the day. Unfortunately, due to the belly warmers Penny was wearing, the birthmark the good doctor was looking for would be concealed a bit lower. Though after a slight examination around Penny’s abdominal area, Dr Saunders managed to see if what she was looking for was there.

  Dr Saunders never considered herself a doctor in the traditional sense. She liked to think of herself as a healer first and a clinician second. Too many physicians of the day had gotten used to just putting plasters on things, as she would put it. Dr Saunders preferred to get to the root of the problem and to truly heal the patient, opposed to just handing out prescription after prescription. She had seen repeatedly first-hand, the damage done to people who were on constant medication and how viciously those lovely looking little pills eventually ravaged the bodies of those whom they were supposed to cure. There was a time and place for those lovely looking pills and she always knew when that time and place was – so much so that the inhabitants of the homeless hostel just around the corner had nicknamed her ‘Dr No’, due her strict intolerance of prescription drug dependency.

  After she had gotten dressed, Penny settled back into the consulting chair and let Dr Saunders give her the diagnosis.

  “From what I see, Penny, you appear to be suffering from mild depression. I don’t want this forming into a heavy, deep depression, so I’m going to put you on a course of amitriptyline. This will boost your spirits a bit. You know, give you a bit of a lift. I’m also going to give you a prescription for sleeping pills”. Dr Saunders’ pen began gently scribbling out both prescriptions as she spoke.

  Not wanting to be any trouble, Penny piped in, “Well, I don’t actually have any trouble sleeping, doctor. If anything, I tend to slee…”

  But before she could finish Dr Saunders butted in and said, “Its ok, Penny. They’re not for you. They’re for your mother. She was complaining last time I was around that she was having trouble sleeping and asked if I could give her some Valium. My answer was no, as I think your mother is on far too much medication as it is and I don’t want her becoming addicted to any more. However, what I would like for you to do is this: every Wednesday afternoon pop one of these 50mg Valium’s into a cup of tea for her, so she can catch up on any sleep that she needs. But you mustn’t tell her, as she will constantly feel the need to take them and they are very addictive. Is that clear, Penny”? Doctor Saunders lowered her reading glasses halfway on her nose and looked Penny directly in the eye when she said this.

  “Wellll…y-yes, Dr Saunders”, Penny said clearing her throat. “Absolutely clear”.

  “Good. Your mother will be out like a light until the early morning so make sure she’s in a comfortable resting position and she’ll be fine. I would also suggest that during this time you get a bit of Penny time, if you know what I mean. Get out, join a club or something. Go and meet some new people, that sort of thing. It will do you a world of good. Is that also clear”? Dr Saunders said in a way that Penny couldn’t argue with.

  “Urmmm, well...yes”, Penny stammered. “But, the thing is, doctor...I really don’t know anybody to get to know”. Feeling a bit self-conscious about her lack of friends, Penny shifted in her seat and looked toward the floor.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that, Penny. You’ll be fine. Come back and see me in three weeks and let me k
now how you’re getting on with your medication, ok? Pam will book you a new appointment at reception on your way out”. Dr Saunders stood to shake Penny’s hand and gesture her toward the door. “Good luck, sweet pea”.

  “Thank you so very much, Dr Saunders. I have admit, I actually feel a lot better already”, Penny said with an authentic smile on her face and a tiny spring in her tiny step.

  “I’ll see you in three weeks then”, Dr Saunders waved back with her own smile and a wink. “Keep smiling won’t you, even if just for me”.

  “I will”, answered Penny, amused that Dr Saunders had used the exact phrase that Fred always said to her on the bus.

  Once Penny had left her office, Dr Saunders locked the door and made a phone call straight away. The phone rang several times before an elderly gentleman answered in a clear strong voice.