Ben

by Cody Young

Ben wasn’t going to be sucked in by that. “I don’t know Mr Birch from Adam. How could I possibly say whether he’s a friend or a foe, at this stage?”

  “Quite right,” said the barman. “Best to keep an open mind.”

  Ben nodded. “I’ll have some Cognac, if you’ve got it.”

  “Yes, sir. That I can do.”

  Ben opened his wallet to get out another note to pay for the drink. The barman noticed the photograph inside. “Is that your Layla?”

  My Layla, thought Ben, and almost laughed.

  “No. Different girl. Very different from Layla.”

  “You carry this girl’s picture around with you every day, and yet you’re looking for Layla? Why do you do that, doctor?”

  “Because I’m an idiot.” An idiot who was living in the past.

  Ben got out the old photograph from under the window of plastic inside the wallet. And sighing, he crumpled it up in his palm and then he handed it to the barman. “Can you dispose of that for me?”

  “Of course. I’ll get you your Cognac.”

  And so the evening passed. Ben sat there while the pole dancers did their set. He stared into his glass of Cognac, enjoying the colour of it, the flavour of it – much more than he was enjoying the show. He thought about the two prostitutes who had offered themselves to him earlier tonight. He could have had an encounter with either or both of them with the full blessing of the law – and without ruffling a feather at the General Medical Council. But if he asked that beautiful girl to have a cup of coffee with him, he’d be up on a charge of professional misconduct.

  Ridiculous. That’s what it was. That fate should deal him such a hand.

  He knew what he was supposed to do. He’d passed medical ethics 101. He was supposed to respect the so-called sanctity of the physician-patient relationship. In medical circles, people talked incessantly about trust and moral boundaries. Trust that shouldn’t be broken. Boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed. Not even for the beautiful, fragile Layla.

  But the flesh and blood man inside him was raging that this wasn’t fair. That he should have existed for so long with nothing and no one, watching the happiness of others while the fear grew inside him that he wasn’t capable of finding or falling in love. For five years he’d believed that life had already offered him one chance and he had blown it. But now he knew that wasn’t true. Because a girl like Layla could walk into his room and in minutes – in seconds – he was so hungry for her that any thirst, or hunger or longing he’d ever known before were mere pinpricks of emotion compared to what he felt now. This was merely a trick of the mind, of course. Love at first sight did not exist and infatuation was no more than a chemical reaction.

  Oh, dopamine – you evil little trickster. Dopamine, that hijacks the mind and makes us lose sight of all sanity and reason. Dopamine, that promises us wild bursts of pleasure as long as we agree to grasp the experiences we imagine we need for our survival.

  Then he sat down with his drink and faced the facts. Yes, he was losing his mind over Layla, and he didn’t care. It made him feel alive. There was no need to drift into bars looking for her. No need to scour the streets hoping to see her. Her address and telephone number were readily obtainable from the medical centre. Tomorrow he could go to reception, make an excuse, no matter how implausible, and get hold of her file. It wasn’t ethical to raid the patient’s file to get a phone number, but this was a genuine emergency. It wasn’t every day that a man who thought he was emotionally dead found out he was alive and kicking.

  Rook’s Nest

  Tuesday morning. Ray was dying for a hit. He was rattling like a train. He put on his dirty parka and told Layla he was going out to do his shopping. She would know what he meant. He had a pattern – a way of life. First he’d do some shop-lifting. To get something to sell. Then he’d pass it on to some blokes he knew, up London. Then he’d make a telephone call and arrange a little business meeting with a congenial friend of his. They usually met up round the back of the mosque. Then he’d go home with a tiny lump of heaven in his back pocket. Crack cocaine. These days, the need to do this got earlier and earlier in the morning. He was rattling when he woke up now. It wasn’t even heaven anymore, sadly, just something he had to do in order to remember feeling normal.

  He barely registered the car parked by the abandoned pub. Black Audi. Then he wondered if it had anything left in it. A briefcase, a cell phone, a laptop computer. No harm in having a look see. But as he got closer, he realized that someone was still in the car. Slumped low in the driver’s seat. No shit. It was that doctor – the difficult one – sitting there in his car, smoking a cigarette. Well. He was a fine one to lecture people about their health when he had a cancer stick in his mouth. Ray wondered what the stupid man thought he was doing, parking here, right by the Rookeries.

  Watch yourself, doctor, it’s easy to make enemies in a place like this.

  Ray shoved his hands in his pockets and headed off down the road. Towards the tube station. To do his shopping.

  * * *

  The doorbell rang – a shrill buzzing sound like a cheap egg-timer. Layla looked up. She wasn’t expecting anyone. She thought it must be Mattie, the old guy next door who liked to tell her about things he’d read in the evening paper and how they related to his conspiracy theories. The bell went again. She picked up the baby – he'd get up to all kinds of mischief if she left him alone. She took him with her to answer the door.

  She could see it was a man through the wired glass window in the top half of the door. She should probably have put the chain on the door before she opened it, but that was fiddly and she was holding the baby. More often than not the bad men were inside the flat having vodka with Ray, not standing on the doorstep. Today it was just her and the kids though. Nice and peaceful.

  So, without really thinking, she opened the door and there he was. On her doorstep. In jeans and a suede jacket. No stethoscope today. Just a melancholy look in his eyes.

  She drew in a breath, a sharp spasm of surprise. “Dr Stein?”

  He hesitated, looking at her. He looked younger in his off-duty clothes. Not exactly casual, but more like a mortal man without a medical degree. Glancing down she saw that he was clutching something wrapped in a new paper bag. Something he’d bought on the way, by the looks of it. Too small to be a bottle of wine, too big to be perfume. She glanced up at his face in astonishment, and he looked away to the side, like he was afraid of getting caught. Then he looked back at her – with his moody dark eyes. Moody sexy dark eyes.

  “My name’s Ben.”

  She nodded. She’d noticed the ‘B’ in the squiggled signature on the prescription he’d given her. She’d wondered what it stood for. “And …is this a social call?”

  There was another awkward pause. “Yes, it is.”

  It looked as if it killed him to admit that.

  The baby in her arms gurgled. He was eating biscuits shaped like teddy bears - he had one in each chubby fist. He was getting dribble and biscuit crumbs everywhere. And she herself wasn’t looking very glamorous either. She was wearing an oversized sweater that came halfway to her knees and some faded black leggings. Very chic. And her unexpected visitor was staring at her like she was the centrefold in a magazine.

  Freaking hell, this was embarrassing.

  “Can I come in?” he said.

  She flushed. “Yeah. If you want.”

  She stepped back to let him walk past her into the flat. “The lounge is on the left.”

  He probably knew that. These flats were all the same. Unless this was his first time.

  He stood there, in the middle of the lounge, until she realized he was waiting for her to ask him to sit down.

  She hoisted the baby onto her hip, and gestured towards the couch with her free hand. “Please. Make yourself comfortable.”

  “Thank you,” he said. And sat down. Looking about as comfortable as a suspect in a police interview room. The couch was a small tartan one, with rips in the fabric and
cigarette burns on the arms.

  He stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankle.

  “Can I get you a drink?” Layla asked him.

  “No.”

  Ben studied the television, where the other kid was playing some kind of violent video game. The boy didn't even look up - he was lost in slack-jawed concentration. Layla sat down in the armchair opposite the doctor. She let the baby out of her arms and he crawled away. He headed across the carpet and started investigating the shoelaces on Ben’s highly-polished leather shoes.

  She didn’t know what to say. The man looked as if he was enduring some kind of inner pain, like he had a migraine starting or something.

  “I’d better come straight to the point,” he said, finally.

  She managed a smile. “Do we only have seven minutes?”

  “No. It’s my day off.”

  She nodded. A strange feeling went through her. He had come to see her. On his day off. That was something.

  “Oh. I got this for you,” he said, and he leaned forward to hand her the object in the paper bag.

  She took it and pulled it out of the bag.

  It was a bottle of shampoo, and it said ‘For the treatment of head lice’ in small blue letters on white plastic. “Oh, lovely,” she said. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Probably not,” he agreed, and bit his lip.

  She sat there with the bottle of nit shampoo in her hand and looked at him. She almost wanted to laugh, except this was so hideously embarrassing that even laughter wouldn’t have broken the tension. “A doctor that delivers. Whatever next?”

  He felt in his inside jacket pocket and got out a folded sheet of paper. “There are some instructions that go with it. To explain how to use it.”

  “I know how to use it,” she said. Feeling hurt.

  “Of course you do.” Ben glanced at the child who was investigating his shoelaces. The kid had got smears of stuff that had once been teddy bear biscuits on Ben’s jeans.

  Layla felt embarrassed that she'd let that happen. “Shall I move him?”

  “It’s okay. It’s keeping him quiet,” Ben said.

  Layla stared at the nit shampoo again. Dismayed. “Is that what you came round for? To give me this?”

  “No.”

  Another long pause. Punctuated only by some rather artificial gunfire from the video game on the telly.

  Layla sighed. “What do you want, then, Dr Stein?”

  “Ben,” he insisted. Looking at her.

  She tried it out. He seemed to want that. “Ben?”

  He reacted – she could see it – when she used his name for the first time. Like he needed to hear her say it. She was surprised, seeing the way it affected him. She wanted to say it again to find out what happened next, but she thought better of it.

  He reached into the back pocket of his jeans this time, leaning forward so he could push his fingers deeper inside. He pulled out a piece of paper, it was folded in half and printed on one side only. He held it out to her.

  “But wait, there’s more,” she said – meaning to make a joke, but he didn’t smile.

  She put the nit shampoo down and took the folded paper and opened it. It was a form already filled in on her behalf and dated with yesterday’s date. A request to be transferred to another doctor. It only lacked her signature.

  She looked up at him, questioningly. “What the fuck?”

  Another pang of surprise crossed his beautiful, handsome face. He said nothing, but he stared reproachfully at her across the lounge.

  She wished she hadn’t sworn. But it was a shock. The letter. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s the paperwork you need to fill in, to change to another doctor.”

  “And what if I like the doctor I’ve got?” she said, looking straight at him.

  He looked back at her with soulful dark eyes and unprofessional compassion, and then he glanced away, like the inner pain was back. The migraine, or whatever.

  “You can’t…” he said softly. “I can’t.”

  “What’s going on, Ben?”

  He looked at her. “I would have thought that was obvious.”

  “You’re getting rid of me. I’m an embarrassment. A difficult customer. Right?”

  He shifted uneasily on the tartan couch. “Is there anywhere we can talk? Away from the children?”

  “Why? They're not listening.”

  “I know. But I would find it easier...”

  She considered this. There was no way she was inviting Dr Stein into her bedroom. He was showing clear signs of being touched in the head and her room was not at its best. The bed wasn’t made and there were clothes on the floor – not to mention her brother’s Lego fort that he had set up in there to avoid the younger one swallowing the bits. “The kitchen?”

  He nodded and got to his feet.

  “You’ll have to wait while I put Jayden into his cot,” she said, and scooped up the baby.

  She pushed open the door of the kitchen for the doctor, then she dealt with the baby – who was very dismayed about going in his cot so early. Then she went back to join Ben.

  He was standing by the electric stove, gazing at some bits of dried spaghetti that were stuck to the panel on the digital clock.

  She didn’t know where to begin. She was still smarting about him bringing that letter. But she didn’t need to speak, because he spoke first.

  “Layla, if we had met anywhere else other than in my consulting room, this would have been a hell of a lot easier.”

  She met his gaze, and her heart skittered inside her.

  His dark eyes admitted it, before he began to speak. Like a sinner who needed to confess. “You said it. You said ‘do you like me?’ and I couldn’t say yes. Not there.”

  She suppressed a smile, as her heart flooded with pleasure. “You do like me?”

  “I do,” he said, and his eyes met hers. “Very much.”

  Oh, God, he looked good. Tall and slim. Dark hair, all smart and shiny. A strong, masculine brow, complementing the smooth contours of his face, the curve of his neck, the handsome angle of his jaw.

  “I could lose my job, coming here like this,” he said.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes. It’s unprofessional to get involved.” He hesitated. He put his hand on the edge of the electric stove as if he needed support. “And it’s against the law for me, as your doctor, to have thoughts and feelings about you…”

  “That’s rubbish,” she said, and smiled at him, suddenly feeling a bit sorry for him. “It’s not illegal to have thoughts and feelings, you twit. It’s only acting on them that could be a problem.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I? I'm acting on them.”

  She looked at him. Understanding, at last, what he was trying to say. He wanted to get involved. She kept hoping he’d say more. Hoping he’d take a step towards her, maybe. But he didn't. He coloured up under her gaze - looking even more embarrassed than she had been when he put his stethoscope between her breasts. He was actually blushing. His inner pain seemed to have him in its grip now.

  He looked at her, desperately. “I can’t go any further unless you sign the form. It took me ten years to get to be a doctor, Layla. And I’m risking it all over this.”

  She wasn’t so afraid, now. He might be the best-looking, most intelligent, elegantly dressed GP she’d ever seen in her life, but he was making a right codpiece of this. “Am I allowed to know what you’ve got in mind, exactly, if I decide to sign the form?”

  The blush deepened on his handsome face. “Well. I haven’t really… um… thought that out. Not in much detail.”

  Oh, I think maybe you have. She didn’t say it. She wasn’t that cruel.

  He cleared his throat and tried again. “We could discuss it over dinner, perhaps. But you would definitely have to sign the form…”

  She laughed and turned away. She opened a kitchen cabinet and shuffled a couple of things. Then she opened a drawer and rummaged in it.

&
nbsp; “What are you doing?” he said, in obvious anxiety.

  “I’m looking for a pen. To sign your bloody form.”

  “Oh! Have mine.” He produced one – heavy and plated in gold – from his inside pocket. She took it, and a look of visible relief seemed to change his agony into a range of more cheerful emotions, now that she’d agreed to sign. He even managed a kind of blushing smile. “Thank you.”

  “Where is it?” she said. “The form?”

  “You left it in the sitting room,” he said. “Shall I?”

  They almost collided in a dual attempt to exit the tiny kitchen at the same time.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “I’ll get it. Stay there.”

  She ran and got it. She came back with it. She pressed on the kitchen counter and signed. “There you are then.”

  He took it, and tucked it back into his jacket pocket. She even remembered to return the pen, much as she would like to have kept it.

  “Is this the way you usually ask people out?” she said. “Coz if it is, I can see why you’re not having much luck.”

  “I am having some luck today,” he said, rewarding her with another smile. “Eight o’clock?”

  “Tonight?” Suddenly it was her turn to experience a sense of panic. "You want to go out tonight?"

  “Yes. You don’t have plans, do you?”

  “I don’t have a babysitter, either.”

  “Oh, I see," he said. "Yes. I’ll organize that, if you like. I could telephone an agency.”

  “No! I can’t have some stranger here and Ray asking all kinds of questions. I’ll ask my friend Tracey if she’ll do it.”

  “That would be wonderful.” He seemed to be on much firmer ground now that she’d said yes. “I’m sorry about earlier. I was being rather clinical, I suppose. I’ve never been in this situation before. With a patient.”

  “Good,” she said, and smiled. Then the smile died. “Do you want me to wear a dress?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Tonight. Do you want me to wear a dress?” She was afraid he’d already guessed that she didn’t actually own one.