by Cody Young
“I’m sure whatever you choose will be lovely,” he said, with a slight return to the blushing agony of the conversation that took place before.
“I’ll do what I can,” she said. She’d borrow one. Or steal one. If she had to.
“Eight o’clock, then. I’ll pick you up.”
“Oh, no. Don’t come here. I’ll wait for you on the corner by the boarded up pub. You know the one?”
“Yes. But you shouldn’t wait in the street. It might be dangerous.”
“No. It’s better. Please don’t come here. Ray will be here.”
“Ah, yes. Then I think you may be right. About waiting by the pub.”
She nodded.
He took one last long look at her. He seemed to be conveying all kinds of messages with his dark eyes. “I'll drop the form at the surgery on my way home.”
“Okay,” she said.
He was keen. That was for sure.
Paperwork
He called in at the medical centre on the way home. He pulled in to the cramped urban car park, waiting patiently with his indicator on, for a car to pull out of a space. He wasn’t allowed to park in the ‘Doctors Only’ spaces unless he was rostered on. He slid the Audi in between a battered mini and an old Kombi van with anarchy symbols on the side. He sat there for a moment, reflecting on what he had done. He reached into his jacket and got out the precious piece of paper. He spent the next few seconds checking the form, looking at her signature, making sure it was all in order.
He was nervous about going in.
He had a few anxieties about handing it over to the admin staff. Could he do it in such a way that it wouldn’t raise any eyebrows, he wondered? Yeah. Sure he could. Just breeze in, say he needed a book or something from Consulting Room Three, and slip the form into somebody’s in-tray on the way out. Easy.
The waiting room was full of people, as usual. Not a spare seat anywhere. There were at least three patients standing – two of them leaning against a wall. Plus a mother and her three children crouched around a brightly coloured abacus on the floor. Ben didn’t like to think how many germs swarmed all over that thing.
“Ben?” the receptionist sounded surprised.
He looked up, as he walked towards her. “Hello, Fiona.”
She was a tall woman with grey hair and glasses. The clinic director’s right hand woman. “You want an extra shift, do you?”
Her flippant tone told him she was joking, but judging by the queue in the waiting room, it wouldn’t be a bad idea.
“No, no. Things to do.”
“People to see,” she added, with a rather over-friendly smile.
Ben was used to this. Over-friendly receptionists, trainee nurses who fell over themselves to help and women in lifts who smiled like baboons when he let them out first. It was part of being an unmarried doctor.
Ben spun her the line about the book. Ravi would be using Consulting Room Three today. That’s how it worked. The medical centre employed four GPs and they shared the rooms depending on who was on what shift. The medical centre had an evening session but it always closed at ten – which Ben thought was a mistake, given that it provided a ten-hour window of opportunity for drug addicts and thieves to see for themselves that no drugs or cash were left on the premises. Which wasn’t absolutely true.
He breezed along the corridor, past the row of patients with their little specimen dishes waiting to get a turn in the patients’ loo.
Consulting Room Three. Where he’d examined Layla, only last Monday. In just over a week, he’d done a complete about face on his ethical take on dating patients. He’d convinced himself that as long as they had the form, everything would be okay. He refused to even think what the General Medical Council would say. And as for small details like the gap in their ages, the disparity between their backgrounds, and the giant chasm between her education and his. To hell with all that…
He knocked on the door, and heard Ravi’s voice. He opened the door and smiled an apology to the patient, an elderly lady with a hairstyle from the 1950s – a ‘roller set’ in shades of silver grey.
“Sorry,” Ben said. “Just wanted that text on treating psoriasis and other lurgies.”
“Sure,” the Indian doctor said, and reached for it for him. The old lady looked up and gave Ben a big smile – showing perfectly symmetrical false teeth.
Ben rewarded her with what he hoped was a heart-melting smile. “Apologies for my intrusion.”
Ravi gave him the book, which was fat and weighty. “Are you planning to curl up with this, tonight?”
“Hopefully not,” said Ben, with just a tiny hint of a blush.
The old lady smiled indulgently at him. “Oh, it’s wonderful to be young, isn’t it, doctor?”
“I suppose it is,” he said, and then he tested the weight of the book in his hands, ostentatiously. “No rest for the wicked.”
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, doctor,” she said, and gave him another radiant grin.
Ben escaped and went back to reception. He rather wished that Fiona wasn’t the one on duty today – that woman didn’t miss a trick, but at least the seat by the secretary’s in-tray was empty. He used his swipe card to get into the reception area, which was separated from the waiting room by lots of glass screens and horizontal wires. He wasn’t sure why – but it made him think of banks or American prisons. Penitentiaries. Correctional facilities. Whatever they cared to call them. The glass and the wires certainly spoke volumes about keeping the patients firmly on the other side, where they belonged. They helped to make it clear that it was ‘them’ and ‘us’. They underlined for all to see that there were ‘health professionals’ and then there was the rest of mankind – the unwashed, unkempt hordes that couldn’t seem to keep coughs and colds and sores and lice away.
You weren’t supposed to date them.
Ben put the textbook on the counter and reached inside his jacket pocket for the form. Fiona was in conversation with a deaf patient who was querying something written on his prescription. He didn’t like the look of it, he said. She was telling him he should have raised that with the doctor. Ben felt sympathetic. Things got overlooked when you only had seven minutes.
Ben slipped Layla’s form onto the top of the in-tray over by the new computer – ready for the details to be typed in by the admin lady when she returned from her coffee break. He straightened up and walked over to help the deaf man. Might as well make himself useful, while he was here.
Smiling like a diplomatic envoy to Paris, Ben said, “I’m one of the doctors here, can I be of assistance?”
And Fiona looked at him like he was cast in solid gold.
Ben reassured the man that Dima’s impatient squiggle – which often lapsed into something a lot like Cyrillic – would still get him his regular medication, same dose, same bottle, so there was really no need to worry. The pharmacist would understand it, he explained. Pharmacists are bright people, he said. They’d give him the right medicine, he promised. He said it loud and clear, several times, until the deaf man understood and beamed and nodded.
“One satisfied customer,” said Fiona, when the man had been soothed and had gone away.
“Yes. I must be off now, too.”
Sally, the admin clerk came round the corner with her steaming mug of coffee. The desk was cluttered so she stood it on top of her in-tray.
“Ben?” she said, in surprise. “Isn’t it your day off?”
“Yes, yes. I’m just going.” He turned to go, but Fiona laid a detaining hand on his arm.
“You’ll be making a decision about the charity cancer dinner, won’t you?”
“Already made, Fiona. I’m going. I go every year.”
“With whom?”
Ben blinked. “Just book two tickets. I’ll fill you in on the details, later.”
He made a move to go, trying to give the impression he was in a hurry. It was something that he’d learned early in his medical training – how to appear to be a
doctor in a hurry. It ought to be part of the foundation course. It made lots of things go much more smoothly. He let himself out of the reception area, and started walking briskly towards the sliding doors that led to the car park.
“Ooh,” said Sally, quietly. “Two tickets. So there is a love interest in the divine Benjamin’s life.”
Fiona spotted his book, lying on the counter. She made an impatient sound. “Typical.”
“What?” said the other woman, vacantly.
“He’s forgotten his book. Go after him, Sal, will you?”
And Sally leapt up, reached for the book, and went after him.
He was heading for his car – feeling in his pocket for his car keys.
“Ben?” she called, dashing across the car park. He turned – and she waved the book.
“Oh, thank you, Sally. You’re a treasure.” He gave her a guilty grin, knowing that like all the others, the woman rather liked him.
* * *
When Sally got back to her desk, she saw the worst. She’d spilt her coffee – or someone else had – a whole mugful, all over the contents of her in-tray. It was soaking into everything. Causing one hell of a mess. She sighed. It was staining all her papers brown. The first few things were sopping wet and virtually illegible now.
Fiona came running back from the staff toilet with a handful of paper towels.
“Clumsy,” she said, mopping up the worst. “That’s what comes of being in too much of a rush to help the divine Ben Stein.”
“You asked me to,” Sally said. “You’re just as bad. Fussing over Jonathan all the time.”
Jonathan was the clinic director, and a right stuffed shirt in Sal’s opinion, but Fiona seemed to worship the polished floors where he trod.
Fiona wouldn’t answer. She fussed over the desk, fretting about the possibility of coffee on the computer keyboard. She threw a lump of coffee-stained paper towels into the waste paper bin, and it landed with a clang. She may or may not have realized it, but she also threw away Layla’s form.
Makeup
Layla was with her friend Tracey, in a virtually identical council flat just two doors down. Layla’s brothers were in the lounge with Tracey’s mum, watching game shows on the telly. The girls were in the bedroom, where Tracey was helping Layla get ready for the date with Dr Gorgeous.
“I can’t do this, Trace. I’m not going.” Layla had been crying about it, half the afternoon.
“Of course you’re going. Who’d say no to a posh dinner and a few drinks with a handsome doctor? Even if you have to give him a bit of a thank you, after.”
“No. He’s different. He wants…I’m not even sure what he wants.”
“They all want the same thing. He ain’t no different.”
“You go, then.”
“Don’t tempt me. Do you think he’d notice the difference?” Tracey struck a pose, hand on hip, face angled up and smiling like a hooker. She had a wide smile and henna brown curly hair – she was Afro-Caribbean, a long way back. She kept her hair battened down in tiny braids and shiny metal clips.
“Yes. I think he’d notice,” said Layla. “Find your own doctor.”
Tracey laughed. “See! You do want him. You sound all possessive.”
Layla looked down at the black dress on the bed that Tracey was offering to lend her. Tried to imagine herself in it. “No. I can’t do it.”
“You can. You’ve got to. He might be your ticket out of here.”
“No. He’s just an ordinary bloke.”
“He ain’t ordinary. He’s loaded. I saw his car. And you need him. They won’t be as nice as him, the ones Ray Leach finds for you.”
That was a sobering thought.
“So come on, get yourself glammed up.” Tracey pushed the dress towards her, across the single bed. “I’ll have to do something with your hair. You had lovely hair – what did you want to chop it all off for?”
“You know why.”
“Yeah, well, I could blow-dry it for you and it might look alright.”
Layla touched the dress, beginning to cave in. Or rise to the challenge, depending on how you looked at it.
“Leave that,” said Tracey, pointing to the dress. “We’ll do your hair first.”
So she sat down in front of the tiny dressing table, in front of a battery of boxes of makeup that Tracey had got out for her to experiment with.
Layla was shocked by the sight of her reflection in the mirror. “Oh, Trace, my face looks awful. My eyes are all red.”
“Serves you right for crying over nothing. Don’t worry. We’ll cover it all up with eye shadow. He’ll never know the difference. Besides. If you wear that dress, he won’t be looking at your face.”
Layla almost laughed. “He’s already seen them, Trace. On Monday. At the Medical Centre.”
“He’ll be looking forward to seeing them again, then. I expect that’s why he asked you out.” Tracey giggled. She’d always been very envious of Layla’s double Ds, though Layla thought they were a bit of a curse. Big breasts sold for more. Blonde hair sold for more. And virgins… they were valued very highly.
Tracey set to work. “Come on, girl. Let’s get you scrubbed up.”
* * *
Ben was in his black Audi, crawling along the road that led towards the housing estate they called the Rookeries. It had been built with the best of intentions – four tower blocks arranged around an area that used to be green with a broken set of swings and a slide. A tiny row of shops and a pub on the corner – vain hopes of fostering a sense of community. He slowed to five miles an hour and drove past the pub for the third time. It was twelve minutes past eight and she still wasn’t there.
He swallowed. He wasn’t giving up hope yet. She had promised to come. She'd sounded fairly definite about it this morning. But things change. Or maybe she hadn’t managed to get her friend to mind the children for her. One more time around the block. He was beginning to feel like a kerb crawler.
He had made a booking at a great little restaurant conveniently near to his place. He’d been there with friends, but not with a woman, so zero danger of the waiter embarrassing him. He was wearing his most casual clothes, barely good enough to get into the restaurant, but at the last minute he’d added a jet black wool jacket that spoke of good taste and old money. Before he left he had tidied the flat and changed the sheets. Not that he was actually planning to end up there, but it was always best to be prepared. Just in case.
He’d even bought orange juice. Just in case.
He was two streets away from the pub again now. Please be there this time. Layla, please. He couldn’t get the song 'Layla' out of his head and wondered if she liked it too. Maybe she’d even been named for it. He turned the corner, and the pub loomed up in the darkness. Its boarded up windows were like sightless eyes, staring at him with blank disinterest. He scanned the street. She wasn’t there. This was killing him. It was nineteen minutes past eight now. He began to wonder how many more times he would do this for her before he admitted defeat and drove home.
She wasn’t right for him. He knew that. They never were. Even the smart ones, the rich ones, the Jewish ones – they were never quite right. They weren’t Becky – a girl he had kissed just once when they were both too young to do anything about it. She’d been the only one who had touched his heart, even for a moment, before this. The only girl who’d ever really stirred him into thinking he could fall in love. And Layla was almost as different from Becky as any girl could be.
He sighed. Becky hadn’t bothered to wait for him either.
This time as he made the circuit around the four streets that led him back to the pub, he vowed it was the very last time, although a part of his mind told him it wouldn’t be.
She was almost hidden, standing inside the doorway of the old pub. She was wearing a shapeless black duffel coat. A kind of poor relation to his own - although undoubtedly hers wasn’t cashmere and hadn’t cost six hundred pounds.
He stopped the car and leaned a
cross to let her in. She ran lightly towards the car. Legs pale in the gleam of the headlights. She opened the door and got in.
The girl whose face had troubled his dreams.
He turned to look at her now, meaning to put her at her ease. But the sight of her made him draw in a sharp, involuntary breath. She was slipping her arms out of the awful black coat, and underneath she wore a black sequinned dress that glittered in the nightlight like wet crocodile skin. Her own skin, so pale and delicate in contrast, seemed unbelievably perfect. Her delicate arms, her shoulders, the soft curve of her neck – all pale and perfect. Her lips were painted - dark and moody and glistening – not easy to tell the true colour in the glow of the dashboard light. But tempting to guess. And her eyes. Oh, her eyes. All made up in shades of glittering silver that caught the light as she turned and smiled.
“Hello, Ben.”
“Oh, Layla…” he murmured. He gazed at her, and she lowered her black eyelashes prettily for him, reminding him of ads for mascara that promise miracles of length and fullness. Then she flashed her big silver-grey eyes in his direction – making a pang go through his entire body. He felt a kind of shudder travelling downwards, making his foot tremble slightly as he moved it from the brake to the accelerator.
“Where are you taking me, then?” she asked.
He seriously doubted his ability to drive the car at all in this state. “Um. I’ve booked somewhere.”
“Do you mean a room?” she said, and he lost control of the clutch completely and let the car lurch forward, bunny hopping twice before he got hold of his composure again.
“No. A restaurant. Like I said.”
She put on her seatbelt. “Okay. Let’s do this, then. I’m starving.”
Yeah. So was he. He wanted to drive the car up onto the pavement and into a dark alley somewhere. He wanted to rip off his seatbelt and hers and take her in his arms. He wanted to press his mouth down on hers and slip his tongue inside her. He wanted his hands on her body, sliding up under the glittering wet-look dress. Right now. Yes. Now. Layla!