A Very Distant Shore

by Jenny Colgan

  Of all the benefits of being here, in this safe, cold, comfortable land, he didn’t have the only thing he really needed. A way to be found, when he felt so very lost.

  Chapter 14

  ‘You do NOT look well,’ said Lorna crossly to her dad. She had popped in to see him on the way to school. Ever since her mum had died from breast cancer eight years before, her father had completely given up. She could understand. She really could. She could see that without her mum around nagging him to eat his greens and lay off the whisky, he couldn’t be expected to do everything himself. And of course he missed her. They all did, but the hole in her dad’s life was absolutely huge.

  There had been plenty of nice ladies, many widowed or divorced, who made him lasagnes and looked like they would be perfectly happy to become the second Mrs MacLeod. He was in good shape, after all, after a life of hard labouring, and had kept his own hair, which made him quite a catch on their small island.

  But he wasn’t interested, not at all. He refused to give up work, and the rest of the time, day or night, Lorna would find him staring at the television without looking at it. He showed no interest in anything apart from, occasionally, after a few whiskies, looking at his wedding album.

  She had been patient, understanding, kind, as good a daughter as she could possibly manage.

  It was driving her crazy.

  ‘Did you just sleep in this chair?’

  ‘Don’t fuss me,’ said Angus.

  ‘I’m not fussing you. I’m asking a question. Why did you sleep in your chair?’

  ‘Just fell asleep. My head was sore.’

  Lorna looked at him. His grey stubble was showing. He looked uncared for. His eyes weren’t clearly focused, although he hadn’t been drinking. (She checked the level of the whisky bottle. It made her feel bad to do that, but she did it anyway.)

  ‘How sore? Worse or better than usual?’

  Angus grunted. Lorna frowned.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, sighing. This was yet another thing that was going to get her into trouble with the Parent Teacher Association. ‘Let’s go and get you checked out.’

  There was a fuss at the surgery. Jeannie was looking stressed.

  It was Mrs Green from up the close, a well-known busybody who upset many people with her sharp comments. It wasn’t nice to come out and have your parking/hairstyle/childcare methods attacked. In her kinder moments Lorna thought Mrs Green was lonely, and that every community had a Mrs Green. In her less kind moments Lorna remembered that Mrs Green had a husband, a tidy little council house and a perfectly nice life, and some people were just born like that.

  ‘I don’t want to see the new doctor,’ Mrs Green was saying loudly. ‘I’m not prejudiced. I don’t have a racist bone in my body. I’m just saying, life’s cheap where he comes from, isn’t it? That’s a fact. If he’s watched kiddies die, he’s not going to be very interested in my… Well, that’s private. And does he speak English?’

  ‘Of course he speaks English,’ sighed Jeannie, sounding as if she’d said that a few times already that morning, which she had. ‘Now you can wait and see Dr MacAllister, but I’m warning you, it might be a long wait.’

  Mrs Green sniffed. ‘Yes. We’re not stupid.’

  Jeannie’s face remained impressively blank. Her eyes flickered to Lorna with a slight hint of panic. Everyone looked anxious.

  ‘Um, whatever you have,’ said Lorna.

  ‘Great,’ said Jeannie loudly and sternly. ‘Well, you can have an appointment straight away.’

  ‘How’s it going?’ hissed Lorna.

  ‘Everyone wants to have a look,’ said Jeannie. ‘Nobody wants to be first.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake. He’s a foreigner, not a beast from the moon. We’ll look unwelcoming.’

  ‘Everyone’s perfectly welcoming. Until it’s time to show him their privates.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be a GP for all the tea in China,’ said Lorna, not for the first time.

  ‘No, neither will any other bugger. That’s our problem,’ said Jeannie, with unusual force.

  Despite her scorn for the other patients, Lorna was a little nervous as she opened the door. The room had been put together quickly when the news that the new doctor was coming had finally sunk in. It used to belong to old Dr MacAllister, before he got too old to work. It was therefore full of ancient medical equipment: a plaster skull with a map of the human brain; some scary bulbs and thick tubes that were more suited to a vet’s.

  It was spotlessly clean, though, and when she entered, nervously, Dr Hassan had his back to her, soaping his arms. He was wearing a smart striped shirt; it was a little too large for him. His shoulders were broad, slightly stooped. He was very thin, particularly for Mure, where people tended towards comfortable farming stock, and he needed a haircut.

  She cleared her throat politely, as Angus sat down on the grey plastic seat. The doctor turned around.

  Chapter 15

  Saif tried his best to keep calm.

  He didn’t recognise the woman straight away, but he smiled vaguely. Here he was. First patient. The exams he’d had to resit rushed through his head; the English words for everything that might come up. Please let him diagnose properly. Please let him be able to communicate. The way they spoke here wasn’t like any English he’d ever heard.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Sit.’

  Then he realised that of course the older man in the room was already sitting, and this must be his daughter.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello,’ said the woman, smiling uneasily. She looked awkward and embarrassed. Well, this was not a great start, thought Saif, scratching the back of his head. He felt tongue-tied.

  ‘What seems to be the problem?’

  If it hadn’t been such a long time since she’d dated, Lorna certainly wouldn’t have reacted as she did. She thought of herself as quite a level-headed person on the whole. Normally.

  But it had been a while.

  Really quite a long while.

  And this wasn’t remotely normal.

  Bloody hell.

  She hadn’t noticed when she’d seen the stooped figure the day before just how handsome he was. Now he turned round, and she froze.

  Don’t be silly, she told herself. You are an idiot who is buried away on this island with just sheep and your dad and small children for company, and you have officially gone mad. You need to take Flora’s advice and go get drunk in Glasgow for the weekend and see if you can pull.

  She risked another glance.

  Bugger! Now she was blushing. Right. She wouldn’t look at him. This was awful. She was behaving like a fourteen-year-old. It had never crossed her mind that he might be… She bit the inside of her mouth quite hard.

  ‘My father’s having head… head things. Headaches,’ she added, like a bumbling fool, barely able to get the words out.

  Head things? thought Saif. Did she think he was an idiot? Possibly unqualified? That he didn’t speak English?

  ‘Head things?’ he repeated, staring at her to make sure she knew he understood.

  ‘Headaches,’ she repeated, looking very embarrassed.

  Saif noticed her blushing and felt embarrassed himself. It was as if he was some animal in a zoo, and she hadn’t expected him to talk.

  ‘I’m right here,’ said the man from his seat. ‘And I’m fine.’

  ‘No you’re not, Dad,’ said the woman, dropping to his level and not looking at Saif. ‘Tell the doctor.’

  Saif sat down and tried to adopt the open bedside manner the leaflets had said were normal in the UK. His hands felt sweaty.

  ‘Well. I just get a headache now and again.’

  ‘Any particular time of day?’ said Saif.

  ‘Um, mornings mostly.’

  Saif nodded.

  ‘Any tiredness? Vomiting?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. I’m tired.’

  ‘That’s because you’re still working a bit. On the farm,’ the woman said, explaining it to Saif.
/>   ‘Well, I wasn’t tired before,’ said Angus.

  ‘Well, you weren’t in your seventies before!’ she said. Saif frowned a little, because this was exactly how his sister used to talk to his own father.

  The woman saw it and flushed again. There was a pause.

  ‘Any dizziness?’ said Saif, writing notes on his pad. He could write for now; learning how to use the system on the computer would have to wait.

  ‘Yes, now you mention it.’

  Saif’s heart sank. Why couldn’t his first patient have one of the common complaints seen by doctors – sleeplessness, anxiety, piles and viruses? Why did he have to see something that was perhaps serious straight away? Would they accuse him of being a worrier if he sent everyone off to hospital?

  Or not up to the job, if he didn’t?

  He realised, at least, that he didn’t have at the back of his mind the question of whether paying for treatment would be too much for the family. This was new to him, and remarkable.

  Also, he’d need to phone the consultant at the nearest hospital. He didn’t like talking on the phone yet; he wasn’t quite confident about his fluency. Face to face was fine, but nuance was lost on the telephone line. Perhaps Jeannie could help. She’d been incredibly kind.

  He checked Angus’s vital signs and blood pressure. None of it was at all encouraging.

  ‘I’m going to send you to the hospital,’ he said. ‘Let them take a look at you.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ said the woman, looking panicked.

  Saif frowned. Were people going to doubt everything he said because he was foreign?

  ‘Yes, I am sure,’ he said bluntly. ‘I would like them to look at your father.’

  The daughter nodded. ‘Okay. Will you get us an appointment? Send us a letter about it?’

  Saif shook his head.

  ‘I will call them,’ he said. ‘I want you to go there now. Straight away.’

  His voice was strong and clear. There would be no argument.

  Chapter 16

  The doctor’s voice had sounded to Lorna like a cold hand clutching at her heart. She waited while Jeannie sorted the paperwork. The receptionist gave her a caring look.

  ‘I’m sure it’s nothing. New doctors are always over-cautious. I saw it all the time on the mainland. Seriously, you’ll be home this afternoon. I wouldn’t even call Iain.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Lorna. ‘I hope you’re right.’ There couldn’t be anything wrong with Dad. There couldn’t. Not after what they’d been through with her mother. She dreaded that mainland hospital again with its awful sterile smell, its endless waiting under buzzing fluorescent lights.

  ‘I’m sure I am.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘So, apart from the fact that he was a bit nervous, what did you think of our new doctor?’

  Lorna didn’t say anything for a second.

  ‘I know!’ said Jeannie.

  ‘What? What do you know?’

  ‘Super-hot, right?’

  ‘I just… he just wasn’t what I expected.’

  ‘You weren’t expecting a gorgeous hunk?’

  ‘No wedding ring,’ said Lorna.

  Jeannie gave her a sharp look. ‘Mmm.’

  ‘What… I mean, does he talk about where he’s been?’

  ‘I’ve only spoken to him for an hour, and most of that was about prescribing pads.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Lorna.

  ‘And he keeps going off to use the computer and making a fuss about the Wi-Fi.’

  ‘Oh. So you don’t know anything about him?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s our place to ask,’ said Jeannie, kindly. ‘Do you?’

  Lorna shook her head as something buzzed out of the printer.

  ‘Here’s your letter to take to the hospital,’ said Jeannie. She paused. ‘Good luck,’ she added.

  Chapter 17

  It was three weeks before Lorna saw Saif again.

  Three awful, dreadful weeks of horrible misery, as they went from one place to another. It went from that ghastly heart-stopping moment on that first day, to test following test. Then they sat in a grim hospital room with a kindly older woman who gazed at the charts on her desk and the computer in front of her and almost anywhere else before she spoke. She told them, in a voice so quiet Lorna could hardly hear it and Angus couldn’t hear it at all, that yes, there was a small brain tumour there. It could probably be treated with radiotherapy, but they’d need to check to make sure.

  The two of them had sat, completely stunned. They had been unable to do anything except somehow thank the doctor and apologise for taking up her time. It had been as if they were cluttering up her office with their pathetic complaints.

  It wasn’t until they got into the car, ready for the long drive back to the last ferry of the evening, that they began to take it in. Angus sat in the front and gave a long sigh.

  ‘Guess that’s it, then.’

  Lorna looked at him.

  ‘Of course it isn’t! She says it can be treated!’

  ‘She gave us a leaflet,’ said Angus. ‘That always means bad news. They don’t print up leaflets for good news.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ scolded Lorna.

  ‘I’m just glad your mum’s not here to see it,’ said Angus, and Lorna shot him a look.

  ‘Don’t you start that,’ she said. ‘You start that and you might as well just go drown yourself in a vat of whisky right now. And where does that get us? Or to be more precise, me?’

  Angus sniffed.

  ‘I don’t fancy coming back here every two days for six weeks.’

  ‘Well, you’re a long time dead,’ said Lorna. She was cross with herself for being angry with him. It wasn’t his fault. Brain tumours, the doctor had muttered, weren’t anybody’s fault. They just happened. And this one could definitely be treated. They would do everything they could.

  Thank goodness for the Easter holidays. Easter was late that year, which meant that school was out just at the same time as the full bloom of the daffodils. Bluebells were yet to come. Children wrapped in jumpers and scarves and wellingtons were running across the vast golden beaches under the wide sky, with its rushing clouds as white as the dancing tips of the cold waves.

  But for Lorna, it meant nothing but worry. She lay in bed at night thinking about losing her only parent. She tried to put on a happy face when she saw him. She sat through long hours in stupid waiting rooms, trying to chat when there was nothing to say. There was simply the terror lying behind the small talk, behind the blaring television on the wall above their heads. The television that couldn’t be switched off or turned down, even when they were the only people in the waiting room.