by Menon, David
‘It’s a date,’ said Penny, looking up into her husband’s face and smiling, ‘I am happy, you know. More than I ever could say.’
‘Me too, sweetheart’ said Adrian.
Penny snuggled up to her husband and wondered how she was going to tell him that the familiar feelings of back ache and nausea had been sweeping over her again lately.
CHAPTER SIX
The atmosphere among everybody who worked at the surgery was relaxed but it didn’t stop Charlie and Matt falling into the roles of good cop and bad cop with the staff when necessary.
Charlie always got away with murder because he was Charlie and everybody loved him. Any issues that came up were left to Matt to sort out. There used to be two phones on the receptionist’s desk, one for surgery calls and one for appointments, each with different numbers. When Matt witnessed one of the receptionists tell a caller off for ringing on the surgery line and then pick up the appointments phone to the same caller only seconds later, he decided that the surgery’s patients needed to be treated with a bit more respect than that, especially since many of them couldn’t afford to make multiple calls. So he cut the two numbers and now patients ring just one number for whatever they wanted. The receptionists hadn’t liked this because it had taken away some of their perceived power. Then the nurses had been in a sulk with him because he’d asked them to be more civil with the patients after some of them had complained about the nurses being rude. So it had fallen on Matt to tell everyone at the weekly staff meeting that they were going to extend evening surgery by one hour to make visiting the doctor easier for people who worked full-time.
‘It’s about their convenience, not ours.’ Matt had said. ‘We’re not here to serve ourselves, we’re here to provide healthcare in this community. I’m sorry if that doesn’t fall in with your childcare plans but things move on and develop. They don’t stay the same and this practice will not be stuck in the arrogance of thinking that we’re doing everyone we serve a favour.’
‘But you’re all doing a fantastic job,’ Charlie added, ‘we do want you to know that, don’t we Matt?’
‘Of course but this is how we’re going to make a good job even better on behalf of the patients.’
Matt couldn’t stand the mentality of people who think that everything should stand still and nothing should move with the times. Consumers of healthcare had changed, even though many of the practice’s patients didn’t have the stake in society that a job provided. But, in Matt’s mind, that didn’t mean that they were any less deserving than those who did. Even if someone doesn’t have a job they need to prepare for when they do. They need to be part of the same stream in society. That’s what Matt tried to get across to faces that looked back at him as if he was asking them to prostrate themselves before the local Bishop.
‘Thanks for your support in there,’ said Matt sarcastically as he walked into his consulting room followed by Charlie who closed the door behind him.
‘You were doing alright,’ said Charlie, encouragingly, ‘you didn’t need me.’
‘That’s not the fucking point! Why should I always have to be the one who plays the bad guy, Charlie? Why is it never you?’
‘Because you don’t need to be liked like I do?’ Charlie offered, feebly.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’
‘I’m just no good at that sort of thing.’
‘Charlie, you are my partner in this place.’
‘Er, that’s something we need to talk about,’ said Charlie.
‘What do you mean?’
Charlie took a deep breath. He knew Matt wasn’t going to like this.
‘I’m thinking of selling my share in the practice,’ Charlie announced.
Matt felt like he’d been stabbed in the chest. ‘Say that again.’
‘Well the thing is, Natasha has got it into her head that this is a practice with too many poor people and she doesn’t like me working here.’
Matt was livid. ‘Now I’ve heard it all!’
‘She wants me to move to a practice in a more acceptable area.’
‘Acceptable?’ Matt demanded angrily. ‘Fucking acceptable? What the fuck does that mean?’
‘She doesn’t want to have to tell people that I work in inner-city Salford,’ protested Charlie, ‘she wants to be able to tell them that I only deal with the very top people of Cheshire.’
‘And you’ve agreed to this bullshit?’
Charlie just shrugged his shoulders and smiled as best he could.
‘I always knew you were weak where women were concerned but she’s scraped the bottom of your fucking reserve tank.’
‘Hey, that’s not fair! It’s funny though, I’ll give you that.’
‘You’ve only been with one real woman in your life, Charlie’ said Matt. ‘She gave you two beautiful children and, by your own admission, a very happy marriage and yet it still wasn’t enough for you. You broke her heart because you couldn’t keep your trousers on when all the gold-digging tarts came fluttering.’
‘Have you finished?’
‘Alright, well are you seriously telling me that you’re going to piss down the drain everything we’ve worked for in this community for the sake of that airhead who wouldn’t know a principle if it leapt up and slapped her across the face?’
‘Don’t put it like that, mate,’ said Charlie, seeing all over Matt’s face how badly the news was going down. ‘I’ll give you first refusal on buying me out.’
‘Charlie, I’m the only other partner! We set it up that way, remember? So that we could do things our way without any interference from anyone else’
‘I mean before I sell to anybody else.’
Matt took in a deep breath and tried to calm himself down. ‘Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out.’
‘Well it’s what she wants, and women like Natasha are like little girls when they’ve set their heart set on something. And guys like me end up taking over from Daddy as the one who puts the smile back on her face by giving her exactly what she wants.’
Matt scoffed. ‘And they say that women grow up faster than men?’ He shook his head. ‘Christ, I’m so glad I’m not straight and having to pander to this nonsense.’
‘That’s a point of view, mate.’
‘And all so that you can continue to gain access to your girlfriend’s front bottom.’
Charlie laughed. ‘You always blind me with your wisdom, my friend. But look, Matt, can you can afford to buy me out?’
‘Yes’ said Matt. ‘I may have to borrow some but I should be able to manage it. But that’s not the point, Charlie.’
‘I know, mate, I know, but it’s not like we’re ever going to stop being friends.’
‘Well how could we? We’re like a divorced couple with two kids to give us a reason to maintain contact.’
‘Quite,’ said Charlie, who was still feeling guilty about leaving the boys with Matt all through his weekend contact visit. He was feeling guilty about a lot of things to do with his ‘old’ life. ‘It’s just that we won’t be working together, that’s all.’
‘But I’ll miss that, Charlie,’ said Matt with more tenderness than he’d wanted to give away.
‘And I’ll miss it too,’ said Charlie, softly, ‘but life moves on, mate. Sorry, but that’s what it does.’
*
Brendan popped his head round the door of Phillip’s study and saw that he was concentrating on the blank sheet of paper in front of him on his desk.
‘Sorry, Phillip’ said Brendan. I might’ve known that if a priest is sitting alone on a Saturday night it must be because he’s working on his sermon for Sunday.’
Phillip held up the blank sheet of paper. ‘Well as you can see, Brendan, I’m finding the inspiration a little hard to nail down tonight. So any distractions are welcome. Come in.’
Brendan went in and closed the door before sitting in the armchair that was at one end of Phillip’s desk.’ What is it you’re wrestling with? I can tell there’s something by your eyes.’
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‘I’ve got a married couple who are set on divorce,’ said Philip, ‘The more I try and talk to them the more intent they seem to be.’
‘Do you think that all marriages should be saved regardless of what is or isn’t going on inside them, Phillip?’
‘Should that be a question a Catholic priest should be asking?’
‘Brendan, we can level with each other, I believe, you’d be exactly like me if you were starting out today.’
‘Would I now?’ asked Brendan who was rather flattered by the young man’s affirmation.
‘You know you would be.’
‘Yes,’ said Brendan, thoughtfully, ‘I believe we’re cut from the same cloth, Phillip. And I don’t believe that marriages should be kept together if the glue isn’t there. We just make people miserable.’
‘So what does that say about my future career?’
‘Maybe you should try social work?’
‘I thought I already was.’
They laughed and then Phillip began to probe Brendan’s free spirit.
‘It must’ve been hard to come into the church at a time of such conservatism, Brendan. Especially when you’ve always been such a radical thinker.’
‘And you think it isn’t wracked with conservatism now? No, it’s been hard at times, I do confess. And I’ve nearly left on a couple of occasions. But my overriding faith in God has kept me here.’
‘What type of occasions were they?’
‘Have you ever heard of a group called the liberation theologists?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Phil, ‘the group of Latin American priests from the eighties.’
‘That’s them. Latin America was one big torture chamber back then. Every government of every country was a fascist dictatorship and the United States under Reagan thought that was okay as long as they weren’t communists. They didn’t care how much the people suffered as long as the allegiance of the nation was to Washington and not Moscow. It used to annoy the hell out of me when I heard Reagan and Thatcher go on about the free world being anywhere that wasn’t communist. They were so ideologically blind. Thousands of people simply disappeared off the streets of those countries during that awful, dark time and yet they call that freedom? Torture and repression, the rape of women, it was all part of the way those countries operated and the Vatican sucked up to every one of the administrations because they were all devoutly Catholic. It turned a blind eye because Pope John Paul II had been brought up in communist Poland and had a view of the world coloured by those experiences. But he should’ve seen beyond that and that’s when I stopped believing in papal infallibility.’
‘I’m glad there are no hidden microphones in this room,’ joked Phillip, ‘but where did the priests come in?’
‘They were a group of priests who’d administered to the poor of Latin America for decades and were tired of the injustice of never seeing people’s lives improve. They wanted the poor to be liberated from the land owners who kept them in poverty but who were in league with the dictatorships. So it brought the priests into conflict with the dictatorships who then turned to the Vatican for help. The Pope insisted that the priests stopped preaching their word of liberation for the poor and stuck instead to the official teachings of the church. Then along comes the Sandinista administration in Nicaragua and things really kicked off. They were a left wing party that took a lot from the liberation theology priests and they were democratically elected by the people. But of course, they wanted liberation from poverty for the people so Washington and the Vatican set themselves against them and made life as difficult as it could for them.’
‘And all because they wanted justice for their people.’
‘Precisely,’ said Brendan, ‘but the church isn’t interested in justice, Phillip. It just craves obedience. It was during this time that the Reagan administration recognised the Holy See as a nation state, thus giving the Vatican the same recognition status as any other nation state even though you and I both know that it’s no more the size of a park and nobody actually lives there, not even the Pope himself. But as a nation state it carries a great deal of influence and that’s what the Reagan administration wanted in it’s support of anything that wasn’t communist, whether democratically elected or not. It’s been a grave sin against the whole of mankind, Phillip.’
‘So what are we doing here?’
‘Because in our own small way we can bring a little Heaven into the lives of our flock. We can advise them as a compassionate Jesus would and not as some white-robed idiot in a dark version of Disneyland would.’
‘You’ve given me a great idea for the sermon tomorrow.’
‘Don’t get yourself into any bother now,’ Brendan advised, ‘We need to keep free thinkers like you, Phillip.’
‘Don’t worry, Brendan,’ said Phillip, ‘I’ll put a cloak around my words.’
*
Susie Schofield was sitting with her fiancé Angus having a sandwich lunch in her office at Schofield Caravan Parks headquarters. The company didn’t have a grand suite of offices and didn’t need one. They occupied half of the second floor of a two storey office block just a stone’s throw from Manchester University on the Oxford Road going south out of the city. Susie had forty staff to help her deliver the company’s objectives and got really pissed off with journalists who turned up to interview her and who only wanted to approach things from the perspective of her being a woman. Did she do anything differently from a man? How would she know? She’d never been one. She was her father’s daughter and had inherited much of his character but she ran the business her way. Some of the staff liked her and some of them didn’t, although she would say that she had more trouble from other women than from her male workforce. Some women really didn’t like working for a female boss and it disturbed her that in this day and age women could still act that way. What about the sisterhood?
‘Thanks for bringing these in, baby,’ said Susie as she placed the last piece of her Tuna salad sandwich in her mouth. ‘I wouldn’t have had time to go out for anything’
Angus had brought his chair round to her side of the desk and leaned forward and kissed her. ‘All part of the service’
She gently stroked the side of his face. He still gave her the butterflies. He worked on weights at the gym and his shoulders looked like they could raise his Airbus jet off the ground by themselves. He was in a black polo shirt and blue jeans and his thick, strong arms tapered into slim wrists and big hands. His wide chest did the same into his waist before giving way to his tree trunk legs. His hair was jet black and his dark eyes and square jaw gave him the look of someone off the cover of a man’s fitness magazine. She was so consumed with lust whenever he was around. She knew she was a lucky girl.
‘I missed you last night,’ Susie said at last.
‘You can show me how much later.’
‘I shall look forward to that.’ said Susie. ‘So how was your night flight?’
‘There and back to Ibiza’ said Angus who’d only had a few hours sleep but didn’t feel too bad. ‘Nice and short, no dramas.’
Angus had been born and brought up in Surrey and had come up to the north for his first job after qualifying as an airline pilot. On his first night out in Manchester he’d met Susie who’d told him there and then that he was coming home with her. This wasn’t difficult for Angus. Their mutual attraction was strong. That weekend he stayed at Susie’s place and a couple of months later he gave notice at the shared house he’d been renting with two other pilots in Macclesfield. He hadn’t anticipated meeting anybody as quickly as he’d met Susie. He’d been looking forward to playing the field where girls were concerned and having boys’ nights with his housemates. But that wasn’t to be and he wasn’t complaining. Susie was the girl for him and he’d never given it a second thought that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
‘I’m looking forward to becoming Mrs. Angus Carleton too,’ said Susie.
‘Not long now. Just two short weeks.’
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br /> ‘I spoke to your Mum this morning,’ said Susie. ‘It’s such good news about your Dad.’
Angus had spoken to his mother that morning too and she’d managed to settle a growing anxiety he’d had about the wedding. His parents were divorced and his father now lived in Hong Kong with his new wife. His father had been threatening not to come over for the wedding until Angus’s mother apologised for remarks she’d made to his new wife on their most recent visit home to the UK. Angus’s mother had finally found it in her heart to do that for the sake of her son’s happiness.
‘I couldn’t have had the wedding without my Dad being there.’
‘Well you don’t have to now,’ said Susie, ‘but I think we owe your Mum one. It must’ve taken a lot for her to back down. And if truth be told I don’t know if I could’ve.’
‘In front of the whole family she called Nancy a Chinese whore who should stick to frying rice.’
‘I know,’ said Susie, ‘and that was unpleasant.’
‘And it was racist.’
‘Yes I know but taking that away and every wronged first wife would be able to identify with the feelings behind what your mother said. I’ve really got to know your Mum over the last few weeks and I like her, Angus. And she’s not a racist.’
‘I know that, Susie,’ said Angus, ‘I just wish she hadn’t said it.’
Susie took hold of Angus’s hand. ‘I think she wishes that too, baby.’
‘And why doesn’t she move on? Malcolm has been part of her life for a long time now and he adores her. I know he’s asked. So why doesn’t she?’
‘Because she hasn’t quite stopped loving your father yet and until she does she won’t be asking you to walk her down the aisle to marry another man, however lovely Malcolm is.’
‘Well I love my Mum and I love my Dad and I’m relieved they’ll both be there on the happiest day of my life.’
Susie kissed him. ‘Me too. Now darling, can I ask you something?’
‘Sure,’ he said as he ran his fingers up and down her arm.
‘You work with a lot of gay men in the airline business, don’t you.’