She was an odd woman, though. Posh. People were a little wary of her, Rita knew. There was something forbidding about her, even though she was elderly. You could tell she wanted to be comforting but she was too forceful, too strong, to exude sympathy, however hard she tried. Sometimes, she brought patients all the way to Rita’s clinic and they would have a shell-shocked look about them, as though they had been completely taken over and could no longer function by themselves. There was nothing gentle and motherly about her, though that was what patients craved – tenderness, motherliness. The more Rita thought about it, the more it seemed to her strange that a woman like Mrs Hibbert wanted to be a Friend. She was more of an organiser than a helper, surely. Rita instinctively felt she had mistaken her calling and would have been better off behind the scenes directing the efforts of others. Except, of course, she was too old now. Rita wondered what Mrs Hibbert had been like when young. Like Paula, probably. Paula had been Rita’s assistant for a brief period. Very brief. She was smart and capable but her personality wasn’t suited to the job. She was bossy and abrasive and answered back. Asked by some distraught patient how much longer she’d have to wait, Paula would snap back, ‘How should I know?’ She only lasted two weeks. Rita never snapped at anyone, no matter how irritated she felt. Her smile, she suspected, might become a trifle glacial under pressure, but she always remembered her manners. She liked to react to rudeness with extreme courtesy. It was, she’d discovered, extremely effective. It made her feel good, too, superior in a way, though of course she was not superior. These people were under stress, she was not.
Sister Butler swept in. Good. Things would get started, and just in time. When she’d sent the first four women into the cubicles, she came rushing in to Rita’s reception area. ‘Bloody nightmare,’ she hissed, scrabbling around looking for something. Rita didn’t turn round, but made a tutting noise. She could hear Sister Butler – Anne, she was called – pulling open the filing cabinet. She must know that whatever she was looking for wouldn’t be there. Only long-forgotten, useless stuff was in that old cabinet now that everything was computerised. Sister Butler – nobody actually called her by her Christian name – probably just wanted an excuse to get out of the clinic for a minute. She was supposed to be a good nurse but Rita could see no evidence of any particular skills. She would like to have been a nurse herself, and fancied she would have made a better one than Sister Butler. But she wasn’t clever enough, simple as that. Only passed one GCSE and that was in Religious Knowledge. Maths, English, any sort of science were all beyond her, and a girl had to have them these days to get into nursing. Rita was sure Florence Nightingale hadn’t had to pass any exams, but then nobody did in those days. At 16, it had enraged and humiliated her to think that because of her lack of academic qualifications she could never become a nurse when she had so many of the qualities that a nurse needed. She was kind and capable, she wasn’t squeamish, she knew how to make sick people comfortable, she was compassionate, she was efficient and organised and trustworthy. Nobody was interested in all that. Her mother had suggested that she took some sort of course which would qualify her to work in a nursing home, but that wasn’t proper nursing, she wasn’t interested in being less than a proper nurse. She didn’t just want to bathe and feed people, she wanted to be in an operating theatre handing the surgeon instruments, or in the intensive care, ward, administering life-saving drugs. Nothing else would do.
Dr Fraser came across the clinic and leaned on her counter. ‘How are we today, Rita?’ he said. The nurses liked him, but Rita didn’t. He patronised her. And he was flirtatious, his eyes openly appraising her, lingering too long on her chest. He spent his whole working life examining breasts and yet he still ogled them, or at least ogled hers. Her mother always said that if she didn’t want men to look she shouldn’t wear close-fitting tops, but she didn’t see why she should hide herself in baggy jumpers just because some men couldn’t stop leering. ‘Fine, thank you,’ she said, turning away to fiddle with some papers, and adding, ‘Can I help you? Is there anything you want?’ in a deliberately offhand tone. He laughed his big, booming laugh, a shocking sound in that place, and said that she certainly could help him, she could get him out of this madhouse and whisk him off to that tropical island she came from, which one was it again, remind him. Rita was livid. He knew she had been born right here, and so had her parents, and that it was her grandparents, both sets, who had come from Jamaica. When the telephone rang, she snatched the receiver off the hook at the first ring, not caring that she was breaking her own rule. He went on leaning there while she spoke to the caller and when she’d finished he said did she have a mint or a cough sweet, that was what he wanted, he had a horribly dry throat, and he opened his mouth and pointed, as though she might not understand him. He had lots of black fillings. She pushed a tube of Polos towards him, and turned away again.
Once, when he first started work at the clinic, he had asked her out for a drink in the pub round the corner. She said she didn’t drink. True. She didn’t, never had done. (He, she later discovered, drank a lot.) He said she could have a soft drink, couldn’t she, and she’d said she didn’t like pubs and preferred going straight home to her husband. That told him. He hadn’t asked her again, but he kept up the patter at every opportunity, always coming over to chat, or try to chat, however busy the clinic. Mr Wallis and Dr Cohen and Chrissie Harrison never did. They only came over when they needed her to do something for them, and then they were brisk and polite and in a hurry to get back to their job. All of them were preferable to Dr Andrew Fraser, yet the odd thing was that she got the distinct impression that most patients preferred him. He was thought of as friendly, he made jokes and was jolly. But Rita knew that if she were ever forced to attend this clinic she’d rather have any of the others.
Only four women left now.
*
People looked poor. Rachel knew they couldn’t all be poor, but somehow they looked it. They were all cowed, that was what created this impression of deprivation. The fear, the apprehension, mysteriously seeped into clothes, turning perfectly presentable garments into charity shop purchases, shabby and worn. Or else it was the effect of the lighting. No windows in this horrible room, no natural light. The clinic was in a basement where the darkness was kept at bay by harsh strip-lighting which hurt the eyes and distorted every colour. A pretty pink became a sickly violet, a leaf green a bilious lime. Rachel wore only black and white on clinic days. It made her look like a sad little crow perhaps, but she felt safe only in neutral shades. Black trousers, black cotton shirt, black slip-on shoes, white jacket, white ribbon, tying back her thick black hair. Her ear-rings were opals. The only touch of colour she allowed was red, red lipstick, red nail varnish.
She’d arrived, as she always did, determined to be busy. She had a novel with her, and a writing pad and pen, and in her briefcase a stack of papers to check. But she knew none of them would be much good. Her attention would wander, the printed word blur. The interruptions and distractions were endless – calls to come and be weighed and measured, the phone ringing, a regular procession of people passing in front of her, disturbing concentration. She’d tried, that first time, to detach herself, to rise above what was happening, but it hadn’t worked. It was no good straining to avoid involvement. Instead, she was alert to everything going on, it was the only way. She didn’t initiate conversation, nobody really wanted to talk (except for one big, fat woman), but she observed everyone in the clinic, and even those passing through, closely. She felt she might be in the transit lounge of an airport for all the connection between her and these people. A clinic full of women (only four men) and yet there was such a silence among them. The noise was all extraneous, it didn’t come from them. If anyone did speak, it was in whispers, apologetically. And the more she thought of the comparison, the more she thought it was appropriate: she, and all these women, were in transit, between health and sickness, hope and despair. Yet in spite of this feeling of identification with the other
s, she felt the odd one out. She couldn’t see anyone really like herself. It wasn’t just a matter of age – there were at least two other women about her age, though the majority were older – it was that none of the others looked professional, they didn’t look as if they were fitting in this clinic with a day’s work. She felt too well dressed, though she was not in fact in her working clothes. She didn’t belong here: it didn’t suit her to be herded here with the others. Why, she asked herself, had she not gone private? She could afford it, or at least she could have afforded a private consultation. But she had always thought the NHS perfectly satisfactory. Till this, this thing, three years ago now, she had never been ill, never been in a hospital. For thirty-five years she had been glowingly healthy. And now it seemed too late to change. She was sucked into the life of the clinic.
The doctors liked her. She had the impression they found her a relief. She wasn’t emotional, she didn’t fuss, she wasn’t aggressive. She knew her questions were intelligent and gave the doctors the opportunity to demonstrate their expertise – they enjoyed that. She made it clear, too, that she appreciated that they couldn’t perform miracles, that there were limits to what they could achieve. She acknowledged that they were tired and overworked and couldn’t spend all the time they liked with each patient, and she took pains to let them know this – oh, she was a model patient! As a consequence, or so she judged, she received if not better treatment then certainly more attention. Doctors would perch on the end of the examination bed she was lying on and chat, and often had to be hurried on to the next patient by the nurse. In just a few minutes she always managed to create some sort of relationship with them and she could see in their eyes their recognition of her as an individual, like themselves.
But afterwards, on the way home, she would realise she’d overdone the calm, reasonable, rational image. She’d been too bloody convincing. So full of sympathy for their problems and giving not a hint of her own. Where was the sense in that? There she was, working hard at the charm, making everything easy for them, and all the time containing her fear and misery. They had her down as bright, confident, well informed and in control. Who could blame them? She never had tears in her eyes, her hands did not tremble as she shed her robe, her voice did not shake when she replied to questions. She was a fraud, but none of them ever guessed, except perhaps the woman doctor, Dr Harrison. She didn’t like being examined by Dr Harrison. The woman’s permanent smile, vague and vapid, irritated her. Rachel knew perfectly well that for a woman to be working in this clinic was a sign of how good she must be, probably better than the men (though she wasn’t quite sure how she’d come to that conclusion). At any rate, there was no justification for doubting Dr Harrison’s abilities as compared to any other doctor’s. It was just that she didn’t convince. She gave the appearance of being scatty – her shirts always had buttons missing, her skirts were creased, and her hair needed brushing and properly fastening back. Rachel was particularly critical of the doctor’s hair. It was not unlike her own, thick and dark, but whereas her own was well groomed and neatly caught back from her face and secured with a ribbon, Dr Harrison’s cried out for attention – it looked as if it had been shoved into a bundle on top of her head and had been escaping from a few clips and an elastic band ever since. It was a mess of wisps and strands falling into her eyes, making her look distracted.
She was smart though, not just clever at her job. Rachel had only had her once, but had known right away that she was different from the other doctors and not just in gender. She had this steady gaze, appraising and searching, whereas with the others eye contact was always minimal. When Dr Harrison had asked her, as they all did, how she was, it had seemed a genuine inquiry to which she was awaiting the answer with concern and not a routine question hurriedly got out of the way. That was pleasing, but it was also unsettling. Rachel had almost forgotten to be the model patient, she’d teetered on the edge of confessing that she was scared and confused and wasn’t sure if the treatment had worked or not. Instead she’d smiled and made a joke, but the joke hadn’t gone down as well as it should have done. Dr Harrison hadn’t laughed. Her smile had stayed the same, but she’d made it clear that Rachel’s flippancy didn’t fool her. Considering that what she really wanted (even if it ran contrary to what she seemed to want) was for some doctor to realise the state she was in, it was absurd that Dr Harrison’s rejection of her banter should depress her. She’d fallen silent instead of chattering away, showing off, giving her usual performance, and her own unaccustomed silence during the examination had the strange effect of making her feel humiliated. She’d felt abject, spineless, lying there being prodded, and a rage had built up inside her for which she blamed Dr Harrison. She contained it, and everything that day had been pronounced fine, but she’d left the clinic distraught. Somehow, Dr Harrison, in refusing to let her act as she usually did, had made everything harder to bear.
She hoped she wouldn’t get her today. She couldn’t tell how many women were before her; the system was impenetrable, seeming to bear no relation to who had arrived first or the time of an appointment. She’d tried, on other occasions, asking the receptionist why some patient, whom she’d seen arrive long after her, had been seen almost immediately, and the question had been met with a polite disclaimer and a promise to look into it. Not for one minute did Rachel believe the promise would be kept. The receptionist was a relaxed young woman, strikingly good-looking, who queened it behind her counter, an attitude well calculated to discourage complaint. Rachel had often witnessed how Rita – she’d heard her being called Rita, though the name did not fit and was a disappointment – dealt with anger, and she admired it. She didn’t feel she wanted to cross Rita who, at this moment, was listening to a man raging about how long his wife had been kept waiting and she was defusing his rage with a combination of patience and tact – she listened, she nodded, she made notes, she clucked her tongue. Then there was a sudden commotion, which had Rita out from behind her counter at a run. A woman, who had just got up from her seat, collapsed. She did it so neatly, so silently, that Rachel had no idea why Rita had been galvanised into action, but then watched helplessly as a nurse appeared and the woman was attended to. The patient was young and pretty. Rachel had watched her arrive almost an hour ago, hesitant and nervous, and she’d noticed how fidgety she’d been, twisting a scarf over and over in her hands until it looked like a rope and then untwisting it and flattening it out and folding it carefully into squares. Now she lay on the floor, her eyes shut, her skin grey. A doctor arrived, and Rachel turned away – it was appalling to be staring – but she heard the words ‘panic attack’, and when she next allowed herself to look, the patient was on her feet and being helped into one of the rooms next to the cubicles. No one had been with her. She’d spoken to no one and no one had spoken to her.
Rachel swallowed hard. She felt shaky and dismayed. A woman in such a panic, but nobody had noticed until now, nobody had been kind and reassuring. She went to the water fountain and filled one of the ridiculously small cardboard beakers with water and drank it greedily. Her mouth was dry, as though she, too, was about to panic. Maybe she would just leave, just walk out of this clinic. Her heart beat rapidly as she considered the idea. She couldn’t stand the tension any longer. She would go. Nobody would care. Rita might notice, but she wouldn’t stop her. One less patient to deal with. Her business, if she was silly enough to leave before being seen, more fool her. But Rachel was not a fool. She went back to her seat, ashamed of the impulse to which she had almost succumbed. And at that moment her name was called. Cubicle two. It was as though her decision not to be silly but to stay was being rewarded and she went into the cubicle eagerly. Clothes removed, robe on, she positioned herself on the bed. The curtain twitched. Dr Harrison came in. ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘I’m Dr Harrison.’ ‘I know,’ Rachel said, ‘you’ve seen me before, two years ago.’ ‘So I have,’ said Dr Harrison. ‘I remember.’ Rachel knew it would be in the notes and was not impressed. ‘Good to
see you looking so well,’ said Dr Harrison. ‘And are you well?’ ‘Yes,’ said Rachel, ‘but then I was perfectly well before I was told I wasn’t well at all, so I don’t suppose feeling well means much.’ She knew she sounded bitter, but she couldn’t help it. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, I wouldn’t say feeling well was of no significance, not at all, it’s a very positive sign.’ ‘How can it be?’ Rachel said, quite sharply, ‘when all the time I was feeling well I had a malignant tumour.’
Dr Harrison ignored this. ‘Let’s have a look at you,’ she said. Rachel took off the robe and waited. Dr Harrison had smooth, gentle hands. Her nails were bitten but otherwise her hands were pretty, long-fingered and slender. ‘Good,’ she kept saying, ‘good, excellent.’ Leaning over Rachel, her untidy hair came loose even more disastrously from its moorings, but she ignored it except to blow the strands falling into her eyes, little puffs of breath lifting them. At least she washed it. Rachel could smell some sort of lemon shampoo, and her skin had the same faint scent. But the hands had stopped. Rachel’s wandering thoughts stopped with them. The hands were on her left breast, the one not treated. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. Dr Harrison went back to the right breast without replying, and then returned to palpate the left one again. ‘There’s a thickness,’ Dr Harrison said, thoughtfully, and she turned her head slightly away from Rachel’s body as though she was listening. ‘Probably nothing.’ Then she stopped and went to the notes and leafed through them. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s been observed before. Dr Cohen once noted it down, but it had gone at the next check-up.’ Rachel’s heart slowed down a little, but her face felt burning hot. ‘He didn’t tell me,’ she said, ‘nothing was ever said about any thickening.’ Dr Harrison put the notes down. ‘I like my patients to be fully informed,’ she said. ‘Why?’ Rachel asked, gathering her robe around her, glad to feel its thin blue cotton cover her and gaining confidence as it did. ‘Why tell me if it’s not important, if it’s been noticed before and found to be nothing? Why tell me? It just worries me, it will haunt me until next time.’ ‘Best to be fully informed,’ Dr Harrison repeated. ‘Don’t you think?’
Is There Anything You Want? Page 4