Second Opinion

by Claire Rayner

  It’s not that, she thought then. It’s something else. Something I’ve forgotten. Something that I ought to have done. That’s what’s driving me bananas. It’s like doing an exam and not being able to dig out of your head the one fact that you know will make the whole answer work. You go trawling your memory and it just won’t emerge …

  She glowered down at her desk. It was almost half-past five and she ought to leave for home soon; Bridget and her mother had opted today to visit Madame Tussaud’s (despite George’s carefully worded warnings about the length of the queues and the limited satisfaction available from the displays after all that waiting) and she ought to be there to greet them when they got home. Also, she had to do her Christmas cards tonight; there was only a week to go and already the pressure was on. There were presents to buy and plans to make for all that cookery on Christmas Day, for despite Bridget’s offer of a hotel lunch, they were to stay home. Vanny had decided that.

  She tried to think again about what it was that was irking her like sand in a shoe, but it still eluded her. She went home at last a little abstracted and irritable, and her irritation was increased when she found a message on her ansaphone from her house guests to the effect that they’d decided to make a real day of it and were staying in town to eat and then go on to a theatre. ‘Leave the key under the doormat, honey!’ Bridget carolled cheerfully. ‘We’ll let ourselves in.’ George knew they were being tactful, giving her space by keeping out of the way, but she actually had been looking forward to seeing them and hearing their reactions to the wax models, and now felt absurdly hard done by.

  She left the trout she’d bought lying forlornly in the fridge and dined on toast and cheese and hot tea; it was all she wanted, she told herself, even though in her heart she knew she was being childishly lazy about not making a proper meal, and then settled as best she could to her Christmas cards.

  It was when she was plodding through the list of names around the hospital she felt she had to send cards to that she remembered. It was absurd; the memory came bubbling up and burst in her mind like a little firework, and it made her gasp as if it had been.

  Harry had wanted to talk to her about something. She could hear his voice as clearly as if he were actually there in front of her fire.

  ‘Did you come to see me so soon? A phone call would have done perfectly well. I’m not even absolutely sure —’

  She remembered something else then. Sheila this morning, telling her that Rajabani had called the path, lab to talk to her. George had dismissed that; said she’d seen him. But she hadn’t actually spoken to him, had she? Or rather, he hadn’t really spoken to her.

  She leaned back in her chair and stretched. She felt better now she’d remembered, and after a moment she made an entry in her notebook to call Harry first thing in the morning; and then was able to finish her Christmas cards very quickly indeed, choosing a particularly handsome one to send to Harry. She wasn’t sure even that he celebrated Christmas and normally she wouldn’t have had him on her card list, which she tried to keep well trimmed and which generally included only fellow consultants, but it seemed the least she could do after the poor chap had been through such a battering; and he would, she thought, like the Victorian reproduction picture full of leaping children. It would help him to remember that whatever the parents did or said it was the patients who really mattered.

  12

  As they came down into the chill dampness of the street, they saw fairy lights in several of the small trees that had been planted in the miniscule front gardens opposite, and most of the downstairs windows had neat Christmas trees in them, winking their lollipop colours bravely into the darkness. At George’s side, Vanny shivered in agreeable anticipation. ‘I’m really excited,’ she said, sounding like a child on a holiday. ‘Such fun to be going somewhere and not know where.’

  ‘It’ll be a nice surprise, just you see, Mrs Barnabas,’ Gus said and bustled her to the car. ‘Now, let me settle you here, and then we’ll see Mrs Connors in on the other side.’

  ‘Now you just stop being so formal, Gus!’ Bridget chuckled, and went trotting round the car to the other door. ‘Just you call us Vanny and Bridget or we’ll be really put out. We may be old but we don’t have to be treated like we’re antiques!’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of doing anything to upset you,’ Gus cried. ‘I wasn’t being formal so much as polite! But if you want to be pally, well then, I’m your fella. Now then, Vanny, are you settled there? There’s a nice rug if you need it.’

  ‘Oh,’ Vanny giggled. ‘This is just like it was being taken out when I was a girl. A rug, for goodness’ sake. Don’t you have a heater in this car?’

  ‘Of course I do, but, like I said, I want to take the best care of you. No rug then? Fine. Come on, George, what’re you waiting for?’ He jerked his head at the door he was now holding open for her and George, scowling at him, went, with what dignity she could, to take her place in the front.

  He had, in her opinion, been flirting outrageously with both her guests from the moment he’d arrived. He’d brought a bottle of very cold champagne with him, which he insisted on pouring out in large libations (though he managed unobtrusively not to drink any himself, George noticed with reluctant approval, since he was their driver for the night) and within minutes, it seemed, Bridget and Vanny were giggling like schoolgirls of a particularly silly sort and virtually eating out of his hand.

  When he archly refused to tell them where they were going after dinner they launched themselves joyously into a question-and-answer session that would have been regarded as a bit passé at the local nursery school. When he’d told them eventually that they were going to see something he was sure they’d never seen before, Bridget became quite outrageous and decided it was a strip show, and insisted that she was much too young to be exposed to such debauchery. He had assured her seriously that he completely agreed regarding her age and therefore had chosen an entertainment that would bring not a hint of blush to her maiden cheek. It was altogether a sickening display of childishness, as George hissed at him when he carried the used glasses into the kitchen while Bridget and Vanny went to get into their coats and gloves and scarves; at which he laughed and told her she was just jealous. Which had done nothing of course to make her feel any less annoyed.

  By the time they were settled at their table at ‘The Plaice To Be’ she felt much less edgy. He had been so genuinely funny as he drove them there, dropping the teasing banter in exchange for a more adult line in jokes, that she too was charmed and she felt a certain proprietorial pride as she listened to the laughter coming from the back seat and basked in the knowledge that the two of them approved wholeheartedly of her friend. If he’d been a bit silly with his baby-talk approach earlier — well, it was forgivable. After all, he had to find his way with strangers somehow.

  ‘You got the repairs done fast!’ she said, gazing at the great plate-glass window, which looked as though it had been there for ever, complete with its elaborate engraving of the restaurant’s name. ‘How did you manage that?’

  ‘Policemen have a bit of clout when they’re dealin’ with villains,’ he said complacently. ‘And in my book all builders are villains somewhere along the line, if it’s only fiddlin’ a bit o’ VAT. They know it, they know I know it, I know they know I know it, so they get any jobs I want done done fast and done proper to keep me sweet and out of their hair. Know what I mean? Now, Vanny, Bridget, let me see you through the mysteries of a real English fish-and-chip menu.’

  He persuaded them to eat jellied eels without any difficulty and they both loved them. He offered them perfectly fried pieces of turbot and they purred like well-fed kittens. He made Kitty tip piles of crisp chips on to their plates until they cried they were filled for the rest of the year, and still ate more. He gave them wine and coffee and melting apple pie and by seven-thirty they were his slaves for life.

  George, watching them and especially her mother, was grateful to Gus and ashamed of her earlier ir
ritability. Her mother was brighter and more responsive than she’d been since she’d arrived; her eyes wide and shining, her chatter busy, logical and showing no hint of any of the memory loss and hesitancy that George had thought was now a permanent part of her. She caught Bridget’s eye at one point when Vanny was being particularly sparkling in her conversation with Gus and saw that she was almost in tears, she was so happy to see her friend so much like her old self, and George felt her own spirits lift in a great tide of gratitude to Gus that made her want to throw herself at him and hug him. She actually had to tense her muscles to make sure she sat tight pretending to eat her own apple pie, for she was now over-fed herself, to prevent herself from doing so.

  Gus looked at his watch and hurried them to their feet just before a quarter to eight, waving at Kitty for coats. Kitty came running and bustled them out, winking at Gus as they went. ‘It’s all right, Guv. Got a parkin’ space fixed up for you an’ everything they ?ave. Lookin’ forward to seeing you, they said. Better get a move on though.’

  The excitement in the back of the car built to great heights and the questions began again. Was it a comedy they were to see? A musical? A drama? Gus laughed and said only, ‘Yes!’ to all of them and they had to settle for that.

  He took them by various circuitous routes to Charing Cross and then slid down beside the river into Villiers Street. He parked close by one of the arches running under the adjoining bridge that carried trains over the river, where a young man was waiting to take his keys from him.

  ‘I’ll find her a corner somewhere,’ he said to Gus. ‘Don’t you worry, Guv. Just take ‘em in. They’re waiting for you.’

  ‘The Players Theatre,’ Vanny read breathlessly from a sizeable poster as they were hurried in through the crowded little foyer by Gus, who was behaving, George thought with amusement, rather like a sheepdog. ‘A play then, Gus?’

  ‘Just you wait and see,’ he said mysteriously. ‘Coats. Here, Norah, take ‘em for my girls, will you? Don’t want to keep the Chairman waiting.’

  George was entranced. It was a small, vividly red establishment filled with illustrations of Victorian and Edwardian entertainments as well as being tricked out in totally believable fin de siècle style, and she wanted to linger and look — as, indeed, did the others. But Gus would have none of that.

  ‘Later, later!’ he cried, ‘mustn’t be late!’ and hurried them into the theatre itself. George registered bright soft light, red plush, a great deal of gilt, quantities of painted plaster putti, tables as well as the usual theatre seating, a piano lit by a candle where a young man in white tie and tails was playing manfully, and a full house of very noisy people. Gus hurried them into their seats very near the front and reached for the bottle of champagne in an ice bucket that was waiting on the table that stood between their places.

  ‘Got everything laid on in advance for you!’ he shouted cheerfully above the hubbub. ‘Now, here are song sheets. Don’t worry, you’ll find out when you need ‘em. Just you pretend that this isn’t the 1990s but the 1890s and you’ll have the time of your life!’

  From then on it was sheer enchantment. The show was a Victorian Music Hall done with great panache and in the true style, with a rotund, doggish and most bibulous Chairman who shouted a lot at noisy customers — who heckled back cheerfully — a lot of community singing with the entire audience knowing not only the words of the songs but also every word of the Chairman’s usual repartee, and a number of what George took to be faithfully original acts. There were singers and comics, a couple of duets of singularly soulful songs — at one point she saw her mother’s eyes big with tears as she listened to one particularly expressive song about gypsies — and a good deal of cheeky cross-talking between the acts and the Chairman. Bridget laughed uproariously at every sally and by the interval was in a state of complete adoration of Gus.

  ‘This is the most darling show I have ever seen, I swear to you,’ she told him. ‘If we could have something like this at home, why, they’d knock the doors down night after night to see it! It’s wonderful. How come we’ve never seen anything so good in the US?’

  Gus grinned. ‘It’s one thing here, quite another when it’s out of its normal setting,’ he said. ‘Though I think some of the acts have appeared in Washington at Embassy events for your President. Now, more champagne? There’s lots left.’

  ‘I daren’t,’ said Bridget happily, holding out her glass for more, and Vanny did too.

  ‘Oh, George,’ Vanny said. ‘I haven’t heard that song for ever. We had an English teacher from Yorkshire who taught us it when I was just a little thing in Boston.’ And she began to sing in a sweet if slightly off-key voice, ‘“And she’s off with the raggle-taggle gypsies, oh …’”

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard it,’ George said. ‘But it’s pretty.’

  ‘It’s history too,’ Gus said. ‘Did you know that, Vanny? It used to be one of the things people were really scared of, gypsies running off with their children. Especially if they were pretty girl children like the one in this song. Mind you, she was a naughty girl, I’m thinking. Probably thought the gypsy men were more exciting than the milk-and-water types she met at home.’

  ‘You’ve got your songs mixed up,’ Vanny said reprovingly. ‘You’re thinking of the other gypsy one,’ and she began to sing: ‘My mother said I never should, Play with the gypsies in the wood. If I did, she would say, Naughty little girl to disobey …’

  Gus grinned. ‘You go on like that, ducky, and they’ll think you’re auditioning and have you up on stage. Do you fancy a bit of the old thespian stuff?’

  Vanny giggled and bridled and giggled again; then they were off once more with their chattering. George leaned back to relax and let them get on with it. Gus was really being very good, entertaining them so well, she told herself a little sleepily as the sparkle in the champagne settled in her bones to create an agreeable somnolence. He doesn’t have to. And her mind slid back to the last time she and he had been at ‘The Plaice To Be’. He had said … Well, what had he said? That he wanted to spend the time with her somewhere cosy and quiet and comfortable to have some fun? And what had she done? Launched herself into one of those damned feminist diatribes that seemed to come to her lips far too easily. Of course there were things that men did that had to be stopped. Men who patronized and ignored everything but boobs and bottoms were men who had to be educated; men who, when it came to women, treated them as though they were just, well, chattels who had to be stamped on. But Gus was not like that. He was far more complicated. He talked as though he were like that; he leered, even, and used language that most people these days thought was dreadful, but he didn’t actually behave that way. She knew he didn’t patronize her, that he respected her for her intelligence and her personality, but he’d also tried to make it clear he fancied her, using very old-fashioned ways to do it, and she had to admit she liked that. It sent a pleasant little frisson through her to think of Gus fancying her; she looked at him sideways under her lashes and tried to imagine being somewhere cosy and quiet and comfortable with him and ‘having fun’.

  He caught her glance and laughed. ‘You look as though you’re having naughty thoughts,’ he said under the cover of Bridget talking to Vanny. ‘You know, that contented cat look.’

  She knew she had reddened and hoped it wouldn’t show in this generally ruby environment. ‘So, you’re a clairvoyant now!’ she said. ‘Able to read minds. Well, that’ll make it easier for you to sort out the nation’s sins, I imagine. Spot them by their thoughts before they even commit the crimes.’

  ‘It doesn’t work for crime. Only with personal thoughts in ladies — sorry, women — I like,’ he said and slid a hand across beneath the table and took her knee in a warm grip. ‘Go on. Tell me I’m guilty of sexual harassment now.’

  She looked down at his hand and thought for a moment. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I shan’t.’

  ‘Oh? Why not? Isn’t it all wrong in your feminist bible for a man to hand
le a woman?’

  ‘It’s the intent that matters in my book, never mind anyone else’s. A hand on my knee right here in the middle of a crowded theatre when the interval’s almost over offers no way you can go any further than a bit of knee-clasping. So it doesn’t matter. Clasp on if you enjoy it’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ he said disgustedly, taking his hand away. ‘You’re no fun at all.’ He winked at her to take the sting from his words and turned back to Vanny and Bridget as the Chairman returned to the stage.

  ‘Hold on to your seat belts, girls. The next few minutes’ll be bumpy!’

  The Chairman advanced to the front of the stage and after some obviously well-rehearsed ad libs in which the regulars in the audience joined with glee, announced loudly that he was interested in the identity of visitors from abroad. Before they knew what was to happen, Gus had both Bridget and Vanny on their feet accepting a graceful welcome from the Chairman to ‘these citizens of the revolting colonies’ and letting him point out to them that ‘if it hadn’t been for that silly misunderstanding in Boston Harbour, all this could have been yours,’ another line in which the cognoscenti in the audience joined. All this was followed by various people announcing it was their birthday and being sung to (including a set of rather elderly triplets in the back seats, at whose appearance one of the more drunken members of the audience announced in ringing tones, ‘They are triplets, sir, because their father stuttered!’ a sally which reduced both Vanny and Bridget to helpless tears of laughter) and then the audience settled down again to more singing and clowning. Vanny and Bridget sat in blissful contentment and Gus very deliberately leaned sideways towards George and took her hand and held it warmly between both of his.

  ‘Now I know it don’t count as harassment, at least I can enjoy this much,’ he whispered. And leaned back happily to watch the stage.

  It was at the very end of the show, when the whole audience was involved in singing yet again, that George heard the bleeping sound. Gus cursed softly and reached into his breast pocket. George could see the pager he brought out and peered at it over his shoulder just as he hit the bleep-cancel button.