by Penny Kline
Up in my room Trev moved his chair as far away from his wife as the size of my office allowed. He was dressed in the same shiny brown trousers, open-neck shirt and emerald green fleece jacket he had worn on each previous visit. Janice had the same grey jeans and purple sweatshirt. She was taller than Trev by about three inches. They arrived on foot — I had seen them crossing the car park — but whatever the weather Janice never wore a coat.
Glancing at his wife, who was folding and unfolding what looked like a shopping list on the back of an envelope, Trev sighed heavily but kept his mouth firmly closed. I was waiting for one of them to start, trying to concentrate but with my thoughts constantly drifting back to Maggie Hazeldean. And to Howard Fry. So his wife had gone again. Her decision or his? Whatever had caused the break-up in the first place, things had been no better the second time round. Not that it was any business of mine.
Janice leaned forward, studying the knees of her jeans. ‘Trev’s upset,’ she said fiercely. ‘He thinks Brad’ll be transferred to a special school.’
‘Is that something his teacher mentioned?’
She stared at me with her large, slightly protruding eyes. ‘No, it’s just a feeling Trev’s got. Anyway my friend thinks it could be his diet. Some kids are allergic to cereals. It makes them overactive.’
‘Oh, we’ve been through all that,’ said Trev, tipping back his chair and knocking it against the wall. ‘Spoiling him rotten more like. Last week he ripped up his reading book and shoved it behind a radiator.’
‘At school?’
He nodded. ‘He hasn’t been too bad at home. Doesn’t like going to bed, of course, but I expect they’re all the same that age.’
‘I’ve been wondering,’ I said cautiously, ‘Do you think it might help if we forget about Brad, just for the next half-hour or so, and concentrate on how the two of you are feeling?’
Janice reacted sharply, pushing up the sleeves of her sweatshirt as though she were preparing for a fight. ‘Oh, you think our arguing makes him play up? Better than just sitting glaring at each other, better than an atmosphere you can cut with a knife.’
I ploughed on regardless. ‘Do you have a chance to go out together at all?’
‘How d’you mean?’ They both spoke together, then Janice laughed nervously. ‘What’s the point? We’re both tired and there’s usually something on the telly.’ Trev snorted. ‘If you ask me anyone’d have problems in that school. Packed out with Asians it is, some of them not even able to speak English properly. We was going to ask about different schools, not so near where we live. If you ask me that kid’s bored stiff, that’s why he plays up, that’s why he makes a nuisance of himself. I’ve been reading about it.’
It was the longest speech Trev had ever made. Janice gave him a look of mock surprise. ‘Got himself a set of encyclopaedias. No, I’m not joking. Sent away for them a year ago, he did, now he’s stuck with paying the instalments.’ She started humming under her breath but Trev continued undeterred.
‘There’s this section on kids Brad’s age,’ he said. ‘Their mental and physical development and that. “Influence of the family on middle childhood.” Boys whose fathers aren’t around turn out like girls.’ Janice narrowed her eyes. I jumped in quick.
‘I don’t think it’s ever quite that simple. Anyway, you are around.’
Neither said a word, just sat there staring at me blankly.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Well, I think the main thing, as far as Bradley’s concerned, is that the two of you agree about what kind of behaviour you’re prepared to accept from him. When you argue about it do the arguments follow the same pattern?’
‘Oh, they do that all right.’ Trev was sitting up straight with an unpleasant smile on his face. He jerked his head towards Janice. ‘Go on then, tell her about the other night. I was putting the rubbish out and something sharp poked through the bag and Janice said now there was a hole in it the cats would be swarming round and… ’
The room had warmed up. The Bakers were starting to relax. With any luck we might get to the bottom of their resentment towards each other. That’s what I ought to be concentrating on. Not Bradley, who could well be a diversion from the real problem. In any case, even if Bradley was in serious trouble it was up to the school, not me. He should have been referred to an education psychologist or the Child and Family Therapy Centre.
I smiled at them but Janice was looking out of the window and Trev was staring at his trainers. He had finished the story about the rubbish and was looking worried.
‘Someone from the school wanted us to fill in a questionnaire,’ he said, speaking so softly I had to guess the last word. ‘Then visit us at home for an interview or something. Someone from the university.’ ‘Questionnaire? What about?’
Janice sniffed loudly, then rubbed her nose with the palm of her hand. ‘They can’t make us do it.’
‘No, I’m sure they can’t. Someone’s research project is it?’
She glared at me. ‘Eh? It was just a photocopy. Brad was just a number. Know what I mean? They’d signed the letter, only not really. Some woman called Hazeldean.’
*
My last client of the day, a young man who wanted me to help him find a way to tell his parents he was gay, left at four-thirty. He should have been referred to Nick, but Nick could be touchy about that kind of thing. He hated the way people assumed only one gay person could understand another. That was real discrimination.
I saw my client out of the building, then looked in on Heather to ask how much she could remember about Maggie Hazeldean’s phone call. Nick was in the office, skimming through an analysis of our previous year’s work. Number of clients broken down by age, sex, and type of problem. Number of appointments, plus an outcome rating ranging from ‘very satisfactory’ to ‘failed to return’.
‘Anna.’ He shoved the folder in the filing cabinet. ‘I saw your superintendent this morning. Come to bend your ear?’ ‘Not really.’ I didn’t want to talk about it. Nick had quite enough to contend with. ‘There was a fire in Bishopston at the weekend. Someone died, a lecturer at the university.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. You knew him?’
‘Her. She was called Maggie Hazeldean. No, I’d never met her but she’d made an appointment to come and see me.’
‘Dr Hazeldean?’ Heather looked glued to the spot. ‘She rang up only last week. Wanted to see Anna the same day but I said you were all booked up.’
For a few seconds no one spoke. As a mark of respect for the dead — or because sudden death, combined with Nick’s mother lying in a hospital bed, was reminding us of our own mortality?
I turned to Heather and broke the silence, asking after her teenage daughter who had been driving her up the wall for the last month or so. ‘How’s Serena?’
She pulled a face. ‘Don’t ask. Came back well after midnight and shouted at me for waiting up. Said none of her friends’ mothers made such a fuss.’
Nick, who had heard it all before, was escaping through the door.
‘Any news, Nick?’ I called, but he shook his head.
‘I’ll be visiting this evening. Let you know tomorrow.’
‘Poor Nick,’ said Heather. ‘Puts your own problems in perspective doesn’t it?’ ‘That’s the theory.’ I pulled out a chair. ‘Tell me about Serena.’
Heather sighed, pushing her hands in the sagging pockets of her brown cord skirt. ‘Oh, you don’t want to know. She’s always been so helpful. Lisa was the difficult one when they were little. Now it’s the other way round. I don’t know what I did wrong.’
‘Don’t they all go through this kind of phase?’
‘Yes, but there’s no one to tell you what to do. If I lay down the law she loses her temper. If I let her make up her own mind she says I don’t care. I can’t win.’
‘Maybe that’s what she wants. Maybe you’re getting it exactly right.’
‘Yes?’ She gazed at me as though I had come up with some amazing new theory rather than one
rather feeble suggestion aimed at stopping her from feeling a failure as a mother.
I glanced at my watch. Owen was coming round to cook me a meal. Instead of returning to an empty flat there would be someone to talk to. I could tell him about Howard Fry’s visit, ask if he had heard about the fire. Ask how well he had known Maggie Hazeldean.
Martin appeared in the doorway. ‘Who’s getting it right? By the way, what did Howard Fry want?’
‘Nothing important. I mean, nothing you need to know about.’
‘Sure?’
‘Quite sure.’ I told him about the fire and he put his arm round my shoulder, comforting me as though Maggie Hazeldean had been one of my dearest friends.
‘She told Heather she needed an urgent appointment,’ I said, ‘only I’ve no idea what the problem was.’
‘Oh, well, those academic types always want everything done yesterday. Hang on — Maggie Hazeldean — name sounds familiar. Something to do with the Student Counselling Service. Wasn’t she on some university committee?’
His straggly hair was tickling my cheek.
Any excuse for a clinch, although Heather had told me, in absolute confidence, that Martin and Sue had been to see a counsellor and their marriage had taken on a new lease of life. God knows how Heather had found out about it but she was probably right. Martin had been different recently. More upbeat, less negative. He had even shaved off most of his beard.
‘Listen,’ I said, releasing myself from his grip, ‘that shop up the road, how long does it stay open, does anyone know?’
‘Seven in the morning till eleven at night,’ said Heather. ‘And we think we’re overworked.’
*
The shop was run by an Indian couple. From the outside it looked like a newsagent’s but they sold a fair selection of food too, although I thought it unlikely they would stock the olive oil with garlic that Owen had informed me was essential for the dish he was planning. I had no intention of trailing around looking for any other shops in the area. Why couldn’t he buy his own ingredients? One token attempt and if that failed he would have to make do with whatever he could find in my kitchen cupboard. Someone else inspecting your stock of basic food-stuffs is usually a recipe for disaster but this time I would bear with him and ignore the cries of amazement when he discovered I had failed to stock up with pesto sauce or fresh sage.
Outside the shop three elderly women were standing under a street lamp, talking about a mutual friend. ‘Who’d have thought with her being a Catholic? We used to be ever so close but it doesn’t seem right.’ I squeezed past, pausing for a few seconds to scan the headline on the evening paper, something about a motorway pile-up, two dead, both of them pensioners. I hoped they were married, not friends, each leaving behind a devastated partner. As I reached out to pull open the shop door a dark shape hurtled towards me, its claws scraping on the stone steps, and a split second later I realized it had attached itself to my leg, just above my ankle.
There was no pain. Not at first. A feeble attempt to pull free only caused the dog to tighten its grip. The women who had been chatting outside the shop had disappeared. Looking round vainly for some kind of heavy object I heard a piercing whistle from someone close by, but out of sight, and in an instant the dog had let go and disappeared round the side of the building. Limping towards the bend in the road I was in time to see two men jump into a battered brown Allegro, one of the pulling the dog in after him before slamming the door when the car was already moving off. It was getting dark but the car had been parked directly beneath a street lamp. Both men had shaved heads and one of them had shoulders the size of Mike Tyson’s. There was no way I could have seen their faces, but I recognized the tattoos on the side of the driver’s neck — and I recognized the dog.
Chapter Two
The sour-faced receptionist was on the phone, talking to a patient who wanted to change her appointment. The fat one, with yellow hair, had her back turned, sorting through a pile of prescriptions.
I cleared my throat noisily. ‘Excuse me, I need to see a doctor.’
‘There are no appointments this evening.’ I sighed. I couldn’t help it. ‘I’ve been bitten by a dog.’
She dragged the appointments book across the desk, licked her fingers and turned a page. ‘You could see one of the nurses. What’s the name?’
‘Anna McColl. Dr McColl.’ Might as well try and pull rank, not that it was likely to have much effect. PhDs were two-a-penny in Clifton. Still, they might think I was a doctor of medicine. A real doctor.
‘If you could wait over there, Dr McColl.’ The receptionist pointed in the direction of a row of red vinyl seats. ‘Nurse will be with you shortly.’
On the opposite wall two gruesome-looking teeth — on legs — discussed the merits of regular brushing. The one with cavities looked suitably chastened. The ‘good’ tooth had a halo above it.
I closed my eyes and tried to relax, but my brain continued its frenetic struggle — to make sense of the day’s events, to recall the number plate on the brown Allegro. The letter at the end of the string of numbers had been a P. I was almost certain of it. That meant the car was nearly twenty years old so there were unlikely to be too many similar models belonging to people in Bristol. As far as I could remember one of the panels looked as if it had been replaced but not resprayed. Or had it been a trick of the light? And the bull-necked man with the string of tattoos. There were two garish designs that stuck in my mind. A bird of prey with a sharp curved beak? A skull with a purple hood?
My ankle felt numb, apart from a slight pricking sensation, but when I bent over to check how it looked I could see dark red toothmarks, surrounded by puckered mauve and white skin.
A door opened to let out an old man with a pink eyepatch. He walked unsteadily, clutching at one end of the row of seats, but when I sprang up to help he waved me away.
Somewhere, in the upstairs waiting room, a child was having a temper tantrum. I felt slightly sick — the after effect of a nasty shock? But, if I was totally honest with myself, part of me was rather enjoying being a patient.
A head came round the door and when our eyes met we both frowned, trying to remember.
‘You’re waiting to see me?’ Her voice was brisk, nurse-like, but her expression was friendly enough. Dark wavy hair and a plain but pleasantly reassuring face. I guessed she was about forty, but she was carefully made-up and could have been a little older.
‘A dog bit my leg,’ I said, following her into the surgery.
‘When did it happen?’
‘About twenty minutes ago. Look, haven’t we met somewhere? I try to steer clear of visiting the doctor, as far as possible, but I’m sure I know your face.’
‘You work at the university?’
‘No, but I’ve friends there.’
‘My husband’s a senior lecturer. And you’re… ?’ She seated herself at a VDU. ‘We don’t have notes any more, it’s all on disk.’
‘Anna McColl.’ I gave her my address in Cliftonwood. ‘I expect we bumped into each other at some function or other. I did a research project, part-time, supervised by Owen Hughes.’
‘Owen? Oh, he and Terry did some work together a year or two back. Terry Curtis. My name’s Grace. Now let’s have a look at that leg.’
I sat down and held out the damaged ankle, and she examined it briefly, then ran warm water in a metal dish and dabbed at the toothmarks with cotton wool. I remembered reading how some practice nurses had taken to wearing their ordinary clothes, as a way of making consultations feel more relaxed. Not Grace Curtis. She was wearing a royal blue uniform and a black webbing belt with a silver buckle. Her heavy breasts were kept in check by the tightness of the dress. She smelled of Johnson’s baby powder.
‘Over two hundred thousand people get bitten each year,’ she said, ‘but only a fifth of them develop an infection.’
‘Forty thousand. That’s a comfort.’
She smiled for the first time. ‘Dogs’ teeth tend to be contaminat
ed with rotting meat. I’ll clean it up, give you an anti-tetanus jab. If you have any trouble come back in a couple of days and your doctor will prescribe an antibiotic.’ She straightened up, placing the dish on one of the grey Formica work tops. When she spoke again there was no change in her tone of voice. ‘You heard about the fire, I expect.’
‘The fire?’ Just for a moment I had forgotten. ‘Yes. Yes, I did. Isn’t it dreadful? Did you know Maggie Hazeldean?’
She nodded. ‘Terry’s devastated. I was away until Sunday evening. When I came home… They were both working on similar projects. Disruptive behaviour in young children.’
‘I don’t think I ever met her,’ I said, ‘but Owen’s mentioned her name.’
‘You’re not an academic then?’
‘Me? No, I’m a clinical psychologist.’ Her head jerked up. ‘Here, in Bristol?’ ‘Yes, that’s right. Our office is quite near the city centre.’
She fixed the bandage with a strip of tape then sat down, staring at me but thinking about something else entirely. ‘Sorry. So sorry, I was just… It seems rather unfair to ask, but I was wondering if you’d be able to see Bill?’
‘Bill?’
‘Maggie’s husband. They were separated. Split up six months ago. Actually it’s Ian I’m worried about. Their son. He’s fifteen, such a difficult age. Bill says he’s reacted to his mother’s death as if it never happened.’
‘That’s not unusual,’ I said, wanting to reassure her but sounding like a know-all professional. ‘I mean, if an event’s too traumatic to take in it tends to be denied for a day or two, sometimes much longer.
If his father’s worried he could have him referred to us. I’d make sure we fitted him in as quickly as possible.’
‘Oh, Bill would never do that. He doesn’t approve of people like you.’ She gave me a sidelong look. ‘I’m sorry, that sounded rude, it wasn’t meant to be, but if you’d met Bill… They live in Henbury, out towards Cribb’s Causeway, about fifteen minutes’ drive from here. If I talked to him he might agree to see you. You do see people at home?’