18
Seven elderly patients sat in the waiting room, two chatted happily in the corner — their ailments not immediately obvious to the casual observer. The others flicked through magazines deemed too ancient or too dull for the staffroom; Nancy Brood leafed through a June 2006 issue of Florida Sportsman and Jennifer Withers, a retired botanist who’d once worked for an international fertiliser company, was reading about Princess Diana’s latest landmine eradication campaign despite the Princess having died twenty years ago. Elijah Cone held a tatty Readers Digest but made no move to read it. Next to him sat a woman he didn’t recognise who’d pulled a paperback from her handbag and was engrossed in its pages. Leaving Polish Rob sitting alone the corner, jiggling his legs.
Polish Rob wasn’t his real name, but one given to differentiate him from the four other Roberts who lived at the Rose Haven Retirement Resort. They’d named him Polish Rob for the obvious reason that he was Polish, and despite having lived in America since 1946, his accent was as strong as the vodka which had decimated his liver. Polish Rob had moved into the Rose Haven a month earlier and the strict no alcohol policy had sent him into a detox hell only death would cure.
The seven old folk sat on old board chairs with fraying arms, reading magazines well past their shelf life, waiting to see a doctor they’d had no choice in choosing. There was no relaxing mood music or calming colour scheme, the waiting room had been shoehorned into the old fitness centre of the resort, where dusty exercise equipment still adorned the space. The residents had given up asking if they could use the equipment, management claiming health and safety was a factor, as there weren’t sufficient funds to employ a qualified physiotherapist, to oversee the use of the equipment. Avoiding lawsuits seemed to be one thing the management of the Rose Haven excelled at. Beige paint plastered the walls, the remnants from a cancelled commercial order the owners had got cheap at auction, with gallons of the stuff festering in the basement.
When Doctor Perry first set up in town, establishing a relationship with a suitable old folks home was a key business decision. In his experience, most businesses catering to the elderly didn’t do it out of altruistic tendencies but out of a deep love for the bottom line. Old people didn’t complain, their families weren’t interested in their welfare, they didn’t eat much and couldn’t remember what they’d eaten anyway. They didn’t need as much space as the mandated square feet prisoners were allocated, and their population turned over faster than a rollercoaster at Disneyland. All in all, working with the elderly was a cash cow. And the State subsidised it.
After much research, choosing the Rose Haven Retirement Resort had been an easy decision. The owners favoured profit above all else, and how they made that profit really concern them too much. They were open to suggestions, which made it the perfect business relationship.
Doctor Perry opened his consulting room door and counted the bodies waiting for him — seven, as per his appointment schedule.
“Good afternoon,” he announced, causing six out of the seven heads to pop up. Polish Rob didn’t look up, eyes downcast, hands shaking in his lap.
“Sorry for the delay,” Doctor Perry said. He had no intention of elaborating as to the reason for the delay. That was the good thing about the elderly, they believed their doctors and rarely, if ever, questioned them. Doctors were important people and if they were delayed then it must have been for something important.
“Miss Withers, please come through.”
Jennifer Withers, the retired botanist with a penchant for English royalty, shuffled into the office and Doctor Perry closed the door behind her.
“How are you feeling today?” he asked.
“Oh a lot better since I last saw you,” Jennifer said, “but I’m still getting these headaches, makes me so tired, and well, I was wondering if perhaps another dose of your tonic might be just the thing I need?”
Doctor Perry made a show of looking over his notes but he'd already seen the improvement in Miss Withers, her skin was smoother and she walked with more agility than she had a month ago. With some patients he kept their dosages low enough that they’d feel better but slowly the effects would wear off and their problems would return, and thereby they’d return to him. A money-go-round if you like; their money went to him, over and over and over again.
“Hmm, it’s been a month since I last saw you and the headaches haven’t improved? Have you been drinking water like I suggested?” He raised a practised eyebrow, he knew this party trick always got a giggle from the older ladies.
As predicted, Jennifer Withers tittered before droning on about her hydration regime. It didn’t matter to Doctor Perry whether she did or didn’t hydrate her body efficiently for her age, she had a prosthetic leg which made her unsuitable for anything other than a small dose of his tonic every now and then. Just enough to make her feel like Wonder Woman briefly before the same ailments took hold of her decaying body.
He might as well string her along for as long as he was still in town, it was all extra dollars in the coffer. “And you call yourself a scientist? You of all people should know the benefits of hydration. Miss Withers, if you are not drinking water with every meal, and a glass before bed at night, I will hear about it. I will only prescribe my tonic if you can find a way to adhere to that health advice?”
“Yes, I’m sorry, Doctor Perry. I promise.” Jennifer said, like a child being scalded by a favourite teacher. “But these headaches, I can’t think straight…”
“That will be dehydration. Trust me, Miss Withers.” He passed a medicine cup across the desk and watched Jennifer gulp it down, the untamed whiskers on her chin dancing up and down as she licked the inside of the cup.
“It won’t be long until that takes effect and as long as you drink plenty of water, in conjunction with gentle walks around the halls, you will see an improvement. You must trust me, Miss Withers. I am your doctor.”
She limped out of his office smiling. It was a shame she wasn’t a whole woman, and an even bigger shame he hadn’t worked out how to regrow limbs, yet. He closed the door and returned to his desk. He had to write up his notes before the next patient. That was the way he worked. One patient in, one patient out, write up the notes, put them away, next patient in. That way no one got confused. Medications weren’t mixed up. No one died.
Doctor Perry checked his watch, half a minute to spare. He stretched and did a couple of deep lunges to keep his legs limber and the blood flowing. Exercise was just as important for one’s health as hydration.
The next patient was a new resident, so he spent most of the session ascertaining her medical history and personal circumstances, as any doctor should with a new patient. The patient was an eighty-one year old spinster from California, who’d initially moved to Florida to care for an elderly aunt and had never left. With no close family, few friends, or acquaintances at the Rose Haven, she was a perfect candidate.
Doctor Perry made sympathetic noises as he made notes in his own inexplicable shorthand. “It must be very hard for you, all on your own?”
Francis Merriweather smiled, “I don’t mind so much. I never argue with myself, I always get to eat the last chocolate in the box, and I can watch whatever I like on tv without having to compromise. It’s just now I…” She didn’t need to finish the sentence, Doctor Perry already knew why she’d moved into the Rose Haven Retirement Resort; why she couldn’t live on her own any more. It was a sad story, sadder than most to be fair, but she was his now.
“Being married has benefits, but I understand what you mean, Miss Merriweather. I’m not one for prescribing medications willy nilly, but without running any further tests-”
“I’m not having any tests-”
“Yes, well, you’ve already made that quite clear, but it goes against my better judgement as your doctor. I was about to say, I can offer a natural tonic to ease the symptoms you’re experiencing. I would normally recommend a higher dose, which would have a much better chance of alleviating them fast
er and for longer, but again, without those tests…”
“I’ll consider it, but I’m unlikely to change to mind. As I said, I’m old, and old people get sick and die. That is the natural way of things. It is not for us to play against the hand we’ve been dealt, Doctor.”
Doctor Perry had no answer for the feisty woman in front of him. Instead he motioned towards the scales and noted down her weight as Francis Merriweather slipped off her slippers and stood lightly on the digital scales.
“May I ask, have you recently lost weight, or is this your normal weight?”
“Not being able to keep down most meals generally leads to acute weight loss, don’t you agree, Doctor?”
Doctor Perry bristled. It wasn’t a surprise she’d never married, with a tongue like that in her head she would have driven any man into an early grave. “I should like to see you again next week and then we can have that discussion about those tests. I’ll add your name to next weeks appointment schedule but for now I’ll just measure out-”
A commotion interrupted whatever he was about to say, the walls rattled and screams filled the small consulting room. Doctor Perry didn’t move. He’d invented most of his reputation and wasn’t was the right sort of doctor for an emergency. He froze.
Francis Merriweather however leapt up from her seat and threw open the door. The scene in the waiting room was like a mosh pit at a concert, Polish Rob was thrashing around on the ground and vomit decorated the walls. On the floor with him was one of the male orderlies riding him like a bucking bronco at a rodeo. The other patients waved their arms around in horror, too afraid of the vomit and the flailing limbs to get any closer.
Eileen Hislop threw up discreetly into one of the fake pot plants. The mere scent of vomit was enough to get her started. She pulled a tissue from her voluminous bosom and dabbed at her mouth.
Elijah Cone wanted to help, but when he’d tried, Polish Rob had grabbed his hand so hard, Elijah almost blacked out, which would have added to the disaster unfolding in the waiting room, so he’d retreated to the corner, cradling his hand protectively.
Francis Merriweather may have been small but vomit had never bothered her and she waded into the fracas, cooing to the man on the floor, pushing the nurse out of the way, surprising him with her strength. She knelt down on the floor by Polish Rob, taking his hand in hers.
Polish Rob’s enforced detoxification had broken him and his liver had closed up shop while he’d been sitting in the waiting room. One by one his other organs went out on strike causing his body to convulse. The useless orderly supervising the doctor’s clinic thought Polish Rob was playing up and had tried subduing him, which only aggravated the situation. The dying man lay on the ground, holding the hand of a woman he’d never known, surrounded by people who didn’t speak his language. It matter not — he had no words left inside him, none that he could coherently form. Blood tainted vomit soaked his chest but he couldn’t smell it and couldn’t see it. But he could hear Francis Merriweather’s voice and knew she was holding his hand. She sounded like such a nice lady, with a voice like an angel. As that final thought pulsed through the dying synapses in his brain, Polish Rob slipped away to join the real angels up in heaven.
Doctor Perry hovered at the door. His hands were shaking and his breathing shallow, the fear of being unmasked hit him like a freight train and he broke into a sweat. Struggling to control himself, he pressed his nails into his palms. Half moons of blood bloomed as he pushed his nails harder and harder, until he felt his self control return. Taking a deep breath, he rushed out of the room, professional concern plastered all over his face. Francis Merriweather’s glass of tonic abandoned on his desk.
The first thing he noticed were Francis Merriweather’s stockinged feet as she sat on her knees next to the man on the ground. Then he noticed the audience, watching him, waiting for him to step up, expectation written all over their faces.
“Move away, move away,” Doctor Perry blustered.
Francis Merriweather ignored him.
“Miss Merriweather, could you please let me see to my patient?”
She turned to look at him, dismissing him with her ugly old eyes he thought. His temper threatened to give way but he was better than that. He was better than all of them. They had no idea what he could give them, another life, a second chance. Fools, they were all fools. He couldn’t wait to be rid of them all. The twins would be his ticket out of here. Then he’d be done with all this, and not a moment too soon.
Miss Merriweather closed Polish Rob’s eyes, and asked for some assistance to stand, her face suddenly representative of her age now that the adrenaline was wearing off. Gentle hands reached towards her, old hands, but they did the trick, she was as slight as a ten year old girl.
“If you’d let me get past Miss Merriweather, I could have helped the man,” Doctor Perry pontificated, reclaiming the moral high ground he was so used to.
Francis Merriweather, former Air Traffic Controller and long time volunteer Coastguard, didn’t give him a second glance as she limped off. She didn’t drink the tonic he’d prescribed either. He watched the tiny woman march off. She wasn’t the only one to slink away, and within the space of a heart beat, he was alone in the waiting room with an orderly, a dead patient, and a vaguely familiar man cradling his arm in the corner. For the first time in a long time, he wasn’t sure what to do now.
19
Elijah watched the doctor struggle with the scene. Cone was as good a reader of people as you could be without having a psychology degree; you had to be in the game and be able to predict the next move based on physical clues — the holding of hands, the itching of the nose, the ruffling of the hair. Years ago he’d sat in on an interrogation course run by the FBI. It wasn’t as in-depth as the real thing, but for the group of them who’d been locked into a gymnasium for the session, it had been a windfall of useful advice, and it had done wonders for the team’s performance over the next decade. Half remembered snippets came back to him as he observed the sheen on the doctor’s forehead, the clenched fists by his side. The guy hadn’t even bent down to look for a pulse on the poor sod on the floor, he’d left that to the orderly to check. Benson trusted this man, but Elijah was having doubts.
“Doctor Perry?” Elijah stepped forward.
The doctor turned to look at him, dark eyes flashing across Elijah, dark eyes with nothing in them. There wasn’t shock or sadness or even an obscene joy at the death of a patient. The nothingness forcing Elijah to step back. His movement jolted the doctor from whatever private hell he was in because a man appeared within those black eyes. Elijah now saw a deep sadness and compassion in the doctor’s eyes.
“So sorry about this, I should have seen him first. Addiction is a relentless tsunami, almost impossible to escape without assistance. You are…?”
“Cone, Elijah Cone,” Elijah said, waiting for recognition to cross the doctor’s face. Surprisingly there was no reaction from the other man.
“Mister Cone, please come through, they don’t need us here to… well, to tidy this up,” and the doctor ushered Elijah through to his consulting room without any last glance towards the body on the floor, eager to escape the stench of released bowels mingling with the vomit in the stale air. The air conditioning system was only suitable for aftershave and perfumed lotions.
If Doctor Perry recognised the name he couldn't place how he knew it. Whether it belonged to an actor or a politician, although it was unlikely any American politician would ever end up in the Rose Haven. Politician’s squirrelled their money away from their constituents as if preparing for the final apocalypse.
“Please take a seat. I’ll need to run through some standard questions, to ascertain your medical history, to see if there’s anything I need to know before I start treating you. Shall we begin?” Doctor Cone said.
Elijah nodded, keen to avoid making waves. Back before the shit hit the fan, he would have been furious at Doctor Perry’s handling of the events in the waiting room
, but not now, now he just wanted something for the pain and to go back to his room to wait for the sweet release death would bring. Hoping that his death would be pain free, not like the death which had taken… no, he would not think of her. Of them…
“I’m here about the arthritis in my hands. Benson said you’d be able to help. There’s no family history of arthritis. I was told it’s the case of too much sport when I was young so now I’m paying the price.”
“You may think that your medical history is of no concern but I need to know about allergies and such and I do need family background. I need to know who to contact if you have a reaction to the medication I prescribe and-”
“There’s no family to contact,” Elijah interrupted, his voice louder than he’d anticipated. “I’m not allergic to anything, I just need something for the pain because I can’t even hold my own cock without passing out in pain.” The look on the doctor's face was gratifying and Elijah didn’t regret cussing in front of the other man. Give a man a title like doctor and they thought they had to know every inch of you. How hard was it to prescribe pain relief?
“Mister Cone, I assure you I’m here to help but to do that I need some personal information. I’m not employed by the government, I have no other partners in my medical practice save for a woman I employ to do the filing. Whatever you tell me in this room goes no further. I don’t share it with the management of the Rose Haven Retirement Resort. I am your doctor first and foremost. You can trust me.”
“Doctor, I trust you to listen to why I’m here and then prescribe me some pain relief. I’m here about the arthritis in my hands. I’ve seen every specialist under the sun. I know what it is, so all I need from you is some pain relief stronger than Tylenol. Ideally something for arthritis which is subsidised , but if you can’t help me, please say so and I’ll go back to my room.”
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