long has he been like this?’ he asked, observing the neck movements keenly.
‘He had a really bad sore throat last week,’ Linda Giles said uncomfortably, ‘and then he started twitching. His brothers and sisters keep laughing at him. But I thought I’d better bring him in to be looked at.’
‘It is a good job you did,’ he told her as he gently examined her son. ‘Why didn’t you bring him into the surgery when he had the inflamed throat?’
She shrugged. ‘I gave him some Friar’s balsam on a spoon with some sugar and it didn’t seem as bad after that.’
Daniel frowned. ‘Friar’s balsam is a very old remedy, and in some cases is sufficient to clear up a sore throat, but what your son had would have been much worse than that,’ he explained. ‘He should have been seen by a doctor.’
The Giles family lived in an old tumbledown house at the top of the road that led to the circle of peaks that surrounded the village. There were five children in all and though Linda Giles did her best she never seemed to be on top of things.
‘Why? Is it the sore throat that’s making him twitch?’ she wanted to know.
Daniel nodded. ‘It could be.’ Turning to Billy, he said, ‘Can you hold your hands out in front of you for me, Billy, like this?’ He showed him, with palms facing downward.
The child, who seemed to have a better idea of what was going on than his mother, obeyed, and Daniel saw what he didn’t want to see. The fingers were curling backwards, and he knew he was seeing a case of Sydenham’s chorea.
‘Have you ever heard of St Vitus’dance?’ he asked Mrs Giles. ‘That’s the common name of the illness that I think your son might be suffering from, which is rheumatism of the central nervous system. It’s hardly heard of in this day and age but it can occur very rarely. I’m going to get Billy seen by a neurologist as soon as possible to see if I am right. In the meantime, take him home, put him to bed, keep him warm and give him the antibiotics that I’m going to prescribe for his throat.’
‘I can’t take him home. I’m on school dinners,’ Linda protested. ‘I’ve been taking him with me while he’s been poorly.’
‘Forget school dinners until he has been seen by the neurologist,’ he told her firmly. ‘The only thing that will stop the body movements getting worse is bed rest and sedation and I am not going to prescribe anything like that until a firm diagnosis has been made. So please do as I say.’
At last Mrs Giles seemed to realise the seriousness of the situation and she took Billy’s hand in hers and led him out of the surgery. Daniel sighed and hoped that she would do as he had said.
He rang her later in the morning and told her he’d arranged an appointment with a neurologist for the following day. ‘It will be a home visit,’ he told her. ‘He will be coming to the house so don’t let Billy out of bed until he’s seen him.’
‘Oh!’ she wailed. ‘Does he have to come here? I haven’t had the chance to put the vac round for days what with one thing and another.’
‘Don’t worry. He’s not coming to look at the house. He’s coming to see Billy,’ he said. And I’m pretty sure I know what he will say, he thought as he said goodbye and put the phone down.
He’d told Billy’s mother that the neurologist wasn’t going to be looking at the house, but damp living conditions and poor nourishment would be noted.
When they were getting ready to leave at the end of the day he said to Miriam, ‘What experience do you have of Sydenham’s chorea in a patient?’
She was reaching for her coat and collecting her belongings, anxious to be gone, and she replied, ‘So far, none. I’ve heard of it, of course.’ And before he could explain that he would like to discuss little Billy’s case with her, she was off.
When he arrived back at Jasmine Cottage, Kate was ironing the clothes that she’d laundered earlier in the day and he said with a frown, ‘You don’t have to do mine. I’m quite capable of ironing my own things.’
‘Yes. I’m sure you are,’ she told him, ‘but you are not going to tell me that my mum doesn’t do your ironing. I know her too well for that.’
‘Yes. Ruth does do my washing and ironing. It was part of the deal when I moved in.’
‘And so I’m taking her place.’
‘So it would seem,’ he commented dryly.
This sort of domestic scene was the very thing he wanted to avoid, he thought as he went upstairs to change out of the suit he’d worn at the surgery.
He didn’t want this forced intimacy to become too cosy.
To begin with, Kate was too forthright and pushy. The absolute opposite of how Lucy had been. She had been gentle and amenable, with long silky hair and a piquant face. Life without her was an empty thing. Yet the woman downstairs ironing his shirts wasn’t to blame for that. It was just that he didn’t want any more complications in his life than he had already.
There was the business of her mentioning the vacancy at the surgery. The more they were thrown together the more she might see it as a reason for him to offer it to her, and he wasn’t going to be manipulated.
They had a meal of sorts. Eating together at the kitchen table, pizza and a fruit flan that Ruth had put in the freezer. Short of being downright rude there was no way he could have avoided it. But once they’d cleared away he said, ‘I’m going upstairs for a while to unwind. If I don’t see you later, sleep well.’
Once in his room he lay down on top of the bed and picked up a book that he’d half read, but he couldn’t settle into it. He felt restless and it was all because of Kate downstairs, who, if she had something to say, came out with it.
She had barged into his life just a short time ago and ever since he’d felt as if his organised existence was being threatened. Yet Kate was vulnerable too in her own way. Trying to cope with being surplus to requirements for some low-life who had strung her along. She didn’t deserve that.
She’d got the message, Kate thought when he’d gone. In a roundabout sort of way he was telling her to keep her distance. That enough was enough, and she couldn’t blame him.
If she needed employment it was up to her to look for it instead of expecting it to be handed to her on a plate. But she was going to have to move out of the area if Daniel didn’t want her in the practice.
She glanced through a magazine, watched some television half-heartedly, and finally decided to go to bed for lack of anything else to do. The days were stretching ahead emptily and she wished that Gran was better and her mother was home.
Ruth had never liked Craig. She’d thought he had a wandering eye and sadly she hadn’t been wrong.
They’d drifted into a relationship, working long hours together, snatching quick meals. Talking shop sometimes, and at others letting the close environment they worked in shut out everyone else, so that it had been as if there had only been the two of them.
The odd thing was at this troubled time in her life the fates had sent another man into it, and the more she saw of Daniel the more Craig
