me, dear, you couldn’t find a kinder heart than Mrs Savage’s but she’s not much of an organizer to say the least and she has to quench her thirst a bit too often if you know what I mean—’
‘This is Dr Savage’s daughter speaking,’ I said hastily.
‘Ooh! Sorry if I’ve spoken out of turn. You should have said.’
‘Yes, I know. Never mind.’
‘What’s the message then?’
‘You’re to go to a Mrs Hatch, 15, Melton Lane. It’s a case with a number – oh-two, I think.’
Nurse Bunker laughed. ‘That’s it, dear. O-T-W-O. Doctor’s code. It means “On The Way Out”. The poor old thing isn’t going to be with us much longer. I’d better get over there. Ta ta, dear.’
‘Ta ta,’ I said without thinking and got a surprised look from my mother.
The telephone rang the minute I put it down.
‘’Tis wor Jack,’ said a female voice. ‘He’s got the skittors like Niagara Falls. And there’s blood pouring out of his ears. He’s very bad.’
I was alarmed by this description. ‘Perhaps you ought to take him straight to hospital.’
‘He don’t hold with hospitals, pet. He wouldna gan if he was at death’s door. Which he may well be.’
‘In that case I’d better put you down for a house call. Could I have the patient’s full name, please?’
‘Cyril John Chandler,’ said the voice. I wrote it down on the appropriate list. ‘But Doctor needn’t trouble himself to come out. If he’ll just sign a sickie, Jack’ll fetch it up from the surgery this afternoon.’
‘But won’t he be too ill? Surely he ought to be seen before then?’
Dimpsie glanced at my note, then took the receiver from me. ‘Is that Mrs Chandler? I’m afraid Dr Savage won’t give Mr Chandler another sick note unless he comes to the surgery for a thorough check-up.’ She put the receiver down. ‘Jack Chandler hasn’t done a day’s work for months. They’re always trying it on.’
‘How am I to know these things?’
‘You’ll get the hang of it.’
Dimpsie left soon after that to go to the craft shop which was further down the high street. I limped into the kitchen to make my father a cup of coffee as instructed. I was thirsty myself from a combination of nervousness and the radiant heater above the reception desk, which beat down on the top of my head until I thought my scalp might burst into flames. A bottle labelled ‘lemonade’ in Dimpsie’s writing stood on the draining board. I made three separate journeys between the kitchen and the desk with the glass, the bottle and the coffee. Mrs Wagstaffe, seeing that I was encumbered by my leg, obligingly took the mug in with her.
The telephone rang constantly. I found I was entirely lacking in psychological insight. Every caller wanting an emergency appointment described their symptoms so colourfully that I soon felt sick, imagining streams of vomit, blood-laced evacuations, pus-filled carbuncles and gangrenous limbs. I searched in vain for a means of turning off the fire that continued to sear my brains. I gulped down the lemonade. It had a slightly bitter taste, no doubt produced by the lemon pips which swam about among shreds of pith. Patients not only came to see my father but to make appointments with Nurse Bunker and Nurse Keppel for vaccinations, ear syringing, blood tests and verruca removal. A good many of them recognized me as Doctor Savage’s daughter and wanted a thorough debriefing about my career, my boyfriends, my salary, my health, and my opinion of the north of England as opposed to the south. I quickly learned that any tentative suggestion that there was anything to be said for living in the south, such as less rain or a greater variety of shops, gave grave offence. Meanwhile the telephone screamed incessantly.
A man so thickly muffled in coats and scarves that I could only see a pair of sad brown eyes beneath his bobble cap muttered something indistinguishable and disappeared into the other consulting room. I gathered this was Dr Chatterji. I remembered my mission to get him some patients.
‘You’ve broke your leg, I see,’ said Mrs Niddercombe, after she had explained in unnecessary detail about her troubled waterworks. ‘All that nasty concrete in London. It’s surprising it’s only the one. Most likely you’ll have a limp. My sister’s eldest boy broke his leg two years ago. Now all the dogs bark at him. Dogs don’t like handicapped people, do they? They sense they aren’t like the rest of us.’
‘Would you excuse me while I answer the telephone? Hello. Surgery. Is it an emergency? We’re very busy this morning. How old is the patient? Four months? Green stools? Good heavens! Oh, no, I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about – yes, all right. Bring him in at twelve.’ I put down the receiver.
‘Are you okay, dear?’ Mrs Niddercombe asked solicitously. ‘You’re looking a bit green yourself.’
I did not feel at all well. The room was going round and I was having difficulty focusing my eyes. ‘I feel … giddy … and a bit sick—’
‘Sick!’ said Mrs Niddercombe. ‘There’s nothing you can tell me about that! Every pregnancy I’ve been sick as a gissie! Couldn’t look at a cream cake. Them ones with butter cream and chocolate icing with a glassy cherry on top used to be me favourite, but whenever I was expecting just one look int’ baker’s shop window and I’d feel me gorge rise … where are you going?’
I hobbled as fast as I could towards the cloakroom.
‘I’ll answer this phone, shall I?’ she called after me. ‘Surgery. No, Doctor’s too busy to see anyone,’ I heard her say as I leaned over the lavatory. ‘Well, I can’t help that. Give him a dose of castor oil or some senna pods …’ was the last thing that was audible above the sound of my own retching.
Afterwards I felt marginally better. I finished the lemonade, pressed a Kleenex to my perspiring brow and addressed myself to the task of removing something unpleasantly sticky from the pencil which made writing in the appointments book unnecessarily difficult. It looked horribly like a body secretion. I was relieved to discover later a lidless pot of glue in the drawer from which I had taken the pencil.
‘Hello,’ said a cool voice as I tried to scrape the stuff from my fingers. Standing in front of the desk was a woman wearing a coat of what I thought might be mink. Concealing her hair was a cone-shaped hat of dark brown suede trimmed with matching fur. Her eyes were hidden by sunglasses and her mouth by scarlet lipstick. The waiting room had gone deathly quiet as everyone stared at this modish apparition. Amid the anoraks, cycling capes and woolly hats, she looked like a peacock among crows. ‘You have got yourself into a state. Why don’t you answer that telephone before we all go crazy?’
It was Nurse Bunker with a message for Doctor to say that 02 was now 4B and would he pop down later and do the DC.
‘When you’ve finished,’ said the cool voice as I scribbled all this down, ‘I’d like to see a doctor.’
‘Is it urgent?’ I asked.
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘Name, please.’ I swivelled round to the cabinet.
‘Marcia Dane.’
