‘How’s Harriet?’ Jess asks Kirsten.
‘Oh, she’s great – thank you,’ Kirsten says. She knows there’s a blush spreading over her cheeks. She can’t help it – even now, when she talks about her, it happens. It’s like you’re in love, permanently, isn’t it? When you have a kid? And now they know that Harriet will, sadly, be their only child, their little empress, so she gets all that love. After the baby that didn’t … work out. Every day, Kirsten tells her: ‘You’re the best thing that ever happened to us.’ Ian, he always raises an eyebrow when she says that. But despite everything, it’s true. See the silver lining; that’s the motto.
‘It must be tough leaving her all day,’ Jess continues. ‘I know when I have kids …’
She trails off. Kirsten raises an eyebrow. Maybe her PA has remembered Kirsten is her boss, so this is forbidden territory: do not discuss any plans for fertilisation with the one who pays your wages. First female rule of the workplace. Or maybe she remembers that this is the same passive-aggressive ‘why do you work rather than stay at home?’ bullshit that mums put up with on a regular basis, and decides to shut her mouth for the good of the sisterhood.
This is Kirsten’s bugbear. First day at nursery, the keyworker had said to her in front of a teary Harriet: ‘Oh, you must feel so guilty, leaving her here like this.’ Well, thank you, Ms Judgemental. Thank you so much. Kirsten had gone back to her car and cried, more than Harriet ever did. Until they invent a self-paying mortgage, Harriet is going to have to be dropped off in places that emotionally blackmail Kirsten. Good, safe places that will broaden Harriet’s mind.
They did a study, didn’t they, that said girls who go to nursery, and then to school, while their mothers go to work, actually do a whole lot better than those whose parents stay at home? Yes, it got a whole bunch of ridicule in the press. But maybe Kirsten could bring copies to hand out at the school gates (or get the au pair to do it – looks like they’re going to have to get one: she can’t start offering 7.30 a.m. appointments if she has to do the school run).
‘So, are we fully booked today, Jess?’ Kirsten asks.
‘Right up to the brim,’ Jess reports. ‘And the first patient is waiting outside now!’
‘Good. Give me a couple of minutes, and send him in.’
Kirsten needs that two minutes. Because as much as she loves Harriet – and she does, she loves her, she loves her – it takes more than one sip of green tea to go from desperately cajoling: ‘Harriet sweetie, get back in the car, come on now, you know you want to! You don’t need the second purple pencil. One is enough! No, honestly, no one’s going to judge you. We’re going to be late – please, come on!’ to her best calm bedside-manner-infused: ‘Now, what seems to be the matter today?’
But she’s got to. Because it’s a business, this private practice GP surgery. She can’t just rock up like at a NHS practice each morning, with the attitude that people should be so lucky that they’ve got an appointment, and she’ll do what she can but hey! she’s no brain surgeon. Yes, NHS GPs are the front line of medicine. Some surgeries are brilliant. And many GPs are fantastic. But some are struggling. Over-run with patients and paperwork, having to lay down ridiculous rules to reach even more ridiculous targets (Six minutes late? You’ll need to rebook your appointment!) and then giving advice in a rush – it’s tough. Sometimes she’d felt like she was just a gatekeeper for prescriptions, rather than providing meaningful advice. Which was why she left. Set up on her own. Maybe a bit earlier than some people – she could have waited a good decade – but if you have a dream, why delay?
And now, people are paying for a service with more than their tax. They are investing in their health, investing in Kirsten personally, as a service. So she needs to put her mummy service to one side. Not be the nice, slightly harried, always doting but ever failing mummy. She has to be polished, professional Dr White. She puts on her glasses. Slips on her jacket. Lines up the blood pressure monitor neatly on her desk. The desk she herself built from an IKEA flat pack at 1 a.m. the day before the surgery opened. And, of course, makes sure Harriet’s picture is tilted to where the patients can’t see it.
There are pictures of her and Ian too, in the montage Ian had put together for one of their anniversaries. Kirsten and Ian together back when she was a student – how young she looks, particularly next to Ian, who always crashes through the important birthdays long before she does. Then Kirsten and Ian in their climbing gear. She doesn’t angle that frame away. A young, fresh, physically bold couple. A good advertisement for a healthy outdoor lifestyle, if nothing else. What she doesn’t have is a picture of her niece, the one she can’t see anymore. It makes her too sad.
Then the first patient of the day comes in.
And Kirsten is glad she had that calming hot drink. Because it’s a special gut-wrencher, a tear-jerker: the sweetest couple, with fertility problems. Can she help them? And can she prescribe the wife some mild anti-depressants? Because now it’s really starting to affect her sleep. And her ability to function in the world without crying.
Kirsten risks a look at her lovely Harriet’s picture. Beautiful Harriet. Safe and happy at school, now. What a big girl – hard to believe she’s turned five. Someday, the bubble will burst; the picture will shatter, won’t it? The dream of Harriet is too good to be true. She experiences a sudden urge to run out from the surgery, away from this couple with their traumatic failure to conceive, and to go to school and gather up her own gorgeous child.
She doesn’t, of course. Because although Harriet might be the most important thing in the world, this is Work Kirsten. So she stays put, sits, listens, empathises and prescribes, while a little part of her brain rejoices in Harriet, her girl.
MIRIAM, 4 SEPTEMBER 2018
As they approach mid-morning break, the children are happily drawing pictures of their holidays. Miriam didn’t ask them to draw their families – she felt it would be too upsetting for some of them. Can be a bit unorthodox, the set-up. Sure, everyone’s cool with kids having two daddies these days, but if your first venture into the classroom is to find out you’re completely different, and someone giggles at you, it’s going to mar the school journey, right? Put the children first, not preachy societal values. If she’d learnt nothing else, she’d learnt that.
Besides, it would be upsetting for her too. She knows the family she wants. Her, plus-one. The plus-one being a child. Not just any child, of course. She’d done two short stints at other schools, but there hadn’t been the connection that she feels here. But that experience had, in part, got her this job. Nothing is wasted.
So they do holidays. The EasyJet generation – they’ve all had a summer getaway. Even if it was a staycation, it had to be a cool one. Who knew that five-year-olds went glamping? Or maybe it was just a campsite, and the slightly cash-strapped Brexit worriers have sought to teach their children the socially acceptable face of a muddy tent break.
There are the usual shout outs of ‘We went to Disneyland!’ and ‘Mummy says the only way to fly is business class!’ or ‘The French Riviera is perfect at this time of year!’ (Would the parents be embarrassed or proud if they could hear the precociousness of their children?) Miriam makes sure the quieter ones get a say, too. She walks between the desks, asking about the pictures.
Harriet
