A Family Affair (23 page)

‘I've had one hell of a day,' she said to Paul that evening.

He had called in at the end of afternoon surgery as he so often did these days. In one respect Helen was always glad to see him. In some ways her relationship with the two partners had completely turned around. Dr Hobbs, whom she had assumed approved of her, since he had appointed her, had turned out to be somewhat difficult to work with – a slightly fussy, old-school doctor who often questioned her closely about her diagnoses and treatments as if he didn't quite trust her, and had an annoying habit of coming into her room and flicking through the files on her desk as he spoke to her. He had pulled her up over quite a few things and though Helen would have been the first to admit he knew a great deal more about general practice than she did and was only too prepared to ask for advice if she felt she needed it, she was irritated and rather unnerved by his constant nit-picking over things she didn't feel mattered at all.

‘Just be careful how you speak to Dorothea, my dear,' he had said on one occasion, his tone managing to be both avuncular and a little reproving. ‘I know she can be difficult but she is a valued member of staff and you must try to humour her.'

‘I thought I was perfectly civil to Dorothea,' Helen had replied, a little sharply, since Dorothea was often barely civil to her.

‘You must remember she's been here a good many years and she doesn't like to be told how to do her job,' he said.

Helen had smarted, just as she had smarted when he had suggested that she would get through her surgery in far less time if she didn't allow patients to prattle on about their personal problems.

‘They'll tell you their whole life's story if you let them,' he had chided and Helen had had to bite her tongue to keep from retorting that she thought that was the whole point – that you should know your patients well enough to be able to judge who and what to take seriously or dismiss as hypochondria or loneliness, and hazard a guess at where the root of their health problems lay. She didn't say it, of course – she didn't want to antagonise Reuben Hobbs by continually arguing with his criticisms, but her growing resentment made for a less than easy relationship.

Paul, on the other hand, had become her ally. Without being told – Helen would never be so disloyal as to talk to one partner about the other – he seemed to know the way Reuben Hobbs made her feel. He'd been in the same position himself once of course, she reasoned. Perhaps when he'd been young and new Reuben had treated him in the same rather patronising way. Whatever the reason, Paul was there for her, and she was glad of the unruffled easy-going nature beneath what Charlotte would have called his ‘John Blunt' exterior. She was always glad to hear his broad northern accent greeting someone in the passageway outside her room; always glad when his square, rather rugged face appeared around the door. His presence reassured her, lifted her heart. And yet … and yet …

Helen was beginning to be worried that Paul's interest in her was a little more than simply that of a colleague. There was, after all, no need for him to come to the Hillsbridge surgery almost every day without fail, yet come he did, always looking in on her for a chat, perching easily on the corner of her desk like an oversized gargoyle; sometimes – as he had on the day when he had thrown Guy, oh so politely, out of her surgery – asking her out for a meal or a drink. She accepted him because she liked him and she had practically no other social contacts here in Hillsbridge. Lovely as Amy and Ralph were, they had their own lives to lead and she had very little in common with any of her other relatives in her age group in the town. Busy as she was it was still possible to feel lonely and she enjoyed Paul's company enormously. But at the same time she couldn't help worrying that he might be reading more into their friendship than she intended. He'd never made a move on her though, and she fervently hoped he would not. It would make things impossibly awkward if she had to refute some advance or other. The companionable relationship would be gone for ever and she would have lost a good friend.

Tonight she was especially glad that he was there to talk to.

‘I really have had one hell of a day,' she said.

He settled his bulk against the small sink in the corner of the surgery, arms folded, raising his eyebrows at her.

‘How come?'

‘Well, for starters, I've made myself unpopular with the county doctor,' she said, cupping her chin in her hands. ‘He saw one of my patients yesterday at her school and told her he could find nothing wrong with her when she had a raging ear infection. The poor child has ended up with a perforated eardrum – and a very indignant mother, who was going to the school to say her piece – much to her daughter's distress – until I promised to have a word with him myself.'

‘Oh God – so you took on the dreaded county wallahs!'

‘I did. And it was a bit like bearding a lion in its den.'

‘I bet it was. He had his reasons for not spotting the trouble, I imagine?'

‘Wax, he said, as I knew he would. Drum obscured by a lot of wax. But the point is, Paul, he shouldn't have just dismissed her like that. It must have been perfectly obvious the child was in a lot of pain. They become so hard, those county doctors – that's the trouble.'

‘Perhaps – but I dare say they've got a lot to make them.'

‘If they refuse to listen to the patient and are incapable of summoning up an ounce of compassion they've no right to be in the profession at all.'

‘You sound like a crusader, Helen. Riding out as the white knight to do battle.'

‘I know – I know. I get too involved for my own good. There's another thing, though, I have to get involved in. Duty-bound, as they say.'

She went on to tell him about Cliff Button.

‘Hmm, that is a sticky one!' Paul shifted his position slightly. ‘What are you going to do?'

‘Go and see him – have a word – tell him if he doesn't stop driving I'll have to report him to the licensing authorities. I don't like doing it. I'll feel an absolute bitch if I have to go that far. But quite honestly I don't feel I have any choice in the matter. Supposing he had a fit whilst he was driving and killed himself – or even worse – someone else? I'd never forgive myself.'

‘You're right,' he said. ‘You don't have a choice. Just hope and pray you can make him see sense without you having to get heavy-handed. Anything else?'

‘Yes.'

‘What?'

‘A girl I had into the surgery this morning.' She paused, rubbing her eyes with her fingers, then pressing them against her temples, remembering. Such a pretty girl, so young – twenty-one years old, according to her records. A girl who should be standing on the very threshold of her life. A girl whose symptoms had caused her a good deal of concern.

‘One of my patients?' Paul asked.

‘Yes. Her name is Linda Parfitt. She lives at Tiledown. I'm surprised the family didn't transfer with you, actually. I mean, they're midway between the two surgeries.'

‘The Parfitts wouldn't bother. They're the sort of people who are happy enough with whatever they're offered. And they don't often need a doctor, in any case. I think I've only seen them two or three times since I've been here. They're a pretty healthy family on the whole.'

‘Linda's not healthy,' Helen said. ‘Not any more.'

‘What's wrong with her then? She's not pregnant, is she?'

‘No,' Helen said. ‘She's certainly not pregnant. I wish that was all it was.'

Paul frowned, looking serious. ‘What is it then?'

Helen chewed her lip for a moment.

‘I hope to God I'm wrong,' she said. ‘But I think she's suffering from leukaemia.'

The next day Helen called on Cliff Button as soon as morning surgery was over.

Cliff lived in one of a neat row of cottages not far from the Market Place. His taxi was in its usual place, parked outside a lock-up garage on the opposite side of the road, but Helen could not make up her mind whether that boded well or not. At least he wasn't driving it – but then he didn't appear to have put it away for the duration either.

She went up the path, edged by beds of sweet william and snapdragons, and knocked on the door. It was opened by Cliff's wife, Hilda, wiping her hands on the skirt of her floral wrap-around overall. She looked taken aback to find Helen on her doorstep.

‘Dr Hall! Whatever brings you here?'

‘I wanted a word with Cliff,' Helen said.

‘He's out in his garden,' Hilda said, looking anxious. ‘You'd better come through.'

She led Helen through a small living room which smelled of lavender polish and a scullery where she was obviously baking – apples, peeled and cored ready for a pie, were simmering on a gas stove, and flour and partly rolled-out pastry lay on a wooden board on the linoleum-covered table.

‘Cliff!' she called. ‘You've got a visitor!'

Cliff, who had been nowhere to be seen, emerged from behind a tall row of runner beans, whose plethora of red flowers promised a fine crop in a few weeks'time.

‘Dr Hall! What brings you here?'

‘I think you know that, Mr Button,' Helen said.

Cliff held her gaze with an expression of innocent bewilderment which would have done credit to a naughty child trying to deny disobedience.

‘You've got me there, Doctor.'

‘Come on,' Helen said sternly. ‘You and I both know that you have been driving. You passed me in Withydown Lane yesterday.'

‘Oh.' Cliff's eyes fell away from hers, guilty now. ‘That were you, were it, Doctor?'

‘Yes,' Helen said. ‘It was. Look, Mr Button, the last thing I want to do is report you to the authorities, but if you continue to drive your taxi, with or without passengers, I'll have no choice.'

‘I'm sorry, Doctor.' Cliff looked utterly dejected now. ‘I know you said I shouldn't, but I felt all right, and Mrs Coles wanted to get over to her daughter's at Withydown.'

‘I'm sorry too,' Helen said, ‘but whatever the reason, and however well you felt, you must not drive until we're absolutely certain your seizures are under control.'

Cliff was silent for a moment, then quite suddenly he nipped a runner off the beans with a savagery that surprised her.

‘It's all very well, Doctor, but what am I s'posed to do'til then? My car's my life! I've bin driving'un since I was just a young lad. I shan't know what to do with meself all day.'

‘Well – you've always got your garden,' Helen said, looking at the rows of cabbage plants and potato haulms hacked up and almost ready to dig, and the display of neatly sticked late peas, their fat pods shining amidst the pale leaf. ‘You obviously get a lot of pleasure out of that.'

‘Oh ah – I've always liked me garden,' Cliff agreed. ‘But I've always kept it up together
and
drove me car. I haven't got enough to keep me occupied here all day long. And then there's the money. We'm going t'miss the money.'

‘Surely you've got a retirement pension?' Helen said.

Cliff snorted. ‘Could
you
live on nothing but a bit o'pension, Doctor? You wanna try it some time.'

Helen sighed, hating every moment of this, but knowing that was no excuse to shirk her duty.

‘Couldn't you perhaps do a few gardening jobs for other people?' she suggested.

‘Such as?'

‘Well – I don't know. But there must be plenty of people who can't manage themselves who would be only too glad of your expertise.'

‘Can't think of anybody,' Cliff said flatly. ‘Who'd want a gardener who might fall down in the middle of the rhubarb with a bloody fit?'

The picture might have been amusing had it not been such a serious matter for Cliff. A fit and healthy man all his life, this unexpected illness had certainly got to him. Helen couldn't imagine that he would make any effort to find out if there was anyone who would pay for his services as a gardener – he was sinking too fast into a state of depressed hopelessness.

‘Well, I'm sorry, Mr Button, but there it is,' she told him with finality. ‘Falling down in a rhubarb patch would be a whole lot better than having an accident and killing someone, don't you think? Now – I must be going, but I have to warn you that if I find out you've been driving again, I shall have no option but to take the necessary action.'

‘Don't worry, Doctor – he won't.' Hilda spoke up for the first time. ‘I'll make sure of that.' She turned on Cliff. ‘Whatever were you thinking of, you silly old fool? If Doctor says you're not to drive, you're not to drive! As for the money – we'll manage. We've done it before and we'll do it again.'

For a moment Cliff looked from one to the other of them, a mutinous expression on his leathery face. Then: ‘Women!' he muttered, and disappeared once more behind the beans.

‘I'm sorry, Doctor,' Hilda said, tucking a strand of thick grey hair which had escaped from the bun at the nape of her neck back behind her ear. ‘He can be a stubborn beggar sometimes.'

‘I'm sorry I've had to upset him,' Helen said.

‘You've got your job to do. Just get him better, that's all I ask. The last thing I want is to lose him.'

‘It won't come to that, Mrs Button. Epilepsy …'

‘Oh, it's not the epilepsy. I don't mean that. But when I think what might happen if he was to have a fit when he's driving … It doesn't bear thinking about. No, he won't be getting in that car again until he's better. You can depend on that.'

Helen thanked her, relieved to have her support, but as she left the house she realised some of Cliff's depression had rubbed off on her. I suppose I see myself as some kind of angel of mercy, she thought with grim humour. I don't like it when others see me as an authoritative monster instead! But there it was – being a doctor wasn't all a bed of roses. That was a fact of life she'd thought she'd come to terms with a long time ago. It was something of a shock to Helen to discover that she really had not.