Antidote to Infidelity (36 page)

I’m about to say I’m way too
knackered when the front door bursts open and in walk a shattered-looking Mary
and Clive, carrying a flat-out twin on each shoulder. As we dash over to greet
them, Mary, uncharacteristically casual in a maroon tracksuit and navy pumps,
hands me Rosie.

“Good Lord, dear. Were you
attacked?” she asks in alarm. “You look positively
monstrous
!”

Cheers, outlaws. Nice to see
you, too.

Clive, standing on ceremony in
a green summer shirt and beige trousers, looks equally concerned but, unable to
resist a quip, adds, “Nonsense Mary. It’s a distinct improvement, I’d say.”

Smiling, I let it slide and
mumble something about tripping over my shoes, keen to find out why they’re
back from Tenerife a day early.

As Will and I each carry a child
up the stairs, Mary follows, blowing her nose into a floral hanky. Ordering
Clive back out for the cases, she blubbers, “Oh, Sally dear, I’m so
sorry
.
I’ve been trying to reach you. Ryan’s had a little accident, I’m afraid.”

Will, suddenly sober as a judge,
pings to attention, snapping, “Accident? What accident? What do you mean, mam?”

Mary flaps across the landing
like a flustered goose.

“Oh dear, dear, I feel so
terrible. Clive only took his eye off him for a
second
and he toppled .
. . right off the beach wall. He’s broken his arm. Ohhh, I’m so sorry . . .”

As we rush into our room,
gently tucking the snoozing twins into our bed, I kiss Ryan’s forehead and roll
up his sleeve, fussing. Examining his dirty white cast in dismay, I notice
something equally alarming as Mary pokes her head over my shoulder – dozens of
angry red spots.

“I know dear, I know. Oooh,
that’s the other thing,” she snivels. “It’s horrible. They’ve both come out in
chickenpox.”

Rolling his eyes, Will flicks
on the bedside lamp, bending to examine Rosie as his fretting mother adds, “We
decided we’d better get them home before they got any worse and weren’t allowed
to fly.”

Frowning, I notice something
peculiar. My son looks like he’s been Tango’d.

Brushing my finger lightly over
Ryan’s inflamed face, I examine the strange browny-orange dust beneath the
lamp.

“Mary, stop crying, it’s okay.”
I assure her. “But what’s
this
?”

As my mother-in-law fidgets
like an embarrassed child needing the toilet, Clive staggers into the room,
lost beneath a barrage of luggage.

“It’s Max Factor Flawless
Finish, luv,” he says bluntly, dropping a Finding Nemo rucksack at his feet. “A
whole great vat of it. We had to smuggle the spotty little buggers home
incognito.”

I’M
spotty. Like a ladybird. Like
a leopard. Like a ridiculous twenty-nine-year-old woman with an unsightly
childhood illness. Yes, that’s right, I’ve got chickenpox - and you know what,
I’m not the
slightest
bit surprised.

Given my fortnight in the
twilight zone, why would I be? I woke bright and early this morning covered
from head to toe in ugly red blotches. Honestly, I surfaced zombie-style for a
wee, took one look in the bathroom mirror and just wanted to grab a biro and
join the dots.

It’s sod’s law, that’s what it
is. You see, I always get a double dose of absolutely
everything
the
twins pick up. That nasty little bug incubation unit down the road - otherwise
known as
nursery
- has a bloody lot to answer for! Head lice, sickness
and diarrhoea, even hand, foot and mouth - you mention it, I’ve played host to
it - but I assumed I’d got the dreaded pox out the way when I was little, thus
being immune.

One look in the mirror tells me
otherwise. First rule of survival, Sally: never assume.

***

It’s nine o’clock now and I’m
scratching, so I ship Will off to the chemist for calamine lotion while I try
to think back to my childhood to see if I can remember resembling a poisonous
toadstool and itching like a flea.

Hmmm. No.

I vividly recall having
tonsillitis and ‘The Monster’ making me change my own sheets when I threw up in
the night, but not chickenpox. Examining my multiple bumps, wondering if it
could possibly be a misdiagnosis, like some kind of freak delayed reaction to
the finger antibiotics, I reluctantly call my mother.

I’m expecting an excruciatingly
strangle-worthy conversation. I’m sure she won’t disappoint. She picks up on
the first ring.

Mother:
“Good morning, Steadman
residence, Sylvia Steadman speaking.”

Me:
“Mother hi, it’s Sal. Did I
have chickenpox when I was little?”

Mother:
(sniffing haughtily) “And just
how am
I
supposed to remember that? It’s donkey’s years ago, I’m not an
archive.”

Me:
(feeling ancient and decrepit)
“Well no, I realise
that
mother. I just thought it might be something
significant you’d recall, that’s all.”

Mother:
(completely uninterested)
“Well, I’m afraid I don’t. I’d ask your father but I don’t like to disturb
him.”

Me:
“Why, is he sleeping?”

Mother:
“Good Lord, no. He’s up the
ladder de-leafing the guttering. We can’t all be lazing in bed until noon, you
know.
Some
of us have work to do.”

Me:
(checking the bed for a demon
periscope) “I’m
ill
mother. I’ve got
chickenpox
. So have Rosie
and Ryan. They’ve come back from Tenerife early, Ryan’s broken his arm.”

Mother:
(cattily) “Grown women don’t
get
chickenpox Sally-Ann. And you really shouldn’t trust the Mosses with the
children. You can see what a balls-up they made rearing their own.”

Me:
(incensed)
“Mother!
That’s
not
true! What a terrible thing to say.”

Mother:
(stroppily) “Well, I’m entitled
to my opinion. Just don’t go bringing them here.”

Me:
(exasperated) “Who? Mary and
Clive?”

Mother:
“No, you silly girl. The
twins
.
I’m far too throng for shingles.”

Slam!

Just like that, she hangs up.
Insufferable, stone-hearted . . . ooohhh! No ‘poor Sally, I’ll make you some
soup’ or ‘poor little Ryan, we’ll pop round with a comic’. Oh no. Just ‘stop
hounding me with ridiculous questions and keep your spotty little brats at
home’.

Urrgghh.

She must have drugged my poor
father and dragged him down the aisle, otherwise he’d surely have taken one
look at her milk-souring face and said, ‘I bloody
don’t
, Rev.’

I, however, continue to
tolerate her in the scant hope that one day, my
real
mother - a sweet-natured,
kind-hearted muffin baker - will turn up on the doorstep, fling herself into my
arms and beg forgiveness for abandoning me as an infant on the steps of a
nunnery. One day, just you wait and see . . .

***

Snuggling down between my
angelic, concealer-smeared germ bags, I decide to call the surgery and book us
all an appointment, just in case. That way I can get a professional diagnosis
and put my mind at rest.

Brrrpp brrrpp. Brrrpp brrrpp.

“Hello, Sunnybank Surgery, Joan
speaking. How may I help you?”

Balls! Anyone but her.

Hopeful of sneaking in despite
the fact it’s Saturday, my heart sinks when - on the third ring - my call is
answered by Jovial Joan, head honcho of the medical centre’s battle-axe
receptionists.

A fire-breathing dragon with
three chins and zero personality, her sole purpose in life is to wedge her
pompous arse between the doctors and any unworthy distractions.

Like
patients
.

I’m about to hang up but
daren’t. I did it once before you see and she traced me, chewing my ear off
about the ‘error of my hoax-calling ways’. Oh, what the hell, I’ll take a
chance. Stranger things have happened . . .

Joan:
(impatiently) “Hello? Sunnybank
Surgery. Hello? May I help you?

Me:
(nervously) “Ah hi, yes, I’d
like an appointment. Please. Joan. Thank you.”

Joan:
“Certainly. Who to see?”

Me:
“Dr Herbert, if possible.”

Joan:
(noisily bashing her computer)
“Of course. His next available appointment is a week on Thursday. The
seventeenth. Shall I book you in?”

Me:
(assuming she’s made a mistake)
“But that’s almost a fortnight away. We’re ill today. Right
now
.”

Joan:
(all high and mighty) “Well
there’s no surgery today, right
now
, I’m afraid. Unless it’s an
emergency, of course.”

Me:
(debating the severity of our
spots) “Well, not as
such
. But my kids have just come back from abroad
covered in a rash. I’d like someone to take a look.”

Joan:
(totally unmoved) Well, I
suppose I
could
arrange a telephone consultation but it’s highly
irregular. Highly.”

Me:
(shaking my head) “Highly
irregular or not,
Joan
, it’s no bloody use as he won’t be able to see
them, will he?”

Joan:
(confidently) “Oh, Dr Herbert’s
very good.”

Me
: “I’m sure he
is
. . .
but he’s not
psychic
. How can he
possibly
tell what kind of spots
they are without
seeing
them? It could be measles or malaria or
mosquitoes or anything.”

Joan:
(defensive) “Humph. It’s
probably just chickenpox.

Me:
(exasperated) It probably
is
chickenpox. But you shouldn’t just
assume
. I thought I’d got a
hernia once and I was three months pregnant with twins . . .

Joan:
(drumming her nails on the
receiver) Yes, well, if you’re
that
concerned you could call NHS Direct
or let a pharmacist take a look, they know a bit about everything.”

Me:
(rolling my eyes, giving up)
“Thanks. Look, forget it. We’ll probably all be
dead
by then but just
book us in for the seventeenth.”

Joan:
(shrilly) “Aren’t you
forgetting something?”

Me
: (narked) “What like? Next
time call three weeks before the symptoms appear?”

Joan:
(knickers in a twist) Well,
there’s no need to be
rude
. I was thinking of
please
. Manners
cost nothing, you know.”

Me:
(duly admonished) “Grrrr.
Sorry.
Pleeaseee
.”

Joan: 
(appeased, tapping away)
“Certainly ma’am.” Then, victoriously, “No, sorry, that one’s gone now. How
does three-thirty pm on the twenty-third sound?”

Me:
(laughing so I don’t cry)
“Utterly ridiculous. And pointless. And it
reeeallly
makes me wonder why
I pay my taxes. But I’ll take it . . .”

***

Fabulous. Job done. I achieved
a lot there, didn’t I? I now have a pointless ten-minute slot in three weeks’ time
to see I doctor I can’t abide. Doctor Danuse. He’s a nightmare, rude as they
come and
always
right. Will went to see him once and nearly slotted him,
hasn’t been back to the surgery since.

“What’s the problem, Mr Moss?”
the doc asked, peeping over his spectacles.

“My right ankle,” Will
complained. “It hurts when I play football.”

“Don’t play football, then,” he
snapped. “Problem solved. Next!”

Seriously. That was his answer.
For all
he
knew, it could have been broken in six places and swollen
like a marrow. He didn’t
budge
from behind his desk. Never even took
Will’s shoe off!

Head in hands, I stare at the
telephone wondering if Joan had a Smug Unhelpfulness degree
before
she
took the post, or simply excelled through on-the-job training? Rosie smiles up at
me, stretches and drapes her mottled little arms around my neck, eyelids
fluttering.

It’s barely mid-morning and
I’ve already wrestled my spotty way through two of the most uncompassionate
conversations imaginable . . . and got bugger all to show for it.