Chapter 11
11
B y the time Helen had printed the encounter report, handed it to Dr Ross and watched the ambulance doors close, her shift was over.She went into the kitchen to rinse her cup and collect her jacket. She was thinking about the way panic had undone the very fabric of the man’swife, like wool unravelled. It was a feeling she understood. She knew how it felt to dissolve under the force of extreme fear, the cold acidic wash of it. The last few weeks of her mother’s life she had been no more stable than a loose thread and it was (always) a miracle to Helen how, in time, everything had knitted together again, how she had, slowly, been incorporated back into her life. Her mind had re-learned how to rest, her body to sleep. Even her sense of humour had come back. Remembering all this, she felt suddenly very tired and very sad. She popped the cup in the dishwasher, took her jacket from the peg and stood looking at the green cardigan. She hadn’t been joking when she said it had been here longer than she had. Daisy hadn’t been joking either, when she’d said she hadn’t noticed. Daisy, who spent her breaks staring at TikTok, whose manicured nails and perfect eyebrows and contoured nose, gave away apersonal care regime that required discipline and attention to detail, the same kind of attention she’d failed to bother with this morning. Because it had been Daisy, she remembered now, who had been on the desk earlier. Helen’s mouth turned down. It had been Daisy who had sentthat man through to wait for over an hour, Daisywho was only interested in a free lunch. That man could have died, might still die. She yanked the cardigan free from the peg and dropped it into the bin and just as she did, the door opened, and Dr Ross came in. ‘It’s been there years,’ she said, as she looked at the cardigan.
But Dr Ross didn’t speak.
And neither did Helen. The expression on the doctor’s face, she could see now, was a mix of shock and fatigue. She was obviously still processing what had happened, as well she might. Dr Ross was a partner; claims of neglect against the health centre, accusations of professional ineptitude, stopped with her. ‘Has the ambulance left?’ she said quietly.
‘Yes,’ she said, still distracted. She took her glasses off and rubbed her eye. ‘That was well spotted, Helen’ she said, as she put them back on. ‘He shouldn’t have been left like that.’
‘No.’ Helen bit down on her lip. Dr Ross had turned to look at the cardigan now, the heap of it lying at the top of the bin. ‘I hope it wasn’t yours?’ she said. ‘I didn’t think it belonged to anyone … It really has been here years.’
‘As long as the copy of Good Housekeeping , outside my room?’ Dr Ross smiled.
‘Oh, Idon’t know. How long has that been there?’
‘It’s dated March 2017.’
‘Then the cardigan wins.’
Dr Ross nodded. ‘Are you heading straight off?’ she said. ‘I’m going to make a coffee. Would you like to join me?’
They carried their cups out to the inner courtyard of the surgery to sit under the wide-spoked branches of a plane tree. From here, Helen could see all four sides of the surgery. The waiting room, the doctors’ consultancy rooms, the corridor that joined them and behind, if she turned, the front reception desk. She didn’t turn. She sat under the umbrella of green, her face tilted to the sun, her eyes closed. Beside her, Dr Ross was silent and understanding the shape of the moment, Helen too stayed quiet. Close up, serious illness is frightening, a mangled, ugly tear in the fabric of an otherwise smooth world and the only way to allow the fissure to close again, was to do was exactly as they were. Sit in the sun and wait it out.
Minutes passed, above her head, hidden amongst thousands of leaves, she could hear the rhythmic chirrup of sparrows, from the open windows the muted but constant sound of a phone ringing. She opened her eyes.
‘So,’ Dr Ross said. ‘How was your trip, Helen?’
Helen nodded. She drew in a deep breath, her shoulders rising. In the five hours she had been back at work, this was the first time anyonehadasked.And it wasn’t just the girls. A couple of the doctors had stalked past her with nothing more than a curt nod, asif she had simply walked out the door for five minutes and come back again.Which, she thought bleakly, she might as well have done. ‘Transformational,’ she said, looking across the courtyard. ‘Quite transformational.’
Dr Ross smiled. ‘You’ll have to tell me all about it.’
Helen shook her head. ‘Honestly? I wouldn’t know where to start.’
‘Did you do much trekking?’
‘Lots.’
‘In the Rockies?’
She nodded. ‘And Yosemite, Canyonlands, Redwood National Park, Glacier Park.’ Pushing her hair back, she turned. ‘Did you know that two-thirds of the glaciers in Glacier Park have melted? Fifty years ago, there were over eighty, it’s about twenty-five now. It’s so sad.’
‘It is, yes.’
‘Actually, it’s more than sad.’ Helen shook her head. ‘It’s outrageous, and no-one seems to care. You know, you’re the first person since I got back, who has even asked how my trip was. Cake apparently is far more interesting than global warming! Cake ––’ As abruptly as she had started, she stopped. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I shouldn’t have said that I …’ But her voice drifted off and her hands were clumsy as she put her cup down and bought them together under her chin. She felt oddly exposed in front of this young woman, who was also her senior. She shouldn’t have spoken like that. She should have politely refused the offer of coffee and just gone home, put it all behind her, Daisy’s callous incompetence, the man’s terrified eyes, that leaden lump of cake.
‘Helen?’ Dr Ross put her hand on Helen’s arm. ‘Are you OK?’
No. Lips pressed tight together, hand at her mouth, Helen shook her head.She did not feel OK.The strangeness of earlier, that feeling of having stepped into someone else’s life had not diminished. What was she doing here? Where else should she be? Caro and Kay were taking huge steps forward, while she – it couldn’t be denied – was taking a giant step back.
‘Is it difficult?’ Dr Ross said. ‘Coming back?’
‘More than I imagined.’ Helen gave a short harsh laugh. ‘Ironically, just as I’m returning, one of my best friends is retiring.’
‘I see.’ Dr Ross nodded. ‘Are you thinking you’d like to?’
‘God no!’ she said. The question was like a poker, prodding her upright. ‘If anything, I’m feeling the exact opposite. I feellike I haven’t even started.’ And as she looked at Dr Ross, Helen’s smile was small, almost apologetic. ‘I never meant to be here longer than twelve months.’
Dr Ross smiled back. ‘I understand. Perhaps it’s time to move on?’
‘I’d like to.’ Helen sighed. ‘But at my age? Who’s going to take a fifty-two-year-old woman with an unfinished PhD in Medieval History and limited technology skills?’ As she finished talking, she looked up and across the courtyard. She’d never said that before, never nailed down what had been a jelly-like worry for years. She would, very much, like to move on; she just didn’t know how. She hadn’t known how when Libby had started sixth form and then left for university, and she was none the wiser now Jack too was gone. And, judging by the silence, Dr Ross couldn’t point her in the right direction either. She lifted her chin to the sun and closed her eyes again. She felt wholly lost. The world had changed, and the window of time in which she might have had a career, might have put to good use her education and hard-earned knowledge, had long since closed. Heading towards her mid-fifties, and without the financial cushion now to re-train, it was a supermarket till, or the health-centre.
‘You’re asking the wrong question, Helen.’
Helen opened her eyes.
‘You should,’ Dr Ross said, ‘be asking who is going to snap up a smart woman with no familial responsibilities and a decade’s worth of experience in primary healthcare – which, by the way, shows itself clearly in emergency situations, as we have both just witnessed . And …’ Dr Ross raised a hand. ‘Before you give your response, it’s a question I think I can answer. I have a friend working in primary health care. In Bolivia.’
‘Bolivia!’ Helen laughed. ‘Bolivia?’
Dr Ross nodded. ‘The NGO he works for has just been awarded a grant to open two more clinics. They’re actively looking for admin staff.’
Helen shook her head. ‘It’s nice of you,’ she started. ‘But … well … I mean, first off, I don’t speak Spanish.’
Now it was Dr Ross’s turn to laugh. ‘You wouldn’t need to,’ she said. ‘Right now, Christian just needs someone experienced and capable to get things up and running. Local staff would take over later.’
‘No.’ And again Helen shook her head. ‘I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that.’
‘I think you could.’ Dr Ross held her eye. ‘I didn’t need to see what I’ve just seen to know how capable you are.’
‘I’m too o …’ She pressed her lips together, before the sound could escape old. I’m too old.
‘It would involve much of the same work you do here, Helen.’
‘It would?’
Dr Ross nodded. ‘Record-keeping. Helping prioritise patients. Running clinics, vaccination programmes. Doctors really depend on good admin staff andyou, Helen, are very good at what you do.’
Helen didn’t speak.
‘I think you would find it very rewarding.’
Still, she didn’t speak.
‘Would you like me to make an introduction?’ Dr Ross smiled. ‘I know Christian very well, we were at medical school together.
Stretching her legs out, Helen looked down at her cup. ‘My son still has a year left at university,’ she said. ‘And my daughter, Libby, well you know she has a young child.’
‘It would just be an introduction, Helen. It might give you an idea of what your options are.’
Helen nodded. A minute ago, her options had seemed bleak. Not that she could take a job in Bolivia. Jack was still at university. Ben was …
‘So that’s a yes then.’
‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s a yes.’