‘Constance, I’ll draft a letter for you to send out to all of Dr Williams’s patients. You and Alison call anyone due to see him today and give them the choice of rearranging with me or Dr Short for later this week or keeping their appointment and seeing Dr Stevens instead. Please encourage the latter.’ He summoned you further into the room. ‘This is Dr Stevens from our Harley Street surgery.’
Grateful I could now look at you directly, I contemplated the intricacies of your face. Soaked you in. You were the epitome of posh. Everything I despised. Yet I was conflicted about how attractive I found you.
I observed as you pushed your fine-cotton white shirtsleeves further up your forearms, which you folded, unfolded, folded again before daring to draw the long breath that enabled you to speak. Before the words sounded, you broke into a smile, which forced me to momentarily lower my burning face.
‘Hello . . . I’m so sorry about Dr W-Williams. I know he was very much loved by you all. Although it’s in the saddest of circumstances I’m here, I look forward to working with everyone and getting to know you . . . and the patients.’
You delivered your stilted lines almost perfectly. Aside from that stutter with his name. Yes, I noticed. But I’m sure no one else did. You’d clearly been practising. I suspect out loud in your full-length bedroom mirror. And I could sense the relief once it had left your lips.
Your micro-speech triggered Linda’s sobs to start up again and gather momentum. Dr Harris instructed Alison to call her a cab, and for me to pack up Dr Williams’s personal belongings in his office. I didn’t want to. The idea scared me. His stuff. But I nodded subserviently, as I always did.
I remained in the waiting room, prolonging the task. Dr Harris had already left for his office. The Ratcheds had disappeared too. Alison was helping Linda on with her raincoat. You were shaking hands and talking in a low, respectful voice with Dr Short. I wonder, were you suppressing a smile at the contrast with his name and his practically being a giant at six foot seven? It always amused me. Stood next to him, I looked like a tiny child. He treated me like one as well.
Throughout all this you hadn’t noticed me once.
To further delay going to Dr Williams’s office, I headed to reception to pull up his appointments for the day. Alison was shuffling Linda out of the building, passing the responsibility on to a bemused taxi driver. The front door banged shut.
Minus the crying, all was quiet until Alison made her way to the desk.
‘I can’t believe he’s dead.’ She leant over the wooden ledge separating us to deliver her whisper.
I feel bad saying Alison was boring. It sounds cruel. But is something cruel if it’s also true? Her boringness was a fact. And why do the boring ones talk the most? To be fair, I only listened to around forty per cent of what she had to say, so she may have been riveting for the other sixty. I even preferred the bitterness of Linda and her banging on about getting another thyroid test while tucking into her fourth KitKat Chunky of the day.
‘Yes, it’s terrible.’ I stared at the computer screen.
‘I just can’t believe it. Dr Williams. Dead.’
‘Yes. It’s horrible. But . . . well, people die.’ I knew it would show itself. My hands trembled over the keyboard, and I was overcome with queasiness.
‘So what do you think happened? All sounds a bit fishy to me.’
‘I think it was a terrible accident.’
I hoped she’d interpret my taut words as ‘Shut the fuck up’, yet she continued. ‘Hmm . . . I’m not so sure . . . Isn’t death weird, though? You’re just not here anymore.’
‘Don’t you think you’d better call his patients? I’m worried you’ll not catch them all in time.’
As she joined me behind the reception desk, I stood for her to sit in my chair, believing she’d finished, but no.
‘That Dr Stevens is lovely, isn’t he? I mean, I love my Kevin and wouldn’t dream of looking at another man, but he’s very handsome, isn’t he?’
‘I didn’t notice.’
‘So they say it was an accident, but Dr Williams’s wife – Margaret, is it? – wasn’t she—’
The door buzzed.
‘That’s Mrs Akeem. You’d better shush now,’ I said, before escaping into the back in search of a cardboard box.
On entering Dr Williams’s room, I’d expected you to be there, but it was pitch-dark. When I switched on the light, it wasn’t only the space that was illuminated, it was death. The silence. His things. Just there. How he’d left them on the Friday.
No doubt you’d be aware of that phenomenon: when someone’s belongings become both hugely profound and utterly useless at the same time.
The air, hot and clammy, made my nausea worse and I squeezed my stomach for relief. His Manchester United mug, half full with the tea I’d made him, looked lost. A large crumb – I’d guess from the stash of digestives he kept in his drawer – was stuck to the rim. During my interview, he’d picked up on my Mancunian accent. Presumed I was a Man United fan. I was by default, but I don’t care much for football. He told me he went to uni there. Lived in Fallowfield. The opposite end to where I was. He was full of nostalgia, yearnings for my hometown, and I’m certain that’s why he hired me. A link to his youth and happier times. Or maybe he just liked me. All I know is it wasn’t my experience or qualifications. I’d already felt lucky that I’d managed to immediately land a job pulling pints in a dive pub. But I saw the vacancy for the surgery receptionist in a copy of the Evening Standard someone had left on the Tube and applied that night on a drunken whim. When he called to offer me the job, I felt for that moment like I was a real person. Worthy of something good. But I soon remembered that I wasn’t at all.
I picked up the wooden-framed picture of him and his family, all smiles, and placed it face down in the box. Next, I reached over for the mug, but as I did, the nausea overwhelmed me, and before I’d had a chance to think, I’d run to the sink and thrown up. And again. And again. When it all seemed over, and I gripped the sides of the cold porcelain, breaths heavy, I felt a hand on my back and jumped.
‘Oh God . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I was just . . . Are you OK? It’s a terrible shock all this, I know.’
I faced you. Aware of how I must have looked, I turned back towards the sink and pulled paper towels from the dispenser to wipe the remnants of vomit from my chin before throwing them in the bin. ‘Yes . . . yes, I’m fine. I . . . I don’t know what happened. I must have eaten something.’
‘Are you sick every morning?’
‘No . . . God, no. I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you’re getting at.’
‘No . . . I . . . Well, yes, I was getting at that, but I’m a doctor. That’s kind of what I do.’
‘Honestly, it’s nothing. I’ve probably just got a bug or something. Dr Franco went home with one on Friday.’
‘Dr Franco? I thought it was only Dr Harris and Dr Short?’
‘Yes, yes, it is. Dr Franco just rents a room here. He’s a psychiatrist or . . . psychologist. I always get confused. He’s not here all the time, though. He also works with inpatients at some hospital in Ealing.’ A strange look I was unable to interpret washed over your eyes. ‘Anyway, Dr Stevens, I’d better . . .’ I returned to the desk and picked up the mug.