‘Red hot,’ said Crispin, with relish, easing the inflamed appendix to the mouth of the wound. ‘Red hot and ready to pop. You ever seen one that hot before, Pud?’
‘No,’ said Paul. He had just swapped the retractor from his right hand to his left and was already contemplating swapping back again; the patient was an aerobics instructor with stomach muscles like sheet metal and Crispin had made the incision so small that it was taking all of Paul’s arm strength to keep it open. He flexed his fingers.
‘Don’t move,’ said Crispin, dramatically, clamping the base of the appendix and picking up a scalpel. ‘One slip now and it’s peritonitis city.’ The theatre nurse rolled her eyes.
The tip of the appendix was an incandescent red and so swollen as to be almost spherical. As it rested on the oozing line of the incision, framed by a patch of sallow skin, Paul inexplicably found himself thinking about cakes. About iced cakes. About iced cakes of the sort that his mother made for bake sales, with raspberry filling and a large crimson glace cherry on … revolted, he pushed the image aside and tried to concentrate on Crispin’s demonstration of a purse-string suture. That was the trouble with being so tired: he couldn’t control his thoughts, they wandered all over the place like a flock of sheep without a sheepdog, falling into gullies, floundering in streams, mistaking green crisp packets for patches of grass …
‘Hey, Pud, the next one’s yours,’ said Crispin, snipping off the end of the catgut and using his gloved thumbs to push the bulging pink cushion of the caecum back into the cavity.
‘Sorry, the next what?’
‘Retractor out. The next on-call appendix, you pillock. You can do it and I’ll assist.’
‘Oh. Good.’ Paul clanged the instrument onto a tray and tried to inject a little enthusiasm into his voice. ‘Great.’ It was extraordinary what surgeons seemed to regard as a treat at four o’clock on a Saturday morning.
‘Or do you wanna close this one?’ Crispin offered him the curved needle, his eyebrows interrogative above the mask.
‘No, I think I’ll just, er, wait for one of my own.’ In his present state of consciousness he felt capable of sewing his glove and part of his gown into the wound.
‘Okey dokey. So –’ Crispin’s needle nipped a pleat of muscle fibre ‘– what were we talking about, before?’
‘Pud’s party,’ said the theatre nurse.
‘Pud’s party,’ repeated Crispin, with enthusiasm.
‘No,’ said Paul, hurriedly, ‘I just wanted to know –’
‘– where to go for a birthday drink …’
‘No, I said –’
‘And we all know that the best place for a birthday drink is the Party Flat.’
‘No, a meal. I just wanted to know where to take someone for a meal.’
‘Le Chien Gris,’ said the theatre nurse. ‘It’s just opened, it’s very good. I went there with my boyfriend last week and we had duck.’
‘Meal,’ said Crispin, derisively, carefully aligning the cut edges of muscle. ‘Wasted opportunity. We had a vicars-and-tarts party last year and by midnight the Pope was hanging out of the window by his ankles. It was fantastic. When’s your birthday?’
‘I just wanted to know about a good restaurant,’ said Paul, doggedly. ‘For a special occasion.’
‘Parrdy for the birthday boy!’ said Crispin, trimming the thread and looking admiringly at his handiwork. ‘I bet I only need four skin clips. Practically keyhole.’ A muffled chirping came from the scrub room. ‘That your bleep, Pud?’
‘Yes. You don’t need me here any more, do you?’
‘Nope, off you go and answer it. It’s probably an admission.’
Struggling was pointless, thought Paul, peeling off his gloves and dusting the talc from his hands. Conversations with Crispin always took on their own momentum; it was like trying to steer an encounter with a door-to-door salesman – whatever topic you began with you always ended up buying three grand’s worth of unwanted steam-cleaning equipment.
‘What about a toga party?’ Crispin was saying.
‘A bit eighties,’ said the nurse. ‘What about heroes?’
‘Heroes? Yeah.’
As he emerged into the long, cold corridor outside the operating suite Paul saw the porters before they saw him; one of them was wheeling a commode and they were deep in serious conversation. Seizing the moment he darted into the darkened anaesthetic room and watched through the crack in the door until they were safely past, and then he quietly re-entered the corridor and headed for the stairwell. Such manoeuvres had become necessary. On the day after the incident in the lift every single porter in the building had acquired a can of air freshener and Paul had progressed through the hospital in a fug of Norwegian Pine. Along the way he had been offered buckets labelled ‘Aim Here’, and packets of Kwells and fistfuls of Wet Wipes, and most of the time he had managed to grin. It had been less funny the next day, and by the day after that he had started taking evasive action.
It wasn’t the constant iteration of the joke that he found hardest to cope with, it was the instant fame. Since his plunge from the roof of the medical school he had reassumed his natural place at the back of the crowd, half a step and a couple of beers behind everyone else. It was where he felt most comfortable, and it was unnerving to be regurgitated into the limelight, to possess both a name and a reputation when most of the other new doctors were interchangeable blurs. Unfairly, they were being allowed to inch quietly into their roles whereas Paul felt as if his every move was preceded by a couple of drummers and a bloke with a trumpet.
The one positive aspect of the whole bloody experience was that he was getting fitter. His avoidance of lifts (after all, there was no need to actually get down on his knees and beg for trouble) meant that he could now walk from the ground to the fifth floor without once having to lean against the wall and pant. The two flights from the operating suite to the admissions ward were a mere bagatelle and he was no more than slightly pink-cheeked as he pushed through the swing doors from the stairwell, banging someone on the shoulder as he did so.
‘Oh, sorry.’
It was the gingery doctor he’d met on the first day, and she turned vaguely towards him as if waking from a trance. ‘Do you know where the coronary care unit is?’
‘Yes,’ he said, with triumph; he had been working hard on the subject of hospital geography. ‘First floor, turn left out of the stairwell and it’s second on your right. It’s between Pathology and the orthopaedic ward,’ he added, in an unnecessary flourish.
‘Only …’ she looked at the long strip of paper she was holding, ‘I’m going there to check this with the nurses, but are you any good at ECGs? I’m almost certain it’s within normal range. I’m almost certain the patient’s just got indigestion and this is an incidental finding but frankly –’ she gave a sudden, wild gesture ‘– with my record it’s a risk I can’t take.’
‘Erm …’ He scanned a section of the printout; the inky spikes seemed to be bounding across the page in their usual fashion. ‘Looks all right, doesn’t it?’
‘But don’t you think the p-q interval’s a bit long? It could be Type One heart block.’
He looked again. ‘No, I think it’s all right.’
‘Do you? Do you really?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded with rather more confidence than he felt. ‘Yes. But maybe you better check it with the nurses.’
‘That’s what I thought, that’s what I’m going to do. God,’ she adjusted her glasses and tucked some stray hairs behind her ears, ‘this isn’t what I expected. Not in the least.’
‘What isn’t?’
She stared up at him, her left eye blurred by a smear on the lens. ‘Being a house officer. I had this mad idea that I’d really get to know my patients, really be able to help them. Well, ha ha ha. Ha!’ she added for good measure. ‘They all keep dying on me. One on the first day, three on the first night, another tonight; they just seem to wait for me to arrive. I get out my stethoscope – they die. I say, “Hello, I’m Carrie, I’m your doctor” – they die. Sometimes I don’t get as far as my name, sometimes I just open the curtains and they’re dead already. My registrar calls me The Terminator.’ She sucked in a deep breath. ‘And I can’t say anything to Wai because she just giggles the whole time. She says –’ she tilted her head brightly to one side ‘– “Carrie, it’s so fun!!” Do you think it’s fun?’ she asked, with sudden intensity.
‘No,’ said Paul. ‘Fun’s the wrong word.’
‘And do your patients die?’
‘No, they discharge themselves. They see me coming and they run away as fast as they can.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, almost. Two in an hour on the first day.’
‘And what happened to them?’
‘One of them’s right back at the bottom of the waiting list for a cholecystectomy and I don’t know about the other; emigrated, probably. Opened a plumbing firm in Tonga.’ He shrugged, and then a bleep went off and they both dipped their heads towards their breast pockets in automatic obeisance. ‘Me,’ said Carrie. ‘Me again, always me.’ She forced a smile. ‘I better go. So little time, so many patients to kill.’ Paul watched as she pattered off towards the lift.
‘There you are,’ said a voice behind him. A few yards along the corridor a shaven-headed nurse was peering round the door of the admissions ward.
‘Sorry,’ said Paul, breaking into a trot. ‘Has the patient arrived?’
‘No, not yet.’ The nurse took a moment to inspect him, a quick head-to-foot survey. ‘No, we’ve just been desperate to meet you.’ He extended a hand. ‘Gwyn Parry.’
‘Hello,’ said Paul, awkwardly.
‘Come on in, tea’s on.’ His voice dropped to a stage whisper as they entered the darkened ward. ‘We never meet anyone on night shift, see, and you’re a bit of a celeb in hospital terms, and we’ve been gagging for a chat. Gagging.’ Slightly thrown, Paul followed him into the spill of light issuing from the open door of the office. ‘Honestly, Dr Gooding, Lexie’s having palpitations at the prospect.’
‘Is she?’ For a moment Paul thought confusedly of cardiac symptoms and lignocaine dosage and then he registered another person sitting in the corner, a small student nurse with chopped dark hair and blood-red lips and an expression of such intense interest, such open-mouthed expectancy, that he missed his stride and walked straight into a chair. The mouth opened further and emitted a loud cawing noise, and he realized that Lexie was laughing at him
‘Sorry,’ he muttered, sitting down hurriedly. ‘I didn’t mean to, um …’
‘Can’t blame you for looking,’ said Gwyn, putting a hand on his arm, ‘she’s absolutely gorgeous isn’t she, 100 per cent goddess if she grew her hair a bit and kept her mouth shut. Spoken for though, aren’t you, Lexie?’
‘I’m not, you twat,’ said Lexie, in an unexpectedly deep voice. ‘Not since Tuesday.’
‘Oh, that’s permanent, is it?’ said Gwyn, with a quickening of interest. ‘I thought that was just a tiff.’
‘No.’
‘So you’ll not be seeing him again?’
‘I’d rather shag a dog.’
‘So, you’re in with a chance there, Dr Gooding, and she goes for men who put a smile on her face. So to speak. Sugar?’
‘No. Yes. Half a spoonful.’
‘Ginger biscuit? Good for nausea, of course.’ There was a machine-gun laugh from Lexie’s corner.
‘No thanks.’ Paul tried to clear his head; repartee was clearly called for, but at this time in the morning he was capable of producing only rough-cut lumps of speech, truthful but dull. ‘I’ll have a Jaffa Cake.’
‘Now,’ said Gwyn expectantly, hands on knees. ‘We’ve been working on a little list of pertinent questions, haven’t we, Lexie, but first things first – it’s Paul, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Or do you prefer Pud?’
‘Paul.’
‘Yes, much more dignified. And how old are you?’
‘Twenty-three,’ said Paul, reluctantly. ‘Nearly twenty-four.’
‘And where are you from?’
‘Shropshire.’
‘Halfway to Wales, better than nothing. Town? Country?’
‘I grew up on a farm.’
‘Oh, son of the soil. Hands rough but firm, shoulders broad with manly labour. Control yourself, Lexie. And what made you decide on a job in Shadley Oak? Because, let’s be honest, it is a little bit of a –’
‘Shithole.’
‘Thank you, Lexie. Backwater, I was going to say. Paul?’
‘Well, I…’ He flogged his neurones, trying to come up with a plausible lie. ‘I heard it was nice.’ Oh well done, he thought, wanting to smack his forehead repeatedly against a hard surface. Plausibility factor zero.
A tiny frown briefly creased Gwyn’s brow. ‘So, have you seen anything of the town yet? Fed the swans? Been to the abbey teashop? Visited the cinema? Oh no, sorry, there isn’t one.’
‘No, tomorrow’s my first day off. I mean today.’ He checked his watch. Another four hours and he’d get his first chance to –
‘And what’s your star sign?’
‘Er, Taurus, I think.’
‘Yes, I can see that. I knew you’d be an earth sign. Reliable – deep but steady. And are you married? Oh no, no ring. So are you taken?’
Paul was beginning to feel punch-drunk. ‘I’m not, no. No, I’m not. No.’
There was a pause.
‘So I’ll take that as a no then,’ said Gwyn. ‘Anyone in mind, though? Apart from Lexie, that is?’
‘Fuck off, Gwyn,’ said Lexie.
‘Manners. Anyone hovering in the wings? So to speak?’
Unbidden, Marianne’s image drifted through his mind and he felt his heart rate climb as quickly as if someone had turned a dial. ‘Maybe,’ he said, looking at his hands.
‘Maybe!’ repeated Gwyn, savouring the word. ‘I like that, that’s a little bit enigmatic. And what do you do for fun?’
‘What do I …?’
‘Lexie.’
Above the braying, Paul heard the fabulously welcome noise of a trolley coming through a set of swing doors and he almost leaped to his feet, tipping his cup in the process and sending a puddle of cold tea across the desk.
‘Sorry. I… sorry, I’ll…’
‘Lexie,’ said Gwyn, snapping in an instant from prurience to efficiency, ‘get a cloth for Dr Gooding and I’ll go and sort out his patient. Give me two minutes, Paul, and then he’s all yours.’
‘Thanks.’
He was left for a moment with Lexie. She stared at him with unnerving directness, her beautiful mouth curved in an anticipatory smile, as if awaiting a punchline.
‘I’ll get the cloth,’ he said, righting the cup and sprinting for the kitchen.
‘Then there was –’ Paul flicked back through his notebook ‘– Mr Ritchie, a twenty-eight-year-old who came in with an infected pilonidal cyst at five a.m. I explained the procedure to him and he said if anyone went near him with a needle, he’d get out of bed and go home so I had to get Crispin to come over and he told Mr Ritchie that if he wanted the boil on his arse to get into The Guinness Book of Records, then he was going the right way about it, and Mr Ritchie signed the consent form in about two seconds flat and went straight down to theatre …’ he glanced up at Armand, who was sitting with his back to the office window; the morning sun had turned him into a gilded silhouette and it was hard to gauge his expression, but he seemed to be watching Paul rather than listening to him. ‘And he’s all right this morning, he’s having his breakfast and he’s just complained to me about the bacon, and I was bleeped about three minutes ago by Ward 4 who want a patient written up for anti-fungal mouthwash or something, and I said I was almost off shift and they said it could wait for you, if that’s OK?’ There was no response. ‘And we’ve only got two emergency beds left unless Gorman discharges someone this morning, and Crispin’s gone to bed and said if anyone wakes him before midday he’ll cut their balls off.’ He clapped the notebook shut and yawned hugely. The short nap that he’d managed between six and seven seemed, paradoxically, to have made him more tired than before and there was a peculiar qualitative difference to the tiredness. He’d once read that the ancient Egyptians, after removing the brains of a mummy by dragging them through the nostrils with a hook, had packed the resulting cavity with hot sand, and something along the same lines seemed to have happened inside his own skull. ‘Hey Armand,’ he said, mid-yawn, ‘do you think it’s better to have one hour’s sleep or none at all?’
‘Before we discuss that, I need to have a word with you,’ said Armand.
‘Yes?’ Paul shifted his chair slightly so that his flatmate’s face came into view. Its expression blended severity with nervousness.
‘Mr Parry,’ said Armand, ‘could you please excuse us?’
Paul looked round and saw the charge nurse poised before the admissions board, felt pen in hand. ‘You what?’ said Gwyn.
‘I need a brief private discussion with Dr Gooding.’
‘And I need to get on with my work I’m afraid, Dr Roux, so tough titties as we say in Pontypridd. I can hum if you want, drown you out.’ He began a busy little tune, overlaid with the squeaks of the marker pen.
Armand swallowed, and drew himself upright in the chair. ‘I’m sorry to have to bring this up now, Paul, but I think these things should be dealt with as soon as they arise.’
‘What things?’
‘Usually,’ said Armand, brooking no interruption, ‘I have my breakfast in the canteen but this morning I decided I would eat in the flat. Imagine my feelings, then, when I discovered that the packet of pop tarts I bought last week had been removed and substituted with an entirely different packet of pop tarts.’
Paul heard a nervous cackle and realized that it came from himself.
‘Can I ask,’ said Armand, ‘if it was you who substituted those pop tarts?’
‘Yes it was. Sorry.’
‘I see,’ said Armand, gravely.
‘I made sure they were sugar-free but I couldn’t get exactly the same flavours. I should have said something really, but I didn’t think you’d notice. And I didn’t think it was very important. Is it? Important, I mean.’
‘I think honesty is important. I think reading notices that people have left on cupboards in the interests of privacy is important.’
‘Yes, but… you know, it was just some –’ his face cracked in a yawn again ‘– pop tarts.’
‘Paul, I’m not talking about pop tarts. I’m talking about principle.’
‘But … I mean … if we’re going to start …’ Irritation suddenly flooded him. ‘You never get out of the bathroom.’
Armand drew his head back as if Paul had jabbed a fist in his direction. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘I was going to wait until a better time, but since you’ve brought up this thing of getting stuff out in the open I wanted to say that I’m really tired of standing around waiting for you to get out of the bathroom. Yesterday morning you were in there from half past seven to a quarter to nine and I knocked four times – in the end I only had time to clean my teeth before we started the ward round. I couldn’t even shave. And also, while we’re on the subject of you hogging things, it’s not just the bathroom, it’s the washing machine as well. I haven’t been able to do any laundry because it’s always full of your socks.’
There was a bursting noise behind them, and he looked round to see Gwyn industriously dabbing a series of random dots beside the words ‘Side Room 2’.
‘Let’s talk about this another time,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we need a rota or something.’ The word brought back memories of dust-caked student houses and chippy arguments about washing-up and pasta purchase. ‘Half past eight till twenty to nine. How about that? That would do me, I’m really quick.’
‘Wait, no, I need time to think,’ said Armand, flustered. ‘You’ve sprung this on me. I can’t … I can’t be expected to make a decision this fast. You’ve turned this whole discussion around, you’ve distorted my argument.’
‘Look, it’s quite straightforward,’ said Paul, wearily. ‘I won’t eat your pop tarts if you let me use the bathroom occasionally. Just let me know when.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘I’m going to go now. I’ve got something planned.’
As he stumped up the corridor he was left with an after-image of Armand’s face, the features elongated with outrage, the mouth trembling with unvoiced objections.
There was a fair amount to look at in the front window of the Mercury office but not enough to justify the fact that Paul had been standing on the pavement staring at it for almost twenty-five minutes. He had read the front page of the current edition (‘MAN ATTACKED BY MOAT SWAN’, ‘ZEBRA CROSSING ARGUMENT RUMBLES ON’) and the front page of the edition from twenty-five years ago (‘NEW ZEBRA CROSSING FOR MARSH LANE’, ‘BOWLING GREEN “A DISGRACE” SAYS COUNCILLOR’). He had studied the blown-up photos of junior football teams and people planting trees and he had tried to avoid meeting the eye of the teenage girl on reception, whose initial heavy-lidded lack of interest had sharpened into obvious curiosity tinged with suspicion. She kept shifting her chair along the desk so as to keep him in view between the items in the window and he wondered if she had a panic button somewhere; if he hung around for much longer he might find himself wrestled to the ground by armed police.
The trouble was that his remark to Armand that he had ‘something planned’ for the morning was not so much an overstatement as a complete invention; what he actually had wasn’t a plan but a piece of mental theatre, honed over several weeks into a satisfying, if improbable, playlet: Enjoying his first free weekend, the young doctor takes a morning stroll around the town centre and chances upon the offices of the local newspaper. He pauses to look in the window and glimpses, amidst the bustle of the newsroom, someone that he recognizes – Marianne Cray, an acquaintance from university. He knocks on the window and she looks up, exclaims and hurries out to meet him. ‘Hello Paul! What on earth are you doing in Shadley Oak?’ she asks, smiling.
‘I’m working at the General. How about you?’
‘I’m working here. As a photographer.’
‘No! That’s an incredible coincidence. I didn’t think I’d know anyone in this town.’
‘Neither did I!’ Laughter, coffee, a promise to meet again later in the week. Her flat. Mutual lunge. Big cooked breakfast.
He had previewed this little scene so many times in his imagination that when it transpired that there was no bustling newsroom to be glimpsed through the window, only a foyer furnished with two hard chairs, a desk and a coffee machine, he’d felt utterly disorientated and had drifted into an unrehearsed ‘Plan B’: Enjoying his first free weekend, the young doctor goes to the town centre and stands around on the pavement like a complete tit on the vague off-chance that a girl he’s spoken to twice in his entire life, and whose job plans he happened to overhear in a bar in the student union, will wander into view. In her continued absence he reads the newspapers in the window for a second time, and idly watches as a bearded man enters the foyer from a side room and tries to persuade the coffee machine to accept a fistful of small change.
‘Can I help you?’
Paul looked round, startled; the receptionist was standing in the doorway with her arms folded, one stilettoed foot on the pavement.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked again, her inflection implying that she’d rather drink bleach.
‘No, it’s OK,’ he said casually, using his cuff to wipe away the nose-smudge he’d left on the window.
‘Only you’ve been standing there for three-quarters of an hour. Staring at me.’
‘I wasn’t staring at you,’ he said. ‘I was reading the papers in the window.’
‘What, for three-quarters of an hour?’
‘Yes.’
She said nothing, but cinched her lips in disbelief.
‘I was waiting for someone,’ he offered, as a palliative.
‘No you weren’t.’
‘Sorry?’
‘If you were waiting for someone, you’d have looked up and down the street for them, wouldn’t you? You didn’t do that once the whole time you were there, you just looked in the window. Or if you’d been waiting for someone who works in the newspaper, you’d have come in and sat down and waited for them indoors instead of hanging around outside for three-quarters of an hour. Wouldn’t you?’
‘Well, I –’
‘Unless you hadn’t arranged to meet them at all and you were hoping they’d just happen to come into reception and then you could pretend you were only passing and you’d seen them by accident. Is that what you were doing?’
‘No,’ said Paul, feebly.
‘Wasn’t it?’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
‘Because if it was, there’s hardly anyone here on a Saturday anyway so it’d just be a waste of your time. There’s only me, and Ally, and Addison. Did you want to see Ally or Addison?’
‘No,’ said Paul, with acerbity. He was beginning to feel as if he’d spent the previous twelve hours under continuous interrogation, first Crispin seizing the thumbscrews, then Gwyn and Lexie, then Armand and now this seventeen-year-old with the deductive skills of Inspector Morse and scary little steel-chip eyes that seemed to be memorizing his appearance for a future photofit. ‘Look,’ he said, trying to sound bluff and self-assured, ‘I’m sorry if I bothered you, but I was just glancing at the papers and now I’ve got stuff to do.’ He started to walk away.
‘And Marianne’s coming in later,’ added the receptionist. Paul’s involuntary lurch was as good as a signed confession and when he turned back her expression was triumphant. ‘At least I think she’s coming in,’ she amended, looking back into the foyer. ‘Hey, Addison –’
‘Yup?’ replied the man with the beard, still feeding pennies into the coffee machine.
‘Is Marianne coming in? Only there’s a bloke out here who’s desperate to see her.’
‘No,’ said Paul, cringing, ‘No, I’m just… er …’
‘Hang on,’ said Beardy. He pressed one of the beverage choices and wandered over to the door. ‘She’s taking photos at the dog show,’ he said, eyeing Paul coolly, ‘but she’ll be in soon to look at some contacts. Want us to give her a message?’
‘No, that’s all right, I can come back, there’s nothing urgent, it’s not a problem.’
‘Well it seems a real shame,’ said the receptionist, with sugared malice, ‘after you’ve been standing here for so long.’
‘No, it’s fine.’
‘You could leave a note,’ said Beardy.
‘Yes,’ said Paul. ‘I’ll do that. I’ll go away, I’ll write a note and then I’ll come back.’
‘Okey doke,’ said Beardy, sticking his hands in his pockets. ‘See you later then.’
‘See you later,’ echoed the receptionist, waving her talons.
He could feel the pair of them watching him all the way down the street.
Dear Marianne,
Hi Marianne!
Dear Marianne,
This is such a small world. Yesterday I was talking on the phone to a mutual friend, acquaintance, friend, neighbour in Argyle Road, friend in Argyle Road, fellow Argyle-Roader –
Paul wiped the sweat from his biro hand with a paper napkin and took a slug of cappuccino. The hammering sense of urgency that he was currently feeling was not helping his writing style. He was, as far as he could see, involved in a straight race: either Marianne’s first intimation of his presence in Shadley Oak would be a carefully worded letter from him or it would be a verbal report from two of her colleagues that she was being stalked by a demented fat bloke. He picked up the pen again and turned to a fresh page of the hastily bought pad.
Dear Marianne,
I was speaking to a mutual friend and he mentioned (to my amazement) that you had taken a job in Shadley Oak. Because by coincidence so have I. He hesitated. By this point she would be looking to see who the signatory was and just ‘Paul’ wouldn’t be good enough; there had been loads of other Pauls around and he doubted whether she’d ever heard his surname. We were near-neighbours at university (I lived at number 91 with Gez and Penny) and we quite often said hello in the bus queue, and we once had a bit of a conversation at Suzanne Moffatt’s party on 17 June where you ended up saying how much you liked men with a bit of meat on them, although I think you were fairly drunk at the –
Dear Marianne,
Until two months ago we were almost neighbours in Argyle Road (I was at number 91, the house with the stone-cladding), and now, by coincidence, we’re almost neighbours again!
He nodded, spurring himself on.
I’m currently doing a surgical house job at Shadley Oak District General, and I happened to hear that you’re working at the newspaper. As we’re both ‘strangers in town’ I wondered if you’d like to meet up one –
He was jarred by a blow to the back of his seat and he turned to see a small, podgy girl sitting at the next table. As he watched she extended a foot and quite deliberately kicked his chair again.
‘Stop it,’ he said.
In reply she flattened her nose with one finger, dragged down the corners of her eyes and lolled her tongue wetly against her chin.
‘Stop it Melanie, now,’ called a bulky woman queuing at the counter.
Melanie rearranged her face and then, as the woman turned aside to pick up a tray, she leaned across and wiped her fingers on the back of Paul’s chair. ‘I hope you die,’ she said, pleasantly. Paul stuck out his tongue half-heartedly and resumed work.
– evening and go for a drink or a meal? I can be contacted on 34858855 extension 2431, which is the hospital flat I’m living in. Hope to see you soon, Paul (Gooding). He reread the letter and felt dissatisfied; it all seemed so factual, lacking any indication that he was the sort of person with whom it might be enjoyable to spend an evening. It needed something that showed his lighter side. He turned to another page and tapped the pen against his teeth.
‘Mum, I’ve got a sore throat,’ said Melanie, loudly. There was no reply.
‘And I’ve got a sore neck.’
Paul tried to concentrate.
PS Shadley Oak’s a lot smaller than Birmingham, isn’t it?! He winced and crossed it out again.
‘And I’ve got a sore foot.’
‘Drink up your orange.’
‘I don’t want to go.’
‘I’ve paid for the whole term. You’re going.’
‘But I’ve really got a sore neck.’
PS I’d suggest going to a film, but there’s no cinema! It would have to do, he thought, though he couldn’t see Marianne wiping away tears of mirth. He turned back to the letter and appended the line. As he wrote the last word there was a tremendous blow to the back of his chair and his pen jerked and sliced a line across the page. He swung round irritably.
‘Sorry dear.’ Rather than the daughter’s foot it had been the mother’s backside, and he was forced to nod an ill-tempered acknowledgement as the pair left, Melanie pausing at the door to give a demonstration of how far back she could roll her eyes, the whites fluttering sightlessly at him.
‘Come on.’ The little girl was pulled from view, and in the instant the doorway was clear Marianne walked past. He saw her for only half a second but the effect was as if he had been dropped into a vat of iced water, breath huffing from his lungs as his chest muscles spasmed, his heart actually seeming to stop for a moment or two before bounding on with extra impetus. The force of it shocked him; he hadn’t seen her for, what, six weeks, but in that time his involuntary response to an accidental sighting – what he thought of as his Mariametric reaction – seemed to have gone off the scale. At this rate he’d actually die the next time he spotted her. He fumbled for the letter, trying to keep his eyes on the door as if there were still a few of her molecules hanging around, like scent lingering in a room. Folding the sheet in half, he scribbled her name on the outside and hurried out of the cafe.