CLAUDIA
Finally the day was over and I was home. I dropped my keys on the table and stood and stared, unseeing, at the rooftops out my window. The word inside my head sounded dirty and fungal and seething. I felt as if my whole being was infected, as if I couldn’t form a single thought that wasn’t poisoned by it. I don’t know how long I stood there – it could have been a couple of minutes or half an hour – but it was long enough for every one of my demons to come out from whatever rank hole they usually lived in. They took up with that horrible word and started a violent party in my head, singing along to their favourite songs about how awful and unworthy I was. No, not singing – shouting. I swear I hadn’t felt this dark for years. Eventually I made my way to the kitchen and dug around in a cupboard until I found a bottle of whisky, some cheap crap Sam had brought round months before. I’d drown them out. Pour shot, tilt head, bang. I shook my head from side to side, the fiery liquid scorching my throat. ‘Ahhhhh!’ I shouted at the nothingness around me and my stupid, hot tears ran down my face.
For a moment that afternoon, I had felt quite serene sitting in that civilised waiting room again. I even found myself admiring the decor again, my head desperate to be taken along some inane thought process that involved colour combinations and fabric textures and la-di-da-di – anything but reality. It didn’t last. Reality kicked in when I walked back into Dr Epstein’s consulting room. Then I’d felt nauseous and nervous as hell.
‘Have a seat. We’ve had your tests back,’ Dr Epstein had said. And was I imagining it? Was he more formal than when I’d last seen him? I took my seat.
And then he dropped the bombshell.
‘You have tested positive for chlamydia and negative for all other tests.’
Chlamydia. Chlamydia. That word. As soon as he said it, it stuck in my head. I felt cold and scared, with only one word inside me. Chlamydia. Dr Epstein started speaking but he sounded like a bee in the corner of the room. A bee with a German accent. He buzzed away about antibiotics and effectiveness and timescales and frequency of doses, but none of it made any sense.
Until he said, ‘Ah so the next step will be notifying your sexual partners from the past six months.’
‘All of them?’ I gasped. Chlamydia shrunk while I started counting back, trying to tally how many awful conversations that would entail. Too many to bear – I couldn’t count them, couldn’t even begin to. Dr Epstein was buzzing again and this time I forced myself to listen to what he was saying.
‘. . . if you want, we can contact your partners on your behalf, telling them that they may have been exposed to the infection and that they, and their partners, should get tested. Your name wouldn’t be mentioned . . . buzz buzz buzz.’
I swallowed. Bloody hell, I didn’t even have a last name for some of them! Oh, Claudia, you idiot. It was one thing to enjoy sex like one might enjoy a sweetie; it was quite another thing to have the whole sweetie jar tipped onto the table for all to see.
‘The woman who does this job does it in complete confidence. There isn’t much she hasn’t seen.’
Suddenly I bristled. He was patronising me! I clenched my hands in my lap. I was being tossed from indignation at the situation to deep insecurity about my choices. Furious, I felt tears well up. Dr Epstein passed me tissues, and his small act of kindness made me weep even more. I stabbed at the tears and blew my nose noisily, trying to regain some composure.
‘I’ll need to get some of the contacts from home,’ I said eventually.
‘That’s fine. If it’s possible, please drop them in tomorrow.’ He passed me a card. ‘Actually, I think there’s an email address on there. You could email them to her.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I said, my voice tinny.
Back at the office, I was completely distracted. I tried to bury myself in work but it was useless. Even though I had a pile of tasks waiting for me, I couldn’t focus on a single one of them. The knot in my stomach tightened as the minutes ticked over. I kept coming back to the gruesome reality of having to tell all those men about the infection. I had questions now too – of course they’d started bouncing round and round my head, competing for space with that word, once I’d left the surgery. If they told my partners, would I be told which one of the bastards gave me the infection? Of course not! Damn patient confidentiality. I got up from my desk and stood at the window, resting my forehead on the cool glass. I could see the logic of having a service to tell my partners but something didn’t quite sit right. Of course it didn’t sit right. How could news like this ever sit right? I needed to know who the culprit was, that’s why! I stared out the window at the Thames, glinting in the early spring sunshine. Sunshine – I hadn’t even noticed there was sunshine.
‘Everything OK?’
I swung around, my hand on my chest. ‘Jesus, John, you gave me a fright!’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to.’
He offered a soft smile.
‘Why didn’t you knock?’
John looked a little sheepish. ‘I don’t know really. I didn’t really want to disturb you, in case you were on the phone.’
What was he talking about?
‘You could have been on an important call!’ he said defensively.
‘People usually knock on my door.’
‘Sorry,’ he said again. As he stood there, his solid frame seemed to take up more room than usual and it was as if he wasn’t quite sure where to put himself, as if he couldn’t remember exactly why he was there.
‘You were looking thoughtful, Claudia.’
I wished he’d get to the point and then leave. I didn’t have the energy for small talk. I wasn’t even fit for work.
‘How long were you looking at me?’ I asked him.
‘Not long. Long enough to see you didn’t look very happy.’ He really was making an effort – that much was obvious. I took a deep breath and all of a sudden felt like I needed to talk about this awful situation right there and then.
‘I’m not happy as it happens, John,’ I said, fighting back yet more sissy tears.
John nodded slightly, waiting for me to go on.
‘Actually, it’s something I’d like to talk to you about.’
But John held a finger up to his mouth. ‘Can we talk about it outside of the office? Let me buy you dinner tonight,’ he said.
I paused, looking around my office for evidence that this wasn’t the place to discuss this.
‘Somewhere private, where we can have a good talk,’ he insisted.
And for a moment, I weighed up my need to be at home against my desire to share. Home won. I couldn’t have been ready to talk quite yet, after all.
‘I can’t.’
‘How about tomorrow night then?’
He wasn’t going to give up until he had a date. ‘OK, tomorrow night then,’ I said, knowing that I’d have twenty-four hours to come up with an excuse not to.
‘Great!’ His face lit up and he paused on the ball of one foot as if he was about to – horror of horrors – cross the floor to join me at my desk. But he stopped himself and left the room with a wave, closing the door quietly behind him.