Capcir Spring (10 page)

She concluded this self-examination by recognising it would be a good idea to visit the doctor anyway. She had her E111 and although she knew the French social security system with all its forms was a nightmare she knew that she would be able to get the money back eventually.

The plaque outside the office announced Docteur Alain D'Abelard, Medcin and gave the times of the surgery. His rooms were on the ground floor of an apartment block on the main shopping street of the village, an apartment block not unlike where she herself was staying.

The heavy double doors led into a small and slightly overheated reception area that was deserted. A line of steel-framed plastic chairs lined the wall and a well-thumbed pile of magazines was on the table. Perhaps doctor's waiting rooms were the same all over the world. She did what thousands before her had done: sat down and started to flick idly through the glossy pages.

She didn't have to wait long. There was soon a bustle from a back room and a young woman, perhaps her own age came through to the desk behind the reception counter. She was raven-haired and carried the permanent tan of the mountains on her face and bare arms. Mary, like all women could not have failed to notice the athletic Amazonian physique barely concealed by her tee shirt. After a few moments flicking through her papers she looked up smiled a ship-launching smile and apologised to Mary that the doctor would be a few minutes if she wouldn't just mind waiting.

As promised a few moments later a woman with two small children came out from behind the counter, one child crying in his mothers arms and the other looking pale and weary and whining in a pathetic tone, understandable in any language.

The doctor followed her out and welcomed Mary to his premises. He was in his early forties with a shiny balding head surrounded by a mass of dark curled hair. He had a professional manner that was warm and welcoming but also reassuring at the same time.

In his consulting room the first thing that Mary noticed were the pair of skis and rucksack standing by the door as if waiting for action. He caught her gaze and said,

"My practice is the closest to the ski slopes so all through the ski season I am on call in case of accidents and I have to be ready to go at a moments notice. Fortunately there have been no fatalities for a couple of years now. We build safety into the design of the pistes so that we segregate as far as possible the novices from the fast dare devils. Unless of course there is a really wide and safe piste with plenty of passing space."

"Can you really design safety in this way?"

"But of course. There are some who would want to increase the ski able area here and there are certainly places where new pistes could be opened up but they would all be narrow and fast and would have to be used by mixed grades so would make accidents more likely. But to talk about one of the passions of my life is not why you are here. Please sit down. You are paying the bill so you set our agenda."

"I want you to check me over," she began. "I passed out last night and I'm not the sort of person given to fainting so it concerned me. I have been working in the hills. I am an historian and I have been looking at ruins in this area and I don't want to pass out in the hills when there is no one around."

"For how long were you unconscious?"

"Only a few seconds I believe. I collapsed on the floor of my apartment after giving a dinner for some friends. The friend who was with me had no sooner reached my side than I came to and saw him. I have never passed out before."

"Were you drinking excessively"

"Not at all. I only had three glasses of wine"

"Do you feel tired?"

"No. I was not conscious of being tired at all. I know other times in my life when I have felt much more exhausted. I admit I haven't been sleeping very well lately. I had a bit of a shock. My friend stood in the light and I thought he was brandishing a knife. It was just a trick of the light I think. But it brought back a very painful memory. Could that have caused my to pass out?"

"If you were associating some very vivid memory with your friends movement then that could have so startled you but unlikely to make you pass out. Why are you not sleeping?"

"I go to bed and I fall asleep quite normally but then I have bad dreams. They are strange. Sometimes the historical characters that I have been researching come to life and haunt me. Sometimes there are people from the present day mixed up with these historical scenes. And it can be very frightening. I often find I wake after a particularly vivid dream and can't get back to sleep."

"Would you describe yourself as an anxious, nervous or highly strung sort of person?"

"No far from it. I am ambitious and have targets set for me to achieve in my life but in the day to day I like to think I am fairly relaxed."

"Have you ever been prescribed any drugs for depression or sleeplessness?"

"No"

"Are you unduly anxious about anything at the moment?"

"I don't think so. There are certain matters on my mind I suppose but nothing new that I haven't been living with for a number of years now. I can handle them."

"Then I had better examine you."

The doctor made a thorough examination of pulse rate, breathing, and blood pressure. With her shirt removed for the blood pressure strap to be wrapped around her arm the long jagged scar became visible.

"That was a nasty cut" the doctor whistled "Was this the reason that you were unduly alarmed when you saw your friend pick up the knife?"

"Yes. It brought back to me in an extremely vivid way the some years ago when I was attacked with a knife.." She paused. She didn't want to say more.

"Right." the doctor sounded emphatic as if suddenly he had made up his mind. "I can find nothing physically wrong with you. Your heartbeat, breathing and blood pressure are all normal. You really are in fine shape. But emotionally I would guess that you are still rather delicate after some unpleasant events in the past. You have only mentioned in passing about a knife attack. Such trauma can leave emotional scars for a long while. Your passing out could be linked to these but it is likely also to be linked to you being generally worn down through many disturbed nights without enough sleep because of these unpleasant dreams. This in turn is of course linked to your emotional delicateness. And of course over-work doesn’t help. I suggest you take things easy and I will prescribe something to help you sleep. It is a very light sedative and mild antidepressant so no need to worry about being made very drowsy."

She smiled as she buttoned up her shirt. There was nothing-serious wrong. Nothing that she didn't know about anyway. He had returned to his desk and was making out a prescription and his bill. He handed it to her and she gave him the cash and he signed the form for her to reclaim through her E111. It seemed strange to one brought up on the National Health Service to be handing over banknotes to a doctor and receiving change from a cash drawer in his desk. He stood up and walked round until he was standing very close beside her. He took hold of her hand.

"You are a very attractive young woman so you must be careful. There are all sorts of wild beasts in mountainous country such as this waiting to prey on you. If there is anything else I can do to help you please let me know."

And he showed her to the door, still holding her hand.

"My secretary will tell you which forms you need for the pharmacy."

He made a little bow and let go of her hand. "Remember please come and see me again if there is anything else I can do for you. You will always know where to find me"

And she was alone in front of the young dark receptionist at her desk. Had he just made a pass at her or was he just the French equivalent of the bedside manner. He was certainly attractive and he knew it. She wandered what his relationship with the receptionist was and then thought about his comment on skiing and wondered what the other passions in his life might be. Perhaps he was like that with all his patients. Mary didn't like it though. One moment warning her about her delicate emotional state and the next holding her hand and warning her about wild beasts in the woods. She felt glad for once to be a cold blooded Anglo Saxon and she laughed inwardly at the excesses of the Latin male.

The receptionist was explaining to her where to sign the forms and what the pharmacist would want when the door behind her banged open abruptly. She turned automatically and saw the mystic hippie ski development officer coming in holding a red handkerchief to the side of his head. It wasn't a red handkerchief. He was badly cut and the blood had reddened not only his handkerchief but also the collar of his shirt and was congealed on his sleeve. He looked pale and threw himself into a chair. He looked exhausted by the effort of getting here and relieved as if some long ordeal was over.

"Its Andre isn't it!" Mary exclaimed" What has happened?"

He looked up, registering surprise in seeing her in this setting.

"Just a little bump on the head. I stumbled and banged my head on a rock. Nothing to worry about. I expect I just need a couple of stitches."

Mary didn't have an opportunity to ask anything else as at that instant the doctor emerged from behind the scenes and instantly taking in the scene and the blood hurried across and helping Andre to his feet, ushered him efficiently into the consulting room. Mary felt invisible to him as he didn't even glance in her direction. Perhaps he was a supreme professional after all. But then she had paid her bill so he was finished with her. Oh men! She thought, wondering if there were any who had consistent and predictable patterns of behaviour.

Mary emerged into the late morning sunshine feeling confused, and not only by the dark, handsome doctor. Was Andre hurt? He seemed bright enough. There was hidden depth in that man that she was sure of. But what exactly was it that lay behind that laid back, hippie exterior, she wondered. Had he fallen? That was what he had told her. Why then should she have a feeling that he wasn't telling her the truth?

His Citroen Dyane was dumped right in the entrance to the doctors. There was blood on the steering wheel and passenger seat. How had he managed to drive here? Where had it happened? However Andre had got his bump on the head and cut he must have lost a large amount of blood. Yes, she thought, I know all about the affects of loosing a large amount of blood and her head began to swim. She put out her hand and supported herself on the roof of the car and the dizzy spell passed. I must use that sleeping draught tonight and see if I can get a good night's sleep she thought. I'm a public liability if I am going to pass out all over the place.

*****

The valley around the chapel seemed like a return to normality after the excitement of the morning. The still beauty of the surrounding peaks still thrilled her when she cast her eyes upward. The undergrowth was beginning to look worn around the ruins she thought as she came close. But then she had been working here for several days now though this day it did seem rather more worn down than others. Today she would complete the measurements of the far section under the cliff wall, near where she thought the well would have been. It was an area of thick bracken like undergrowth and spiky grass. In the middle was a small spring where clear crystal water tinkled out of the hillside.

As she neared the spring she stopped. Here there was a hole. An ordinary, freshly dug hole, only about half a metre deep and a spade width across but a freshly dug new hole all the same. And right in the middle of her historical site. Vandalism. Treasure hunters. Perhaps it was that Andre looking for a site for some thing for his cross-country ski course? Then there was that silly old tale about buried treasure? Someone had been there early that very morning and they had been busy for as she looked up she saw other holes. Holes lined up with this one. All were about the same size across but some a little deeper and some a little shallower. The holes had been dug through the thin topsoil until the subsoil, a mixture of rocks and clay, had been reached and then had stopped. She could now see that the holes continued at about five metres apart in a straight line right across the valley at this point. It almost looked as if they could be the holes for sinking fence posts but there was no earthly reason she could see for putting a fence here.

She stood back and looked at the line of the holes and saw that at least they were away from the main ruin. What could she do? It wasn't her property. It was forestry land. in France that meant it was managed by the Office National de Forets who had a fairly liberal attitude to what citizens of the Republic could do in their forests.

Perhaps she should go to the police anyway. But what would she tell them. Someone has dug a line of holes across a valley near to an old ruin that I'm interested in? They would probably laugh at her behind her back as an eccentric foreigner, if not worse.