Marriage and Other Games (21 page)
She found that if she went to the top of the house and leaned out of the bedroom window she could get two bars of signal - just enough to provide telecommunication with the outside world. She prodded in the prison number and stuck her head out of the window, looking out over the rooftops of Withybrook and watching the crows circling round the chimney pots.
‘Hello,’ she said tentatively. ‘I’d like to make an appointment to visit a prisoner.’ She took in a deep breath. ‘Edward Briggs.’
‘What’s your order number, love?’
The man on the other end sounded disinterested. She imagined him, fat stomach straining against his uniform, sitting in a room of empty chairs that were bolted to the floor. As Charlotte gave him the details, she realised she was entering a whole new world, with its own rules and regulations, that was about as far removed from her experience as you could get.
When she put the phone down, her hand was shaking. Next Friday. She was going to visit her husband in prison next Friday. She swallowed down a gurgle of nervous laughter, and was astonished to find she felt rather elated. It was the first piece of positive action she had taken off her own bat. Coming to Withybrook was positive, but she had been goaded, persuaded, aided and abetted by Gussie and could hardly claim the idea as hers. But this she had done of her own free will, she’d grasped the nettle and she felt better for it. Maybe she was coming out the other side, at long last. She had spent so long floundering about in the chaos of what Ed had created, she had almost forgotten that she had choices.
Infinitely cheered, she decided to take the truck and go to find the nearest supermarket. When the fridge was full, she would feel a little more at home. And she’d treat herself to that copy of Homes and Gardens and a big bottle of expensive bubble bath. At the moment, it was the little things that made life bearable.
Penny typed up her patients’ notes into her computer, pushed back her chair and sighed. It had been an exhausting afternoon. Mondays always were, as people had had the weekend to deliberate their ailments and were eager to get them off their chests. The surgery she worked in was on the outskirts of Comberton, and there were an awful lot of people on the poverty line on the register. It was funny; people always thought Devon was some sort of idyll, a place where nothing bad happened, but Penny had seen as much suffering here as she had in any inner-city practice. People grey-skinned from poor diets, both overweight and underweight, many of them with mental illness, depression, stress, kids with ADD. There were few employment opportunities, few facilities - breathtakingly beautiful countryside was all very well, but there was bugger all for a lot of these people to do. She did everything she could to help them empower themselves, but it was a losing battle when the clock was ticking and you had to rush on to your next appointment. You couldn’t make much of a difference in five minutes.
She sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. She had ten minutes’ tea-break. It should have been fifteen, but she had inevitably over-run. She breathed in slowly and let her mind drift. She knew exactly where it would go, because it always did.
It was her treat to herself, her little mini fantasy. It was free, after all, and didn’t do anyone any harm. The need to fantasise was always greater after she had seen him. Sometimes she had almost, almost got him out of her head, reduced thinking about him to a couple of times a day, but just as she thought she had cured herself - for she thought of her obsession as an affliction - then he would pop up in her life and fan the flames again. And she would be stricken once more, tormented by images of him day and night, allowing her imagination to run wild.
This time she allowed last night’s turn of events in the Speckled Trout to take a totally different route. When she asked Sebastian if he wanted a cigarette, he agreed with alacrity. He followed her outside, and no sooner had she delved into her bag for her lighter than he grabbed her, pulled her to him, and devoured her with hot, passionate kisses. Oblivious to the cold night air, they had let their combined ardour carry them away. Within moments they were making love on one of the picnic benches. Sebastian was telling her he couldn’t resist, that he thought about her constantly, that the torment was stopping him working . . .
Penny let the preposterously unlikely dream run its course with a smile on her lips. By the end of it, she was so turned on she didn’t know what to do with herself. Woe betide her next patient, she thought. Her nipples were hard, and she could feel a throbbing between her legs, an incredible effervescence as minute bubbles of excitement danced around her loins. There was nothing she could do about it now; she could hardly stuff her hand in her knickers. Even though her door was shut people frequently barged in without knocking; that really would be the ultimate embarrassment. She fanned herself with a sheaf of paper, convinced that her thoughts were written all over her face. She couldn’t carry on teasing herself like this. One day she would explode with the frustration.
It was tragic, really. A horny, middle-aged woman with no one to take it all out on. What would she prescribe if one of her patients came in and described her own symptoms to her? What would she recommend, to alleviate their suffering? A vibrator, she supposed, with a rueful smile. A buzzy little magic wand. A battery-operated friend that guaranteed satisfaction every time.
As she stood up on trembling legs to go to fetch herself a glass of water, she stopped in her tracks. Why not take her own advice? Why shouldn’t she have a vibrator? If all the magazine articles she read in the surgery were true, every woman in England had one in her knicker drawer. Or carted one round in her handbag just in case the urge overtook took her. They were no longer taboo, but commonplace - as necessary in every woman’s armoury as a good moisturiser and decent tweezers and a well-fitting bra. Some people had several - a different design to suit the mood. For heaven’s sake, even Good Housekeeping had a Sex Toy of the Year. She had no need to feel ashamed or embarrassed, and every right to know what all the fuss was about.
She sat in front of the computer self-consciously for a few moments, before getting up the nerve to type ‘vibrator’ into the search engine. She was slightly worried that it would be embedded into her history for ever more, but not entirely sure anyone would ever be interested enough in her online activity to investigate. A dazzling range of web-sites came up, from the overtly graphic to the coyly twee. She chose one that seemed warm and intelligent, rather than sensationalist. It explained each piece of apparatus in a clear and non-threatening way, but was also amusing and self-deprecating. In browsing the site Penny realised that she had been leading a rather sheltered life, but her appetite had been whetted. If these little babies delivered the goods like they promised, then she wanted in.
In the end, she chose one that was substantial, but not alarmingly so. And expensive. And didn’t make much noise. Her finger hovered over the mouse as she hesitated, wondering whether she really had the nerve to click ‘buy’. Then suddenly she found she had done it, and her mouth went dry.
It promised next-day delivery, in a plain padded envelope, not one emblazoned with ‘Sex Toys ’R’ Us’ in bright-red capitals. Nevertheless, she would have to whiz back from the surgery at lunchtime to find it, because if Tom and Megan got back first, they could not be relied upon not to rip it open. They had no respect for her privacy. For all she knew, her precocious daughter already had one in each colour. She wouldn’t be surprised at all.
Feeling rather like a naughty schoolgirl, she closed down the website, smoothed down her skirt and buzzed in her next patient.
On her way home that evening, Penny decided to call in on Daisy Miller. Daisy was one of her older patients, and one of her favourites, but Penny had a sense of unease about her that wouldn’t go away. Daisy had always been bright, alert and good-humoured, but on the last few occasions she had seen her she had a faint aura of bewilderment about her that she tried to hide with a smile. Even in old age, a pretty face could go a long way towards disguising ills, and Daisy had wide blue eyes and unlined skin, and a cloud of soft white hair. She was the sort of old lady you would choose to look like. But something wasn’t right. Six months ago Daisy had fallen and broken her wrist, and had been into the surgery regularly while it healed. Penny had taken to calling in on her at the time, but she hadn’t seen her for a couple of months since the plaster had finally come off. She thought it was high time to check up on her.
It took Daisy a while to answer the door, and as soon as she did so Penny’s heart sank. There was a blank, worried expression on her face, and a total lack of recognition.
‘Daisy? It’s Dr Silver. Dr Silver from the surgery? May I come in?’
Daisy looked to one side, and Penny could tell that in the far recesses of her mind she was weighing things up, struggling to assimilate the information in her memory bank. Eventually she looked back at Penny and nodded, standing to one side.
‘How have you been? I haven’t seen you for a while.’
Daisy didn’t answer immediately. She picked up a tea towel that was lying on the arm of a chair.
‘The cat’s been up on the furniture again.’
She flapped the towel ineffectually and gave Penny a smile. Penny swallowed. As far as she knew, Daisy didn’t have a cat, at least not any more.
She didn’t need to look far to know that Daisy was finding it hard to cope. In just six months the state of her little cottage had depreciated alarmingly. Once it had been spick and span and shiny as a new pin. Now there was the rather stifling smell of the unkempt. Not a nursing home smell, because that was always masked by disinfectant, but a rank, greasy staleness.
She inspected Daisy’s dress, and suspected that she had been wearing it for some time, perhaps even at night as well as in the day. It was creased and stained, and Penny could discern sweat patches under the arms. She had no tights on, just slippers. Daisy had always dressed impeccably.
‘Daisy, I wonder if I could go and get myself a glass of water?’
Daisy frowned slightly, as if in the back of her mind she recognised this as a trap, but she smiled and nodded.
Penny slipped into the kitchen, suspecting it would provide more clues. What she saw there made her heart sink further. There were dirty plates everywhere, opened tins with half-eaten contents, some of them mouldy. Apple cores and orange peel, toast crusts.
‘Daisy,’ she said carefully, ‘I think we should see about getting you some help in the house.’
‘I don’t need help.’ The little woman’s riposte was stout.
‘Perhaps someone who could come in and do a bit of washing-up and cleaning—’
‘I do my own cleaning. Are you saying I’m not clean?’ There was more than a touch of querulousness now.
‘No. It would just be nice for you not to have to worry. Don’t you think?’ Penny tried to keep her voice as neutral as possible.
Daisy stood in the middle of the room, arms by her side, mutinous in her silence. Penny wondered desperately what tack to try next. What she really needed to do was get Daisy into the surgery and have her properly assessed, but she felt fairly sure she wouldn’t co-operate at this juncture.
‘Have the family been to visit?’
Penny knew Daisy had a daughter who lived somewhere near Oxford, but who rarely came down to Devon.
‘Yes, yes.’
Daisy nodded enthusiastically, but the lack of detail in her response made Penny suspect that she was either lying or didn’t have a clue what she was saying.
‘That’s nice.’ Penny took in the thick layers of dust - not that that was a crime, she was no slave to the duster herself - the greasy grime round the sink, the piles of newspapers, the empty milk bottles that hadn’t been put out, some of which still had milk in that had gone rancid. She felt a surge of anger that it had to come to this, that no one else seemed bothered about Daisy’s welfare, that if it wasn’t for the fact that she was actually a caring doctor who happened to have the time to pop in on impulse, then this woman would probably fester in her own mess until she died, probably of some vile infection she would pick up from the lack of hygiene. How many other elderly patients were there out there, neglected and forgotten? She watched as Daisy walked over to the sink and squirted some washing-up liquid into the bowl.
‘I’ve been a bit off-colour,’ she admitted. ‘But I’m feeling much better.’
She ran the hot tap and looked Penny straight in the eye.
‘I’m getting on with it.’
She started gathering up the mugs that scattered the work surface. Penny sighed. She wasn’t going to get Daisy to admit there was anything wrong. In fact, to all intents and purposes, she probably didn’t know there was a problem. She must be living in a hazy approximation of her previous existence, where reality was slightly blurred and memories slipped out of the mind’s grasp like quicksilver. But no doubt there would be a tiny, constant nag of fear, a sensation that there was no going back and nothing to be done, like going on a fairground ride and regretting it as soon as the chairs started swinging too high.
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