Night Visit (14 page)

I
closed the book. Was this fantasy? Or…

I
glanced back at Mr Gordon, at Mr Jay Gordon. He was sitting with a different couple this time. Man in dark suit, woman in smart black trousers and a jacket. How cringingly embarrassing. They were holding hands. But Jay Gordon didn’t seem in the least bit put out. In fact he was laughing with them, head thrown back.

I
glanced at my watch. My appointment had been for nine thirty. It was now nine thirty-five. I was tired. I wished I was home. I read another page from Rosie’s exercise book. No more about love this time. Instead it was meanings of words. She seemed very good on this. I glanced back at Mr Gordon again. He was still being pally with the parents. I stood up and all three turned their heads. I crossed the room towards the desk. I would have asked how long he would be but they got the message, stood up and shook hands, the three of them still laughing.

I
felt such an outsider. Was this how Rosie felt at school? An outsider? Was that why she had to fantasise?

Brown
eyes looked humorously into mine. ‘I’m Dr Lamont,’ I said abruptly,’ Rosie’s mum.’

He
smiled. ‘I thought you probably were. You’re the last parent on my list.’ He scanned the room. ‘I’ve seen all the others.’ He paused before saying softly, ‘Well, are you going to sit down?’

I
flopped into the tiny chair and wondered irritably, Was this entire evening organised not to discuss your child’s education at all but to humiliate the parent? To make them feel intruders into their children’s and teachers’ private world? If so it was succeeding. He was succeeding. He was calling the shots.

‘Rosie’s
a bright child.’

‘
I thought her essays were good.’

‘
Yes,’ he said. ‘They are. As I say. She is a bright child. Not brilliant but bright.’

He
’d got me on the defensive. Because I knew how much this faint praise would mean to her I wanted to wound him.

‘
She’s improved just over the few weeks I’ve had her.’

‘
I don’t see much evidence of that in her exercise books.’

He
took no offence but again threw back his head and laughed. ‘You’ve been studying her maths more than her English.’

It
cut me down to size so I was even more prickly. ‘Why did you set her that essay, Mr Gordon?’ I burst out. ‘She’s ten years old, just a very young girl. She’s lost her father in abrupt circumstances. Why get such children to expose themselves and write about their half-family? You must realise that it’s both difficult and embarrassing for them, sometimes upsetting.’

His
brown eyes were fringed with thick, long lashes. He smiled through them. ‘Are you describing your family as only half a family, Dr Lamont?’

‘I…I…’

‘You should read all the way through Rosie’s essay, not just the first page. She’s a sweet, bright kid with far more insight into her life than you give her credit for. She doesn’t want to hurt you but she’s bottling up a good deal of her feelings. Give her the chance. That’s all I say. Give her the chance to talk. I set that essay deliberately, you know. Rosie isn’t the only one in the class to come from a broken home. And for every one of those who have divorced parents there’s another two who suffer misery at home, abuse from over-critical parents, sometimes drunkenness and violence. And at other times the children have all their parents’ financial burdens on their shoulders. Life can be very cruel, Doctor, when you’re a child. Sometimes to write about it or talk about it is a release.’

‘
And the bit about love?’

‘
Rosie’s an imaginative and affectionate child,’ he said.

I
felt so chastened I was beginning to hate him. It seemed that this cow-eyed teacher knew more about Rosie than I did.

He
stood up dismissively. ‘I’d better go,’ he said. ‘It’s late and I promised the boys that I’d get home in time to read them a story. If you don’t mind.’ He glanced around the room. The other parents had melted away. Ignoring me he started switching lights off. ‘You aren’t the only one, Doctor.’

*

When Rosie arrived home a week later bearing an envelope with my name on it. I was not feeling terribly benevolent towards the school. I tore the envelope open, realised it was an invitation to a sixties disco for parents and was inclined to bin it.

But
Rosie was watching me with a trusting expression on her face.

‘
It’s a sixties night,’ she said. ‘They’re having a real live band with a singer. And everyone’s got to come in old fashioned gear. You know,’ she said, putting her pen down. ‘Miniskirts and flares and things.’

I
was reminded of Pritchard’s sixties flares and smiled. It was a mistake. Rosie took it as a rejection of her enthusiasm. ‘You have to come, mum,’ she said. ‘It’s raising money for the new computers.’

‘
On my own?’

‘
You could bring Neil.’

But
I hesitated. Neil and I were colleagues. All right, we were also friends but I didn’t want to push things too far or our easy relationship would be threatened, and then it could spill over into our work. I didn’t want to invite him to a night out. At least not a sixties night at Rosie’s school. It seemed too intimate, too familiar.

Rosie
was eyeing me with frank hostility. ‘You aren’t going to come, are you, Mum? All the other mums and dads will be there, supporting the school. And my bloody mother...’

‘
Rosie,’ I said sharply. ‘Language.’

But
she folded her books together and stood up. ‘You have to come, Mum,’ she said. She was close to tears. ‘You have to. I promised you would.’

‘
Who did you promise?’

‘
We all promised,’ she said evasively. ‘Everyone in the class.’

‘
All right,’ I said reluctantly. ‘I’ll tell you what. I’ll ask Ruth and Arthur. If they’ll go with me I’ll come.’

‘
And if not?’

‘
Rosie,’ I said. ‘Don’t ever ask the impossible.’

It
was a wasted warning. Already her face had lit up. ‘Three tickets,’ she said, ‘I’ll get them tomorrow.’ She threw her arms around me and for a moment I could feel her thin body, her cheek next to mine. ‘All I want,’ she said softly, ‘is for us to be a normal family.’

It
was the perfect moment to ask her who her ‘secret love’ was. I hugged her closely and drew breath to ask. But she jerked out of my arms, her exuberance spilling over into a funny, hopping little dance across the kitchen. ‘Brilliant.’

The
opportunity had passed.

And
so
the
dance
was
quickening
in
tempo
,
Others
were
joining
it
.
The
music
was
loud
,
fast
,
dangerous
.

11

It was a warm autumn with lots of lazy, golden sunshine. With the bright colours of the trees should have come optimism, confidence, anticipation for the future. But already I was filled with foreboding. Like a drum-beat, louder, quicker, events seemed to be banging out a grim future.

I
had seen nothing of Danny Small for months. Later I would learn that he had been admitted to a rehabilitation unit in yet another futile effort to cure him of his ‘habit’. As usual the treatment was pointless and they discharged him with ‘therapeutic’ and ‘maintenance’ doses of methadone, theoretically monitored by urine samples. But as clean urine samples fetched fifty pence outside the clinic Danny was able to acquire all he wanted—at least nearly all he wanted.

It
was never quite enough. Danny always wanted more. Just a bit more. Not very much. Just a few grams. More.

Late
one Monday morning in the middle of October he returned with his usual demands for drugs. He sauntered in, the last patient of the morning, fitted in because he had claimed a medical emergency and the receptionists, good hearted women as they were, gave him the benefit of the doubt. Because underneath we did pity these human wrecks.

And
we could never afford to ignore their demands. Just in case on this one occasion they really were ill. We could never take the risk.

He
still had that shifty look in his eyes, the dishevelled, evasive expression that told me nothing had changed. He still did not care whether he lived or died. As long as he got more drugs. There was no fixed amount. Just more. He didn’t respond to my good morning but dropped straight into the chair.

‘
Dr McKinley,’ he complained, ‘won’t give me my full dose.’

Like
I said. It’s never enough. They always want more. And we have to play their game. ‘Why is that, Danny?’

He
laughed and chewed vigorously on his gum. ‘I dunno. He just says he’s givin’ me plenty.’ He lifted his eyes with a huge effort. ‘But it ain’t.’ His voice was flat and expressionless. It was as though he knew he was on a downward slope.

I
did feel pity for him. Then.

‘
Would
it
be
true
to
say
,
Doctor
... ?
’

‘
I
did
not
dislike
Danny
Small
.
He
was
a
nuisance
.
That’s
all
.
’

I
shrugged my shoulders. ‘Would you like me to ring Dr McKinley?’

‘
You can if you want,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind if you do.’

‘But
you know our policy here is that we don’t give out methadone. All I can do is to ask Dr McKinley if he’ll see you today.’

Something
in Danny’s demeanour was disturbing me. He was pale, dishevelled, thin. That was nothing new. It was something else. He was accepting my offer of nothing too easily. I should have realised that he had something up his sleeve. Maybe on another day I might have cottoned on to the fact that his mind was tracking in a different direction from mine. Danny was planning something while he sat there, playing meek.

We
were playing a new game now—a much more dangerous game with a different set of rules: none.

But
I still did not realise Danny was a danger. Not only to himself but to me.

I
picked up the phone and connected with Dr McKinley.

‘
He’ll see you at eleven o’clock,’ I said finally. ‘He’ll want to see you producing the urine sample. If it shows problems with the levels he will give you two days’ supply of methadone. If not you get nothing. Danny,’ I appealed. ‘It’s the best I can do. Please, give it up. It’s killing you. You won’t survive.’

Already-dead
eyes stared back at me. ‘I won’t survive without it.’

The
hoarse whisper made me shiver. Danny Small was less than twenty years old. I couldn’t see him getting the ‘key of the door’.

He
stood up. On my window sill I always have a plant growing. Maybe a psychologist would interpret it as a symbol of life. Bulbs in spring, violets and pansies throughout the summer, primroses in the autumn, a poinsettia at Christmas time. Maybe it was to reassure myself that normal life did exist that I took my eyes off him to look at the plant. The gesture must have annoyed him. Either that or he knew I gained pleasure from my flowers. Quite suddenly he picked up the pot and hurled it against the opposite wall.

‘
Fuck you,’ he said and was gone.

*

I wasn’t exactly in the mood but I had to find something for Rosie’s sixties night. And the obvious place to search was the local charity shop. Not Cancer Research or Oxfam. In a rural community like this it was an animal charity which received most support.

I
parked the car in my usual spot and wandered up the street, turning left at the top to the bowed windows and extravagant display of Hoof and Tail, the Animal Rights shop. There were racks of clothes, all blessed with the faintly musty air that belongs in a little-visited attic. There were dog-eared cult paperbacks,
Lady
Chatterley’s
Lover
,
The
Godfather
,
Adrian
Mole
. A prayer book. This was a glimpse of outdated fashions, rusting saucepans, plastic dish racks in the wrong colours, brown and orange, lemon and blue. And lots of olive green.

I
moved to the back of the shop where a rail was swaying under the weight of clothes. Here were bobbled sweaters and lots of ethnic stuff. Crimplene. I picked out the hanger. I could remember my mother wearing a dress of Crimplene. Navy blue with white piping. I fingered the material and conjured up her face, disapproving, worrying.

I
put the dress back on the rail. Whatever they did wear in the sixties I was not spending a night dressed as my mother. Instead I homed in on a tiny lime green dress, size ten. It looked relatively clean and was made of some sort of bonded crepe. A strange, slinky material, slippery as I held it against me.

‘
Harriet.’

I
swung around. It was Pritchard. Of course. This was his stamping ground, the source of his varied wardrobe, the fusty smell, the unfashionable clothes. He moved very close to me, reached out and fingered the material.

‘
It has a lovely feel to it, doesn’t it?’

I
watched, mesmerised by the sight of the plump fingers rubbing the material.

‘
It is nice to see you,’ he said comfortably, ‘outside the surgery for once. I’ve been wondering where it is that you do your shopping. I find it quite pleasant to know that you and I frequent the same shops.’ I said nothing and he carried on with a shared, knowing smile. ‘Good value here, isn’t it?’

I
swallowed.

‘
I’m glad to see you enjoying yourself when you’re off duty, doing a bit of shopping. Very nice.’ His hand was on my shoulder, his face two inches away from mine. But if I moved back I would be trapped by the clothes on the rack.

Pritchard
’s eyes dropped to the dress I had picked out. ‘What an unusual outfit to choose.’ His face was sweating. ‘Very fetching. And I can picture you wearing it.’ His eyes were great fish balloons behind his glasses. ‘Not going to a special night out, are you?’

‘
I...’ I wanted to escape but he was blocking the only way through. ‘I’m going to a sixties night at my daughter’s school.’

His
answer was quick. ‘Would that be Merrivale Primary?’

The
sense of intrusion was suffocating. How did he know where Rosie went to school? Like a flash I remembered the blue Lada, neatly parked, cleaned. In the school car park. Was he watching her as he watched me? Invading her privacy, as he invaded mine?

‘
Not there.’ I lied badly.

He
simply smiled and let his eyes slide down the dress I was holding. ‘No? Well wherever your little girl goes to school I have to say, Harriet, I do think you’ll look very nice in this. Very nice indeed. And after all, you’re a single woman again now, I understand.’

It
was an offensive sentence.

For
a while we stood, in the musty atmosphere of the charity shop, then he blinked. ‘Well, I must be going. Can’t keep my mother waiting.’ He moved away but only a fraction of an inch before his eyes seemed to harden. ‘I hope she doesn’t get taken ill again, especially at night. I would hate to have to get you out of your nice warm bed and drag you all the way out to our home. Such a lonely place, don’t you think? Not somewhere a woman should be on her own. All those trees. Even I find it a bit eerie. I’ve often thought no one would hear you however loud you shouted if you were in need.’

He
beamed at me. ‘But then I’m hopeful I won’t have to ask you to come out again, not at night.’ He stopped looking at me and let his eyes roam along the rack. ‘I can’t see anything for me here today. I shall have to save my money and pop in again. By the way,’ he said, ‘will you still want to do that special check on my mother?’ It was a challenge.

‘
I um...’

His
eyes were fixed and staring now. ‘You’ll have to come to the house to do it,’ he said. ‘I can’t move her.’ We were both aware that he was dangling this as an invitation. He knew full well how much I did not want to visit the shack in Gordon’s Lane. He had picked up the feeling of vulnerable revulsion I felt for him, for his home, for his circumstances, even for his mother, and he was using it as a weapon. It was all as much part of the game as moving the commode to let her tumble to the floor. He could not have known whether or not she would hurt herself. That had not mattered. What had mattered was having the power to make her fall as he knew he had the power to lure me out to his squalid little home.
At
any
time
. That was why he followed me. Because he knew he pulled the strings. He could dial the number and on the nights I was on call if he used the right phrases I had no choice but to answer his summons. By using my reluctance to be drawn to Gordon’s Lane he was manipulating my thoughts as well as my actions. It was the ruling that I did not have the right to refuse him anything. He was the patient, I the doctor. Pritchard had the power of the puppet master because the National Health Service gave it to him without discrimination. It was that that made me vulnerable.

I
did what I could to shift my burden. ‘The nurse usually...’

Something
hard, mean and deliberate crossed Pritchard’s face. ‘And will she be able to check my mother for bruises?’

He
was so perfectly conscious of his rights that he could flaunt it. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that it had better be you who comes, soon. Not some nurse.’

I
waited until he had shuffled out of the shop before putting the dress back on the rack. I would find something else, something unpolluted by those hands. Further along the rail was another sixties dress, red this time, short and made of cotton. I paid up the two pounds fifty and walked back to the car park.

Déjà
vu. It was hemmed in by a blue Lada. Too close for me to open the driver’s door.

But
this time I knew it was a deliberate gesture. And knowing the driver made it less sinister. It is the unknown which terrifies, as my mother had understood, and as Vera Carnforth knew only too well.

But
I was a fool to believe I knew.