Prey to All (3 page)

It took no time to make the tea and she laid the tray as he’d demanded last time, with the cup handles to the right and the plate of biscuits between the two cups and the silver milk jug, rather than the one that was part of the tea set.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he said, as though she was torturing him, ‘that’s a cream jug. Can’t you get anything right?’

Deb didn’t bother to say anything. There wasn’t any point. She poured his tea, carried it to the little table by his chair, found a coaster, and put down the cup and saucer.

His hand shook and some tea slopped into the saucer.

‘You’ve filled it too full,’ he said. ‘I need a clean saucer.’

Deb went out silently to the kitchen to fetch fresh crockery and started again, telling herself that anyone with half his face and neck covered in painful itching weals couldn’t be expected to behave rationally. As she pretended to drink her own tea, she watched him trying not to scratch and failing. His nails, short though they were, cut through the skin.

‘I think I’d better ring the doctor,’ she said quietly, ‘and get you something more for the rash.’

‘It won’t do any good. Nothing does. It always starts like this when you come.’

Deb couldn’t bear to sit and watch and listen to the whole story all over again. She smiled across her gritted teeth, took her tea to the kitchen and tipped it into the sink, before telephoning the doctor.

The receptionist was the usual uncooperative, patronising bitch and said Dr Foscutt was in the middle of evening surgery and couldn’t possibly come to the phone. Deb asked for an emergency appointment in half an hour’s time.

‘What is the emergency?’

Deb explained and the receptionist went away to consult someone, coming back with the words ‘Your father’s angioneurotic oedema is not life-threatening. He must go on taking the tablets the doctor has already prescribed and you can bring him in next week. I’ve made an appointment for Thursday.’

There were drums beating in Deb’s head, or sledgehammers. She went back into the drawing room, trying to look and sound calm as she told her father that she had to drive to the surgery to pick up a new prescription. Her mother was blessedly still asleep when she put her head round the bedroom door, so she scribbled a note and put it on the bedside table.

The surgery was full and the receptionist told her crossly that she should’ve listened to the instructions and stayed at home. ‘There’s no point waiting. I’ve told you the doctor can’t see you. He’s busy. Go home.’

Deb felt something building up in her that had to be let out. She opened her mouth. She couldn’t hear any words at first, but she knew she was making a noise. Shocked faces all round the waiting room jerked her into listening to herself. ‘You patronising cow. You don’t understand a single thing. You shouldn’t have any contact with vulnerable patients, and your bloody doctor needs reporting to the health authority. I knew the NHS was in a mess, but I had no idea it was this bad. I’m going to write to every MP in the country and I’ll get—’

A door opened and the small angry figure of Dr Foscutt came towards her, his face scarlet and his eyes piercing and cold. He was saying something, but she overrode him, telling him just what she thought of his abandoning two elderly patients with a whole variety of ailments. She told him he should have got the district nurse to call at least once a day, and himself telephoned if he couldn’t visit, once a week as an absolute minimum.

‘All the patients of this practice know that they must book an appointment if they wish to see me,’ he said, his voice shaking with fury that was as bitter as hers. ‘And they know that if they wish the district nurse to call, they must telephone by six o’clock the previous evening.’

‘Have you no sense of responsibility? These are vulnerable, frightened people in need of help. They are in your care. What the hell do you think you’re paid for?’

‘Now, come along, Mrs Gibbert. You’re hysterical. This is ridiculous behaviour. If you will calm down and wait your turn, I’ll see what I can do when I’ve attended to all the patients who have appointments.’

‘I
can’t
wait,’ she shrieked. ‘They’re on their own. They’re not safe. I won’t take any time. I just need you to give me something for my father’s rash now. It’s unbearable. There must be something you can do. For Christ’s sake! If he was a dog and you let him live in that condition you’d be in the dock on a charge of cruelty. And if he was a dog, you’d have had him put down years ago.’

‘Mrs Gibbert, control yourself.’ Foscutt’s whole body was rigid with rage.

Deb gasped. Something brought her back under control with a snap. She looked round the room, half apologetic. The waiting patients looked scared, all but a beady-eyed girl of about twelve, who was loving every minute of it. Deb stuffed her balled fists into the pockets of her Puffa. ‘I’m not leaving until you give me something for my father,’ she shouted.

‘Come into my room at once,’ said Foscutt, as though he was her teacher, ready to administer punishment.

Sitting on the opposite side of his desk, with his spectacles perched three-quarters of the way down his nose so that he could look at her over the top, he said, ‘Now, tell me calmly what all this is about.’

So she told him, all over again.

‘You and your mother are a pair of hysterical women,’ he said. ‘Your father would do a great deal better with a calmer atmosphere. The rash is stress-related, like the ulcer. Behave better around your father and both would be less severe.’

He was scribbling on his prescription pad. Deb couldn’t believe he didn’t feel the heat of her fury.

‘Now, take this to the dispensing nurse outside and give your father two of these tablets at night.’

‘What are they?’ Deb demanded.

‘I beg your pardon?’ He sounded as outraged as if she’d asked him to take off all his clothes.

‘I want to know what you’re prescribing.’

‘I don’t have time for this. It’s an antihistamine. It should help the skin condition.’

‘Has he had this particular one before? They’ve none of them worked, you know.’

‘Make sure he doesn’t drive while he’s taking the tablets.’

‘You really are irresponsible, aren’t you? You have no idea of the conditions in which my parents are living. My father hasn’t been able to drive for the past two years. I have a good mind to report you to the General Medical Council.’ She didn’t wait to see how he would take that. She had to get back.

She leaned over his desk and grabbed the prescription pad out of his hands, ripped the top sheet off it, checking that it was signed, and stormed out to give it to the dispensing nurse.

The nurse took the sheet of paper, staring at Deborah in disgust. Echoes of the argument must have reached even this far from Dr Foscutt’s room. Deb waited, her hands pushed deep into the jacket pockets so that they couldn’t do any damage, while the nurse spent a quite unnecessary amount of time checking the prescription, finding the box of pills, sticking a typed label on it, and making notes in a file.

‘There, Mrs Gibbert. And next time please make an appointment. The doctor simply cannot have this kind of interruption. Nor can the patients who have bothered to make appointments.’

Deb didn’t trust herself to answer.

As soon as she got home, she gave her father the first two pills and set about cleaning his bedroom and giving the commode a much needed scouring. That done, she allowed herself the rare luxury of sitting at her mother’s bedside for half an hour talking quietly about the children. Then she went down to the kitchen, rolled up her sleeves and set about making something soft enough for her father to eat for supper and interesting enough to tempt her mother. Having felt her thinness, Deb thought they must have been missing a lot of meals.

The washing-up took her beyond her father’s usual bedtime. Working to his barked instructions, she pulled apart the drawing-room fire and put a guard in front of it, looking apologetically over her shoulder towards her mother, who smiled reassuringly. Deb then turned out the reading light on his table, and folded up the rug he liked to have over his knees in spite of the fire.

By the time she’d helped him up the stairs and gone through the whole ghastly ritual of persuading him to take all his pills with the glass of juice he demanded, even though she was sure it was going to make his ulcer worse, she was too tired to do anything but fall into her own bed. She knew her mother was more than capable of getting herself into bed.

The next two days went better. On Saturday night Deb managed enough sleep to put in the effort necessary to create a proper conversation at breakfast.

She was repaid when they started talking to each other again and occasionally even laughed. Feeling better as soon as she heard the blessed sound, she settled them in the drawing
room with the newspaper and set about making a proper Sunday lunch, as they liked.

She really thought she’d be able to go home that evening as she’d originally planned, and phoned Adam to say she’d do her best to get back before he was in bed, but if not she’d sleep in the spare room so as not to wake him.

‘How’s it going, Deb my darling?’ he asked, with all the gentleness she needed.

‘Not too bad actually. Not now. They’re even being quite nice to each other this morning.’

‘I hope it lasts.’

‘Me too. How are the children?’

‘Terrific. Kate’s been playing football with the boys already this morning to give me time to read the paper in peace. She’s a sweetie, you know. She does you credit, darling.’

‘Oh, Adam.’ Deb sighed, but this time in pure pleasure. ‘And Millie?’

‘Slept right through last night. Dry as a bone. She’s the easiest of the lot.’

‘Wonderful. I’ll see you tonight, if I can. Must go now.’

Even talking to him cheered Deb up and she went about the rest of the lunch preparations singing her favourite childhood songs. Her mother even joined in with ‘Sweet Polly Oliver’ as they peeled the carrots.

‘Will you two stop that caterwauling?’ came the inevitable yell from the drawing room.

Deb watched the rare pleasure freezing out of her mother’s eyes. She closed her own and prayed that the complaint was a one-off.

But it wasn’t. He got more and more unreasonable all through the rest of the day. Deb wasn’t sure whether it was natural brutality, extra pain, or an attempt to make sure she didn’t leave them alone with each other again. Her mother was in floods of real tears when Deb went to make the tea, so
she had to telephone Adam and say she wouldn’t be back that night after all.

‘Can you manage the school run again?’ she asked sadly. ‘I hate putting it on you, but …’

‘You don’t have any option, darling. Come back when you can. I’ll see if Anne can take Millie again. I expect she will. She said on Friday that it’s good for her Paula to have another baby in the house. Don’t worry about us, we’ll manage.’

But she did worry about them. Millie was only just past her first birthday and the twins were five: noisy and boisterous. Kate did her best to help, but she was only a child, and Adam had his work.

By the time Deb came to put her father to bed, she was ready to hit him and knew she wouldn’t have the patience to coax him through the whole pill routine. He could take them or not as he pleased. And if his rash got worse, he’d just have to put up with it. But of course it wasn’t that simple, and she knew she’d have to persuade him to take his medicine if she was to have any hope of getting away tomorrow.

‘You’ve already given me the white ones,’ he shouted, as she held them out.

‘Don’t be stupid!’ The edge in her voice shocked her, but it seemed to have no effect on him. ‘You know I sorted out all the doses when I first got here,’ she reminded him more temperately. ‘That’s what this box is for. I bought it so that we wouldn’t have to go through this every single time. This is Sunday evening’s compartment. I’m taking the pills from here, one by one, as you like them. I’m not bloody well doing this for my own amusement, you know.’

‘You and your mother stuff me with these pills that do me no good at all. You have no idea what it’s like. I—’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, get on with it!’ she shouted and turned away, so angry that she couldn’t bear to look at him for another moment.

Through the open curtains she saw old Major and Mrs Blakemore, goggling up at her. Their shockingly ill-trained golden retriever was leaping around them, but they paid no attention.

Deb forced a smile, waved at them, drew the curtains and turned back. More patiently, she refilled the juice glass and handed over the next pill.

The whole process reminded her of feeding Millie when she wouldn’t eat. But at least Millie was only a baby. This was a grown man, who should have known how hellish he made life for everyone around him, and yet who still resented every attempt to make him more comfortable. She couldn’t understand why he went out of his way to make people hate him. Especially the people he needed and who tried so hard to look after him.

They got the pills done in the end; then it was time to take out his teeth. Deb picked up the tumbler of water she had ready for him and held it out. He knocked it out of her hand, splashing water all over the carpet, and breaking the glass. She wasn’t sure whether it was deliberate.

‘You always were the clumsiest child,’ he hissed. ‘Now you’ve broken my best glass.’

‘It’s a garage tumbler, Dad. Not worth anything. Oh, God, don’t put your teeth down in all that mess and broken glass. For Christ’s sake.’

Gagging at the sight of the teeth, hating the smell of them and of his poor ravaged skin, she felt in her apron pocket for the roll of polythene bags, tore one off, and held it open. Swearing at her, he dropped in the teeth. They snapped together as they fell, as though they had a life of their own. Sickened, she took them at arm’s length to the bathroom, filled another glass with water, dropped in a cleaning tablet and added the teeth, looking away.