Wonder Women (49 page)

But never alone. Judith didn't want to make a fuss, as Mrs Whittaker really did sound so ill, but what if she made a dreadful mistake? Let one of the doctors down? She felt
fairly confident she could manage the appointment book, answering the telephone and ushering the patients in to see the doctors, but she had always watched Mrs Whittaker do the doctors' instruments. She had never done it herself.

Mrs Whittaker dictated a list of each doctors' preferences. Dr Pine liked his stethoscope laid along the bottom of the instrument table, and the other instruments – the otoscope, tongue depressors and so on – in a neat row. Dr Mistry preferred to have his instruments in a fan shape. Judith scribbled everything down and then hurried to get dressed. She wanted to be there as early as possible so she didn't have to rush.

The surgery was quiet when she let herself in. She had never been in there on her own before, and she was used to the bustle of patients, the ringing telephone and the hiss of the sterilising machine. She spent a few minutes sorting out the waiting room – tidying the magazines, watering the African violet and running a duster over the windowsill. Then she tentatively opened the door to Dr Pine's consulting room. She straightened a few files on his desk, and fetched a clean white cloth from the drawer to cover his instrument table. Checking her list, she began to lay out the instruments one by one. Mrs Whittaker had said Dr Pine liked to have one thermometer dry and ready to use on his table, so she went over to the sink and picked up the jar of alcohol, which held ten or so of the thin glass thermometers Dr Pine favoured.

Three things happened in very quick succession. She heard a voice call, ‘Mrs Whittaker, where's my—' Then there was an almighty crash, followed by another.

It took her a few moments to realise the voice belonged to Dr Mistry, who had burst into Dr Pine's office. The first crash had been the door slamming back against the wall, and the second had been the jar of thermometers falling from Judith's hands and into the sink. It took another few moments to see that a shard of glass from the jar or one of the broken thermometers had gashed the palm of her hand and blood was dripping into the mess in the sink.

‘I'm so sorry …' Dr Mistry and Judith said simultaneously.

‘I've made a dreadful mess …' said Judith.

‘Only because I gave you a fright,' said Dr Mistry, coming closer to see. ‘Oh, you've cut your hand. I'm so sorry, Judith.'

‘But the thermometers are broken …' Judith was very distressed. She'd caused such chaos. What would Mrs Whittaker say?

Dr Mistry glanced into the sink. ‘Only one or two are broken. And we can give old Pine my sterilising jar. He'll never know the difference. The most important thing is to sort out your hand.' He took Judith's hand in his and looked at the wound. ‘I don't think it needs stitches, but come to my consulting room and I'll clean it and bandage it for you.'

Dr Pine had been Judith's GP since she was a tiny girl. He was abrupt and taciturn and his hands were always cold. She had been very nervous when her mother had organised this job for her in Dr Pine's surgery. She had little to fear however, because as a junior receptionist, she was all but invisible to Dr Pine, and she had never had cause to speak to the junior partner, Dr Mistry, before. Until now, as he carefully cleaned the cut on her hand and dressed it. His
hands were gentle and warm and his tone was soothing. Once he had finished bandaging her hand, he looked into her eyes. It seemed to Judith as if he looked at her, really at her, as if he could see right into her mind. Then he seemed to catch himself, and he looked away, embarrassed.

She couldn't stop thinking about him after that. If she had to go into his room, she would dash to the bathroom to comb her hair and check her reflection first. But when she was in there, she was too shy to make eye contact. It was ridiculous, of course. She'd been going out with Charles Evans for a year already; he was a perfectly nice chap, someone she'd known at school. She knew Charles expected that they would get engaged within the next year or so. Her parents expected the same. Until that moment in Dr Mistry's consulting room, she had been looking forward with all her heart to the day Charles would propose.

She didn't know what it was about Dr Mistry. Was it his beautiful eyes, a brown so deep she couldn't distinguish the pupil in the darkness of the iris? Was it his slim, smooth hands, or his perfect skin? Or was it his gentleness or his scrupulously polite manner with the staff and the patients? She didn't think it was just because he was nice – she recognised that her reaction to him was physical and visceral. He leaned over her desk once to point out a name on something she was typing, and she caught a trace of the scent of his skin. She felt her heart thump and her blood start to pump, and she felt outrageously and inappropriately turned on. She might have been young and naive, but she knew that it wasn't a schoolgirl crush. It was proper, grown-up desire. Lust even. And astonishingly, she couldn't shake the thought
that her feelings might be reciprocated. Every now and then, she would catch Dr Mistry looking at her – not glancing at her, or smiling in the affable, friendly way he did with everyone else, but staring, as if he was thinking things he shouldn't. At first, she would blush and look away, but she gradually became bolder, and she held his gaze, staring him down, daring him to look away first.

She had slept with Charles. It was the seventies, after all – nobody waited till they were married any more. It had been … all right, she supposed. She imagined it would get better when they were married and did it more. They both lived at home with their parents, so when they did get to do it, it was usually a rushed affair on the sofa or on one of their narrow single beds, when the parents were out. Also, when they got to do it more regularly, Charles might not be so overexcited every time and it might last longer. There never seemed to be enough time for her to get properly aroused, and if she was, certainly not enough time for her to get real pleasure out of the whole thing. She imagined that with Dr Mistry it would be a very different experience.

It was going to happen, somehow she knew it. And it would take the smallest thing. As it turned out, it was quite a large thing: a consignment of parcels from Dr Mistry's family in India, which was delivered to the surgery. When he came in and saw the stack of boxes beside Mrs Whittaker's desk, he smiled ruefully. ‘I'm so embarrassed,' he said. ‘My aunts worry that I'll freeze to death, or that I'm sleeping on the floor, so they send me things. Heaps of things. My flat's just around the corner. It'll take me a few trips, but I'll take them all home with me this evening.'

‘Or I could help you,' said Judith. ‘Between us, it would only take one trip.'

‘Thank you, Judith,' he said. ‘I would be so grateful.' And they exchanged a look so intense it felt to Judith as if it might set the papers on her desk alight. Judith wasn't quite sure how Mrs Whittaker had missed the bolt of energy that passed between them, but she carried on typing, unconcerned.

It was the longest work day of Judith's life. The hands on her watch crept around so slowly, she was convinced it had actually stopped. But eventually, years later, it seemed, it was five thirty and the surgery closed. Judith took a moment to visit the bathroom and comb her hair. She was being ridiculous. She was just going to be carrying some parcels around to his flat. He might offer her a cup of tea. That was all.

Except it wasn't all. An hour later, she was lying naked on his bed, making sounds she didn't know she had inside her. She had been absolutely correct. This was nothing like what she did with Charles.

At first it was all about sex. They would race around to his flat after work and tear each other's clothes off. But after a few weeks, they began to talk. His first name was Pravin, and he was clever, funny and very insightful. She loved to listen to him talk, and he seemed genuinely interested in her and in her thoughts. He was ten years older, and when she expressed an opinion about something he would question her closely, not to put her down, but to understand what she was saying. It made her more thoughtful, made her read more, made her try harder. They couldn't ever spend more than an hour or two together (she had told her parents
and Charles she was working slightly longer hours), but those were the minutes in the day when she felt properly alive.

She didn't break it off with Charles, although she made excuses to avoid sleeping with him, and she didn't tell her parents or any of her friends about Pravin. They hadn't even really spoken to one another about what was going on between them, or what it meant, but she knew very well that it wasn't a conventional love affair, and it wasn't going to end in marriage and happily ever after.

She didn't expect it to end quite so soon however. She was at work one Monday morning when Mrs Whittaker came over and put a greeting card, still in its envelope, on her desk. ‘Sign this for Dr Mistry, won't you, dear?' she said briskly.

‘Is it his birthday?' Judith said, trying to sound unconcerned. If it was his birthday, she knew just what to do to celebrate.

‘No, he's leaving,' said Mrs Whittaker. ‘Didn't you know? He's going back to India at the end of the month to get married.'

Judith wasn't quite sure how she didn't faint or throw up on her desk, but she didn't. She just kept typing. ‘I'll sign it later,' she said. She waited until the last patient from the morning round had left, and then grabbed a stack of files and went into his consulting room.

She shut the door behind her. ‘When were you going to tell me?'

He looked up at her. ‘Tell you what?'

‘That you were engaged to someone else.'

‘I've been engaged to her since I was seven years old. It's an arranged marriage, Judith. Not something I ever had a choice about.'

‘But what about …?'

‘Us? What about us? What about the boyfriend you haven't broken up with? The parents you haven't told?'

‘But …' She started to cry. He got up, put his arms around her and wiped away her tears.

‘Don't. Please don't. Come to my flat tonight. We'll talk then.'

She rang her mum and made up a story about spending the night at a friend's house. Her mum was a little surprised – it was a week-night after all – but Judith stuck to her story. After work, she and Pravin went around to his flat. She sat on an upright kitchen chair and he sat opposite her. She didn't take her coat off.

‘I love you,' he said simply. It was the first time he had said it.

‘I love you too.'

‘I didn't mean to fall in love with you.'

‘No.' There was a long silence. ‘So what do we do?' she asked.

‘I don't know.'

They talked all night. They argued, wept and shouted, tore off each other's clothes and made love, dozed, laughed, cried and argued again. He explained that the wedding plans were far advanced and his family had invested heavily in it. Refusing to go ahead with it would cause his family to disown him and would bring untold agony to his parents. But for Judith, he would do it. If she was brave enough.

She thought about it – about asking him to give up his family and his future. About what her parents would say. About the scandal if she dumped Charles and ran away with an Indian doctor. And as the sun rose, she knew in her heart that she wasn't brave enough. No matter how much she loved Pravin, it was a course of action for a much bolder woman, a woman who didn't care what people thought. A woman who knew she alone would be enough for a man who had given up everything for her.

Finally, as the sun came up, she got out of his bed and stood naked by the window, looking out over the high street. She turned to look at him. ‘I want one letter a year,' she said. ‘For as long as you think of me, as long as you love me, wherever you are, I want a letter from you every year. And I'll write one to you.'

Jo

It didn't seem a lot to ask, thought Jo. She didn't want to be a bitch or a nag, but every evening when she came through the door from work, hungry, tired, desperate just to spend some time with the kids, she'd say to Lee, ‘Have you done anything about dinner?'

And he'd say, ‘Oh, no, sorry. It just didn't occur to me.'

She tried taking something out of the freezer before she left in the morning. She tried mentioning dinner when she rang him at lunchtime. She even tried cooking double portions and leaving half in the fridge so he'd just have to heat something up. But every evening, she came home and there was nothing prepared, so she had to go straight into the kitchen and start making dinner, because if she didn't, the kids would get ratty and hungry, she'd end up giving them something quick like fish fingers, and she and Lee would end up eating at midnight.

It should have been a minor thing – something they could discuss light-heartedly, laugh about and forget. But it had
got beyond a joke. Jo would start to get tense about it on her way home, and by the time she walked through the door and they had the now-familiar exchange, she'd be seething. She'd find herself wondering why he couldn't just take the hint, as she bashed saucepans and chopped vegetables as if she was trying to murder them. It was so unlike him. Lee had always been the perfect partner: competent, helpful, more than willing to do his fair share in caring for the kids and looking after the house. Sure, he'd never been a great cook, but he'd always given it a go, even if it was a chilli con carne, made with a bottled sauce and served with couscous because he couldn't cook rice. But his refusal to make dinner these days seemed almost deliberate, defiantly obstinate. She couldn't work it out, and she was too angry about it to discuss it without causing a fight. And frankly she was stretched so thin, and working so hard, she just didn't have time for a battle with Lee.