Doctor Perry Read online

  Now Doctor Perry smiled properly. “We can't have you in any discomfort. The staff at St. Albert’s are excellent but their pain management techniques are ancient. They see opiates as a panacea for all ailments whereas I have a more holistic approach. Pain relief needs help to work, to speed things up,” he said rifling through his bag. “Based on the clinical notes I received, I came prepared.”

  Doctor Perry produced a brown pharmacy bottle filled with milky viscous fluid and he saw relief flash across Mary Louise’s face. His patients wanted to be better and rarely questioned the means, especially when it was their doctor offering the cure. Everyone trusts their doctor.

  “I don't need the pharmacy?”

  “Oh no, I have everything you need right here but before I administer your first dose, lets check these injuries. My notes say a vehicle drove into you?”

  Mary Louise recounted the painful details of her accident, itemising her injuries without once taking her eyes off the brown bottle.

  Doctor Perry made sympathetic noises. “I’ll examine your ribs first. Four broken ribs with one piercing the skin? I hope the driver is being held accountable?”

  Pulling on a pair of disposable latex gloves, he lifted the woman’s t-shirt revealing a swathe of white bandages. “That’s good, no seepage. I’ll check for any sign of infection under the dressings.”

  His patient didn’t answer but nodded along to his ministrations. The combination of opiates, pain, and lack of sleep turned her as docile as a newborn lamb.

  Doctor Perry removed her dressings, prodding at the ugly stitches holding her together. A shame. The scar would stay with her forever now, no matter what he did. He hated his patients scarred, preferring them perfect, as did his clients. Still, she'd be a profitable addition to his books regardless of the scar. And scars faded.

  “It’s healing but you’ll need something to reduce the scarring.”

  Mary Louise sobbed, huge gulping sobs wracked her body and forcing globules of snot from her nose. Doctor Perry turned away, his stomach roiling in disgust.

  “And my face?” Mary Louise asked through her tears.

  “Just grazes, they’ll heal without interference and they won’t scar. Trust me. They will heal faster once your pain is under control,” Doctor Perry said, offering her a box of tissues, turning away from the mucus covered face of his patient. He loathed this side of doctoring.

  Mary Louise blew her nose, filling the flimsy tissue, followed by the shush shush sound of more tissues being pulled from the box, and more moist blowing sounds.

  Once he was sure she’d finished, Doctor Perry returned his attention to his patient, to her plaster cast covered limbs. Bones broken when a white van slammed into her, breaking four ribs, lacerating a kidney, breaking her arm and hyper-extending her left leg until her knee socket shattered.

  Doctor Perry opened the medicine bottle and poured a measured dose of the opaque liquid into a small ceramic cup. “I apologise for the bitter taste, it’s true when they say the worst tasting things are always best for us,” he chuckled, watching Mary Louise as she tipped the liquid down her throat. Satisfied, he whisked the cup away, tucking it back into his bag.

  “Whilst it’s a long acting formula, I must administer another dose next week-”

  “How long till it works?” she interrupted.

  “You should feel relief tonight. Keep taking the medication the hospital prescribed, they’ll work in tandem and I wouldn’t be surprised if you felt like a new woman in the morning,” he laughed. A dry, mirthless laugh which echoed around his chest and up through his throat but never made it to his eyes. Doctor Perry pulled off his gloves and packed away the brown bottle. “Have you got anyone to look after you?” he asked innocently.

  “I have no family nearby, or friends yet. The nurse was coming twice a week, but that’s finished now they’ve passed me onto you. I’m using a grocery delivery service but if I’m not back at work soon I won’t be able to afford that for much longer, so no, not really.”

  “We’ll concentrate on getting you back on your feet as soon as we can and you’ll be rejoining the workforce before you know it. Take care and ring my office if there’s no improvement in your pain management in the next couple of days.”

  As Doctor Perry climbed into his nondescript mid-range saloon, a smile finally made it to his eyes. He patted the bag on his passenger seat affectionately before backing out of Mary Louise Jackson’s driveway. The driveway of his new favourite patient, one with no family or friends. The perfect patient.

  9

  The residents of the Rose Haven Retirement Resort didn’t see Johnny Paulson at lunch or dinner. By the next day half the residents had forgotten him altogether, and not just those with dementia.

  Elijah Cone hadn’t forgotten Johnny Paulson. He looked for him at lunch and at dinner and by breakfast the next day he assumed they’d locked Johnny up. He didn’t want to get involved. It was Johnny’s tough luck and nothing to do with him but Johnny Paulson was the closest thing to a friend Elijah had. The only resident who didn’t try talking sport with him, instead he’d been happy to compare books and discuss politics — local more than national, with an occasional foray into political events further afield. Now his life was empty, which was as he deserved.

  “You’re not eating again, Mister Cone?” Benson asked, appearing at his elbow, bending to cut the dry chicken breast Elijah was struggling with.

  “Leave it, I can do it,” Elijah snapped. “Why are you here? It’s not the weekend already is it?”

  “I’m in covering for Smokey, he’s on leave,” Benson replied.

  Ah, Smokey, the orderly who’d run over the jogger, the one who smoked more than a chimney at a crematorium.

  “What happened to the jogger, Benson?”

  “Don’t go asking me, they don’t want us chit chatting about what happened, best leave sleeping dogs lie,” Benson said, checking over his shoulder.

  Elijah didn’t want the details, he didn’t care, but he wanted to know about the jogger. “The jogger, is she okay?”

  Benson straightened, his hands brushing at imaginary crumbs on the table.

  “How are we today, Elijah?” said a voice like nails on a chalkboard - Tracey Chappell, the manager of the Rose Haven Retirement Resort, a gussied up sow in a silk purse. Blonde hair, blue eyes and a nasty streak. It was no wonder Benson stood as if he had a poker up his backside.

  “Fine,” Elijah muttered, keeping his eyes on her face despite the acres of bare flesh displayed below her neckline.

  “I noticed Benson assisting you with your meal. We aren’t able to cater to residents with high needs in the Rose Haven,” Tracey Chappell enunciated, taking great care to protect the illusion she was running a pensioners holiday resort and not a low cost rest home shoehorned into an old hotel complex altered on the cheap to meet planning consent requirements.

  “I didn’t ask him. He did it off his own back.” Elijah said, regretting the words as soon as they were out.

  Tracey turned to the orderly, “Benson, a word in my office after your shift has finished,” she said before returning to Elijah. “Regardless, those fingers look like they are becoming a problem. We’ll schedule you for a visit to the Resort’s doctor. You haven’t had a check up since you moved in with us, and we prefer that our Residents maintain their health so it’s timely. Enjoy your meal.” And she swanned off, surveying her domain, checking for the slightest infraction, leaving residents hunched into their meals hoping she wouldn’t pounce on them. For many residents, the Rose Haven Retirement Resort was the only affordable assisted-living facility in a two hundred mile radius.

  “Sorry, Benson,” Elijah started.

  “Not a worry Mister Cone, her bark is worse than her bite. I’ll be okay. Now are you going to eat that chicken or am I going to feed you?” Benson chuckled, the tension broken.

  The meal over, Elijah walked the long corridors, passing room after room, doors ajar, the volume of their television se
ts creating an impossible cacophony of noise. He quickened his step least one was tuned to a sports channel. As he rounded the corner, he collided head first into an immovable object. Oomph. Elijah bounced off the object, reeling with the force.

  “Hey there,” boomed a voice.

  Elijah looked up, he had to — the woman standing in front of him was at least six foot with a girth to match. The colour of charcoal, her skin glowed under the shuttered bulbs decorating the long corridors — leftovers from when it was a hotel, the current management would never have sprung for such expensive fittings.

  Swathed in layers of a jewel-coloured fabric, gold dripping from her ears, her wrists and her ankles, she tinkled as she breathed. Rheumy, milky eyes the biggest nod to her age.

  “Hello,” Elijah replied.

  “It’s a fine way to meet new people, bumping into them. I find it’s the best way to start a conversation,” she chortled, the heavy earrings dancing in her lobes, dragging them down towards her shoulders.

  Making small talk wasn’t something Elijah enjoyed anymore, but he still had manners, “When did you get here?” he asked.

  “To this country or this place? Been in the US longer than I care to remember, but arrived here today. Sorry sort of welcome I got though, can’t find my way to lunch, lost my room, and you’re the first friendly face I’ve seen. Not that I can see it very well, I’ve as much eyesight as the President has brain cells, and that’s saying something.”

  Elijah was desperate to get back to his room, but she hadn’t moved, and he didn’t think it polite to squeeze past her bulk when she was lost. “I can walk you to the dining room?” he offered, hoping she’d decline.

  “Do I want to eat the food there, that’s the question? Can’t be fading away. Too many malnourished skeletons walking the world as it is. So yeah, sure thing, that’d be great.”

  Reluctantly he offered the woman his arm, wincing as she grabbed it a little too hard. She loosened her grip and rested her fingers on his arm as they walked down the hall to the empty dining room. No one lingered over their meals here, the staff made it clear that loitering was against the rules. Turn up on time, eat what’s on your plate without complaining, go back to your rooms. Rinse and repeat.

  Benson appeared at his side, “There’s no seconds, Mister Cone.”

  “Not here for more, Benson, I’m escorting… sorry, I don’t know your name?”

  “Sulia Patel, just moved in. Nice to meet you but I’m starving and could murder a burger or a big plate of lasagne.” She laughed at Benson’s confused face, “I’m not all curries and korma. I’ve been living here longer than you’ve been alive and I enjoy the taste of a good burger as much as you do. Now lead me to my table.”

  Elijah made to leave, reluctant to hang around, but the woman called out, “I’m not eating alone, come sit here and tell me about the place.” Her request brooked no argument and before Elijah knew it he was sitting by her side watching Sulia hoover up the rehydrated potato and chicken breast, her knife and fork working in harmony ladling the food into her cavernous mouth, teeth chomping at the dry chicken flesh, smacking her lips as though savouring a gourmet meal.

  “Not bad, not bad at all,” Sulia said, wiping her mouth with a paper napkin. She rubbed her stomach before turning her cloudy eyes towards Elijah. “Nothing like a full stomach to settle the nerves. You wouldn’t expect I’d be nervous moving into a place like this. But boy oh boy it reminds me of being the new kid at school. I was the only Indian there too. Am I the only Indian here?”

  Elijah flicked through the faces of the other residents, and he couldn’t think of a single resident who wasn’t a subtle shade of beige, except for Bill Chen, who, despite his surname, didn’t look Chinese. Elijah muttered a quiet yes.

  Sulia snorted. “Thought as much.”

  Elijah flushed with shame. Not at the lack of diversity in the Rose Haven but that he hadn’t even noticed. He’d been so introspective he hadn’t realised the residents of the Rose Haven Retirement Resort were a recruiting poster for the Ku Klux Klan.

  “I can feel the heat of your blushing from here. Don’t worry, I’m used to it. Doesn’t bother me. They’ll get used to me, they always do. Before long we’ll be tucking into plates of chicken korma and more poppadoms than you can shake a stick at.”

  Elijah thought the idea of the Rose Haven altering their cost-effective meal plan was unlikely but wouldn’t tell Sulia that. Let her work it out for herself. No need to open his mouth, or to get involved. Getting up from the table, he started to make his excuses, he wanted to be back in his room.

  “Your voice… I recognise it now. Took me a while, but yeah, you’re Elijah Cone, what on earth are you doing here?”

  Elijah sank back into the chair, the plastic covered seat squeaking.

  “It’s no secret who I am,” he replied.

  “You disappeared a kind of a sudden though didn’t you? Vanished from the face of the earth. I’d recognise that voice anywhere, heard it on my television for too many years not to. If my friends could see me now, sitting here with a celebrity,” she laughed, her enormous girth undulating like jelly in an earthquake.

  If Elijah wasn’t in so much pain, he would have bolted but with his arthritis he needed five minutes just to stand up.

  “Where you’ve been? What have you been doing? Must be five years since you were on my TV set. You been here all that time?”

  Elijah stared at the table, this was the last thing he wanted to talk about.

  “Why d’you disappear?”

  Elijah almost answered but Benson reappeared at the table.

  “Sorry guys, but we need to clean the dining room now, for the supper service.”

  “Right, yes,” Elijah replied, his voice full of relief. He pulled himself up, avoiding Sulia’s cloudy eyes, wincing as he shuffled out from the table and hobbled from the room.

  “I’m almost blind but I don’t need eyes to see he’s hurting,” Sulia said as the door closed behind Elijah.

  “Arthritis is an indiscriminate affliction. Elijah masks it well though, won’t let anyone help him. Do you want me to show you to your room or to the lounge with the other residents?”

  “The lounge, thank you.”

  They made an odd couple walking the halls — the orderly’s skin unmarred by life against Sulia Patel’s wrinkled features which were a road map to life well lived. She carried luggage under her eyes like a hotel porter working a convention.

  Benson left Sulia in the funereal lounge, oblivious to the depressing atmosphere — his mind already on his meeting with Tracey Chappell. Completing the lunchtime handover sheet, he noted down the increasing difficulties Elijah Cone had with his hands. He didn’t want to give Tracey any excuse to fire him and recording concerns about the wellbeing of the residents was part of his job, and he needed this job. He never once considered that he’d just started the ball rolling on a destructive force which might crush them all.

  10

  Molly smudged pink gloss on her lips and admired the colour the hairdresser had run through her hair, subtle streaks of auburn which looked better outside than under the doctor’s florescent lights but if it went well tonight, it wouldn’t matter what her hair looked like under lights, or under the covers.

  Snapping the mirror shut, she popped it away in the top drawer along with candy floss coloured lip gloss. Molly didn’t think about being the latest in a long line of receptionists who’d kept their belongings in that drawer. She ignored the yellow comb and the half used compact of pressed powder and had thrown out the old bottle of Dior perfume, the scent so overpowering she’d sneezed every time she opened the drawer, but she never stopped to wonder why her predecessors had left those things behind, including address books and asthma inhalers, house keys and expensive tubes of hand moisturiser. But at her stage of life, she wasn’t prone to worrying over such inconsequential things.

  She’d filed all the patient reports for the day, except for the one belonging to Doc
tor Perry’s last patient, who hadn’t yet arrived. With nothing left to fill in her time, she read his file. For someone so good looking it was odd that he wasn’t wearing a wedding band. He didn’t strike her as gay, especially as he’d definitely been flirting with her the last time he’d come in, and the time before that. Tonight she hoped he’d ask her out. She didn’t have the luxury of time, her reproductive chances diminishing with every sweep of the clock, so if he didn’t ask her this time, she’d decided that she’d ask him.

  The surgery door opened and Don Jury walked entered. An ocean-wide smile split Molly’s face as he approached the counter.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “Hello, Molly,” he replied.

  Molly blushed. He’d remembered her name. She forgot that it was on the nameplate on the counter as she imagined their future wedding. Despite his age, he’d look perfect at the end of the altar.

  “Is he running on time?” he asked.

  Molly bobbed her head, her power of speech lost.

  Don smiled, showing rows of perfect white teeth, like a shark. Oh, they’d have such handsome children Molly fantasised. She overlooked his sloping shoulder and the odd stray hair threatening to sprout from his ears if left unattended for too long.

  “Shall I take a seat?”

  Molly nodded again, a blush working its way up her chest, snaking across her throat and staining her cheeks.

  Don walked towards the chair closest to Doctor Perry’s consulting room before spinning on the spot. Molly’s heart stopped, this was it, he was going to ask her out.

  “Is there any chance I could grab a glass of water? I’m parched and I don’t want the doctor accusing me of being dehydrated.”

  Molly deflated like a balloon in the sun. Shoving her chair backward from the desk she disappeared into the kitchenette. There was a water cooler in the waiting room but she’d already removed the empty bottle ready for tomorrow’s fresh water delivery.