Thanks to graphic directions of the receptionist I found the doctor's surgery without difficulty for as she had said the entire area resembled a motorway building site. The house was set well back from the road, isolated from its neighbours by a deep trench scooped from the soil and rubble like a medieval moat in preparation for battle. The only way to reach the door was by traversing an extremely temporary eighty foot bridge casually constructed from odd sheets of plywood nailed into an unsteady whole. With every step the contraption vibrated and bounced in an alarming manner, like those disagreeable single file suspension bridges built to terrify fishermen when crossing remote rivers in the Scottish Highlands.
One last wobbly bound and I was catapulted into a gloomy hallway which appeared to be doubling as a waiting room. Shadowy figures, presumably patients, huddled in a group corralled by packing cases, buckets, and a large step ladder. A dim light beckoned from afar and like a moth to candle I picked my way through assorted debris towards the distant silhouette of a lady who proved to be the receptionist.
‘Come to see, Doctor, have you?’ Her motherly smile was matched by a matronly figure. ‘Name please, dear.’
I started to comply, irritated by a voice unnaturally high. Perhaps the bouncing bridge had proved more traumatic than I realised.
‘Well, you’re not on the list, dear.’ She interrupted in mild rebuke. ‘What time did you call?’
‘About ten minutes ago. I rang to ask how to find you and you told me to look for the first building site.’
‘Oh yes, of course, dear, I remember now.’ Her eyes smiled kindly at me over the top of her glasses. ‘That means you're new!’ She rummaged through a heap of papers strewn all over the desk before triumphantly extracting a crumpled form.
‘You'll have to fill this in first I'm afraid, to join up so to speak. And I have to warn you we're not one of those smart newfangled group practices either. There's only one doctor here, Dr. Smith. That is there's only Dr Smith when he's here, which he isn't at the moment. Took off on holiday he did while we're being done.’
She gestured vaguely at the general mess. ‘Oh, and fill this for me if you can, will you, dear? We always ask each new patient for a specimen. Doctor says it saves time in the long run.’ She smiled again this time encouragingly and handed me a small plastic screw top bottle. ‘If you look hard enough you'll find the little room at the end of the passage. Please try your very best to leave us a little something before you go, dear. In the meanwhile I'll call you as soon as doctor's ready.’
By now my eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom and I was able to make my way back to the waiting area with more confidence. I found a chair as near to the door as possible and opened my newspaper. But it was too dark to read or crossword, so adopting the same bovine stare of my fellow patients, I settled down to wait. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed an old lady begin the traverse across the moat and was mildly irritated to see she was making a much better job of it than I had. With one hand clamped fast to the railing and waving an umbrella like a giant insect's antennae in the other, she shuffled over the great divide with surprising ease –until she reached the door.
‘Dear me, it's so dark in here, I can't see a thing! Can anyone tell me if I'm heading in the right direction?’ The confidence ebbed from her voice while the other patients looked on with dull hypnotic disinterest as she crashed into the step ladder.
‘You've missed the chairs, dear.’ Another elderly lady called out helpfully at last. ‘I say, I said you missed the chairs, dear. You've left all the chairs behind you. You'll have to turn round now and start walking the other way. That's right, that's the idea. Just keep going like that’ She added encouragingly, as the old lady tripped over the first chair to land in a heap on the next. ‘There, there you are you then, that's better.’ She concluded triumphantly. ‘That's you settled.’
I suppose I should have felt some sense of shame, just sitting there passively, making no effort to help while the poor old thing fell about like a clown in the circus. But the atmosphere of the place had affected me somehow, producing an impression that like some alien being I was no longer a part of things, but merely observing the proceedings passionless from above. I pulled myself together and was about to inquire whether the old lady was hurt in any way, when alerted by the crash to a fresh customer the receptionist appeared, delicately picking her way round a pool of wet cement.
‘Come to see Doctor have you, dear?’ She enquired kindly from her position athwart a bucket of paint brushes.
‘Yes, that's right.’ The old lady blinked myopically in the direction of her voice. ‘I've come to see Dr Smith.’
‘Do you have your health number with you, dear?’
‘No, I didn't bring it. When I gave it to you last time you said you would write it down so I wouldn't have to bother.’
‘I see, and how long ago was that then, dear?’
‘Oh I couldn't be sure exactly, but it must have been sometime last year. Yes, now I come to think of it, it must have been about the same time last year, because I seem to remember it was a very bright day too.’
The receptionist clucked her tongue disapprovingly. ‘Well, I'm afraid there's no way I'm ever going to find your number if it was that long ago, dear. What with the builders and everything, I'm lucky if I can put my hands on anything that goes back much more than a week. And it's not as though I can ask Dr Smith either, he might have known where to look for your number. He always keeps his own set of records somewhere for some reason. But then he's off on holiday.’
‘What a funny man.’ The old lady shook her head. ‘He wasn't here the last time I came either.’
‘Well, if you came the same time last year I can't say I'm surprised, dear. I expect Doctor was on holiday again. Poor man, he works very hard in between you know. He's entitled to one holiday a year, we all are. You had better try to pick another month if you want to see him when you come next time. Providing it's convenient that is.’
A hidden voice loudly calling my name from around the corner interrupted this eavesdropping. I got up and headed for the door marked surgery.
‘Come in, come in.’ A small spare man in his mid-forties grabbed me firmly and closed the door. ‘I'm afraid I'm not Dr Smith you know, he's away on holiday. I'm just standing in for him, temporally so to speak. I come from the services, that is the Air Force to be exact.’ He added with strange defiance, presumably in case his services were mistaken for those of the council.
‘I see you've put N/A here.’ He glared with disapproval at my crumpled form.
‘Yes, it was so long ago I couldn't remember. But the reason I came to see you is this pain I've been having in my ear doctor.’ I began.
‘Yes, yes. All in good time, we'll come to that later. But first we had better get this form filled in correctly.’ He looked up accusingly. ‘Why did you put not applicable in the section requiring name of your last doctor?’
‘I’m sorry?’ I said vaguely, the armoured centipede that kept wriggling about inside my ear was making it hard to follow his reasoning.
‘I asked why you neglected to fill in the name of your previous doctor in the space provided.’
‘Oh, well, I've been abroad for the past ten years, and I can't for the life of me remember who my doctor was back then.’
‘But surely you must remember the address of his practice?’ His pale blue eyes regarded me in disbelief. ‘The street or town at least?’
Having spent a short time in the Army, I know that some military minds are literally unable to function unless they follow a required procedure and this was obviously one of them. If I was to get a prescription and relieve the pain, the sooner I told the man what he wanted to hear the better. Looking back over the years a wine shop I used to frequent floated across my mind.
‘Amazing!’ I looked suitably impressed. ‘You're quite right you know. when you think hard enough it does seem to come back. I remember now, Thresher was the name, and I'm almost certain his practice was in Eccleston Street, number thirty-seven I think.’
‘You see!’ The eyes blazed with a proud triumph.’ Knew it would come, never fails once you put your mind to it, and the post code?’
‘SW7,’ I lied without hesitation.
‘And your own address?’ He scribbled busily.
‘31 Tight Street.’ It had been a restaurant I knew, but I was enjoying the game now and threw in another non-existent post code to check his reaction. But the good doctor's knowledge of London proved limited and accepting the discrepancy without comment he filled in the necessary squares before screwing the top on his pen and replacing it methodically on the desk. With a sigh of relief I lent forward, tilting my head on one side like a barnyard hen in search of corn to aid the diagnosis.
Ignoring this invitation he rose to his feet. ‘Fine, now if you would just come over here and stand on the scales.’
With a shrug of resignation I did as I was told. This was a man who would never deviate from the path of procedure by so much as a comma. Blind obedience was the path to my prescription; I just hoped gonorrhoea and piles weren't on the official check list.
‘Humph. A bit of ballast thrown overboard here wouldn't go amiss.’ I allowed myself to be manoeuvred to a portable ruler set against the wall. ‘Five eight, your ideal weight is 11 and a half stone. It is my duty to warn you 16 is scarcely prudent.’ Frowning with disapproval he motioned me back to my chair.
‘Yes yes, you're right of course. As it happens I'm dieting this very moment. Lost a stone already and working hard on the second.’ I smiled fawningly. ‘Er now, about this ear, I had some trouble with it a year ago and...’
‘Roll up your sleeve please’ He wrapped a rubber strip roughly round my arm and pumped for blood pressure. I'm a patient man but I could feel my temper grow with each pulsating beat. ‘Do you drink a lot?’ His lips pursed in expectant censure.
‘Frequently, habitually and excessively.’ I glared fiercely at the thin critical face until his eyes dropped.
Unused to a display of such naked insubordination and powerless to correct it, I could almost feel the wretched man's anguish and frustration as he forced himself to abandon laid down procedure and bring this unsatisfactory examination to a close.
‘Well then, we might as well take a peek at those troublesome ears of yours while we're here, eh?’ He made a croaking attempt at civilian joviality and finally bent to his task.
‘But they're severely inflamed!’ His voice rang with accusations of carelessness, and I wondered what threat of extra duties was coming my way. But my previous rebellion must have unnerved him for with a sigh of martyrdom, he finally sat down and scribbled my prescription.
‘I've put you on antibiotics, so make sure you finish the proscribed course.’ He admonished. ‘If you experience any further problems, come back again next week. I won't be here, but I dare say your usual doctor should be able to take care of things.’ The voice sounded pessimistic. Not that I cared, with a lilt in my step and clutching the wretched scrap of paper triumphantly, I hurried happily through the darkness towards the light, the bouncing bridge, the pharmacy, and the blessed relief that lay beyond.