Life Class (20 page)

‘I opened Live Mail to see if we’ve had any emails from Mel. Then there were … others … I had to reply to. I looked up Mel’s Facebook page, not that she’s been keeping that up to date. Since then I’ve been doing some work. Collating the petition on the –’

‘Everything all right?’ he interrupted, beginning to wear his ‘too much information’ face.

‘What?’ ‘With Mel.’

‘Oh, she seems a bit fed up. Aden’s talking about –’

‘Who’s Aden?’

‘I’ve told you, her boyfriend. Apparently he wants to go home.’

Peter brightened. ‘What, the UK?’

‘No. He’s Australian.’

‘What about
her
coming home for New Year?’

‘I think she’d have told us by now, don’t you?’

‘Has she given any clue when she
is
planning on coming home?’

‘She hasn’t told me of any plan to return before next summer.’

‘So what are her friends doing? You know …’ He clicked his fingers. ‘What’re their names?’

Fran began to feel pressured. ‘Kim and Flora. I really don’t know, Peter. If you’re that keen to get the details, read her emails yourself. Don’t rely on me. I’ll print them out for you if you want.’

‘No, it’s OK. I’m just surprised you don’t seem to have more information at your fingertips given how long you spend on that thing, talking to her.’

‘I don’t spend all my time talking to Mel. Like I said, she’s not the only person I get emails from.’ Fran felt a blush seep up around her hairline. ‘I start off with my inbox, but then I get side-tracked.’

‘So, what’s your latest enthusiasm? That Friends Reunited?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, thankful for the ready-made excuse he was handing her. ‘I’ve been trying to track down old school friends.’

‘I hope you’re not trying to re-unite with an old boyfriend!’ His voice was teasing, his smile indulgent.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Fran laughed uneasily. ‘I’d be disappointed if I was. Those who’ve registered from my old college are mostly the dorks and dweebs I didn’t want anything to do with the
first
time. Or they’re people who reckon they’ve made it and only want to show off. “Just bought a Porsche, a house in the Algarve, and my son’s got a zillion A stars”, etc.’

‘Human nature. But if it’s so unrewarding, why are you up half the night looking at it?’

‘Oh, um, I’ve also started looking up the family tree.’

Peter raised his eyebrows. ‘Rather you than me.’

‘You’d hate it. It’s much more complicated and time-consuming,’ she improvised. She’d already known Peter was unlikely to be interested, and wanted to keep it that way. ‘There are so many names to sift through, so many false leads.’

‘What’s that site called? Family Trees Reunited? Or how about … in text speak of course … Branches 4 U? Or Twigs R Us?’ He was beginning to chuckle. ‘Maybe that’s reductive and we should thing bigger. If you’re combining lots of trees it’s a wood isn’t it? And if you reunite several woods you get … Yes, I’ve got it … how about
Rediscover your ancestors in
…’ He paused dramatically, and then deepening his voice in a sonorous dramatic manner, intoned, ‘
the forest!’
Peter left the room, laughing at his joke.

‘Very funny. Actually, it’s Genes Reunited,’ she called after his retreating back, almost as if trying to regain some credibility. It wasn’t as if she’d given the site more than a cursory glance after signing up to it. She was speaking from a position of almost complete ignorance. So why did she feel annoyed that he was trivialising an activity she wasn’t, in reality, engaged in? Guilt, she decided, clicking back to her secret email inbox.

‘Do U like games? Got lots of games we cld play,’ she read. A prickly excitement pulsed through her. ‘+ toys we cld play with. Why don’t U get fixed up with skype - we can properly communicate? Id luv 2 C U playing with my toys.’

‘By the way.’ Peter came back into the room. Fran shrank the page again, trying to control her response to this second shock. She loathed being cross-questioned about her nerves. ‘What’s Dory doing?’

‘About what?’ she asked testily. ‘She’s at work today.’

‘The clinic’s still open?’

‘It’s NHS. It’ll probably stay open till the normal closing time. Beats me why she chose to work in a VD clinic in the first place.’

‘Well, that’s life, isn’t it?’ Peter scratched his head. ‘I don’t suppose she left school with the ambition fully formed. She did microbiology at university. It was getting together with Malcolm that sealed her fate. The microbiologist and the consultant in genitourinary medicine. A match made in heaven.’ ‘Not!’ Fran interposed.

‘With hindsight. But that’s the point. No one has an overview of how life’s going to pan out, do they? We end up in our careers by accident. I never thought I was going to be a bloody boring accountant. I just found I was good at it, and kept being put forward for training and promotions. One minute you think you’re only doing this job until you get the record deal, the next you’re analysing the budget statement, calculating the implications for capital gains tax payers, and being offered a partnership.’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘Old accountants never die, they simply lose their balance.’

Fran ignored the quip. ‘Her life would probably have taken a different direction if she and Malcolm’d had children.’

‘Why didn’t they?’

‘She enjoyed being independent; being a career woman and building the business. When I was up to my armpits in nappies and broken nights, she was out wining and dining, going to the theatre, and buying designer clothes. Don’t think she’d have wanted a life swap.’

‘Has she done any more house-hunting?’

‘How should I know? She doesn’t tell me anything these days. Afraid I’ll point out she’s being ridiculous, I suppose.’

‘I don’t know why you’re so down on her. It’s her life and her decision. You must stop interfering.’

‘Interfering? Wouldn’t you yell watch out if you could see someone about to drive off a cliff?’

‘Not the same thing. You seem to want control of the steering wheel.’

‘Rubbish! You don’t understand and you’re being unfair.’ She wasn’t trying to control anyone’s life. But she’d always had a sense of the big picture, her life and the lives of those around her interlocking like a vast jigsaw puzzle. She had an overview that others seemed unaware of. It was one of the reasons she’d been so aggravated by the change of course and teacher at the life class, and why she found Peter’s retirement so hard to accept. In her version of the jigsaw – her life – those pieces should have remained where they were. But some cosmic hand had thrown them in the air and put them back wrong! ‘Anyway, why
are
we talking about Dory?’ she continued.

‘When’s she coming? Tonight?’

‘Tomorrow, mid-morning. We’ll wait till she arrives to open our presents.’

‘She’s not going home the same day?’

‘I’ve told you this a million times.’ Fran wondered how he’d managed to be successful in his career when he was so inattentive and forgetful about anything happening at home. ‘She’s stopping overnight. Not going home till Boxing Day.’

‘Good,’ he said, turning tail and leaving the room again. ‘There’s something I want to talk to her about.’

Chapter Twenty-one - Dory

‘Ooh!’ Carly’s hair, pulled back in a scrunchy, emphasised the pink, well-scrubbed roundness of her face, her big blue eyes. ‘Where did you spring from? I nearly dropped the results.’

Dory doubted it; the girl’s strong, dimpled arms were firmly clamped around the white plastic box, ‘Bacteriology Department’ printed on its lid.

‘Sorry. I came in the back way. There’s someone I know …’ Dory tipped her head towards the front of the building. The nurse nodded.

‘Which one?’ Carly asked. ‘The young guy or the black girl?’

‘Someone parked outside.’ Dory held open the door to the clinic’s laboratory and followed Carly inside.

‘These just arrived.’

‘I know. I saw the porter coming out.’ Dory glanced at her watch. ‘They’re only four hours late.’

‘They’re short-staffed. A couple of techs are already off on holiday.’

‘All right for some!’

‘I’m sure they’re doing their best,’ the young nurse insisted earnestly.

‘Course they are,’ Dory qualified, amused that Carly had jumped to the defence of the lab technicians. ‘It’s us who should be paid double for putting in a full day’s work today. I’m taking a few weeks off after Christmas. It’s unpaid, but being part-time I’ve only had to take seven days to get three weeks.’

‘Lucky you.’

‘I’m only cranky now because I didn’t take the car into town. Thought parking would be difficult. Not only was I rained on coming back, but my arm was nearly pulled out of its socket!’

Arm
and
socket
prompted a memory of the last life class of term. Specifically, she recalled the man she’d just spotted explaining the skeleton’s shoulder joint and demonstrating its articulation. Dory took off her coat and hung it on a hook on the back of the door. She tore a fresh plastic pinafore off the dispensing roll, looped it over her head, and tied it behind her. ‘Why did I do all that extra shopping?’ she mused, almost to herself, suddenly depressed by the intrusive memory. ‘It’s not like I’m feeding anyone over Christmas! I’m at my sister’s tomorrow. And Boxing Day, I’m alone …’

The hospital’s bacteriology department, or ‘main lab’, as the staff referred to it, undertook the more complex tests than she was equipped to process. Every day, swabs, vials of blood, and blood agar plates, all carefully labelled with a patient number, were put in the white plastic box and sent over to the main lab for testing. The results from previous tests were sent back to the clinic’s laboratory – usually first thing – in the same box.

The results were anonymous. It was only when they were matched up with the numbered slips and patient’s notes that they gained an identity. Dory sat down and began to sort through them. Marking each one with a different colour highlighter pen, she placed them in separate piles on the bench in front of her. As she set about double-checking, she reflected that there had to be a better way to do this.

‘I’ll get the patient notes,’ she said eventually, to Carly’s bent back. Moments later, returning from the office, arms full of files, she saw one of the senior nurses shepherding someone from the consultation room to the treatment room. Though the nurse and her patient both had their backs to her, Shaskia was instantly recognisable. Her glittery jet-black hair was worn in complicated, corkscrew braids; large gold hoops hung from her ears; the skirt of her uniform was stretched tightly across her buttocks. Less than half her width, the patient was almost completely obscured, but just this glimpse of him, before he disappeared through the door, was enough.

Back in her own little domain, Dory was relieved to find that Carly had gone. Trivial chatter about their Christmas plans would be hard to maintain. Just for a moment she stared at the corkboard above her workstation, where, hugger-mugger with official departmental notices, jokes and cartoons had been pinned by the staff. Unable to even raise a smile she dumped the files down and sat on her swivel stool. Head bowed, she began to marry up the patients’ results with their files. As she performed this mindless but important task she sometimes envisaged the relief of John Smith or the despair of Mary Brown. Not this afternoon. From the moment she’d spotted Stefan outside the clinic, her mood had changed, but now …

While she worked, her brain buzzed, unhelpfully spewing out possible scenarios to explain the attendance of the two men. They mightn’t have come together, of course, but given that Stefan seemed to be waiting for someone, it was too much of a coincidence. Be thankful for small mercies, she told herself. At least you’re no longer obsessing about Kitesnest House.

Normally she’d not have given the routine in the treatment room a second thought. Now she found herself envisaging the procedure. First a blood sample would be taken, and then two swabs – though the term ‘swab’ would not convey to a layman the reality of the implement used. Once the material was collected, one of these swabs would be placed inside a screw-top plastic vial, the other smeared across a blood agar plate, in a zigzag pattern. In due course these marked-up samples would all be collected and taken to the hospital’s main lab for testing. All Dory ever had to screen were a few slides that the nurse would have prepared specifically for her.

The Sister in charge of the sexual health department had been asking for the collated results since mid-morning. Dory went through them again slowly, checking, checking again, and treble-checking the numbers, making sure she’d got the right patient for the right documentation. She couldn’t allow herself to be distracted. Mistakes at this stage could have devastating consequences.

Dory often wondered why the Sister wanted to see them herself before passing them on to the doctor. Wouldn’t it be more straightforward to cut out the middleman? She’d come to the conclusion that this was one of the ways in which Jo Finch liked to establish her authority by creating a hierarchy in the department.

Carly hadn’t returned yet. Dory picked up the phone. ‘Hi, Jo, it’s Dory,’ she said. ‘I’ve got today’s results for you.’

Several minutes elapsed before Jo Finch entered the room, her small features pinched into a frown. A few years younger than herself, Jo was a woman who took great trouble with her appearance. Always carefully made-up and dressed like a high-powered businesswoman, Jo insisted that the nurses in the department all wore the hospital uniform. It was another way in which she could underline her managerial position. It was clear she was frustrated by the fact that Dory was not a nurse and could therefore not be instructed to wear the uniform.

Jo was a plump woman, but whenever weight and dieting were discussed – a subject frequently aired – she was always quick to claim she’d been as slim as Kate Moss before she’d had her kids. It wasn’t just tactless, Dory thought, it was a deliberately unkind swipe at almost everyone who worked there.

There was an unavoidable subtext.
I’ve got kids, you haven’t!
was aimed at Dory.
If you’re skinny now, it won’t last!
was aimed at the nurses who were slimmer than she was. And,
If you’re overweight before you have children, you’ll be huge afterwards!
was not just aimed at Carly, but at several others, including Shaskia.