He had his arm round my shoulder: He felt my hesitation.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I don’t like it here,” I said.
He seemed amused. He pulled me to him and kissed me lightly, sliding his hand under the hem of my skirt, easing a finger up
the inside of my thigh.
Something made me look up. Over his shoulder, I saw a woman right at the top of the house, leaning out to water one of the
window boxes. She paused for a moment, looked down at us with a hard, cold, curious stare, then pulled back into the darkness
inside the house. A cool wind stirred the windmills, so the whole house seemed alive, and the windmills turned like Catherine
wheels, spinning so fast they made new shapes, the serrated circles becoming whole, entire, making a buzzing sound like the
whirring of insect wings. I shivered. And then it passed as suddenly as it had come. We went back to our room, and he took
off my clothes and mane love to me, tying my wrists to the bed with the white silk scarf, and I forgot my feeling of unease.
Afterward, there was music through our window. I went to lean on the windowsill, still drugged and high with sex. A man with
hair down his back and a rucksack covered in badges was sitting by the canal and playing the flute. A gondola drifted past,
and the walls of the canal were bright with the fluid dance of reflected light from the water. And I thought, How can these
things coexist — the life I used to have, and here, all this silk and shimmer, everything silvered, luminous? How can these
things come together in a single life, a single story? I couldn’t reconcile them. It was as though to believe in one world,
you had to disbelieve in the other; as though those other things — my mother, The Poplars, the cruel room with the door panels
covered with brown paper — as though all those things had simply ceased to exist.
I still think back to those moments in our early life together: that moment with the sound of the flute by the Ponte della
Liberta; and the first time we made love, when he put the pendant on me, his gaze so hot and complete, my thirst for his touch.
Yet now, amid the dailiness of caring for the children — all the demands, the practical things, the routine, pleasant lovemaking
— those moments too have receded, as though they too belong to another life.
W
E PUT ON OUR BEST CLOTHES
for the hospital: Daisy has her new red denim jacket; I wear my long black coat. In my bag I have a piece of paper on which
I’ve written a list of Daisy’s symptoms. I learned to do this from a book Nicky once lent me on how to be assertive with your
doctor; it was called
My Body! My Decision!
and had lots of alarming gynecological drawings. Afterward, Richard will go straight on to his office. He’s in his suit,
he has his
Financial Times
, he looks substantial, purposeful.
Sinead is getting ready for school as we leave.
“Good luck, Daisy,” she says cheerily. “And don’t forget — if they want to take your organs, you mustn’t let them.”
“Sinead, what on earth are you on about?” says Richard.
“They do, though, Dad,” says Daisy. “They take children’s livers and they keep them in jars in garages.”
Both girls are thoroughly pleased with themselves.
We drive there through the thick traffic and the gray day. Daisy is silent now. There’s a car park at the hospital, with borders
full of those shrubs with dull green leaves that don’t respond to the seasons, and we manage to find a space. The receptionist
in outpatients directs us to the clinic.
The serious, sharp smell in the corridor makes my pulse quicken. Daisy looks unperturbed, but her fingers are wrapped round
my hand.
We go through swing doors into the waiting room for the pediatric clinic. There are battered Fisher-Price toys and women’s
magazines and board books and a PlayStation and goldfish. Behind the desk there’s a nurse dressed like someone at a play group,
in a green top and trousers. She has a gentle face.
“You’re seeing Dr. Taylor,” she says.
“That’s not the consultant?”
She shakes her head. “Dr. Taylor is Dr. McGuire’s registrar.”
She takes Daisy to be measured and weighed; and there is special anesthetic cream and a big transparent plaster to be put
in the crook of Daisy’s elbow, in case there are blood tests. When Daisy moves her arm it makes the plaster wrinkle, so it
looks like an old woman’s skin.
We sit by the goldfish tank and Richard opens his newspaper. A white board lists the doctors who are taking the clinic. Daisy
looks yearningly at the PlayStation, but it’s been monopolized by a lanky boy with exuberant hair like Bart Simpson’s; a sticker
that says he was brave today is fixed to the front of his sweatshirt.
“You could read a book,” I tell her.
She shakes her head. “They’re baby books,” she says.
Two of the children waiting are in wheelchairs, and there’s a pale wild girl with a crooked body and thick glasses; her father
speaks to her in curt commands as he helps her get a drink from the machine. You can tell it’s a technique he has perfected
over years, the only way to get through. There’s something in me, something scared and primitive, that is alarmed by these
children: as though their misfortunes and sadnesses could in some way injure my child. I tell myself we’re so fortunate that
we are not like them, that whatever is wrong with Daisy, soon it will all be over.
The doctors come to their doors to call for their patients. Dr. Taylor is a woman in her twenties, in a flowered skirt, with
a vague, uncertain air. Dr. McGuire has the red door. I watch as he comes out. He’s thin and fair-haired and cerebral looking,
with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He doesn’t smile, but he has an acute, clever face. I know I want this doctor for
my child.
A sense of purpose forms in me. I get up and go to the nurse behind the desk.
“I’m so worried about Daisy,” I tell her. “She isn’t eating and she’s scarcely been to school. Is there any chance we could
see the consultant?”
She shakes her head. “He’s all booked up today.”
Tears well in me, and I don’t swallow them down. “I mean, I’m sure Dr. Taylor is great.… It’s just …” I can’t finish the sentence.
A tear spills down my face. It’s not exactly deliberate, but I don’t try to stop it. I don’t like being this pleading, tearful
person, but I feel I have no choice. “I’m really sorry,” I tell her.
Her eyes rest on me, tender with concern.
“Leave it with me,” she says. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I watch as she knocks on the red door and goes in. I sit by Daisy and blink away my tears, and we talk about the goldfish,
their three-second memories, their frilled and opalescent tails.
The nurse comes out; she’s smiling.
“I’ve fixed it,” she says. “He’ll see you. You may have to wait a little longer, though.”
“Thank you.” This is a gift: I want to hug her.
I turn to Richard. “You don’t mind the wait, do you?”
“Of course not, darling,” he says. “You must do what you think best. Eleven is my absolute limit, though.”
There’s a wide French door that leads to an inner courtyard. We can see a play tunnel and some plastic push-along vehicles,
their colors singing out in the dense gray day. Daisy pulls at my hand; she wants to go there.
The toys are inviting, and there’s a surface that looks like tarmac but yields to the feet, so you wouldn’t get hurt if you
fell. We look around for a while, but now she’s out here, there’s nothing she wants to try. It’s starting to rain, the kind
of gritty, insistent rain that sneaks in under your collar. It’s somehow sad out here, with no one playing; a sense of desolation
washes through me. We wander back inside. Bart Simpson is still intent on the PlayStation, so we skim through
Prima
, searching for pictures of cats. Richard looks at his watch.
But then the red door opens, and Dr. McGuire comes out and calls Daisy’s name. I take her hand and we go in. I smile and say
hello, but he doesn’t return my smile. I tell myself this doesn’t matter, that this clever unsmiling doctor will help us,
will heal Daisy.
There is a sofa for patients; we sit on it, with Daisy in the middle. It’s meant, I suppose, to be casual, to put us at our
ease, but really it’s too low. Dr. McGuire sits at his desk, looking down at us. His arms are folded on the desk in front
of him.
“So, Daisy, how are you doing?” he asks.
She clears her throat. “All right.”
“Dr. Carey tells me you’ve not been feeling well.”
She nods.
“And how are you today?”
“A bit better,” she says.
“Well, that’s good news,” he says.
I don’t know whether to speak. But he has to know how things are or he won’t be able help us.
“It’s not quite true. She was feeling very sick last night,” I tell him, my voice high-pitched, insistent.
He raises his hand, as though to silence me.
“Be quiet,” he says. “You’ll get your turn in a minute.”
I feel a quick spurt of rage.
He talks to Daisy about school: whether she’s happy, what are her favorite subjects, whether she has friends. She replies
in hushed monosyllables. None of this seems to have anything to do with her illness. I think how little time we have, and
there’s so much to get through. I worry I’ve made a mistake in being so pushy, that we should have stayed with the vague young
woman in the flowered skirt.
Then at last he asks us for the history of her symptoms. I take the notes out of my bag. I tell him how it started with flu
and how little she eats, about her nausea and the pains in her legs and not going into school. Richard sits there quietly,
nodding or murmuring agreement, his
Financial Times
beside him on the sofa. When Dr. McGuire responds to what I say or asks a question, it’s Richard he looks at. This makes
me feel as if I’m not really there.
“Obviously we need to investigate further,” he says then. “I’d like to repeat those blood tests because there are hints that
she may be a little allergic. And I’d like to X-ray her legs and do a barium meal. And we need to get her digestive symptoms
properly under control. I’m going to prescribe three medicines,” he tells Richard. “There’s one for stomach acidity and one
for nausea and one to increase lability; and I’d like to see you again in one month’s time. If she isn’t better then, maybe
we’ll have to approach things rather differently.”
“Thank you,” says Richard. He’s starting to get up.
But I don’t move. “Daisy doesn’t find medicine very easy to take,” I tell him.
He looks at me then. His gaze is pale and cold. I know just how I must seem to him, as though there is some uneasy empathy
between us. That I’m fussy, overprotective, speaking for my daughter: my coat too long and grungy, my voice too shrill.
“She can’t keep any kind of medicine down,” I say. “Not even Calpol.”
“Well,” he says briskly, “give her a sweet or a biscuit to eat afterward. All right?”
He half rises. His impatience with me crackles in the air between us.
But I need him to hear. “I’ve tried; it doesn’t help. The medicine just comes up again.”
“How old is she? Eight?”
I nod.
“Most children can take medicines at eight. I’m sure you’ll manage,” he says, and smiles at Richard. He gets up, moves to
open the door. “Right, then,” he says.
We go back to the waiting room.
Richard puts on his coat.
“And now I really must be off,” he says. “I’ll give Francine a ring to say I’m on my way. You’re happy to handle the rest
on your own?”
“Of course,” I tell him.
“You were brilliant, munchkin.” He kisses Daisy’s cheek. She rubs her head against him, basking in the warmth of his approval.
“Feeling happier?” he asks to me.
I nod. We can’t talk here.
“At least we know it’s being properly investigated,” he says. “I’m sure he’ll find out what’s wrong. I think we can relax
now. You just feel he knows what he’s on about, don’t you?”
He goes: I hear his footsteps moving briskly down the corridor.
We’re taken to the treatment room, where cotton wool sheep hang from the ceiling, and there are two nurses, one to take the
blood and one to be reassuring.
“These are really, really good veins,” says the nurse who’s taking the blood. “Daisy, your veins are beautiful.”
Ridiculously, I am proud of her, for having such beautiful veins.
She gets out the sticker that says how brave Daisy’s been. Daisy gives me an eloquent look, raising her eyebrows a little,
but lets it be stuck on her jacket.
We go to radiology, where Daisy’s legs are X-rayed, and then to the pharmacy, where we are given a numbered ticket, like in
a children’s shoe shop at the end of the holidays. They ask for Daisy’s weight, so they can work out the dose. There’s a lot
of medicine, some of it with a syringe so you can measure it down to the very last drop. This amazes me — that you could give
medicine to a child with such precision. They hand it to us on a polystyrene tray.
“You didn’t like him, did you, Mum?” says Daisy, in the car.
“You could tell?”
In the rearview mirror, I see her nod, and the ghost of a smile.
“But I’m sure he’s good at his job, and that’s what really matters,” I tell her. “What about you?”
“I liked the sheep mobile. But this sticker is
awful
.” She pulls it off and screws it into a ball. “You looked ever so cross,” she says.
When we get home and Daisy is watching television, I put all the medicine bottles out on the kitchen table. I taste the medicines.
There’s one that’s bitter, and one that sticks to your teeth, but the third one isn’t too bad, though it has a strange aftertaste,
like a stale boiled sweet.
I tell myself this must be possible: Eight-year-olds can take medicines; everybody says so. I measure some into a spoon. I
get a glass of water and a chocolate flake. From the back of the cupboard I find some aromatherapy oil, a Christmas present
from Nicky, and sprinkle it on a tissue.