Haldane nodded.
‘Why did you ask if Trish had been abroad?’
‘Just a routine question.’
Virginia seemed unconvinced and didn’t hide the fact. The question lingered in her eyes. Haldane, however, diverted his gaze and got up from his seat. He brought out a sterile stylet from a small chest of shallow drawers sitting by the wash-hand basin and removed its wrapping. ‘Trish, I’m going to give your skin a little prick here and there. I want you to tell me what you feel.’
‘Dr Gault didn’t do this,’ said Virginia, a comment that Haldane ignored as he moved the sharp point around the area of discolouration on Trish’s arm.
‘Not sore,’ said Trish. ‘Not sore… not sore… not sore.’
‘Good. Let’s try your other arm.’
Trish removed her blouse completely and placed her other arm on the table while Haldane fetched a new stylet. ‘Here we go again. Tell me what you feel.’
‘A bit sore… Ouch!.. Ouch!’
‘Sorry, Trish,’ said Haldane, ‘I was a bit too heavy handed there. Sorry. Okay, you can put your blouse back on. I think maybe we should refer you to a specialist skin clinic, just to see what they say.’
‘What do you think it is?’ asked Virginia anxiously.
‘In all probability the chances are that it’s exactly what Dr Gault thinks it is — just one of these unfortunate reactions we see now and then resulting from some kind of emotional stress — but there’s no harm in being absolutely sure and, as it’s clearly causing Trish some anxiety, the clinic may be able to suggest some treatment to speed up things — UV light or something like that. I’ll have a chat with Dr Gault after surgery’s over and we’ll get things moving on the referral front.’
‘Thank you so much, Doctor,’ said Virginia. ‘I didn’t mean to cause trouble. I just want the best for Trish.’
‘Nothing wrong with that, Mrs Lyons.’
‘How did you get on with the over-protective mother?’ asked James Gault, putting his head round the door of Haldane’s office when the last patient from evening surgery had gone.
Haldane smiled. ‘She’s not so bad,’ he said. ‘Her kid’s having a hard time at school and she feels helpless. Perfectly understandable.’
‘Fine, but you have to remember we’re not social workers,’ said Gault. ‘What did you think of the child’s skin problem?’
‘I think you’re probably right but all the same I’d like to refer her to the skin clinic just to be on the safe side. There were certain unusual aspects that I’d like checked out.’
‘What aspects?’
‘It’s probably just an over-active imagination on my part,’ smiled Haldane, getting up from his chair and giving his colleague a reassuring touch on his upper arm.
‘Well, if you really feel you must,’ said Gault, sounding slightly miffed. ‘Perhaps in the circumstances you’d care to do the paperwork?’
‘Of course. Remind me, who’s the main man at the skin clinic?’
‘Ray McFarlane. He’s the kind of chap who won’t thank you for wasting his time.’
April 2007
‘Look, I’m sorry, Trish, I just don’t know what more we can do,’ said Virginia Lyons as they came out from morning surgery after getting the results from the skin clinic. ‘The specialist agrees with the other doctors. He says it’s something called vitiligo. It’s nothing serious and it’ll go away in its own good time. Unfortunately, there’s nothing they can do to speed it up so you’ll just have to persevere until it does. I know you hate it, sweetie, but hang on in there, huh? Let’s just be grateful it isn’t something more serious.’
‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ mumbled Trish.
Virginia looked at her daughter with a lump in her throat. She hated seeing her so unhappy. ‘I could write and ask Miss Neilson if you could be excused gym classes until it clears up?’
Trish nodded.
‘When’s your next class?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘I’ll do it tonight. You can take the letter with you in the morning.’
Virginia came home next evening to find Trish sitting at the kitchen table in tears. Her shoulders were heaving, her head resting on folded arms. Wrapping her arms round her made matters worse for a few moments until cuddles and soothing words finally did their job and she was able to get some sense from her daughter.
‘They made me do gym.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Virginia. ‘But what about the letter I gave you?’
‘Miss Neilson said there was nothing physically wrong with me so I’d need a letter from a doctor before I could be excused. Everyone was laughing at me.’
‘Give me strength,’ murmured Virginia, entertaining notions of flattening Miss Neilson with a hockey stick. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘If it’s a letter from a doctor they want, a letter from a doctor is what they’ll get. I’ll go round to the surgery first thing in the morning. When’s your next gym class?’
‘Friday.’
‘Plenty of time.’
‘Frankly, Mrs Lyons, I’m inclined to agree with the school. There is no physical reason why your daughter shouldn’t take part in gym classes,’ said James Gault in response to Virginia’s request. ‘I’m very reluctant to take sides in this sort of thing.’
Virginia took a deep breath. ‘It’s not really a physical reason we’re discussing here, Doctor.’
‘Ah, we’re moving into the realms of popular psychiatry, are we? Underlying psychological issues and all that?’
‘No, we are bloody not,’ replied Virginia, her patience coming to an abrupt end. ‘We are attempting to move into the realms of common sense but obviously failing. Kids don’t see things the way adults do.’
Gault seemed shaken at the outburst. He paled and swallowed before digging in and saying, ‘I have no intention of referring your daughter to a child psychiatrist over a little bit of skin discolouration.’
‘But that’s the whole point. Trish doesn’t see it as a little bit of skin discolouration. It’s making her whole life a misery. I’m not asking you to refer her anywhere. I’m asking you to write a simple bloody letter which anyone with a modicum of imagination would understand the need for… but not, apparently, you.’
Gault swallowed again. ‘I think we may have come to the point where a change of doctor…’
‘Would be most welcome,’ completed Virginia.
‘I’ll get the forms,’ said Gault, getting up.
‘That’s going to take time. Trish needs help now. I’d like to transfer within the practice to Dr Haldane; Trish seemed to like him.’
Gault looked as if he had just encountered a nasty smell under his nose. He took his time replying and Virginia surmised he was weighing up the pros and cons of full-scale confrontation as the alternative to giving in to her request. She decided to push him. ‘Then we could call this just a clash of personalities and there would be no need for me to write a letter of complaint to the relevant authorities about what I see as your complete lack of sensitivity towards my daughter.’
‘I’d have to sound out Dr Haldane about such a change.’
‘Then please do.’
Virginia remained seated in Gault’s surgery. She could feel a nervous tremor in her fingers. She stared out the window behind his empty swivel chair, watching birds come and go in the branches of a tree in the garden — the one she could see above the frosted lower pane. A group of children passed by on the pavement and, in the silence of the room, she could hear their laughter. She wanted Trish to be like that, carefree and happy, but it was getting to the point where she couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard her laugh and it was all very reminiscent of the trauma she’d undergone at the time of the divorce. She and Andrew had done their best to shield her from unpleasantness but a split was a split whatever way you looked at it from a child’s angle. There had to come a point where it seemed logical for the child to ask, ‘If you still like each other so much, why are you breaking up?’
Gault returned and stood holding the door for her. ‘Dr Haldane will speak to you when he can. Perhaps you’d
