“I thought the sum was far too high myself. I would have been happy to settle for half a million, but the broker was very persuasive…”
“Any serious illness during the past ten years?” the doctor asked, obviously not interested in the broker’s views.
“No. The occasional cold, but nothing I’d describe as serious,” he replied.
“Good. And in your immediate family, any history of heart attacks, cancer, liver complaints?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Father still alive?”
“Very much so.”
“And he’s fit and well?”
“Jogs every morning, and pumps weights in the local gym at the weekend.”
“And your mother?”
“Doesn’t do either, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she outlives him comfortably.”
The doctor laughed. “Any of your grandparents still living?”
“All except one. My dad’s father died two years ago.”
“Do you know the cause of death?”
“He just passed away, I think. At least, that was how the priest described it at his funeral.”
“And how old was he?” the doctor asked. “Do you remember?”
“Eighty-one, eighty-two.”
“Good,” repeated Dr Royston, ticking another little box on the form in front of him. “Have you ever suffered from any of these?” he asked, holding up a clipboard in front of him. The list began with arthritis, and ended eighteen lines later with tuberculosis.
He ran an eye slowly down the long list before replying. “No, none of them,” was all he said, not admitting to asthma on this occasion.
“Do you smoke?”
“Never.”
“Drink?”
“Socially — I enjoy the occasional glass of wine with dinner, but I never drink spirits.”
“Excellent,” said the doctor and ticked the last of the little boxes. “Now, let’s check your height and weight. Come over here, please, Mr Kravits, and climb onto these scales.”
The doctor had to stand on his toes in order to push the wooden marker up until it was flat across his patient’s head. “Six feet one inch,” he declared, then looked down at the weighing machine, and flicked the little weight across until it just balanced. “A hundred and seventy-nine pounds. Not bad.” He filled in two more lines of his report. “Perhaps just a little overweight.”
“Now I need a urine sample, Mr Kravits. If you would be kind enough to take this plastic container next door, fill it about halfway up, leave it on the ledge when you’ve finished, and then come back to me.” The doctor wrote out some more notes while his patient left the room. He returned a few moments later.
“I’ve left the container on the ledge,” was all he said.
“Good. The next thing I need is a blood sample. Could you roll up your right sleeve?” The doctor placed a rubber pad around his right bicep and pumped until the veins stood out clearly. “A tiny prick,” he said. “You’ll hardly feel a thing.” The needle went in, and he turned away as the doctor drew his blood. Dr Royston cleaned the wound and fixed a small circular plaster over the broken skin. The doctor then bent over and placed a cold stethoscope on different parts of the patient’s chest, occasionally asking him to breathe in and out.
“Good,” he kept repeating. Finally he said, “That just about wraps it up, Mr Kravits. You’ll need to spend a few minutes down the corridor with Dr Harvey, so she can take a chest x-ray, and have some fun with her electric pads, but after that you’ll be through, and you can go home to” — he checked his pad “New Jersey. The company will be in touch in a few days, as soon as we’ve had the results.”
“Thank you, Dr Royston,” he said as he buttoned up his shirt.
The doctor pressed a buzzer on his desk and the nurse reappeared and led him to another room, with a plaque on the door that read “Dr Mary Harvey”.
Dr Harvey, a smartly-dressed middle-aged woman with her grey hair cropped short, was waiting for him.
She smiled at the tall, handsome man and asked him to take off his shirt again and to step up onto the platform and stand in front of the x-ray unit.
“Place your arms behind your back and breathe in. Thank you.” Next she asked him to lie down on the bed in the corner of the room. She leaned over his chest, smeared blodges of paste on his skin and fixed little pads to them. While he stared up at the white ceiling she flicked a switch and concentrated on a tiny television screen on the corner of her desk. Her expression gave nothing away.
After she had removed the paste with a damp flannel she said, “You can put your shirt back on, Mr Kravits. You are now free to leave.”
Once he was fully dressed, the young man hurried out of the building and down the steps, and ran all the way to the corner where they had parted. They hugged each other again.
“Everything go all right?”
“I think so,” he said. “They told me I’d be hearing from them in the next few days, once they’ve had the results of all their tests.”
“Thank God it hasn’t been a problem for you.”
“I only wish it wasn’t for you.”
“Don’t let’s even think about it,” said David, holding tightly onto the one person he loved.
Marvin rang a week later to let David know that Dr Royston had given him a clean bill of health. All he had to do now was send the first instalment of $1100 to the insurance company.
David posted a cheque off to Geneva Life the following morning.
Thereafter his payments were made by wire transfer on the first day of each month.
Nineteen days after the seventh payment had been cleared, David Kravits died of AIDS.
Pat tried to remember the first thing he was meant to do once the will had been read. He was to contact a Mr Levy, David’s lawyer, and leave everything in his hands. David had warned him not to become involved in any way himself. Let Levy, as his executor, make the claim from the insurance company, he had said, and then pass the money on to him. If in any doubt, say nothing, was the last piece of advice David had given Pat before he died.
Ten days later, Pat received a letter from a claims representative at Geneva Life requesting an interview with the beneficiary of the policy. Pat passed the letter straight to David’s lawyer. Mr Levy wrote back agreeing to an interview, which would take place, at his client’s request, at the offices of Levy, Goldberg and Levy in Manhattan.
“Is there anything you haven’t told me, Patrick?” Levy asked him a few minutes before the insurance company’s claims representative was due to arrive. “Because if there is, you’d better tell me now.”
“No, Mr Levy, there’s nothing more to tell you,” Pat replied, carrying out David’s instructions to the letter.
From the moment the meeting began, the representative of Geneva Life, his eyes continually boring into Pat’s bowed head, left Mr Levy in no doubt that he was not happy about paying out on this particular claim. But the lawyer stonewalled every question, strengthened by the knowledge that eight months before, when rigorous tests had been taken, Geneva Life’s doctors had found no sign of David’s being HIV positive.
Levy kept repeating, “However much noise you make, your company will have to pay up in the end.” He added for good measure, “If I have not received the full amount due to my client within thirty days, I will immediately instigate proceedings against Geneva Life.”
The claims representative asked Levy if he would consider a deal. Levy glanced at Pat, who bowed his head even lower, and replied, “Certainly not.”
Pat arrived back at the apartment two hours later, exhausted and depressed, fearing that an attack of asthma might be coming on. He tried to prepare some supper before he went to work, but everything seemed so pointless without David. He was already wondering if he should have agreed to a settlement.
The phone rang only once during the evening. Pat rushed to pick it up, hoping it might be either his mother or his sister Ruth.
