Five

      The job was too much for her.

      Megan could handle the workload, but not at the pace required. Her patients still filled the waiting room long after the other doctors had gone to lunch, and more were there when she came rushing back late from her house visits. So it was no surprise when Lawford came into her office and told her, ‘There’s been a complaint about you.’

      All those years at med school. All those blood-splattered hysterical nights in A & E at the Homerton. All the tired flesh she had pressed, all the dicky hearts she had fretted over, and all the rubber gloves she had donned to probe some ancient and decaying rectum.

      And now the ancient rectums she worked with were kicking her out.

      She wondered which of the surgery doctors had lodged the complaint. They had some nerve. Bastards, she thought. Rotten bastards the lot of you.

      No wonder female patients flocked to her, away from these old men with hair in their ears and stains on their trousers and contempt for their patients and their talk of ‘plumbing problems’, as if the aftermath of an ectopic pregnancy was no different from having a leaking pipe, as if crippling period pains were somewhat similar, when you thought about it, to having a broken boiler.

      Megan could deal with any of it, all these things that she had never experienced herself, only studied in a classroom at medical school. But she just couldn’t do it in the few fleeting minutes allowed. She needed time.

      She was just about to tell him to take his job and stick it up the terminal part of his large intestine when he spoke.

      ‘I think you’re doing a terrific job,’ Lawford said.

      ‘What?’

      ‘So do the other doctors.’

      ‘But the complaint…’

      ‘It’s from a patient.’

      ‘A patient? But my patients love me!’

      ‘Mrs Marley. Remember her? The large woman from the Sunny View Estate? One of your house visits.’

      ‘I remember Mrs Marley. And Daisy.’

      ‘Daisy’s the problem. You diagnosed a fever, correct?’

      ‘Her temperature was a bit high. She was listless. I thought –’

      ‘She was rushed to hospital the next day. It turned out to be a thyroid condition. Daisy’s hypothyroid. Hence the lethargy.’

      Megan could feel her heart pounding. That poor child. She had failed her.

      ‘A thyroid condition?’

      ‘We all get it wrong sometimes. We’re doctors, not God.’

      ‘How’s Daisy? What will they do?’

      ‘Give her some Thyroxine pills and she should be back to normal.’

      ‘But she will have to take them for life.’

      ‘In all probability.’

      ‘Are there any side effects?’

      ‘Side effects?’ Lawford was suddenly impatient. ‘Yes – they make her well.’

      It was the response of a vastly experienced doctor. Are there side effects to these pills, doctor? Yes, they make you well. Megan filed it away for future reference. She knew she would use the line many times in the coming years. If she ever became a fully registered GP.

      ‘Don’t worry about Daisy. She’ll be fine. Mrs Marley’s the problem. You don’t want a complaint of negligence on your record. Doesn’t look good at all.’

      ‘What do I do?’

      ‘You apologise to Mrs Marley. Grovel a bit. As much as necessary, in fact. Admit you’re only human. As you know, this year is a continuous exam for you. I’ll be writing a summative assessment. I don’t want a misdiagnosis on your record, Megan.’

      It was the first time that Lawford had ever called her by her first name. She could see that he was trying to get her out of this thing with her career intact, and she felt a flood of gratitude.

      ‘You’re not just apologising because it will get Mrs Marley off your back,’ he said sternly. ‘You’re apologising because it’s the right thing to do.’

      ‘Of course.’

      Lawford nodded and headed for the door.

      ‘Thank you, Dr Lawford.’

      He turned and faced her.

      ‘How far along are you?’

      She placed a protective hand on her stomach. ‘Is it so obvious?’

      ‘The constant vomiting was a clue.’

      ‘Eight weeks,’ she said, finding it difficult to breathe.

      ‘Are you planning to have the baby?’

      ‘I don’t see how that’s possible. I can barely look after myself.’

      I’m not going to cry, Megan thought. I am not going to cry in front of him.

      ‘I do want children,’ she said. ‘Very much. But not now.’

      Lawford nodded again. ‘Well,’ he said, suddenly shy. ‘That’s it then.’ He smiled with a softness that Megan had never seen before. ‘I’ll let you crack on.’

      I do want children, Megan thought when he had gone. And one day I will have children, and I will love them far more than our mother ever loved my sisters and me.

      But not now, not when I have just started work, and not with some man I fucked at a party.

      Yes, she would apologise to Mrs Marley.

      But Megan felt like she should really be apologising to Daisy.

      And to this little life that would never be born.

      Bloody doctors, Paulo thought. They never tell you what you are letting yourself in for. If they did, they would all go out of business.

      Paulo carefully steered his Ferrari through the streets of north London as if he had a cargo of painted eggshells on board. Jessica was sleeping in the passenger seat, white-faced and exhausted by the events of the morning.

      They had made the laparoscopy sound as routine as having a tooth filled. But Jessica was dead to the world – pumped full of drugs so they could drill a hole in her belly and send in their camera to find out what was wrong.

      He slowly drove home with one eye on the road and one eye on his wife, and he knew with a pure and total certainty that he loved this woman, and that he would not stop loving her if they couldn’t have children. He would love her even if she found it impossible to love herself. He would love her enough for both of them.

      When