The Doctor

 

The Doctor

Dr. George Mitchell thought the day would never end.                                                                                                            

The hospital had a knack for wearing away the most ingrained fibres of one’s being.

Today was one of those days for Dr. Mitchell where the precision the job demanded brought things into greater perspective. Thinking about home on a murky evening - one that did not invite comfort in the face of uncertainty – was a different kind of operation for the doctor. Through the heavy rain and congested traffic he drove home to Irene, his wife, wondering how he was going to tell her what had happened. She was upstairs getting dressed, probably in the green gown he had bought. It was her favourite. They could have a nice evening together. Perhaps she was wearing that diamond necklace too. She mentioned it to George the previous morning at breakfast. He bought that necklace on their 25^th wedding anniversary. He said it was made for her and joked that it would be a shame to let it go on some other, less worthy neck. He never stopped buying her things. And she had probably made up her hair. George could see it in his mind, her feathery and vibrant hair. There was no better smell in the world, he once told her. It only took her twenty minutes, after years of perfecting the technique. He used to watch her do it, but looked away when she saw him, smiling.                                                                                                                                               

Later, George parked the car in the driveway and opened the front door. The smell of Irene’s perfume reminded him of the dinner party they were due to attend that night. Of course, he had forgotten all about it. He would have to share her this evening. The thought of finger food and unfunny jokes made him feel exhausted.                                                                                                      

In the past, his various hobbies, including stuffy functions, helped to dab away the indelible stains of working life. Drinking wine with a meal was another of those indulgences. Playing squash too, even now that his right shoulder was inflamed. And there were his tattered trainers, lying damp in the corner. But running for miles, pounding the pavement, didn’t do much good anymore either. What were hobbies for, he wondered.                                                                      

In the meantime, George threw his wet coat across the divan in the living room. He walked to the kitchen and drank a glass of water. He didn’t want Irene to see him just yet. He may have been able to hide his weariness from his colleagues, but no more could he disguise it from his wife than he had the strength to at that moment.                                                                                                                  

From up above, the brown ceiling lights reflected down over the winding stairs and into the hall area. Looking down from the balcony on the second floor, it could have been the bottom of a massive coffee cup.                                                                                                         

George climbed upstairs to their bedroom. The room was brightly lit with a lush white carpet underfoot. Irene said she wanted it to stand out from the other rooms upstairs: the bathroom, washing area, the two spare rooms down the long hallway. There was no one else to cater for, but their room should be special. It was the least George could do, so he didn’t argue.                                                                                                                                              

The rain struck the window and made a delicate refrain. There was a bottle of red wine on the dresser. Irene was touching up her eyebrows with a pencil. She turned away from the mirror and greeted George with a wide smile.                                                                                                          

‘There you are. Were you held up?’ She said.                                                                                

‘No, no not exactly.’ George said, sitting down on the bed.                                                            

‘I was going to call but I assumed you were busy. I didn’t want to be a bother.’                                                                                                                          

‘No, it’s fine. It’s fine. I was busy but…’                                                                                         

George sat forward, rubbing his face in his hands. Irene fixed her earrings and fluffed her hair. It must have been the way his shoulders hung heavily on his frame that captured Irene’s attention. But George couldn’t hide now, not before his wife, who saw him at his worst and most vulnerable moments but who always had a way to pacify matters.                                                                                                                                                         

‘What is it?’ She asked.                                                                                                         

‘Something happened at work today…well I say it happened but I’m beginning to wonder about that.’                                                                                                                                                   

So he told her. That day a woman in labour was wheeled into the maternity ward, experiencing fast contractions. The woman was young, about twenty-nine, expecting her first child. But her contractions were so powerful, violent even, that she passed out and required oxygen. No one on the ward panicked but it quickly became apparent that the woman was not coping well and the situation was perilous. As quickly as the baby was born, the woman died breathlessly, a film of sweat coating her forehead, and her husband standing by desolately.                                                                                                                       

‘My god, George, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry.’ Irene said, sitting beside him on the bed.                                                                                                             

Things had become trying as of late. The winter months swarmed him, and usually where the seasons offered an invitation to a change in mood, now they seemed to wind down like the pages closing on a book. This latest death on the ward was the final chapter.                                                                                           

George continued.                                                                                                                                      

‘The thing that shook me most was that…this woman who died, she looked just like my mother.’                                                                                                                                                     

Irene sat closer beside him, her calf resting in the depression created by his weight on the bed.                                                                                                                                                                      

‘Oh George, I –‘                                                                                                                                         

‘I don’t mean it like that. I mean she really looked like my mother. But I didn’t realise it until she had died…not when she was breathing or…’                                                                                                                     

‘You’re obviously under a lot of strain at the moment, and it’s easy to make yourself think –‘                                                                                                                                                                            

But George sat forward and sighed, his elbows resting on his round knees. Irene stroked his back and cosseted his sighs with clement utterances.                                                                                                   

The rain continued outside. The dinner party seemed a long way away.                                                                                                                   

‘There’s something I never told you about my family. In fact I haven’t spoken about it in, I don’t know… forty years.’ George said.                                                                                                  

Irene frowned, her grip tightened on his tense fingers.                                                                    

‘When I was a child I learned that my mother gave birth to a stillborn baby. It was the year before I was born. I was only about five when I heard. At the time I didn’t understand what it meant, and by the time I was old enough I wasn’t even sure if it was true or not. My parents never spoke about it. I just put it in the back of my mind… as though it never happened. A few years ago I tried to find out the truth. You know how my parents were, it was difficult.’                                                                                                                                       

Irene stood up and walked to her dresser. Even in those glossy heels she was the model of grace. Everything for her was about poise. George never knew her as being anything else. She put the cork in the wine bottle and rearranged some trinkets on the desk. Her breathing had become shallow. Behind, George watched his wife through the reflection in the mirror. Things were not like they used to be.                                                                                                       

‘Maybe we shouldn’t go out tonight. I’ll call – ‘                                                                            

‘No, no. Don’t.’ George said, standing up. ‘I don’t want to spoil things. This probably wasn’t a good time to talk anyway. I shouldn’t have said anything.’                                                                                                         

George walked to his wife. Irene turned around to look at him.                                                    

‘Don’t be sorry. I want you to tell me.’ She said.                                                                             

So he told her again. There were many emotions stirring up within him, but none of them were his. They were the moments of joy and anguish that he shared with others, the people who passed through his life in the hospital. He remembered how the cold corridors were often lit up by the rare miracles of a prematurely born baby surviving, but soon darkened by the unforeseen tragedy of a minor infection turning fatal. For every new heartbeat, there was a final breath, and when there was a life-changing operation in one room, there was a flat-line in another.                                                                                                                      

Sometimes it was when he was in the middle of a cold drink on a sunny afternoon, or when he was mid-stride with the wind buffering his gait that George suddenly felt the urgency of his life pressing against him. George knew that if ever the vagaries of life could be witnessed so markedly it was in the long corridors and sparsely lit waiting rooms of the hospital. From the poorest to the luckiest, and the resilient to the frail, there was not a point on the long spectrum that did not chime at one time or another on the strings of his soul.                                                

Now, standing damp and dishevelled in front of his glamourous wife he wondered if his life had left him behind.                                                                                                                                

‘I know we have a lot of things,’ George continued, ‘and I’m grateful for that…but I’ve spent thirty-two years working in this hospital, and I thought it would be worth something. But I just feel like I’ve been walking around with a hole in my stomach my entire life. And it’s still there.’                                                                                                                                                   

Irene placed her arms around George’s neck and looked into his eyes. Her lips were soft. She spoke as though the wrong word might shatter him into pieces.                                                                                                    

‘What are you going to do, we can take some time off and go away. We haven’t taken a break in a while. I can book us something tomorrow –‘                                                                                                                           

‘No, it’s okay. I’m going in tomorrow. It’s for the best.’                                                               

George turned to unbutton his shirt, the light reflecting off his damp forehead. Irene massaged her hands together, thinking what to say.                                                                                

‘So what about – ‘                                                                                                                                  

‘Don’t worry about a thing, all right. Let’s just enjoy tonight.’ George said, turning again to face her.                                                                                                                                                  

He opened his roomy wardrobe and lifted out a black suit.                                                                                        

‘Just give me a minute to get dressed and I’ll be ready to go. We don’t want to be late.’ He continued.                                                                                                                                       

‘You’re sure you want to go? You don’t have to.’                                                                         

‘Yes, I’m sure. I want to go. We’ve been excited about this party for a week. I wouldn’t miss it now.’                                                                                                                                                

George placed his right hand on her smooth cheek. The thought of all those years together made his legs quiver. Irene could have chosen anyone but she chose him. He couldn’t have asked for more.                                                                                                                                       

‘Ok, I’ll just make sure the windows and doors are shut.’ Irene said.                                                

But before she left their room, George spoke out.                                                                           

‘Irene, I’ve never let you down have I?’                                                                                             

She looked back, a smile of greater familiarity than assurance.                                                                                                                              

‘No, no of course you haven’t.’ She said, pressing her hand against his cheek.                                                                                                                               

Irene turned away again, exiting with as much poise as ever. George smiled and tidied himself up, rain dripping from his forehead. Looking in the mirror he fixed his necktie and thought about the man who would be grieving for his wife. Also, the new-born child who would never know its own mother. For so long he thought his work would lead him to some point of edification, a greater understanding, where things would become clearer. George saw in the crimpled folds of his forehead, the overlapping slats of his recently sodden hair, the impeccable surface of the mirror and the smoothed over bed sheets, that things were easily straightened out when you knew how.                                                                                                          

He would talk to the man. He would think of something.                                                                      

Irene was making her way carefully down the large stairway, her heels tapping out a precise rhythm on the ceramic. George fixed his collar and combed the rainwater from his hair.                                                                                       

‘I’ll just be in the car, hun.’ Irene called.                                                                                          

‘Okay. I’ll be down in a minute.’ George said, throwing on his jacket.                  

  

Justin Aylward

Justin Aylward is a writer from Dublin, Ireland. In the past, he has published stories for numerous online and print magazines including Fly on the Wall, The Scop, Hearth & Coffin, Flights, Roi Faineant Press, Hibiscus and The Write Launch. He was recently shortlisted for the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize.