The Last of Us

Past World

The metal shutters are down at the surgery, even though it’s daytime. There’s a lot of people waiting outside, standing at the front entrance, looking cold and wet.

Mum drives past and parks on the going-down shore road. She checks nobody followed her, then sends a message on her phone, then waits.

In ten minutes someone opens the side door. It’s Morven, who works on reception. She doesn’t say anything or get too close, just shows us in.

As soon as the door’s locked we hear a person running up to it and banging on the other side.

‘Will ye at least look?’ a man, shouting. ‘I’m not sick, you can look can’t ye? Need our son’s medicine.’

Morven asks the man to be quiet, not to draw attention to himself. Then she goes upstairs ahead of us to ask the doctor what to do.

She comes back – and unlocks the door, lets him in. It’s Mr Gillies who works on the ferry.

When we get to the waiting room Dr Schofield is there. She’s wearing strange clothes: a white paper suit, with blue gloves and covers over her shoes something like the covers they wear at the fish factory.

I see her daughter, Elizabeth, from the big class P7, looking out from one of the nurses’ rooms along the corridor: watching us, her mum.

Mr Gillies looks impatient when he asks the doctor about deliveries and boats and rations. Then he says, ‘Much can I take?’ with a voice that sounds too keen. ‘Away with me, right now? How much?’

Dr Schofield takes off her glasses, rubs at her eyes. ‘You could have all of it.’ Then: ‘But I don’t know, would have to check—’

‘There’s a boat coming day after tomorrow. I could get more to boost up your stock, right? Fair enough? There’s nothing here, you know as well as me. If you give me a note for your supplier—’

‘Look, there’s a dozen others – same as you, same situation. Then the others, with chronic illnesses. Everyone has their own want. We’re trying to provide for everybody. There needs to be some reserve…’

Her voice goes small, until it’s less than a whisper. Mum is trying to listen in: I can see by the way she tilts her head, not looking away for one second.

Dr Schofield goes back into the dispensary. Finally, she returns holding a white paper bag.

‘This needs to be kept cool,’ she says. ‘You know about cold chain? You have a generator – no. Outdoors, then. These are mixed – long-and short-acting. You can dose twice, same units. Or if you want to ration: fine, as long as maybe half is going in each day? If there’s some insulin that stops ketosis. You know about that.’

Mr Gillies holds out his hand. His voice is broken up, jagged, when he says, ‘Look: Alex needs his medicine. I had to take this chance, OK? He’s at the Cròileagan. I’m not allowed. Can you get someone to hand it in there for him?’

Dr Schofield looks at Mr Gillies’ hand for a long time, then doesn’t shake it. ‘I will see,’ she says.

Mr Gillies leaves: then Morven goes downstairs to make sure the door is locked behind him.

We hear Dr Schofield calling on Elizabeth.

Then we hear her explaining about the boy. She talks about pens: how to dial up numbers. How to inject into a person, where to inject, how often.

Then she comes to talk to us. I notice her hands are shaking, as if she’d been out too long in the cold.

‘How’s Dr Schofield?’ Mum asks.

This confuses the doctor: because it’s her name, too. When Mum adds, ‘Your man? Your husband?’ Dr Schofield closes her eyes and says, ‘He went to hospital.’

‘I am so—’

‘Really need not to think about this just now.’

She goes away, then returns with a box. In the box are lots of smaller white boxes, plus leaflets.

‘One each house,’ Dr Schofield says. ‘If they open the door get back to your car. Don’t touch the gates, the letterboxes, the handles. Use gloves, always. Keep your mask on. Hand hygiene – you’ve got scrubs? There’s a recording on our answering machine. Let them know about the D.E.C. Also world service, long wave.’

‘We couldn’t get the computer—’

‘Get a wind-up radio.’

‘They’ve all gone from the store… Doctor, do you need more help? Will I come again, deliver again?’

‘Stay in after.’

Mum goes to take her hand, but Dr Schofield doesn’t reach out for hers.

I see Elizabeth once more before we go. She’s not looking at us, but at her mum: at the woman who usually walks so tall, now sagged down in a seat.

As the crack of the door closes I see her girl Elizabeth standing and waiting.

It’s not a normal delivery. For starters, Mum has to do every single house. Usually I’d get to help but today I’m not allowed. It’s raining extremely hard, and Mum is wearing her waterproof jacket. The inside of the van gets steamed up with her coming and going.

Mum wears gloves and a mask, just like Dr Schofield said. She wraps each box in a leaflet, then puts it in a plastic bag and puts that through every letterbox.

She runs to each house. She’s a smudge in the rain.

My back gets sore from sitting too long. Mum gets out of breath, plus fed up with wearing her mask. We share a flask of tea she’s got, only I can’t be bothered with tea, especially when there isn’t sugar in.

At one house the door opens. A man comes out.

He’s not got his mask on. He walks towards our van: so Mum gets in and rolls her window up, quick.

She presses down the lock of my door, her door.

The man has red eyes. But his skin got too white, even the skin of his hands. He looks like a tired ghost.

‘You put only one box in,’ he says.

He bangs on the window. Mum puts her hand on the keys to start the engine.

‘There’s four of us in here,’ the man says.

Mum doesn’t look at him. She keeps looking ahead, like he isn’t really there.

Mum says, too quiet for him to hear, more to me: ‘One per house. That was my instruction.’

The man keeps his hand on top of the car. His breathing is fast, like he’s at the end of a race.

‘Come on,’ he says.

Mum looks at him, shakes her head. Then she turns on the engine and drives off.

I watch the man’s hand drop down. Otherwise he just keeps standing in the rain.