The Perfect Girl

SAM

The consultant sits behind a desk that he’s clearly using just for the purposes of this clinic, because he’s opening and shutting drawers crossly, picking things up from the desk and slapping them back down. I’m afraid that his actions might dislodge the rimless reading glasses that are balanced precariously at the end of his nose.

‘They put things in a different place every time,’ he says. ‘Take a seat, please.’

‘Sam Locke,’ I say and we shake hands just before I sit.

I’m not used to being on this side of the desk in situations like this, and I feel as if I need to show him somehow that I consider myself his equal, even if it’s just with a handshake.

I chide myself immediately for the feeling though, because it’s not going to change anything he’s going to say to me; it’s no more than a futile attempt my pride is making to assert myself as a fellow professional, and, anyway, the doctor seems oblivious to it. He must see this twenty times a day. To him, I’m just a patient, somebody to keep at a safe professional distance, just as, I suppose, my clients are to me.

‘I only want a pen,’ he says, eyebrows raised. ‘Ridiculous, isn’t it?’

I hand him a pen from my own pocket, and he scribbles something on a fat, dog-eared set of notes, bursting out of their cardboard wrapping, before he puts it to one side.

‘Right! Sorry about that. They always show everybody in too quickly. Always rushing.’

He takes a slim brown folder from a neatly stacked pile. It’s pristine, and on the front of it is my name. When he opens it, I see a letter from my GP, a referral, and only one or two other sheets of paper.

‘Aha,’ he says. ‘Yes. You’ve just had a scan.’

I nod.

‘So we need to take a look at that.’

He begins to tap at the computer keyboard. He has to watch his fingers to find the right keys.

‘Let’s hope the system is going to be kind to us today,’ he tells me. ‘There are many hurdles we can fall at when we want to access scans.’

I’m silent, I just watch him. I must not dislike him, I think, because this man is going to be looking after me. On his head there’s just a shadow of hair around the back and sides, cropped extremely close, and petering out on the crown where there’s a shine that I suspect he wouldn’t like if he could see it. His suit is an expensive one, and his tie is extravagantly knotted, and certainly made of silk; there’s a thick gold wedding band on his ring finger and an expensive watch clamped ostentatiously around his wrist. I suspect he has a lucrative private practice.

He must be feeling the heat in all that finery, I think, because I am.

‘Ah yes! Here we are,’ he announces finally. ‘Got it.’

And I see his face collapse into a frown as he studies it and I feel as if I’m watching a piece of my world detaching itself and falling into a void.