City Vets: story continues

As Margaret sat in a long line of traffic, she caught a glimpse of her eyes in the rear-view mirror. Her tired eyes stared back.

This fatigue was like an ache, almost a pain, rippling outwards, reaching down into her chest and arms, holding her in an embrace. There was something else in her face as well: a melancholy, a sadness. She seemed to be staring past herself, towards the memory of something. But what?

The traffic started to move; she put the car into gear and moved on.

***

“Mum? It’s only me, you okay?” Margaret needed to check on her mother before work. She had received a text message the night before to say Leena, the carer, was sick and wouldn’t be available.

“Maggie, is that you?”

“Yes, mum.”

“Maggie, Maggie, is that you?”

“Yes, mum!”

“Oh, all right dear, no need to shout.”

Margaret threw her keys across the work surface and wrenched the lid from the kettle. She tipped her head back.

“Do you want tea?”

“No, you know I don’t like coffee. I’ll have a tea, dear. Two sugars, not too strong.”

Margaret sighed and flicked the switch. She placed her hands on the edge of the sink and looked out of the window, down the garden to the shed. Her dad’s old things were inside: a lawnmower, tins of paint with black drips, like the hands of a broken watch.

“Won’t you be late for work, dear?”

Margaret was surprised to find a tear on her cheek and wiped it away with four fingers. “Yes,” she said to an empty hallway.

Upstairs, she put the cup down on a mat, next to her mum’s single bed.

“Thank you, Maggie. You know, you really needn’t have bothered. I don’t want to make you late for work. What you do is so important, helping animals and…”

“Oh, it’s a job, mum – lawyer, shopkeeper, accountant, vet, see? We just do different things. I wish people would sometimes…”

“Oh, but dear, you worked so terribly hard for it.”

Equality of professions

“Yes, I suppose that’s true.” If she was honest, Margaret did struggle to make a case for the equality of professions when she had to spend so much of her childhood studying while her friends were chatting about boys or going to the cinema or just being kids. Was this why she sometimes felt a sense of self-importance?

“Maggie, we… we really were so proud of you on your graduation day – you know that, don’t you? In that beautiful gown, with your hair all done nicely, and that pretty makeup on.”

“Yes, of course.” Margaret smiled at her mum and held her hand for a moment, giving it a gentle squeeze. Pretending that everything was all right, that everything had always been all right.

“I’d better go. Someone will be in at one to give you lunch, is that okay?”

“All right, dear.” 

***

Margaret pulled into the surgery car park. “What the…”

A group of clients and staff were standing outside, talking or pointing up at the building. She grabbed her handbag and slammed the door.

“Everything okay?”, she asked Matt.

“Hi, err, there’s a bit of a concern about the clinic, actually,” he replied. “There was an enormous bang, and then some of the ceiling came down in prep about 10 minutes ago. I hope it’s all right, but I evacuated everyone as a precaution.”

“Jesus.”

“Sorry, Margaret. Probably the last thing you need on a Monday. There’s something else, too.”

“Something else?”

“Can I show you the wall? I noticed it earlier on.” He gestured and they walked slowly away from the others. “Do you see it?”

Margaret crossed her arms and looked up. “No, what?”

“You have to stand back quite far.”

“I still can’t see it.”

“It’s easier to see from over here.”

They walked to a garden bench which had been donated by the owners of a “Mona, in loving memory”.

“Oh, f**k.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

A large crack in the brickwork had appeared next to the office window. It darted downwards like a bolt of lightning.

“Those bloody cowboy builders,” said Margaret. “Right…” She spoke the word slowly with a growl.

“I’m going in, Matt. You don’t have to come, but there’s a phone call I need to make; you can probably guess who to.”

Matt jogged back to the others. He suggested that the clients go home and phone to re-book. Then, turning to Louise, Natalia, Ali and the work experience student, he said, “I think we’ll be seeing urgent cases only for the time being. Let’s head back inside.

“Just to let you know, though, Margaret’s upstairs on the phone to the builders – could be interesting,” he said with a wink.

Ali had to stifle a giggle as she followed Matt up the stairs; he was climbing them as if he was on assignment with the SAS, his hands against the wall. They could hear Margaret’s raised voice coming from behind the office door. A man was audible, too; she must have turned the speaker on.

“So, as I understand it, Mr Black, and do correct me if I have missed something, Black and White Builders Limited were responsible for the planning and execution of a project to update the clinic.”

“Yes, Mrs Harris, but…”

“No, no, hear me out; there’s a compliment coming, Mr Black. You delivered the refurbishment on time, and on budget – something that we’re grateful for. The consulting rooms look good, nicely plastered, nicely painted, and the clients are very pleased.”

“Oh, thank you. I, err…”

“But.” Margaret’s voice became quieter. “There is just one small problem with the clinic that we now have.”

“Ah, but you see, the building was never… I mean, we aren’t responsible for the structure itself, Mrs…”

“Mr Black, let me finish. The building that we are left to work in,” she said, her voice becoming louder again. “Appears to be falling down around our ears!”

Now, she was almost shouting. “The work you’ve done, and I say ‘work’ in the loosest possible sense of the word, is a bloody disaster!”

“Mrs Harris, p-perhaps we should just speak through our solicitors from now on? Obviously, you… you sound a little upset…”

“Upset? I sound a little upset?!”

Dedicated people

Suddenly, there was the unmistakable sound of an office chair being thrown against a wall.

“So, this is simply a legal matter now, is it? Dedicated people working day after day with a constant gnawing dread? My team, my wonderful team, are expected to continue practising in this death trap? We should just get some solicitors in, should we? Just carry on for another five years like this? After all, everything has been all right up until now, hasn’t it? Do you have the faintest idea what we do here? How hard we work? The pressure? The jeopardy?”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Mrs Harris…”

“It is Ms, Mr Black – Ms Harris. You can’t even get my bloody name right!”

The room went quiet and Matt sensed that Margaret had hung up. He looked to Ali, Natalia and Louise, and mouthed, “Let’s go down.”

Back in the prep room, he said, “That’s better, good. Old Margaret is back – I wondered for a while where she’d gone.”

● Keep an eye out for the next chapter of this story in future editions of Vet Times.