A Few Green Leaves Read Free Page B

warm enough clothes? Was her blouse adequate for this chilly spring day? ‘Of course I could recommend woollen underwear,’ he said jokingly, hoping to jolly her out of her depression.
    ‘Don’t talk to me about wool,’ she said. ‘You know my brother’s obsession with local history – now he’s discovered that in sixteen-eighty something people had to be buried in wool.’
    ‘You’ve always lived with your brother?’ Martin asked.
    ‘Oh no – only since his wife died, though that’s some time ago now. I made a home for him – it seemed the only thing to do, the least I could do, people said.’
    ‘What did you do before that?’
    ‘I had a little sort of job, nothing much, a sort of dogsbody in a travel agency. I shared a flat with a woman friend.’
    Perhaps she was a frustrated lesbian, Martin thought, his mind moving on somewhat conventional modern lines. Women living together in these days might suggest that, but Daphne was, of course, older. He shot a quick glance at her weatherbeaten face and untidy mane of white hair. Perhaps a new hair-do might help her – Martin was that much more up-to-date than Dr G. and his new hat – but obviously he couldn’t suggest it.
    ‘Let’s take your B.P., shall we?’ he said, falling back on a more conventional treatment. Her arm was thin and dried up, either from Greek sun or approaching age. ‘You probably ought to put on a bit of weight,’ he said. ‘How’s your appetite?’
    Going out of the surgery, clutching her bit of paper, a prescription for something , at least, Daphne felt that Martin, the ‘new doctor’ as he was called in the village, had done her good. He had listened, he had been sympathetic and she felt decidedly better. Much better than she would have felt if she’d gone to Dr G. – he never even bothered to take your blood pressure.

    The other surgery was a larger room, superior to the one where Martin Shrubsole officiated, but Dr Gellibrand still regretted the old days when he had seen patients in the more gracious surroundings of his own home. Now he was cheerfully confirming the pregnancy of a young village woman obviously destined to be the mother of many fine children. She was short and stocky, with massive thighs fully revealed by the unfashionably short skirt she was wearing. It seemed entirely appropriate that Dr G., now in his late sixties, should deal with the young, while Martin, with his interest in geriatrics, should be responsible for the elderly. Dr G. did not much like the elderly but he loved the whole idea of life burgeoning and going on. It had been a relief to him to be able to off-load some of his older patients – a young cheerful face, and Martin certainly had that, would do them the world of good. For Dr G., although well liked and respected in the village, wasn’t exactly cheerful-looking – people often said that he looked more like a clergyman than the rector did, but that wasn’t surprising because he was the son of a clergyman and his younger brother was the vicar of a London parish.
    When the young pregnant woman had gone there was a pause and the receptionist brought in coffee. Dr G.’s thoughts now were not so much on his patients as on the visit he had paid to his brother at the weekend. ‘A change is as good as a rest’ was one of his favourite sayings and he could always benefit from this himself, getting away occasionally from his bossy wife Christabel. The place where his brother was vicar was seedy and run-down, ‘immigrants living in tenements’, he had thought, somewhat inaccurately, but although the church was not a particularly flourishing one he had been impressed and a little envious of the ‘show’ his brother Harry had put on for High Mass. It reminded him of the days, getting on for fifty years ago now, when he himself had toyed with the idea of taking Holy Orders. He had pictured himself officiating at various festivals of the church, preaching splendid sermons and leading