The Various Haunts of Men Read Free Page B

colleagues were becoming cynical, burned out and demoralised. It would be easy to give in, to process people through the surgery like cans on a conveyor belt and palm the out-of-hours stuff on to locums. Thatway you got a good night’s sleep – and precious little job satisfaction. Cat was having none of it. What she was doing now was not cost-effective and no one could put a price on it. Helping Harry Chater through his dying, and looking after his wife as well as she could, were the jobs that mattered and as important to her as to them.
    She filled the teapot and picked up the tray.
    Half an hourlater, his wife holding one hand and his doctor the other, Harry took a last, uncertain breath, and died.
    The silence in the stifling room was immense, a silence which had the particular quality Cat always noticed at a death, as though the earth had momentarily stopped turning and the world was drained of triviality and urgency about anything at all.
    ‘Thank you for staying, Doctor. I’m gladyou were here.’
    ‘So am I.’
    ‘There’s everything to do now, isn’t there? I don’t know where I should start.’
    Cat took the woman’s hand. ‘There is no hurry at all. Sit with him for as long as you need to. Talk to him. Say goodbye in your own way. That’s the important thing now. The rest can wait.’
    When she left, the gale had died down. It was just beginning to break light. Cat stood by the carcooling her face after the heat of the Chaters’ sitting room. The undertaker was on his way now and Iris Chater’s neighbour was with her. The peace had been broken into and all the dreary, necessary business that attends on death was under way.
    Her own job was done.
    From Nelson Street at this hour on a Sunday morning it was a two-minute drive to Cathedral Close. There was a seven o’clock serviceof Communion which Cat decided to slip into, after checking home.
    ‘Hi. You’re awake.’
    ‘Ha ha.’ Chris Deerbon held the receiver away from him so that Cat could hear the familiar sound of her children fighting.
    ‘You?’
    ‘OK. Harry Chater died. I stayed with them. If it’s all right with you, I’ll go to the seven o’clock, and then take a coffee off my brother.’
    ‘Simon’s back?’
    ‘He should haveflown in last night.’
    ‘You go. I’ll take these two out on the ponies. You need to catch up with Si.’
    ‘Yes, there’s the subject of Dad’s seventieth birthday …’
    ‘You’ll need some spiritual top-up first then.’ Chris was an unbeliever, generally respectful of Cat’s beliefs but not above the occasional sharp remark. ‘I’m sorry about old Harry Chater. Salt of the earth, those two.’
    ‘Yes, but he’dhad enough. I’m just glad I was there.’
    ‘You’re a good doctor, did you know that?
    Cat smiled. Chris was her husband but he was also her medical partner and, she thought, a better clinician than she would ever be. Professional praise from him meant something.
    The side door of the Cathedral Church of St Michael and All Angels closed almost soundlessly. Much of the great building was in shadow,but the lights were on, and candles lit, in the side chapel. Cat paused and looked up into the space that seemed to billow out up to the fan-vaulted roof. Being inside the body of the cathedral in this semi-dark was like being Jonah inside the belly of the whale. How different from the last time she had been here, when it had been packed full of civic dignitaries and a congregation dressed in itsfinery for a royal service. Then, it had echoed with music and been bright with banners and ceremonial vestments. This quiet, private time early in the morning suited her better.
    She took her place among the couple of dozen people already kneeling as the verger led the priest up to the altar.
    She would have found it impossible to function as a doctor without the strength she derived from herbelief. Most of the others she knew and worked with seemedto manage perfectly well and she was the odd one