Night Visit by Priscilla Masters Read Free Book Online

dealing with drug addicts . ’
    And the pompous words.
    ‘ We are trained to deal with genuine sickness . Not self - abuse . ’
    *
    The kitten brought a new air of homeliness to the house, once we had taken it to the vet, had it treated for fleas, given it a couple of jabs and fed it. It was a sweet, playful animal which Rosie named Tigger. Its connection with Danny Small was soon forgotten.
    So the month passed a little more pleasantly, slowly warming to the promise of sunshine and summer until the week before Maundy Thursday. At the back of my mind I knew that at some time Anthony Pritchard would come back to have his blood pressure checked and his results explained. Normally I would be unaware of follow up dates, leaving the appointment-making to the patient—or client as we were encouraged to think of them.
    Personally I thought the word a bit of a climb down. Prostitutes had clients. Surely doctors had patients? But Anthony Pritchard felt more like a client than a patient.
    It is never a good idea to create a prejudice against the patient. Our job is not to like or dislike them but to treat them. As a rule I did not find that a difficult maxim to follow. I did not intend breaking good habits. That was the vow I made as I picked his notes out of the basket, pressed the buzzer and listened for his steps.
    The knock on the door startled me. I had not heard him approach. Like a ghost walking there had been no footsteps. I called out, ‘Come in.’
    Pritchard ’s face appeared around the edge of the door, smiling, a comedy character, with me still directing the proceedings. ‘Come right in, Mr Pritchard. Sit down.’
    The humble smile never faltered and I formed the rogue thought: a man like this could really irritate you. What I had not yet learned was that a man like this could also intimidate you. Softness, hesitance and intrusion could, at times, feel as threatening as aggression.
    He had a strange, disconnected walk, heavy and untidy, knocking against the side of my desk as he sat down, blinking like an owl in the daylight. Even then it crossed my mind that I would almost have preferred it if he had done a Danny Small on me, shouted or sworn, demanded, threatened. At least I always knew what Danny wanted. Instead Pritchard peered at me through his thick glasses.
    What did he want?
    I put the blood results down in front of him to explain they were normal. He leaned forward, crossed his legs and I caught a waft of the familiar stale sweat smell.
    His trousers today were not tight but they were too short, displaying flabby ankles. His jacket was grubby brown Harris tweed, the kind that never goes out of date. So they say. I have my suspicions that it never was in date. His shirt was old fashioned, seventies flowers, the tie narrow and carelessly washed, its crumpled lining visible. And yet I had the uncomfortable feeling that he had dressed up to come and see me today. That these were his smart clothes. And that he was self-consciously proud of them, beaming at me, inviting comment and he was fingering the lapel of the jacket, deliberately drawing attention to it.
    The actions embarrassed me so I took my eyes off him to fix on the computer screen. ‘Your blood results are all right,’ I repeated, ‘although your cholesterol is a touch higher than we’d like.’
    He was still beaming at me, his eyes magnified through the thick lenses. Did he understand what I was saying?
    I tried again. ‘You could do with adopting a low-fat diet. Why don’t I make you an appointment to see our dietician?’
    I knew exactly what I was doing. I was deliberately trying to divert Pritchard’s care away from me. Call it superstition or call it instinct but I wanted to avoid him. No, that is too weak a phrase. Rather I knew I must avoid him.
    The trouble was that behind his glasses his eyes were penetrating both my actions and my motives. He knew exactly what I was up to. ‘I don’t think I really need to see the dietician,’ he