I prodded my partner, Walter, awake as I became aware of a winter dawn, that we were already running an hour late and I had a hangover.
"Get up and sort the kids, I must get ready for work."
He shook his head and rose from the bed and looked at me in that hangdog fashion that said without a word being uttered, "Why don't you love me anymore?".
He probably had a hangover too.
I bit my lip and turned away silently screaming to myself, "Because you were caught shagging a secretary twenty years younger than you in the boardroom and lost your directorship and a fat salary."
The clattering of breakfast crockery and scrambling for clothes and time in the bathroom, filled the house with frantic activity.
I came to the kitchen to say goodbye to the children who looked at me in puzzlement and unquiet. They sensed something was wrong, that something bad could be coming, but not what it was or why it was. I cuddled them both and kissed them and said "See you this evening."
I said to Walter, "See if you can think of how we can do with one car. We can't afford two now. Certainly not your sports car."
He sighed a yes.
As I walked into the lobby to pick up my bag and coat I heard the five year old ask,"Why didn't Mummy kiss you Daddy?"
The front door slammed shut on the reply.
It was a grey damp day, the streets and slate roofs of that suffering, once prosperous, Lancashire mill town were sheened with drizzle.
I entered the surgery and Sharen, the receptionist, said a relieved, "Good morning, Doctor Sutton. You have a big list."
Sharen was intelligent, resourceful, and as good with the paperwork as she was adept at handling the patients and me and my colleagues. Her first class degree in history was wasted here, and she was worth twice as much as we paid her. But she cheerfully accepted the mundanity of the tasks she was called upon to do.
We were working through the morning list and I was with Reg Unsworth, a retired window cleaner when the telephone rang.
"Hello, Sharon.Why -"
"Sorry Doctor, I know I shouldn't interrupt a consultation, but I don't know what to do."
"Oh. Sorry Mr Unsworth - er can you wait a minute - you can let your trouser legs go and please sit down."
The blue and red ulcerations of his thrombophlebitic legs were covered and he sat carefully on the chair.
"Tell me the problem, Sharen".
"Dr Jean, I have Mr Riley on the phone. He tells me he thinks his wife is dying - so I said call an ambulance because they're nearer than we are - and there's a paramedic and all the emergency kit on board - and you won't have as much with you - but he won't call an ambulance and insists you come and says he'll call the Marsden Express if you don't. What should I do?"
"I'll speak to him. Can you come and look after Mr Unsworth."
The phone clicked in my ear and I said,"Mr Riley?"
Sharen led a bewildered Mr Unsworth from the room.
A gravelly voice sounded loudly in the earpiece. "Yeah, is that Doctor?"
"Jean Sutton, Mr Riley - how can I help."
"You can get over 'ere and 'elp me wife."
"It'll take me much longer to -"
"Your lass 'as told me all that. Just get 'ere quick an' stop buggering abart, and no ambulance. Right?"
The phone went dead. Sharen came in and put two sets of notes on my desk. The address was on the cover.
"He's cut me off," I said.
"What are you going to do? What should I do?"
"Get the rest of my patients seen by the other doctors or postponed. I'll go and see the Rileys. I know Branch Road."
The street was a typical row of stone built, two up two down terraced houses, many of them with windows covered with galvanised steel sheeting prior to demolition. That was one side of the street. The other side had been cleared, and revealed a view of distant hills shrouded in mist.
Number 269 was sandwiched between two closed up houses. The front door was battered and grimy. I pressed the bellpush. Nothing happened. I banged on the door with the flat of my hand.
"'Oo is it?"
"Doctor."
The door opened on a gloomy hall and the grey, lined and rheumy eyed face of Riley, set atop a tall, skinny, stooped body.
"Come in quick".
As I came in he waved a shotgun at me and then banged the door shut.
"What's the gun for?" I asked as calmly as I could.
"There's druggies and thievin' 'ere, an' you do as I say. See to 'er. "
He gestured with the gun at a figure huddled in a tangle of dressing gown and Winceyette pyjamas at the foot of the stairs.
It was dim and I said,"Can't you turn the light on?"
"Electric's run out."
I got my phone out.
"No phonin'," he barked.
"It's got a torch".
I used the torch to examine her. Her breathing was shallow and rapid and her heartbeat quick but reasonably regular and not too weak. I moved her clothing to see what shape she was in. She groaned and as I leant near her head she whispered, "'E pushed me."
"What's she say?" Riley snapped, fumbling with a hearing aid.
"I don't know," I said and pressed the quick dial code to the surgery.
Unfortunately the phone had an audible dialling system which jibbered.
"I said no phonin'," and Riley slammed the instrument from my hand with the end of the gunbarrel and it skittered somewhere into the dark hall.
I continued to disentangle Mrs Riley's clothes. Again she groaned.
"Sorry, Ivy but I want to find what injuries you have."
Her leg was bent at an unnatural angle, and was broken in the thigh or more seriously at the hip joint. I certainly wasn't going to move her without trained assistance and Riley was not that.
"I need blankets, Mr Riley. I daren't move her, and she's rapidly chilling."
"Upstairs. I'll be followin' you."
I collected blankets from their dingy bedroom under Riley's watchful eye, and took the cooling hot water bottle with them.
"Are you going to fill this?" I asked.
"Can't - no electric for the kettle. What're you goin' to do about 'er."
"Unless we call an ambulance - nothing. I won't move her without the crew's skills and without knowing she'll get to hospital quickly. She's better left where she is, if we can keep her warm."
"You've got stuff in your bag. Use it."
"What I've got won't help her unless the pain becomes unbearable and if I give her that without hospital support it may kill her. It's up to you."
I could see he was struggling with the dilemma. He knew if I got her away he would face the charge of assault or worse. I also realised he could be tempted to shoot me in sheer frustration, and then make a run for it.
I sat by Ivy's prone figure and wrapped my coat around me and waited.
A bus drove by and its bulk passing over the nearby speed hump shook the house. As the roar of the diesel faded I became aware of the faint tinny crackling of my mobile phone. I hoped Riley couldn't hear it. I deliberately didn't look in its direction. It meant that whoever was at the other end could hear us.
"Mr Riley, you must -"
He raised the gun in my direction. "You wanna get shot? Then shaddap. I'm thinkin. "
Time passed glutinously.
I heard the lopsided beat of a Subaru Impresa engine. I wondered if it was Walter, my husband's. There were few of them around here - most couldn't afford one, and they were too conspicuous for the drug dealers, who could.
The car stopped outside the house. We heard a knock on the door.
Riley was obviously undecided. The door banged again.
"'Oo is it," Riley shouted.
"Doctor Jenkins," came Walter's voice.
"Is 'e one of yours?"
I nodded - tense with fear.
Riley opened the door and Walter lunged in, grabbing the barrel of the gun and twisting it out of Riley's hands.
The gun fired and Walter winced but he thrust Riley viciously to the floor with the butt of the gun.
The fight went out of Riley who moaned and clutched his hand. Perhaps also he was relieved. Somebody else would solve the problem.
"Are you alright Walter?"
The jacket and shirt were torn and a growing stain of blood welled from his bicep.
"I'll survive. Are you Ok?"
"Yes, keep an eye on Riley."
I phoned ambulance, and police, and then Sharen.
"Are you alright Doctor Jean? Nothing like that has happened to me before, I hope I did right," she said.
"You were brilliant. What made you think of Walter?"
"You told me he spent a lot of time at the gym and played squash. I thought you needed an action man who would understand you, and the Doctor patient relationship, and didn't look like a policeman."
The ambulance took Ivy Riley and Walter away. The police took Geoff Riley with them. I returned home to look after the children.
Walter walked in after tea with his arm in a sling.
I poured him his favourite whisky.
"I think I'll forgive you, but if you betray me again I'll kill you."
"Thank God," he said and gave me a one armed hug, and grinned "just don't set another of your patients on me."
The End