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drop-in surgery, and I’ve just finished seeing a chap who has suddenly become convinced that he has cancer of the rectum. (He doesn’t. He has a boil – a result, I would imagine, of his somewhat cavalier approach to personal hygiene, although I will spare you any further details.) And I go out to the reception to pick up the next set of medical notes, and I see Stephensitting in the waiting area with his arm in what is very clearly a home-made sling.
    Eva, our receptionist, leans over the desk and starts to whisper.
    â€˜The guy in the sling. He says he’s only just moved into the area and he has no proof of residence and no medical card and he only wants to see you. Says someone recommended you. Shall I send him packing?’
    â€˜No, it’s OK. I’ll see him now. What’s his name?’
    â€˜Ummm . . .’ She looks at the pad in front of her. ‘Stephen Garner.’
    This is his real name, although I wasn’t to know that he’d use it. I look at him.
    â€˜Stephen Garner?’
    He jumps to his feet. ‘That’s me.’
    â€˜Would you like to come through?’
    As I walk down the corridor, I’m aware that several people in the waiting room are bearing down on Eva to complain about Mr Garner’s queue jumping. I feel guilty and I want to get out of earshot, but progress to my surgery is slow, because Stephen, clearly enjoying himself greatly, has also developed a limp. I usher him in and he sits down, grinning broadly.
    â€˜What do you think you’re doing?’ I ask him.
    â€˜How else was I supposed to see you?’
    â€˜No, you see, that was the message I was trying to convey by not returning your calls. I don’t want to see you. Enough. I made a mistake.’
    I sound like me, cool and slightly stroppy, but I don’t feel like me. I feel scared, and excited, and much younger than I am, and this emergent juvenile finds herself wondering whether Eva noticed how attractive Mr Garner is. (‘Did you see that guy in the sling?’ I want her to say at some point in the day. ‘Phwooar.’ And I’d only just restrain myself from saying something smug.)
    â€˜Can we go for a cup of coffee and talk about this?’
    Stephen is a press officer for a pressure group which looks after political refugees. He worries about the Asylum Bill and Kosovo and East Timor, sometimes, he has confessed, to the extent that he cannot sleep at night. He, like me, is a good person. But turning upat a doctor’s surgery feigning injury in order to harass one of the doctors . . . That’s not Good. That’s Bad. I’m confused.
    â€˜I’ve got a room full of patients out there. Unlike you, all of them, without exception, aren’t feeling very well. I can’t skip out for a coffee whenever I feel like it.’
    â€˜Do you like my sling?’
    â€˜Please go away.’
    â€˜When you’ve given me a time when we can meet. Why did you leave the hotel in the middle of the night?’
    â€˜I felt bad.’
    â€˜What about?’
    â€˜Sleeping with you when I’ve got a husband and two kids, presumably.’
    â€˜Oh. That.’
    â€˜Yes. That.’
    â€˜I’m not leaving until we have a date.’
    The reason I don’t have him thrown out is because I find all this curiously thrilling. A few weeks ago, before I met Stephen, I wasn’t this person who makes men feign serious injury in order to grab a few precious seconds of time with me. I mean, I’m perfectly presentable looking, and I know that when I make an effort I can still extract grudging admiration from my husband, but until now I have been under no illusions about my ability to drive the opposite sex demented with desire. I was Molly’s mum, David’s wife, a local GP; I have been monogamous for two decades. And it’s not like I’ve become asexual, because I have had sex, but it’s sex with