Night Visit Read Online Free PDF Page B

mother is alive,’ he said carefully, ‘though quite elderly and a little infirm.’
    ‘ And your father?’
    ‘ My father, unfortunately, is dead.’
    ‘ What of?’
    I wasn’t asking out of idle curiosity. If Pritchard’s father had died young from a heart attack, combine that with his son’s elevated blood pressure and it would mean we should keep an eye on things, maybe start medication earlier. My fingers were poised over the computer to feed in father’s cause of death. There was a long silence. I looked up.
    ‘ Unfortunately,’ he said, ‘my father died from taking some poison.’
    Now I was curious. ‘You mean he swallowed something accidentally?’
    Pritchard pursed his lips together primly. ‘I couldn’t really tell you that.’ He gave another irritating smile. ‘I was only six years old at the time. My mother doesn’t like to talk about it,’ he said apologetically. ‘And you can’t really blame her, can you? It’s a skeleton in the cupboard sort of thing. So I tend not to ask her such a personal detail.’ He beamed at me, pleased at his sensitivity.
    But there was a potential risk factor, though not of heart disease. The offspring of suicides have a higher incidence of following suit than the general population.
    ‘ Did your father take the poison deliberately?’
    ‘ I’ve told you,’ he said. ‘I really couldn’t say. He might have.’ He must have picked up some of my concern because he leaned forward anxiously. ‘Is my blood pressure all right?’
    I shrugged. ‘It’s a bit high. Look—I think we’d better run a few tests, cholesterol and a couple more. Book in with the nurse and I’ll recheck it in a month’s time. Is that all right?’
    I was ready for him to put his jacket back on as another waft of BO caught me but, like Vera, he too seemed reluctant to leave. ‘Are there any implications to my blood pressure being slightly high?’
    I stood up. ‘Let’s talk about that when we have the results of your tests. In the meantime you might try and lose a bit of weight. Take some exercise, a good, brisk walk.’
    I might have added, ‘with a dog’, but I remembered the dog bite and the tetanus jab, ten years ago. It had been a long time since he had visited a doctor. So why had he really come today? Surely not for a routine blood pressure check?
    Another waft of BO as he slotted his arms back into the jacket. ‘Thank you, Doctor.’ He held out his hand for me to shake it.
    It would have been rude not to.

 
    3
     
    Duncan, Neil and myself usually met after our morning surgery, ostensibly to share out the visits but really for a cup of coffee and a chat. At least Neil and I found plenty to talk about. Duncan was more taciturn. Usually he would sit with his hands wrapped around the mug, staring moodily into his coffee, miles away. Sometimes he would interject but I had the feeling that he only threw in an argument to be controversial. An intensely private man, it could be hard to know what he was thinking.
    This morning I opened the conversation with my grouse about Danny Small. ‘He’s getting a real nuisance. Came in demanding extra methadone. Said he’d lent some of his to a friend.’
    The three of us gave the same smile, cynical, disbelieving. And that was the trouble. We never believed them, never trusted them. Even when sometimes they were telling the truth.
    ‘ They never learn, do they?’ Neil’s deep voice displayed intense anger. ‘I usually refuse to see them at all. Bloody pests.’
    Duncan spoke quietly from the corner. ‘We can’t refuse to see them as long as they’re on our list.’
    ‘ Then get rid of the lot of them. Let some other doctor shoulder the problem.’
    ‘ Not while I’m here,’ Duncan said slowly. ‘We have an obligation.’
    Neil ’s ‘Pah’ expressed his sentiments forcefully.
    Duncan spoke again. ‘Anyway, Neil,’ he said, even more quietly. ‘For all your fine words you do see them. I saw Danny coming out of your