The River House Read Online Free PDF

I’ll only get there in time if there’s hardly any
     traffic. I go out to the road, into a sodden world of thick brown water-laden light. The traffic is always slower in the rain.
     I start up the car. The pedals seem to be at the wrong angle, and at first I think it’s because of my unfamiliar shoes. The
     grinding sound from under the car is louder than yesterday. I don’t know enough about cars to guess what’s wrong with the
     engine; perhaps the rain has got in.
    Where the side road joins the main road, I pull out in front of a bus and press on the accelerator, and there’s no response
     from the car—no power, nothing. The car creeps forward; the bus driver hoots aggressively. Panicked, I pull to the side of
     the road, and switch on my hazards, and crawl to the nearest garage, where a stooped and rather smug man who smells of engine
     oil informs me somberly that my transmission has gone.
    I know my hair will be frizzing in the rain. My new red boots have mud on them. I ask tentatively what kind of money we’re
     talking about.
    “I could do a reconditioned one for about five hundred quid,” he says. “New, we’d be talking seven.” He casts a pitying eye
     over my car, taking in the rust marks and the moss around the passenger window. “But, to be honest, love, there’s no point
     putting a new one into this, now, is there?”
    I feel ashamed, as though my mossy car is a moral failing.
    It will take two days, he tells me. I manage to get a taxi, but I am still late for my meeting. I arrive with mud on my legs,
     self-conscious in my shoes.
    At lunchtime, looking through my To Do list, I see where I have written the number of the Fairfield Street Police Station,
     and Will Hampden’s name.
    I ring.
    A woman’s voice, brisk and sibilant. “Sorry, he’s in a meeting. Can I take a message?”
    I leave my number and say it’s about a patient—nothing current, I just need some information.
    At the corner shop I buy baguettes for Clem and me. It’s still raining. We eat in Clem’s office.
    “The shoes are fab,” she says. “You ought to wear things like that more often.”
    Clem’s in a rather mournful mood. She’s just had a date with a rather hunky medical-insurance broker who explained between
     the sorbet and the espresso that he really enjoys her company but she has to know commitment isn’t his thing.
    After lunch there is a team meeting. Peter lectures us on the vexed subject of the waiting list, and how cutting patient waiting
     times really has to be our priority. Brigid talks with passion about the coffee fund. Rain traces out its spider patterns
     on the windows; pigeons, plumped-up, pink-eyed, huddle on the sills. Bad temper has its claws in me.
    The phone rings as I go back to my office, and I hope it will be Will Hampden, but it’s the man from the garage, saying he
     needs to revise his estimate upward.
    I try the police station again. It’s the same woman.
    “Like I said, he’ll ring you back. You must understand, he has to prioritize, he’s very busy,” she says.
    There’s an edge to her voice, but I know she’s probably responding to some crossness in my own.
    There are days that you can’t make right or mend. I make more calls, but no one is in. I have a desultory session with Kerry
     James, a ten-year-old girl who’s been referred with suspected depression. She draws immaculate little pictures of cats, and
     nothing I say gets near her. In the end I just leave, rather early. The rain has stopped. I’ll walk for part of the journey
     and pick up the bus when I’m tired. Perhaps the walk will calm me.
    I need my map; I have to go down roads where I’ve never been. These streets are dreary, with bleak terraced houses with grimy
     curtains and gardens full of old motorbikes. I turn onto Acton Street, where there’s an ugly purple-painted pub with advertisements
     for “Sports Night” and a wide-screen television. I pass a grim tower block, where the playground has