The Watchful Eye Read Online Free PDF

which allowed doctors to prescribe the contraceptive pill to the under-sixteenswithout the consent of a parent. Since then, in acknowledgment of the focus and clarification she appealed for on the subject, family doctors abide by something called the Gillick Ruling. This allows them to prescribe the pill for contraceptive reasons
provided
the girl is ‘Gillick competent’, i.e. that she understands the full significance of the act of sexual intercourse and is not being coerced or manipulated. The doctor should still try to persuade the girl to discuss the wider implications of indulging in sexual intercourse at such a young age, but a teenage pregnancy is the result no one wants. Chelsea Emmanuel appeared inappropriate to Daniel.
    ‘Are you actually
having
intercourse?’
    Chelsea took a long, cuddish chew at her gum, dropped her eyelashes and crossed and uncrossed her legs without regard to his view of her knickers. ‘Yeah,’ she said, challenge in every fibre of her attitude.
    ‘I have to point out,’ Daniel said, reason making his voice smooth and unthreatening, ‘that it is, strictly speaking, against the law. You’re only fourteen.’
    She leant forward which gave him a full view of her cleavage. ‘So?’ She rolled her eyes towards the ceiling and he had a sudden glimpse of what it must be like to be the father of a precocious teenage daughter. He gave an involuntary shudder.
Not Holly. Please never Holly
.
    ‘How old’s your boyfriend?’
    ‘Nearly twenty,’ she said. ‘If I don’t get the pill off you I’ll get pregnant, won’t I?’
    Probably.
    It was the lesser of two evils.
    ‘I’ll just check your blood pressure.’
    He felt vaguely uncomfortable as he Velcroed the cuff aroundher arm. She’d turned her heavily painted face towards him, eyelashes fluttering like a bad actress in a Thirties ‘B’ movie.
    He drew in a deep breath.
    ‘Perfect blood pressure,’ he said. ‘Do you smoke?’
    The government paid him to ask questions like these. Cynically he had decided years ago that they concentrated on targets intended to prove the impossible – that the nation was getting healthier.
    He tapped the script into the computer, giving her a two months’ supply of oral contraceptive, ripped it off the printer, signed it, instructed her how and when to take it, how long she would need to use ‘additional cover’ for and told her to return to the practice nurse ‘for a check’ before they ran out.
    She stood up, uncomfortably close to his desk, legs apart. He noticed all her imperfections – the irregular teeth, the chipped nail varnish, the smell of cigarette smoke mingled with that of fried food and a nasty, musky perfume, the dark roots of hair striped and straightened into submission, and the incessant, noisy, open-mouthed gum-chewing.
    ‘I’d much rather come back to see you,’ she said.
    It made his flesh creep.
    ‘It’s unnecessary for you to come back to see me,’ he said stiffly. ‘The nurses do the pill checks.’
    ‘Don’t much like your nurse,’ she said. ‘She’s a bit of an old bag.’
    He could feel anger rise up inside him. Marie Westbrook, their full-time practice nurse, was in her thirties and anything but an old bag. In his opinion she was an attractive, intelligent and professional woman.
    ‘Come on a Wednesday and see Stella in that case.’
    He just wanted her to go.
    Chelsea shrugged.
    ‘If you like.’
    Daniel was already looking into the computer screen, typing in the consultation. He was always glad his mother had insisted he have piano lessons though it had seemed ‘sissy’ at the time. The deft skill in his fingers had easily transferred to mastery of the QWERTY keyboard.
    He felt a sense of relief when the door finally closed behind Chelsea Emmanuel.
    Seconds later he was pressing the key which would move the Next Patient sign across the VDU in the patients’ waiting room.
    Gone were the days when a doctor had bobbed in and out of the waiting area to