Is There Anything You Want? by Margaret Forster

Author:Margaret Forster [Margaret Forster]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2006-02-02T05:00:00+00:00

7

Think about Your Life

THERE HAD BEEN a little clutch of cards and notes, and a flurry of messages on her answer machine, but Chrissie had derived no comfort from them. Her misery about the whole awful business had wrapped itself round her like cling-film, sealing up every nook and cranny of feeling. She was numb with guilt, even though guilt was what she had been publicly absolved of and told not to feel. Again and again she replayed that day in the clinic, the day Mr Wallis wasn’t there, the day Ben Cohen was ill, the day she and Andrew had struggled through that heavy load, but the dreadful thing was that she couldn’t remember clearly what that poor young woman had looked like. She could vividly recall some of the patients she’d seen that day, though she couldn’t remember their names, especially one rather striking, dark-haired younger woman, but she could not bring Carol Collins to mind. The newspaper had described her as red-haired and pretty, and her own notes had told her Ms Collins was twenty-six and single, but none of this information brought her to mind, which in itself was an indictment. Even looking at the photograph after the inquest hadn’t helped. Carol Collins was a blank.

A blank. That was how she felt herself to be now, a faceless person, remote, unable to connect with anyone. A person who had been unable to provide reassurance at the right time for a vulnerable and needy young woman. No good excusing herself on the grounds of having been tired and overworked, no good repeating that Carol Collins had a history of mental instability and had tried to kill herself before over another imagined fatal illness. She felt responsible, and was sure the young woman’s family still blamed her. ‘Take time off,’ Mr Wallis had said. He wanted to be rid of her, she was sure. Her drawn features, and her eyes red with lack of sleep, alarmed his patients. And so here she was, with time off, and it didn’t help at all. What was she to do with herself? Fret and wonder endlessly why ever she had become a doctor, though the answer was simple: because her mother had wanted it. So many times, as a child, she’d heard her mother say, with conviction, ‘Chrissie is going to be a doctor, aren’t you, Chrissie?’ And she had never once replied, ‘Am I?’ Instead, she’d been eager to agree, yes, yes, I am going to be a doctor. Her head had filled with romantic notions of saving lives and curing the sick; the white coat and stethoscope had been seductive badges of office. She was good at science, all the sciences, sailed through exams, had no trouble getting into medical school. But there, once the reality of doctoring impressed itself upon her, the doubts had begun. Did she want to be among all this blood and disease? It was sad, it was depressing, it was not as worthwhile and noble as she had envisaged, and worst of all was the fearful weight of the responsibility.

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