The Way to London by Alix Rickloff

Author:Alix Rickloff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-07-19T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

The doctor’s office was in his home, a great brick behemoth just a few streets off West Hendford in Yeovil with a shiny brass plate by the front door. Michael carried Bill up the porch stairs swaddled in the car rug, Lucy a step behind. “Careful with him. You’re joggling him. Watch the door there. You’re joggling him again.”

“You try holding him. He’s heavier than he looks. Five stone, easy.”

What had once been the house’s double parlor had been transformed into a small waiting area with an exam room behind. A few bored-looking patients sat in a row of wooden chairs while an elderly woman worked at a desk by the door. She looked up, her horn-rimmed spectacles taped at the bridge slipping down her nose. “What’s this, then?”

“An emergency,” Lucy said, trying to keep the panic from her voice. “Where’s the doctor? Michael, stop for God’s sake, you’re joggling him.”

“Please, miss,” the secretary scolded. “If you would just settle down.”

“How can I settle down when he could be dead within minutes and you’re just sitting there doing nothing?”

The patients stirred in their seats, looking much less bored. Bill’s arm fell from the blanket swaddling him to dangle uselessly.

“Oh my God!” Lucy cried. “He’s dead.”

“He’s not dead,” Michael responded patiently. “He’s alive and looks as if he plans to stay that way.”

“Are you the boy’s mother?” the secretary asked, clearly disapproving of this chaotic intrusion into her well-ordered office.

“No, I’m not his mother,” Lucy snapped. “I’d have had to be nine years old when I had him, wouldn’t I?”

“She’s just clarifying matters, Lucy,” Michael soothed. “Take a deep breath and relax.”

“Don’t tell me to relax. This is all your fault.”

“How do you figure that?”

“He’d not have had a chance to eat those mushrooms if your car hadn’t broken down.”

“Well, you’re the one who let him wander off.”

“I didn’t let him wander, thank you very much.”

“My belly hurts, Lucy,” Bill sobbed.

“I know, Bill.” She threw Michael a final glare as she smoothed the hair back from Bill’s forehead. His cheeks were flushed, and he shivered as if he was cold. “We’re going to get you fixed up quick as a wink.” She turned her attention to the secretary. “Where’s the doctor? Why isn’t he here already?”

The secretary drew herself up in agitated dignity. “Dr. Ellison is just across the hall finishing his tea. Bring the boy back to the surgery, and I’ll send the doctor through to you.”

Michael carried Bill through to a spotless room equipped with a cot, a long glass-fronted cabinet stocked with medical supplies, and a shelf of dusty medical books. The lino floor had been softened by the addition of a small rug, and there were framed watercolors of noble stags on craggy mountaintops and rugged-looking men in beards and kilts hanging on the wall. Insipid and amateurish, but supposedly there to take one’s mind off the worst.

It didn’t work. The worst was all she could think about.

Michael laid Bill on the cot still bundled in the old blanket.

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