Ken McClure: White death

‘They made me do gym.’

‘What?’ exclaimed Virginia. ‘But what about the letter I gave you?’

‘Miss Neilson said there was nothing physically wrong with me so I’d need a letter from a doctor before I could be excused. Everyone was laughing at me.’

‘Give me strength,’ murmured Virginia, entertaining notions of flattening Miss Neilson with a hockey stick. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘If it’s a letter from a doctor they want, a letter from a doctor is what they’ll get. I’ll go round to the surgery first thing in the morning. When’s your next gym class?’

‘Friday.’

‘Plenty of time.’

‘Frankly, Mrs Lyons, I’m inclined to agree with the school. There is no physical reason why your daughter shouldn’t take part in gym classes,’ said James Gault in response to Virginia’s request. ‘I’m very reluctant to take sides in this sort of thing.’

Virginia took a deep breath. ‘It’s not really a physical reason we’re discussing here, Doctor.’

‘Ah, we’re moving into the realms of popular psychiatry, are we? Underlying psychological issues and all that?’

‘No, we are bloody not,’ replied Virginia, her patience coming to an abrupt end. ‘We are attempting to move into the realms of common sense but obviously failing. Kids don’t see things the way adults do.’

Gault seemed shaken at the outburst. He paled and swallowed before digging in and saying, ‘I have no intention of referring your daughter to a child psychiatrist over a little bit of skin discolouration.’

‘But that’s the whole point. Trish doesn’t see it as a little bit of skin discolouration. It’s making her whole life a misery. I’m not asking you to refer her anywhere. I’m asking you to write a simple bloody letter which anyone with a modicum of imagination would understand the need for… but not, apparently, you.’

Gault swallowed again. ‘I think we may have come to the point where a change of doctor…’

‘Would be most welcome,’ completed Virginia.

‘I’ll get the forms,’ said Gault, getting up.

‘That’s going to take time. Trish needs help now. I’d like to transfer within the practice to Dr Haldane; Trish seemed to like him.’

Gault looked as if he had just encountered a nasty smell under his nose. He took his time replying and Virginia surmised he was weighing up the pros and cons of full-scale confrontation as the alternative to giving in to her request. She decided to push him. ‘Then we could call this just a clash of personalities and there would be no need for me to write a letter of complaint to the relevant authorities about what I see as your complete lack of sensitivity towards my daughter.’

‘I’d have to sound out Dr Haldane about such a change.’

‘Then please do.’

Virginia remained seated in Gault’s surgery. She could feel a nervous tremor in her fingers. She stared out the window behind his empty swivel chair, watching birds come and go in the branches of a tree in the garden — the one she could see above the frosted lower pane. A group of children passed by on the pavement and, in the silence of the room, she could hear their laughter. She wanted Trish to be like that, carefree and happy, but it was getting to the point where she couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard her laugh and it was all very reminiscent of the trauma she’d undergone at the time of the divorce. She and Andrew had done their best to shield her from unpleasantness but a split was a split whatever way you looked at it from a child’s angle. There had to come a point where it seemed logical for the child to ask, ‘If you still like each other so much, why are you breaking up?’

Gault returned and stood holding the door for her. ‘Dr Haldane will speak to you when he can. Perhaps you’d care to wait in the waiting room?’

Virginia had thumbed her way through three long out-of-date copies of Scottish Field before Haldane was free to see her. He welcomed her with the same broad smile she’d remembered from the time before. ‘I’m so sorry about this,’ she began. ‘I know this must be causing you all sorts of problems but I’m so worried about Trish and Dr Gault doesn’t seem to take me seriously. I’m at my wits’ end.’ She told Haldane about the school forcing Trish to take gym classes when she was so self-conscious about her skin disorder. ‘They call her names like “Patch” and I know it seems trivial but it’s not to her and it’s what goes on in her head that really matters, don’t you think?’

Haldane smiled and said, ‘It’s all right, you don’t have to make out the case to me. People like to pretend that kids are just mini adults but they’re not. They follow the rules of the jungle until they’re taught differently. I take it you’d like some kind of official letter for the school?’

‘Yes please,’ said Virginia with real gratitude in her voice.

‘Do you think that will be enough or do you think Trish might need some sort of counselling or…’

‘No, really, I think the letter will be enough. If she doesn’t have to expose her “difference” in public, I think she’ll soon start to be seen as one of the herd again and when that happens, who knows, the damn thing might start to fade and we can all get back to normal.’

‘Has Trish noticed any change in the rash since I last saw her?’

‘Dr Gault said it wasn’t a rash,’ said Virginia.

‘And technically it isn’t,’ said Haldane with a smile that conveyed to Virginia some sympathy with her views on James Gault.

‘She hasn’t mentioned anything. Fading, you mean?’

‘No… just anything.’

Virginia shook her head.

‘If she does, let me know, will you?’

Virginia waited again in the waiting room while Haldane wrote the letter and finally delivered it to her in a sealed envelope marked, ‘To Whom It May Concern’. She left the surgery with a lightness in her step. She was going to be late for work again but she had the letter and Trish would be pleased. They could have an evening free of fretting and angst. She started planning a surprise trip to the Dominion, their local cinema. They might even have a burger afterwards — if only to spite the medical profession.

May 2007

‘What’s up?’ Virginia asked Trish in response to her silence.

‘It’s not getting better,’ said Trish.

‘The doctors did say it might take some time.’

‘Mum, they’ve no idea what it is let alone how long it’s going to take to clear up.’

‘But they said it was vitiligo.’

‘I looked it up on the net. They’ve given it a name but they’ve no idea what it is or what causes it.’

‘You don’t want to believe everything you read on the net, love. It’s full of half truths and downright lies.’

Virginia could see that she was not getting through to Trish who seemed to be on a worrying downward spiral.

‘I think it’s getting worse…’

Virginia was alarmed. ‘You mean it’s spreading?’

‘Spreading… and changing… my skin feels funny…’

‘Let me see.’

Virginia examined Trish’s arm but couldn’t see anything different. She didn’t want to say this to Trish so she said, ‘Dr Haldane said we should get back in touch if you noticed any changes. I’ll make an appointment first thing in the morning.’

Virginia couldn’t get an appointment for Trish until the evening surgery session. She hoped to get away sharp from work but it was ten past five before she was finished and she was out of breath from the run home from the bus stop when she opened the front door. ‘Trish, I’m home. Did you think I’d got lost?’

There was no answer. ‘Trish? Are you in?’

Virginia was puzzled. She had expected to find Trish ready and waiting to go round to the surgery. She looked in the living room and then Trish’s bedroom before realising that she could hear a gas burner on in the kitchen. ‘Trish?’ she said, pushing open the door.