Rob Ewing - The Last of Us

Dr Schofield waves like a film star – which he isn’t – then goes to stand at the whiteboard.

Duncan MacNeil puts up his hand: but he’s too early, Mrs Leonard makes her watch it buster face at him.

Dr Schofield lifts the silver box he brought – it’s suitcase-sized – onto the desk in front. Then he points to the middle of himself and says, ‘Eeshh – Meeeshh Brian. Tha MI ag ION-sach Gaelic.’

Everyone looks at Mrs Leonard to see if she understood a word of it. My bet is she’s still waiting for the sound of his words to clump together like us – then she says,

‘The doctor is telling you his first name: Brian. And he says he’s learning Gaelic.’ To Dr Schofield she says, ‘I thought that was impeccably well put. Is fheàrr Gàidhlig bhriste na Gàidhlig sa chiste – it is better to have the Gaelic broken than dead, yes?’

I don’t agree. I thought he was very bad.

Dr Schofield waits for us to settle down then says, ‘You’ll know me from the surgery, or from the cottage hospital. Some of you I have seen: yes, some of you in this room. Coughs, colds, cuts needing glued or stitched. Broken arms, pulled elbows. Sore ears. Sore throats.’

We look around for who it might be.

‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to tell,’ he says. ‘And I would never tell. That’s my duty of confidentiality. I would never talk or tell anyone else about your medical problems. Unless you asked me to do so.’

All quiet.

Margaret-Anne: ‘What about our mums?’

‘So – well yes, I suppose being the age you are, yes, apart from your mums.’

Kieran: ‘What about the priest?’

‘Not the priest.’

‘I thought Father MacGill knew everything that happened?’

‘He doesn’t know about your sore throats.’

We look at Kieran – duh.

Dr Schofield puts his hands down on the silver box.

‘Now, I wonder if you’re curious about this. No? Does anybody know what I’ve got in here?’

Nobody does.

He gets us to gather in a half-circle up at the front. Using a quiet part-evil voice he says, ‘In this box I have a person. True. I keep them locked up inside until I feel kind enough to let them out. Do you want to see the person?’

His eyes look mad enough for it to be true.

He unclips the lock. There’s an ouhhh as we peer at the dark insides – there’s a face! Blonde hair!

But then he lifts out: a big doll. Man or woman? Plastic yellow hair, shit-brown tracksuit, white cheap trainers.

Straightens the legs. Puts the doll on the floor.

‘Say hello to Annie,’ he says. ‘Now can anyone tell me what we use Annie for?’

Everybody’s hand up – it’s Duncan’s reaches highest.

‘Yes, Duncan?’

‘Dad has to do first aid, for on his boat. He says that fire is the biggest worry at sea. But he said your doll is for practising the kiss of life.’

It’s stupid to be laughing at this, but everybody does.

‘That’s absolutely correct Duncan. And as Rona’s serious face tells us – the kiss of life, or what we now call rescue breathing, has nothing to do with passion – and everything to do with the business of saving a life. Would anybody like a demonstration of how we do that?’

We nod for yes.

‘Part of what we do is train for the worst. Annie’s role is in teaching us how to save lives. She’s probably one of the most important members of our team. Certainly, she has better hair than me – look.’

For showing this he takes the plastic yellow hair off the doll – it comes off in one blob like scrambled egg – and puts it on his head.

He just looks weird. Nobody laughs. We all turn around to the teacher to see if we should be laughing. She doesn’t know either.

‘Drop the hair joke,’ Dr Schofield says.

In the next bit he tells us about his ABC – Airway, Breathing, Circulation – and Mrs Leonard gives in exchange our ABC, which is the first three trees of the Gaelic alphabet – Ailm for Elm, Beith for Birch, Coll for Hazel. It’s a good share, though we have his learnt before he learns ours.

He’s at the start of showing us the recovery position – which is easy, it’s only lying on your side – when his phone goes.

‘Work mobile,’ he says. ‘Just a moment.’

We have to return to our seats, while he sticks his finger in his ear to listen more easily.

‘Hullo.’

Mrs Leonard makes her be patient face at us.

‘Where?’

It’s funny – a big doll on the floor, him there talking.

‘Sorry?’

I’m tapping Anne-Marie on the arm to tell her about the big stupid doll and him talking. Mrs Leonard’s mouth goes into a thin slit to warn me – Behave.

‘This a hoax, you think?’

He listens, nodding even though the other person can’t see him, then he says to Mrs Leonard – ‘Look, I will maybe just take this call outside if that’s all right.’

Then he leaves us.

We get bored waiting. Mrs Leonard leaves the doll where it is; she even has to step over it on her way around to the whiteboard.

It’s weird – like a dead person in the room, which no one’s even bothering about.

‘OK,’ says Mrs Leonard. ‘Dr Schofield has obviously been detained with something important, so let’s get back to the work we were doing with symmetry and shapes. Who wants to give us all the first example?’

When I excuse myself for the toilet I find he’s still in the corridor – leaning against the wall by the back door.

Adults can lean on walls, it isn’t fair. Like a sneak I stay in the cubbyhole space before the toilet door to listen in – creaking the hinges to make it sound like I went in.

‘Which public places?’

The skylight window above – one shining speck. Planes fly over our island on their way to America, Canada.

‘So nobody’s got any idea? That was weeks ago. How long has it been since—? Seriously? That doesn’t sound like – if the incubation is as long as that, but I never heard of any potential pathogen with—’

The speck: gone.

‘What is the official line? We had the contingency for swine flu, didn’t we? The health board were all over that, storm in a teacup and we stocked up even when there wasn’t a scrap of bloody—’

His voice sounds: angry? Annoyed? Scared?

‘I know that turned out all right. But what you’re telling me doesn’t bear comparison.’

I move back out and Dr Schofield sees me. I smile, give him a wave for checking things are OK.

‘Go back to your classroom, love,’ he says in a hurry, clicking his fingers and pointing at the door. ‘You can’t be listening, all right?’

Something doesn’t make sense about his eyes. Did I do something very wrong?

‘Back to your classroom,’ is the last thing he says to me.

Duncan spent a week at our home: getting his energy back, growing strength enough again to walk around. His face went from red, to scabbed, to saggy. He stayed with us until two mornings ago, when Elizabeth wanted him to get dressed. Duncan preferred his pyjamas: said he would put his clothes on if he could sleep in them from now on. Elizabeth said no way. That started an argument: and when Elizabeth put up new rules about getting along and give and take, the MacNeil brothers left us.

Calum Ian never mentioned what I did to his camera: and Duncan seemed to forget I ever told him. So after they left I decided that everything was OK: but that I would still try to make up to them by sharing my food, and not minding if they stole mine or didn’t share in return.

Now we’re back in school, in the P5 classroom for Duncan’s first day. This room works because it’s not anyone’s old class. Also, it has a picture-roll going around the walls with the Gaelic letters on. My favourite is B, for Beith, which is birch. My least favourite is H, for heather, Ur, because that isn’t even a tree, it’s a bush.