Giles Blunt: The Delicate Storm

‘I’m thirty-two. How old are you?’

Stan emitted a quack of surprise. ‘I’m eighty-three.’

Dr Cates gestured at a chair facing the desk.

‘That’s okay. I’ll stand for now.’

The three of them stood there in the middle of the room, Dr Cates flipping through Stan’s chart. Her hair was held in place by a clip; without it, it would be springing out all over the place, wild and black. She radiated a sense of enormous vitality, barely held in check by the seriousness of her profession.

‘Well, you’ve been a healthy guy up until recently,’ the doctor said.

‘Never smoked. Never drank more than a beer with dinner.’

‘Smart guy, too, then.’

‘Some people might not think so.’ Stan shot a glance at his son that Cardinal ignored.

‘And you have diabetes, which you keep under control with Glucophage. You’re self-monitoring?’

‘Oh, yeah. Can’t say I enjoy pricking my finger every five minutes, but yeah. I keep my blood sugar right in the normal range. You’re welcome to check it.’

‘I plan to.’

Stan looked at Cardinal. His expression said, ‘Is this woman being rude to me? By God, if this woman’s being rude to me …’

‘And Dr Choquette notes you had considerable neuropathy in your feet.’

‘Had. It’s better now.’

‘You were having trouble walking. Standing, even. Driving must have been out of the question, right?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say that. My feet just felt – not numb, exactly – but like they had sponges on ’em. It didn’t slow me up much.’

Please don’t let him drive, Cardinal was thinking. He’ll kill himself or somebody else, and I don’t want to get that phone call.

Dr Cates led Stan to a door off to the right. ‘Just take a seat in the examining room. Remove your shoes and socks and shirt.’

‘My shirt?’

‘I want to listen to your heart. Dr Choquette noted some arrhythmia and referred you to a cardiologist. That was six months ago, but I don’t see any results here.’

‘Yeah, well, I never got to see that cardiologist.’

‘That’s not good,’ Dr Cates said. There was a note of flint in her voice.

‘He was busy, I was busy. You know how it is. It just never happened.’

‘You have heart failure in your family history, Mr Cardinal. That is not something you ignore.’ She turned to Cardinal. She had the kind of cool gaze he found sexy in a woman, no doubt because it was meant not to be. ‘I think you’d better wait out here.’

‘Fine with me.’ Cardinal took a seat.

There was a rap on the door and the receptionist came in. ‘Sorry. Craig Simmons is here. He insists I tell you he’s still waiting.’

‘Melissa, I’m with a patient. I have patients lined up all day. He can’t just drop in like this.’

‘I know that. I keep telling him. I’ve told him fifty times. He won’t listen.’

‘All right. Tell him I can see him for five minutes after this patient. But this is the last time … Sorry about that,’ Dr Cates said when her receptionist had gone, her dark eyes no longer cool. ‘Some people can’t take no for an answer.’

She went into the examining room and closed the door. Cardinal could hear their voices but not what they said. He looked around at the consulting room. In Ray Choquette’s day it had been all chrome and vinyl. Now there were leather chairs, a ceiling fan and two glass-fronted book-cases crammed with medical texts. A deep red Persian rug gave the place a warm, inviting feel, more like a study than an office.

Fifteen minutes later Dr Cates came out of the examining room, followed by his father, who was looking thunderous.

She pulled out her pad and spoke while she wrote. ‘I’m giving you two prescriptions. The first one is a diuretic; that should help keep your chest clear. And the other one is a blood thinner, to keep your blood pressure down.’ She tore off the scrips and handed them to Stan. ‘I’m going to call the cardiologist myself. That way we’ll be sure to get you in. My assistant will call you to let you know what time.’

‘What about the driving?’ Cardinal said.

Dr Cates shook her head. A strand of black hair came loose and curled around her neck. ‘No driving.’

That did it for Stan. ‘Goddammit. How would you like it if you had to call someone every time you wanted to go out? Thirty years old, what do you know about anything? How do you know what I can or can’t feel – in my feet or any other damn place? I was driving twenty years before you were born. Never had an accident. Never had so much as a speeding ticket. And now you’re telling me I can’t drive? What am I supposed to do? Call him every five minutes?’

‘I know it’s upsetting, Mr Cardinal. And you’re right: I wouldn’t like it at all. But there’s a couple of things you might want to keep in mind.’

‘Oh, sure. Now you can tell me what to think, too.’

‘Let me finish.’

‘What did you say to me?’

‘I said let me finish.’

Good for you, Cardinal thought. A lot of people were cowed by Stan’s bluster – including his own son sometimes – but this young woman was holding her own.

‘A couple of things to keep in mind. First, this neuropathy will probably get better. You’ve been looking after your blood sugar, and that’s the best thing you can do. Three or four more months might make all the difference. Second, everybody depends on other people. We all have to learn to ask for what we need.’

‘It’s like being crippled, for God’s sake.’

‘It’s not the end of the world. Frankly, I’m far more worried about your heart. I’m hearing a lot of fluid in your chest. Let’s get that looked after and then we’ll worry about your driving, all right?’

When Cardinal and his father stepped back into the waiting room, a man got out of his chair and brushed by them. Something about him was familiar – the combination of blond hair and the gym-rat physique – but he entered the consulting room and closed the door before Cardinal could place him.

Cardinal waited while the receptionist explained a referral form to his father. Angry voices issued from the consulting room.

‘Dr Cates get many patients like that?’ Cardinal said to the receptionist.

‘He’s not a patient. He’s a – well, I don’t know what you’d call him.’

‘Can we please get out of here?’ said Stan. ‘Believe it or not, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a doctor’s office.’

Cardinal had to take it slow up Algonquin. The fog that had been blanketing the region for the past few days was thickest at the bottom of Airport Hill. The end of January and it was as warm as April. Normally this time of year you’d expect blinding blue skies and temperatures so far below zero it didn’t bear thinking about. But the fog was beginning to have a permanent look.

‘Of course, there’s no such thing as global warming,’ Cardinal said, trying to shake his father out of his mood.

‘She talked to me like I was six years old,’ Stan said.

‘She told you the truth. Telling someone the truth is a mark of respect.’

‘Like you don’t have better things to do than drive me all over hell’s half acre.’

‘Well, you’re always telling me I’m in a lousy line of work.’

‘Which is true. Why you want to spend your time chasing lunatics and vagabonds is beyond me. Or those domestics you get? Husbands so drunk they can’t stand up? You and I both know the only reason anyone ever gets caught is because the crooks are even dumber than the – Where are you going, John? That was my driveway back there.’

‘Sorry. Can’t see a thing with this fog.’

‘Look, you can just make out the squirrel there.’