Читать книгу Searching For Sophia - Andrew Saw - Страница 9

4

Even though we’d promised to talk about Sophia, it didn’t happen. At first I thought my crack about Joe being the veterinary ghost of Hugh Hefner had shamed him into silence. I’ve never seen him engage with a woman who wasn’t welcoming, so I assumed he was offended and I was reluctant to bring up Sophia for fear of the avalanche it might let loose.

I did the tests on Kevin and Ralph and, as I suspected, there were signs of heart and liver dysfunction, something to be expected in such elderly animals. I emailed Miss Banks, explaining Sophia’s visit and asking what she’d like me to do with her “boys”.

Her reply landed at light speed. She told me, for the first time, that she’d been dosing Kevin and Ralph on Benadryl three times a day since they were puppies, to keep them “happy” as she put it. It was reasonable to assume they were addicted to the active ingredient diphenhydramine, although not sufficiently happy to stop Kevin practically tearing off my thumb. She asked me to make sure they received their usual dosage, so Kevin and Ralph would soon be back to bad-tempered bliss, while waltzing on the streets of Elizabeth Bay.

When Sophia turned up to collect the dogs it was another frantic morning, with slithering and scuttling things adding a special layer to the squawking and flatulence. Joe had disappeared into his surgery with a Fiji banded iguana that we thought had swallowed a golf ball (which proved to be a massive kidney stone). I assumed Joe would sense Sophia’s presence and magically appear with a squirming reptile in hand, but there was no sign of my partner or his colourful patient.

Instead, I found Sophia in the crowded waiting room sitting straight-backed, hands in lap, staring into the middle distance with a gagging mackerel tabby on one side, and a small but obese carpet python on the other. I had a few valuable seconds to observe her before being spotted and I was struck by her calm – a stately, yet not imperious, presence in the middle of the tiny raucous circus.

I was hoping for her lovely cosmic smile but, when we shook hands in my surgery, her grasp was marble cold and her expression grave.

“Are you okay?” I asked, for want of something more original to say.

For an instant she seemed puzzled. “Yes,” she said, and left it there.

“Sorry, you seem worried.”

“I am okay.”

She sat straight-backed once more, her hands in her lap, gazing at me, or rather straight into me, with her sea-green eyes.

“Well, no need to worry. The Schnauzers will be much easier to manage, I’m sure.”

“This I know.”

“Really?”

“Miss Banks sent me an email. She has asked me to give the dogs drugs every day.”

“Correct, it’s not ideal but …”

“It’s very bad.”

“Yes, I’m sorry.”

“These dogs are drug addicts.”

“But didn’t you bring them in asking for a sedative?”

“Yes, it was not right for me to do this.”

“Well, your instinct was right. They are probably addicted to cough medicine but at their age I don’t think there’s much of an alternative.”

“Addiction is cruel.”

She spoke with such icy certainty I knew I was being accused of malfeasance.

“There’s nothing really cruel about this,” I said. “Even though, as I say, it’s not ideal.”

“For me it’s a crime.”

Permafrost was in the air and I knew I was wasting time with a justification I didn’t believe.

“I’m sorry to hear that, but Miss Banks’ instructions are very clear.”

“Is there no choice?” she asked.

“I don’t think so, no.”

It would be wrong to say that she looked at me with distaste, but the chill in the room intensified and it was obvious she wanted to leave.

“Doctor, are you happy when choices are made for you?”

“It depends, I suppose.”

“I think you do not know what such a thing means. When you have no choice, you have no life.”

“I’m sorry this is an issue.”

“It’s more sorry for me than you know.”

The implication was that dark forces were at play. It wasn’t hard to connect the words drugs and crime, but what it might mean for a classical violinist I didn’t want to imagine.

“Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll meet you in the waiting room with Kevin and Ralph and you can take them home.

“As you wish.” Then in a single fluid movement she rose and left the room.

It would be a while before I understood Sophia’s ability to cause an “it’s my fault” default reaction in Joe and me whenever she was displeased. Not knowing this, I was surprised by my relief to find her talking to Joe at the reception desk. Even with her back to me I could feel that her mood had changed. When she turned, she actually smiled.

“Well, here they are,” Joe beamed when he spotted the schnauzers, “The terrible terror twins. I hope they’re going to be okay.”

“It’s what I wish too,” she said, giving me an approving glance. I felt forgiven, although I wasn’t exactly sure why.

“Well, good luck, don’t forget you can bring them in at any time,” I said with perhaps a little too much professional dispassion.

“Thank you, doctor,” and for the first time that day I received the concentrated cosmic warmth I’d been hoping for. I retreated, pleading the needs of a border collie with blocked anal glands, and for the next couple of hours I tried to put Sophia out of my mind.

It was only at lunchtime, when Joe came steaming in with a cheese and tomato sandwich, that the ride resumed.

“Well, what do you think?” he asked as he wrestled his clingwrap.

“About what?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“The neurology of the paddle-tail newt?”

“Very funny, Moderation Man, you know who I’m talking about.”

“You sure you want to go there?”

“Why?”

“We had a fairly weird chat this morning – she practically accused me of being a drug dealer.”

“Well, aren’t you?” Joe asked, through a mouthful of cheese and tomato.

“Along with every pharmacist in the country.”

“She’s freaked out over the schnauzers’ cough medicine.”

“I am too.”

“And she did something strange,” Joe continued. “She looked me right in the eye and said, ‘We are nothing without choice.’”

“That’s a little portentous.”

“I knew what she was saying, Tim. It’s like she was channelling the Enlightenment.”

“French philosophy in five words?”

“So what do you think?”

“About French philosophy?”

“Sophia and me – it’s obvious something is happening.”

“You mean like with the neurologist.”

“I’m not channelling Hugh Hefner’s ghost, okay?”

“Then what are we talking about?”

“What she said. She feels like she’s known me for years.”

“But until you met her, you had no idea who she was.”

“No.”

“Ridiculous.”

“I know that, Tim, that’s why I’m asking your advice.”

The look in his eyes was so plaintive I was confused. Joe is an intelligent realist, someone who thrives on deflating delusion and pretence. If our roles were reversed, I knew he’d be merciless; but his naked vulnerability was so real I was embarrassed.

“I know it’s weird, Tim. Well, let’s be honest, it’s crazy. But the connection is significant.”

“And it was there even before you met?”

“I don’t know, comrade, I just know it’s there now.”

“You’re right, it’s crazy.”

“But it feels real.” Blinking through his thick spectacles he looked strangely ashamed.

“Aside from the usual platitudes, I don’t know what I could possibly tell you,” I said. “If you feel that strongly about her, take her to dinner.”

He was aghast. “You mean ask her out? I can’t do that. She’d think it was unprofessional.”

“But she said you’d known each other since you were kids.”

“That doesn’t mean I can ask her out on a date.”

“You’re losing me, Joe.”

He didn’t reply. Instead he took another bite of his cheese and tomato sandwich, lost in whatever vision of Sophia was floating around in his imagined future.

“The thing is,” he said suddenly, as if he’d been given an invisible shove, “I don’t want to ask her out.”

“Why?”

“Because the best way to kill a dream, Tim, is to make it real.”