Читать книгу The Prison Doctor - Dr Brown Amanda - Страница 13

Chapter Five

Jerome was tall, skinny, and wore his grey prison tracksuit bottoms low enough to show off his boxer shorts. He was pale, spotty and had a diamanté stud in both ears. His hair was shaved along the sides and spiked with gel on top. He looked like every other teenager who had spent too many hours indoors playing video games.

It was only his eyes that told a different story. They were bloodshot, puffy, hollowed out by the shadowy purple circles underneath. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in months, and I prepared myself for his request for sleeping tablets.

‘Come on in, take a seat.’ I welcomed the teenager in the usual friendly manner I’d always greeted my patients with, in my old surgery.

Jerome swaggered across the room and slumped into the chair opposite. He automatically slipped into a slouch with his left leg outstretched and his right elbow hooked over the top of the chair.

‘How can I help you?’ I asked, leafing through his most recent medical notes to familiarise myself. Antidepressants, medication for anxiety. Bruising to ribs and left cheek and cuts to forehead, following a fight with his cellmate. I looked up to check how well the wounds on his face had healed.

‘It’s my feet, Miss.’

I was taken aback a little. After such a build-up, and a complex history, I wasn’t expecting such a seemingly minor complaint.

‘Oh dear. What’s wrong with your feet?’

‘They hurt when I walk. It’s these shoes, innit.’

Jerome lifted one of his black trainers into the air, which I assumed must be part of the prison uniform. He then returned to his slouch and started biting his nails, or the little bits of nail he had left. I noticed a tattoo of a snake wrapped around a sword on his left wrist, the tip of the blade peeping out from under the cuff of his jumper.

‘What sort of pain are you feeling, and whereabouts on your feet?’ I could believe those shoes weren’t the most comfortable.

‘I’ve got blisters everywhere, Miss. I can barely walk, it’s so painful. I can’t be doing with these trainers.’

It was strange to be called Miss, but I suppose Jerome saw me as an authoritative figure, like a teacher – unlike my previous patients who, on the whole, had viewed me as a friend. Did I want that responsibility? Could I take it?

I moved around to the other side of the desk to take a closer look, asking Jerome to remove his socks and shoes. He waved his slightly smelly bare foot in the air to reveal the tiniest of blisters on his right heel.

His eyes looked sheepishly to the ground.

‘It’s killing me. I can barely walk!’

He didn’t seem to have any problems swaggering into my office a moment ago, I thought. I started to wonder if there was a bit more to his complaint.

‘Why don’t you pop next door, and the nurse can give you some plasters for your blisters.’

The words had barely left my mouth when Jerome fired back with his own diagnosis and cure.

‘Can you just write me a note saying I can wear my own trainers? That way I won’t get blisters no more.’

I suddenly cottoned on to what was going on. There must be some sort of loophole whereby the prisoners could wear their own shoes on medical grounds. Whether the trainers would be sent in by his family, I didn’t know, but I was pretty sure that’s what Jerome was after.

It was my first day on the job and I needed to be careful not to break any rules.

Turning a little firmer with my tone, I suggested, ‘Let’s try out the plasters first and see how that goes.’

Jerome huffed loudly.

‘But Miss,’ he whined.

He sat there for a moment, sulking, waiting for me to come around to his way of thinking. Nibbling on his nails.

I thought about what I would say to my boys if they were trying to get their way.

I smiled and explained it was my first day in the prison and that he needed to use the plasters first, but I promised I would find out the rules and regulations surrounding the boys wearing their own trainers instead of prison-issue shoes.

After more huffing and puffing Jerome reluctantly agreed to try the plasters, and as he walked off to see Wendy in the next room he turned back and flashed me a mischievous grin.

‘See you next week then, Miss.’

*

The rest of my morning surgery was a succession of minor ailments, with at least three more trainer requests, all with similarly feeble excuses.

Two of the boys complained of achy feet, the other of painful toenails. It seemed ludicrous that a doctor’s time was taken up by dealing with kids wanting their own footwear. It was something I would have to take up with Dawn, but first I needed to tell Wendy about the massive faux pas I’d made with one of the other boys.

‘I told him I liked the orange jumpsuit he was wearing. That it was a bit more bright and colourful than the grey tracksuit. He said “Thanks, Miss, I get to wear orange because I tried to escape!”’

Wendy howled with laughter.

‘I suppose he won’t be making a run for it again in that jumpsuit. He’ll stick out like a sore thumb!’ I laughed along with her.

For a moment I looked at the severe Wendy, and she looked at me, and I felt reassured. Yes, we were going to get along just fine.

It was funny, but it was also strange to think that someone I was treating for something as routine as a minor ear infection had tried to break out of a high-security prison, maybe hours earlier. I was dealing with the ordinary in what was otherwise an extraordinary foreign world.

I turned to Wendy and asked, ‘So what’s with these boys wanting trainers?’

If anyone would know what tricks the boys were up to, Wendy would.

She chuckled. ‘It’s not “cool” to wear prison shoes, and they’ll do anything to try and wear their own trainers. It allows them to maintain some sort of identity in here.’

Wendy looked me in the eye. ‘You’ve just got to be firm with them, or they’ll run rings around you.’

I’d worked that out pretty quickly. If I gave into one, they would all be queuing up – kids demanding trainers all week long.

‘These boys are crafty. If they see you’re a soft touch, they’ll immediately take advantage,’ she warned me. ‘They’re constantly testing you, pushing you to the limit. Like most teenagers. But don’t forget some of them are very experienced at lying and manipulating. It’s easy to forget they’re in here because they’ve committed a crime.’

Wendy was right. It was easy to blot out the fact that the boys were criminals, when I was treating them for very run-of-the-mill medical problems. Apart from their bad language, on the whole, they seemed quite well-behaved.

After three weeks in Huntercombe, apart from getting thoroughly irritated by the trainer requests, I realised I was having an invigorating time in my new world. It was different and challenging and I felt like I’d been given a new lease of life. The cloud that had hung over me when I left my practice was rapidly lifting. I was beginning to feel accepted and to enjoy feeling worthwhile again. Might I even be making a difference?

I was living in a bit of a bubble in the Healthcare department. I knew little about the other areas of the prison, what went on in the wings, even what the cells looked like. I knew nothing about the boys outside the fifteen-minute consultations they had with me. I’d only run into the governor once or twice. I was in and out, twice a week, now with my own set of keys, treating seemingly ordinary spotty teenagers, with ordinary medical complaints. I was even liking my new name: Miss.

But as with every bubble, it had to burst at some point. And Wendy’s words of warning came true sooner than expected.

I blamed the waiting-room system. There was a high likelihood that putting a lot of teenage boys together in a confined space could lead to trouble.

My Wednesday-morning surgery had started like all the others so far. A big pile of files on my desk, and a list of the boys I would be seeing over the next few hours. As usual, I had no idea beforehand of what they were coming in for.

I knew they were a rowdy lot, though, as there had been a great deal more laughter and shouting coming from the waiting area than usual. The prison officer had screamed at them to shut up a number of times, but I was too far away to hear what they had been saying, other than a load of effing and blinding.

When Wendy knocked on my door, her face said a thousand words. Her mouth twisted into a grimace as she wished me luck.

‘Thanks, Wen,’ I said, before taking a large sip of coffee from my mug. A caffeine hit before I started my clinic.

There were only nine boys on the list that day, and the first one, Danny Farr, had been to see a doctor three weeks ago about his feet. Three guesses what he’s come back for, I thought, as the 17-year-old made his way into my room.

Short, stocky, and wearing his own clothes, Danny sank down into the chair opposite me. He had strikingly chiselled features, with high cheekbones and a shaved head. His legs were spread wide apart, his arms dangling by his side as he assumed a relaxed pose.

I started things off.

‘Morning, Danny, how are you today?’

‘I’m okay, Miss.’ He coughed loudly. ‘Apart from, I got this problem.’

‘Go on?’ I encouraged him.

‘Well, it’s a bit embarrassing, Miss.’

I smiled, trying to put him at ease. I knew boys could feel awkward confiding in a woman. ‘Don’t worry, there’s nothing I haven’t seen or heard before.’

‘It’s my . . .’ he dropped his gaze to his crotch. ‘I think I’ve got a . . . a spot on my . . .’

‘Penis?’ I finished off his sentence to speed up the guessing game.

It wasn’t really my job as a GP to deal with sexual health, that was left to the ‘Dick Doctor’ – as the boys called him – the doctor who ran the GUM, or genitourinary medicine clinic. But of course I would have a look if they needed me to.

He looked bashful. ‘Yes, Miss.’

‘Okay, would you like me to have a look to check it for you?’ I said, trying to spare his embarrassment.

He dropped his boxers. At first glance I couldn’t see the spot, and we had a good look for it, just to reassure him, but it wasn’t there.

As he zipped up his jeans, Danny grinned, showing his crooked teeth. ‘I could of sworn I saw it. I thought I’d caught some disease or something.’

‘No, you’re fine, but you can put your name down for the GUM clinic if you find any more spots or blisters,’ I said as he disappeared out the door.

Two minutes later I had Dave Samuel sitting in my consultation room, with surprisingly much the same complaint.

‘Got a lump on my balls and I’m scared I’ve got cancer,’ the teenager confessed.

At that moment I heard an eruption of laughter from the waiting room, fading into the corridor. I thought I saw a smirk creep across Dave’s face, but if one had, it was gone seconds later.

‘Well, we’d better have a look then,’ I told him steadily.

Dave stood up, towering over me. He had the same pasty, blotchy skin as most of the teenagers I’d seen, and a scruffy bit of stubble on his face.

I asked him to lie on the couch so that I could examine him. Wendy was busy in the adjoining room so could not chaperone me in the clinic that day.

I pulled the screen around the couch and with his consent I examined his scrotum, and found no lumps or anything abnormal.

Another thunderclap of laughter exploded next door, sending Dave into a fit of giggles.

‘Sorry, Doc, I laugh when I get embarrassed.’ He stifled his sniggers with his fist.

‘You’re fine, you can get dressed.’

‘What a relief. Thanks, Miss,’ Dave said, then quickly scuttled out of my room.

I sighed. What a morning.

I took another sip, of my now lukewarm coffee. Wendy popped her head around the door for a quick moan about how noisy the boys were being.

‘I can’t think why they’re making such a racket,’ she hissed. ‘There’s a new PO on duty and he hasn’t taken them in hand. I’ll do it myself if he doesn’t.’

Wendy was feisty, I didn’t doubt her for a second.

‘I’ll send in the next lad,’ she said.

The next boy complained of exactly the same thing, a lump in his scrotum. I examined him and found nothing abnormal, and on it went. Every boy in my surgery that morning came in complaining of something wrong with his genitals.

Of course I had twigged that something was up, so to speak, by the time the fifth lad walked into my surgery with an erection holding up his tracksuit bottoms like a tent pole.

He was tall, well-built and oozing confidence. His tracksuit bottoms were hanging around his backside, and a wry smile curled across his mouth. He swaggered towards me and dropped his trousers and boxers and practically plonked his erection on my desk.

‘Is it big enough miss?’ he smirked.

A rush of anger came over me. I was furious at his attempt to intimidate me. How dare they come into my office and try to abuse me? Wasn’t I doing everything I could to help them? I cared! I wanted to make things better, and all they could do was this? A male doctor wouldn’t have had this problem.

I didn’t – couldn’t – show I was fazed by it, though, as that would have given him the satisfaction he was hoping for. I’d mastered a poker face over my years as a GP, perfecting an ability to hide shock – mostly so I could put people at ease, but in this case, to put someone in his place.

I shrugged.

‘It seems pretty normal to me,’ I said dismissively, and then got rid of him pretty sharpish. He was just trying to wind me up and I had no time for it.

There was another eruption of laughter as he walked back to the waiting room, no doubt getting a high five from all the boys. The clamour eventually died down as the prison officers took the teenagers back to their wings, while I sat there, raging.

I couldn’t wait to vent my anger to Wendy.

‘What was that all about?’ I exploded. I told her about the boy with an erection and she was shocked and appalled.

She shook her head in dismay. ‘That shouldn’t have happened, Amanda.’

‘Seeing their dicks isn’t a big deal to me, I’ve seen hundreds over the years, but I don’t like people trying to intimidate me,’ I said, still angry.

It was horrible to think that boys the same age as my sons could act in such a threatening manner. But in a way I was glad; their behaviour had removed any illusions. These were not just any teenagers, these were not just any patients.

‘I totally agree. I’m going to report this to Dawn, don’t you worry about that,’ Wendy said, her hands on her hips. ‘I thought there was a lot of whispering and laughter going on in the waiting room. They must have hatched a plan when they arrived. That’s the problem with putting them all together. They’re bored, looking to make mischief.’

‘Testing me to see if I will break,’ I said. ‘Well, I won’t.’

*

I was glad to have David to offload on to that evening. As usual, he was his calm, rational self. He listened as I ranted about the boys, and then reminded me I didn’t have to carry on if I wasn’t enjoying the job.

He turned the sports channel on mute as I kicked off my shoes and threw myself back into the sofa.

‘I can’t run away from a job because they try to wind me up one day. It’s a fact of life that sometimes you have to deal with things that are insulting and degrading.’

‘You don’t have to convince me,’ David said.

‘I mean, I’m incredibly privileged to see a world most people wouldn’t have a clue about,’ I continued.

‘As I said, you don’t have to convince me.’

I sunk a bit further into the worn folds of the leather, lifting my feet onto the footstool. I closed my eyes. Maybe David had a point. I was trying to convince someone: myself.