Was helookingfor things to praise about him? He couldn’t account for this level of interest.
‘As in…’ the redhead went on, ‘you’re all hashtag underconsumption core.’ He was making ridiculous air quotes with his fingers. ‘That’s very on trend.’
Finlay felt his brain turn blank. ‘Hashtagwhit?’
‘You’re actually living and breathing the way of life we’re trying to engage with down here at the repair shop.’
‘Aye.’ Finlay bit the word out as resignedly as he could and turned on his boot heel to go. ‘That I am.’ He stepped out from the warm reach of the shed, the bitter cold of the courtyard hitting him.
Too right he was living sustainably. There was no other thing for it. So many times he’d taken his morning coffee to his spot on the low wall of the storm shelter and sat there squinting down at the delivery vans clogging up Cairn Dhu high street, bringing who knew what plastic rubbish from the other side of the globe to his wee corner of it. He’d seen the bins on the community paths stuffed with packaging and unnecessary junk every day since he moved here. Single-use snappable light sticks. Self-heating hand-warmers (also single-use and disposed of like they were paper hankies). Countless plastic-lidded cardboard coffee cups shoved in the gorse, as though out-of-their-sight meant this stuff dissolved into nothing.
It brought a wild rage to his belly to see the people of the world wasting its precious resources, and it looked all the more ridiculous, no, it looked all the more callous and greedy, from his vantage point up amongst the rocks and shrubs where he tried to keep peace with nature and leave no trace of himself, harming no creature, destroying nothing, taking only the barest of what he needed. These town folk hadn’t a clue.
‘It’s wind powered, you know?’ the voice called from behind him.
‘Eh?’ Finlay glanced back.
‘The floodlight? Wind powered.’ Murray was grinning from the shed doorway and pointing to the sky, in case Finlay didn’t know that was where the wind was kept.
‘Ach!’ He swept a dismissive hand, stomping away, wishing there was some way of turning back the clock hands and having that meeting all over again.
‘The other children won’t play with you if you must be so gruff, Finlay Morlich!’came his mother’s voice as though carried on the icy gusts.
He tried his best to step lightly along the pavement after that, but knowing full well it was too late for softness now.
10
In another ten minutes Alice would have finished her very first day of consultations in her new post. She was already dreaming of a bubble bath, steaming and full to the brim, even if it would be taken in the little white tub back at her new temporary accommodation along that windy high street. Even with the white plastic shower curtain, yellowing grout and the fan that didn’t work properly. She’d learned not to wish for more, not with her student debts to pay off.
There was still this one consult left and already the room was charged with strong emotions.
‘You say Jolyon doesn’t speak at all?’ Alice enquired, looking at the little boy playing on the consulting room rug.
‘Jolyon laughs and makes sounds. He can make his feelings known,’ the boy’s mother, Mhairi Sears, began, ‘and he screams too.’
The circles under the woman’s eyes told Alice that, lately, there’d been rather a lot more screaming than laughing.
Alice looked again at the boy, not a toddler at all, but a big boy of reception class age, busy with a toy car clasped in his sweet, if a little sticky-looking, fist.
Like she’d told all her other patients today, Alice had also explained to Mhairi Sears that this was her first day and that although she’d completed her medical training at uni and on placement in hospitals, today was her very first day of specialist GP training. She’d even asked whether Mrs Sears wanted her to call in Dr Millen, currently hunched over admin in his messy office next door.
The woman had said no. In fact, she was ‘glad to be seen by a young woman doctor, after everything…’ Then she’d tailed off and left Alice to guess what the ‘everything’ was that this woman had gone through.
Alice had only ten minutes and a long list of questions to ask; partly following the diagnostic guide on her screen, partly intuiting her way. All she had to do was recall her training and hope she didn’t miss anything major. Not so easy after what had been a long day, especially not now her head was full of conditions she wanted to revise and referrals she needed to make and patient queries that needed following up.
Concentrate, Alice. Concentrate.
‘And Jolyon sleeps all right?’ she asked.
‘Uh-huh,’ the mum answered. ‘Mostly during the day in cat naps. You love to stay awake at night, don’t you, Jolly?’
The boy looked up at this but quickly returned to driving his car along the floor.
‘We’ve had a lot of late-nightBlueymarathons in the living room while Dan sleeps.’ Mhairi’s lips twitched ever so slightly and her eyes narrowed in a way that suggested she was picturing her husband snoring, oblivious, in a big comfy bed.
Alice didn’t know what to do with this sign of parental discord. Nor did she know whatBlueymight be. She focused on the list on her screen, taking notes, hoping she was doing this right. For now, she wasn’t sure which of the two was actually unwell or what she was expected to do.
‘Would you like me to check on Jolyon’s referral to the Speech and Language team?’ she said, searching for the correct system on her computer.
