‘That’s OK,’ Alice put in quickly, typing up a referral for the paediatric occupational therapist as well. This had been a prickly issue, clearly. ‘Adding some ice lollies would be fine too,’ Alice added. ‘If he likes those?’
This stopped Mhairi. ‘He likes some of them, actually.’
‘And those sucky frozen yoghurt sticks, and there’s jelly sweets you can buy with fruit juice centres.’ Alice remembered those from the palliative care ward and all those shifts when she’d followed the bedside rounds at the hospice.
‘What about the sugar? His teeth?’ Mhairi asked, like she’d been warned about this before.
Does it really matter right now?Alice wanted to say, remembering the parched lips of some of her patients. ‘You can buy low or zero sugar ones, and so long as he’s hydrated, it doesn’t matter too much. I’m sure you do your best with teeth-brushing.’
Mhairi’s face suggested teeth-brushing wasn’t entirely successful either but she wasn’t about to admit it here.
There was only one minute left on the clock. That’s when she saw the tears welling in the mother’s eyes and the fight to hold them back.
‘Would you… describe yourself as depressed at all?’ Alice said tentatively, reaching for the sheet with the tick boxes that she’d learned to give out in situations like this. ‘How many of these would you say apply to you?’
Cautiously, Mhairi took the sheet.
Alice knew the symptom check boxes by heart. Tearful? Low mood? Low libido? Intrusive thoughts? Difficulty sleeping? Loss of appetite?
‘I’m not here to talk about me,’ Mhairi said. ‘I’m here for Jolly. And I’m notdepresseddepressed,’ she said.
Jolyon, who’d wobbled to his feet and came over to his mum, sensing her getting upset, took the sheet from her hands. The women watched him crumpling it into a ball and bowling it along the rug. She sensed Mhairi feeling embarrassed but also wanting to smile. So Alice made sure to smile first.
‘Nice bowling, Jolyon!’ she told the boy. She placed another sheet on the desk, but Mhairi didn’t take this one.
‘Dan, my husband,’ said Mhairi, clearing her throat, ‘…said I might be suffering from an imbalance of some kind, but I’m fine. I’m just tired.’
If Alice could have glanced into their marriage she’d have seen Dan saying this on his way out to work while Mhairi struggled to rip open the lid of the supermarket savers mega tub of Greek yoghurt after Jolyon had turned down yet another attempt at mashed banana on toast.
‘Do you have any friends in a similar situation?’ Alice tried.
Mhairi explained her best friend was away in Switzerland for a while, and she didn’t have any kids, though she had two other mum friends who were also lovely and always offering to help, but they were super busy like everyone else was and she didn’t like to burden them.
‘It might help you to meet other parent carers,’ Alice suggested. ‘Does Jolyon have many friends to play with, because play is so important, isn’t it?’
Alice registered the way the woman’s face froze. Had she made another mistake? Did Mhairi not think of herself as a parent carer? Or are they more isolated than she was letting on? Maybe Jolyon didn’t have many little buddies to play with? She wished she hadn’t said anything about it now. She wished there was longer to talk. Mhairi was looking down at her hands in her lap. Alice had to think fast.
‘I wonder whether we should begin a referral to the educational psychologist. It’ll be a very long wait, probably, but they can help with things like school and education plans. He’ll be starting school soon, won’t he?’ She was aware of not trying to promise too much. Resources were so thin on the ground.
‘I’ve deferred his place for a year,’ the mum said. ‘The idea of school terrifies me. How can he be ready for it?’
Alice didn’t know what to say about this, and she found herself wondering why Dr Millen hadn’t made these same referrals. What had he been waiting for?
‘What else does Jolyon need, do you think?’ Alice faced Mhairi now, her hands in prayer between her knees.
‘I… I thought you could tell me that.’
Alice blinked, at a loss.
Time was up. She should be showing Mrs Sears and her son out, their worries gone, or at least on their way to being gone.
She let her eyes fall to Jolyon who was now happily sitting in a splayed-ankle kneel, picking fluffy bits from the rug. He beamed up at her, then at his mummy.
Mhairi smiled tenderly back at her son, and a little conspiratorially too, like they were the only two who understood each other in the whole world, and like she was very, very glad when her son was affectionate with her in public. Maybe because it stopped people thinking the worst about her and her parenting?
‘You look happy to me,’ Alice tried, addressing Jolyon. ‘And you’re growing, and playing.’ She indicated the little cairn of rug fluff that the boy had piled on the toe of Mhairi’s trainer. ‘And you communicate very well, given the way you scrunched up that questionnaire for your mummy.’
Jolyon, seeing his mother smiling, smiled too.
