‘I think the rubber’s gone brittle from wearing it next to your skin,’ he was saying, immersed in his task, finding a small box and opening it, perching on the stool, pulling the lamp down to illuminate his hands.
It took all of five minutes for him to make the repair using a quick-drying flexible adhesive smoothed thinly over the perforation. While he worked she explained how she’d also lost the little holster that had held her stethoscope safely at her hip, having not been allowed to wear it around her neck in training, blathering about it being a safely thing.
Satisfied the seal was dry, he handed it back. ‘If you write down the model number, I can order you a replacement tube and fit it, but will this do for now?’
She fitted the earpieces.
‘Here.’ Cary offered his wrist.
‘Oh!’ She’d meant to check upon her own body, but since she had a willing volunteer, why not? ‘Thanks. It’s actually easier if I first feel for a pulse manually…’ She pinched the wrist he had offered her. ‘…And then I do this.’ She lifted the round resonator to his chest, pausing to get his permission before touching it to the linen of his shirt front exposed between the two lengths of a muted plaid waistcoat, finding the correct auscultatory spots, the way she’d learned from hours of practice.
She listened hard, closing her eyes, paying attention to the pulse beneath her fingertips where she held his wrist, using the feel of those beats to locate the sometimes elusivelub dubsound in her earpieces.
Nothing came through at first, maybe because she’d normally do this without a layer of clothing getting in the way. Was there something else interfering with her ability to hear?
At this proximity she couldn’t help detecting the fresh laundry scent, and the glimpse of smooth throat at his open collar. Where the side of her pinkie was grazing his shirt fabric, she could tell it had been laundered a million times into the slubby cotton softness only vintage textiles have. This, combined with his woody, lavender cologne and a buttery, nutty lotion scent, meant she had to force herself to listen, distinguishing her own heartbeat loud in her ears from his.No wedding ring, her intrusive inner voice told her, and she shoved this away.
Then it came to her through the sounds of waves on a shore. Zoning in, it grew louder.Lub dub, lub dub, lub dub,only… She lifted her eyes to Cary’s. His heart was beatingawfullyfast.
‘Did you arrive here just before I did?’ she asked. ‘Were you running?’
She heard Cary’s throat move in a loud swallow. ‘No. Been here all morning.’
She counted, closing her eyes. ‘It’s a little too fast.’ That was putting it mildly. It had to be around a hundred and fifty beats per minute, and at resting that was not good. ‘No swishing sounds or murmurs,’ she said. That was good, but he was definitely tachycardic. ‘But it is faltering a little too. Do you suffer from iatrophobia?’
Cary was unsure what that was.
‘Fear of doctors?’
He shook his head.
‘Any light-headedness? Chest flutters?’
He hesitated this time before shaking his head.
Pulling back, she removed the earpieces. ‘It’s probably nothing,’ she said, for the thousandth time in her career when she had absolutely no reason to be sure it was probably nothing. ‘But I think you should pop in to the surgery so we can take a proper reading. Your heart’s working awfully hard right now for a man standing still.’ It was hard to tell with the background noise of the repair shop, but she’d want to rule out A-Fib or STV, but he didn’t need to know that.
Cary nodded and took a step away, smoothing his waistcoat, not that she’d rumpled it, returning to the shy, reserved man she’d met out on the street.
‘Nothing to worry about, of course,’ she said.
Cary wasn’t speaking at all now.
‘So, uh, thank you for fixing this.’
‘You’re welcome.’
After the briefest of goodbyes, Cary made his way back to the clock doctor, and Alice made reluctantly for the exit.
Had she overstepped? Upset him? It was hard to know with such a quiet, unassuming person what they were thinking.
‘Dr H?’ Sachin at the triage desk stopped her, handing her a form on a clipboard.
Paperwork. The story of her life.
‘Just your name and contact details for the repair docket,’ he said, and she dutifully filled them in.
She watched Sachin take back her signed sheet and use her spelling to write the word ‘stethoscope’ as he chalked up the repair on the blackboard behind the triage counter. She’d been fix number five today and it was still only early.
