beautiful they could be in an advertisement, or identical twins.
“Right,” said Cormac. “So . . . the patient?”
The woman rolled her eyes. “She’s fine.”
The woman led him upstairs, past more pictures and books, set off with expensive lighting and polished wood shelves and the scent of posh candles. She took him into a second-floor bedroom, a beautiful, hand-painted room full of friezes of flowers and fairies dancing, with a soft pale carpet on the floor and a huge armchair, stuffed full of books and toys, including a large dollhouse propped underneath the window. It was a dream of a room for a little girl.
Lying there on the bed was a pitiable figure.
Soaked in sweat, bright red in the face, was a little girl of around eight or nine. She was completely covered in red dots. Cormac looked at her, telling himself not to let the horror show in his face. A Filipino woman was sitting by her head with a rag she periodically soaked in iced water, wringing it and placing it over the child’s forehead.
He moved over.
“Hello . . . Titania,” he said, worried he’d pronounced it wrong. “Hello. I’m Cormac. I’m a nurse and I’m here to see how you’re getting on.”
In response the child burst into tears. Cormac gently took her temperature, then looked at the mother.
“Have you been giving her the ibuprofen?” he said as gently as he could.
“No!” said the woman. “She’s my child! I think I know what she needs! I’m treating her homeopathically!”
“I think that can be very useful,” said Cormac, who thought nothing of the kind, “when given in conjunction with other medicines. And when it comes to beating back a fever, ibuprofen can really help.”
“Well, you would say that,” hissed the woman. “You’re part of Big Pharma.”
Cormac wished that he were and Big Pharma would top up his salary once in a while. The woman’s calm, beautiful expression had gone; she now looked tight-faced and pinched.
“Are you giving her plenty of fluids?”
“Yes!” said the woman triumphantly. “This is Kona Nigari”—she held up a fantastically complicated-looking bottle—“it’s collected from a Hawaiian spring and is the purest water in the world. We get it flown in specially. There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for our precious Titania.”
She smiled beatifically at the child, but made no move to actually comfort her.
Cormac wiped the girl’s forehead with a cloth, propping her up a little.
“You’re going to be fine,” he said to the moaning child. “It’s just not very nice for a little while. But soon you’ll be able to watch Hey Duggee again.”
“Actually we believe screen rays are dangerous for children,” said the mother in a sharp voice. “We don’t believe in them.”
Cormac was reasonably sure he’d seen the husband on his phone downstairs but didn’t mention it. Instead he made notes on the form, saw that her temperature was down a little and that she was probably on the mend. But seeing a child suffer for no reason was almost more than he could bear.
“And afterward,” he couldn’t help asking—it was his duty—“when she’s well, will you consider vaccinating against other diseases?”
“Well, she can’t get measles again,” said the mother as if he, Cormac, were being quite the idiot.
“No,” said Cormac. “But you would maybe want to consider rubella?”
“But God knows what the government puts in vaccinations!” she said, almost screaming. “Have you ever seen an autistic child?!”
Cormac, of course, had seen many.
“If you think I’d subject my perfect daughter to something the government—the government—thinks is okay, you have another think coming.”
Her face was now bright red, and Cormac didn’t think she was anything like as beautiful as he had when they’d first met.
“It can protect other people who can’t be vaccinated,” he said gently.
The woman stared at him. “You’ve been totally brainwashed,” she said quietly.
The child moaned on the bed.
Cormac held up his hands. “I think Titania needs rest. She’s going to be fine.”
“Of course she is!” said the woman. “She’s being treated. Naturally! By me!”
And the great city had looked a little meaner to Cormac as he’d headed back home.
For no stupid reason! Because of some stupid woman who thinks she knows better than hundreds of years of medical science!!!! Stupid spoiled spoiled spoiled cow.
Then ten seconds later he realized.
Shit! This is our official NHS account!!!!
I know!!!!!!!
Shit! Can you delete that? Please? Quickly?!
It’s NHS IT. They can’t tell the arse codes from their elbow codes!
I know. But!!!
I know.
And that was how they moved on to text messaging and swapped telephone numbers.
Chapter 43
Jake finally