shut.
Ella sat down in the other chair, the one on the opposite side of the bed. He woke, as she knew he would, but instead of taking her for yet another therapist come to manipulate him, he started and then he stared.
Ella got up and held out her hand. 'How do you do? I'm Ella Cotswold, Dr Cotswold, but I'm not here professionally. I've brought you a cheque for the money you lost.'
He blinked and, seeming to shrink away from the brightness of the window, put out his hand and took the envelope. 'That's very kind of you. I thought for a moment you were – well, someone else.'
'How are you?'
'I'm sort of OK,' said Joel Roseman. 'Only it's too bright in here for me. Just a moment.' He reached for the drawer in a bedside cabinet and took out a pair of large black sunglasses. They obscured a good deal of his face. 'I'm supposed to be going home soon.'
'You must be looking forward to that.'
He was silent, opening the envelope, contemplating the cheque. 'This signature, that's the man I spoke to on the phone? Is he a friend of yours?'
Ella nodded. She wished she could say Eugene was her fiancé but she couldn't. Not yet. 'You've someone to look after you when you get home?' she asked in doctor mode.
'My mother will come over sometimes.' He moistened his lips, leant towards her across the bed. The black glasses turned his face into a mask. 'My father doesn't have anything to do with me. We don't speak. Well, he doesn't speak to me.' The voice changed and became a child's, confiding, innocent, naive. 'He pays, though. He pays for everything. They'd call me a remittance man, wouldn't they?'
'Perhaps,' Ella said. 'I don't know.'
'Are you a GP?' When she nodded again he said, 'I haven't got a doctor. I mean, I'm not on a doctor's list. Of course, I've got doctors in here, lots of them. Do you take private patients?'
Ella tried not to let her astonishment show. 'I have two or three friends who come to me privately.'
'When I get out of here could I be your private patient? My pa will pay, there won't be any difficulty about that.'
Nonplussed, she said, 'You don't know me, Mr Roseman. Perhaps you should wait until you get home before you make decisions like that. I'll give you my card and you can phone me if you want to.'
Joel Roseman took a long time reading the card. He took his sunglasses off, put them on again, turning the card over, rereading it. He put it in his jeans pocket, handling it more carefully than he had the cheque. 'I won't tell you what's wrong with me now if you don't mind. That can keep till I'm your patient. You'll think it strange, I know you will, but it's all absolutely true.'
She got up, sure she would never see him again. 'Goodbye. I hope all goes well for you.'
'I'll tell you when next we meet,' he said.
Going into a Tesco Express in Kensington High Street for a pint of semi-skimmed milk, he had come upon a metal rack in front of the counter crammed full of packets of Chocorange and Strawpink. He stood in front of them, contemplating them sadly. It was too late. Tesco of all places, Tesco, which he had always affected to despise! How happy this discovery would have made him a week ago. This meant it wasn't only in this Express but surely in all, in all the main stores too and the Metros including the one in the Portobello Road, a stone's throw away. And such an impersonal place too, five bored-looking mechanical youngsters lined up behind the checkout, indifferent to what customers bought or didn't buy. He took a packet off the shelf, put it into his basket, then put it back again. Quickly he turned away and took his milk up to the checkout.
Once out of the shop, he began to regret not taking the Chocorange with him. Surely he could have taken one packet, made it last two days or three. It was harmless, after all. He wasn't talking about crack cocaine, for God's sake. But he didn't go back to the Tesco Express. He comforted himself with selfcongratulation. It was three days now that he had been without a Chocorange and it had been bearable. There was a lot to be said for not having the things in the house, for he knew that,