close associations with the local hospital. A quick telephone call was usually sufficient to secure a bed there and the best medical attention for any of their moneyed patients.
This surgery’s finances couldn’t support either a receptionist or a nurse, and to obtain a hospital bed and treatment for any of his patients, Ty had virtually to get down on bended knee and beg for them.
Another surge of anger erupted within him against the person whose selfish actions had reduced him to this level. At the time of the terrible catastrophe, the pain of his loss was so unbearable that, by way of protecting himself from ever suffering such emotional devastation a second time, he had vowed never to allow himself to become involved with another human being on a personal level again. And if people thought him rude and arrogant because of it, then so be it. He’d ostracised himself from all his former friends and turned his back on the medical profession, wanting nothing more to do with it. By sheer frugality, for over two years he’d managed to exist on the paltry amount of money he’d been left with, but when that had virtually run dry, and with his landlady not the type to let him lodge with her free, he was left with no alternative but to get himself a job. Unfortunately for Ty, he wasn’t a man who could turn his hand to anything. After being fired from several menial labouring jobs, he was left with no choice but to seek another position back in the profession he had made such an effort to disassociate himself from.
The thought of applying for a hospital position and having his past delved into was something he wanted to avoid at all costs. This practice had seemed like the answer to a prayer to him when he had spotted it advertised in a medical journal. Thriving practices changed hands for large sums of money, depending on their size and location. But this one was being given away. Ty had assumed that the deceased doctor had had no partner to take it over and was against his estate going to the Crown. He’d assumed that many other doctors would be after it, young men starting up or others rendered short of funds like himself, and didn’t think his chances of being awarded it were high. He was most shocked to receive a letter back by return from the solicitor handling the estate of the late James McHinney, offering him the practice without even an interview. He was later to come to the conclusion that no other doctor had even applied. If other interested parties had had the foresight to take the time and trouble to visit the area, unlike himself, they’d no doubt swiftly have decided against it. The astute James McHinney had without doubt known that upon his death, unless he lured a doctor here by giving his practice away, the local community of around five thousand patients would be left without a medical practitioner.
The three-bedroomed corner terrace house that housed the surgery stood in the middle of a rabbit warren of sooty streets. The rundown terrace houses had two or three bedrooms and tiny paved backyards. Water was obtained from stand pumps in back alleys, and several families shared each outside toilet. Ty’s was the only house to have its own water pump and toilet in the backyard. Arriving with all he possessed in one trunk, he’d accused the taxi driver of delivering him to the wrong address when the vehicle had stopped outside the grim-looking house in the middle of this deprived area, and had been mortified to find no mistake had been made.
The inside of the house was as bleak as the outside. Despite the heavy chenille curtains at the windows all being pulled back, hardly any light penetrated the rooms due to the closeness of the surrounding properties. The furniture was all of the plain, heavy dark oak sort, no ornaments or adornments to soften its harshness. The floorboards were dark stained. The only rug lay in the sitting room in front of the hearth, its original pattern long since faded away and its pile flattened by age. The previous occupant obviously hadn’t felt the need for fripperies of any kind. Ty was, though, gratified to find the place spotlessly clean, the fires in all the rooms laid ready to be lit and his bed freshly made, albeit with aged linen, threadbare in parts. The pan