of mutton stew that just needed heating had turned out to be delicious, and a few basic food essentials had been laid in. He’d assumed, in his ignorance, that the housekeeper had been busy … only to discover the next day that the surgery’s finances didn’t run to the extravagance of a housekeeper either. The food had been provided and the cleaning done by several well-meaning local women, by way of a welcome to their new doctor.
The room the surgery was housed in appeared to be far smaller than it actually was due to the amount of furniture in it. The large old oak desk he was sitting at had years of use evident on its surfaces. The huge bookcase to one side of him was crammed with ageing, musty-smelling medical journals, while a table behind him held five large wooden boxes, each divided into four drawers, and each drawer rammed to overflowing with patients’ records dating back to God knew when. How many records were in respect of people still actually alive was debatable. He’d skimmed a look through them on first arriving and noted the ages of some of the patients and the date of the last entries. At some point they must be overhauled. He had besides an examination couch, a washstand and bowl, a cupboard full of medical supplies, and a table on which was displayed an ancient microscope and some gruesome-looking old medical instruments.
A thick, dark brown dado rail divided the walls into two, the bottom half painted brown, the top half cream, which had turned to dark yellow after decades of Doctor McHinney’s dedicated smoking habit. He had obviously had a penchant for a drink, too, judging by the number of empty whisky bottles Ty had discovered in the dank, cobweb-filled cellar, along with a half-filled bottle in the desk drawer. Ty didn’t smoke himself, but since arriving in his new post had taken to having a glass of malt before he retired to bed, in the hope it might help him gain a better sleep than the fitful and disturbed rest he’d experienced since his life-changing experience two years ago.
It became immediately apparent to Ty on his first surgery that James McHinney had been revered by his patients. He suspected that as long as he himself remained in this post – which as matters stood for him would be until he, too, was carried out in a box – he would never match up to Doctor Mac in the locals’ eyes. Not that Ty cared what they thought of him. His only desire was to deal with their medical needs, which he would do his best to serve, and not to allow himself to become any further involved with them than that.
A faint murmur of voices filtered through to him, coming from the waiting room across the corridor. Ty heaved another despondent sigh. He had been called out twice on emergencies during the previous night, so what sleep he had managed to get had not proved beneficial. He had taken a twenty-minute break earlier during which he had gobbled down a hastily put-together sandwich. He had been out on house calls since, had just returned from the last one in fact, and was hoping that evening surgery would be a light one so he could catch up with sorting out the surgery, something that up to now the demands on his time hadn’t allowed … but the noise level coming from the waiting room was warning him otherwise.
From what he’d observed of the locals while dealing with their medical needs in the week he had been in this post, he’d come to the conclusion that they were an uneducated lot, obviously not averse to living in what seemed to be appalling conditions, some of the houses so dirty farmers would have considered them unfit for pigs, or they’d have done something about it. Some of the people whose houses he had visited didn’t even practise the most basic hygiene. The majority of the women looked far older than their years, slovenly in both their appearance and housewifely duties, while their menfolk appeared interested only in the local pub and collaring the bookie’s runner for their bets. And it was debatable if many of the undernourished, barefoot, raggedly dressed children he’d encountered to date would actually reach adulthood, considering the way their parents were raising them.
The way James McHinney had operated financially was of grave concern to Ty. If he carried on the way