Chapter 11 11. Maureen and the Temporary Doctor

The receptionist kept apologizing: she couldn't check in Maureen's doctor's appointments because of the new automated desk. "But here I am," Maureen said, "why can't you check me in?" The receptionist pointed to a screen a few feet from the main reception desk, assuring Maureen that self-service was easy. Maureen's fingers were wet.The automated desk asks: are you male or female, she pressed the wrong button; when entering her date of birth, she put the month in place of the date.Finally she turned to a young patient who sneezed hard into her shoulder.By the time she finished registering, there was already a short line behind her, with some complaining and moaning.A line of words popped up on the screen: Please consult the main reception desk.The whole team shook their heads in unison.

The receptionist again rushed to apologize.The doctor Maureen usually sees is temporarily absent, but she can choose to see an acting doctor. "Why didn't you tell me when I first came?" Maureen said aloud. The receptionist began to repeat the apology for the third time. "It's the new system," she said, and everyone had to go through it to get the results, "even the old pensioners." She asked Maureen if she would like to come back the next morning, and Maureen shook his head.If I go back, I don’t know if I can muster up the courage to come back again.

"Would you like a glass of water?" said the receptionist. "You're looking a little pale." "I'll just sit down," said Maureen. David was right when she said she was able to leave the house by herself, but he had no idea how much anxiety the journey was going to be.Not because she missed Harold, she told herself.But walking out in the world alone is a new challenge and scary.Wherever they go, people are doing the most mundane things: driving, pushing strollers, walking dogs, going home.It seems that life has not changed at all, but it has obviously changed.It's a new world, a world that isn't right.She buttoned it all the way to her neck and turned up her collar over her ears, but the air was still bitter, the sky was too open, and the colors around her were too intense.She rushed out of Forth Bridge Road before Rex saw her, and fled to the city center in one breath.The daffodils by the pier are withered and yellow, their petals are wrinkled, and even spring is coming to an end.

In the waiting room, she tried to read a magazine, but all she could read were isolated words, not connected into meaningful sentences.She noticed the couples around her age sitting together, in mutual company.Motes of dust in the air whirled and danced in the afternoon sun, as if someone were constantly stirring them with a spoon. A young man opened the door of the consulting room and called a name. Maureen continued to sit, wondering who hadn't responded for so long, and suddenly realized that the doctor called her name, and hurriedly stood up.The acting doctor seemed to have just graduated and couldn't even hold up to the dark suit.His shoes were polished, and suddenly she remembered David's school shoes, and she felt a pang in her heart.I really regret asking David for help, it would be nice to stay at home.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" The acting doctor bowed deeply, his voice was inaudible.A word slipped out of his opening and closing lips so silently that Maureen had to lean forward hard to hear it.Maybe he will arrange a hearing test for her later. Maureen begins explaining to him how her husband ran away from home for a woman he hadn't seen in twenty years and was convinced his actions could cure her of cancer.He has been gone for eleven days, said Maureen Xu, the handkerchief in her hand twisted into a knot. "It's impossible for him to walk to Berwick. There is no map, no suitable shoes, and no mobile phone." After telling the stranger everything in one breath, she couldn't help herself and almost cried.She summoned up the courage to take a sneak peek at the doctor. It was as if someone had just trampled on him, and the word Sichuan on his brow seemed to have been filled in with black pen.

He spoke slowly, as if looking for the right words: "Your husband thought he was saving an old colleague?" "Yes." "Cure her cancer?" "That's right." Maureen became impatient.What she wanted was not an explanation, but something he could understand right away.She wasn't here to defend Harold. "How does he think he can save her?" "He seems to think that he can save her by walking there." His face sank, and now there are a few deep lines on his chin: "He thought that walking for a while cure cancer?" "It was a girl who inspired him," she replied, "and she made him a hamburger at a gas station. Harold never ate hamburgers at home." "A girl The child told him that he could cure cancer?" If this continues, the poor boy's face will fall off.Maureen shook her head, trying to organize herself, feeling suddenly tired. "I'm worried about his health," she said. "Is he still in good health?"

"He's a bit short-sighted and has had fillings on both front teeth. But that's not what worries me." "He thinks he can cure cancer by walking? I don't understand. Is he religious?" "Him? He only calls God when he reverses and accidentally runs over the garden." She smiled, letting him know she was joking.The doctor looked even more confused. "Harold retired six months ago, and since then he's been very—" She paused, trying to find the right word, "—quiet," she said. "Quiet?" he repeated. "Sitting in the same chair every day. That's it, all day." The acting doctor's eyes lit up and he nodded childishly. "I see. Depression." He picked up the pen and pulled off the cap. "I don't think it's depression," she said, feeling her heart beat faster. "The thing is, he has Alzheimer's." Well, she said it.The acting doctor's mouth opened, and his jaw let out a panicked "click".He put the pen back on the table without its cap. "He has dementia and walks to Berwick?" "Yes."

"Mrs. Fry, what medicine is your husband currently taking?" There was a solemn silence, and Maureen shivered. "I'm talking about Alzheimer's," she said slowly. "It hasn't been diagnosed yet." The acting doctor relaxed again and almost smiled: "Are you trying to say that he is forgetful? A bit old? Forgetting his mobile phone doesn't mean He has dementia." Maureen nodded stiffly.It's hard to tell which made her more angry, the wink he gave her when he said "old," or the condescending smile he now had on his face. "He's in the family," she said. "I recognize the signs."

Then she gave a brief account of Harold's past: his father came back from the war, drunk and depressed; his parents didn't want children; his mother finally packed up and never came back; Together, let Harold leave the house on the day he turned sixteen; they hadn't contacted each other for many years. "Until one day, a woman suddenly called my husband and said it was his stepmother, telling him to take his father home quickly, because his father was crazy." "Is it Alzheimer's?" "I found him a nursing home, but he died before he was sixty. We visited him a few times, and his father was always yelling and throwing things around, and he didn't recognize him at all. Who Harold is. Now my husband is going in that direction. Not just forgetfulness, but other signs."

"Does he lose the right words when he speaks? Does he forget entire passages of conversation? Forgets things in strange places? Does he have emotional ups and downs?" "Yes, yes." She waved her hand impatiently. "That's it." The acting doctor bit his lower lip and said. Maureen smelled victory.She looked at him carefully and said, "I wonder--you, as a doctor--do you feel that Harold's doing this is a danger to himself, and could you stop him?" "Stop?" "Yes." Her voice tightened, "Can you force him to go home?" The blood vessels on her forehead throbbed violently, and it started to hurt, "He can't walk five hundred miles. He can't save Queenie Hennessy. He must be brought back."

Maureen's words fell silent.She clasped her hands on her knees and positioned her legs.What she wants to say here has already been said, but she hasn't got what she wants, so she needs to adjust her posture to control the turmoil in her heart. The acting doctor was stunned.She heard a baby crying outside and wished someone would pick him up.The doctor said: "It seems that we have a special case that requires police intervention. Has your husband been in a mental hospital?" Maureen rushed home from the doctor's office, sick with shame.An explanation of Harold's past and plans for the walk forced her to see it from Harold's perspective for the first time.The decision was crazy, out of character, but definitely not dementia.There's even a tinge of romance to it, if Harold is really acting desperately out of conviction.She told the acting doctor that she needed to think about it, maybe she was just worrying.Harold is only a little older, and he will be back soon.Maybe he's back already.In the end, she only asked the doctor to prescribe a few low-dose sleeping pills for herself. On the way to the pier, the truth hits like a light piercing the darkness.It wasn't David, or even sympathy, that had kept her and Harold together for so many years.She had endured all these years because no matter how lonely she had been with Harold, it would have been lonelier without him.Maureen bought a rib from the market and a cauliflower that was starting to turn yellow. "Is that all?" the girl at the cash register asked.Maureen was speechless. She turned into Forth Bridge Road, thinking of the silence that awaited her in the house.Those unpaid bills, aggressive bills, neatly stacked.Her body seemed to be getting heavier and heavier, and her steps were getting slower and slower. Back at the small garden gate, Rex was trimming the hedges with a hedge. "How is the patient?" he asked. "Is it better?" She nodded and went into the room.