It was curiosity made me return to the building. I found it hard to credit what I’d seen and wanted to nose around a bit more. I settled Agnes in the car and then claimed to have left my gloves in the waiting room. The lobby was deserted – we must have been the last appointment.
The words from the consulting room were a little muffled behind the closed door, but I could make out most of what Goulden said, particularly at such a loud volume. ‘I do not see friends and relatives. I’m a doctor, not a bloody support group. I see patients. You make appointments for patients.’ He was furious, spitting out the words, ladling on scorn and derision. ‘Next time you decide to offer appointments to Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all just use your bloody brains, woman.’
I heard a murmur in reply.
‘Tell them you only make appointments for registered patients. Show some initiative, for Christ’s sake. Anything else, you check with me first. Got it?’
Another murmur.
‘I’ve enough to do without being at the beck and call of every silly old bat who gets a bee in her bonnet. They read an article in some half-cocked magazine and next minute they’re God’s gift to medicine. Check next time and if they’re not patients…’
I left. I’d heard enough and I didn’t want the receptionist to know I’d witnessed her humiliation.
In the car Agnes was deflated. Goulden’s certainty about Lily’s illness had put paid to any hope she might have had about misdiagnosis. And he had given us the information we asked for even though we’d had to lean on him to get it. But she hadn’t seen what I had, nor heard him just now.
‘I think he’s hiding something,’ I said, ‘he hated having to see us, he didn’t want to talk to us about Lily.’
I described to Agnes the expression I’d seen on Goulden’s face as I was leaving and the way he’d bawled out his receptionist.
‘He was beside himself,’ I said. ‘That makes me wonder, why did our visit upset him to such a degree?’
‘Perhaps he’s just a very angry man. Choleric they used to call it.’
‘I don’t like him,’ I said, ‘and I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can spit.’
Dr Chattaway used an end terraced house for his surgery. Plastic chairs were arranged around the walls of the room. On a table in the centre were copies of People’s Friend, National Geographic and Woman’s Own. The waiting room was full. No intercom here. The doctor stuck his head round the door every few minutes and asked for the next patient. People shuffled along each time.
Gradually we moved around the room and finally we reached the inner sanctum. Dr Chattaway motioned to chairs and settled behind his highly polished desk. It was huge; they probably had to dismantle it to get it through the doorway. On the wall were framed diplomas and a photograph of Dr Chattaway in cap and gown.