The only way I could get warm was to run a hot bath and lay there till the steam cleared. There was a hot, prickly feeling in the back of my throat. I made some tea with honey and lemon and sipped it while reading in bed. I woke deep in the night, shivering with cold, no covers on me at all. Maddie had crept in with me and snaffled them all. I was too tired to try moving her so I redistributed the duvet, rearranged her elbows and sank back to sleep.
Maddie woke at half-past six as usual, waking me too. My tongue had dried out and swollen up like a huge prune. I gulped down some water, provided Maddie with cereal, milk and television and crawled back to bed. I woke again to Ray calling me. It was time to get them ready for school. He was back on the conversion job so I couldn’t ask him to do it. My cold had come on with a vengeance, everything felt muffled, my head was swimming and the walk to school was exhausting.
I didn’t feel up to much but nevertheless set off for the library. In the research section I flipped through back copies of the Lancet till I found two articles by Matthew Simcock. One was about current developments in the understanding of Alzheimer’s, known and suspected changes in the physical tissues of the brain. The other article was a plea for more funding for research into biogenetics and neurology. I didn’t understand much of either, they certainly weren’t written for the layperson.
On the way to the office I mused over the connection between the doctors: Goulden the GP, Montgomery the psycho geriatrician and Matthew Simcock the neurosurgeon. Goulden and Montgomery dealt with Lily because they specialised in geriatric care. Simcock was only brought in when it seemed that surgery might help, although from the articles he certainly had an interest in senile dementia for which there was no effective treatment, surgical or otherwise.
I rooted around for any other connections – they all worked in Manchester? My brain was too soggy to concentrate. I switched track. Suppose Dr Goulden was referring an unusually high number of patients through to Kingsfield – to what possible advantage? Would he or the consultant get some sort of piece-work bonus? It couldn’t work like that because the number of beds at the Marion Unit was limited and in great demand. Montgomery would hardly thank him for increasing the pressure on resources. It couldn’t be anything to do with legacies and inheritance either. Wills had to be drawn up while people were ‘of sound mind’, not altered while under the care of a psychiatrist. I finally admitted to myself that I couldn’t think of a single dodgy reason why Goulden might be sending people on to Kingsfield.