A Kind Man by Susan Hill Page A

and that almost every week, in a sudden death from heart failure, a suicide, a fit of madness, a series of infections that became progressively more serious until they overwhelmed their victim, who had been left with no more strength or inner resource to fight them and perhaps did not even wish to survive. Or there was this – the way Tommy Carr looked now.
    He asked questions first, sitting calmly with his notepad and pen, glancing at the man every so often to try to gauge his reactions, read his mind. Eating,drinking, sleeping. Tiredness. Pain. Discomfort. Aching. Head. Neck. Throat. Chest. Breathing. Stomach. Bowels. Bladder. Limbs. And then the feelings. Sadness. Grief. Melancholy. Pessimism. Fears. Nightmares. Hallucinations. Changes of mood.
    Tommy replied quietly, readily, and his face remained expressionless, until Jeannie Eliza was mentioned and then the physician saw the pain in his eyes, the stabbing of memory, the grief which was no age at all but fresh as yesterday.
    ‘If you would slip out of your things and lie on the couch, I’ll take a look at you, Tommy.’
    He left the swelling beneath the man’s jaw until last, concentrating on the emaciated body, feeling soft tissue and bone, pressing gently, his hands seeking out here and there, what he expected to find, and finding it.
    ‘Now then, this swelling here.’ He touched the lump with a forefinger, traced it lightly along. The skin was taut, the swelling firm.
    ‘You can get dressed now. Thank you.’
    Tommy had not spoken or made any movement other than to wince once or twice.
    ‘I think you must have had indigestion for a while, Tommy.’
    Tommy looked straight into the doctor’s eyes, each man reading the other clearly there.
    ‘Just a little while after eating.’
    ‘But now?’
    ‘Maybe a bit more … In the night I’ve felt it. I shouldn’t eat toasted cheese before I go up to bed.’
    Neither of them smiled.
    ‘Do you get much relief from it?’
    ‘I took bicarbonate of soda in milk a time or two, that helps a bit.’
    ‘Harsh on the stomach lining though it is.’
    Tommy did not answer and for a few moments the doctor looked at his notepad, pen in hand, working out what to say, how to say, whether to say. He set the pen down and leaned back, resting the tips of his fingers together. Watching him, Tommy remembered how he had been with the child, his tenderness and the way he had stood silently looking down at her, looking for some hope and finding none.
    ‘I’m going to give you a mixture to settle your stomach and a bottle of tablets to help with your sleeping. And something for any pain you may have.’
    ‘Will the swelling go down here?’ Tommy touched his face.
    ‘Give it a while. Give it time.’ Dr McElvey got up and went over to the far corner by the window where the shelves and cupboards held the pharmacy, and washed his hands in the basin.
    ‘I don’t have a lot of difficulty in sleeping,’ Tommysaid, ‘so maybe just the medicine to settle my stomach? If I wake, I can make a cup of tea, you know.’
    What he was saying, as the doctor knew, was that every bottle and pot and box full of this or that added to the cost.
    ‘I won’t give you many,’ he said. ‘You may find you’re glad of them.’
    When he handed the medicines over he said, ‘If things worsen, we may have to get you looked at in hospital, Tommy. They’ve more tricks up their sleeve than I have.’
    ‘I’ll be right as rain.’
    ‘And if you need me …’
    The waiting room was packed now, with half a dozen men standing and more coming through the door. He slipped out without catching anyone’s eye, the medicines in his jacket pocket.
    Dr McElvey did not call the next patient at once, though he had seen the rows there were, patiently waiting. He stood looking through the net curtain of the surgery window onto the street and at Tommy Carr walking down it, shoulders hunched.
    How long would it be? A month or less? The cancer was a great mass inside