The Good Doctor by Paul Butler Page B

The sound of footsteps—feminine, he thinks, and alone, and the soft rustle of a skirt—come closer. A hand touches his elbow, and then she speaks.
    â€œWilly?” the voice is edged with hesitation.
    The black-eyed pigeon holds his gaze for a moment. He turns.
    Her hand now hovers in the air between them. Her mouth is open, trying to form words.
    â€œHello, Nurse Mills,” he says. He doesn’t mean to feign surprise, but this is what his vocal chords contrive.
    â€œYou,” she says, lips twitching into an uncertain smile, “. . . again?” The smile disappears into unnatural paleness. Hazel eyes narrow.
    No point delaying. No point bluffing. He takes a backwards step. “Yes, Nurse Mills. Me again.”
    â€œHow?” she says. With a two-way flick of the head, she searches the walls around them. For once, the place is empty. “Why are you here?” She pulls her bag close, perhaps wondering if he somehow filched Grenfell’s missive.
    â€œI wrote the letter,” he says. There was more composure than he expected to hear in his voice, perhaps even a hint of pride.
    Nurse Mills’s lips stretch pale over her teeth, and star clusters form in her eyes. Her face seems to hold all the ingredients of a smile, but they are misarranged. She inches backwards without stepping.
    â€œLet me explain,” he says.
    â€œExplain?” the word on her lips has a lost quality, quite beyond mocking or anger.
    â€œI had to meet you.”
    As an opening line of an explanation, he thinks, this isn’t too bad. He will remember this part later, how the words are carried along on the surface of the rushing in his ears, how they promise, somewhat improbably, an accounting that might make some sense. And for a moment, at least, she seems ready to take it in, her head tilting, her eyes narrowing in attempted understanding. The only trouble, and he knows this immediately, is that this is really all the explanation he can offer. His sole excuse—that burning within him is a love too fierce to be contained within the bounds of propriety or decent behaviour—is unsayable. The setting is too prosaic, the light too unforgiving, and in any case such sentiments cannot be expressed while the object of that love will likely be cowering soon in obvious horror.
    His whole plan, he realizes, missed one vital point: reciprocation is everything. Mutual love forgives any misdemeanour, any lapse of taste, any ploy. But the plan he has constructed works backwards from an assumption. It presumes a fact he knows to be untrue: that she loves him, also.
    Now as he watches her back away from him, pink blotches of outrage appearing on her face, he wonders how he will ever re-enter the clinic, how he will work alongside Nurse Mills, whether, in fact, she will tell Dr. Bleaker, producing the letter as evidence, perhaps, whether—horror of all horrors—she will tell Grenfell.
    â€œYou spied on us,” she whispers.
    He glances at the wall he hid behind last night, not in admission, but looking for some other explanation: I was on the spot anyway and accidentally overheard your conversation; Grenfell himself told me all about your evening together and is in on the joke.
    But he becomes aware he is gulping huge breaths, his lungs stretching almost to capacity. “Not exactly,” he says, ducking his head. He raises a hand and scratches his temple.
    Looking up, he catches the filmy eyes of a bewigged and robed lawyer prancing along with a ribbon-tied brief. His stare has the kind of insolent penetration which doesn’t seek to hide interest. But when staring would require him to slow his pace or turn his head, he gazes beyond them both and clops off towards Lincoln’s Inn Fields. How sordid yet insignificant the young doctor’s crime seems now.
    â€œDo you want me to call a policeman?” she says, gazing after the lawyer.
    â€œI haven’t broken the law.”
    This