Jay, Lizzie and the Tale of the Stairs

  Chapter 7

  Dr Meen

  Dad was sat in the kitchen with a mug of tea when I came in through the door.

  “Don’t take your coat off, Jay!” he told me, getting up from the table and finishing his tea at the same time.

  “Why?”

  “I’ve made an appointment with the doctor.” Then he was coming down the hall towards me. “And it’s at four so we’ve got ten to get there.”

  I was not happy. I hate doctors and dentists. In fact everyone I know hates doctors and dentists. But me and Dad have more reason than most to not like our doctor.

  I think that it’s at this point that I should explain why me and Dad live on our own without my Mum.

  Well, my Mum has bowel cancer…and it’s terminal. To be honest she hasn’t long to live and at the moment she is lying asleep in a special part of St Mary’s hospital. And I know it’s not easy for Dad going to see Dr Meen. You see, the chairs in his surgery are probably the very chairs that Mum and Dad sat in through all the tests, the results, the chemo and, well…we just refer to the moment when the really bad news was broken to Mum and Dad as ‘that day.’ So there’s a lot of history there. Between the four walls of Dr Meen’s surgery, the idle bits of furniture, and between us four human beings.

  As you can tell I was expecting to just put my feet up and watch TV and have a bit of tea. But this really made my day.

  “Dad, do I have to?” I whined. “I feel fine.”

  Dad looked long and hard at me while he fetched his car keys down from a little hook which read ‘keys.’

  “Trust me, Jay.”

  I didn’t bother to continue protesting. I simply didn’t stand a chance.

  The traffic was unusually light for the time of day, although it was still stop-start, stop-start. We made our slow way through the traffic lights and down the high street. Once Dad had to break sharply as a black cat ran across the road in front of us. Good or bad luck? Everybody seems to argue about this and our history teacher, Mr Butler, says it’s definitely good luck.

  I hope so.

  So, we get to our doctor’s waiting room and, as usual, we have to wait with a bunch of complete strangers. I hate having to do this. It’s the same when we go to the dentist’s. People will make sure they sit as far away from the next person as they can. Then they idly pick up a magazine or newspaper so they don’t have to make eye contact or conversation with anybody. It really is awkward. At least today they had tuned into a local radio station, the music and pretend-happy voice of the DJ coming out at us from the tiny speakers, one in each corner of the waiting room. The music was crap but it gave us all something to focus on. Still, I squirmed for about fifteen minutes before our name was called. I skittered out quickly and well in front of Dad who loitered a bit just to say thank you to the pretty receptionist at the front desk.

  Dr Meen has been our doctor forever. Apparently he was present when Mum gave birth to me. I’m really not sure why, it hasn’t been explained to me, but he was and every time we come here, Mum or Dad (depending on who’s taking me) will say ‘he was in the ward when you were born you know’ as if that makes him special in some way.

  On first impressions Dr Meen seems anything but mean. He’s pretty old (50ish or something? But then I’m a teenager so anyone over 20 is old). But on the other hand he’s pretty stylish. I mean, for an oldie. He wears suits made out of that old type of fabric. Tweed or something. He’s long and thin so he fits into them quite nicely, his face is brown with plenty of wrinkles and he has a shock of white hair which makes him look a bit unusual. Distinguished Mum calls him.

  Doctor Meen smiled as we entered and he always remembers my name.

  “Hello, Jay,” he said. “And good afternoon, Mr Webber.”

  Hello doctor,” Dad replied respectfully. He had been here often enough to know to sit in the chairs opposite Dr Meen without being asked.

  His hands were clasped comfortably in his lap and he was sat behind his desk which was neat and tidy. On this desk was a photograph of himself wearing an long coat and an old hat. He was smiling crookedly with his arm around a woman that must have been his wife. A girl and boy also smiled out of the photo and into the room. His kids? Who knows.

  Then I noticed the old fashioned hat and coat dangling from an old fashioned hat stand behind him. It was the same ones as in the photograph.

  Dr Meen leaned forward and looked at me closely. ‘And how are you then, Jay?”

  “I’m OK,” I answered sheepishly.

  “Do you know,” Dr Meen said in his easy, school-masterly way,” do you know that I saw you being born?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, I must confess, you’ve turned into a good looking lad.”

  This embarrassed me and I looked down as the doctor turned his attention to Dad.

  “Well, what seems to be the trouble?”

  It suddenly occurred to me that Dad was to going have to explain what he thought was wrong to Dr Meen without looking like an idiot. I was interested in how he was going to phrase it. Would the word ‘mad’ pop up at anytime? Or wacky? Or ‘crazy’?

  Dad, as always, surprised me.

  “I think Jay is suffering from some form of anxiety disorder from Grace’s hospitalisation, doctor.” Dad said this as if he’d just come off the ward. “I think this might be showing itself through sleepless nights and bad dreams.”

  I looked up and at Dad. Was slightly startled by his tone.

  “Really?” cooed the doctor. “Jay, could you tell me about these dreams?”

  Dr Meen had picked up a pen and was now taking notes on a pad in front of him. He scribbled aimlessly for a bit but then stopped. He was obviously waiting for me to speak. I felt a bit silly and was troubled at where to start. The doctor looked at me over the rim of his glasses.

  “Jay?”

  I sighed. I might as well tell him the truth. I’d been wanting to tell someone and I’d nothing to lose.

  “Well, I normally go to bed about ten…”

  “Nine, Jay,” Dad interrupted, embarrassed.

  “No it’s definitely ten, Dad,” I said, because it was.

  Dad shook his head. “It’s nearer nine doctor.”

  “Ten, Dad.”

  The doctor waved his pen at the pair of us. “Carry on, Jay, if you will.”

  “I normally go to bed around…“ I paused and looked at Dad, “…nine thirty, and things used to be fine up until about a month ago. Then one night, about a month ago, I think I had a dream. I dreamt that I was sat in what looked like a front room. It was an old fashioned front room with an old settee, fireplace and ornaments. It felt like I was sat on the floor in a corner because everything was higher than me. Then suddenly a man appeared in an old jumper and suit.”

  The doctor seemed interested at this. He looked up from his notepad.

  “And what did this man look like?”

  Even though I had had the dream more than once I thought long and hard but couldn’t picture his face.

  “I can’t remember. But then he doesn’t seem to notice that I’m there and he doesn’t even look at me.”

  “So do you just sit in the corner and watch?”

  "Yes."

  The doctor scribbled down some notes. "Is this dream recurring, Jay?” the doctor asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, have you had it more than once.”

  “Yes. I’ve had the dream quite a few times.”

  “How many would you say?”

  I thought about this. “About seven or eight.”

  The doctor wrote this down and it seemed interesting to him as he repeated ‘seven or eight times’ to himself as he wrote. After a while the doctor asked me if anything happened in the dream.

  “No.” I answered confidently. “I just watch this man potter around and walk out of the room again.”

  “Does he at any time acknowledge that you are there?”

  “No.”

  “Mmm
. Is there anything else?”

  “Yes. The voices.”

  “The voices, eh,” the doctor echoed. “Interesting. And what do the voices say, Jay?”

  “They don’t seem to be connected to the dream in any way. I mean, I seem to hear them in my sleep and when I’m awake.”

  “And just what do the voices say?”

  “Well, I can’t quite tell. There’s a lot of whispering and moving about and some distant shouting that sometimes seems quite close. But no. I can’t make out anything.”

  “You did say,” Dad interrupted, “that you did hear something.”

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  “And what was that?” asked the doctor. His pen was poised.

  “Help me.”

  “Interesting,” the Doctor said again. “And your Dad says that you think the voices come from…”

  “…under my bed.”

  Both Dad and Dr Meen looked hard at me and I flushed with embarrassment. After a while Dr Meen cleared his throat and asked me if there was anything else I’d like to tell him.

  I thought about Elizabeth Raynor with an ‘O’ and then thought better of it. They’d lock me up and throw the key into the deepest part of the nearest river. So I kept quiet and stared at the photograph on the doctor’s table and smiled at the old hat and coat. There was silence as Dr Meen thought about what I’d said. After a short while he laid his pen and notepad carefully on the table in front of him. He brought his hands together just below his chin and made a pyramid with his index fingers. For the first time I saw how long his fingers were. They reminded me of the legs of the big crabs you get in aquariums. The orange ones that you eat.

  “You see, generally we do not expect symptoms like yours purely because of family matters. Voices in the night are out of my jurisdiction.” He picked his pen up and wrote on his pad from long range. “What I shall do however is recommend that you come and see me in, say, two or three weeks’ time.” Then he looked up with eyes suddenly dark and unblinking.

  Without thinking I looked away.

  He laid his pen down and leaned back in his chair. “Yes, Mr Webber. We’re going to have to keep a close eye on you.”

  When we left Dr Meen’s surgery Dad bought us both fish and chips from The Happy Friar with a tub of curry sauce for us to share. We took them home and had them on our laps whilst watching TV. I couldn’t be bothered to face the Science homework that I had. So when Dad asked me if I had any I lied and said that I hadn’t. I was happy watching TV with Dad.

  The dream and the noises and the voices were not mentioned once.

  I was glad.

  I went to bed dead on ten (I pointed this out to Dad) and read a comic for a bit. Dad came up at about ten thirty and told me that he was going to bed and that I should be asleep. So I switched my bedside light out with a loud click, turned over so I was facing the wall and covered my head with the duvet. In the darkness my mind wandered and I pictured the strange Dr Meen and the photograph on his desk.

  In the distance a crackle. A snap. Very faintly the smell of burning. It smelt like tarmac being laid.

  I sat up and turned my lamp back on.

  Nothing.

  Even the smell of burning had gone.