“Colin?”
The voice came from behind the reception desk. Colin turned his head and there was Molly, who’d been on the front desk at this clinic for as long as Colin had been coming to it, her glasses on a beaded chain round her neck and her cardigan the same washed-out lavender it had been the last time he’d seen her.
“Come round, my love. Come round here.”
She’d already lifted the flap of the counter. Stephen steered Colin through, and Molly was waiting on the other side with her hand out, brisk and unflustered.
“Through here, the both of you. We’ll get you sat down somewhere quiet and I’ll fetch Dr Fuller.”
She took them down the short corridor behind the desk and opened the door to the staffroom. Inside there was a kettle, a row of mugs on a tray, a battered two-seater sofa pushed against one wall, and a window propped open onto the back alley where someone’s wheelie bins were lined up against the brick.
“Sit yourself down, Colin love. I’ll bring you a glass of water.”
The door clicked shut behind her.
Colin sat down on the sofa, and Stephen settled beside him close enough that their thighs touched. Colin let his head fall back against the cool wall, closed his eyes, and breathed.
Dr Fuller came to them. That on its own told Colin more than he wanted to know. Clearly Molly’s description of his state had alarmed her enough to bump Colin up the list. She was a brisk woman in her fifties with grey-blonde hair pulled back into a clip, and she had been Colin’s GP at this clinic for the better part of a decade.
She didn’t, as a rule, leave her examination room. Patients went toher. Today she came down the corridor with a nurse at her elbow and a small kit bag in one hand. Colin tracked her arrival with his eyes shut and his head against the wall.
She came through the door, and her nostrils flared and her mouth set into a thin line. “Right,” she said. “Let’s have a look at you, Colin.”
She crossed to the sofa and crouched in front of him, and laid the back of her hand against his forehead. Her palm was cool against his skin, and Colin made a small noise in the back of his throat at the relief it brought him. She didn’t comment. Sheturned her head a fraction towards the nurse and spoke in a low even tone Colin couldn’t make out.
The nurse went out of the room.
“Colin.” Dr Fuller’s hand came away from his forehead and settled on his wrist, two fingers at his pulse. “When did this start?”
“Last night.”
“What time, do you think?”
“Couldn’t say. Late. Eleven, maybe later.”
“And how were you feeling last night? Talk me through it.”
Colin opened his eyes and tried not to lean into his son any further than he already was. He’d ended up curled on his side along the length of the sofa, his cheek against Stephen’s shoulder, his knees drawn up. He didn’t remember moving at all.
“I felt warm,” Colin said. “I couldn’t sleep, and I thought it was a problem with the radiator.”
“Were you producing slick?”
He swallowed. “A bit. Nothing like today, though.”
“Any cramping?”
“Yes. They’re really bad.”
“How far off are you from your next heat?”
“Four weeks. I keep a calendar.”
Dr Fuller’s mouth tightened. She let go of his wrist and took her stethoscope out of her bag. Stephen shifted beside Colin to give her room. Her hand came up to the side of his neck, placed two fingers there, then she had the cold disc of the stethoscope under the collar of his vest as she listened to his heartbeat.
“Daddy’s all right, isn’t he?” Stephen asked quietly, over the top of Colin’s head.
“He’s going to be,” Dr Fuller said. She straightened, and looked at Colin. “You’ve gone over. You’re in heat now. You wentfrom nothing to full heat in under twelve hours, and that’s not something we’re going to be able to manage out of a staffroom.”
