‘What stuff?’
‘He’s going to come with me on my visits for some reason, the nutter.’
‘Well, W.R., you’re welcome to come withmeonmyvisits. In fact feel free to stick to me like a twelve-year-old girl to One Direction’s Facebook page.’
Katie rolled her eyes. ‘What do you want, Russ?’
Tearing his eyes away from Sam, Russell turned his best puppy-dog eyes on Katie. ‘I know you’re hung-over, and grieving, and have lush Rambos trailing your every move and stuff, but you know how sensitive my stomach is. Imighthave swapped visits with you.’ Katie looked over to the screen and sighed. Mrs Howell was a hoarder. A visit to her house would inevitably take longer than the chest infection Russell had nabbed in exchange. It took at least twenty minutes to even get in the door last time Katie was there.
‘I’m up to my eyes in tears and smears, Russell,’ Katie said, determined to be tough with him today. Being the only female GP meant the majority of her appointments were either tears (depression and all manner of other mental health problems) or smears (gynaecology related). The tears took longer for obvious reasons, and the smears took a while because there was a limit to how quickly you could crank open a foof and peer inside to sort the problem out.
‘Red Roaster for another week,’ Russell bargained, and Katie narrowed her eyes.
‘Two weeks – and I’ll know if you’ve just put instant in one of their takeaway cups.’
Russell sighed. ‘Fine. You do know that they have questionable tax practices,’ Russell told her.
‘You know perfectly well their tax practices are fine; it’s the big chains that are dodgy you lazy bastard.’
‘Some of us have morals.’
‘You have the morals of an alley cat, Russell – in fact no, that’s totally unfair to alley cats – you have the morals of a three-balled Russell Brand.’
Russell smirked. ‘I do, you know,’ he said to Sam, giving him a saucy wink.
*****
‘I’ll just pop and get something to jot this all down, dear,’ Gweneth said, patting Sam’s arm. Sam looked up at the ceiling and ran his hands over his face, growling under his breath. Katie let out a small giggle and he scowled at her. This was the third time he had explained the alarm system to everyone at the practice, and Katie thought steam would start coming out of his ears soon, he looked so close to the edge.
‘Youcan’twrite them down,’ he told Gweneth with extreme patience.
‘What? How will I remember them? I’ll need them written down to put little post-its with the codes on everyone’s computers as well.’
‘No writing them down, and for Christ’s sake no post-its! You’ve got tomemorisethem; that’s the point. Now, let’s go through it again.’ He launched into the fourth explanation, whilst Russell and Dafydd stared at him blankly and Gweneth and Marney’s faces glazed over completely. After a painful hour Katie was just about resigned to never being able to gain access to the surgery again. She decided that she could consult in the car park out the back of her Mini; anything rather than this endlessly painful process.
‘Right, okay, I guess that’s covered it,’ Sam said finally, but just as they were all starting to slope off he added, ‘Now, what about panic buttons?’
‘Panic buttons?’ Russell asked in confusion. ‘What’s that now?’
Sam sighed. ‘Buttons in your room, concealed. Ones that you press if you have a situation.’
‘What kind of situation?’ Katie asked, looking around at the dilapidated waiting room with just Mrs Jones sitting in the corner huddled over the last copy ofGood Housekeeping, as usual about two hours early for her appointment. ‘We’re hardly the Pentagon here.’
Sam’s mouth tightened. ‘No, whatyouare is a young woman who consults patients alone in an enclosed space. What happens if one of them becomes aggressive?’
‘Oh, oh, I know this one.’ Russell jumped up and down excitedly holding up his hand like he was at school and intent on becoming the teacher’s pet. ‘It’s that green button on the computer screen.’
‘So the computer has to be turned on?’ Sam asked.
‘Yes, and you have to log in to the patient system – then you’re good to go, panic away.’
‘Right, so if you don’t have the computer on, and you’re not logged into this system, and someone attacks you, you would just have to fire it all up whilst asking them to please wait whilst you just log in, yes?’
‘That’s about the size of it,’ Russell replied.
‘What actually happens when you do finally activate this alarm system?’
‘It sends a message to all the other computers,’ Gweneth told him. ‘We come running, see.’
