N - Services to the Community
By sirat
- 919 reads
"Didn't work out for you in Dublin, then?"
She winced at the old man's negativity. "Dublin was fine, Mr. Singer.
Great. But I was there to train. To get my degree. I wasn't there to
work. You don't just walk straight into a job on a national daily..."
As you know better than I do, she almost added, but stopped herself in
time.
"Damn right you don't. Thirty-eight years I've been in this profession,
come April, and I'm still on the same paper I started on, even if I am
the editor. So you'd like to come and slum it for a while, back in your
old home town. Use The Eagle as a stepping stone to
greater things."
"I didn't say that, Mr. Singer. I don't know where I'll be in the
future. I just know that I need a job in the industry right now."
He stopped fidgeting with the microphone of his ancient dictating
machine and looked her straight in the eye. "You seem like a sensible
enough girl. And young people aren't exactly queuing up to work on
The Eagle."
"You'll give me a job then, Sir?"
"I'll give you a chance. I'll take you on for one week, let you try one
assignment. That was the way I started myself on The
Eagle. The way we all started. When I see what you can do,
then we'll have a serious talk. I'll pay you for the week, win or lose,
so to speak. Does that sound fair?" She nodded her approval. "You see,
Evi, working on a paper like this, it isn't a degree in Media Studies
that you need. It's other things. If I was to ask you what those other
things might be, what would you say?"
She thought for a moment. "I would say that what you need most of all
is to know who you're writing for. What their interests and concerns
are."
"Damn good answer, Evi! Took me a long time to learn that. You might
have a future in this profession after all."
He rifled through the papers on his desk and fished out a large brown
envelope with the name "Dr. Liam Merryfield" scribbled on the front.
"Do you know Dr. Merryfield?" he asked as he handed it to her.
"Oh yes. He was our family doctor all my life. I think he delivered
me."
"Well, old Merryfield is retiring at the end of next week. There's
going to be a ceremony at the Town Hall, the Mayor is going to present
him with something or other. Now Merryfield is exactly what you said,
he's a local personality, somebody people know and care about. I want
to run a special feature on him to mark his retirement. I don't just
want a CV, where he qualified and what year he got married and all
that. I've got that already, it's in the envelope. I want to know who
Liam Merryfield really is. Do you know what I'm talking about?"
"Yes, Sir. I think so."
"All right. Prove it. You've got twenty column inches. That's just
under twelve hundred words. I want it on my desk by eleven AM this day
week. Think you can do it?"
"I know I can do it."
"Okay. There's just one other thing. I don't want Merryfield to know
this is coming out. I want it to be a surprise. So if you talk to him,
don't let him know what you're up to."
ooOoo
At the newsagent's shop across the road from her mother's house, Evi
bought a school exercise book. She chose one that fitted comfortably
inside the brown envelope. On its cover she wrote the words: "Dr. Liam
Merryfield" and underneath, on impulse "Services to the Community".
That would keep her mind on the theme she wanted for her article. She
drove her ageing blue Fiesta the few hundred yards that she would
normally have walked to the other side of the town square and parked
across the road from the front entrance to Dr. Merryfield's surgery.
She felt a little thrill of excitement as she pulled on the handbrake.
She was a reporter, and she was working under cover. It was what she
had always dreamed about. Maybe this wasn't the most glamorous
assignment she could have imagined for herself but it was a
beginning.
She watched his surgery door silently for a few minutes. It was a
rented business premises, she knew. Dr. Merryfield's private residence
was many miles beyond the town boundary, among pleasant meadows on the
fringe of the National Park. But today he was at work, as the half open
doorway announced, and the somewhat dusty black Mercedes parked nearby
confirmed.
She watched as a young woman with a baby in a pushchair arrived and
vanished through the doorway. Evi had already thought of a good excuse
to see him. The doctor at the Student Medical Centre in Dublin had put
her on the birth control pill and now that she was home she would need
a prescription from her own doctor to continue with it. The Pill was
still a sensitive issue in Ireland and Dr. Merryfield's attitude to
such a request could be quite revealing.
ooOoo
Merryfield was still writing up the notes for the previous patient as
she entered his dark little office and sat down. He bundled the sheets
back into their manila envelope and smiled up at her with obvious
pleasure, fixing her with a keen eye-contact that was almost
embarrassing . "Hello Evi. You haven't been to see me for a long time.
Are you back with us for good?" Enthusiastic though the greeting was
she could sense beneath his smile an underlying strain. She hadn't seen
him for a long time, he looked older than she had expected, but there
was a reassuring quality about his face that she remembered from her
early childhood.
"Well, yes. For the time being. I've got a job on The
Eagle. Or I might have"
"Working for Tom Singer? I don't envy you that. What can I do for you
then?"
She felt guilty as she explained to him about the University doctor and
the prescription for the Pill. It wasn't embarrassment about the topic
of birth control, but about the mild deception she was perpetrating.
Merryfield just nodded as she finished her speech and asked her to roll
up her left sleeve. "The contraceptive pill isn't recommended if you
have raised blood pressure," he explained pleasantly. He held her wrist
almost tenderly, she thought, as he operated his old-fashioned
measuring instrument.
So that was it. No moral lecture. No questions about did she or didn't
she have a boyfriend. He gave her the prescription without demur and
said that he hoped her mother and family were all well. She left
feeling something of a fraud, but warmly disposed towards the subject
of her investigations. As she passed the receptionist's desk she noted
the surgery closing time: six o'clock.
Sitting in the car she took out the exercise book and wrote: "Dr.
Merryfield enjoys the confidence of his younger patients thanks to his
tolerant and non-judgmental approach to the diversity of present-day
lifestyles." If it turned out to be wrong she could always change it
later.
To kill the time until six o'clock Evi went back to the offices of
The Eagle, and, feeling every inch the professional,
started going through the archives to see what the paper had said about
Merryfield in the past. Mr. Singer emerged from his office once during
the afternoon, glanced at what she was doing and nodded his approval.
Time dragged. There was nothing of any significance in the archives as
far as she could tell. She made a few notes: he played golf in his
spare time, he went to the Mullingar races. His wife had left him many
years ago, his family was grown-up. There didn't seem to be a woman in
his life, although he had been pictured with someone at a charity
dinner. Evi took a note of her name. It was almost three years ago, if
there had ever been a relationship it might well be over, but at least
it was something. It hinted at the notion that the man was three
dimensional, that he had some kind of existence beyond the doors of his
surgery.
It was to these doors that Evi returned just before six o'clock,
parking in the same spot to watch him leave carrying a small
traditional black medical bag. He seemed to be deep in thought as he
made his way to the dusty old Mercedes. Although he glanced once in her
direction she was fairly sure he hadn't suspected anything. She waited
for his car to move off and followed at a discreet distance.
Dr. Merryfield drove slowly and soberly to his impressive country home
and parked in the spacious driveway. Evi knew that she needed to be
careful if she wanted to avoid arousing suspicion so she continued past
the house and parked around the next corner, returning quickly on foot
to a vantage point in the darkness of the tall hedge that lined the
road opposite his gates. The daylight had almost faded and the chances
that he would notice her slight figure in the shadows seemed remote.
She had no difficulty seeing where he was because all the front
curtains were open and the lights were on. He had gone to in an upper
room which looked like an office or den of some kind, and she saw him
lift an object on to a small table and sit motionless for a long time,
staring at it. She wasn't certain, but it seemed to be the medical bag.
After what felt like an age he got up, turned and pulled the curtains.
As he did this he seemed to look straight in her direction and she
feared that he might have seen her, then the curtains were across and
the instant had passed.
ooOoo
"Poor old Merryfield," Aiden joked on the slightly fractured cellphone
link from Dublin, "can't even sit down and rest after a hard day's work
without a prowler doing the peeping tom bit."
"No, honestly, Aiden, this was nothing normal. You don't just sit in a
chair and stare at a bag for hours on end. It was totally creepy."
"How do you know he was staring at the bag? How do you know he was on
his own? He might have been having a conversation with a visitor. He
might have been playing chess. He might be a classical music buff,
listening to a symphony on the hi-fi. You've no idea what was going on.
You just saw a man sitting on a chair. Big deal."
"I thought you would be interested, Aiden. I thought you would be
supportive. I thought you would be a bit more help than this."
"Aw, come on sweetheart! Don't be mad at me. I'm just trying to bring
you back to earth. You've got your first assignment and you want drama.
The job isn't like that. There isn't any drama. It's hard slog, talking
to people, finding things out. Little by little, inch by inch. Building
up the story, one brick at a time. You're doing fine. Talk to the
people who know him next. What about his ex-wife? His receptionist
maybe? The woman at the charity dinner? The guys at the golf club?
You're only beginning, Evi. You haven't got anything yet. Don't kid
yourself. Okay?"
She sighed. "Okay Aiden. When are you coming down then?"
"That's more like my Evi. Not this weekend but maybe next. Best I can
do."
"We can go to this retirement ceremony together then."
"You're obsessed, you know that? Great to be young and keen. You'll go
far."
ooOoo
Evi slipped in quietly by the front door and found her Mum sitting
alone in the lounge, her head bowed in a reflective reverie that seemed
an eerie echo of Dr. Merryfield's motionless pose of the night before.
"Are you okay, Mum?" she asked anxiously.
"Of course I am, dear, I was just having a little rest... and
thinking." She smiled self-consciously, as though to set her daughter's
mind at rest.
"Do you do that often? I mean, just sit on your own and think?"
"What a strange question..."
"It's just that I saw Merryfield do that. Just sit and sit... and it
reminded me of Dad... before the end..."
"Goodness, what morbid thoughts you have Evi. I was just resting, I'd
been doing a bit of ironing in the kitchen. What made you think of your
father?"
"It's this assignment. Dr. Merryfield. I have a bad feeling about him.
I can't get it out of my head."
"Because you saw him sitting down and thinking? Goodness dear, he's
just coming up to retirement. He's probably in that frame of mind where
you sit down and look back at your life and wonder... where all the
years went, and why you let so many opportunities slip by. You wouldn't
understand, Evi. You aren't old enough."
She felt foolish and smiled. "Yes, I suppose so. There isn't anything
you can tell me about him, is there?"
She considered the question. "We've never been personal friends. Didn't
move in the same circles. But any time I had any dealings with him he
was very pleasant and kind. He went out of his way to see that I was
alright when your father... died."
Evi nodded. "That's what everybody says about him. That he's very kind
and pleasant."
"Then maybe it's true. There was just one little thing..."
"Yes, Mum?"
"Well, this is probably me being foolish, but once or twice, I thought
he... well, that he didn't quite keep his professional distance like
you would expect him to. No, forget that, it's just my
imagination."
Evi smiled. "Come on Mum. I'm a newshound now. I need every little
thing you can tell me."
"Oh, it's silly, but when I was going through all that awful stuff with
your father, he sort of comforted me a few times. Held my hand. Patted
me on the back. It was probably what I needed but it felt... a little
bit odd, somehow..."
"I think he's a bit clumsy socially. That was what the woman at the
charity dinner said. She only went out with him once and she felt
awkward all evening. The men at the golf club didn't have much to say
either. His receptionist was even worse, she wouldn't say anything, as
if she was being protective or something. Everybody speaks quite highly
of him but nobody seems to know him any better than you do."
"He's probably just a quiet man who keeps himself to himself. Not
everyone wants to surround themselves with other people and socialise.
Some people like their own company. There probably isn't very much to
say about him. That's going to make your job very hard, isn't it?"
Evi shook her head. "I don't believe that anybody is that simple and
straightforward. I certainly don't believe that he
is. I'll get there. I'll find out who he really is."
"I'm sure you will, dear. Poor Dr. Merryfield!"
ooOoo
"Aiden? Good news, I think. We might be able to get together this
weekend after all. I have to go up to Dublin today. I'm just getting a
few things packed in a bag right now."
"How come?"
"Merryfield's ex-wife lives there, and she's agreed to see me."
"Still on the Merryfield thing then. Have you got anything worth
printing yet?"
"Not really, but his wife should be a good contact. My mum agrees with
you about that sitting and staring business. Says I'm daft."
"A very intelligent woman."
ooOoo
Mrs. Brewster, formerly Mrs. Merryfield, sipped her lemon tea at the
dimly lit corner table of Bewleys Cafe in Grafton Street and smiled
pleasantly at Evi. "You want to know what he was like?" She seemed
amused by the question.
"If you don't mind me being... inquisitive," Evi urged.
"Och, I don't mind at all. He was a quiet, hidden sort of man. Very
bound up in his job, and very good at it I think. You never really knew
what was going on with him when he was away from the house. He loved
his work. It seemed to be all that he thought about... He was okay as a
father... a bit distant... I don't know what to tell you about him
really."
"Would you say, he was more involved with his patients than with his
home life?"
"Involved with his patients? There's two ways you could take that,
isn't there?"
Evi could see that she had struck a nerve. Instinctively she said
nothing but waited for the woman to go on.
"There's something I could tell you woman to woman," she said quietly,
"but you would have to promise not to print it."
"On my word of honour."
"It's just that... he used to have fantasies... about women. Nothing
nasty or anything, but he used to get obsessed with a woman every now
and again... the woman who served him in the Post Office maybe, or
somebody he saw on TV, or even a patient. That was really the thing I
couldn't stand about him. He would sing the praises of other women to
me, as if I should be interested, or pleased even. It was all inside
his head, nothing ever came of it, but I had to put up with it, pretend
I didn't mind... I felt... degraded by it. It was unnatural. Beyond the
pale. A kind of teenage infatuation thing that he used to go through...
but it didn't get better as he got older. It got much worse. There.
I've told you now. I didn't think I would, but it's good to tell
someone. I've never told a soul, and my own family used to try to blame
me and make me feel guilty for leaving him. As if I was walking out on
some kind of plaster saint. Liam Merryfield was no saint. Not inside
his head he wasn't."
"We couldn't print something like that anyway," Evi said quietly, "but
it was kind of you to tell me. I feel I know him a lot better now. I'm
only doing a light piece. A kind of tribute on his retirement."
"Retirement?"
"Yes. Didn't you know he was retiring?"
"Why would he do that?"
"Why would he do it? Sorry, I don't follow you. Isn't he retirement
age?"
"Well, no... not for two or three years, I think."
Evi stared. "Are you sure about that?"
"Well, I was married to him for fifteen years. I do know his date of
birth!"
ooOoo
"Aiden? It's me. Listen, I think I may be on to something at last. Why
would a doctor retire three years before he had to? One that loved his
job?"
"Is this a trick question? Well... maybe because his own health was
breaking down. Or maybe... because... oh, I don't know. Maybe because
he was up on some criminal charge... or some professional disciplinary
thing. You're in Dublin, why don't you go and scratch around at the
Irish Medical Associationl offices in Rathmines Road, see if you can
come up with something there."
ooOoo
Evi turned her charm to full power and blinked in a helpless female
sort of way at the polished young clerk across the desk. "I understand
that the Medical Register exists for the protection of patients, not
doctors."
"That's perfectly true, Miss."
"And all I'm asking is, do you think it's a good idea to remain in his
care? Is there anything I should know about him?"
"I'm not trying to be evasive, but I really have told you all that is
permissible... ethically, I mean. His papers have been temporarily
removed from the files. All that I've got is a place-keeper card, as we
call them, telling me that he is at present registered with us and
entitled to practice medicine in the Republic of Ireland. It would be
completely unethical for me to speculate about why papers have been
removed. And you shouldn't jump to any conclusions yourself. Papers are
removed for all kinds of reasons. It might be nothing more than a
change of address that he's recently reported or any other kind of
minor correction or updating. And even if there were some kind of
disciplinary proceedings in the pipeline it would be very wrong to make
an assumption that the complaint or complaints were going to be upheld.
In many cases complaints turn out to be completely groundless, and the
doctor involved is entirely exonerated. The last thing you want to do,
Miss, is start jumping to conclusions."
She flicked her long eyelashes again. "Look, I'm just asking you off
the record... as the nice kind man that I can see you are... do you
think I should stay on his list?"
He lowered his voice and smiled awkwardly. "If there is another
practitioner nearby, and it's no inconvenience, maybe you should look
elsewhere..."
She lowered her tone to match his. "Can I ask you one more question?
Something completely hypothetical?" She gave him her sweetest smile and
he returned it awkwardly. "If a doctor retired, would they bother
continuing with a disciplinary hearing?"
"Oh, very much so. Retirement doesn't mean a thing. A doctor could
retire today and come out of retirement again tomorrow. Or he could
keep on some private patients after he retired. Most of them do. We are
here to assess a man's suitability and competence to practice medicine.
Like you said, we represent the interests of patients. Retirement
doesn't enter into it."
"So you would go ahead with the case. No matter what."
"If he was alive at all, we would go ahead with the case."
"If... he was alive at all..." A terrible image suddenly entered Evi's
mind. Old Dr. Merryfield sitting on the chair staring at the medical
bag. Then he reaches out and opens it...
ooOoo
Evi's heart was pounding as she came to the end of her mad dash from
Dublin and drew level with the gates of Liam Merryfield's country
house. The front courtyard was blocked by two white-and-orange Garda
cars and there was an emergency ambulance parked clumsily awry across
the driveway. She slowed the Fiesta to a walking pace and drew to a
momentary stop beside the young officer who stood sentry at the gate -
she wound down the window and said: "I'm Evi, the one who phoned the
Guards. My hunch was right, wasn't it?"
He came close before he replied so as not to shout it out. "I'm afraid
so, Miss. It looks like some kind of drug overdose."
"Were they... in time?"
The officer shook his head. "We'll need you to make a
statement..."
"Later," she cut him off and accelerated onwards towards the town.
Closing time had long gone and there was only one person still working
at The Eagle. She threw open the door of Tom
Singer's office and flung the brown envelope down on top of what he was
writing. "You used me," she spat out in a voice that surprised even
herself, "You harassed a good man to death, and you used me to do
it!"
He moved the envelope to one side and looked up. "Sit down, Evi," he
said quietly. She remained standing.
"You knew exactly how he was going to react when I started poking
around. You drove a man to suicide and you used me to do it. You're a
monster. You're a monster and I don't know why you did it!"
Singer paused to consider his words. "It's true. I did use you in a
way. I used you to get a message across to Liam Merryfield. You see,
Evi, I may not have a degree in Media Studies but I do understand the
media. Merryfield didn't understand the kind of world he was living in.
He thought he could retire, go and live in Dublin or Cork or
god-knows-where and nobody would be any the wiser. But he was wrong."
The old newsman pulled himself stiffly to his feet and motioned Evi to
join him at the tiny dirty window that looked out over the town square.
"Look out there. You think you see a quiet little Irish town where
nobody knows what's going on in the next parish let alone the next
continent. But that's not true. What's out there is an ocean, Evi. An
ocean of information. Data-bases, fax machines, e-mail, the Internet,
mobile phones, surveillance cameras, satellite communications... there
is no such thing as a secret any more. If somebody wants to find
something out, they will. Every two-bit newsman on every little
backwater rag like this one has contacts. Even you. Your boyfriend is
Aiden Kerr of The Irish Chronicle. You didn't think
I knew that, did you? The point is, in this business everybody knows
everything that they want to know. We're all swimming in the same
ocean."
He turned from the window. "Liam Merryfield made one mistake. A moment
of weakness and stupidity with a female patient. From that point onward
it didn't matter what he did or where he went. Even if the complaint
wasn't upheld, his whole lifetime of service to this community became
worthless, was turned into nothing in those few seconds. All that I
did," he looked her in the eye, "and yes, I did it through you, was to
show him that he had a choice." He sat down again and she waited for
him to go on. "I won't say I knew Liam Merryfield, I don't think
anybody did, but I understood him. Because we weren't as different as
you might think. There was only one thing that he ever wanted to do,
only one thing that ever mattered to him. He wanted to be a good
doctor. That was all, nothing more. And if that was going to be taken
away and his whole life ridiculed and dragged through the gutter, then
maybe he would prefer to take the only other option that he had. All
that I did was to make the position clear. It was his choice, not yours
and not mine, and I believe that a man ought to have that choice. I
don't apologize for what I did."
Evi's voice when she spoke had become reduced to a whisper. "So you've
saved him from himself. You've turned him into a saint. A dead saint. I
don't think I want to be a member of your profession, Mr. Singer."
"How would you like to be remembered, Evi? As a man who devoted himself
selflessly to this community for thirty-three years and took his own
life in a moment of depression, or as a man who made a pass at the
wrong woman patient and then tried to run away and cover it up? I know
which I would choose." He motioned Evi to sit down and this time she
did, her jaw trembling and her eyes beginning to mist up with unshed
tears. "What we did wasn't irresponsible journalism. What would have
been irresponsible would have been for me to print everything I knew. I
could have crucified Merryfield. I didn't do that because there are
other considerations in this profession besides feeding people's lowest
curiosity. We create and maintain this community's picture of itself.
That means something."
Evi opened her mouth to speak but the words wouldn't come.
"Now stop talking about leaving this profession. You couldn't anyway,
even if you tried. I can see it in your eyes. It's like looking into a
mirror. Take a clean sheet of paper and help me to write Liam
Merryfield's obituary."
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