One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [27]
6
The following day, as promised, Dominic took me to his surgery to get the bigger picture. It was located in the local market town, and the action took place in a back room of the town hall, which flanked the main, cobbled square. Cold, sparse and smelling of floor polish and dust, it was less than salubrious, with just a table and chair at the far end for him, and another at the door for his constituency secretary, Amanda. Amanda was a hefty woman in a navy-blue jersey two-piece, who puffed and blew like a small chugging engine as she moved, but who mostly sat squarely at her post like a sentry, muttering darkly about the nutters in the waiting room.
‘Nutters?’ I stuck my head round the door, expecting to see a room full of jabbering delinquents, like something out of Hogarth’s illustrations of Bedlam. Instead, several grey, quite ordinary-looking people gazed opaquely back. Amanda chugged back to her desk from shutting the front door.
‘Have you ever been to see your MP, Hattie?’
‘No.’
‘Have your parents?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘Brothers, sisters, friends?’
‘Er… no. Not to my knowledge.’
‘Precisely. I rest my case.’ She shuffled her papers, still blowing hard. ‘If you ask me, they’re all a bit peculiar.’
Dominic frowned at her, but it wasn’t without a twinkle, and as the first one came in, I hurried to sit beside him to listen. Drains were the problem, apparently, which stank. No help from the council. Dominic said he’d see what he could do. Then a woman who’d tripped on a paving stone and wanted to sue the local authority. Dominic pointed her in the direction of Legal Aid. Next, a Sikh family with immigration problems: a father and daughter, the father fragile and bewildered, barely speaking English. Dominic was endlessly patient and kind. Then, just as I was wondering what on earth Amanda was talking about, a smartly dressed woman in a tweed suit burst in before Amanda, who’d got to her feet and bustled round her desk, could stop her.
‘There you are!’ the woman declared, hastening towards Dominic and me at the far end. The carpet slippers seemed at odds with the rest of her outfit.
‘Why didn’t you come home? I did liver, your favourite.’
‘Barking Brenda?’ I muttered.
‘No, Mad Martha. She thinks I’m her husband.’
‘Oh!’
Martha gripped the table ‘Is this her?’ She glared at me.
Crumbs. I pushed my chair back.
‘Little chit,’ she spat. ‘Little squinty-eyed whore.’ Her eyes blazed.’
‘Perfectly harmless,’ Dominic murmured in my ear as Amanda bustled up to strong-arm her out.
‘Come on, Martha,’ she soothed.
Martha shook her off, eyes still sparking. ‘Not till I’ve had my statutory two minutes. I know my rights!’
‘Yes, quite right,’ agreed Dominic. ‘That’s fine, Amanda. Do sit down, Mrs Carter.’
‘Martha!’ But she sat.
‘Martha. Now, how can I help?’
‘You can start by fixing the handle in the downstairs loo and then you can see about that damp patch on the landing wall.’
‘Righto, I’d be absolutely delighted,’ Dominic said with exaggerated courtesy. He picked up his pen and scribbled away studiously. ‘Anything else?’
‘Yes, you can put your shirts in the bucket outside the back door to soak like I showed you so I don’t have to scrub the collars, and then set to in the garden. It’s getting ever so late for bedding plants.’ She seemed to have calmed down somewhat.
‘Of course. My pleasure.’ Dominic’s face was a picture of contrition as he wrote. Then he put his pen down with a flourish, stood up, and smiled broadly as he came around the desk. She got to her feet too.
‘And it’s the whist drive on Tuesday,’ I heard her mutter, less forcefully now, shoulders sagging.
‘So it is!’ said Dominic as he took her arm and escorted her out. ‘What a treat. I shall look forward to it. Couldn’t be more thrilled. Goodbye, Martha!’
He waved her off at the door, beaming excessively, then turned and came back, looking weary.
‘You go along with it?’ I gaped.
‘Only way forward. Contradict her and she gets punchy and we end up calling the police.