It was possible that he took a bus. Though he had no specific memory of being on a bus.

When he came round he was standing in the doctor’s surgery, in front of the reception desk. A woman seated at a computer monitor was saying, “Can I help you?” Her tone of voice suggested that she had already said this several times.

She leant forward and repeated the question, but more slowly and more gently, the way you did when you realized that the person you were addressing was not a time waster but suffering from genuine mental impairment.

“I want to see Dr. Barghoutian,” said George.

Yes, now that he was here, that seemed like a good idea. Perhaps that was the reason he had come.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“I don’t think so,” said George.

“I’m afraid Dr. Barghoutian is fully booked today. If it’s urgent you could see another doctor.”

“I want to see Dr. Barghoutian.”

“I’m sorry. Dr. Barghoutian is seeing other patients.”

George could not remember the words you used to politely disagree with someone. “I want to see Dr. Barghoutian.”

“I’m really sorry, but…”

The trip to the surgery had clearly used up all of George’s energy (perhaps he had walked). He had no idea what he was planning to say to Dr. Barghoutian, but his entire being seemed to have been focused on getting into that little room. Now that it was impossible, he simply could not conceive of what he might do instead. He felt profoundly lonely and oddly cold (his clothing was wet; perhaps it had been raining outside). He lowered himself to the floor and curled into the angle between the carpet and the wooden panel of the reception desk and cried a little.

He hugged his knees. He was not going to move again. He was going to stay here forever.

Someone placed a blanket over him. Either that or he dreamt that someone was placing a blanket over him.

He remembered reading, somewhere, that shortly before one died of exposure one felt pleasantly warm and comfortable and this was a sign that the end was near.

Except that the end was not near. And he was not going to stay in this position forever because someone was saying, “Mr. Hall…? Mr. Hall…?” and when he opened his eyes he found himself looking at Dr. Barghoutian who was crouching in front of him, and George had been so far away that it took him several seconds to work out where he was, and why Dr. Barghoutian should be there as well.

He was helped to his feet and ushered down the corridor and into Dr. Barghoutian’s consulting room where he was eased into a chair.

He could not speak for several minutes. Dr. Barghoutian did not seem unduly concerned, simply sat back and said, “Whenever you’re ready.”

George summoned his energy and began to speak. On any other day he would have been disturbed by his inability to form sentences, but he was past caring. He sounded like a man crawling into an oasis in a cartoon. “Got cancer…Dying…Really frightened…Daughter’s wedding…”

Dr. Barghoutian allowed him to carry on in this manner for some time. The pressure inside George’s head eased a little and his grip on syntax began to return. “I want to go into hospital…I want to go into a psychiatric hospital…Please…I need to be looked after…Somewhere safe…”

Dr. Barghoutian let him grind to a halt. “This wedding is on Saturday, I presume.”

George nodded.

Dr. Barghoutian tapped his pencil on his teeth a couple of times. “Right. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

George felt better hearing him say the words.

“You’re going to come back and see me on Monday morning.”

George felt a good deal worse. “But…”

Dr. Barghoutian held up his pencil. George paused.

“I will get you an appointment with a dermatologist. And if you’re still feeling anxious we will see about getting you some more heavyweight psychiatric help.”

George felt a little better again.

“In the meantime, I am going to write you out a prescription for some Valium, OK? Take as many as you need, though I suggest you stay off the champagne during the wedding itself. Unless you want to end up under a table.”

Dr. Barghoutian wrote out the prescription. “Now, I strongly suspect that you are going to find yourself feeling a lot calmer when we next meet. If you’re not, we can do something about it.”

It was not the solution George had hoped for. But the idea of another meeting on Monday and the promise of more heavyweight psychiatric help was a reassurance.

He would find some way of avoiding the dermatologist.

“Now, how do you feel about getting home? Would you like the receptionist to call your wife to come and pick you up?”

The thought of Jean being telephoned to say that he had collapsed in the doctor’s surgery brought him to his senses more abruptly than anything else. “No. Really. I’ll be fine.”

He thanked Dr. Barghoutian and stood and realized that he was, indeed, wrapped in a lightweight green blanket.

“Ten o’clock Monday morning,” said Dr. Barghoutian, handing him the prescription. “I’ll get the receptionist to book you in. And make sure you take this to the chemist’s before you go home.”

He walked out of the surgery and across the road into Boots, examining the pattern on the tiled floor to avoid eye contact with pamphlets. He did three circuits of the park, picked up his prescription, swallowed two Valium and took a taxi home.

He had wondered what he could tell Jean to explain his unplanned excursion, but when he went into the house he saw a little Spider-Man rucksack in the hallway and realized that Katie had arrived with Jacob to oversee the final arrangements, and when the three of them came in from the garden Jean seemed unfazed by his news that he had gone out for a long walk and lost track of time.

Jacob said, “Grandpa, Grandpa, come and chase me.”

But George was not in the mood for chasing children. He said, “Perhaps we can play a quieter game later on,” and realized that he meant it. The Valium was clearly having some effect. A fact which was confirmed when he went upstairs and fell into a deep sleep on the bed.

94

Katie was booked in to have her hair done.

Quite when this had been arranged she wasn’t sure. There was nothing wrong with her hair that couldn’t be sorted out by a quick trim with the bathroom scissors and a decent conditioner. Clearly she’d been running on automatic when she was time-tabling everything.

Thank God she hadn’t organized bridesmaids.

She told Ray she was going to cancel the appointment, he asked why and she said she didn’t fancy getting herself tarted up like something out of a bridal catalog. Ray said, “Go on. Give yourself a treat.” And she thought, Why not? New life. New hair. And went and had most of it removed. Boyish. Ears on show for the first time in seven years.

And Ray was right. It was more than a treat. The person in the mirror was no longer simply a wife and mother. The person in the mirror was a woman in charge of her own destiny.

Mum was horrified.

It wasn’t the hair specifically. It was the combination of the hair and the canceled florists and the decision not to arrive at the register office in a limousine.

“I’m just worried that-”

“That what?” asked Katie.

“I’m just worried that it won’t be…that it won’t be a proper wedding.”

“Because I don’t have enough hair?”

“You’re being flippant.”

True, but Mum was being…strange that there wasn’t a word for it, given how often parents did it. Translating every worry into a worry about something not being done properly. Not eating properly. Not dressing properly. Not behaving properly. As if the world could be set to rights with decorum. “Well, it’s going to be a lot more proper than the last wedding.”

“So you and Ray…?”