Black Harvest by Ann Pilling

asked inside. Father Hagan was in the hall, on his way out. The man just shoved past him rudely, muttering, “Now then, where is this child? Humph, don’t need to ask, do I? Just follow the screams. All right, all right, let’s have a look at you. Come on, it’s not the end of the world.”
    “Send one of the boys along if you need me,” the priest whispered as he went through the front door. “I’ll not get in the doctor’s way. Don’t want him to think I’m interfering or anything.”
    When the bell rang, Colin, Oliver and Alison had been eating tea at the kitchen table. They all looked up when the elderly doctor appeared in the doorway, and all three disliked him on sight. So did Mrs Blakeman, so did Prill, and when he touched her, Alison set up a wailing loud enough to wake the dead.
    Under the table Jessie gave a sudden howl in sympathy. She seemed off colour again. Colin had persuaded her to eat her dinner but she’d been violently sick afterwards. It had upset them all. Everyone was fond of Jessie. Even Oliver had seemed concerned and offered advice. If Dr Donovan had been a bit kinder to Alison they might have asked him what was wrong. But the man was hopeless.
    They could all smell the drink on his breath. Colin watched him fumble with the catches on his case, wondering whether the way he lurched and staggered across the kitchen floor was the result of too many whiskies or just extreme old age. He looked nearer eighty than seventy and was almost asdecrepit as Donal Morrissey.
    The baby screamed at the thermometer and screamed at the stethoscope. She went on screaming as the strange-smelling, whiskery old man inflicted his various cold instruments of torture upon her one by one.
    Mrs Blakeman had been waiting for this visit all day. She’d had plenty of time to prepare what she wanted to say, but one look at Dr Donovan and the words died on her lips. She doubted that he would listen to her, even when sober. He’d hardly looked at Alison and he was already putting his instruments away. There was no point in asking him to examine Prill. All he wanted was to get home.
    The truth was that the old man was well past making house calls on a sticky August day. He’d been dragged out of retirement because Dr O’Keefe was on holiday and the usual locum was ill. He’d had a long afternoon of difficult old women with imaginary aches and pains, neurotic mothers and snotty-nosed children.
    This baby’s temperature was normal, so was its pulse. It wasn’t refusing its food and its bowels were in order. Nothing wrong with this child that a bit of firm handling wouldn’t put right. The mother clearly spoiled it and was determined to worry. It was certainly on the thin side but that was all to the good. Fat babies were unhealthy.
    He dumped two bottles of medicine on the kitchen table. “The pink – give her a couple of spoonfuls at bedtime if she’s playing up. The white – that’s for stomach upsets…warm weather…you never know, may just be hatching a little bug.Come up to the surgery in a couple of days, if you’re still not happy about her.” Dr Donovan’s pinched, lopsided face had a glassy look. It plainly said, “Don’t you dare”. Then he added, “She’ll be as right as rain tomorrow.”
    In less than two minutes he was weaving his way up the track. Helplessly, Mrs Blakeman watched him go. “That’s that then,” she said blankly, going back into the kitchen and flopping down at the table. “He wasn’t much help, was he? Mrs O’Malley did warn me.”
    “Wonder how many drinks he’d had?” Colin said darkly. Alison was still grizzling but more quietly now, more as a matter of routine. She was as pleased to see the back of Dr Donovan as everybody else.
    Prill looked at the pink bottle, unscrewed the cap, and sniffed. “I know what this is. It’s only baby aspirin in a kind of syrup. This is no good.”
    “I know, I know,” her mother said wearily. “It’s just happy juice. You both