was crystal clear on workplace romance and how it was to be actively discouraged. Most of the time, though, the staff were cattle to herd from table to table and break to break, and they didn't factor into my life much beyond that. I didn't go out drinking with them, and outside of Clive I wasn't really friendly with any of them. As far as I was concerned, they were their own family, incestuous as it was, and I was the social worker.
But it was different now. Pollard had made it different.
You always think of yourself as a good person. Or at least, you don't think of yourself as a bad person. You always nurture that warm idea of yourself as someone who, given the choice, would do the right thing. Of course, as soon as that right thing makes itself known, you find yourself doing everything in your power to avoid it, citing your god, your health, your family, your myriad weaknesses both real and imaginary. You make excuses and call them reasons, and you do so in the knowledge that the only thing stopping you from the true moral path is your own cowardice and self-regard. And then, inexorably, you choose the wrong thing because it's the easiest to do.
Not this time. Not me.
If I'd harboured any fantasies about controlling this remotely, they were long gone now. I had to make sure that everything went according to plan, make sure that it was as quick and clean as I needed it to be. Not just for the staff's sake, but for my own, too.
I knew it was the right decision to make. It was unselfish decision, really. It was the moral decision. Deep down, I knew it. Because deep down, I felt physically, violently sick.
11
I managed to get a doctor's appointment the next afternoon. It wasn't worth the wait or the hassle it had taken to get registered, weighed and interrogated by a nurse who seemed unduly superior, given her own weight problem and obvious alcohol abuse, but I did it. By the time I saw a doctor, I just wanted it over with. Luckily for me, he was of the same opinion. He examined my arm, the back of my wrist, the palm of my hand and sank back into his chair.
"Well?"
The doctor was elderly, his chin dusted with dark grey hairs that looked like ash at this distance. He wore half-moon glasses above flared and tufted nostrils, and his pursed lips looks like two squashed prunes. "Have you experienced these rashes before?"
"No, never."
He raised an eyebrow. "Never?"
"Well, I mean, I had it when I was a kid sometimes."
He nodded. "Have you noticed it changing with the weather at all? Warm or cold climates?"
"Not really."
"Any contact with poison ivy, nickel, wet cement, anything like that?"
"No."
"How is it with sunlight?"
I smiled. "I don't really see much of that."
He nodded. Wrote something down. "New washing powder?"
"Not as far as I know."
"As far as you know?"
"Maybe they changed the formula."
"Maybe they did, Mr Ellis. Maybe they did." He put pen to paper, but it looked like he was drawing something rather than writing. He smiled, showed a canine edged with brown. "Are you using any cream?"
I brought out the moisturiser that I'd been using. He regarded it from behind the desk and over his half-moons, then showed the canine on the other side before he went back to his drawing.
"Well? Is it serious?"
"It will be if you keep using that stuff." He wrote out a prescription. "You'll want to use a moisturiser, of course, but stay away from your perfumed lady things. Thicker the better, something with petroleum jelly in it, ideally. Do you shower?"
"Of course I do."
"Keep them short, avoid scented soaps if you can, keep the water lukewarm." He finished writing the prescription and slapped it onto the desk between us. "That's for a corticosteroid ointment. Wait for an hour or so after you've used your moisturiser, then use that if it gets particularly bad." He pointed at me. "Sparingly, though. Only if it gets particularly bad. Also, get yourself some calamine lotion for the itching."
I nodded, tried to
But it was different now. Pollard had made it different.
You always think of yourself as a good person. Or at least, you don't think of yourself as a bad person. You always nurture that warm idea of yourself as someone who, given the choice, would do the right thing. Of course, as soon as that right thing makes itself known, you find yourself doing everything in your power to avoid it, citing your god, your health, your family, your myriad weaknesses both real and imaginary. You make excuses and call them reasons, and you do so in the knowledge that the only thing stopping you from the true moral path is your own cowardice and self-regard. And then, inexorably, you choose the wrong thing because it's the easiest to do.
Not this time. Not me.
If I'd harboured any fantasies about controlling this remotely, they were long gone now. I had to make sure that everything went according to plan, make sure that it was as quick and clean as I needed it to be. Not just for the staff's sake, but for my own, too.
I knew it was the right decision to make. It was unselfish decision, really. It was the moral decision. Deep down, I knew it. Because deep down, I felt physically, violently sick.
11
I managed to get a doctor's appointment the next afternoon. It wasn't worth the wait or the hassle it had taken to get registered, weighed and interrogated by a nurse who seemed unduly superior, given her own weight problem and obvious alcohol abuse, but I did it. By the time I saw a doctor, I just wanted it over with. Luckily for me, he was of the same opinion. He examined my arm, the back of my wrist, the palm of my hand and sank back into his chair.
"Well?"
The doctor was elderly, his chin dusted with dark grey hairs that looked like ash at this distance. He wore half-moon glasses above flared and tufted nostrils, and his pursed lips looks like two squashed prunes. "Have you experienced these rashes before?"
"No, never."
He raised an eyebrow. "Never?"
"Well, I mean, I had it when I was a kid sometimes."
He nodded. "Have you noticed it changing with the weather at all? Warm or cold climates?"
"Not really."
"Any contact with poison ivy, nickel, wet cement, anything like that?"
"No."
"How is it with sunlight?"
I smiled. "I don't really see much of that."
He nodded. Wrote something down. "New washing powder?"
"Not as far as I know."
"As far as you know?"
"Maybe they changed the formula."
"Maybe they did, Mr Ellis. Maybe they did." He put pen to paper, but it looked like he was drawing something rather than writing. He smiled, showed a canine edged with brown. "Are you using any cream?"
I brought out the moisturiser that I'd been using. He regarded it from behind the desk and over his half-moons, then showed the canine on the other side before he went back to his drawing.
"Well? Is it serious?"
"It will be if you keep using that stuff." He wrote out a prescription. "You'll want to use a moisturiser, of course, but stay away from your perfumed lady things. Thicker the better, something with petroleum jelly in it, ideally. Do you shower?"
"Of course I do."
"Keep them short, avoid scented soaps if you can, keep the water lukewarm." He finished writing the prescription and slapped it onto the desk between us. "That's for a corticosteroid ointment. Wait for an hour or so after you've used your moisturiser, then use that if it gets particularly bad." He pointed at me. "Sparingly, though. Only if it gets particularly bad. Also, get yourself some calamine lotion for the itching."
I nodded, tried to
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