Second Opinion by Claire Rayner Page A

‘No, that’s not what I mean! I mean, looking at him, how old would you say he is?’
    George looked at the child and then at the doctor, a woman around her own age, red-headed and a little untidy, but clearly good at her job. She’d never have lasted as Susan Kydd’s registrar if she weren’t Susan was a famous martinet, and had sent any number of young doctors away in a state almost of gibbering fear. Yet here she was, asking such a banal question.
    Prudence apparently followed George’s train of thought, and gave her a wintry smile. ‘Indulge me,’ she said, ‘then I’ll explain.’
    George shrugged and looked at the child. He was a small-framed infant, she thought, too thin for a baby, and with the deep-set eyes of fever set in large sockets. He had the shrunken look of dehydration also, and she said as much.
    ‘No, it’s not that At least, not entirely. He hasn’t been vomiting or purging,’ Prudence said, reaching over into the cot and pulling back the child’s cover and clothes. The belly was round and clearly tense and she set one finger on it and pressed gently. The baby’s face puckered and he began to cry thinly. Prudence made an odd little hissing sound through her teeth and covered him up. The baby seemed to find the sound soothing. He stopped crying and closed his eyes.
    ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘How old?’
    ‘I’m no expert in these things,’ George said and bit her lip, trying to remember the little time she’d spent in paediatrics. She knew well enough what dead children looked like at various ages; then she had the evidence of epiphyseal development to tell her, and the state of the sutures of theskull. Babies with wide-open soft spots at front and rear of their heads were still very young.
    She reached to touch the baby’s head but Prudence shook her head and held her hand back. ‘Just use your eyes,’ she said. ‘Please.’
    George threw a glance at her and then shrugged again. ‘Oh, well, all right,’ she said irritably. ‘Under a year, ten months maybe. And not at all well.’
    ‘Try eighteen months,’ Prudence said. She shook her head. ‘I’ve checked the skull sutures, measured the bones and checked the dimensions. If this boy is any younger than eighteen months then I’m a chimpanzee. Yet the mother says he’s
eight
months old! It makes no sense to me.’
    George had forgotten her irritation now and was fascinated. ‘That is weird!’
    ‘You could call it that. I’m wondering …’ She shook her head. ‘There’s no family history, though the mother swears he was breast fed till a few weeks ago, and if she was positive it would account for it — well, I was wondering about HIV. If she’s positive and he’s been breast fed by her, couldn’t he have AIDS? He looks ill enough.’
    ‘I suppose it’s possible,’ George said slowly. ‘What history do the parents give?’
    ‘A shaky one. Makes no sense to me. Born abroad, they say, no problems at birth. No suggestion of any premature closure of skull sutures. I asked them. Just a normal birth, they said. Anyway, they left him here, but only under protest. I said I’d have to do some tests and they could come back later — for two pins I thought she’d just walk out with him. But her husband persuaded her to leave him till the tests were done, so can you get on with them? You can see why I didn’t want anyone else taking the blood. I’d have to say what the tests were on the specimen-bottle labels and the way people gossip round here, we’d have a major panic on our hands in no time. AIDS baby in Old East — can’t you just see the headlines?’
    ‘Yes,’ George said and went across the cubicle to wash her hands in the corner basin, ‘I take your point. OK, you hold him for me, will you? Not that I expect the poor little devil to fight much. He looks too sick.’
    ‘Doesn’t he just,’ Prudence murmured, picking up the child who protested only weakly and, with expert fingers, holding him positioned