Williams. ‘Does it matter? What could I have done?’
‘You’re right,’ agreed Steven, backing off. ‘The medical authorities seem to have had everything in hand and you had another hundred kids to worry about. Can you remember how long after the initial phone-call the other children were vaccinated?’
‘Next day,’ said Williams. ‘The team was here at ten sharp next morning and we had the kids ready and waiting. I remember we had a late start that day to outdoor activities.’
‘Well, no untimely delays there,’ said Steven. ‘Sounds like a very efficient operation.’
‘Maybe you’d like to see round the camp, see the clinic for yourself?’ asked Williams, who clearly wasn’t at all sure what Steven’s interest was in all of this.
Steven said that that wouldn’t be necessary, congratulated Williams on having such an enviable job and left. Deciding that he felt hungry – he had missed out on lunch – he drove along the shore to Ambleside and found somewhere advertising all-day-food.
He had to admit that he hadn’t come up with anything about the handling of the situation at Pinetops that could have upset Scott Haldane although he did feel a bit puzzled about the apparent secrecy surrounding the identity and movement of the sick child while at the camp. It was understandable after the event and the reasons given by the authorities to Macmillan and relayed by him had seemed valid enough. Anything to do with race relations issues and possible problems affecting them had to be handled with kid gloves – but the more he thought about it, the odder it seemed that Williams, and presumably his staff, knew nothing about the child. He was chewing his way through a particularly tough gammon steak when another thought struck him. How did the Department of Health know about the child so quickly? Williams had told him that it was someone from DOH who had phoned him. How did the ‘snooty bugger’ know so quickly?
‘Is everything all right for you?’ asked the waitress.
Steven nodded. ‘Fine.’ It wasn’t but it was hard to break the habit of a lifetime. Surely, he reasoned, a sick child with lung problems would be seen by his or her GP and referred to a local hospital for X-rays and tests. It was they who would make the diagnosis and arrange for the child to be admitted to hospital. There would have been no need to involve the DOH. Steven paid and left. He walked down to the edge of the lake and threw a couple of pebbles into the water while he continued to follow his line of thought.
TB was a notifiable disease, which meant that the hospital would be obliged to report any incidence of it, but notification would almost certainly be to the local health authorities in the first instance. DOH would be involved in collating national figures but surely not in individual cases and certainly not in the practical aspects of vaccinating contacts.
Maybe he was making a mountain out of a molehill, he conceded as he started to walk back to the car, but there was something not quite right about how things had been handled at official level and he wanted to know what. It preyed on his mind all the way home. There was a message from Jenny on his answering machine when he got in.
‘Daddy, I’m ringing to say I’m sorry about what I said but you’re not there. Auntie Sue says I can stay up till nine o’clock if you want to call me back. Love you.’
Steven looked at the time. It was 2 a.m. ‘Shit,’ he murmured as he poured himself a nightcap. It was impossible not to imagine Jenny’s face when 9 o’clock had come and gone. It was an image that reappeared at intervals during a restless night. He was up early to call her before she left for school.
‘Hello, nutkin, I’m sorry I was out when you called last night. I was working. I was driving home at the time but it was lovely to hear your voice when I got in.’
‘You work very late, Daddy.’
‘Sometimes I have to, nutkin.’
‘Auntie Sue says
‘You’re right,’ agreed Steven, backing off. ‘The medical authorities seem to have had everything in hand and you had another hundred kids to worry about. Can you remember how long after the initial phone-call the other children were vaccinated?’
‘Next day,’ said Williams. ‘The team was here at ten sharp next morning and we had the kids ready and waiting. I remember we had a late start that day to outdoor activities.’
‘Well, no untimely delays there,’ said Steven. ‘Sounds like a very efficient operation.’
‘Maybe you’d like to see round the camp, see the clinic for yourself?’ asked Williams, who clearly wasn’t at all sure what Steven’s interest was in all of this.
Steven said that that wouldn’t be necessary, congratulated Williams on having such an enviable job and left. Deciding that he felt hungry – he had missed out on lunch – he drove along the shore to Ambleside and found somewhere advertising all-day-food.
He had to admit that he hadn’t come up with anything about the handling of the situation at Pinetops that could have upset Scott Haldane although he did feel a bit puzzled about the apparent secrecy surrounding the identity and movement of the sick child while at the camp. It was understandable after the event and the reasons given by the authorities to Macmillan and relayed by him had seemed valid enough. Anything to do with race relations issues and possible problems affecting them had to be handled with kid gloves – but the more he thought about it, the odder it seemed that Williams, and presumably his staff, knew nothing about the child. He was chewing his way through a particularly tough gammon steak when another thought struck him. How did the Department of Health know about the child so quickly? Williams had told him that it was someone from DOH who had phoned him. How did the ‘snooty bugger’ know so quickly?
‘Is everything all right for you?’ asked the waitress.
Steven nodded. ‘Fine.’ It wasn’t but it was hard to break the habit of a lifetime. Surely, he reasoned, a sick child with lung problems would be seen by his or her GP and referred to a local hospital for X-rays and tests. It was they who would make the diagnosis and arrange for the child to be admitted to hospital. There would have been no need to involve the DOH. Steven paid and left. He walked down to the edge of the lake and threw a couple of pebbles into the water while he continued to follow his line of thought.
TB was a notifiable disease, which meant that the hospital would be obliged to report any incidence of it, but notification would almost certainly be to the local health authorities in the first instance. DOH would be involved in collating national figures but surely not in individual cases and certainly not in the practical aspects of vaccinating contacts.
Maybe he was making a mountain out of a molehill, he conceded as he started to walk back to the car, but there was something not quite right about how things had been handled at official level and he wanted to know what. It preyed on his mind all the way home. There was a message from Jenny on his answering machine when he got in.
‘Daddy, I’m ringing to say I’m sorry about what I said but you’re not there. Auntie Sue says I can stay up till nine o’clock if you want to call me back. Love you.’
Steven looked at the time. It was 2 a.m. ‘Shit,’ he murmured as he poured himself a nightcap. It was impossible not to imagine Jenny’s face when 9 o’clock had come and gone. It was an image that reappeared at intervals during a restless night. He was up early to call her before she left for school.
‘Hello, nutkin, I’m sorry I was out when you called last night. I was working. I was driving home at the time but it was lovely to hear your voice when I got in.’
‘You work very late, Daddy.’
‘Sometimes I have to, nutkin.’
‘Auntie Sue says
Similar Books
