Where There's Smoke

The article went on to the next case study, but Kate stopped reading. The edges of her vision darkened. She felt a tingling light-headedness, and gripped the edge of the table until the faint receded. When it had, she grabbed the photocopies and began cramming them into her bag.

Her hands were clumsy and several sheets spilled onto the floor. She bent to retrieve them, and then froze.

The man she had seen on the mortuary slab stared out at her from the top of one of the articles. The photograph was passport-sized and black and white, the face smiling in life, not stiff and disfigured, but it was unmistakably the same man. His name was printed underneath. Dr Alex Turner.

Kate made it to the toilet before she was sick.

The receptionist tried to convince her to make an appointment for later in the week but finally relented and grudgingly told Kate that she could wait to see a doctor that evening.

Kate sat on one of the hard plastic chairs in the waiting room, avoiding eye contact with any of the other patients.

An elderly man sat wheezing opposite her, one leg held out stiffly in front of him. Next to him a teenager pored over a women’s magazine in silent absorption. Nearby, a young mother read quietly to a pale-looking toddler on her knee.

Kate picked up a magazine from the table in the centre of the room, but the words and pictures made no sense. When she came to an article on miscarriages she put it down.

The fluorescent lighting took the life out of everything. The waiting room was oppressive in its silence, so that the slightest sound was amplified. The young mother’s voice murmured on in a deafening whisper. The old man’s coughs boomed from the depths of his chest while the teenager’s magazine announced each turned page in a rustle of glossy paper. Kate stared at the top of the receptionist’s head, bent over behind the glass partition, and tried to think of nothing.

One by one the other patients were called in, until she was the last one left. The old man came out and walked stiffly to the door. It squeaked shut behind him, leaving Kate alone once more.

“Kate Powell.”

She stood and went over to the receptionist’s counter. The woman slid her notes under the glass. “Room three.”

Kate walked down the corridor and tapped on the door. A man’s voice spoke from inside. She couldn’t tell what he had said, but went inside anyway.

It was a different GP from the ones she had seen before. He was an elderly man, small, with grey hair and gold half-moon glasses. Without looking up from what he was writing he held out his hand for her notes. Kate sat down and waited.

Finally he gave a small sigh and looked up. “What can I do for you?”

Kate had rehearsed what she would say. Now it all vanished. “I want an abortion,” she blurted.

The doctor looked at her over the top of his glasses. He took out her notes from the manilla envelope and read the more recent entries without answering. “You’re not quite five weeks’ pregnant. Is that right?”

Kate nodded. The doctor pursed his lips and unhurriedly flipped back through her notes. She waited, her hands clenched and white on her lap. When he saw nothing that interested him he turned back to her.

“Why do you want an abortion?”

She told him. He listened without comment, legs crossed, looking at a notepad on his desk, on which he occasionally wrote. Kate tried to keep the quaver from her voice, but by the time she had finished she was shivering uncontrollably.

She had hoped that telling someone, from beginning to end, would prove cathartic. It didn’t.

The doctor made one or two more notes. “And what does the clinic that carried out the insemination say about this? I presume you’ve told them?”

“They... they say it’s nothing to do with them. When I asked them about termination, they said I should contact my own GP.”

Dr Janson had been appalled when Kate had phoned her, and while she had tried hard not to sound unsympathetic, it was obvious that her main worry was absolving the clinic of responsibility. The choice of donor had been entirely Kate’s, she hastily pointed out, scrambling to distance the clinic from any hint of scandal. But Kate hadn’t needed anyone to tell her where the fault lay.

The doctor’s expression was unreadable as he put down his pen and faced her. “So what you’re basically saying is that, after going to great lengths to become pregnant, you’ve now changed your mind.”

His matter-of-factness took Kate’s breath.

“No!” she exclaimed. “Not just like that!”

The doctor took off his glasses, letting them dangle on the cord around his neck. “But that is, essentially, what you’re saying, isn’t it?”

Taking a tissue from his pocket, he began wiping the half-moon lenses. “I’m not unsympathetic. I know this must have been very traumatic. But what we’ve got to look at is why, exactly, you want to terminate your pregnancy?”

Kate stared at him, unable to believe he had to ask. “Isn’t it obvious?”