‘You can put your top back on.’

I start to write a prescription.

‘I was in your church last week.’

She flushes.

‘Oh. I shouldn’t have said anything.’

‘It’s fine. Patient–doctor confidentiality and all that.’

‘Well, anyway, you know what my problems are, then.’

‘Do I?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

I decide that it is best to say nothing, on the grounds that what was obvious to me—her rendition of ‘Getting to Know You’ was excruciating, all reference to the current rap hits is misguided to the point of lunacy—might not be obvious to her, and I will only succeed in making the angry red marks on her back positively furious. I write her a prescription and hand it to her.

‘I enjoyed it,’ I tell her.

‘Thank you. But basically I no longer believe in what I’m doing, and I think it’s all a waste of time, and my body knows it. So I feel ill every day.’

‘Well, that’s hopefully something I can help with.’

‘Why did you come to my church? You haven’t been before, have you?’

‘No. I’m not a Christian. But I’m having a spiritual crisis, so…’

‘Do doctors have spiritual crises?’

‘Apparently they do, yes. My marriage is in big trouble and I’m very sad and I’m trying to decide what to do about it. What do you recommend?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘What should I do?’

She smiles nervously; she’s not sure whether I’m joking. I’m not. I’m suddenly consumed with the desire to hear what she has to say.

‘I’ve told you what to do about your rash. That’s what I’m here for. You tell me what to do about my marriage. That’s what you’re there for.’

‘I’m not sure you understand what the role of the church is.’

‘What is it, then?’

‘I’m not the one to ask, am I? Because I haven’t got a clue.’

‘Who has, then?’

‘Have you tried counselling?’

‘I’m not talking about counselling. I’m talking about what’s right and wrong. You know about that, surely?’

‘Do you want to know what the Bible says about marriage?’

‘No!’ I’m shouting now, I can hear myself, but I don’t seem to be able to do anything about it. ‘I want to know what YOU say. Just tell me. I’ll do whatever it is you recommend. Stay or go. Come on.’ And I mean it. I’m sick of not knowing. Someone else can sort it out.

The nice lady looks a little afraid, as she has every right to do, I suppose. I am seriously contemplating holding her hostage until she comes out with an answer, any answer, although I will not fill her in on this plan of action for the moment.

‘Dr Carr, I can’t tell you what to do.’

‘I’m sorry, that’s not good enough.’

‘Do you want to come and see me in my office?’

‘No. No need. Waste of time. It’s a yes/no question. I don’t want to spend hours talking about it with you. I’ve already spent months thinking about it. It’s gone on long enough.’

‘Do you have children?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is your husband cruel to you?’

‘No. Not any more. He used to be, but he saw the light. Not your sort of light. Another one.’

‘Well…’ She is on the verge of saying something, but then she stands up. ‘This is ridiculous. I can’t…’

I snatch the prescription out of her hand. ‘In which case, I can’t help you. You do your job and I’ll do mine.’

‘It’s not my job. Please give me my prescription.’

‘No. It’s not much to ask. Stay or go, that’s all I want. God, why are you people so timid? It’s no wonder the churches are empty, when you can’t answer even the simplest questions. Don’t you get it? That’s what we want. Answers. If we wanted woolly minded nonsense we’d stay at home. In our own heads.’

‘I think you’ll do what you want to do anyway, so it won’t make any difference what I say.’

‘Wrong. Wrong. Because I haven’t got a clue any more. Do you remember The Dice Man, that book everyone read at college? Maybe not at theological college they didn’t, but at normal college they did. Well, I am the Vicar Woman. Anything you say, I will do.’

She looks at me and holds up her hands, indicating defeat. ‘Stay.’

I feel suddenly hopeless, the way one always does when two alternatives become one chosen course of action. I want to go back to the time just seconds ago when I didn’t know what to do. Because here’s the thing: when you get into a mess like mine, your marriage is like a knife in your stomach, and you know that you’re in big trouble whatever you decide. You don’t ask people with knives in their stomachs what would make them happy; happiness is no longer the point. It’s all about survival; it’s all about whether you pull the knife out and bleed to death or keep it in, in the hope that you might be lucky, and the knife has actually been staunching the blood. You want to know the conventional medical wisdom? The conventional medical wisdom is that you keep the knife in. Really.

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I’m a vicar. I can’t go around telling people to break up families on a whim.’

‘Ha! You think it’s whimsical?’

‘I’m sorry, but you can’t start arguing with the decision. You wanted me to say something and I’ve said it. You’re staying. Can I have my prescription now?’

I hand it to her. I’m starting to feel a little embarrassed, as perhaps is only appropriate.

‘I won’t say anything to anyone,’ she says. ‘I’m going to work on the assumption that you’re having a bad day.’

‘And I won’t say anything about The King and I,’ I say—somewhat gracelessly, given the circumstances. Our professional misconduct trials, should it come to that, are almost certain to have different outcomes, given the relative gravity of our crimes. She could argue that it is part of her brief to illuminate her sermons with highlights from the great musicals; I, on the other hand, would be hard pushed to make a case for the violent witholding of treatment until I had received inappropriate marital advice.

‘Good luck.’

‘Thank you.’ I don’t feel so graceless now, and I pat her on the back on her way out. I will miss her.

‘Have you ever… Have you ever threatened a patient?’ I ask Becca before I leave for the day. Becca has done many, many bad things, some of them during working hours.

‘God, no,’ she says, appalled. ‘Is that what you think of me?’

So rehearsed is our good doc/bad doc routine that she never for a moment suspects that I am confessing, rather than accusing. That is why Becca is so good to talk to: she doesn’t listen.

I want to speak to my husband when I get home, but his relationship is with GoodNews now. The two of them have become inseparable—joined, not at the hip, but at the temple, because whenever I see them they are hunched over their piece of paper, head joining head in a way that is presumably conducive to the mutual flow of psychic energy. In the old days, it would have been reasonable to ask David what was on the piece of paper; indeed, it would have been deemed both rude and unsupportive to show no interest. These days, however, everyone accepts that Molly and Tom and I are the footsoldiers and they are the generals, and any curiosity on our part would be regarded as impertinent, possibly even actionable.

I knock on the invisible office door.

‘David, could I speak to you?’

He looks up, momentarily irritated.

‘Now?’

‘If possible.’

‘Fire away.’

‘Can we have dinner tonight?’

‘We have dinner every night.’

‘You and me. Out. GoodNews babysitting. If that’s OK with him.’

‘Tonight?’ GoodNews consults his mental Psion Organiser and finds that, as it happens, he is indeed free tonight.

‘OK, then. Do you think we need to talk?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘About… ?’

‘There are a couple of things. Maybe we should talk about last night, for example. My reaction.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that. We all get upset from time to time.’

‘Yeah,’ says GoodNews. ‘Can’t be helped. Like I said to your brother, sadness can be a right sod for keeping itself hidden away and then popping out.’ He waves a magnanimous hand. ‘Forget about it. It never happened.’