I pulled down the stiff, wrought-iron door handle and dragged open
the heavy, gloss-black-painted front door to West Street surgery. The building
itself was a two story Victorian town house that had been converted into a
general practitioners’ practice in the 60s. The door was four inches thick and
had a strong hinge that required a hefty tug and left one slightly unbalanced
after wrenching it open. I had an awkward altercation with someone trying to come
out of the building as I was going in – I let them past, they let me past, I
hesitated a little longer than them so they pushed past and gave me a little
appreciative nod. A pointless gesture that wasted ten seconds of both of our
lives.
Beyond the door, the reception desk was immediately off to the left
and the waiting room was to the right up a flight of three stairs. Between
these two destinations, in the opposite wall, was a door marked ‘private’,
which presumably led around the corner to reception, next to which set into the
wall was a small black plastic box similar to a letterbox, marked ‘repeat
prescriptions’. I took a left.
The reception was a rectangular hole in the wall, three foot high by
five foot wide, at hip height, so that I had to stoop slightly to look in. The
bottom edge formed a desk with a computer, behind which was sat a lady in her
fifties.
“Hi, I’ve got an appointment at four thirty”
The lady tapped at the computer keyboard for a few seconds.
“Name?” she requested, flatly.
“Jackson, um, John”
To the left of the desk was a corridor, running parallel to the front
door, with two practice rooms, one of which I knew from past experience was
where they administered holiday vaccines for tropical diseases. I flicked my
eyes down the corridor to avoid the impression that I was staring at the
reception lady, then looked back when she addressed me again.
“Yes, Doctor Fleischer’s a little behind today, take a seat.”
“Thank you.”
I turned as smoothly as I could and walked up the three steps into
the waiting room. Five of the seats were occupied: a young, grizzly couple
hissing back and forth at each other under their breaths; an elderly man who
looked to be in impeccable health with a walking stick; a mother and her young
child, who had rashes on his wrists. The waiting room had chairs lining the two
opposite walls and half of the wall that had the door to the bathroom. I found
a chair as removed as possible from everyone else to sit down – two chairs to
the right of the mother, almost opposite the elderly man, with the couple in
the farthest corner from me. This gave me a good view of the three steps
leading back down to reception, from whence I had just come, and the three more
steps leading further up into the rest of the building, where the majority of
the practice rooms were.
Doctor Fleischer ended up being about forty minutes late, meaning I
had to sit a while. During that time the couple were escorted down the stairs
to one of the practice rooms by reception and the elderly man was called up the
stairs. A couple more people came in to sit in the waiting room – a fat man who
was entirely bald and sat down with a huff, and another elderly man – but I
paid them little attention as I was sat waiting.
I also developed a headache that lasted about ten minutes and went
away again.
“Mister Jackson?” a voice called from up the stairs, before a male
head peeked around the corner to scan the waiting room for me.
