Chapter 6. Evacuee

Mrs Rogers wanted an opinion on what she should do about her husband, who was not a patient of the practice.

Three months ago, she said, his body had been found slumped half out of his car, on a south coast beach. He had been taken to the nearest hospital, treated for drug overdose, and three days later, sent back to London. He was now attending a local out-patient clinic, taking anti-depressants. She had no idea what would happen to him or to their marriage. He preferred not to come home, he was staying with his brother.

Mrs Rogers was in her forties, pretty, radiating discreet sexuality. I liked to see her, but was apprehensive of her turquoise eyes, wide and wondering beneath plucked brows: the charm of her melting glance distracted attention from whatever it was she wanted. Once her children's illnesses were over, she rarely came to see me about anything other than her breasts, which formed worrying little lumps from time to time.

She was a receptionist at an expensive hotel, and was required professionally to be glamorous in a prudent way. In the intimacy of the consulting room, the impact tended to the excessive. Her beauty was designed to dazzle from behind a protective barrier, a desk or a counter, to smooth the way for transactions with strangers. In the consulting room her unpretentious self, a worried mother and housewife, contended with her commercial persona.

I had in the past, given some support to a depressed friend of hers. The outcome of that led her to think I might help her husband. I agreed to meet him: he came alone at the appointed time, cautious, polite, in a dark grey suit, his wife's age. Traces of adolescent comeliness clung to his good-looking profile, his trimmed chestnut hair. His clear brow, frank brown eyes, and clean pale cheeks, were under-pinned by a strong jaw line and a determined, pointed chin. These latter helped to discount a suggestion of androgynous ambiguity. He looked unhappy, but not desperate, and seemed capable of good humou