Pip

‘No,’ Tom interjected, a little seriously, ‘it’s me. We’re here for me. For my eczema. Not my daddy.’

‘Well, I think I can fix your daddy’s Dandruff Disaster,’ said Dr Pippity, producing an oversized pair of green plastic scissors the size of gardening shears. She hummed and sang and worked the toy all over the father’s head whilst his son and the mother grinned. ‘Oops!’ Dr Pippity declared. ‘I have cut off his ear.’ She held a hand over Zac’s left ear and made a theatrical display of searching high and low. Balancing the scissors precariously on his head, she produced a large, false ear from her pocket. ‘Ear you are, dear,’ she said, ‘ear you go, ear’s another one.’ Her jokes were so corny that the adults had to laugh and to Tom, not quite six, her puns were extraordinarily brilliant and the cause of much mirth.

Undivided attention for just five minutes seemed to have a value lasting much longer – but soon enough, Dr Pippity was on her rounds, with her scissors and her hole-punch clippings and her spirits and her skill. Tom remained animated right up until he was called. June went with him. Zac stayed in the waiting area. And when Dr Pippity yodelled a heartfelt goodbye to everyone, that she was off on her rounds, Zac followed at a discreet distance.

What Zac didn’t know – how could he – was that when clowns are in slap and motley, they are locked into their clown personae until the moment of make-up remover and cotton wool. It’s not dressing up. It’s not acting. It’s a dignified art and profession. It’s a very serious business. Who would ever accuse Superman of being Clark Kent in fancy dress? Clowns never drop their guise. Not even when they are on their own. And so it was Dr Pippity, not Pip McCabe, who was alone in the small washroom the clown doctors use to sterilize their props, wash their hands with antiseptic and compose themselves between ward rounds. Though the door was open, she was unaware of having an audience. Zac loitered out in the corridor, glimpsing her now and then as she larked about with the bin, treading on the pedal so that the lid opened and shut like a mouth – and a very good conversationalist it made, too.

‘Excuse me,’ Zac said, when she emerged. ‘I just wanted to say “thanks”.’

Momentarily, Dr Pippity couldn’t quite place him – her mind was on the cancer ward she was about to visit. Then she caught sight of a few stray hole-punch pieces. ‘That’s okey-dokey,’ she said, in her clown voice.

‘I saw you at my nephew’s party,’ Zac said, wanting to keep her there for a moment, wanting her to be herself, wanting her to himself; not wanting to follow her towards the ward. ‘Billy?’

‘Dr Pippity doesn’t do parties,’ she said, needing to be on her way and slightly disconcerted by this man’s attentions. Weren’t his wife and child downstairs?

‘In Holloway? A couple of months ago,’ Zac persisted. ‘You gave me your card, not Dr Pippity, the other one. Mad Molly or someone. I had a headache.’

‘That’ll be the dandruff,’ Dr Pippity jested, inwardly slightly insulted that Merry Martha could be thought of as Mad Molly.

I knew a Mad Molly once – she was barking mad and pretty unpleasant.

‘I lost your card. Can I have another?’ the man asked. ‘I mean, do you get a coffee break on this job? Can I buy you a coffee? Or a drink – what about a drink after work? I live in Hampstead – where do you live?’

What the fuck am I doing? June is downstairs. And Juliana is this evening.

What the fuck is he doing? His wife and kid are downstairs and he’s asking me out for a drink and wanting to know where I live?

‘I only drink orangey-lemony-blackcurranty squash,’ Dr Pippity declared, initially irritating Zac until he saw that she spoke mainly to a young patient who walked slowly past them, ‘and that yummy stuff,’ the clown continued, pointing to the drip the child was trundling and managing to raise a hint of a grin from the patient in the process. ‘I have to be on my way,’ Dr Pippity told the man, adding sotto voce, ‘it’s good to see your son in Out-patients rather than the ward. I’m pleased for him. For you, for your wife.’

‘She’s not my wife!’ Zac declared, immediately regretting the urgency and defensiveness in his voice.

That’s as may be, thought Pip as she made her way towards the ward, but whoever she is or whatever she isn’t, she is the mother of your child and she and he are just downstairs.

‘Idiot!’ Zac cursed himself, as he returned to Out-patients.

‘Weirdo,’ Dr Pippity said to herself as she entered the ward. ‘I don’t think I’ll ruffle the hair of grown men for the time being.’

EIGHT

‘Gold is ill!’ Tom chanted. ‘Please? Gold. Is. Ill!’

Zac never tired of his child’s propensity to pronounce a word the way he heard it, even if the meaning became skewed. Tom was a master of this. He thought his grandpa was ill with Old-timers because he was seventy-five, after all. For Zac, Old-timers seemed to sum up June’s father’s affliction much more astutely and more sensitively than Alzheimer’s. And now, this Saturday afternoon, Tom was saying that gold is ill with great conviction and joy.

‘Golders Hill it is,’ Zac granted and was rewarded with a hug that turned into a full-on rough-and-tumble. Zac loved the park at Golders Hill, an annexe to the heath extension at Hampstead. Flamingos and wallabies and rhea birds and deer, not to mention excellent home-made ice-cream, too, were all on offer. Families commandeered this section of the heath; mums and dads with Mamas&Papas prams and Bebecar buggies and every Fisher Price toy ever produced. There was a delightfully old-fashioned feel to Golders Hill Park; it had none of the pretensions of nearby Hampstead High Street. The Barbour brigade, with their designer labradors and under-retrieving retrievers and aesthetically muddied Range Rovers parked in the pay-and-display in Downshire Hill, never ventured to this enclave of the heath near Golders Green. And the gays who cottaged and rummaged and flirted and felched in gloomy areas of the heath nearer Whitestone Pond also left Golders Hill untouched.

‘Do you think Mummy and Rob-Dad are having ice-creams too?’ Tom asked as he and his father strolled and licked their way over to the paddock to gaze at some goats.

‘Probably,’ Zac said. ‘Hey! This time last week you were performing your ring thing.’

Tom looked at his toy watch which permanently read 3.30. ‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘and I didn’t need sellotape.’

‘You were brilliant,’ Zac said earnestly, ‘and you made their day. You made everyone’s day.’

‘I hope that Mummy and Rob-Dad are having ice-cream at this very very very minute,’ said Tom, pulling his father towards the deer. Zac, who thought that the concept of time zones might be just beyond his son’s grasp, assured him that they most certainly were. The deer were Disney delightful; the goats, however, were pungent enough to make their ice-cream unpalatable so they meandered back towards the rolling lawns.

‘Good God,’ Zac said under his breath at the very same moment that Tom declared ‘A clown! A clown!’ The child stopped. ‘It’s the clown!’ He looked at Zac and beamed. ‘Quick! Let’s go! Come on, Dad.’

Shit. It’s only bloody Her. Clowngirl. She’ll think I’m stalking her. It’s not like I have a pair of sunglasses to hide behind. I’ll keep an eye on Tom from a discreet distance and bury my nose in the paper. But that’ll make me look like a comedy spy, of course. Anyway, Tom’s not even six years old. He has ice-cream dribbling down his wrist in high wasp season. I must accompany him, I’m his father.

‘Daddy, look!’ Tom went charging back to Zac, standing on the periphery of parents near the stage. ‘It’s Dr Pippity, isn’t it – but she’s got funny clothes on, and much more stuff on her face than at St Bea’s.’ He scampered back to the throng of children and heckled with the best of them.

Oh dear, what have we here? Pip said to herself whilst she made an expert mess of bendy balloons. It’s that bloke with the dandruff. Looks like I have my own personal stalker. Look at him, loitering behind his paper. I can’t see the wife anywhere. Well, he can look – but I hope he doesn’t linger.

‘See! Spaghetti!’ Merry Martha declared, holding aloft a scramble of balloons to much laughter from her young audience. ‘Blast and bootlaces! I’ve forgotten the magic words – does anyone know any?’ From the audience came shrieks of ‘abracadabra’ and ‘open sesame’. A girl at the front in an immaculate dress with matching hair ribbons was sitting patiently, cross-legged, with her hand held aloft.

‘Magic word?’ Martha asked her gently.

‘Please,’ the girl revealed.

Martha performed a cartwheel to signify her approval. ‘The best magic word of all,’ she declared with a nod to the cordon of parents, ‘a very pretty please from a very pretty young lady.’ Her hands worked this way and that, whilst her face contorted into a display of entertaining grimaces and pouts. ‘Voilà! No more spaghetti – a sausage dog instead! Oh! And another. Ah! And one more!’ She distributed the balloons carefully to the quieter children in her audience, thanked everyone for coming and gave a genuflection of prodigious proportions. ‘Time for you all to have a drink or a wee-wee,’ she proclaimed, crossing her legs as if that was what she needed to do, ‘before the puppet show. Ta-ta, ta-ra, toot-toot.’ Two flic-flacs and she was off the stage.

Tom made his way back to his father. ‘Did you see? Dr Pippity?’ Zac nodded and suggested they return to the goats now that there was no ice-cream to spoil. ‘No,’ said Tom firmly, ‘I want to go and say “hullo” to Dr Pippity.’ Zac tried to say she was going home, that she was only half Dr Pippity today. ‘No!’ Tom declared. ‘You can’t be a half. Let’s go and say “hullo”. She’s better than stinky goats. Come on, Dad, please?’

Why can’t she just bugger off quickly instead of meandering her way through the park, chatting and jesting with every child she passes?

‘We don’t have time,’ Zac tried to reason with Tom.

‘We only just got here,’ Tom protested.

‘She’s busy,’ Zac said, not looking at her, not looking at Tom.

‘She snot,’ Tom sulked. ‘All the other children get to talk to her – look. It’s not fair, it snot.’

You’re right. And why do I even care what she thinks of me? And why do I appear to care about it more than I care about Tom?

‘Go on, then,’ Zac said, ‘run. I’ll tell you how fast you are. Just say a quick “hullo”. I’ll catch up with you.’ Tom belted off. Dutifully, Zac timed him, to the fraction of a second. He’d never fob his son off with an estimate.

Pip was trying to extricate herself from a thuggish nine-year-old boy and his sidekick who were trying to pickpocket her for balloons.

‘Dr Pippity?’ Tom greeted her shyly.

‘Shove off!’ snarled the larger boy, pushing him. But then as he stared at Tom a look of horror crept across his face. ‘Yuck, look at him!’ His friend did. ‘His skin’s coming off – and I touched him!’

‘Flaky boy!’ his friend joined in. ‘I could puke!’

The larger boy wiped his hands with desperation on the grass. Pip was appalled. She’d worked with children with all manner of disabilities and afflictions for so long, frequently she no longer saw the physical manifestation of their illnesses. The boys were haranguing Tom whose eyes were smarting.

Don’t cry, little guy, Pip thought, it’s what they want.

Tom’s bottom lip quivered. The older boy suddenly pushed his friend against Tom. ‘Ha, ha, you’ll catch his manky skin!’

The younger boy burst into tears, genuinely distressed, rubbing his arm furiously, as if his sleeve was contaminated with germs. He was no longer actively attempting to tease and hurt Tom. He was now fearful for his welfare. ‘Mummy!’ he sobbed, running off.

‘You horrible little boy,’ Pip said in her own voice, the sound of which completely took the bully aback. ‘Go away or I’ll phone the police.’

‘I’ll tell my dad on you,’ he said, backing off nevertheless.

‘And I’ll tell your dad on you,’ Pip threatened, ‘picking on littler boys, trying to steal balloons. Who do you think you are? Sod off right now or I’ll start yelling.’ Standing there, hands on hips, multicolourful and made up to the nines, Pip still cut an imposing figure to the child who sauntered off, kicking turf and grumbling. ‘Horrible child,’ Pip reiterated. She turned back to Tom who was trying to wipe his tears away before she saw. With her thumb, Pip stroked the last of the wet off his cheek. And then she licked her thumb and smacked her lips. ‘Yum, yum!’ she cooed, in her clown persona once again. ‘You have the most delicious tears in London The World The Universe.’

Tom managed a smile. ‘You are Dr Pippity,’ he declared.

‘Sort of – I’m actually also Merry Martha today. Are you all right?’ Tom nodded. ‘Boys like him,’ Pip said, in a gentler voice, with a cursory nod of her head in the direction of the other children, ‘they’re just silly bullies. I bet he wets his pants and has no proper friends.’ Tom’s smile broadened. Pip glanced towards the entrance to the park. She had a party to do in a couple of hours. She really should be on her way. But then she glanced at Tom.

God. I can’t just leave him. Little mite.

‘Where are your parents?’ Pip asked.

‘My mum’s in the St Lucy Jalousie,’ Tom said, wondering if he had the word order correct, ‘in the Caribbean. But my dad’s over there.’

‘Come on, let’s go over there, then,’ Pip said – though giving her stalker the wrong idea, or the slightest encouragement for his perversion, was something she’d really rather not do. ‘I hope you don’t let idiots like that stupid boy upset you,’ Pip said as they walked.

‘I try not to,’ said Tom with a weariness Pip felt no child his age should know. ‘I just say “sticks and stones” to myself.’

‘“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”,’ Pip quoted back to him.

‘That’s right!’ Tom said, feeling he had a true ally. ‘My dad says it’s what’s on the inside that counts.’

‘Beauty comes from within,’ said Pip. Tom loved her even more.

‘And anyway, the doctor says I will grow out of my eczema when I’m older. And it isn’t catching at all,’ he continued, almost pleadingly.

‘Of course not,’ said Pip, taking his hand and walking on. ‘Why aren’t you and your dad in St Lucia, too, in the Caribbean?’ she asked conversationally, on their way over to the trees. Aware of the yarns children could spin, Pip had presumed the boy’s mother wasn’t truly away.

Mummy’s probably making all sorts of North London organic stuff for the kid’s tea. In a kitchen more suited to a Cotswold cottage, no doubt – Aga and gingham and scrubbed wood units.

‘My mum’s on honeymoon,’ Tom explained, ‘with Rob-Dad.’

Pip decided it was time to give the child’s imagination a break so she changed the subject to balloons instead. ‘If you could have a balloon that looked like anything you wanted it to, what would it be?’

And please God choose a cat, dog, parrot or tortoise.

Luckily, Tom procrastinated for so long that Pip had blown a balloon and twisted it into a parrot by the time he said ‘Giant anteater, actually’.

‘Will a parrot do?’

‘It’s brill! Thanks, Dr Pippity.’

‘Martha.’

‘Martha, then.’

‘Actually, you can call me Pip.’

‘Who?’

Zac, unaware of his son’s altercation with the bully, did not know where to look, let alone what to expect, on observing the clown and his son making their way towards him. So he pretended he was engrossed in his newspaper. But that seemed rude. So he watched them approach. But that seemed ruder. So he decided to meet them halfway.

‘Look at my parrot, Daddy.’

‘It’s lovely,’ Zac told Tom, thanking the clown without looking at her. Pip thought the man spent an inordinate amount of time displaying a bizarre level of interest in her balloon sculpture but it gave her a chance, however fleetingly, and however quickly she dismissed it, to see that, in the sunlight, away from the hospital, no matter how peculiar he was on the inside, he was clad in a most appealing exterior. Eyes the colour of slate. Handsome face with neat features. Dark hair, short and neat. Trim physique clad in nicely cut clothes. Though a slight preponderance of navy, Pip felt, considering the balmy weather.

I don’t know why I’m even noticing. He’s not my type.

Oh? What’s your type, then, Pip?

Don’t have one.

So how do you know this chap isn’t for you?

Because he’s not. He’s nuts, for starters, plus he has a kid. A child, for heaven’s sake. Anyway, there’s Caleb to consider.

I thought you weren’t considering Caleb at all?

‘She’s got lots of tricks,’ Tom was telling his father, ‘and lots of names, too.’

‘I have,’ said Pip in Martha’s voice. ‘It means never a dull moment for me. If I’m boring myself, I just become Martha. If Martha’s getting on my nerves, I summon up Dr Pippity. If Dr Pippity is tired, then I’m just plain old me.’

See! Zac thought, with a degree of relief. She is an utter weirdo. With what is probably a sectionable personality disorder, too.

Yet he couldn’t help but think that she wasn’t ‘plain’ in the slightest, whatever she might protest to the contrary. And however lurid her clothing and daft her make-up.

‘Most people are locked up if they have as many personalities as me!’ Pip said, right on cue, but to Tom and not Zac.

See, Zac thought, vindicated, she’s barking.

‘I must be off,’ said Pip. Then she looked at Tom and took a sniff at her arm. She wrinkled her nose: ‘Yeuch, I am off – past my sell-by date!’ Tom giggled, Zac tried not to. She stopped herself from saying ‘not really’ to the bloke lest he thought she actually did smell, though why she cared what he thought she didn’t know.

‘Watch how fast I can run!’ Tom boasted. Watching him belt off towards the deer enclosure, Pip marvelled how quickly children could bounce back from a knock. She was also quite charmed to see how his father timed him.

‘Two revolting kids were picking on him,’ Pip told his father when Tom was out of earshot, ‘little sods.’

Zac nodded gravely, keeping an eye on the second hand of his watch. ‘I bet he bore up OK,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Pip confirmed, ‘but they were vile.’

‘Poor old Tom,’ said Zac. ‘It’s awful to say he’s used to it – but he is. And for the most part, it doesn’t happen often.’

‘Well, I’m off,’ said Pip, despite a perceptible loiter to the contrary which infuriated her.

‘Yeah, good idea,’ Zac said, with a derisory sniff in her direction, ‘you do whiff a bit.’

Why did you say that?

Why did he say that?

Why the fuck did I say that?

Your sense of humour is so dry it’s positively parched, Zac. Backtrack.

But he’s standing there, an unfortunate and involuntary smirk stuck to his face while he racks his brain for a way to minimize the insult without drawing more attention to it. It’s taking him too long. See, Pip is smiling cursorily but she’s backing off.

She must think I am an absolute arse, now. I was only trying to pick up on her own joke.

Pip didn’t see it that way. Why should she? After all, look what she’s had to go by from Zac before.

What a dick. And whether it’s a lack of manners or a warped sense of humour on his part, I can’t say I really care.

‘How fast?’ said Tom, panting.

‘There and back?’ Zac asked. ‘Two minutes forty in all.’

‘Where’s my clown?’

‘Gone home, little ’un.’

Tom wasn’t too upset. He now felt sure he’d see her again. Dr Pippity. Or the Martha one with more make-up and fewer clothes. Zac reckoned so, too. And didn’t quite know how he felt about it, now that he’d made a prat of himself for the second, even third, time. Hastily, he reminded himself she was a clown, and wasn’t that an odd thing to choose to be? And hadn’t clowns frightened him when he was young? He thought of Juliana; her long legs and no holds barred. Then he considered Clowngirl with her stripy tights and daft voices.

Well, not that he’s to know, but the next time Zac sees Pip, he simply won’t recognize her at all.

NINE

‘How was your visit today?’

‘It was good, thanks – tiring as ever, but rewarding.’

Bloody hell! Caleb’s managed it! Pip has granted him – or, rather, allowed herself – a couple of drinks after work. She’s chosen a Sea Breeze and she’s sipping it demurely. Ironically, today’s one Tuesday when Pip needn’t have worried about being on her own – the messages left on her mobile during her hospital rounds had Cat clamouring for Pip to cook dinner (and she’d provide plenty of wine), Fen imploring her to come and see the new Julia Roberts film (and she’d buy the popcorn) and Megan begging her to come and meet Dominic (and thus advise her whether to proceed). All three presumed Pip would be free for them.

sorry, already have plans she texts back to each of them, adding a few more kisses for Cat than the others. They’d just have to manage without her – now there was a novel notion! Cat was depressed about this, Fen was slightly pissed off and Megan was downright devastated, but Pip turned her phone off. Good job, really. One call taken from a friend or sibling in need and she’d have left the pub and Caleb without a second thought. But she’s happily ensconced in an old Windsor chair, sitting by the window with the slow sun of the early evening drifting in and bestowing aesthetic merit on all it glances off. Pip watches Caleb as he returns from the bar with peanuts and crisps. The light is catching his features, accentuating his cheek-bones and strong jaw line, spinning a little gold from his chocolate eyes. Pip feels content with her decision to have him for company.

‘Anything to forgo rush hour on the Misery line,’ she had said nonchalantly half an hour ago in answer to his suggestion of a quick drink. He’d been ready and keen to head off right there and then. Pip had laughed. ‘Would you mind awfully if I changed and took my slap off? We might not get served otherwise.’ Caleb had regarded her with the sober contemplation he bestowed on his patients. ‘Nah,’ he said dismissively, at length, ‘you look fab and funky as you are. Let’s go.’ And with that, he had forcibly marched her down the stairs to the ground floor, out through the foyer, past the ambulance bay, through the courtyard where the more able-bodied patients took fresh air, beyond the hospital perimeters and out into the world. She did, however, manage to remove her false nose and slip it, sleight of hand, up her sleeve and then into her pocket.

And now she’s sitting in the Windsor chair, across from Dr Caleb Simmons who is straddling a stool and presenting her with peanuts and crisps to accompany her Sea Breeze. He’s drinking down a pint of lager. She can see that paediatrics is thirsty work. He’s tucking into the snacks, too. ‘I hardly ever find the time to even grab a sandwich on the hoof,’ he explains, almost apologetically. Because for the next few minutes his mouth is full of peanuts, all that’s possible is small talk – but it relaxes Pip and she’s pleased to find out minutiae like his age (thirty-four), how long he’s worked at St Bea’s (three years), where he lives (Hoxton) and that he’s going on holiday in a month to Belize (with a friend). He doesn’t like to speak with his mouth full so he answers Pip economically and doesn’t ask her anything. Much to her relief.

‘Would you like another drink?’ Pip asks, because she would certainly like another Sea Breeze. When she returns to the table, the snacks are finished and the packets have been meticulously folded into compact triangular pockets. A finicky process that strikes her as being at odds with Caleb’s easygoing personality. She doesn’t dwell on it. Actually, she is rather enjoying his company and would be happy for them to make an entire evening of it.