Saul Miller is a GP in Wooler, Northumberland.
January 2021
Two people arrive on the platform at Milford Junction. Grey clouds scud overhead, the wind is cold.
‘Are you a doctor too?’ the man asks, nodding towards a book she carries. ‘I see you are carrying a copy of A Fortunate Man by John Berger.’
‘Yes’, she replies, looking up with surprise. She meets his eyes and smiles radiantly, and yet still somehow shyly. ‘I’m heading south to start training as a family doctor.’
He looks both pleased and yet crestfallen. ‘I’m Alec. I’m heading north to start my training.’
Her eyes are like deep pools of emotion. ‘Oh my!’ she exclaims quietly. ‘You know what’s happened, don’t you?… I’ve fallen in love with you.’
They retire to the waiting room and pass the time boring each other with long medical words.
Their trains arrive and they depart.
March 2022
Two trains arrive, coming from opposite directions. Only one person alights from each. They fall into each other’s arms as if they’d arrived on the same platform.
Laura speaks first. ‘It seems an eternity has passed.’
‘That year and a bit was misery’, agrees Alec. ‘I went through it in a sort of trance.’
‘Yes and despite also being forced to work in hospitals having chosen to be family doctors, we both passed our Advanced Knowledge Test in that trance’, Laura points out soothingly in a single breath.
Alec has withdrawn partially from their embrace. He is holding her still, looking hard into her eyes. ‘I’d gladly have failed if that might have caused the inter-deanery transfer request to have been approved.’
Laura looks tenderly back. ‘This can’t last’, she murmurs, casting a meaningful glance around the station setting. Then stronger, ‘This misery can’t last.’
They retire to the waiting room and pass the time discussing how educationally valuable it is to spend at least half of family doctor training in random hospital posts.
Their trains arrive and they depart.
July 2024
Two trains stop. People enter and leave them. As the platform clears, finally, our two are there, each looking anxiously for the other.
They finally meet and embrace once more, heads buried in each other’s shoulders, clasping tight as if they might never let go again.
Finally, it is Alec who speaks. ‘Thank you for coming back to me’, he says with a trembling voice. ‘I have passed my Simulated Consultation Assessment and my final Annual Review of Competence Progression. At last, we can plan being together.’
Laura sobs. ‘I failed my Simulated Consultation Assessment’, she confesses. ‘Apparently not everyone can understand my strong accent. My training has been extended to permit time for resits.’
Alec looks wild with confusion.
‘Apparently not everyone can understand my strong accent’, she repeats with greater emphasis.
‘I understood first time!’ he exclaims. ‘I was just shocked. And I had been thinking we should aim to settle here, in Milford Junction, where we have always been so happy. But now I think I will apply for jobs down in your deanery area instead.’
They retire to the waiting room and pass the time repeating the phrase ‘The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain’.
December 2024
Trains arrive and depart and our two lovers embrace once more.
‘I’ve passed!’ Laura sings out with glee. ‘All that practice with Professor Higgins worked!’
‘Wrong film’, mutters Alec. ‘But how glad I would be if only I had managed to secure a substantive post in the National Health Service in time.’
Laura’s carefree mood is dampened. Indeed, rain falls heavily. Cold, winter rain.
‘Will you be deported?’ she asks, shivering.
‘I’m afraid so’, he nods.
Both are crying now. ‘This can’t last’, Laura weeps. ‘This misery can’t last.’
Their trains arrive and they depart.
Featured photo by Museums of History New South Wales on Unsplash.
