Now I'm a believer..

'She'd stopped eating, they said. For 3 weeks. She's drinking a bit. It's what happened last time. She's not talking to anyone at all. No, she's not talking to herself . Besides, she's diabetic. you need to come'.

"When did they call?"
"Late yesterday evening, after you and J had left."

At the end of a day that started around eight in the morning and dragged on until late evening, we'd clocked several achievements to our credit, chief among which was managing to lock someone out of her own house. This was made that much worse because she'd refused us entry earlier, since we were strangers, which we actually were (though we'd flashed IDs).We had hung around outside, trying hard not to look dodgy, in the middle of this sprawling, rather homely council estate, while telephoning her daughter who'd agreed to come down and let us in. The daughter had warned us that what had happened actually would, but we had finished early with our previous patient and decided to jump the gun.

So much for our enthusiasm. To cut a long story short, the woman came out after a while, to (presumably) check whether we'd gone, and much to her chagrin, found that we hadn't. Disgusted, she told us to leave, and turned to walk around the house, which, to me, seemed to imply that she would get in through the backdoor. Taking this as a final dismissal (at least until the daughter arrived), I shut the front door (which was wide open), in the interests of her safety. Or so I thought, congratulating myself smugly for my presence of mind. Until she returned. Apparently, the door round the back, contrary to expectation, was locked.

Much to our relief, when she discovered what had happened, she laughed. Repeatedly, loudly and rather scarily (or so I thought, half expecting her to take out something and shoot me). Turned out she was genuinely amused.

And so we found ourselves, an Australian nurse, an Indian doctor and a tall, striking, barefoot Jamaican woman in a golden turban, clad in an overcoat and little else, standing together in the autumn chill. Needless to say, we got talking.

Not exactly the way we'd planned it, in more ways than one, because she asked most of the questions, enquiring about everything from our families to what we liked to listen to. As the autumn sun dropped rapidly, the shadows deepened. As did our conversation. The nurse, who was watching her terminally ill mother fade, had been a bit shaky all week and the conversation seemed to have a calming effect on her. She smiled. The lines between the treaters and the treated blurred.

Our patient disappeared on two occasions, into the bowels of the great estate, reappearing as abruptly as she'd gone. The second time, she startled me out of my wits, because everything was still, my mind was drifting, and then I gradually became aware of being watched. I turned, warily, and there she was, unexpectedly perched on a high ledge, looking down at me quietly, turban aglow in a stray shaft of the setting sun, her coat flying in the wind.

After a while, she started to hum, gently.

She liked gospel, she'd said.