We turned into a side street and parked outside the surgery. I squinted myopically at the brass plaques. Dr. W. Munro, and underneath, Dr. J. Williamson. I hoped I shouldn’t see sour, bad-tempered Dr Williamson.

‘It needs a polish,’ I said.

‘Well, there’s a little job for you then.’

A line of people were already waiting outside by the step. Daddy raised his hat and greeted them. One of the women, tight-faced, held a silent baby. An elderly man was coughing, bent over by it, his lungs sounding drenched.

The waiting-room was dark, the walls painted brown. There were wooden benches against three of the walls and in one corner stood a small table and two chairs. In the fourth wall a door, through which Daddy disappeared, led out to the two consulting rooms at the back, and there was a little trapdoor for the dispenser.

I was just settling myself down at the table when my father reappeared, hurrying across the waiting-room.

‘Dr Williamson is going to handle the start of surgery. I have some urgent calls to make. Won’t be too long.’

‘Oh, let me come. Please let me!’ It seemed very important that day that I see everything.

He had no time to spare for discussion. ‘Come on then, quickly.’ He was already going out of the door. ‘None of them is too far. It’ll be easier to walk.’

It was a humid day, warm and cloudy, threatening storms. We hurried along the crowded pavement of Birch Street past rows of shops, their blinds slanting out over the pavement. Everything seemed colourful, absorbing. Each shop gave off its own special smell: the warm, fleshy smell of sides of meat padded with yellowed fat, fresh bread and burnt currants, the tangy sweetness of strawberries and the bitter smells of metal and rubber from the hardware shop. Mixed with this was the ripe whiff of horse manure from the road.

I followed Daddy into another side street, hurrying to keep up with him, he striding and I trotting.

‘Here we are.’ He knocked on the door of a house. ‘You’d best stay outside, I think. Old Mr Fenton has his bed downstairs now.’

The house was run-down and filthy, the windows so thick with grime that they must have let in very little light. There were signs that the paint on the bleached window frames must once have been blue.

A woman with a large, sagging face and a wart sprouting whiskers on her left cheekbone appeared at the door. The rest of her hair was wrapped in a washed-out brown scarf. As the door swung open a waft of stale air hit us, stinking of sweat and urine. I shrank back.

‘Oh, it’s you, doctor,’ the woman said lifelessly. ‘He’s bad today.’ She talked of a turn in the night, said she was sorry for having to bring the doctor out. My father gently dismissed the apology.

The woman left the door ajar and I peered in. I could see a bed with a heavy wood headboard, covered by old grey blankets. Propped against the pillows was a yellow face, so shrunken that it seemed not to be living at all but a mask, something out of an old tomb. The head was bent back slightly so that the nose pointed at the ceiling. The old man was struggling for breath, his lungs making a terrible rattling sound.