Page 35 of Harbor Lights

“You said a couple of things were bothering you.”

Con checked the clock. “I’ve half an hour before my last appointment. Let’s get a cup of tea.”

She followed Shiv into the corridor. “Tea, Maura?”

“Always.” Her receptionist’s voice sounded from down the corridor.

She filled the kettle and sat at the newly waxed table. “This looks good, too. Thank you for all your work today.”

“I’ve enjoyed it. I haven’t worked with wood for a long time. It’s a wonderful material. Especially this kind of quality.” Shiv sat opposite, smiling patiently.

Con wanted to share her concerns, but she needed to be careful not to break any confidences with her patients.

“I frequently speak with queer young people who are feeling isolated and lonely, and just really need to have somewhere to go to mix with other kids like them. There are quite a few kids dotted about the area, but there’s no meeting space anywhere close. I’ve been pushing for a social event or something for them for years, but there’s never enough budget for youth services. I get promises that they’ll see what funding is available in the future, but nothing ever happens. It’s not even just the gay and trans kids. All the young people could do with a place to meet others with similar interests. Games nights and the like. Unless you’re into sport, there’s very little other than school to give kids the chance to mix.” She paused, worried she was letting out her frustrations in a stream of words.

Shiv stood and poured boiling water into the teapot. “And what do you want to do about it?”

“I want to convince someone to provide them with the services they would get in a city.”

Shiv put a carton of milk on the table. Con would have used a jug, but she decided to let it be.

“Why don’t you use that energy to make it happen?”

“What do you mean?” She wasn’t following Shiv’s line of thought.

Shiv placed the teapot and three mugs in front of her and sat. “Do it yourself. Find a venue and some volunteers. Advertise it to the kids and see who turns up. If it’s popular, you have ammunition to insist on funding.”

Con screwed up her eyes and rubbed at a burgeoning pain in her temple. “You think I should start a youth club? All by myself? On top of a demanding GP practice?”

Shiv shrugged. “It would be an evening thing, and you have free time after work. And you’re not just a GP to these kids, you’re a visible queer role model. An out and proud butch dyke.”

“I prefer lesbian. Dyke is a word that was spat at me in student bars, when I wasn’t interested in talking to boys.”

Shiv shook her head and laughed as she poured tea. “How many years ago? Reclaim it and use it with pride.”

Shiv’s cocky approach to Con’s problems was annoying. As if she could change the world so easily. She poured the tea and fetched a jug for the milk. Gathering two mugs, she turned for the door.

“I’m sorry if I don’t have quite the same simplistic view of the world, Siobhán. I’d better get back to my patients.” She left and pretended not to feel Shiv’s confused gaze follow her out of the room.

After the last of her patients had left, Con returned to her irritation. Why had Shiv giving her advice annoyed her? Was it because Shiv was younger and virtually homeless, and she was offended she, the respectable village doctor, should need advice from such a person? She didn’t like that possibility. She’d never thought of Shiv as someone to not respect; she’d just made different choices in her life.

No, it was the way Shiv just saw a problem and tried to solve it. That’s what she was doing with her activism, and now she was trying to do the same with Con’s problems. Con couldn’t work like that, could she? She needed time to process things and then decide on the best approach. She groaned, dropped her glasses to the desk, and rubbed her face in her hands. Who was she kidding? She just worried things around in her head and never got them moving.

“Everything okay?” Maura poked her head around the door frame, her wiry, steel gray hair escaping from her bun, as it invariably did by the end of the day.

Con retrieved her glasses. “Yes, sorry. Long day.”

Maura nodded, looking very much like she doubted that was the issue, but she spoke none of that doubt. “I’ll be getting away now.”

“Of course.” Con forced herself to rise.

“Young Siobhán is working in the kitchen, still. She’s a hard worker.”

Con chuckled. “Young?”

“Well, compared to me or you, anyway.”

Her laughter fell away as Con acknowledged she was closer in age to her sixty-something receptionist than she was to Shiv. “Thanks, Maura, that’s a sobering thought.”

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