I Knew the Nurse's Next Words

It was a routine referral — a lump in my right wrist, almost certainly a ganglion, the GP said, and it was. This is not that kind of medical story. It is about the eleven words I heard twice.

The clinic was new to me: new town, new building, one of those bright modular units that smell of vinyl. Sitting in the corridor, the deja vu arrived slowly, like water finding a level. The corkboard with the crooked flu poster: known. The particular squeak-squeak-silence of a wheeled trolley somewhere: known, including the silence.

And then, the way you remember a line from a film, I remembered a nurse leaning out of the second door and saying: 'The doctor will want the left one scanned too, while you're here.' Eleven words, her intonation dipping on 'too'. The memory came with the smell of vinyl attached.

Ten minutes later the second door opened. The nurse leaned out. 'The doctor will want the left one scanned too, while you're here.' Dip on 'too'. I stood up with my ears ringing.