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don’t stay the same and this practice will not be stuck in the arrogance of thinking that we’re doing everyone we serve a favour.’
    ‘But you’re all doing a fantastic job,’ Charlie added, ‘we do want you to know that, don’t we Matt?’
    ‘Of course but this is how we’re going to make a good job even better on behalf of the patients.’
    Matt couldn’t stand the mentality of people who think that everything should stand still and nothing should move with the times. Consumers of healthcare had changed, even though many of the practice’s patients didn’t have the stake in society that a job provided. But, in Matt’s mind, that didn’t mean that they were any less deserving than those who did. Even if someone doesn’t have a job they need to prepare for when they do. They need to be part of the same stream in society. That’s what Matt tried to get across to faces that looked back at him as if he was asking them to prostrate themselves before the local Bishop.
    ‘Thanks for your support in there,’ said Matt sarcastically as he walked into his consulting room followed by Charlie who closed the door behind him.
    ‘You were doing alright,’ said Charlie, encouragingly, ‘you didn’t need me.’
    ‘That’s not the fucking point! Why should I always have to be the one who plays the bad guy, Charlie? Why is it never you?’
    ‘Because you don’t need to be liked like I do?’ Charlie offered, feebly.
    ‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’
    ‘I’m just no good at that sort of thing.’
    ‘Charlie, you are my partner in this place.’
    ‘Er, that’s something we need to talk about,’ said Charlie.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    Charlie took a deep breath. He knew Matt wasn’t going to like this.
    ‘I’m thinking of selling my share in the practice,’ Charlie announced.
    Matt felt like he’d been stabbed in the chest. ‘Say that again.’
    ‘Well the thing is, Natasha has got it into her head that this is a practice with too many poor people and she doesn’t like me working here.’
    Matt was livid. ‘Now I’ve heard it all!’
    ‘She wants me to move to a practice in a more acceptable area.’
    ‘Acceptable?’ Matt demanded angrily. ‘Fucking acceptable? What the fuck does that mean?’
    ‘She doesn’t want to have to tell people that I work in inner-city Salford,’ protested Charlie, ‘she wants to be able to tell them that I only deal with the very top people of Cheshire.’
    ‘And you’ve agreed to this bullshit?’
    Charlie just shrugged his shoulders and smiled as best he could.
    ‘I always knew you were weak where women were concerned but she’s scraped the bottom of your fucking reserve tank.’
    ‘Hey, that’s not fair! It’s funny though, I’ll give you that.’
    ‘You’ve only been with one real woman in your life, Charlie’ said Matt. ‘She gave you two beautiful children and, by your own admission, a very happy marriage and yet it still wasn’t enough for you. You broke her heart because you couldn’t keep your trousers on when all the gold-digging tarts came fluttering.’
    ‘Have you finished?’
    ‘Alright, well are you seriously telling me that you’re going to piss down the drain everything we’ve worked for in this community for the sake of that airhead who wouldn’t know a principle if it leapt up and slapped her across the face?’
    ‘Don’t put it like that, mate,’ said Charlie, seeing all over Matt’s face how badly the news was going down. ‘I’ll give you first refusal on buying me out.’
    ‘Charlie, I’m the only other partner! We set it up that way, remember? So that we could do things our way without any interference from anyone else’
    ‘I mean before I sell to anybody else.’
    Matt took in a deep breath and tried to calm himself down. ‘Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out.’
    ‘Well it’s what she wants, and women like Natasha are like little girls when they’ve set their heart set on something. And guys like me end up