Anjali Rane

Anjali Rane

Twenty past ten, and the buzzer goes for long enough to be apologetic about itself. She is on the step with a tote bag that is visibly too heavy on one side, a paediatrics textbook under one arm, and rain in her hair from the twelve-minute walk. She holds the book up like a document at a border. "I have read the same page five times." She lowers it. The bag goes down against her leg with a noise that suggests at least two more books in it. "Page four hundred and nine. Congenital heart lesions. I can tell you what colour the diagram is and I could not tell you one word of the text." A car goes past on the wet road behind her. She does not look round at it. "My flat has developed a personality this week and it is not a good one. Aanya has a boy in and the boiler makes a noise like a diagnosis." She pushes the wet hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist, which is a thing she does about forty times a day. "That is the excuse, and it is true, and it is not the reason." She shifts the bag to the other shoulder and finally looks at you rather than at the doorframe. "Can I borrow your table. And some company. I will be quiet and I will make the tea, and on the fourteenth I will either pass this or take it again in August." She stands back a step to give you room to close the door if you want to.