The (almost) lesser-spotted Englishwoman

So, I’m still scratching. Though not quite so much. Doctor Marianne looked at me – not the computer. Unwavering. Right in the eye.  An efficient smile, then a seamless, artful transformation into just enough concern – but not enough to make me panic.

The spots, I explained, were coming and going. I think it may be hives, I said.

She looked puzzled.

“Urticaria?” I offered.

“Well,” she smiled. “Possibly.”

“I think it may be the lime dust. I’ve been pointing walls.”

She shuffles around the desk. Pencil skirt, pumps, twinset and pearls.

She takes a closer look.

I pull back a shirt sleeve. They’re not there.

The night before, spoilt, capricious, and prickling, they had unleashed seizures of flashing, itching discomfort in an audacious assault up my legs.

They were demanding attention. They were determined to get it - and they did. I’d made my excuses, headed for a darkened room and had given into a tirade of frenzied scratching.

Two minutes later, I was sore, breathless, streaked with angry crimson gashes. Of course I regretted it.

Now, in Dr Marianne’s surgery, when I needed them to be there, they were nowhere to be seen.

She asked some questions, then poked and prodded me; invited me to sit on her couch.

I sank down. Unprompted she pulled up the back of my shirt. In ones, and twos and threes, the spots started to appear

Over my shoulder she told me they were the result of a grass tick bite.

“Thought so, aouta,” she declared. “They come out in August, hang around in fields, gardens. They wait for you and then, zut, they strike.”

She followed the trail up my arms, up my legs, my neck.

Then she stopped.

“Why’s it all over your face?”

“Lime dust?”

The pharmacist filled a bag with anti-histamines, antibiotics, creams, and a disinfectant spray.

I swallowed; I applied liberally. I massaged in and I sprayed. Twelve hours later and my skin was spotless.

Then Benoit arrived. He hauled dust sheets and big black buckets of lime mortar up the stairs. He pointed a wall in a day.

And then the spots returned…