Alone Beneath The Heaven

by Bradshaw, Rita

  ‘Now, lass, think of your job. They’ve been right good to you, but if you start takin’ liberties—’

  ‘I’m coming up, Maggie. If . . . if she comes round, tell her I’m on my way.’

  ‘Lass, are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘Oh, lass, I won’t pretend I won’t be glad to see you.’ There came the sound of muffled weeping, and then Florrie’s voice came gently saying, ‘Sarah? You’re coming up then? Be - be quick.’

  ‘Oh, Florrie.’

  Sarah was quick, but it was still approaching eleven that night by the time she was shown into a small side room by a starched, prim nurse, who told her she would have to wait for the sister - she couldn’t possibly authorize Sarah seeing Mrs Dalton at this time of night, and did she realize Mrs Dalton was very very ill indeed? Sarah stared at her for a moment before she said flatly that yes, she did know, it was the reason she had rushed up from London that day.

  ‘I see.’ The nurse was small and plump and pretty, with a round face and wisps of fluffy blond hair showing from beneath her cap - the sort of person Sarah had always thought jolly - but her officious manner didn’t soften in the slightest when she said, ‘And you did say you are just a friend? You aren’t family, related in any way?’

  ‘Mrs Dalton and I were brought up together as children, and neither of us have family of our own, so it’s not a case of “just friends”,’ Sarah said as calmly as she could. ‘We’re like sisters.’

  ‘But you aren’t actually related?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah.’

  When the door closed behind the important little figure, Sarah sat down very suddenly on one of the four polished wooden chairs that, together with a low table holding one or two dog-eared magazines, made up the sum total of furniture in the green-painted room. She felt better now she was here. The journey had been a nightmare of anxiety and the train had seemed to crawl along. She was determined she was going to see Rebecca, she had to see how bad her friend’s injuries were for herself, and more than that, try and let Rebecca know she was here. She would will her to live, that’s what she’d do. She couldn’t die, she was too young to die . . .

  The sister was very tall, with the sort of severe face and tightly scraped-back hair that was intimidating in itself, but as she took Sarah’s hand, she smiled, and her voice was sympathetic when she said, ‘I understand you have come all the way from London to see your friend?’

  ‘She’s more than a friend, she’s . . .’ How could she explain to a stranger what Rebecca meant to her? ‘We were brought up in a children’s home together.’ She couldn’t go on, but the sister seemed to understand anyway.

  ‘Come this way, Miss . . . ?’

  ‘Brown, Sarah Brown.’

  ‘Ah yes, Mrs McLevy spoke of you this afternoon. We sent her and the other lady home earlier, they were both exhausted.’ Once in the corridor outside the room, the sister put her hand on Sarah’s shoulder, bringing her to a halt as she said, ‘You might find your friend’s appearance a little distressing, Miss Brown, although most of her injuries are on the bottom half of her body. You understand she has been badly beaten and abused?’

  Sarah nodded, her heart thudding.

  ‘She hasn’t regained consciousness since she was brought in earlier this morning, but that is quite to be expected in the circumstances.’

  ‘Maggie, Mrs McLevy, said - she indicated there’s no hope . . . ?’

  ‘There is always hope, Miss Brown, even in the direst of cases, and sometimes the patients who are the most ill on admittance make the best recoveries. However . . .’ The brisk voice softened. ‘Your friend is very poorly, and it would be as well for you and the other ladies to be prepared.’

  ‘And the baby?’

  ‘Mrs Dalton was having mild contractions when she was admitted, but that seems to have subsided for the moment.’

  ‘If . . . if Rebecca did recover, and she didn’t miscarry, would the baby be all right? When it was born, I mean?’

  ‘Let’s cope with this one day at a time, shall we, Miss Brown? There had been an - implement used, which might suggest some complications internally, so speculation as to the consequences for the baby would be just that. Speculation. Now, if you’re ready . . .’

  The sister drew her forward towards a room just a few feet away down the left of the corridor, and as she opened the door, Sarah’s gaze moved past her to the waxwork figure in the bed. ‘Rebecca, oh, Rebecca.’ She wasn’t aware she had spoken out loud, but as the sister touched her arm and she turned dazedly to look at her, the woman said, ‘You understand she could be unconscious for some time yet, but it may help if you talk to her. There is a new school of thought that suggests the subconscious mind can respond even when in a coma.’

  Coma. The word hit Sarah full in the chest. She walked over to the bed slowly and as she looked down at the alabaster face on the pillow, she wondered for a moment if Rebecca had already gone. The skin was a sickly white colour, except round one eye and her mouth where it was a livid red, and black stitches stood out in the swollen flesh under the eyebrow like grotesque black maggots. Only Rebecca’s head and neck were visible, her body, in spite of her pregnancy, making only the slightest mound beneath the thin hospital blankets.

  Oh, Rebecca, my darling, darling Rebecca . . . What’s he done to you?

  She was aware of the sister’s hand on her shoulder again, and of her voice saying, ‘There, there, my dear. Let it out, let it out, you’ll feel better then.’

  She did let it out, but she didn’t feel a lot better. She knew the constriction in her chest and overwhelming weight pressing down on her heart wouldn’t lift until she was sure Rebecca was going to pull through. However, she dried her eyes and took control of herself because it was the only thing she could do to help her friend. If talking might help, she’d talk and talk until she was blue in the face.

  ‘It was the shock.’ She explained her tears with a wave of her hand at the bed.

  ‘I know, my dear, I know. After a time one gets conditioned to accept the accidents and illnesses, part of life’s rich pattern as they say, but something like this . . .’

  ‘Man’s inhumanity to man.’ Rodney had used that phrase at some time, she couldn’t remember when, but it suited this situation more than any other words could have done.

  ‘Yes, exactly.’

  ‘Can I stay and talk to her now?’ Sarah knew it was against hospital procedure for her to be here at all at this time of night, but the sister merely smiled and nodded, pulling a chair close to the bed before she left the room.

  The plump little nurse arrived a couple of minutes later with a cup of tea for her, again strictly at variance to the rules, Sarah imagined, and actually patted her hand and smiled before she left.

  Once she had finished the tea and composed herself, she began to talk to Rebecca quietly, first about her job and London, then Rodney, before she went back over their childhood, reminiscing about the good times and the bad, the laughter and the tears, their hopes and their fears. It was only when a tentative dawn crept across the grey northern sky outside the window that it occurred to her a new year had begun while she had sat in the clinical surroundings. She just wanted Rebecca to live to see it. That was her one, her only, wish, she thought fiercely. Everything else, everything , paled into insignificance besides that.

  The day sister was as kind as the night one, but when it got to midday, and Sarah still hadn’t left Rebecca’s side except for a hasty visit to the bathroom next door once or twice, the sister gently informed her that she should go home and rest, they really didn’t want two patients instead of one. There was nothing she could do, the sister said quietly, and she could come back once she had eaten and rested.

  Sarah did go home to Maggie and Florrie’s and rest, but only for an hour or so. By half past four she was back at Rebecca’s bedside, and at just gone seven that evening, Rebecca opened her eyes in the middle of a monologue about Hilda’s differen
t cake-making methods, but there was no recognition in the glassy stare.

  ‘It’s quite normal, don’t worry.’ The day shift were preparing to hand over to their counterparts, but the sister came and sat down with Sarah, taking her hand as she continued, ‘She’s fighting back, she’s not giving in, which is vital in cases like this one. She’ll sleep almost all the time, for days yet probably, but there will come a moment when she’ll become aware of her surroundings, and then we’ll know we’re really winning. But this is hopeful, very hopeful.’ She rose to her feet, and her voice was soft as she said, ‘Now you stay a little while longer if you feel you need to, but you really can’t sit here twenty-four hours a day, you’ll make yourself ill. Go home and get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll see you again in the morning.’

  It was bitterly cold outside the antiseptic warmth of the hospital, and as Sarah trudged the dark streets to Maggie’s house the wind cut through her clothing like a knife. It had snowed all over Christmas, and now, due to a partial thaw a day or so ago which had then frozen over again, the ground was a sheet of ice between the great banks of snow piled against the pavements and walls.

  Sarah was concentrating so hard on just staying on her feet that she didn’t raise her head until she was halfway along Lea Road, and then she came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the pavement, her eyes taking in the noble lines of the Rolls-Royce as her mouth gaped open. Rodney? Rodney was here?

  She practically skated the last few yards, and had just reached the step of number nineteen when the door opened and Rodney himself stood above her. There was a moment’s silence when they both just looked at each other, and then his voice came softly saying, ‘How is she?’

  ‘She - she’s opened her eyes, but she doesn’t seem to know anyone.’

  ‘That isn’t uncommon in cases like this at first.’

  ‘That’s what the sister said.’

  He reached down and drew her up the steps as he said, as though she hadn’t just walked the couple of miles from the hospital, ‘Careful, careful, the ground is treacherous.’

  ‘How did you know?’ Sarah was vaguely aware of Maggie halfway down the passage, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Rodney as she asked again, ‘How did you know about Rebecca?’

  She didn’t ask, ‘Why are you here?’ or acknowledge the fierce emotion she had felt at the sight of his car; she didn’t dare. It was enough he was here at this precise moment, and she was too bone-tired to think further.

  ‘I telephoned the house yesterday, and Lady Margaret explained what had happened. I only got to Maggie’s a minute or two ago.’

  ‘You telephoned?’

  Yes, he had telephoned. He knew he was being ridiculous, and he had told himself he had wanted to see her simply because time spent with Sarah was never banal or boring, but just how much he had wanted to see her he hadn’t realized until this moment when she was standing in front of him. But they were both free agents, there was nothing wrong in pursuing a friendship, was there?

  Friendship? The word mocked him. And was it friendship that had brought him all the way up here? He was attracted to her, admit it and be done with it, the little voice in his head challenged.

  He continued to gaze down into the lovely young face as he said, ‘I telephoned the house to ask you to a dance, a dinner dance, for New Year’s Eve, you know?’ And when she stared blankly at him, ‘A friend of mine had tickets but his wife was taken ill at the last minute, so he offered them to me.’ Now why add that? Why not come out into the open and simply say he had wanted to take her out for the night and see the new year in with her? But the memory of her reaction to him on Christmas Day, when he had tried to talk to her in the garden, was still vivid, and nothing had changed since then.

  No doubt, if he asked her directly, she would say she felt he was too old for her. And he could understand that, of course he could, it was perfectly natural.

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Sarah didn’t know whether she should feel peeved that the invitation had come about through the circumstances he had described, or elated, regardless of that, because it had been her he had thought of asking. Not that that meant anything, she told herself firmly in the next breath. He had probably assumed that everyone else he knew had already made plans.

  And as though to confirm this last thought, he said, ‘I usually see the new year in at Richard’s place. Vanessa packs the house with everyone we all know.’

  ‘Does she.’ Her tone suggested she wasn’t interested in what Vanessa did.

  ‘Any change, lass?’ Maggie entered the conversation for the first time, and Sarah looked at her as she said, ‘She opened her eyes, Maggie, but she didn’t know I was there. She’s still in a world of her own.’

  ‘I could have a word with her doctor if you like and see what I can find out?’

  Sarah and Maggie answered in unison as they said, ‘Could you do that?’, and then, as Maggie added, ‘Oh, lad, would you? It’d put me my mind at rest to get it from the horse’s mouth?’ Rodney nodded.

  ‘Of course, that’s one of the reasons I came. I still know a few people there from my time up here, and one in particular whom I’ve had quite a bit to do with recently over this national health service Aneurin Bevan wants to push through. Donald is a good chap so it won’t be a problem. Have the police been to see you?’ He was speaking directly to Maggie now, and she inclined her head towards the sitting-room door before looking upwards with a meaningful gesture.

  ‘Let’s talk inside, lad. Some folks have lugholes like elephants’ an’ flap ’em nearly as much.’

  Once in the sitting room they all sat down - Sarah, at Maggie’s bidding, close to the blazing fire, once she had divested herself of her coat and hat - and as Rodney said, ‘Well?’, Sarah asked, ‘Where’s Florrie?’

  ‘Gone to see Maud about somethin’.’

  Maggie didn’t elaborate further, before turning to Rodney and saying, ‘The constable come about half past four this afternoon, lad, just after Sarah’d gone back to the hospital. Wanted to know the ins an’ outs of an old mare’s backside, same as they always do. I told him what I knew, which isn’t much.’

  ‘Did he say how they thought Willie had come to be on the beach and get himself drowned?’

  It was Sarah who had spoken, and Maggie nodded as she turned to her. ‘Aye, they’ve got a good idea, lass, now they’ve checked around. Seems even them sorts that get down Oldfellows have had their fill of him recently, the constable heard some right tales from what he said to me. By, that Willie was a nasty bit of work all right. Anyway, he could barely stand when he left the pub, or when he was thrown out, I should say. He started to get rough with one of the regulars when this fella told him what he thought of him, an’ the landlord had had enough an’ threw him out. The last anyone saw of him he was wanderin’ down on to the sands singin’ his head off.’

  Singing his head off. Sarah’s mouth tightened. He could sing his head off after the things he had done to Rebecca.

  ‘And no one went after him?’ Rodney asked quietly. ‘It must have been apparent he was pretty much incapable of looking after himself, the state he was in.’

  Maggie glanced at him, shaking her head as she answered, ‘Lad, from some of the bits the constable said, I reckon there wasn’t one person in that pub that gave a monkey’s. Even the worst of ’em have standards of some sort. Anyway, like I’ve always said, justice will out in the end an’ God won’t be mocked. He got his come-uppance all right, an’ not afore time.’

  A silence followed, and then Rodney rose, clearing his throat before saying, ‘I’ll pop along to the infirmary now and see what I can find out there before I call in on Donald.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  He turned to Sarah as he replied, ‘With Martin, like before. I telephoned him before I left London so it’s all arranged.’ And when she didn’t comment further, ‘I won’t come back this evening, I’m sure you must all be exhausted, and it might take some time to find out anything worth
knowing. I’ll call by tomorrow morning, if I may?’

  Maggie’s voice was hearty as she said, ‘Course, lad, course, an’ thank you, thank you from the bottom of me heart. To come all this way like that. Well, thank you, lad.’

  That’s what she should have said. Sarah watched Maggie ushering Rodney out after they had said their goodbyes, and she was mentally kicking herself for not behaving more naturally.

  That Maggie had noticed her reticence, and thought she understood the reason for it, became apparent when the old woman came back into the room and, staring hard at Sarah, said, ‘It can never be, lass. You do know that, don’t you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You an’ the doctor.’

  ‘Me and—Maggie, I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I’m too old in the tooth for beatin’ about the bush, lass. I don’t blame you for havin’ some feelin’ for him, hinny, there’s many that would in your place, but it wouldn’t work. He’s from a different world, lass, an’ although he’s a good ’un, better than most of his sort, they don’t wed out of their class. They might have a bit of fun on the side, but they don’t wed, an’ it’s no use you hopin’ for the moon.’