From Higher Places

by Roger Curtis

  It was still too early for there to be many visitors on the wards. Sister Barrington was nowhere to be seen, which allowed Nurse Trubshaw to feel sufficiently uninhibited to apply make-up in the mirror hanging behind the office door. There was a five-pound note lying beside her handbag on the table. She scooped it up when she saw Sarah.

  ‘You’d best wait a moment, Dr Potter. Dr Murphy’s still examining her.’

  ‘At this time of day, whatever for? I thought she was only under observation.’

  ‘He… thought there might have been some… complications.’ The words were mumbled and unconvincing. They did not sound her own. She returned her attention to the mirror. In it, from behind, Sarah could see the agitation on her face.

  ‘Then I’ll look for myself.’

  The nurse turned to face her. The smile was authoritative and under control, but the eyes were pleading. ‘Why don’t I make you a nice cup of tea while you wait?’

  ‘Nurse, what are you trying to tell me?’

  ‘Just to hang on a minute, doctor.’

  ‘You’d better come with me,’ Sarah said.

  They walked together to the far end where there was an annex hidden from the main body of the ward. It was normally reserved for surgical patients whose post-operative features might have alarmed others, although such a policy was never openly admitted.

  ‘Why was she put in here?’

  There was no answer.

  The curtain was drawn tightly around the only occupied bed. There was no sound from the cubicle, but a barely perceptible tremor of the whole construction.

  Nurse Trubshaw said in a loud voice, addressing the bed rather than Sarah, ‘This one’s Debbie’s.’

  Recognising it as a warning, Sarah grasped the edge of the curtain and flung it back.

  The warning had been insufficient. Alan Murphy, naked, had only managed to set one foot on the floor. Debbie had drawn the sheet over her head.

  ‘Coitus interruptus,’ Sarah muttered.

  Nurse Trubshaw turned furiously on Alan. ‘You said you only wanted to talk. Now look what you’ve done. Bastard!’

  The occupants of the bed seemed frozen into position. The scene reminded Sarah of the birthday cakes made by her mother that her father used to decorate with bizarre family figures in icing. Why should she think of that now, for heaven’s sake? That was years ago.

  Sarah took the trembling woman’s arm and led her away from the bed.

  ‘A pity you had to see that, nurse, as it ties both our hands. Now we have no choice but to report it.’

  ‘But we’ll all lose our jobs!’

  ‘I daresay.’ Sarah engaged Alan’s vacant, unbelieving eyes, forcing them to travel with hers towards a patch of dampness on the sheet.

  She walked back into the main body of the ward, the nurse a pace behind. Most of the other patients were asleep. It seemed doubtful if any had heard, still less understood, what had happened. ‘You would be wise to say nothing to anyone, nurse,’ Sarah said. ‘Leave that to me.’

  On the pavement outside, with a sudden sharp prick of remorse, she realised she still did not know why Debbie had wanted to see her.

  7

  There was a slip of paper deep in Sarah’s pigeon hole, and a similar one in Brian’s. It invited them both to meet Edwin in a room off the stationery store on the tenth floor of the medical block.

  A distant church bell chimed seven as Sarah opened the door. The two men were seated across a desk lit by a single table lamp whose yellow glow barely included the three chairs around it. Brian held a sheet of paper between his hands, nervously, as if it were burning his fingers. They rose together with a politeness that suggested complicity. Edwin pulled at the third chair, inviting her to sit. On the desk two near-drained tumblers and a whisky bottle showed they had been talking for some while. Already she felt excluded: more like an interviewee than a close colleague.

  ‘Sit down, Sarah.’ Edwin did not offer her a drink, neither was he smiling. He snatched the piece of paper from Brian and held it to her face. She recognised her complaint against Alan Murphy.

  ‘First, Sarah, I must ask if others, besides ourselves, have seen this letter. Alice, or Miss Trubshaw, for instance, or even Alan himself?’

  ‘Nobody has, and I have spoken to no-one.’

  ‘And the other patients on the ward? Would they have seen anything or understood what they might have heard?’

  ‘I’m sure they didn’t.’

  Edwin leant his elbows on the table and exhaled in relief. He returned the letter to Brian. ‘Then we have nothing to fear.’

  The light of the lamp threw into relief the lines in his face. The thin emerging smile exaggerated the wrinkles around his mouth. For the first time Sarah saw him as old.

  ‘You were quite correct to draw this matter to my attention. I am grateful to you for doing what you obviously saw as your duty. As a result I shall – in fact I have done so already – reprimand Dr Murphy most severely. He is, as you can imagine, quite devastated and wholly repentant. I have also told him to take a few days off to consider his position since clearly his behaviour of late has been unacceptable. He has to mend his ways. I believe he accepts that and will do so.’ He drained the last few drops from his glass. ‘I hope you will agree that I have acted appropriately under the circumstances.’

  Out of the corner of her eye Sarah could see Brian nodding in agreement. ‘It’s for the best,’ he said.

  Sarah felt her chest tighten; but for the moment she could control the germ of rage. She said quietly, ‘You mean you’re going to take the matter no further?’

  ‘To what purpose? To risk destroying a man’s career and, worse, blackening the name of our unit at the point of just recognition of its labours. That would be an unacceptable price, Sarah. No-one gains and the losses could be incalculable.’

  ‘I don’t think I can accept that.’

  ‘Not accept it? What do you mean not accept it? I’m telling you, my girl, you don’t have any choice. Forget your stupid grudge against Alan. When you’ve thought about it further, you’ll thank me.’

  Earlier in their relationship the change in Edwin’s demeanour would have alarmed her. Now, to her surprise, she found herself almost euphoric and mildly amused, confident for the moment she would not be the first to weaken.

  ‘Edwin, first of all I don’t hold a grudge against Alan. And even if I did that would be irrelevant. Secondly, if I forgot it – as you so conveniently put it – I could not live with my conscience.’

  Edwin’s eyes narrowed to concentrate his disgust. Then lights appeared there, of a battle engaged. ‘Conscience? You have no conscience. You are a cheap little tart who has absolutely no right to cast stones.’ He had begun to shout.

  Brian, sensing a lost cause, attempted to intervene. ‘Edwin, Edwin!’

  But Edwin was in full flight. ‘A cheap little tart who thinks nothing of hopping into bed with anybody. And now you pillory a colleague for doing something that is at least natural.’

  ‘That’s unfair, Edwin, and untrue. And you demean yourself and your profession by using such language. What I do in my own time is my own business and nothing to do with my professional life.’

  ‘So I am not part of your professional life? Brian is not part of your professional life? Where do you draw that particular line, might I ask?’

  ‘Where patients are involved.’

  ‘Patients? There are patients and patients, Sarah. You have still much to learn about patients.’

  Brian’s fingers were drumming on the table. ‘Edwin, you need to calm down. Let me talk to Sarah for a moment.’

  Edwin looked at his watch. ‘I have to go to a meeting anyway.’ He glared at Sarah. ‘It’s in your court to see reason. Fail me and you fail us all. Goodnight!’

  ‘Oh
dear, Sarah. Did you have to antagonise him?’

  Sarah barely heard him. She had already prepared her strategy. ‘Go after him, Brain. Tell him that if he doesn’t come back a copy of my letter will be delivered to the Dean. At his home, tonight.’

  Brain left the room without speaking, believing her.

  Now alone, she began to cry. There was only so much pressure her will could contain. She was still crying when Brian returned. He found her at the window, gazing out over the city.

  ‘The blessed damozel.’

  ‘Oh, Brian. There are no lilies, and no seven stars either. Not for me.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ He paused. ‘He’s coming back.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To contain the damage. He knows you won’t give way, not without reasoned argument.’

  ‘Do you think I should?’

  ‘Sometimes loyalties cannot be reconciled. I share your view that our first consideration must be for our patients. But the alternatives are frightening, particularly for Edwin.’

  ‘Why Edwin?’

  ‘Because he is not himself a model of virtue, as no doubt you’ve found. There are others poised to pounce on any new misdemeanour or indiscretion. The Dean is one of them.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And the consequences of that could be the disbandment of the unit as we know it. Then where does that leave your patients?’

  They could hear footsteps in the corridor.

  Brian said, ‘Try to bury your pride, because he won’t be able to do that with his.’

  They resumed their seats, out of the darkness, like participants in a TV chat show. Sarah could see fear behind the tension in Edwin’s drawn face. There was an urge to go for the kill, but Brian had set her thinking.

  Edwin spoke first. ‘It is possible, Sarah, that I underestimated the import of what Alan has done. I would ask you this: could you agree that a solution – if we can find one – without reference outside this unit would constitute an acceptable course?’

  ‘What do you have in mind?’

  ‘To ask Alan to resign.’

  Sarah rose and went to the window. It was not enough. Really not enough. She wanted Alan expunged, not just from the medical stage… Arguments and counter-arguments fought to a standstill in her head. Then the tears began to flow again. She returned to her seat, not minding that they saw.

  ‘I would accept that,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Then I’ll see it’s done.’

  She knew it was the end of their relationship.

  When Sarah took Brian to meet her mother the following weekend Tom Sharp was there, waiting for them.

  ‘I thought Sarah would like an update on her mother’s progress,’ Tom explained casually. ‘It was an adventure, wasn’t it, Betty, when you got caught in the rain?’ He spoke loudly, as if she were deaf, which she certainly wasn’t.

  ‘It was more than that, Tom,’ she replied. ‘More like I was nearly a goner.’

  ‘Nonsense. You’re a tough old bird and you know it.’ He gave her a gentle push.

  This banter was foreign to Sarah. Tom had shown nothing but respect for her mother when her father was alive, however contrary to his nature.

  ‘Have you started on the windows yet, Tom?’ she asked. ‘That ladder’s been there an awfully long time. Will need painting itself soon.’

  Tom lay back in his chair, lazily letting his eyes wander over her face and body, with all the time in the world to pick off her features one by one, mentally digest them and spit them out. She saw in his behaviour the intense enjoyment of a situation rather than satisfaction from what he drew from her. You can be as sarcastic as you like, but I have the upper hand: that’s what it suggested. ‘We don’t change, do we Sarah? My goodness we don’t.’

  He stayed for a cup of tea; then, in his own good time, got up to go.

  She must have surprised Brian by walking with Tom to the car. He may or may not have been sympathetic to her cause had he heard Tom’s final remark from the seat of his white Magnette: ‘Your mother gave me her keys to copy. It seemed a sensible thing to do, just in case anything happens to her again.’

  ‘Bastard!’

  Tom put his foot hard down on the accelerator. A shower of gravel struck her legs. She bent to pick up a handful to throw but the speeding car was already out of range.

  The following morning they wandered in the garden and around the lawn, reaching a point where the laurels, there most densely planted, divided slightly to reveal a dark cavernous vacuity. Sarah said, ‘They say there was once a path from here to Beacon Hill. I think this must be where it left the garden.’

  ‘Didn’t you children ever go that way?’

  ‘I… don’t think so.’

  ‘You don’t seem too sure. Why don’t we try?’

  Sarah’s mind clouded, groping for a reason not to go. ‘It’ll be far too overgrown and muddy.’ She could feel her heart beating in her chest, but couldn’t think why. Wasn’t she safe with Brian? Of course she was.

  But Brian had already found a stout stick and disappeared into the bushes. He called back, ‘It’s an adventure! Let’s try.’

  She caught up to find him swinging his stick against the nettles and making good progress.

  ‘Not bad at all,’ he said. ‘I’d say it’s been in use until quite recently.’

  She followed reluctantly. The heavily filtered light drew her eyes to the dense canopy above. She shivered. Had she really never been here with Elizabeth, or by herself? That cannot have been true, yet she had no recollection of it; strange, with hindsight, when such mysterious places are normally magnets to children. Why had the sisters always reached their sanctuary at the foot of Beacon Hill by bicycle, leaving their machines hidden behind the church wall? Was it Elizabeth, then, who had been afraid?

  Brian was out of sight now, but she could still hear the swish of his stick, and his call. ‘Come on Sarah, stop dreaming!’

  Within sight of the church tower the path forked. Sarah stopped and looked along the narrow earth track to the left that led on to the church and the houses nearby.

  ‘Are you alright, Sarah?’

  ‘I’m fine, really.’

  Their path continued through decaying stands of bracken, then tearing brambles as the gradient steepened. Near the summit the undergrowth stopped abruptly, giving way to springy grass kept short by rabbits. They sat on an ancient plank bench at the top. Looking back, far below, they could see Laurel Cottage, set apart from its neighbours and surrounded by the deep green of oaks and sycamores. The seclusion seemed to impress Brian but to Sarah the house looked isolated and vulnerable.

  ‘You can just make out the path we took through the trees, Brian said. ‘And isn’t that your butcher friend’s house just beyond the church?’

  Sarah had chosen to look in another direction. ‘On a clear day you can see the spires of Oxford,’ she said. ‘Sometimes, in the summer, one of us – my sister or me – would come up here and the other would stay at home looking out of the window. And if we could see them – the spires – we had a special signal with a mirror; and another if they were glowing in the evening sunlight. Then it was magical. That link between the house and Oxford was something special.’

  ‘You didn’t think of going there – to study?’

  ‘Elizabeth did, to do medicine. And would have. She was the brighter one, you see. After she died, well, somehow I couldn’t bring myself to go in that direction.’

  Brian looked puzzled. ‘That’s strange reasoning. You must have been very close.’

  ‘She died when I needed her most.’ Sarah got up, brushing the lichens from her jeans. She had said more than she intended. Then she turned and smiled.

  ‘They say there was once a real beacon up here. Can you imagine the excitement, sit
ting here in the blackness with just a small flame, waiting for a fire to appear miles away? Now no-one comes. Not even children these days, with them glued to their televisions. For us it was a step to heaven. And you know, in all those years we never met another person up here.’

  From the working of his lips Brian seemed to be toying with a question he found difficult to ask.

  ‘After your sister died, did you come up here then?’

  ‘Alone, you mean?’ She faced him squarely and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘I never have, till today. Is that what you want to know?’

  Sunday lunch at Laurel Cottage was a ritual that had stretched back unbroken as long as Sarah could remember. That first Sunday after Albert Potter’s death there had been no need and her mother had made herself a cup of soup; she was still gazing at it when Sarah came in. After that, visitors were welcomed, mainly as an excuse to revive the practice. Betty’s bustling between the kitchen and the dining room seemed to amuse Brian, but Sarah, who had seldom lent a hand in the past, felt guilty. For the first time for a long while she helped with the cooking.

  After the meal Sarah got out her long neglected board games. Her favourite, called Barricade, involved thwarting the movement of her opponents’ pieces up the board. She remembered how competitive she’d been against her sister, then wondered why she was untroubled when Brian won twice in a row. The threesome, like a newly constituted family, laughed the afternoon away in front of a coal fire. ‘It’s time for crumpets,’ Betty said, her face flushed in the firelight. ‘You amaze me,’ Sarah replied, ‘I didn’t know you still made them.’

  In the car back to London Sarah said, ‘Do you know, we haven’t discussed medicine once.’

  ‘I’ve thought about it,’ Brian admitted. ‘Actually, if you can stand some supper with me after today’s gluttony I’d like to bounce some ideas off you. Jeff may be home, though. Your place okay?’

  ‘Fine by me.’