A Kiss From Mr Fitzgerald

by Natasha Lester

  Viola was having a baby and nobody had told her? Evie hoped that Charles couldn’t see how much the news hurt her. To cover it, she lashed out. ‘What’s taken you so long? I’d have thought a man as virile as you would have had Viola pregnant long before now. I’ll come to dinner. But to see Viola, not you.’ She turned and walked away, wanting a bath, wanting to scrub herself clean. She began to walk downstairs when a voice called her name.

  Thomas was leaning over the balustrade. ‘I want to see you. Somewhere without Charles. And,’ he smiled at her outfit, ‘without feathers.’

  ‘I have to have dinner with Charles and Viola tomorrow night. I might need moral support.’

  ‘I’ll make sure I’m there,’ he said before Stanley Shields tapped him on the shoulder and drew him back into the crowd of tuxedoed men.

  So now she had something to look forward to and something to dread, all on the same evening. And less than twenty-four hours to work out how to prevent Charles from killing her dream of ever becoming a doctor.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next morning, Evie made the rare decision to skip the first lecture of the day. She had an errand to run. Ever since the nuns had told her she could no longer visit Mary, she’d been worrying over how to show the little girl that she still cared for her.

  She caught the El to Gimbels department store. As it rattled up Sixth Avenue to Herald Square, she remembered the first time Mary had recognised her on one of her visits to the orphanage, how she’d smiled at her. She remembered the first time she’d been allowed to take Mary outside; Evie had been so afraid something would happen that she’d taken Mary back after just ten minutes. She remembered the first time Mary had said her name, and when Sister Margaret had told her that the child had been saying nothing but Evie for the past three days. At that moment, Evie finally knew that Mary was fond of her and looked forward to her visits.

  At Gimbels, she went straight to the toy department, where she found a doll that looked just like Mary, with blonde curls and light brown eyes. Evie knew the little girl would love it, and it could be her companion for all the long days until Evie was able to convince Sister Mary to let her visit once again.

  Then she rode the train to Columbus Circle, where she walked westwards to a set of buildings stretching the width of a city block. At Tenth Avenue stood the building where Evie wanted to spend all her time: the Sloane Hospital for Women. In the Ninth Avenue corner was the college itself, looking as regimented and orderly as the instructional practices conducted inside. The arched entryway was the only non-linear part of the building; all else was rectangular, with windows precisely aligned and an east wing and west wing of equal proportions. A covered walkway led from the college buildings to the Vanderbilt Clinic, which treated the ailments of hundreds of thousands of the city’s poor. On her first day of training at the clinic, Evie had been assigned catheter duties for a long line of male patients. She knew that she’d been given the job because her supervisors expected her to refuse. But she’d told herself that a penis was just another appendage, really no different to an arm, albeit hopefully less rigid, and she went ahead and inserted catheter after catheter without complaint. The patients didn’t complain either. It was the first of many humilations, large and small, the doctors had inflicted on Evie in the unspoken hope that she’d give up. But she never had.

  She caught the end of the lecture and then walked across to the hosptial, where the morning passed uneventfully. Evie had just sat down to eat her lunch when Francis Sumner came to find her in the staff dining room.

  ‘You can take the toxaemia case on Ward One,’ he said. ‘She’s neurotic. I saw her last week and told her not to overeat and to attend to her hygiene and she’d feel better.’

  Francis’s way of speaking about the patient didn’t surprise Evie. She’d become used to the doctors’ perceptions of pregnant women: as neurotic and highly excitable, purveyors of their own complications, most of which were nervous conditions that could be overcome by greater mental fortitude. What did surprise her was that it was the fourth day in a row he’d come to find her at lunchtime. He turned away to load up his plate with food.

  ‘Now?’ Evie called after him.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If you saw her last week, it doesn’t sound very urgent.’

  ‘I’d like you to see her now.’

  Evie put one forkful of food in her mouth and stood up. Lunch was served at precisely noon and finished by half past. She knew that if she went up to the ward now, she’d miss her only chance to eat a square meal. Just as she had the past three days. At the tables around her, the other students and doctors were all happily eating. It was only Evie who had to go without food. Francis had found a use for her: she could deal with all the cases he didn’t want, especially the ones that came in at lunchtime. But if she complained, she’d be found unsuitable for the obstetrics rotation. So she went upstairs to Ward One and found the patient vomiting uncontrollably.

  Evie checked the chart. ‘I’ll get you cleaned up, Mrs Latimer,’ she said. ‘Then I can examine you.’

  What was a bit of vomit to have to navigate, Evie told herself. Compared to Mrs O’Rourke’s infection, it was almost pleasant. She lifted Mrs Latimer’s arm, which was as weak as a paper doll’s, and took her blood pressure. She could see that the woman’s ankles were hugely swollen, more so than they should be even considering the patient’s weight.

  Evie scanned Francis’s notes from the week before. Patient is significantly overweight and in a nervous state. I suggested breathing exercises to relieve pelvic congestion, and discussed the importance of overcoming food cravings and overeating, all of which are certainly contributing to the patient’s vomiting. I asked the nurses to wash out the patient’s stomach and colon with soap and sodium bicarbonate to improve her hygiene. Should the neurosis become extreme, induction or abortion is recommended as the only possible cure.

  ‘Congestion!’ Evie repeated, tired of the ridiculous, lazy label that was given to toxaemic women by obstetricians. This woman’s vomit was black. That was not due to ‘congestion’.

  She went to the dining room to find Francis. ‘Dr Sumner! What was Mrs Latimer’s blood pressure last week?’

  ‘How should I know?’ Francis replied. ‘Check the chart. I’m eating lunch.’

  ‘It’s not on the chart.’

  ‘Check again.’

  ‘It’s not there.’

  ‘He said to check again,’ Dr Kingsley interrupted, and Evie realised that every single doctor, resident, intern and student was staring at her with irritation. She was interrupting their meal.

  She turned away to do as she was told, even though she knew the blood pressure wasn’t recorded in the chart. But then she stopped and turned back around. ‘It’s eclampsia. Not toxaemia. Her blood pressure is the highest I’ve seen. She has oedema of the face and ankles.’

  ‘She’s fat, Evie,’ said Francis.

  ‘Congested, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Miss Lockhart, you’ve wasted enough of Dr Sumner’s lunch break,’ Dr Kingsley said. ‘Do as you’ve been asked.’

  Evie walked out. She reached the ward in time to see the patient begin convulsing. ‘Nurse!’ she shouted. ‘We need castor oil. And a Voorhees bag. She has to have the baby now.’

  When the nurse saw the patient’s state, she dropped the equipment on the bed. ‘I’ll get Dr Sumner,’ she said, as if Evie couldn’t help at all.

  The nurse had more luck with rousing Francis from his lunch, but he still strolled into the ward as if it was Sunday afternoon in Central Park. He quickened his pace when he saw Mrs Latimer. ‘Do your rounds,’ he ordered Evie. Then he shut the curtain so she could no longer see.

  Instead of doing her rounds, Evie went to the bathroom and smacked her palm on the basin. What kind of a fool was she, putting up with being belittled and ignored when she could be spending her Ziegfeld’s cash on a life that didn’t involve the uncertain workings of another woman
’s pineapple? The harder she worked, the further she seemed to get from what she wanted. How foolish and idealistic she’d been when she first had the idea of becoming an obstetrician. Perhaps everybody had been right to warn her off. This was the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life. She prayed for the thousandth time that it would all be worth it in the end, that everything would turn out right.

  She discovered later that Francis had got away with his mistake. The baby and the mother survived the emergency caesarean. When Evie checked the chart, she saw that he’d written into his earlier notes, Dx: eclampsia. She’d been right. Francis had almost fatally misdiagnosed. But nobody had acknowledged she’d been right, or reprimanded Francis for his mistakes. And God she was starving. She should be used to it by now, but being on her feet all day and missing lunch four days in a row was wearing. Thankfully it was time to go home.

  ‘Miss Lockhart!’ Dr Brewer called her name as she was leaving. ‘I need to see you.’

  What was she in trouble for now? Or perhaps he’d heard about today’s events and was going to commend her for her quick thinking. Evie followed him to his office, eager to be sitting pretty for the first time since she’d started medical school.

  ‘Charles Whitman called earlier,’ Dr Brewer said. ‘He enquired about your progress. I didn’t realise he was your benefactor. Of course, given the money he’s investing in you, I gave him a full report.’

  Oh, Charles was good. Turning the screws before their meeting tonight. Making Evie understand that he could pick up the phone to Dr Brewer any time he liked. And she was such a dumb Dora for thinking things would work out. ‘I hope the report was satisfactory,’ she said.

  ‘It was. Satisfactory.’

  God damn you to hell, Evie thought, sitting up straighter in her seat. ‘My grades are the highest in my year group. Surely it was more than satisfactory.’

  ‘I know that after our last conversation, you’re working on your manner of address to the doctors.’

  ‘Soon I’ll be just like Kingsley,’ she said sarcastically but Dr Brewer chose to ignore her meaning.

  As she left the office, she bumped into Francis. ‘Eavesdropping?’ she asked coldly.

  ‘No. I was wondering what you’re doing tonight.’

  ‘Working,’ she lied. ‘I work every night.’ As Evie said the words she wondered how she’d ever, even fleetingly, thought Francis was handsome. Compared to Thomas Whitman, he was a bug-eyed Bobby who didn’t have the balls to admit he’d made a mistake. That was what loneliness did to a girl. Ruined her judgement. She could feel her heart creep further back into her chest, hiding as deeply inside as it possibly could. Because she had another battle to fight now. With Charles. Who was going to be an even more ruthless opponent than Dr Kingsley.

  What did one wear to dinner on the Upper East Side when the intention of the dinner was blackmail? ‘And on my one night off from the Follies too,’ Evie complained, hair done, face made up, but body clad only in underclothes. ‘I should be revising otolaryngology.’

  ‘You’d rather look at tonsils than have dinner with Charlie?’ Lil asked.

  ‘So long as he stays away from my tonsils …’

  Lil laughed. Then she jumped up, crying, ‘I know!’ She delved into the bottom of the wardrobe, reached right into the back and pulled out a rolled-up black garment. It unfurled, and there before the girls was a silk chiffon dress with an asymmetrical hemline, cut higher in the front than the back. The neck was scooped low, but not too low, and a piece of chiffon floated from the back of the dress, almost like a pair of wings. ‘It’s a Chanel.’

  ‘And you’ve got a gorgeous Chanel dress bundled up in the back of the wardrobe because … ?’ Evie reached out a hand to feel the fabric drift like hundred-dollar bills between her fingers.

  ‘It was the one expensive thing I took with me when I left home, but I haven’t needed to wear a dress so undemocratic yet. You do.’ Lil thrust the dress at her.

  Evie dropped it over her head. It fell across her body with a sigh, as though coming home.

  ‘Divine,’ said Lil. ‘No jewellery, no watch, nothing. Just you and Chanel. And catch a cab. They’ll be expecting you to walk from the train. Don’t do what they expect.’

  ‘Thanks, Lil.’ Evie kissed her friend on the cheek.

  She walked up to Bleecker and hailed a cab. The driver nodded at her as if the Chanel combined with her destination made her someone important. Through the window, Evie watched the grand buildings of midtown Manhattan fly by – the Flatiron, the Met Life Tower, Grand Central, the Plaza Hotel – until she arrived uptown.

  ‘Can you drive on to Lexington?’ Evie called. She directed the driver to the Foundling and asked him to wait while she knocked on the door. There was no answer.

  ‘It’s Evie Lockhart,’ she called. ‘I just want to see Mary.’ But the door remained resolutely barred against her. ‘I miss you, Mary,’ she whispered and hoped that somehow, huddled under her rough grey blanket, Mary would hear and would know that Evie hadn’t turned her back on her again.

  ‘You going to stand there all night?’ the taxi driver called.

  Evie shook her head. They continued on uptown until the driver pulled up outside a five-storey bow-fronted house on East Seventy-Ninth. Its facade was limestone, with more pillars than a Roman temple and enough stone carving to compete with the cathedral. Viola’s taste, Evie was certain.

  She rang the bell and the butler answered. His bow was merely a nod of the head, as if he’d been instructed by Charles that this was all she deserved. She said, ‘Don’t worry, I don’t bite,’ and the butler blushed all over his bald head. God, she was in a mood. A mood to attack everybody before they attacked her. She’d better calm down and think what to do or else she’d walk away from tonight with a debt to Charles that she’d die rather than repay.

  The hall was lined with oak panelling and dominated by an enormous walnut grandfather clock. The wall tapestries were probably expensive but so conservatively brown it was like walking out of the light and down into the earth, into a place devoid of colour and sunshine. Evie shivered, wondering if Viola had greyed also, in keeping with her surroundings.

  The butler led her into the drawing room. Evie almost laughed aloud at the song warbling its slow and sad tune into the room: ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’. The song she’d sung at Ziegfeld’s nearly three years before. An appropriate song choice for someone married to Charles Whitman.

  As she paused in the doorway, Evie saw Charles look at her in her beautiful black Chanel, worn with just the right amount of rouge and red lipstick. She’d put on a new pair of silk stockings to make her legs look long and lean right down to the tips of the first pair of shoes she’d bought at Saks when she didn’t care about how much things cost. Then Charles looked at his wife beside him and the comparison was silently made. Viola, round with pregnancy, stared aghast at Evie.

  She heard a gasp and registered that there were two other people in the room. Her parents.

  ‘Hello, Father,’ she said. ‘And Mother.’

  The Lockharts stared at Evie, making no move to go to her, to hug her, to say that they’d missed her. She might as well have been a stranger. Evie felt tears sitting in the corners of her eyes, and blinked to hide the ache she felt at realising she was truly forsaken, lost to them forever. She tried to act as if she didn’t care. ‘You weren’t expecting me? Nor you, Vi? Seems Charles has been saving me up as a special treat.’

  ‘We were not expecting you,’ said her father, looking at Charles as if he were a wild duck ripe for shooting.

  ‘I thought it was time to build a bridge. Mend relations now that the family is getting larger,’ Charles said. He nodded at Vi, who blushed and placed a hand on her belly.

  ‘Attagirl, Vi. You must be pleased,’ said Evie.

  ‘I am pleased,’ Vi said, then put a hand over her mouth as if she’d forgotten that she wasn’t supposed to speak to her runaway, thieving sister.

  ‘Don’t worr
y, you and the baby won’t be any the worse off for having seen me. Besides, dinner will be a touch uncomfortable if Charles is the only one talking to me.’

  Viola glanced at Evie as if to say, Don’t flirt with my husband, and it was all Evie could do not to shout, I wouldn’t flirt with him if we were the only people alive in the Garden of Eden.

  ‘I could do with a drink,’ she said instead. ‘Gin and tonic. You can’t invite the black sheep to dinner and have her die of thirst.’

  ‘Don’t start, Evie,’ said Viola.

  Evie decided to be the magnanimous one. The view was surely better from the moral high ground. ‘You’re right. We’re here to celebrate. Here’s my drink.’ She took it from Charles eagerly. ‘Good to see you don’t support the Volstead up here either. Let’s toast to the baby.’

  ‘We don’t need to talk about it quite so loudly,’ replied Vi, with a sideways glance at the butler.

  Evie couldn’t resist. The low ground was much more fun, after all. ‘I spend my days watching women give birth. Talking about it is a lot tidier.’

  Charles, who must have felt his dinner party disintegrating around him, stepped in. ‘Perhaps we’d better move to the table.’

  They filed through to the dining room in silence, Evie knocking back her drink. Where was Thomas? The alcohol and her fear hit her stomach at the same time. What if he’d changed his mind? What if he’d decided, rightly, that he could do so much better than a female medical student who earned her living as a showgirl? And all day Evie had come up with nothing to counter Charles. He would tell the college. Unless she accepted his offer.

  The decor of the dining room didn’t improve her mood. The walls were covered with portraits by the Dutch masters, black and brown the favoured shades. The sitters in the paintings were stiff with their own importance, and the general impression was of being observed by an assembly of stern schoolmasters who wouldn’t hesitate to rap the knuckles of those who couldn’t extract the flesh of a boiled lobster from its shell without said lobster landing in their lap. Evie was seated beside Viola and her father, and was grateful that Charles was some distance away on the opposite side of the table.