The Healing Knife

by S. L. Russell

  “Thanks.”

  “Look, why don’t you come in with me now? I’ll check what’s available online, then you can say what you’d prefer.”

  He booted up his laptop, and I leaned over his shoulder. After a few minutes he said, “OK, looks like you have a choice: either eight thirty in the morning, getting in at one-fifteen, or five in the afternoon, docking at half past nine. You’d have to get up very early for the early one, but at least you’d get to your mother quickly.”

  “Let’s go for the early one.”

  “All right; I’ll phone them now.”

  I wandered back into the garden. Jasper was doing something on his phone, but he looked up as I approached. “This is horrible, Rachel,” he said. “First Gérard, now this. I really hope your mum will be OK. Is she quite old?”

  “Seventy-two.”

  “You’ve not ever said much about her.”

  “We don’t see eye to eye, Jasper. Never have.”

  “Oh.” He hesitated, then he said in a rush, “I really wish you didn’t have to go. Will you come back?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t imagine I’ll be able to. I’ll have to stay until she’s better, and who knows how long that will take?”

  There seemed nothing else to say, and we both fell silent until Michael came back. “I’ve booked a crossing on the early ferry,” he said.

  “Right, thanks.” I could not look at him. “I’d better go and get ready, pack my things.” I wrapped my arms round my body, as if to hold something in, and went into the house without another word.

  There was no real need to pack so soon. All I had to do was empty the wardrobe and pile my clothes into a suitcase, rescue my clean laundry from the stack, and scout around the house for any items of mine that were scattered about; but I felt an urgent need to be alone, away from the sad, anxious eyes of the Wells men.

  I rang Patricia Nettlefield, told her my plans, and found out what ward my mother was on. For a while I sat on the edge of my bed, unmoving. I wondered what it would feel like to be hit by a speeding train. Stupid question: you would be dead. But if you survived, every bone would be broken; the pain would be unimaginable. I shook myself, hearing my mother’s waspish voice: Self-dramatizing again, Rachel? When will you learn: nobody cares.

  Wrong, Mother. I care. I wish I didn’t, but this place, these people, have made me wonder, and question, and open up, and trust. Here I feel safe, and valued – for more than just my skill for once. I knew it was dangerous, didn’t I?

  At numerous times in my life, people have told me how clever I am. They admired me for my intellect, my ability to store knowledge, my unwavering purpose, my self-denying focus, my sheer speed of thought. They were all wrong: I am stupid. I am blind. I know nothing. There is no such thing as self-sufficiency. My whole life has been founded on a fallacy: a toxic, wrong-headed self-deceit. And when I think of my father, I know he’d be shaking his head in sorrow. I may have achieved many things of which he could be proud, but there is no way he could be proud of the person I’ve become.

  Why all this breast-beating? Because I had to go home and cut short a holiday, all because of a mother who undoubtedly wouldn’t care if I was there or not? No: because I found I wanted to belong, and of course I didn’t, and couldn’t. I was ashamed of my weakness, but I didn’t know now how to rebuild my shell.

  Somehow I managed to pull myself up and ram a lid down on my chaotic thoughts. Mechanically I took my clothes out of the wardrobe and folded them in my suitcase. My chest felt tight, and I wanted to howl and weep; but I didn’t. Instead I crept downstairs and looked around the dining room for things that belonged to me, and sorted out the clean washing. I could hear the TV in the other room and hoped both Michael and Jasper were watching. But as I made for the stairs again, making no sound in my socked feet, Michael emerged from the kitchen. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up.

  “I’m making some dinner,” he said. “We’d better eat early so you can get to bed in good time. You’re going to have to be up in the dark.”

  I nodded. “Please don’t feel you need to get up early too. We’ll say goodbye tonight.” He stood looking at me sombrely and inclined his head. “I just want to say,” I stumbled on, “how good this time has been. This last month… I’ve been happy. Maybe that sounds ordinary to you; well, it’s not for me. Being here with you and Jasper… and Gérard and Marie-Claude… and the people at St Luke’s… I don’t know how to describe it, but I feel different. And I… I just don’t want to go. Thank you for everything. I can’t believe, sometimes, how kind you’ve been to me.” I tried to smile, but I didn’t really succeed. He just stood there, a small frown between his brows, and said nothing. I turned and bolted back up the stairs.

  “What are you going to do, Rachel,” Jasper asked at dinner, “after you’ve been to Porton, and when your mum is getting better? You’ll come back to Brant, won’t you? We’ll see you there?”

  I nodded. “I have to. There’s a lot of my stuff in Peter and Angela’s flat. And I’m still working for the hospital, officially, even though I’m signed off sick. I have no idea what my employment situation is. I don’t know what’s going to happen next, so I’m just thinking about tomorrow, and the day after. Anything more is too complicated.”

  I excused myself as soon as I could after we’d done the washing up. I put my belongings in the boot of the car, and Michael set up my sat nav. “It’s a straight run, well signed,” he said. “There shouldn’t be much traffic that early in the morning. Please let us know you’ve arrived safely, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” I replied, then went to my room. I read a little, and dozed, and tried not to think. My facial muscles felt stiff with the effort of not crying. I set an alarm. Then I heard a quiet tap on my door, and opened it to find Jasper hovering there.

  “I’m going to bed, Rachel,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be awake at five in the morning, so I came to say goodbye. Please say you’ll come and see us as soon as you can.” He threw his arms round me and hugged me. “I’m going to miss you,” he said, his voice muffled.

  I disentangled myself, smiling at him. “I’ll miss you too,” I said. “Will you say goodbye for me to the people at church – especially Letty?”

  “Sure. Have a safe journey. Hope your mum’s OK. Goodnight, Rachel.”

  “Goodnight, Jasper.” I hesitated, then swiftly kissed his cheek. “Look after your dad.”

  He looked puzzled for a moment. “I always do.”

  I got up stealthily at a quarter to four. I was already dressed, and had barely slept. My things were already in the car; all I needed was my handbag. I crept down the stairs. Dulcie shifted in her basket, yawned, and looked at me sleepily. I squatted down beside her and stroked her warm, smooth head. “Goodbye, Dulcie,” I whispered. “Thank you for keeping me company.” Standing, I looked all around, committing the house to memory. Everything was peaceful. I left a note on the dining room table, weighted down by a vase: “Please forgive me for sneaking off. I found I couldn’t say goodbye after all. Thank you. I’ll miss you. R.”

  I padded to the front door and let myself out. A mist had settled round the trunks of the apple trees in the orchard, but above them the moon shone, remote and serene. I opened the gate and drove through, shutting it behind me. I repeated the process with the outer gate. For a moment I looked back at the house; it was still in darkness. I strapped on my seatbelt and took to the road.

  PART FOUR

  HOME

  The sky was low and threatening with dark clouds when I rolled off the ferry, and before I drove up onto the bypass it was raining in vertical sheets, propelled by a brisk wind. Summer was over, in more ways than one.

  Unsure of the severity of my mother’s emergency, beyond what Patricia Nettlefield had told me, I made directly for the hospital, and parked in the staff car park as I always had. As I’d said to Jasper, I had no idea of my status at this hospital, or even if I had any status at all.

  The h
ospital was the same as when I’d left it five months before, but it seemed strange to me, as if there had been some secret dislocation in time. No doubt I was seeing it with different eyes. I made my way up to the fifth floor and the ward where my mother was, only to find that it was closed to visitors until three o’clock. It was now half past two, and I’d been travelling since before five o’clock that morning. I was tired and felt my temper rise, but I told myself that rudeness would get me nothing but obstinacy, and summoned up what shreds of charm I could manage. I pressed a buzzer on the outside wall, and after a moment a tinny voice answered. “Visiting time begins at 3 p.m.”

  “Yes, I know, but I’ve come from abroad to see my mother, who is seriously ill, and I’ve been travelling since four o’clock this morning. I’d very much appreciate it if you could let me see her.”

  “Who have you come to see?”

  “Frances Keyte – or she may be calling herself Chester.”

  “Wait a moment, please.”

  The tinny voice clicked off and I waited. It was at least ten minutes before someone came to the door and let me in.

  A middle-aged nurse in a blue uniform ushered me inside. “I’m sorry, Ms Keyte. We’re having a bit of a crisis. Please, follow me.”

  As I walked alongside her through a typical hospital corridor – brightly lit, neutral paint, scuffed vinyl floor – she turned to me. “You used to work here, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You probably don’t remember me, but I was a theatre nurse for a while, and I assisted at some of your operations.”

  “No, sorry; I don’t remember.”

  “No reason why you should, I suppose. But I remember you, because of that awful business with the young boy who died.”

  “Oh.”

  She said no more, but I wondered then if there was any way I could come back to this hospital. Did everyone remember me because of Craig Rawlins and his mother? Did they all know what had happened to me at Brant Lyon? How could I work like this? I’d had no idea anybody at all had been talking about me, and I felt oppressed. It was as if a door had clanged shut in my face.

  “Here we are.”

  She’d brought me to a four-bedded bay. Only two beds were occupied. In one an elderly woman lay prone and still, her face almost as white as the pillow. If I had not seen the slight rise and fall of her chest I’d have thought her dead. The other bed was screened off.

  “I don’t know if she’ll recognize you,” the nurse whispered. “She’s very poorly. She’s on an antibiotic drip, but she’s still feverish and not really with it.”

  She pulled back the screen, and the smell made my nose wrinkle. “The leg is oozing quite badly. But we only changed the dressing about twenty minutes ago.”

  My mother lay in bed propped up on a mound of pillows. She was wearing a pink nightdress that I recognized. Her right leg was swathed in bandages, but they were seeping with a greenish secretion that was the source of the stench. This did not bother me in itself; I was used to blood and pus. More shocking was how she looked. Her coppery hair – from a bottle, of course – was dry and straggly, the roots beginning to show grey. Her skin, without makeup, was white and powdery, her wrinkles cruelly etched. Her hands lay on the sheet like claws, without their usual pale pink nail polish. She looked old.

  I wanted to protest. This isn’t my mother. She’s glamorous, in control, perfectly groomed. She’s a witch, but she’s a classy one. This woman’s a mess. She was pitiable, and I surprised myself by feeling just that: pity, and indignation.

  I lowered myself into a hard chair beside the bed. “Mother.” Other than a slight fluttering of her eyelids, there was no response. I looked up at the nurse, who was still hovering. “How long has she been on the IV antibiotic?”

  “Er, four days.”

  “Has there been any improvement?”

  “Maybe a bit. Not as much as we’d like. But it does sometimes take longer for a response, especially with a deep infection. Her being diabetic doesn’t help, though.”

  I felt sweat prickle my forehead. “What? She’s diabetic? Why did I never know that?” The nurse shrugged helplessly. “Well, knowing my mother, she probably made sure nobody told me. She hates any kind of illness.” I sighed, remembering my father. “Who’s in charge of her case?”

  The nurse named a doctor I’d never heard of.

  “I’d like to speak with him. What time will he be here tomorrow?”

  “I’ll find out,” the nurse said, scurrying off.

  Gingerly I took my mother’s inert hand. It was rough and scaly. “Mother. Open your eyes.”

  A moment later her eyelids moved and her eyes opened. My mother normally had brown eyes, with clear whites; now they were dull and bloodshot. With an obvious effort she turned her head towards me.

  “Rachel?” Her voice was little more than a scratchy whisper.

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “Where have you been?” She seemed bewildered.

  “I’ve been on holiday. I came as soon as I could.”

  She frowned. “On holiday?”

  “Yes, in France.”

  “Oh, France… I went to France once. But where’s Martin?”

  “He’s in New Zealand, as far as I know. Later on I’ll send him a message to tell him you’re not well.”

  “In New Zealand? What’s he doing there?” Her voice was slurring.

  “He’s working.”

  “Working. Oh.” Suddenly, without warning, her eyes closed. She was asleep.

  There was no point in my staying. She was making little sense, clearly addled from the toxins coursing through her body. I was dead tired: physical exhaustion from the journey and the early start, but also a spiritual weariness, all joy and energy drained away.

  I walked slowly down the corridor to the nurses’ station. The nurse who’d accompanied me earlier was on the phone; she waved to me, indicating that I should wait. After a few moments she hung up.

  “Sorry, Ms Keyte,” she said breathlessly. “It’s Dr Abadi, as I told you, and he’ll be here just after ten.”

  “Right, thank you. I’ll be back.”

  Looking out of a window on the corridor leading to the ward, I saw below me a small garden that I hadn’t known existed in all the years I’d worked at the hospital. Down several flights of stairs and after a few false turns I managed to locate it, and for a moment sat on a damp bench and sent a text to Michael: “Arrived safely. Mother quite unwell.” I thought I’d better text my brother as well, though there was nothing he could do from so far away. “Mart, am back at Porton. Mother very unwell, cellulitis. R x.”

  Now there was nothing to do but go to the place I had once called home. Reluctantly I made my way back to the car park. As I approached my car I felt my stomach lurch: there was something on my windscreen. For a moment I was back wiping away sticky blood, but then I saw it was a note stuck under one of the wipers: from a surgeon annoyed that I had commandeered his space. No doubt this was an understandable reaction, since he had no clue who I was or that I had once occupied that space legitimately. I took a note of his name and thought I had better apologize, but in my low state it seemed yet another small but telling piece of evidence that I belonged nowhere.

  I drove the once-familiar roads to my flat, stopping on the way to buy some supplies at a supermarket. Before I let myself in I knocked on the neighbours’ door. Mrs Chilton answered it.

  “Oh! Hello, Rachel! You’re back. How are you? We heard about what happened. Wasn’t that dreadful!”

  Her husband joined her at the door, beaming. “Good to see you,” he said. “Are you all right now?”

  I was astonished that even they knew what had happened to me. “Yes, much better, thank you, but unfortunately my mother isn’t.” I explained my reason for coming back.

  “Ooh, nasty,” Mrs Chilton said solemnly. “Well, dear, you know where we are if you need anything.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I thought I’d better let
you know it’s me banging about next door, not a burglar.”

  I let myself in. There was a scattering of post on the doormat, none of which looked significant. The air in the flat was stale; the place felt unwelcoming. I opened all the windows, turned on the water, reconnected the fridge, and stowed my meagre shopping, thinking with a pang of the food we had eaten in France: the tomatoes warm from the garden, the bread and the fruit, the beef, the wine and the cheese. Well, now it was back to the rations of someone who couldn’t be bothered to cook. The thought made me flinch. That was the old Rachel, someone I didn’t want to remember, let alone keep company with; but the new Rachel, if she existed, was fragile and wispy in the face of a lifetime of grim habit.

  I made a cup of coffee and plugged in my laptop so I could check my emails. I deleted about twenty bits of junk mail and noted a message from St Luke’s with the church magazine attached, something I’d forgotten signing up for. I opened the attachment and skimmed the pages, stopping at a report of the Bowmans’ barbecue. Someone had been busy with a camera and there was one of me, stretched out on a sun lounger in my red swimsuit, with Dulcie lying beside me. It seemed as distant and unlikely as a work of science fiction.

  Scrolling down I found a message from one “HarkerRJ”. I frowned as I opened it: what could Rob want to say to me?

  Hi Rachel,

  I wanted to make sure you heard this from me, rather than on some hospital grapevine. Maybe you aren’t bothered anyway, but what the heck. Sammy and I are making it legal this Saturday, August 25, at the Town Hall. She didn’t want to wait any longer as she’s 27 weeks and getting pretty big. Things are OK with us, and I hope for you too. I do think of you often. Wish us well.

  Rob x

  There was no reason for me to feel in any way dismayed or bitter. I didn’t want him in the long term, did I? But now, coming when everything seemed so bleak and the present and future so utterly uninviting, it was a blow. And I couldn’t but be aware of the date, being my father’s daughter: 25 August was the birthday of his idol, Leonard Bernstein. I swallowed down the well of tears and savagely told myself not to be so pathetic.