Sheer Abandon

by Penny Vincenzi

  “Your husband! How very grown-up of you. Look, ring me back in five minutes. Number’s—got a pencil? Right—”

  Jeremy came in, tired and irritable. “Chaos there, some woman’s got a pulmonary embolism, supposed to have been left on a trolley, press involved, dreadful nonsense.”

  “And…how is she?”

  “God, Clio, I don’t know. Can we have that soup now?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. It’s on the stove. Only, well, Jeremy, I’m terribly sorry, but I’ve got to go out again. The child with meningitis this morning—the mother’s still very worried. So—”

  “Dear God, I’ll be glad when all this nonsense is over. All right. Don’t be long, will you? This has been a dreadful Sunday.”

  “Of course. I mean of course not. But I might be a bit of a while. Sorry.”

  “What’s this rubbish?” He was pouring himself a scotch, staring at the television, already engrossed in a programme.

  Clio left the house quietly, drove down the lane, stopped, and phoned Jocasta.

  “Hi. It’s me. Look, I don’t want to come to the hospital. Medical conventions and all that. Could we meet at the pub just down the road from the hospital? It’s called the Dog and Fox. Saloon bar.”

  “Sure. Can’t wait.”

  Clio saw Jocasta immediately as she hurried into the pub. She was sitting at a table by the window, smoking, reading something; she had a bottle of wine and two glasses in front of her. She looked up, saw her, and smiled, then stood up, pushed her mane of hair back, and came towards her—and in that moment Clio knew exactly who it was that Kate Tarrant had reminded her of.

  “There’s not a lot more news, I’m afraid.” Staff Nurse Campbell smiled with officious patience at Helen and Kate. “Your mother is still in HDU—the High Dependency Unit—receiving the very best, most technologically advanced care available, on a virtually one-to-one basis. Believe me, she is in the very best place.”

  “It might be the best place now,” said Kate. “But if you’d looked after her properly in the beginning, she wouldn’t need all that, would she? If she hadn’t been lying in the gutter for hours and then on that trolley all night and half today she wouldn’t have to be given all that crap.”

  “Kate! I’m sorry,” Helen said apologetically to Nurse Campbell, “she’s very upset.”

  “I daresay.” The look Nurse Campbell gave Kate would have terrified a slightly frailer spirit. “Well, I think the best thing would be for you to go home and come back in the morning. Your mother isn’t really aware of very much at the moment and if she was…If she was, I don’t think this young lady’s attitude would help. She needs peace and quiet, not aggravation.”

  “Oh and she’s had that, has she?” asked Kate. “I don’t remember much peace and quiet down in that cruddy Casualty all last night, people throwing up and shouting and shitting themselves in that filthy toilet!”

  “Kate, please! Be quiet! I do apologise,” said Helen.

  “Oh don’t worry, Mrs. Tarrant. We get used to hysteria, I do assure you. Now I would advise you very strongly to go home.”

  “Is there nowhere we could wait here?” asked Helen humbly. “We live quite a way away, you see.”

  “There is a relatives’ room,” said Nurse Campbell reluctantly. “On the ground floor. But it’s not very comfortable.”

  “I wonder how we knew that,” said Kate. “Come on, Mum, let’s go.”

  Helen followed Kate down the corridor, too weary and anxious to reprimand her further.

  “I could sit here forever,” said Jocasta stubbing out her cigarette. “We haven’t even started on our travels, have we? Just tell me one thing—did you stick to your plan? End up where you thought and so on?”

  “No, I didn’t. Not really. I often wonder what Martha’s doing.”

  “I heard something about her the other day. Right out of the blue. She’s in politics, I was told. Well, on the edge. In with this new party, apparently. I was going to try and track her down as well. Oh, dear, I must go.”

  “What—what exactly are you going to write?” asked Clio.

  “Oh, you know. Lots of sob stuff. And shock-horror, NHS fails again. Yet another old lady left on a trolley.”

  “Jocasta, she’s hardly an old lady,” said Clio. “She’s a rather glamorous sixty.”

  “She is? God, I wish I could meet her. Do you think I could?”

  “Absolutely not, if she’s in the HDU.”

  “Have you met the daughter?”

  “Yes. She’s very nice indeed. The granddaughter…” She hesitated; she was still—absurdly she knew, for what reason for it could there possibly be?—slightly bothered by the resemblance between Kate and Jocasta. “She’s a tough little nut.”

  “Yes, so I gathered. Maybe I could find her at least.”

  “Maybe. Yes, it would be interesting for you.” She would be interested herself. Would Jocasta see the likeness between them? Probably not. There were after all only so many variations that could be worked on two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. The tumble of a billion genes was bound to yield some duplication.

  Her stomach lurched. She looked at Jocasta, said hesitantly, “Jocasta, I know it’s your job and everything, but, well, do you think it’s going to do any good? Writing this story, putting the names of these nice people all over the paper?”

  “Oh Clio!” Jocasta shook her head sorrowfully. “I’m not about doing good. I’m about doing a good job. It’s what I’m paid for. I’m sorry. I hope it’s not going to strike our friendship down at the first hurdle, but I really, really do have to write it.”

  “Yes. Yes, I see.” She couldn’t really. “But it will make things much worse for poor Mrs. Bradford—the hospital will hate it, I can tell you that. And, well, my husband would absolutely kill me if his name got into it. Or mine.”

  “Why should his name get into it?”

  “He’s one of the consultants there. Quite an important one.”

  “OK. So why should he kill you? It won’t be your fault.”

  “He’d think it was. If he knew I knew you—”

  “Well he won’t, don’t fret about that. I won’t use either of your names. They don’t improve the story and it’s the system we’re on about, not the people. Now look, where might I find a white coat? You’d be amazed how far I’ve got in the past with one on. Practically into the operating theatre.”

  “Jocasta, that’s so terrible.”

  “Not at all. You haven’t got one, have you?”

  “No, I have not,” said Clio untruthfully.

  “Doesn’t matter, I’ll find the hospital laundry. I’ve done that a few times. Call me in a day or two. Here’s my card, phone number, e-mail address and everything. And I should warn you, the other rats will be down tomorrow.”

  “What other rats?”

  “The other papers.”

  “Oh God, Jocasta, do you have to—”

  “Yes, I do. Sorry.” She leant forward and kissed Clio. “I’m so glad I found you. Don’t worry about the story. Tomorrow’s fish-and-chip wrapping, you know.” She always said that; it was doubly untrue, now that fish-and-chips were wrapped in hygienic white paper, and every story was available to be read afresh on the Internet at the press of a button or two. But it still comforted people.

  Helen was dozing fitfully in the shabby discomfort of the visitors’ room and Kate was reading old copies of Hello! when a doctor walked in.

  She didn’t look much like a doctor, apart from her white coat. She was very young and pretty, and she smiled at Kate and put her fingers on her lips.

  “Kate?” she whispered.

  “Yes. What is it, is Gran—?”

  Jocasta jerked her head towards the door; Kate got up gingerly and followed her out into the corridor.

  “As far as I know your gran’s just about the same. But I’m not actually a doctor. I’m Jocasta from the Sketch. We talked earlier.” She smiled at Kate. She looked exhausted, poor little thing; it must have be
en a terrible ordeal for her. “How’re you doing?”

  “Pretty worried. They just won’t tell us anything and I want to see Granny and they won’t let me.”

  “Well, we’ll go up there in a minute, shall we? See what we can find out. I don’t know how far Dr. Jocasta will get, but we might make first base. Are you hungry? I’ve got some crisps outside.”

  “Oh yes, please. I’m starving. How did you get this far? They said the outside doors were all locked now.”

  “Casualty’s always open. I just walked in.”

  She was great, Kate thought, wolfing down the crisps gratefully minutes later, really, really great. She liked her a lot.

  Chapter 13

  She could hear the shock in their voices. Of all the things she had done that they found difficult to understand, this clearly topped the list.

  “But, dear,” her mother said, “of course we would be very pleased. And proud. But—why? I thought you loved your job.”

  “I do. I do love it. And in any case, I wouldn’t be thinking of leaving it until I get selected. Which I almost certainly won’t. But, well, just lately I’ve found it a bit less satisfying. And I’m intrigued by this as a…challenge.” She needed a challenge. She needed something. If she couldn’t have Ed.

  “But you don’t know anything about politics.”

  “I didn’t. But I’ve been working for this party, doing bits of legal work and so on, for a while. And I like what I see of it. Well, some of it anyway. Honestly, I’m almost as surprised as you are that they’ve asked me. And I’m as sure as I’m sitting here that I won’t even be short-listed. Let alone adopted as the local party candidate. So it’s all a bit of a farce, really. But I’ve said I’ll give it a go.”

  Only because of what Ed had said, really. Only because of the expression on his face when he left, which had looked like dislike.

  After she had rung off, she decided to allow herself another, proper cry. It seemed to help with the pain: briefly.

  “Oh, what fun! This is doing me much more good than all that awful stuff they keep pumping into me. There! How do I look?”

  “Mummy, I’m not sure about this,” said Helen.

  She sounded as exhausted as she looked; Jilly, on the other hand, was rosy and brilliant-eyed, lying back on her pillows, fluffing up her hair and contemplating herself in her small mirror. Anyone studying them would have thought it was Helen and not her mother who had almost died four days earlier.

  “Not sure about what, darling?”

  “You seeing this girl again. She’s caused so much trouble—”

  “Not for me she hasn’t,” said Jilly briskly. “If it hadn’t been for her, I would never have seen you the other night. Or Kate. And then being able to tell her exactly how ghastly it was, and reading about it the next day—or was it the next, I’m rather confused now…”

  “It was yesterday, that bit of the story,” said Helen.

  “Oh, yes. Well, it did feel like revenge, of a sort. On those stupid people in Casualty, and that dreadful staff nurse up here. All so pleased with themselves, so unconcerned about everyone’s suffering. And then it’s splendid that they’ve put me in this nice little room, isn’t it? So thoughtful.”

  Helen was silent; her mother had been put in a side ward at the express instructions of one of the senior consultants, Mr. Graves, under whose care she was, and who had been incandescent with rage at the story in the Sketch on Monday morning and the descent of at least a dozen other journalists and photographers on what he called his hospital. It had been a mistake, that, leading as it had to a seventy-two-point headline in the Sun reading THEY’RE OUR HOSPITALS, ACTUALLY, MR. GRAVES.

  Jocasta had visited a rather frail but animated Jilly in her room at about noon on Monday; the rest of the press had been kept out, but as the new best friend of Jilly Bradford’s granddaughter, there had been no such control over her, and in any case, with her unruly hair tucked neatly under a baseball cap, nobody recognised her as the young woman masquerading as a doctor who had caused such trouble the night before, walking into HDU to check on Mrs. Bradford’s progress and, having ascertained it was satisfactory, telling the agency nurse in charge that she thought seeing her daughter and granddaughter for a minute or two would do her good.

  A real doctor had arrived very shortly afterwards, Jocasta had been thrown out, and the nurse had been most severely reprimanded, but had defended herself, saying that she could hardly be expected to know every houseman walking about the hospital, and adding that if this was the National Health in England, she couldn’t wait to get back to her own hospital in South Africa.

  This had been reported back to Jocasta, who had passed it on to her readers, along with the quote from a girl in the X-ray Department that one patient seemed much like another, and another from a nurse in Casualty that it was impossible to look after people properly, so understaffed were they, and it simply wasn’t right.

  “How much longer are we going to have to put up with this sort of thing?” her emotive article had ended.

  In a health service that used to be the envy of the world? How many more patients are going to die, how many more old ladies are to be left alone and frightened, and in the case of Jilly Bradford, soaked to the skin after lying in the rain for hours waiting for an ambulance? And then denied such basic comforts as a warm bed and a cup of tea? How much longer do we all have to wait before someone takes the NHS in hand?

  Apart from finding herself described as an old lady, Jilly was entranced by the article and her starring role in it.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Jocasta said to Kate, who reported it, giggling. “But we’ll get a nice picture of her in a day or so when she’s looking a bit better, and show everyone that she isn’t really an old lady at all.”

  Clio had crept out early on the Monday morning to buy the Sketch, had sat in her car reading it, her heart in her mouth, absolutely horrified by almost every word. Jocasta had kept her promise, there was no mention of her by name, or even by reference, as Mrs. Bradford’s GP, but the opprobrium she had heaped on the hospital, the out-of-context quotes from various departments—it all made her feel very sick.

  She had managed somehow to chat normally over breakfast with Jeremy, saw him off to the hospital with a sigh of huge relief, and got ready for work herself; maybe that would be the end of it. But it wasn’t; two copies of the Sketch were being fought over in the surgery, and the receptionist wanted to know if the paper had approached her.

  “Why should they, for goodness’ sake?” asked Clio.

  “Well, you are Mrs. Bradford’s GP—and I bet they get onto your husband. He’s the consultant orthopod there.”

  “Well,” she said, reluctantly, “I suppose so. But—”

  “Clio,” said Mark Salter, “if there’s a follow-up on this, someone’s bound to want to talk to Jeremy. I’m surprised the girl who wrote this piece didn’t try herself.”

  “She obviously didn’t think it was very important,” said Clio coolly, blissfully unaware that at that very moment, a reporter from the Daily Express and another from the Sun were standing in front of Jeremy, demanding a quote, even as he ordered them out. That was when he had made the unfortunate remark about it being his hospital.

  An hour later the papers caught up with her; there were several phone calls, followed by a visit from three reporters and two photographers, who sat in the surgery reception for hours: Did she, as Mrs. Bradford’s GP, have anything to say about the conditions at the Duke of Kent Hospital, and how had it been possible for an old lady to be treated, or rather not treated, in such a way? While she was stalling helplessly, feeling like a rat in a trap, Jocasta phoned; angry with her as she was, Clio accepted her advice to give them a quote.

  She cobbled something together about the Health Service struggling under enormous pressure and everyone doing their utmost to cope, and that she greatly regretted what had happened to Mrs. Bradford, “But the GP’s role is quite separate from that of the hospita
l’s and I cannot possibly comment on what happened to her while she was not in my direct care.”

  She sent this out via Margaret, neatly typed on her computer, refusing to see anyone personally. Her quote was sufficiently dull to persuade the reporters that they were wasting their time and to send them back to the much greater excitement of the hospital.

  Both her sisters phoned, intrigued by the fracas and the way in which Jeremy had been vilified. Ariadne, who loathed him, was clearly hugely amused. Several friends in the medical profession called to sympathise.

  All the papers covered the story on Tuesday; the Sketch was still winning the race by a head, with a brief personal interview given by Mrs. Bradford “in a frail whisper” to Jocasta Forbes, relating all that she had endured, and paying tribute to her granddaughter Kate, who had gone into battle so manfully for her, and, indeed, to Miss Forbes herself who had managed to help her daughter to visit her in the HDU when she felt desperate for reassurance and personal contact.

  “I would say it was at that moment that I began to turn the corner.”

  The reporters were all desperate to get a shot of Kate, who had become very much the heroine of the hour, and she was desperate to be allowed to talk to them, but Helen refused point-blank. Jocasta, her sympathies torn between the two of them, managed to smuggle them out of the hospital that evening by a back door; but her car was spotted and a rather blurry picture of Kate, sitting in the backseat and smiling delightedly, appeared in a great many papers next day.

  By Wednesday it was all dying down, apart from a paragraph in Lynda Lee-Potter’s column in the Daily Mail, blaming the whole affair on the demise of the matron and the fact that nurses were no longer trained on the wards.

  “Right, now this is for tomorrow’s paper,” said Jocasta. “I promise you that after this I’ll be leaving you in peace.”

  “Oh, please don’t,” said Kate. “I’ll really miss you. It’s been great.”

  “Hardly great,” said Helen slightly coldly. She found Kate’s adoration of Jocasta irritating and misplaced; as far as she could see, Jocasta had caused them a great deal of trouble. Of course she had managed to smuggle her in to see her mother that night; and Jilly, once she was out of danger, had hugely enjoyed herself. Her pelvis was still painful, but she was displaying, as always, her robust constitution, had recovered from the surgery very fast and was eating well, even demanding wine with her meals.