Gemma's Journey

by Beryl Kingston

  The debate that followed was hot and furious. And by Friday morning, Andrew’s criticism was in all the papers. The Mirror dubbed him ‘Doctor Truth Teller’, the Sun declared ‘War hero speaks out’ and reported his words verbatim, The Chronicle ran a banner headline over a very flattering photograph: NHS DYING SAYS DR DREW.

  ‘There’ll be mail by the sackload now,’ Catherine predicted, as they drove to the surgery.

  Andrew wasn’t fazed by any of it. ‘It won’t start coming till Monday,’ he said, negotiating the junction. ‘And I’m not going to let it get in the way of the party. Forget it.’

  That’s easier said than done, Catherine thought, even though it is sensible advice. But there was no chance to say anything else, because they’d arrived and Grace, their senior receptionist, was waving to them through the window. She couldn’t wait to tell them how wonderful she thought the broadcast had been.

  ‘You’re speaking for all of us,’ she said. ‘High time too. It makes me boil the way the politicians will keep saying everything’s perfect. They should sit in my seat for a day or two. They’d soon change their tune then.’

  ‘Have Mrs Amraliwahla’s results come in yet?’ Andrew asked, shifting them both into working mode.

  ‘We’re waiting for the post,’ she told him, still beaming.

  ‘You and me both,’ he grinned.

  In St Thomas’s hospital the broadcast was the main topic of conversation at every pause in the day and Nick came in for a lot of stick from his friends.

  ‘You never told us your old man was a war hero,’ Abdul teased, as the three of them snatched a sandwich and a cup of coffee at what should have been their lunch break.

  ‘I don’t tell you everything,’ Nick said airily.

  ‘You didn’t tell us about the broadcast either,’ Rick rebuked. ‘I only caught it by accident.’

  ‘I didn’t have to tell you,’ Nick grinned at him. ‘I knew you’d be watching. It followed the football.’

  ‘When are you going to see him next?’

  ‘Saturday. We’re driving up to York together.’

  ‘Well, tell him from me it was a great broadcast.’

  But when Nick turned in at the drive that Saturday afternoon there was no telling his father anything. He was too full of furious energy, glowering at his car.

  ‘Just look at all this rubbish,’ he said. The back seat of the Rover was piled with ungainly luggage, cardboard boxes, a guitar, even Sue’s old rocking horse, wrapped in sacking and wedged across the seat at an undignified angle.

  Gemma was waiting in her chair, under the porch and out of the rain and Catherine was packing the boot with the hand luggage. She was wearing her anxious expression but she was fighting back. ‘It’s all necessary,’ she said to Andrew. ‘I promised I’d bring it. I can’t go back on my word.’

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake!’ he growled at her. ‘Won’t it wait till next time?’

  ‘No. It won’t. I promised.’

  ‘Bloody ridiculous!’

  ‘We’ve got two cars,’ she said, closing the boot. ‘Nick won’t mind taking his too, will you, Nick?’

  It wasn’t possible to refuse her. Not when she was so anxious. ‘What do you want me to take?’

  ‘Gemma’s chair,’ she said at once, ‘if you can get it in your boot.’

  And Gemma too, he thought, looking across the path at her. Well thanks very much, Mother dear.

  His furious expression made Gemma feel uncomfortable. ‘Are you sure it’s all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Course it’s all right,’ Andrew said, brusquely. ‘Get in the car or you’ll be drowned.’ The rain was increasing by the second and so was his bad temper.

  She wheeled to the side of Nick’s car as quickly as she could – as there was nothing else she could do – waited for him to open the door and then hauled herself from the chair to the passenger seat, feeling uncomfortable and rather aggrieved. By the time he’d folded the chair into the boot and was back in the driver’s seat, the windscreen was smeared with raindrops. He switched on the windscreen wipers, scowling. ‘It’s going to be one hell of a drive,’ he promised.

  ‘Obviously,’ she said, as he drove off at speed.

  The miles stretched before them like a trial.

  ‘Look,’ she said, as he drove down Putney Hill towards the High Street. ‘I’m sorry about this. It wasn’t my idea. I thought I was going in your father’s car.’

  ‘There’s no need to apologise,’ he said stiffly, watching the road. ‘I said I’d take you, so I’m taking you.’ Then he vented his fury on a motorist who was dithering at the junction. ‘Well come on then, you stupid woman, make your mind up. We can’t sit here all day.’

  He really is the most infuriating man I’ve ever met, Gemma thought, looking at his averted profile. Well if that’s the way he wants to go on, let him. I shall watch the world go by. After weeks being cooped up in hospital and days when the furthest journey she could manage was down to the shops, it was a treat to be out on the road and actually going somewhere, even with him. In any case, once she’d decided to attend this party, she’d made up her mind to enjoy everything about it, no matter what the company. Or the weather. Although she couldn’t have foreseen how gruesome they would be.

  As they reached the High Street, it was so overcast that it was more like evening than early afternoon and the wind was blowing the rain horizontally across the road. All the cars had turned on their headlights and most of the shop lights were lit too, alternately glowing and blurred by sideswept torrents of water. The Saturday shoppers looked wet and miserable, bent against the onslaught, or struggling to control their wind-battered umbrellas.

  Nick inched past the church, which sat in its hollow beside the river, brooding as darkly as he was. Then he joined the traffic growling across the bridge. The Thames was a disagreeable putty colour and pock-marked by rain. And they were driving through such a downpour that he had to switch his windscreen wipers to double speed. They clicked and squeaked and shot spurts of water to right and left.

  ‘Damn things!’ he complained. ‘They don’t like rain.’

  ‘It is a bit much,’ she agreed, making another effort.

  But it was wasted. He didn’t answer. The spurt of rain died down, the wipers reverted to their normal swishing action, and they continued in silence.

  Gemma looked out at the crowded streets, busy with her thoughts. She was alarmed to find that she was acutely aware of him and it wasn’t simply the silent profile that was making her aware. It was the smell of his skin, the sight of those long, gentle, competent hands on the steering wheel, that thick hair falling over his forehead, those dark blue eyes … And what eyelashes! Thick and sweeping, like a girl’s. She’d call them tender if he’d been a female. He really is the oddest mixture, she thought, deliberately moving her mind away from the fact that he was turning her on, the oddest mixture, even to his clothes, the only man I know who would wear a classy watch with an old jersey. It wouldn’t hurt him to be polite. That’s all I want.

  But he drove on in silence and eventually they left the entertainment of the London streets and took to the Ml where there was nothing to look at except cars spewing water from their wheels, the stained backsides of innumerable, trundling lorries and rain bouncing off the tarmac. Although he switched on the radio, he still didn’t speak. The road went monotonously on. It felt as though they’d been driving for days.

  They passed Luton in silence, drove through Bedfordshire without a word, passed signs directing them to Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham. She’d never kept quiet for such a long time in the whole of her life. If this goes on much longer, she told herself, I shall forget how to speak.

  Finally, when they’d reached a stretch of open road where the driving was easy she decided to tackle him straight out.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘We can’t drive all the way to York without speaking. I know you didn’t want me to take the flat but it’s done now. Can’t we just accept it a
nd get on with it?’

  He was monosyllabic with annoyance. ‘It’s nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Then why won’t you talk to me?’

  His face was sterner than she’d ever seen it. ‘There’s nothing to talk about.’

  ‘Yes, there is. There’s always something to talk about. What you’re saying is, there’s something you don’t want to talk about.’

  He was angered to be subjected to such criticism. Damn you, he thought, and turned his head to look at her. It disconcerted him that she looked so sure of herself, skin glowing, brown eyes gleaming, and her head held up with such confidence it really annoyed him. There was nothing for it. She would have to be crushed. ‘I didn’t know actresses had to be trained in psychology these days.’

  She laughed. Infuriating woman! ‘I don’t need psychology to see what’s going on. That’s just common observation. Which we are trained in. You’re not talking to me because you’re cross about me taking the flat.’ And she looked at him boldly, urging him to admit it.

  ‘All right then,’ he said, angrily. ‘I don’t approve, if you really want to know. It isn’t suitable.’

  ‘That’s your opinion. I don’t share it. And neither do your parents.’

  ‘I went out of my way to provide you with proper accommodation, if you remember. That would have been suitable and you …’

  ‘Dared to question your judgement,’ she mocked. ‘That’s what all this is about, isn’t it. I didn’t do as I was told.’

  ‘No,’ he said glaring at her. ‘That’s not what it’s about. It’s …’ He was so cross that it took him a second to think what it was. ‘It’s a matter of my professional judgement.’

  ‘Oh I see,’ she mocked. ‘If it’s your professional judgement nobody can question it, is that it?’

  It was exactly what he meant but the tone of her voice made him feel he was in the wrong. The little space inside the car was bristling with bad temper, as if they were shooting darts at one another. ‘There’s no point in making professional judgements,’ he told her stiffly, ‘if they’re just going to be ignored.’

  He was driving alarmingly fast and his speed increased her anger. ‘You might be a good doctor,’ she said, ‘all right, you are a good doctor, a very good doctor, but you can’t read people’s minds. Doesn’t it ever occur to you that sometimes – just sometimes—your patients might know what’s best for them?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t.’

  She erupted into fury at that. ‘That’s so bloody arrogant.’

  He was hot with anger too. ‘You’re the one who’s arrogant,’ he said, shooting a furious glance at her. ‘You think you know better than anyone: doctors, nurses, social workers, you name it. I shouldn’t think you’ve ever done as you were told, not once in the whole of your life.’

  That was a bit too near the knuckle. ‘What I’ve done in the rest of my life is my affair, not yours.’

  ‘You can dish it out, you see,’ he said, with great satisfaction, ‘but you can’t take it.’

  ‘It’s not a matter of taking it. This is irrelevant.’

  ‘If you really had studied psychology, you’d know that the irrelevant is invariably the most significant.’

  It was hideously true. And what was worse it had made her lose the thread of her argument. She glowered at him, struggling to reorganise her thoughts.

  Victory! he thought and couldn’t resist clinching it. ‘Now,’ he said, with infuriating calm, ‘I suggest we stop all this nonsense and get on with the drive.’

  ‘Right!’ she said, pink-cheeked. ‘That’s it! Stop the car! I want to get out.’

  He increased his speed. ‘We’re in the middle of a motorway, you stupid woman.’

  ‘Don’t you call me a stupid woman. I know we’re on a motorway.’ Actually she hadn’t even thought about it. ‘Turn off at the next junction. I want to get out.’

  ‘And then what?’ he said, giving her a sardonic grin. ‘What are you going to do then? Drive back to London in your wheelchair?’

  That was below the belt. She didn’t know what she wanted to do. Only that she couldn’t sit in this car with him. ‘I’ll find a way, don’t you worry. Turn off at the next junction,’ she said.

  ‘The next junction is twenty miles on.’

  It wasn’t. It couldn’t be.

  ‘There’s a road map in the glove compartment. See for yourself.’

  She was so full of anger she wanted to scream. She turned her body away from him and glared out of the window. ‘Don’t talk to me!’ she said.

  He was triumphant. ‘My point exactly!’ he said.

  The rain bounced on the road ahead, sharp as needles. Anger was making her skin prickle and her heart jump in her chest as if it was struggling to get out. And there was nothing she could do. Bloody motorway! Bloody rain! Bloody doctors!

  They drove on. And on and on. They listened to the four o’clock news in heavy silence, left the motorway at six, still not speaking. Finally, after a lifetime of brooding bad temper and private self-justification, they passed a road sign directing them to Poppleton. Nearly there, thank God.

  And suddenly he turned his head and spoke to her. ‘There’s Rob’s garden centre,’ he said.

  They were passing a field fenced by flag poles, a long low bungalow building marked by a green neon sign, PENGILLY’S OF POPPLETON, a phalanx of garden sheds standing in ranks like well-drilled troops, and rows and rows of evergreen trees and shrubs, neat as toys and silhouetted black against the royal blue of a high clear sky. She realised that the rain must have stopped at some point while they were driving and was surprised that she hadn’t noticed. But as he’d condescended to speak at last she decided she would answer.

  ‘Who’s Rob?’

  ‘Sue’s husband.’

  ‘Does he work there?’

  His answer was infuriatingly superior. ‘Actually he owns it.’

  They’re rich, Gemma thought, and despite her determination not to be put down, her heart sank a little. He’s bloody superior and they’re bloody rich. What a good job I brought my silk blouse.

  They drove over a level crossing, past a station like a Victorian doll’s house, down a long straight well-lit road, where all the houses were neat and affluent, and reached a village green. This was obviously a very well-heeled place.

  The road they were following curved and twisted and here the houses stood apart from one another, hidden behind the tangled branches of bare trees and thick hedges. They passed a library and a school. The road curved again and he drove through open gates toward a mansion. Oh it would be, wouldn’t it. A wide paved drive lay before a white house, late Victorian and extremely elegant, all windows blazing light. There were cars parked all over the drive, pop music throbbed a welcome from the open door, coloured lanterns glowed among the trees. What a place! she thought. I shall need all my skill to cope with this.

  After that things happened very quickly and in some confusion. Before Nick could lift the wheelchair from the boot and let her out of the car, two small girls tumbled out of the front door squealing that Uncle Nick had come and hurled themselves towards him. They had the same fair hair cut in identical bobs, and wore identical black velvet trousers, white cropped tops and huge chunky boots. And they were both very excited. As soon as he saw them Nick stopped looking stern, grinned at them broadly and swept them up, one after the other, to swing them round and round. Then he and the car were surrounded by people who were all introducing themselves to Gemma. There were too many to take in all at once, but she managed to register that Sue was tall and elegant and welcoming, wore a long straight dress made of cream silk and a superb pair of diamond earrings and was clearly in command.

  ‘Where are the ageds?’ she said to Nick. ‘I thought you were all coming together.’ And without waiting for him to answer, ‘You’ve got a wheelchair, haven’t you, Gemma? Someone bring it round this side. That’s it. I’ve put you in the den. It’s the best place on the ground floor and th
ere’s the downstairs loo alongside. I’ll show you. Did you bring a bag?’

  The den was a huge room at the back of the house, with a pool table in one corner, a console television in another and a bar in a third. There was concealed lighting at every vantage point, faintly pink to match the décor, original watercolours on the walls, and a variety of easy chairs and sofas scattered luxuriously about the room. One had been converted into a bed in the fourth corner.

  ‘There,’ Sue said. ‘Will this do?’

  Gemma felt as though she’d been ushered into a five-star hotel. ‘It’s gorgeous,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll give you a few minutes to settle in,’ Sue told her. ‘We’re in the drawing room. Follow the racket. The do’s in the Fox. We’ll be leaving in about half an hour. OK?’

  Then I shall have to work quickly, Gemma thought, and set about her transformation at once, washing as well as she could, changing into her silk, working on her hair until the worst of the scar was covered, making up her face as though she was going on stage. Which, in a way, she was. Whatever happens, she told the image in her hand mirror, whatever anyone says – and especially Nick – you’re going to be on top of it.

  Finally, with a last glance at her image, she went to join the party.

  Racket was the right word for it. The noise was deafening. The long drawing room was full of people, drinking and talking, and children of various sizes, all blondes and all running about as if they were playing tag. Down at the far end was a grand piano – it would be grand! – where a group of men were listening to Andrew and Catherine, who’d just arrived. She couldn’t see Nick among so many bodies, but then, as she was beginning to realise, it is hard to distinguish one person from another when your viewpoint is the middle of their chests.

  Ah well, she thought, plucking up her courage. It’s no good sitting here. And she drove towards the nearest group of legs.

  ‘I’m Gemma,’ she said. ‘The Quennells’ lodger.’

  One of the men put his hand on the arm of her chair and leant towards her. ‘I’m Tom,’ he said. ‘One of Rob’s brothers.’

  ‘One?’ she said, shaking his hand and smiling. ‘You make it sound as though there are lots.’