In Honour Bound

by Nina Bawden

  There was no time to argue. The fat man took her hand and heaved her up into the ambulance. She saw Johnny’s face briefly, before they slammed the doors. He was staring after them. He must have touched his head with his hands; there was blood in his fair hair.

  One of the men said, ‘Are you his wife?’

  She shook her head, swaying against the side of the ambulance, watching Charles on the stretcher covered with a red hospital blanket. She thought he looked dead. Outside the windows, the world rushed backwards, dark and watery and unreal through the navy blue glass.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the man said, ‘He’ll be all right. Seen worse, haven’t we, Jock?’

  He had a broad, kind face on which the skin hung in deep folds like a curtain. Hair, sparse on his head, sprouted fiercely from his ears and nostrils.

  ‘Do you know his blood group, miss?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well never mind. Have him there in a minute.’

  The ambulance slowed, crawled a few yards and then reversed. The doors opened, letting in a flood of painful light, two other men jumped in. They lifted the stretcher onto a trolley; there was a dark pool on the red rubber covering of the bench.

  Mary followed the trolley into the hospital. A couple of nurses and a doctor in a white coat were bending over it. She couldn’t see Charles’s head. She waited. The doctor said something to one of the nurses and came over to her. ‘It was a man that telephoned,’ he said.

  ‘My husband.’

  He looked at her doubtfully. ‘Your husband said he knocked him down.’

  ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘I see.’ Surprisingly, a wave of colour shot up into his face. ‘Well—it can wait. We’ll have a look at him straightaway. Would you mind …’ He indicated a polished wood bench at the side of the corridor.

  ‘Of course.’

  They were wheeling Charles along the corridor and into the lift. The doctor ran after them, young, thin legs leaping like pistons beneath his short white coat. The lift doors clanged shut, there was a smooth, oiled whine. One of the nurses came back to Mary.

  ‘What are they going to do?’

  ‘Taking him up to the ward. We’re in luck. Mr. Dinnot’s operating this morning. He’ll be out of the theatre in a minute.’

  ‘Who’s Mr. Dinnot?’

  ‘One of the consultants. He specializes in head injuries.’ She smiled, she was young and pretty and kind. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll let you know as soon as we can. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘No thank you. I’d like to telephone.’

  ‘There’s a public box at the end of the corridor.’

  She said helplessly, ‘I haven’t got any money.’

  ‘Oh Lord …’ The nurse let out a sharp sigh. ‘You’re not supposed to … oh, heavens, what does it matter? Look, there’s one in the office.’

  She showed Mary into the small room. There was a desk, a telephone and a smell of ether. As soon as she smelt it, Mary felt her stomach muscles tighten. ‘Don’t be long,’ the nurse said. ‘Sister’ll have my hide.’ She grinned like an excited little girl, her skin had the soft pearly look of a newly bathed baby’s. ‘Directory on the window sill.’ She shut the door.

  Mary leaned on the Sister’s desk and looked at the telephone. Her hands were hot and shaking; she felt sick with the ether smell. She thought: Frederick won’t be home, why should he, in the middle of the afternoon? But the telephone was on the landing outside his room. The landlady might answer it and know where he was.

  The number rang and she counted the rings, estimating how long it would take the woman to climb up from her basement, up the foul, linoleum-covered stairs. The fear of not finding Frederick suddenly eclipsed everything else. It struck her with something of a shock that he should so obviously be the one to turn to, the only person she could be sure of. Poor silly fat Frederick with his foolish goodness, his unquestioning love.

  He said, ‘Hallo?’

  She said stupidly, ‘I didn’t think you’d be in.’

  ‘What did you want then? A chat with Ma Grainger?’ His voice was hoarsely facetious. He explained. ‘Touch of bronchitis. It’s what Mother always said. Everything flies to me chest.’

  She said, ‘Damn. Oh damn it all.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  She told him, staring at a bowl of red roses on the desk.

  He said slowly, ‘What a terrible, bloody mess. What can I do?’

  ‘Go to the flat. I can’t leave the hospital yet. I don’t want him left alone, Fred.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  The nurse opened the door and whispered like a schoolgirl keeping cavey, ‘Will you be long? Sister will be back in a minute.’

  ‘Not long now,’ she whispered back. The girl closed the door. She said to Frederick, ‘Are you well enough? Should you go out?’

  ‘I think my temperature’s down,’ he said, seriously attentive as always to every detail of health. ‘But I’ll be all right. I’ll get a taxi.’

  She felt a terrible fear suddenly, closing her eyes, seeing Johnny’s face, a formless red blur against her red eyelids, opening her eyes to quick, unreal sunlight brightly spattering the desk. She had a cold sensation of drowning. ‘Hurry, Fred. I’m frightened.’

  ‘Has he still got the gun?’

  ‘I don’t know. It wasn’t loaded.’ The question hung poised between them. Incredibly, she found herself yawning.

  Frederick said, ‘No, Mary, it’s not possible. Believe me…’ Then he added quickly, almost frantically, ‘I must go.…’

  She sat on the bench in the hall watching the nurses go past. They were all young and pretty, their bodies soft and vulnerable, narrow-backed, pert-hipped. The light, swimming through windows, was soft, lazily warm and clear. She felt a ridiculous desire for sleep and fought it wearily, drifting into a hazy nothingness and then coming back with a jerk to the light, polished corridor and the warm wood of the bench.

  The doctor arrived and took her into a small surgery off the casualty ward. He sat her down in a chair and began to talk to her, but his voice was a distant, unnecessary nuisance like the voice from someone else’s radio.

  She murmured, ‘I’m sorry—so stupid. I only want to go to sleep.’

  He said something and bent over her. His breath smelt of garlic. She felt his hand under her arm and had a queer, sliding sensation. Then she was lying flat with something soft under her head. The distant voice said, ‘Natural reaction—after earthquakes—people often go to sleep …’

  ‘This is farcical,’ she said aloud, and slept.

  When she woke, she was lying on a couch in the surgery, a narrow room shaped like a shoe-box. The walls were mustard yellow and a curtain patterned with blue and yellow roses hung at one end instead of a door. She sat up, bewildered, and a nurse clattered the curtain rings and stood at the end of the couch.

  ‘You’re awake.’ She was middle aged and fat with soft, pear-shaped breasts that billowed like downy cushions under her apron. Her body looked like a feather bed bisected by a stout leather belt but her face was hard and scratched as an old saddle and wore an expression of complacent indignation.

  Mary said, ‘I’m sorry—how long have I been asleep?’

  She looked at her watch. ‘Half an hour. Dr. Carter said you were not to be disturbed.’ Her grey eyes disapproved of these instructions. ‘Dr. Carter would like to see you, when you’re ready. He’s in Sister’s office,’ she said, turning with a creak of leather. Her back rolled like a stuffed sausage over her belt.

  Mary said, ‘Please—wait a minute. How is he?’

  ‘Mr. Franks? As comfortable as can be expected.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Mr. Dinnot will examine him again after tea.’

  It was clear that she intended to tell Mary nothing, although when they got to the Sister’s office there was no sign of Dr. Carter. It was three o’clock. Mary waited for ten minutes and it seemed like an eternity. When he came he
sat down behind the desk, very slow in all his movements, and made out an official form, asking her for Charles’s full name and address, his religion, the name and address of his next of kin.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He has an uncle. I don’t know his address.’ She leaned across the table. ‘Please, how is he?’

  He gave her a nervous look and squared off all the papers on the desk, very neatly. ‘Quite comfortable at the moment. The facial injury seems to be superficial though it looks nasty enough. There’s a crack fracture of the skull but no sign of compression as yet.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ She smiled at him to show that she was quite controlled and that she wanted him to explain to her.

  ‘It means pressure on the brain.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘At the moment? Keep him under observation. It looks like straightforward concussion at present—temperature’s well down and the blood pressure, no evidence of sub-dural haemorrhage though it’s not always easy to tell. He’s had a lucid period but it didn’t come too soon after the injury—in some ways that’s a good sign.’ He looked at her, seeming to be encouraged by the calmness of her attitude and went on as if he were talking to a student. ‘Head injuries are tricky things. You know the sort of case most laymen are acquainted with—the footballer who’s knocked out, recovers to finish the game and collapses and dies later on? Severe brain injury can occur without much damage to the bone.’

  ‘Do you mean he could die?’ She heard her voice, calm, light; it did not seem to belong to her.

  He looked uncomfortable as if he had said more than he had meant to. ‘It’s always possible, though in this case I should think extremely unlikely. But no one could give you an exact prognosis yet. Not even Dinnot. Particularly not Dinnot. He’s a tremendously cagey chap.’ He grinned rather shyly. The grin and his change of tone made Mary aware how very young he was.

  She said, ‘How soon will you know?’

  ‘Twenty-four hours, perhaps.’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs.…’

  ‘Prothero.’

  ‘Mrs. Prothero.’

  He looked at her with nice, worried eyes; clearly he did not like what he had got to say. ‘Of course, I daresay the hospital will have to make a report about this—this accident.’

  She felt dizzy as if the blood had suddenly drained from her head. She clenched her hands onto the desk for support. The smell of ether assaulted her stomach and she felt sick again. It seemed terribly important to continue to speak in an ordinary voice. She said, ‘Is that necessary?’

  He re-arranged his papers again, not looking at her. ‘Of course it’s a formality we don’t always go through with. But I thought I had better tell you. The hospital has to be in the clear, you see. If there’s any chance, any suspicion—you know what I mean.’

  He looked at her awkwardly. She stood up, forced herself to smile at him. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you. I know what you mean.’

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘He’s gone,’ Frederick said.

  In spite of the warm day, he was sitting in the drawing-room in his overcoat, a fawn woollen muffler tied round his neck. His face was blotchy and he was coughing.

  Johnny had gone by the time Frederick arrived. He had stood on the doorstep ringing the bell helplessly for some fifteen minutes before the woman who lived in the ground-floor flat came out to see what he wanted.

  Her appearance disconcerted Frederick. She looked like a mummified child; small, stringy, with a tiny, round, artless face, little black eyes and long, dyed yellow hair tugged back from her forehead in an Alice band. Skinny old legs protruded beneath her full, dirndl skirt and ended in white ankle socks and ballet pumps. Frederick remembered Mary had once told him that she had rich relations in America and that it was generally supposed they paid her handsomely to stay in London; certainly she had no other visible means, Mary said, of paying the high-ish rent and buying the yoghourt and gin which was all she appeared to live on. Her origins were obscure: she claimed to be Hungarian but her voice was a flat, whiney, sub-genteel drawl. Frederick thought she had probably been a high-class tart who had been careful with her earnings. The Protheros had spoken of her as a joke; he did not find her at all funny.

  She had a key to the flat. She opened the door and insisted on going in with him.

  ‘There’s been trouble,’ she informed him eagerly, skipping down the steep stairs in a whirl of skirts. ‘I heard it.’ She lowered her voice and turned to him confidingly, breathing out gin. ‘A terrible scene.’ Her eyes were round and cold as boot buttons. ‘You can hear everything in these flats. I could tell you some tales.’

  ‘No thank you,’ Frederick said, coldly bewildered.

  The button eyes snapped with excitement. ‘It’s not very nice, is it? Think of the rent I pay! And for what—to be exposed to all this terrible shouting and screaming? It’s more than flesh and blood can stand,’ she announced with satisfaction.

  Frederick thought she was certainly drunk and probably mad but he was afraid to offend her. The ceilings were thick enough but there was always the chance she had heard something—lying flat with her ear pressed to the floor boards, he thought grimly. He persuaded her to sit down which she did reluctantly—there was a landlady air about her as she peered round, alert for signs of disorder—and lit her cigarette. She fluttered her eyelashes, gummed together with shiny little beads of mascara. He tried not to look at her elderly knees, coquettishly bared for his benefit.

  ‘There couldn’t have been very much to hear,’ he said carefully. ‘A friend of Mr. Prothero’s fell and cut his head.’

  Her small mouth, a withered rosebud, parted in a significant leer. ‘You weren’t here, dear, were you?’

  ‘Nor were you.’

  ‘Oh yes I was.’ She drew on her jet cigarette holder and exhaled lengthily through her nostrils. ‘I happened to be in the hall when Mr. Prothero was on the phone. Asking for an ambulance. I heard every word he said. The front door was open and he wasn’t exactly whispering. Be as quick as you can, he said, I may have killed him.’

  She drew in her breath on a long, triumphant hiss, stood up and advanced confidentially on Frederick who retreated slightly, a cold flood of despair in his heart. ‘Mind you, I’d expected something, I won’t deny it. I saw them both come in from my front window, first Mr. Prothero, then the other one. The one she’s been carrying on with.’

  ‘This is none of your business,’ Frederick said loudly. He knew he ought to talk to her, persuade her to keep her mouth shut, but his chief concern was to get her out of the flat. His head ached and his chest felt tight-bound, he had very little energy to spare.

  ‘You can’t help knowing what’s going on when it’s pushed under your nose, can you? Mind you, I don’t blame her, though I must say I was surprised. A bit of a madam, I always thought. “My husband is away on a business trip.” As if I cared. And I wouldn’t grudge anyone a bit of fun. But when I saw the other one coming up the steps, I thought—watch out, now, there’ll be trouble.’

  ‘So you stood in the hall and listened?’

  She smiled on him with drunken affection. ‘That’s right, dear.’ Her eyes swivelled round the room. ‘They’ve got a nice enough home, haven’t they? A lot of really nice things. But you can never tell from appearances, can you? Business trips! As if I couldn’t read the papers.’ She roamed the room, waving her cigarette holder. Frederick watched her miserably as she trailed her knotted fingers along the surface of a console table. He had the fantastic idea that she was looking for dust. She kicked aside a blanket that was lying in a heap on the hearthrug and pounced with a squawk of excitement. ‘Blood,’ she said with such feverish, Maria Marten intensity, that Frederick almost laughed aloud.

  ‘I told you,’ he said weakly. ‘The man fell and hit his head on the fender.’

  She tossed her head. ‘I don’t believe that for a minute.’ Her eyes glittered. ‘Mr. Prothero shot him.’

  ‘Don’t be ridicul
ous.’

  ‘We must get the police.’

  Frederick said with edgy patience, ‘Listen. There’s been an accident. Why should the police be interested?’

  ‘Mr. Prothero cleared off fast enough, didn’t he? I saw him leave, just after the ambulance had gone.’

  ‘I expect he went to the hospital.’ A fit of laughter and painful coughing seized him at the same time. He sank, convulsed, into a chair and she stood over him, her shrunken baby face twitching with her desire to be involved as deeply as possible.

  ‘This is terrible. Someone has been shot—I’m sure I heard a shot—maybe he’s dead. If you won’t call the police, I will.’

  Frederick lay back in his chair. He thought: if she sounds mad enough, they won’t take any notice of her. ‘Call them if you like. But be careful. It’s an offence to invent things. You’d better not say you heard something you didn’t hear.’

  She started up an indignant tirade but he closed his eyes and kept them closed. He felt so ill that it became, after a minute or so, quite easy to ignore her. In fact, he did not know she had left the room until he heard the door slam at the top of the stairs. He stood up slowly and went through the flat, barely aware, at the beginning of his search, what he was looking for. He picked up the blanket, took it into the bathroom and washed out the blood on one corner. Then he got a bowl of water and scrubbed fussily at the stain on the rug. A little later he found the gun, lying beneath the bureau. It was filthy dirty; no one could have fired it. He wiped it carefully on his handkerchief and put it away in a drawer.

  Mary said, ‘Did she telephone the police?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. They would have been here by now.’ He looked at her shocked face and said gently, ‘I shouldn’t worry about her, Mary. She’s crazy as a coot.’

  ‘Not crazy enough. You believed her, didn’t you? You believed what she said about Charles and me?’

  ‘Not because she said it.’ He smiled at her tentatively. ‘I had an idea there was something like that.’