Nat fell back against the hard ground, the cold air swilling around his head. Someone had pissed in Noel’s porch, he could not escape the stench. Through the open door the crowd was singing, ‘Keep the home fires bur-ning!’
Noel’s dark silhouette reappeared on the stairs, carrying pillows and blankets which he used to make his friend more comfortable.
‘It hurts!’ Nat wailed like a little boy.
Noel was examining the wound, trying desperately to concentrate on something other than the pain of his own body. ‘I know, but I don’t think it’s hit anything vital. The thickness of your coat stopped it penetrating too far.’ He was slightly concerned that it might have pierced a lung but there seemed to be no handicap to Nat’s breathing other than his panic, and if he had managed to stagger here then he was probably going to be all right. Like a mother comforting her child he tucked the blankets around his friend’s body, keeping out the cold that had suddenly attacked him too. Annoyed by the crowd he told Nat, ‘Just shift your feet a bit, then I can shut that bloody lot out.’ With much effort he managed to close the door, but this had plunged them into darkness and so he lighted a wall lamp before returning to bend over his patient. ‘Hold on, the ambulance won’t be long.’
Nat reached out for the other’s hand. ‘It feels like it’s gone through me heart!’
The doctor stared at that supplicating hand, hesitated for the briefest moment, then clasped it. ‘Well unless your heart is in a different place to everyone else’s I don’t think that’s likely.’ He returned Nat’s grip, stroking the taut knuckles, the clenched fingers.
Nat was calmer but still frightened. ‘A doctor wouldn’t lie, would he?’
‘Even a village idiot like Spud could diagnose that that knife is nowhere near your heart.’ After a moment, Noel started to shake with silent laughter.
‘What’s up?’ Panic lifted Nat’s head from the pillow.
‘It’s all right! I’m not laughing at you.’ Noel slumped onto the floor beside Nat, leaned against the wall and pressed close to the other’s flank, oblivious to the cold now for the proximity of his friend was all he knew. Rubbing Nat’s icy hand between his own as if to warm it, he felt the cold skin against his palms. It had a gently soothing effect upon the patient; upon the doctor also. ‘Who did this to you?’
‘I didn’t see.’
‘I’m not surprised in that lot,’ muttered Noel, and closed his eyes, head swimming.
‘I was just on me way home to pack up.’ Nat sounded cheated.
‘Oh, where were you going?’
‘Australia.’
This had the effect of opening Noel’s eyes, though he continued to massage the other’s skin. ‘You’re serious?’
‘I find it very difficult to be funny with a knife sticking out of me chest.’
Noel gave a low chuckle and closed his eyelids again. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll still make it – I’d love to go with you.’ Oh how he would love to.
‘Oh aye?’ Nat was cynical, tried to move and winced in discomfort. ‘Bright wouldn’t take kindly to that. I suppose you’re still hopeful in that quarter – that’s why you kidded me you were already married, so I wouldn’t spoil it for you?’
The other gave a harsh laugh that started him coughing. Tasting blood in his mouth, he spat into his handkerchief which he quickly replaced in his pocket. ‘The mood she’s in she’d be glad to see the back of me.’
‘Sorry if I spoiled it for you,’ muttered Nat, not sorry at all.
Having brought his cough under control, Noel stared up at the flickering yellow gaslamp that did nothing to improve the dingy brown paint of the vestibule. ‘Oh Nat…’ he shook his head. ‘Shall I tell you something?’
‘I’d rather you got me to hospital,’ groaned Nat, yet comforted by the stroking hand.
‘I won’t get you there any quicker than the ambulance. Don’t worry, it’ll be along in a minute. Whilst you’re waiting you might as well listen, it’ll make the time pass more quickly. You know this afternoon when you called Bright and me a pair of frauds? Well, you were right. No, listen!’ His hands caressed Nat’s skin, soothing any outburst. ‘We are frauds, the pair of us, but I’m the best, a real dyed in the wool fake. That’s why I found it so bloody funny when you said you needed a doctor.’ He saw that Nat did not understand. ‘I’m a quack, man! A charlatan. I failed the bloody test!’
‘But… I’ve seen your diplomas. They’re hanging on the waiting room wall.’
‘I might be a quack, but I’m a bloody good forger.’ Noel gazed down upon Nat’s face, which looked jaundiced in this light. Confessions spilled from his lips. ‘Managed to get hold of a bona fide certificate and filled in the rest myself!’ His tired body shook with laughter. ‘I’ve been carving up those poor buggers in the trenches for the past two years and not one of them had a clue; had my hand up a thousand twats, delivered babies…’ He shook his head from side to side, eyes pressed shut in mirth.
Nat almost forgot his stinging wound. ‘But how have you got away with it for so long?’
‘Because I’m good! Oh, I was being flippant before, I did get through most of it, I mean I’ve been through hospital procedure and everything, there were just one or two hiccups that prevented me from getting the diploma. I didn’t think it was fair! Just because someone’s got a bit of paper doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a better doctor than I am! Some of them are bloody awful, I’d be ashamed to admit some of the things I’ve seen them get away with. So there!’ He dealt a gentle series of pats to Nat’s hand, at the same time lifting one freezing cold buttock from the stone floor. ‘You’ve got something on me. You can hand me over if you want.’ And at this moment I couldn’t care bloody less, he thought.
‘Why are you telling me this now?’ asked Nat, who found what Noel had done outrageous. ‘And why did you do it in the first place?’
The bogus doctor gave an exaggerated shrug, catching the weave of his jacket against the rough wall. ‘I couldn’t let my father down. It was as simple as that.’
‘He wouldn’t have been very pleased to see you in gaol alongside the likes of me.’
Noel’s voice was sombre. ‘There wasn’t much chance of that, he was already dying.’
‘What about your mother?’
‘Mm… well, I rather tended to disregard her, it was my father whom I was desperate to please.’ Noel was starting to perspire again and his head was throbbing. He winced. Loathe to relinquish his hold on Nat’s fingers he used his free hand to knead the pain. It did no good. ‘I would have done anything for him. Anyway, when you’re young you tend to think you’re invincible.’
Nat did not possess such self-confidence. ‘There must’ve been times when you thought you were gonna be found out?’
‘Oh at first, yes, but I doubt I was any more nervous than any young doctor – and you know me, I can lie my way out of anything.’ He sighed. ‘The things our parents do to us, eh?’
There came the faint sound of a bell above the hum of the crowd. Noel cocked his ear. ‘Here’s the ambulance.’ He sounded almost sad.
Nat felt relieved enough to hark back to the initial part of the doctor’s conversation. ‘When you said about Bright being a fraud too, did you mean she did know about Oriel’s dirty trick after all?’
‘No, clot! I mean she still carries a torch for you.’
Nat’s lips opened to speak, but the ambulance had finally arrived. Noel was compelled to release the other’s hand. He hauled his leaden body to his feet, opened the door and leaned against the wall as his friend was transferred to a stretcher. ‘I won’t come if you don’t mind. I don’t feel too good – might end up in the bed next to yours.’ With one last reassuring grip of Nat’s fingers, he let go of his friend. ‘But I’ll come and see you tomorrow, I promise.’ He levelled a warning finger. ‘Hey, and you owe me a fiver! You said you’d be married when I got back from the war. I’ll collect it tomorrow.’ His grin faded as the doors of the ambulance closed on Nat.
>
Now that he was no longer in charge of the crisis the exhaustion flooded back with a vengeance. He picked up the pillow and blankets, hardly able to drag himself up the stairs. You should see a bloody doctor, he taunted himself. After what seemed like a hundred miles he finally reached the top and capsized into a chair, still embracing the pillow that had bolstered Nat’s head. He pressed it to his nostrils and inhaled the other’s scent for long moments. Then, in groaning afterthought, he threw it aside and went to the telephone to inform Bright of what had happened.
‘No, he’s fine! I think it’s probably just cut through muscle. He’s… yes, yes, I promise.’ There was impatience in Noel’s voice. ‘He’s in the County. I’m going to see him tomorrow. I’ll let you know how he is.’ If I can drag myself there, came his thought. He caught sight of his face in a mirror; it looked almost blue.
At the other end of the line Bright felt that she could take no more, that she was about to drop. ‘Thank you, Noel… and I’m sorry about what I said this afternoon, I didn’t mean…’
‘It’s all right!’ He was far too ill and tired to stand at the telephone listening to her apologies. ‘I know, really, it was just the shock. Listen, there’s something else I must tell you – no, honestly the wound’s not life-threatening!’ Stupid bloody woman, just listen. ‘I was going to tell you this afternoon… you’ll be angry… Nat isn’t married – I know, I’m sorry, it was cruel! I know you’ll never forgive me. Are you still there?’
Bright muttered a yes.
‘Can we talk about it more fully tomorrow? Right, thanks… then I’ll have to go. Oh! Listen to this: Nat says he’s going to Australia! No, no, don’t worry he won’t be going in the next couple of days… no, really he’s all right! Bright, dear, I’ll have to go, my head’s thumping – no, no, it’s just the whisky. Good night – and don’t worry.’
* * *
There were a lot of sore heads the next morning, not the least of these belonging to the sister who ruled over the ward in which Nat awoke to find himself. She was most put out when the ungrateful man expressed a wish to leave.
‘You come in here, kicking up a fuss about a paltry little cut on the chest, telling us we’re not doing our job properly, spoil our celebration…’ The nurses had been enjoying a drink like everyone else. ‘And now you say you want to leave? Stay where you are until the doctor says you can leave!’
Nat fumed, but rather than tangle with the harridan he did as he was told. Besides, his wound still hurt – how could she call it a paltry little cut with all those stitches, he’d nearly died! The doctor had told him, a fraction either way and the blade would have punctured a lung or a main artery. It just went to show what a quack Noel really was. He thought about Noel, remembering the devastating confession. How had he got away with it for so long? Well you didn’t know he was a fake, did you, so why should anyone else? All day he waited for Noel to come. Maybe they would not let him in until the appropriate hour. By the time visiting was half over he knew that Noel was not going to turn up. He had been right about him all along. Noel could not be trusted.
He lay back against his pillows and cast a miserable eye over the jolly scenes at every other bed. Tomorrow morning, doctor’s permission or no, he would escape this smell of disinfectant and cabbage that reminded him too much of the Industrial School.
Visiting time was into its final ten minutes when he felt a presence, and looked around to see Oriel. He immediately turned away.
In hesitant manner, she came closer to his bedside, hands toying with the clasp on her handbag. ‘Can we speak to each other without arguing?’
‘Who’s arguing?’ Still Nat did not look at her, instead pretending to concentrate on other people’s visitors. ‘I wasn’t exactly expecting you.’
‘I know, you were expecting Noel.’
‘Oh, he told you, did he?’ The remark was sour. ‘I’ve been waiting for him all day.’
‘I’m afraid Noel died this morning.’
He spun to face her now, saw that her eyes were red and puffy from weeping; even as he watched in horror fresh tears began to run down her cheeks. Oriel excused herself and blew her nose. Shocked to the core, Nat waited for her to emerge from behind the handkerchief. He was the one who had been stabbed, how come Noel had died?
She took a deep breath, still tearful, tasting the salt at the back of her throat. ‘Yes… I can hardly believe it myself. They think it was the flu, but they’re not sure. It took hold so quickly… he rang Mother last night to tell her about you. That’s how I knew where to come.’
His pale face nodded automatically, stunned at Noel’s impromptu demise. You bloody quack, you couldn’t even diagnose yourself!
‘That’s partly why I came to see you.’ Oriel dabbed at her eyes. ‘To let you know about him… and to say I’m sorry I was such a bitch, and…’
‘Oh, please, not now.’ Her father looked weary, unable to take one more upset. ‘Sorry will do.’ He beheld his daughter miserably. Added to the tears, a wayward sprig of black hair had escaped the sleek bob and floated about in the draughty ward, lending a comic touch of humanity to the one he had always perceived as being superior to himself.
Oriel sensed that it would take a lot more than this meeting to remove the barrier that was between them; perhaps it would always be there, for as genuinely sorry as she was there remained a part of her that failed to understand how a man who had been deserted himself in childhood could then desert his own infant.
But this was not the time to ask why. ‘I mustn’t take up any more time, there’s someone else to see you.’ She turned and lifted her hand. The swing door opened and through it came her mother.
The sight of that little figure with the stick thin ankles, bright hair and wide brown eyes approaching down the aisle was more than Nat could bear. He had not cried since the night that his daughter had been conceived – tried desperately not to cry now, gulping back the lump that threatened to choke him, trying to avoid a display in front of all these people – but when he saw the tears mixed with the freckles down the side of Bright’s nose he could not hold back. He covered his face, trying to hide his grief from prying eyes, whilst his body shook.
A bell rang, sounding an end to visiting time. Bright looked frantic and rushed to hold onto his hand, sobbing with him; Oriel sobbed too.
A nurse caught sight of them, hurried over and without a word pulled a screen around the bed, as she began to call for the visitors to leave. A hush came upon the ward in respect for those who cried – the patient must be very ill – and the visitors left in a combined whisper.
From behind the screen the racking sobs continued, until an indignant Sister appeared out of nowhere to scold, ‘Stop that now! Goodness me, I can’t have this, you’re upsetting all the other patients – two more minutes!’ And she vanished.
They laughed then, wet, sobbing, crimson-eyed laughs, then cried again, but more quietly this time. When tearducts were completely drained, Nat gave a shuddering sigh and sniffed. ‘I don’t know where they’ve put me clothes – I need a hanky.’
‘It’s no good giving you mine, tis pretty sodden.’ Bright sighed too. How mundane were these words for two lovers who had not seen each other in twenty years. Yet how could one start to say the things that needed to be said?
‘Here.’ Oriel had a spare handkerchief in her bag, a pretty little scrap of embroidered lace which Nat filled with one blow, then clutched in his fist, reminding both women of Miss Bytheway. ‘Don’t suppose you want it back?’
She managed a smile, her lips puffy with all the crying. ‘No thanks.’
Bright leaned on the bed, still holding his hand. ‘Did Oriel tell you about Noel?’ She knew that Oriel would have, but it was something to say.
He nodded, his eyes resting on the mole beneath her chin. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Me neither.’ She looked so sad. ‘I spoke to him last night on the telephone. I knew he hadn’t been very well, but I thought it was just a col
d. He never complained, not like me when I’m ill. If only I’d known. I was too full of myself…’
Nat cut her off, he didn’t want to be reminded of yesterday. ‘Oriel said it was the flu.’
Bright nodded, wondering if the same thought was going through his mind: they had all three been in contact with Noel, could all be dead themselves tomorrow. ‘They say that doctors become immune to the illnesses they treat.’
But Noel wasn’t a doctor, came Nat’s illogical thought. He would never say anything to Bright about that, ever.
She tried to look cheerful, though her heart was gripped by a physical pain. ‘He said you were intending to go to Australia. That’s a long way.’
‘I was, yes.’
‘Have ye changed your mind?’
He shrugged somewhat half-heartedly.
‘I think ye should go – make a new life for yourself. Ye’ve had a lot of sadness here.’ Tears sprang to her eyes again.
‘Will you come with me?’ Who was saying these words? Nat could not believe they had come from his lips, couldn’t believe he was exposing himself to more rejection. If she said no…
‘Yes,’ replied Bright without hesitation, without even looking at her daughter for approval.
‘You will?’ He seemed unable to believe it.
She nodded and squeezed his hand, more tears welling, spilling, trickling. People would never understand her decision – she could hear them asking, how could she hope to find happiness with someone who had hurt her so much – and how could she even explain? If you loved someone you loved them, no matter how much they had hurt you. And throughout everything Bright had never stopped loving Nat.
‘Time’s up!’ In one brisk movement Sister folded the screen away from the bed, exposing Nat to ridicule from the other men; but he didn’t care. She had said yes. He clung to her hand, beaming through his tears.
‘What a lot of nonsense! Anyone would think you were terminally ill – the doctor will probably throw you out tomorrow. Come along now!’ The Sister clapped her hands at Bright, forcing her to rise from the bed and pulling the covers to order.
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