Nevertheless, here I was, asking for Mr Johar at reception. He appeared, dour as I recalled, neither surprised nor impressed to see me.
‘Dr Fenwick. How can I help you?’ he said with a small bow.
‘I’ve just come from a long day at the hospital but I feel I must check in on Professor Vickery. How has he been?’
‘Brighter, Dr Fenwick, but not strong enough to leave his bed.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, I imagined he would still feel weak today. Is it possible to see him? I wish to reassure myself about his condition.’
‘Dr Baird has checked on him. He’s only recently left.’
‘Miles?’
The man didn’t even blink. He held my gaze in that grave manner.
‘I see. Has the professor eaten?’
‘Tea throughout the night and all of today. He drank some broth at midday, as you instructed, and he took some rice and dhal at around seven this evening. I suspect he’s sleeping at this time.’ He glanced above to look at the clock and draw my attention that it was past ten p.m.
I drew the right message from that disapproving tone and glance. ‘Well, then, let’s not disturb him. Would you let him know I called in, should he wake?’
‘Of course. May I call you a carriage?’
‘Thank you.’
He rattled off urgent instructions to the young lad waiting nearby. ‘Ranjit will see to it, Dr Fenwick. Perhaps you’d care to take a seat in the lobby?’
He clearly wanted me gone and I had no wish to linger, although by the time I was back in my flat, drying my showered hair with a towel and chewing on some of yesterday’s meal reheated on the tiny bottled gas stove, I had the distinct impression that I had been deliberately prevented from seeing Vickery. I couldn’t fathom it but I suspected Miles was behind it.
_________
The next day I moved far more swiftly on my rounds in my own ward and while I hoped the midwives didn’t feel it, I was convinced I’d rushed them through today’s lesson. The anticipation of getting back to the tropical diseases unit was thrilling. I was in a hurry to get to the TB ward in particular but when I arrived by midday – dare I admit already looking forward to surgery and another full day of care for desperately sick people – I found the professor back in charge.
He grinned at me on arrival. ‘Masks?’
I nodded, trying not to look too surprised . . . or annoyed. ‘It’s no guarantee, but this is becoming routine in England.’
‘It’s good.’
‘You look impossibly bright for someone who was flat on his back only yesterday.’
‘And you sound cheated that I do.’
He’d caught me in open disappointment, clearly. There was no use in denying the truth and I covered my embarrassment with a shrug. ‘I have a new respect for what you do here. In fact, all of these people are so very lucky to have a doctor as committed as you are. I have no idea how you keep up with all of them. There are so many, it felt beyond daunting yesterday.’
‘And still you saw each one, I heard.’ There he was again, pinioning me with that searching look of his.
‘Well, who else was going to?’
He lifted a shoulder slightly. ‘Exactly.’
‘Er . . . shall I brief you?’
He grinned again, disconcerting me further. ‘Why don’t you?’ The words belied his knowledge that I was desperate to get onto the ward and be with his patients. His tone was not mocking but it was in his gaze; there was understanding, as if he’d unlocked a door in me that only he could walk through. And now we were side by side, in a place only the two of us could fully appreciate.
‘Does no one else offer help?’ I queried.
‘Oh, look, people do try but frankly I find them a nuisance.’
‘So the help isn’t genuine?’
‘It is.’ His mouth twisted and I liked the way the expression made him look boyish, trapped in awkwardness. ‘How can I put this? They’re either too much trouble or they’re too ambitious and put themselves before the patients and become difficult to work with.’
Understanding dawned. ‘Like Miles?’
He didn’t look comfortable admitting it. ‘Miles wants to run his own unit. I think he believes tropical diseases might offer him the right platform for broadening his standing in the medical community.’
I gave a soft snort. ‘I see. I heard he visited last evening.’
‘No doubt to dissuade you from lingering in a gentleman’s bedroom.’
I didn’t cover the sigh well. So I was right. Miles had prevented me from seeing Saxon under cover of attending to a sick colleague.
‘Well, that’s pathetic,’ I murmured.
‘No, Dr Fenwick, that’s jealousy.’ He grinned, making me wonder once again at his ability to recover quickly. ‘Anyway, I’m not easy to work with, of course,’ he said, referring us back to our original conversation as he picked up the first patient’s notes to glance over them.
‘Really?’
He snapped me a look and at my sheepish gaze he laughed . . . it was warm and genuine. ‘I walked into that but I know to stand at arm’s length from you, Isla.’
I didn’t want to go into that territory again but I liked how he spoke my name. ‘Do you always bounce back so fast?’
He knew immediately to what I was referring. ‘I do. I wasn’t lying to you; I hadn’t been eating well or sleeping enough. I don’t need a lot of either, to be honest, but the latent TB just loves that weakened situation. It only happens when my immune system is compromised but I’m able to recover swiftly.’ The way his gaze rested upon me was unsettling; it was almost like a tender touch, stroking my cheek.
I became instantly businesslike and interested in the notes. ‘It always intrigues me that the tubercle bacillus is a vegetable parasite and yet wreaks so much havoc on man.’
‘If I could isolate all of my patients in dry, cool climes for a long period, I could help many of them recover.’
I nodded. ‘My understanding is that outside the body, the germ is destroyed by sunlight. Apart from the obvious of close living and lack of hygiene as a spreader of the disease, how is it so easily spread in India with all the available sunlight?’
He lifted a finger. ‘It can live for a very long time in the dark.’
‘Right.’ I frowned.
‘More than that, my research has convinced me that when it dries it can be blown about in dust but still remain alive and capable of promoting disease.’
I looked back at him, astonished. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘I’ve been focusing my study in this area. The problem is that the germs are so minute they can readily float about in the air on particles of dust or moisture, which means the consumptive patient is so dangerous to other healthy people but especially in the close, cramped and often dark living conditions of a lot of the locals.’
‘How do you know to work fast enough?’
He blew out his cheeks. ‘That’s one of the major obstacles. In India there’s a tendency to attribute all obscure fever to malaria. I insist on blood samples examined under the microscope with methylene blue staining.’
I nodded, fully conversant with the test that begins with washing and acid stripping cells before a dye is introduced that stains all material blue except the tubercle bacillus, which retains a red colour. I’d learned it couldn’t be missed and is proof of the disease being present.
‘I test every patient myself. I don’t trust anyone to do it as diligently but I’m trying to set up the equipment and knowledge so it can be done all over the north, not just in these major cities.’
I sighed. ‘Big task.’
‘And never enough time. I’ll be heading to a place called Siliguri soon. It’s a growing town that services all the villages in the foothills below Darjeeling and those hill communities. But towns from all over the north in its region feed into it. I’m giving my energies to set up a solid working clinic there with proper blood-testing facilities. We can make a big differenc
e.’
‘Who pays for all this expansion?’ I asked but he became distracted, calling out to one of the nurses, and didn’t answer. I left it alone, although a suspicious thought suggested that he probably used his own resources.
When he returned, the thought had been lost. ‘Where were we? Oh, yes. Well, I feel my role is to help everyone involved in fighting all disease to recognise TB at the earliest possible opportunity because it causes much suffering and pecuniary loss. It’s a ubiquitous foe and we have to train the sick as much as those helping them. The sick must recognise their illness from the earliest symptom and know how not to endanger others. A ward like this,’ he said, spreading an arm, ‘is rare in India. It’s more usual to have TB cases in general wards – even advanced cases – and adding more ruin to the already sickening. But more often than not I’m raging at deaf ears.’
‘Is that why you’re so angry all the time?’
He stared at me momentarily and I felt awkward silence surround us for just a heartbeat or two, before he smiled self-consciously. ‘I am angry for many reasons but that’s the major one, yes.’ He laughed. ‘Now, walk me through my patients and then we must discuss the arrival of the Vicereine – it’s next week, I gather.’
We groaned in unison.
Later, leaning against a wall outside the back of his ward, we sipped chai in a far more convivial atmosphere than our previous effort, even though we stood near a drain and intermittently aides and bearers would come out with buckets to either refill or toss out dirty water. Despite the setting, I was feeling heart-warmed following more than an hour of earnest patient discussions in the area of medicine that I found so rewarding. Plus, I would be lying if I didn’t admit to enjoying the company I kept. Seeing him in his familiar domain, I could fully understand the admiration that many held for him.
His bedside manner was the most tender of any doctor I’d ever met in my career. When he looked into the eyes of a patient to talk with them, even I felt isolated; his focus was riveted on that one patient to the exclusion of all others. The odd query he’d have for me or his aides was spoken over his shoulder, never taking his gaze from his patient. He exchanged words with them quietly, while holding their hands, not wearing the mask that I wished he would. He would help them to cough or spit into bowls, he would lay his palm against a fevered brow, or gently feel glands beneath their ears, and all the while offering a stream of soft, encouraging words in their own tongue.
I didn’t think this possible from the man I had slapped weeks earlier. When it came to the children’s ward, the skills he showed with his adult patients became all the more honed, as he aimed purely for comedy to make the little ones giggle. If they were able enough, they yelled his name in a united welcome. His obvious joy to be among the children made my eyes dampen as I watched him hilariously juggle three kidney dishes, before pretending to stick himself with a syringe and stumble into a mobile tray of instruments. He approached his young patients with tongue depressors sticking out of his ears or nostrils, or he deliberately got tangled in his stethoscope. At one point he involved one of the favourite young nurses in a slapstick routine that had the children clapping. But the greatest cheer was reserved for when Vickery balanced a bedpan on his nose and strolled the length of the ward while pulling an increasingly sour face, suggesting there was a terrible smell emanating from the vessel.
I wasn’t prepared to be laughing aloud or to tear up while I watched Saxon Vickery. His sick youngsters, with their huge eyes and trusting expressions, were each a bundle of eagerness for him to arrive at their bedside. It was wondrous to witness and not only allowed me to glimpse where the real person behind the cold façade resided but to learn something that day about patient care.
‘You make doctoring look effortless.’
He shook his head. ‘Most of the adults aren’t going to make it. Oh, they may go home but they’re going to remain sick for years and then wither. When they’re here I want them to know someone really cared . . . no, someone white really cared.’
The mention of skin colour made me blush.
‘I’m sorry, but there are some doctors out here in India who are furthering their careers and knowledge without putting patients first. I prefer to do it the other way around. I feel a deep debt owed to the India we acquired for Mother England.’
I wanted to defend my position but he waved his fingers slightly. ‘This isn’t aimed at you or anyone in particular. It’s all of us here. We do very well out of India but I worry that we take too much, don’t give enough back to people who essentially live in abject poverty while we discuss the merits of a horse running at the spring carnival or whether it should be a gimlet or a gin fizz tonight.’
‘This is not your entire burden, though, Vickery.’
‘Sometimes I feel as though I’m the only one seeing India clearly.’
‘You know that’s not true.’
He sighed in acknowledgement.
‘But you are brilliant with the patients, the children especially. I think we could all learn from you something important about patient care.’
He looked at me with such a soft gaze I felt like he needed my arms around him to hug those much-too-bony shoulders. I resisted. ‘I am certainly going to leave India with a fierce intent for a more all-round care.’
‘It’s called holistic.’
I repeated his odd word, making it sound like a question.
‘Coined in the mid-twenties by a military man, I believe, whose name I can’t remember but it is based on the Greek root – holos – which means whole.’
I grinned. ‘You’re too clever for your own good. But yes, holistic, I like that. Well, what you perform is that whole therapy . . . you’re taking care of their emotional health as well as physical.’
‘It’s vital, Isla, especially for children.’ His passion felt infectious. ‘People just presume because they’re young that they bounce back and, yes, most of these children will recover because of good medical care but we have to make their time in hospital prompt as little fright as we can. Otherwise, we run the risk of them carrying those fears into their lives.’ He shrugged. ‘I believe all of us carry memories we aren’t necessarily aware of and yet we respond to constantly . . . a fear of being alone, a fear of not being loved, a fear of failure. No one speaks of it and yet it comes visiting in your dreams, in dark times, when you feel scared. So, if I can make these little ones laugh, they won’t be frightened of doctors or hospitals, and this generation will encourage their parents and their own children not to fear medicine either.’
‘You do impress me.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s one of you, then.’
‘Me and Matron . . . and most of my nursing team in the maternity ward. All the women love you, Saxon.’
He scratched his head. ‘The women want to mother me. I’m grateful for it. It’s flattering but I don’t have the right personality to accept such kindness. I just need everyone to do their job and . . . ’
‘Do everything your way?’
‘Yes! So much easier if everyone obliged.’
We both laughed and I sympathised because I suffered this attitude too – I just kept it hidden better than he did and I managed it far better than he ever could.
‘So Siliguri? Why that place above others?’ I asked, returning to our original discussion.
He smiled, as if to himself in memory. ‘For all the reasons I mentioned but it holds a place in my childhood – a good place – of reward for surviving the journey down from the gardens without a single complaint. My brother and I were permitted chocolate and sweets, even a cake, if we kept our promise not to whinge.’
I probably looked baffled. ‘The gardens?’
He sipped, watching me over the rim of his cup as if contemplating whether to explain. He obviously decided I could be trusted. ‘Our family owns a tea plantation.’
‘How marvellously romantic that sounds,’ I gushed. ‘So where are your tea gardens?’
He
smiled, lost to good memories, no doubt. ‘It’s in Darjeeling, but to be accurate it’s a couple of hours from Darjeeling town by a bumpy, unreliable road. It’s the inaccessibility that I like, if I’m truthful.’
‘Just you and the gardens?’
‘Something like that. The estate is called Brackenridge . . . it’s my mother’s family name. Her family established the tea gardens in the previous century. My childhood home huddles above the valley overlooked by a king called Kangchenjunga.’ At my frown he explained. ‘Kangchenjunga is a mountain, third-highest in the world, in the west of the Himalaya. He overlooks the verdant tumble of tea bushes that carpet the valley. To me it’s the most beautiful place in my world. I would like to die there, have my spirit lift into the majesty of the Himalaya and float around those snow-covered peaks.’
I was surprised at being allowed to glimpse behind his normally frosty exterior to the fiery passion that lived behind it. ‘I’m guessing no one else knows?’
‘I don’t share my business with my colleagues.’
‘Why me?’
‘I don’t know.’ He looked vaguely embarrassed. ‘Maybe because we’ve shared such intimacy.’
‘Intimacy?’ I repeated, perplexed by the idea.
Vickery nodded. ‘You are someone highly trained in the ways of reserve. You know how to keep your expression even, your tone calm, your emotions in check. You’d make a pretty useless doctor in terms of patient care if you didn’t have all of that under control.’
‘And how does this relate to our supposed intimacy?’
‘Well, you were clearly not in control a few weeks back when you lashed out with your anger.’
‘I’ve apologised for that and I’ve tried to show my contrition by caring for you while you were sick.’
The Tea Gardens Page 18