There was no time to waste lingering on my bruised emotions. Not waiting for permission, I immediately relocated to Saxon’s ward. Without him I was the next best defence, and it seemed the hospital administration agreed because it didn’t even bother to query the shift but sent a note hoping I’d at least keep a supervisory eye on the maternity wing. As much as I could tell Lily wanted to come with me to tropical diseases, I left her mostly in charge of maternity, knowing she would keep it safe and ticking along without me.
Meanwhile, I not only found the isolation ward soothing but privately once again enjoyed the intensity that the infectious diseases wing presented. By the end of my first week I had every patient sleeping beneath a net that had been sprayed with a solution that was toxic to mosquitoes, poisoning most of them long before they could breach the net. Staff were surprised.
‘You understand that the mosquito net is supposed to keep them out,’ I explained to the nursing team. ‘But the net is not one hundred per cent effective and it will only take one or two people to be infected here for our whole hospital to risk infection. Take the precaution. Be diligent in the treatment of the nets. You’re saving lives simply by taking that extra care.’ I dismissed them by looking away to the senior bearer and my next pet project. It would take every available hand, including mine, and I was not too proud to don a mask for this laborious task. ‘Where is your team?’
‘Ready, Doctor.’
‘Good. They are to spray every surface around the entrances. Wherever water is gathering I want it coated in a light film of kerosene; we have to kill the young mosquitoes as they hatch. And this is to be done every two days because the fresh rains will dilute our efforts.’
He bowed and disappeared. I held faith in him to carry out my instructions carefully because I knew Saxon trusted him. I would join him soon in that battle. But first I turned my attention to our sickening patients before busying myself getting bulletins out to the other doctors in various departments offering guidance for their wards and how to keep the fevers away.
And all the while at the back of my mind he paced, like a ghost, a finger of shame pointed my way: Where was he? How was he?
Days passed in a blur of frantic activity as the entire hospital battled to stay on top of the disease, dispensing quinine at makeshift clinics on the streets of the most poverty-stricken neighbourhoods where malaria was raging. There were horror stories of dogs and other carrion eaters feeding on exhausted bodies that had slumped to die in doorways or on rubbish heaps. We were up against an invisible foe but the battle raged nonetheless.
It was Matron once again who returned my focus. She arrived one evening on the ward where I was momentarily alone, awaiting a shift change. I had leaned against a wall and haplessly, somewhat pathetically too, I allowed myself to slip down it until I sat on the floor, too weary to care, my knees pulled up tight to my chest. I didn’t want to cry from exhaustion – that would be truly weak – but I just wanted the fear and frenzy to stop, even for a few hours, so I could sleep without guilt and forget the world . . . forget him.
‘You know you alone can’t save Calcutta from itself.’ It was said kindly but there was a thin, sarcastic edge to the words that I knew was meant to shake me.
I looked up, startled, and then her sympathetic smile soothed me like rubbing oil into tired skin. ‘I want to, though,’ I replied.
She offered a hand and I took it. I was hauled to my feet and I sloughed off my fatigue as best I could with a small stretch. ‘Thank you, Matron. I promise I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself.’
I’m sure she knew it. ‘No time for that. But I would urge you to congratulate yourself and your team for containing infection. The hospital at the moment is holding its own. No new cases, as I understand it, which is unheard of during monsoon season.’
I nodded. ‘None that we’ve taken in since this bad outbreak. Scores outside, of course.’
‘Yes, but that’s India, as cruel to some as she is bountiful to others. Don’t make this about you.’
‘I wish I could be that philosophical, Matron.’
‘You take it all too personally, Dr Fenwick.’ Although we’d been looking at one another, our gazes met awkwardly now as if our minds were sharing an identical thought. I had the horrible notion that I was about to blubber in front of her. Perhaps Matron sensed it too.
‘I’ve ordered a pot of tea. Won’t you join me?’
‘I —’
She heard me reaching for an excuse. ‘Let’s talk, Dr Fenwick.’
I trailed behind her, nodding to the new nursing team, pausing briefly to issue them instructions. I caught up with Matron just as tea was delivered to her room. I noted there were two sets of cups and saucers already laid out; clearly she’d been expecting me.
‘You don’t look well, Dr Fenwick.’
‘Just tired.’ I shrugged. It wasn’t a lie but it also wasn’t all the truth.
She poured for us both. ‘Well, you’ll be amazed at what a good, strong Assam can achieve,’ she said, handing me the rich, tarry brew. The mention of the tea made me think about whether Saxon was somewhere sipping a first flush Darjeeling. It only made me feel sadder. She pointed to a small jug on the tray.
I added some milk, watching its brief stream dive into the copper depths and eddy back up in whorls to turn the liquor an opaque amber. I smelled the tannin and relaxed into the first malty sip that provided an unexpected briskness as I swallowed . . . and sighed.
‘Good, isn’t it?’ Matron said.
‘Mmm.’
‘Second flush,’ she explained.
Did everyone but me understand tea? I wondered. ‘I’m not that well versed with the varieties of tea but this is delicious.’
‘Assam is robust. You’ll certainly wake up with a cup of this. Darjeeling is more delicate.’
I smiled. ‘It’s nice to talk about something other than malaria.’
She returned my smile but then her features shifted her expression to serious. ‘You’ve heard about the Hindu couple being found, I presume?’
I nodded. ‘I haven’t thought about much else for a week. I haven’t even been able to write home because I can’t muster a single jolly word while I worry about Pratiti and Naz . . . and of course Professor Vickery.’
‘Is that why you’re not sleeping?’
‘I suspect so. Matron, I’m very sorry.’
‘Dr Fenwick . . . Isla. I personally lay no blame. If I’m truthful with you, I would have considered it odd – knowing your ways – if you had turned a cold heart on the couple.’
That was a surprise. My gaze flashed over the rim of the cup I was sure I was hiding behind to meet hers.
She continued. ‘Pratiti was beautiful, young, in love. I didn’t meet her lover but apparently he was a gentle soul who worshipped her. He offered to stay behind and take the punishment, begged us to help Pratiti to safety.’
I realised I was shaking my head with pity and a sense of helplessness. ‘I didn’t want to involve the hospital – knew it was potentially dangerous – but it was the only refuge I could think of to buy some time.’
‘Dangerous is probably overstating it. But troublesome certainly. It has put the hospital administration into . . . well —’ she let out a breath ‘— shall we say a difficult position.’
Matron had obviously meant to have this very conversation. I sensed she was the messenger, no doubt sent on the unsavoury mission.
‘So, they need to make an example of me?’
‘No.’ She sounded discomfited all the same. ‘It’s not like you have to wear a hair shirt.’
Neither of us smiled at her self-conscious jest.
‘But I need to take the blame?’
‘That’s a harsh way of regarding it, but . . . yes, Isla. Someone must be seen to shoulder the responsibility.’
‘I do shoulder it. It was my decision. I knew there might be repercussions but in the moment I felt I had no other choice. I’ve dedicated my working life to saving l
ives. Surrendering Pratiti or Naz for murder contravenes my Hippocratic oath and everything else I stand for.’
She nodded, and had the grace not to remind me that they were murdered in spite of me. ‘Secretly . . . and I’ll deny this if you repeat it, I might have attempted the same in your shoes, if that helps?’
I smiled for her benefit but I was angered by the hypocrisy that the hospital was not going to back me up; I just didn’t have the strength to show it. ‘What would the administration like from me? Is it resignation?’
Matron shifted in her chair. My candour had caught her by surprise. Knots of shock trilled through me. Was I about to be sacked from my position?
‘Isla, hospitals can be highly political places . . . ’ She struggled to find the right words, shaking her head with obvious disgust at being the person charged to have this conversation.
I refused to let her speak whatever words were catching on invisible thorns in her throat.
‘Matron, may I ask, have you heard from Professor Vickery?’ It was the first thing I could think of to stop Matron having to say what she had presumably been sent to convey, but also it was the single topic that had occupied my mind outside of the malaria outbreak.
She looked momentarily relieved to be sidetracked. ‘I have. He rang me.’
I waited, tongue-tied. But she left it there so it was up to me to probe.
‘Is he all right?’
‘No. He’s devastated by how events have turned out. He witnessed both deaths, struggling to save Pratiti at the end, and got himself injured in the fray to help both of them. Ideology in the hands of the zealous can be brutal. There are no half measures in this instance, no forgiveness, no way back for those who trespass against clear rules they’ve known since they were old enough to understand language. Death is the price. Unfortunately, our Professor Vickery has been injured too and I fear for his life now as his old foe – the latent TB – may take advantage of his vulnerability.’
In shock I put the cup back into the saucer, trembling. I didn’t think my shaking was obvious yet so I anchored my hands together in my lap and prayed my voice remained even. ‘How badly hurt is Saxon?’
She sipped her tea calmly. ‘Physically he’ll recover from his injuries – some cuts, burns as I understand it. Emotionally, I suspect he’s fragile. Like you, he takes life’s bruises personally. My real concern, though, Isla, is the illness. I don’t want it turning serious on him. He recovers quickly normally but he’s injured now, and weak.’
I gaped at her and was ashamed how quickly I set aside the trauma of Pratiti and Naz. ‘It’s back?’ My voice sounded as though it was squeezed out of me . . . tight and breathy.
‘He’s not saying as much but I’m guessing that’s the truth. I’ve been nursing long enough to know the wheezing sound of someone with a chest infection.’
‘He used the clinic at Siliguri to flee to with my couple, didn’t he?’
Matron nodded; she looked impressed that I’d worked it out.
‘And nearly got away with it. I’ve only just discovered this too. His plan was to move them into the foothills; when he bade me farewell he sounded confident they’d be able to disappear. It was inspired; it could have worked.’ Her voice held only admiration. ‘I wanted it to work . . . for both of you. I admired your fast thinking and action, I applauded his courage. We’d be having an entirely different conversation, of course, if they had escaped. You’d both be heroes.’
‘So someone told the families, you’re saying?’
She gave me a look that conveyed the opposite of what she next said. ‘I didn’t say that.’
I think I already knew who probably passed the word down the line and my belly heaved, bile surging to burn at my throat in that moment of realisation. Nevertheless, I felt obliged to qualify my suspicion. ‘Who else might have worked out where the professor was going?’
‘Professor Vickery’s clinics are few and far between but they’re routine. He always holds a clinic at least once a year at the foothills of the Himalaya.’
I had no concept of the foothills and my knowledge of the Himalaya stretched only to Mount Everest, having read somewhere of its extraordinary height of twenty-nine thousand feet, which I could barely conceive, and the drama surrounding the 1924 attempt to climb the northern route of the Tibetan side. I’m sure everyone in Britain knew they’d disappeared into the clouds on the eighth day of June that year, never to be seen again. My thoughts were wandering I was so worried.
‘You should see those foothills before you leave India, Isla. There’s no point in me trying to describe the drama of the Himalaya; it must be your own spiritual experience. People say once you’ve seen it, you’ll never be quite the same, as the Himalaya will have you in their thrall.’
I smiled. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t, then.’
‘Maybe,’ she concurred, her intense gaze urging differently.
‘Matron . . . how sick do you think he is?’
‘My instincts suggest dangerously so.’
I swallowed the bile, tasting the sourness. ‘Will you let me know if you discover more?’
‘If you wish. Thank you for stepping into his shoes in his absence. The hospital is grateful that you did.’
‘Not that grateful, perhaps?’ I couldn’t resist cutting back to our original conversation.
She ignored the barb. ‘You don’t have much longer with us, do you, Isla?’
‘My plan was to leave by the end of September but perhaps now . . . ’ I trailed off, unsure of my thoughts. I felt Matron was now guiding me somewhere.
‘Well, given that there is only a month or so before you would have left us to return to your life in England anyway, and given that your expertise in TB could be put to good use elsewhere than in the hospital . . . and finally, given that it could be wise perhaps to distance yourself from the wards . . . er, just to give the administrators time to sort out a solution to our present dilemma, perhaps you might like to do some travel before your departure? The north is always better at this time of year.’ She ended on a note of hopefulness as though desperate for me to hear beneath the words to what she was actually suggesting.
‘So putting some space between me and the hospital right now is probably the best course?’
‘In my opinion, yes. Sometimes issues that seem important in the moment have a way of losing their potency over time. Memories can be surprisingly short, particularly if the source of interest is not easily seen. The hospital has far more pressing needs than taking steps against one of its prized recruits for following her raison d’être, shall we say? I feel if you’re not as visible, then the families of the deceased, the politicians who may have something to say about it all, the hospital – anyone, in fact, with an opinion on the topic on the social scene of Calcutta – have no moving target.’
She was right. And I knew precisely where she was pushing me now. ‘Then, Matron, if you are comfortable that we have the fevers relatively under control, and confident that the team can contain any new outbreak —’
‘I am,’ she cut across me. ‘You’ve done a sterling job in setting up solid practices.’ She blinked, urging me to say what I guessed she hoped.
‘Then maybe I do need to see the Himalaya before I leave. Perhaps a few weeks’ travel will aid my own health; I could certainly enjoy a break, as I realise I haven’t had so much as an afternoon off in many weeks.’
‘Working around the clock almost, week in, week out, is good for no one,’ she agreed. ‘Take that break. I’m sure when you return you’ll find this issue we’ve discussed has cooled from warm to cold and no one will have a taste for it any longer.’
She was clearly urging me to take her advice so I could leave this post with my record unblemished.
‘Should I put in formally for some leave time, Matron?’
‘No, my dear. I can handle that. I came across you tonight physically drained, exhaustion threatening to make you ill, and I’ve suggested you take some time away to recover f
rom a schedule that no doctor should be following. Heavens! The hospital is potentially at risk of being accused of negligence.’ Her tone feigned growing indignance.
We shared a conspiratorial smile. I admired how she balanced a tightrope between management and staff. It seemed unfair that the Registrar steered clear of this reprimand and left it to Matron, who technically was not part of the chain of command for the clinicians. Nevertheless, her encouragement, which was feeling increasingly less subtle and more like a shove in the back, did make it seem as though a veil was being lifted from before me and I could suddenly see the obvious way forward. I had a debt to repay to a sickening man.
‘I’d prefer no one knew where I was travelling, Matron —’
‘That’s fine, Dr Fenwick. I’m glad I left you before I realised I hadn’t asked where you might head for your brief respite.’ She nodded, making clear I needed to say no more. Matron stood and hugged me. ‘Safe travels. Get some rest and my best advice is that you seek some fresh mountain air.’
There was no doubt that she knew where I was headed.
‘Now, let me give you a hug of thanks,’ she said, sounding deliberately brisk to hide the rising emotion I sensed we were both feeling. ‘Just in case.’
I didn’t ask what the just in case meant, but I could guess. Like me, she suspected I likely would not see Calcutta again. It made me glad I hadn’t made any heartfelt connection to the city; my only emotional bond, curious as it seemed, was to a man – a relative stranger – sickening nearly four hundred miles away to our north.
17
As we set off from Sealdah Station in Calcutta, I was assured by my fellow passenger that our journey to Siliguri Town would be on a broad gauge for nearly one hundred and twenty miles. Then, my elderly train-buff friend confirmed, we’d take a ferry for many miles to a landing stage before we commenced our next part of the journey for another two hundred miles or so.
The gauges of the tracks and the history of the route held little interest for me, as in this instance the travel prompted no allure. Each passing shanty village, every mile of rattling track, plus our silent companion – the endlessly shifting River Ganges that rushed south as we chugged north – brought me closer to atonement.
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