by Bess Norton
Alan pushed him firmly back down. “Lie down. I’ll just check over your responses, old man. I don’t suppose there’s much wrong.” He glanced at me, and I went out into the hall and walked up and down until he came out to me.
He was frowning down at the patella hammer in his hand. “Well?” I asked. “Find anything?”
He looked up. “No. Not a thing, Lanna. All normal—except that he can’t remember where he went or why.”
“He remembers going to Hints,” I said. “He said he remembered promising me a bush-baby.”
“Then it’s progressing. All he can tell me now is that he got the car out around three o’clock and that he was going to take you somewhere. But he can’t think where.”
“Damn!” I said under my breath. “Alan we went to Hints—to a little zoo he’d found. And then we had tea in Lichfield after we’d been to Wall. And he was ... he was so sweet, Alan. He began to tell me—” I blew my nose, and tried again. “We left Lichfield and began to go toward Abbots Bromley.” I explained about the brief check at the crossroads. “He knew then that we’d been to Hints,” I added. “And when we got back here, too. But he’s slept since then. What do you think we should do?”
“I’m going to play safe, Lanna. I’m going to send him to the hospital. I don’t suppose we really need to worry, but I’m taking no chances. We’ll have to get a head X-ray, anyhow. Won’t we?”
I nodded drearily. “I suppose so. Will you fix a bed? And I’ll sling a few things into a bag for him.”
“You do that.” Alan gripped my shoulder. “Don’t fret, love. You’ve done all you can.”
“It’s my fault,” I wailed. “If I hadn’t been sprawling about the car, it—”
“Dear fathead!” He bent to drop a kiss on my cheek. “What nonsense. Go along. Get the old boy’s pajamas and stuff.” he turned me about and shoved me gently on my way.
Alan accompanied the ambulance. “You stay here,” he told me. “Explain to Dr. Teare, and I’ll phone you.”
I was so glad to have someone to talk to that I was almost pleasant to Dallas when she came in at eleven o’clock. She didn’t interrupt once, while I explained. Then she said, “Where has he gone?”
“Queen Elizabeth,” I said. “He ought to have gone to the Accident, I suppose. But it wasn’t an accident—that’s what’s so maddening. It was just nothing at all.”
“You say the amnesia progressed afterward?”
I nodded.
“I guess there could be a possible hemorrhage, then, don’t you?”
I refused to consider it. “All his responses were normal,” I pointed out. “Alan said his retinae didn’t show the faintest sign of any pressure.”
“No, maybe not. But if he looked now they might. He hasn’t phoned yet?”
“No, I suppose he’s waiting for the X-rays.” For once her coffee seemed a good idea. “I’ll make a drink,” I said dully.
The telephone rang while I was out in the kitchen, and I heard her answering it. She was putting the receiver down as I reached the hall.
“Was that Alan? I wanted to speak to him.”
She nodded. “Yes. He’s coming over—staying the night, he says.” She went back into the sitting room.
“But what did he say?” I could have shaken her.
She shrugged. “He’ll give you all the details when he comes in. Simon’s staying there, anyhow.”
She didn’t offer to tell me any more, and I had too much pride to probe. I sat drinking black coffee for 25 minutes by the clock before Alan arrived.
He nodded to Dallas and came over to me. “Sorry, Lanna. There’s a sub-arachnoid hemorrhage. They’re tying off, and so forth. He’ll be okay.”
I stared. “He had an aneurysm, all along?”
“Apparently. But then so have millions of people. In most cases you just don’t know until some slight tap sets ‘em off.”
“Does Simon know?”
“Yes, I told him. He’d never have rested if I hadn’t, once the X-rays and lumbar puncture were done.” He smiled. “You know Simon!”
Dallas sat up and took notice. “Do you think I could go and see them do it? I’ve only ever seen one sub-arachnoid done.”
Alan put a gentle hand on my arm and I swallowed what I had been going to say to her. “Not a chance,” he said. “It’ll be done by now, I dare say. I’m to inquire at one o’clock.”
“Then I’ll go up to bed,” she decided. “Someone has to run this practice.”
When she had left Alan put an arm around my shoulders. “Yes, I know, love! Just a case—that’s all Simon is to her! Don’t let her get under your skin.”
“You’re sweet,” I said. “And bless you for coming. Are you sure they can spare you?”
“They’ll have to. No sense in being the owner’s son if I don’t get a few privileges, is there?”
“Can’t you stay until Sunday night?”
“I certainly can. I will. I’d better take Simon’s room, I guess. You don’t want me in the big room, mucking it up.”
“She’s still in there. Your own room’s empty. The bed’s made up, too.”
“Look, Lanna, are you quite sure you’re perfectly happy about Simon now?”
“Simon? No, of course I’m not. What have they done? Tied off the common carotid?”
“Yes.”
“That means ... that means we’ll have to wait and see if it affects him. Doesn’t it?”
“It shouldn’t have too much effect, love. I wouldn’t worry. The amnesia will resolve itself.”
“It could last, Alan.”
“Sure, it could. But even if it does—lord, what’s an hour or two out of a man’s memory, against a lifetime? There are people running around with gaps of years in their minds. And it doesn’t handicap them.”
I couldn’t explain. I couldn’t say, “He was going to tell me that he loved me.” Not even to Alan.
After that first dreadful week I went to the hospital every day to sit with Simon. And it was five weeks, at least, before he even talked coherently. They kept him heavily sedated and he was drowsy most of the time. But I still went.
It was the end of June before he really seemed to be his old self. I remember it was the first time I had found him out of bed, sitting in a chair by the window, smiling toward the door.
“They want me to go away and convalesce,” he said. “But I won’t. I’m going home. There’s the yard and the woods. I can convalesce there.”
“Should you?” I said. “You know you’ll be wanting to work, once you’re there.”
He shook his head. “With Alan there to bully me? Not likely. How have you managed, Lanna? I’m not ill now. You can tell me everything that’s gone wrong.”
I smiled. “Not a thing has, in fact. It was wonderful of Alan to come back. I was dreading a strange doctor. It might have been another Dallas.”
“Haven’t you hit it off with her yet?”
“I’ve given up trying, Simon. I simply keep out of her way. So does Alan. They’re polite on the surface and that’s about all. But I suppose she can’t last forever.”
“I’ve been thinking—if Alan really detests the airport idea so much, he might consider a partnership.”
“Really? That would be wonderful Simon!”
“I thought you’d like the idea. You’re very fond of Alan, aren’t you?”
“I like him a lot. Who doesn’t?”
He reached out to pat my arm, as casually as if he had no idea of the warm current he sent flowing up to my shoulder. “No, I mean more than that. I mean very fond. As he is of you.”
I frowned and sat down beside him. “Simon, Alan and I are chums, that’s all. Nothing more. What made you—?”
“But that was the whole point of offering him a partnership! Why, Dallas told me you—”
“I see. Dallas told you! And you believed her?”
He looked quite bewildered. “Isn’t it true?”
“I don’t know what she’s s
aid. Or what she’s implied. But I do know that there’s nothing whatever between Alan and me, Simon.” I looked into his eyes and willed him to remember. “Do you still forget what happened that evening?”
“Afraid so. But I gather it was just that we took a short ride around?”
“You don’t remember talking to me in an hotel at Lichfield?”
“No. But it can’t matter, can it? I don’t imagine anything we were talking about was of world-shaking importance.”
I sighed. “No, not world-shaking. Just important to me, that’s all.”
“Then why don’t you tell me? Did you ask for a raise or something?” He was amused.
I knew, then, that I would never be able to tell him. If he didn’t remember himself, it was pointless. I refused to consider the possibility that he might never remember. Yet it was there, all the time, at the back of my mind.
So it was time to leave. “I’ll come again tomorrow,” I promised. “I expect Alan will be in during the day, too.”
“Good. I’ll talk to him about that partnership.”
“Yes, do that,” I agreed mechanically. I think he still had the idea that he would be doing me a favor by keeping Alan in the practice. But if it meant that Dallas would go, that suited me.
I had all the bedrooms changed around before either of the others came in to tea. I told Dallas flatly, in front of Alan, “I’ve moved you into the end room. Simon’s old room. I’ve called the electrician to come and reconnect the night bell, and the extension can be done tomorrow.”
“You’ve what?” She sank into Simon’s chair and looked up at me under her fabulous lashes. “You’ve put me in the end room?”
“That’s what I said.”
“But why? I do think I might have been consulted!”
Alan put in, “But after all, Dallas, you were only supposed to be in the big room for one night. Remember?”
“Yes, but—”
“But nothing,” I told her. “Simon will be home very soon. And he should have the biggest room while he gets back to normal.”
“I see.” She shrugged. “Oh, very well. If that’s what he wants.”
“No, he hasn’t said so. Simon always puts himself last. But just for once he isn’t being allowed to. It was my idea, not his.” “Sol imagined!”
She looked up at Alan. “So you’ll soon be able to get back to your airport, then?” She might have been talking to a child. “You’ll be glad, I guess.”
As Alan looked at me and then back at her, his mouth was twitching. “No. Simon has asked me to stay on. As a partner.”
“A partner? Really? I understood that I was to be offered a partnership if I decided I wanted to stay on in England! I’ll have to see Simon about that.”
“It won’t do any good,” Alan told her stubbornly. “It’s all fixed now.”
“Then I think you have a damn nerve!” She got up and stalked out. I heard her slamming bedroom doors a moment later.
“Now you have put the cat among the pigeons,” I told Alan. “She’ll sulk for the rest of the day, and then come down and make eyes at you after surgery.”
“That will profit her nothing, I fear. I’m no longer susceptible to blondes.”
That reminded me. “Alan, did you know she’d told Simon that you and I were ... well, very close? And that he thought it would be so nice and convenient for us if you were a partner here?”
“She did? She’s a one, isn’t she?” he said mildly. “Oh well, I wish it were true.” He came nearer to run his fingers lightly through my hair before he put his cheek against mine. “Couldn’t it be true Lanna?”
I shook my head. “Next to Simon you’re the nicest man I’ve ever known.”
“And if Simon doesn’t come up to scratch?”
“I don’t know. He probably never will, the way things are. He can’t remember, don’t you see?”
Alan’s face was serious. “No, maybe he can’t remember the mood of the moment. But he can’t help knowing the—” He stopped and then he took a deep breath. “Lanna, I’m going to do something you’ll hate. But it isn’t fair to you if I don’t. This business of Midge’s will...”
I held on tightly to the arms of my chair. “Go on. I’d better hear all about it.”
“You know she wanted him to marry you?”
“No! No, Alan. She did tell him she wanted me to come here.”
“Well? Presumably with a view to marriage? In any case, he told me quite categorically that she wanted him to marry you.”
“He—he didn’t tell me.”
“No, but it’s a bit awkward, isn’t it? Naturally he wouldn’t find that easy. Anyhow—coupled with that the fact that his capital and the house and so on all depend on that.”
So I had been right. “You are sure, Alan?”
“It’s what Simon told me. ‘Everything depends,’ he said, ‘on whether or not I marry Lanna.’ He said it put him in a rotten position.”
“Then if he asked me to marry him and I refused, I would know things would be very difficult for him financially? And if I accepted, I would feel for the rest of my life that he had been forced into it? Alan—it’s a case of tails you win, heads I lose, isn’t it? It’s horrible.”
“Midge,” he said evenly, “was sometimes a horrible woman. Her cruelties were always refined to the nth degree. I’d hate to have lent her a horse I cared for, or even my car.”
We had to abandon the topic when Dallas came down. She was still ruffled about the change of room, and she propped up a copy of the Lancet to read while she nibbled her way through her salad.
Alan began to talk at her. “There really isn’t room here for three,” he told me seriously. “Not as yet. Two of us manage beautifully.”
I nodded. “It’ll be like old times—you and Simon, and—”
Dallas slapped the paper together and glared at us. “You may not have me in the practice, Alan, but you won’t get rid of me as easily as that!”
When she had slammed her way out again, Alan raised his eyebrows. “Now what did she mean by that?”
The next day I awoke with a dreadful cold, and it didn’t seem to me a good idea to take it to Simon. Dallas heard me telling Alan so, and she smiled narrowly. “There’s no need for you to go, anyway. I plan on going.” She paused. “I’ve been just as often as you have. I don’t know why you don’t stay here and supervise Mrs. Cox a little more, instead of trailing all the way over there every day.”
I was certainly not going to ask her to give him my love, or even to explain why I was not going. I knew Alan would do that for me. But I worried because I wondered what else she would tell him. She had a remarkable imagination.
For three days I had to stay away, and for three days she made no attempt to give me news of him. On the fourth morning she said at breakfast, “I wouldn’t bother to go visit Simon today. He’ll be home tomorrow.” For some reason she looked like a cat full of cream.
Alan noticed it, too. When she had gone to the consulting room he said, “There’s something afoot. I don’t like it, Lanna. What’s she up to?”
“I don’t know. I’m past caring,” I said. “But I know this—Simon believes everything she tells him. How can he be so dumb?”
“He’s been ill. And I think she can be quite convincing. She can certainly be very charming, if she likes. If you like that sort of thing.”
“How do you know?”
His eyebrows went up. “Dear Lanna, do you go about with your eyes shut? What were you doing the first six weeks Simon was away?”
“Worrying about Simon,” I said frankly.
“Exactly! If you’d had any eyes in your head for anything else, you’d have been most interested in the play she made for me. Oodles of charm. Every little trick under the sun. If she tries them on with Simon she may get somewhere if he isn’t wise to her. He’s a darn sight more trusting than I am. And less experienced in the wiles of the females, I may say.”
“Oh, Alan, I didn’t know!”
“Why should you? You had other things to think about. So had I, fortunately. I told her so, finally. Since then, an armed truce.” “I see.” Then I thought of something. “She’s pretty well off, isn’t she?”
“I believe so. Daddy’s a bank president or something. And her clothes look jolly expensive.”
“They do. That deceptive simplicity costs a lot.”
“What were you thinking of, Lanna?”
I tried to stop thinking it and switched my thoughts off on another tack. “Oh, I thought it was just about time she bought herself a car. When Simon comes he’ll want his. And I don’t see why she should appropriate mine.”
“She won’t need to, love. Not if she’s leaving.”
“You heard what she said! That we wouldn’t get rid of her as easily as that. She means to...”
Alan looked angry for the first time since I had known him. He came over, took me by the shoulders and shook me, hard. “You know damn well what she means to do, And so do I. And if I had any sense I’d let her. But I’m so much of a fool about you that I’d rather she didn’t because it’ll hurt you. I’m as crazy as that!” He let me go suddenly and I dropped into a chair. I think it was only then that I really understood how he felt. I had been such a fool. Why couldn’t I learn to cut my losses? Simon would never be anything to me. Not now. His condition apart, Dallas was going to see to that. And Dallas had plenty of money and Midge’s will couldn’t make a difference to Simon if ... I burst into tears.
Alan pushed his handkerchief into my hand. “I’m a brute,” he said. “I should have kept my great big mouth shut. It was just that I got a bit sick of playing second lead. Forget it, love.”
But I didn’t forget it. I thought about it, on and off, all day. Simon came home soon after the morning surgery next day. And Dallas was following the ambulance in his car. She fussed him out of it and up to the master bedroom.
Dallas took her lunchtime salad upstairs with Simon, and when she came down she was almost friendly. “I’m taking Simon out for a short drive this afternoon,” she told me. “Time he had a little fresh air.”
“Yes, you do that,” I agreed. “But you’ll remember it’s your surgery and Alan’s evening off, won’t you?”