Fruiting Bodies

by Natasha Cooper

  ‘Can’t you sleep?’ she asked.

  ‘My mind seems much too active.’

  ‘Then you must try to relax it. You certainly shouldn’t be reading as late as this. You need all the sleep you can get.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Willow, remembering her broken nights at home and the feebleness they had left behind them. ‘But reading is better than lying awake worrying about not sleeping.’

  ‘That’s true, but you must be very tired. I’ll look in again in half an hour or so and I bet you’ll be asleep. Good night.’

  ‘Good night,’ said Willow frostily.

  She read on for a little while but her concentration had been broken and the book could not longer hold her thoughts at bay. She reached up to turn off her light and lay listening to babies snuffling, women turning in their sleep and occasionally letting out a soft, bubbling snore. A late boat on the Thames outside hooted once and she could just hear the traffic on the far side of the river.

  Some two hours later she woke to feel a hand on her shoulder, shaking her lightly. A female Scottish-accented voice was whispering: ‘Mrs King, Mrs King, wake up.’

  Willow opened her eyes with great difficulty, about to say that she was not ‘Mrs King’, and saw a grey-haired doctor standing by her bed.

  ‘Come along, Mrs King. It’s important. Wake up.’

  Pulling herself out of the depths of heavy sleep was agony, but the urgency of the doctor’s hand shaking her shoulder was too much to ignore.

  ‘I’m not Mrs King,’ she said loudly, licking her lips and wishing that her tongue did not feel so thick and woolly. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Shh. We mustn’t wake the others. Aren’t you Willow King? It says so on your chart.’

  ‘Yes, I’m Willow King,’ she said, still too sleepy to explain. Her heavy eyelids threatened to close again.

  ‘I thought so. You’re half asleep. Come along. We’ve got to get you and your baby downstairs as soon as possible. Get up now.’

  At the mention of Lucinda, Willow opened her eyes. She saw the middle-aged doctor put both hands on the edge of Lucinda’s cot and start to push it towards the door. Willow sat up at once and fought her way out of the bedclothes.

  ‘Where are you taking her?’

  ‘Shh,’ said the doctor again as she stopped. She beckoned to Willow, adding very quietly: ‘You must try not to wake the others. I have to take her downstairs for one last procedure before you leave. We’ve had the results of the tests and there’s just one more that we need to do. It’s urgent. Hurry up.’

  Without waiting any longer, the doctor set off with Lucinda’s cot. Willow hesitated no longer. Her mind was too soggy with sleep to work properly, but she was not going to let anyone take her baby anywhere without her. She groped for her kimono in the dim light and did not even think about waiting to find her slippers. The sash caught on the edge of the bed and she wrenched it away with a muttered curse.

  Dragging the thin dressing-gown round her shoulders, she stumbled off after the doctor, who was already beyond the swing doors. Rushing after her through the heavy doors and along the passage past the empty nurses’ station, Willow was afraid that there must be something terribly wrong with Lucinda.

  She was crying. The sound forced Willow on, even though she could feel her stitches pull painfully with every stride. When she caught up with the doctor in the lobby where the lifts were, Willow stopped beside the cot and put her hand down beside Lucinda’s face. When she had got her breathing under control, she started to murmur soothing endearments. Eventually, as Lucinda grew a little calmer and her cries turned to soft, syncopated gulps, Willow turned to the doctor to say: ‘What is it that’s wrong with her? Please tell me.’

  ‘Probably nothing. This is just a precaution,’ said the doctor soothingly. She sounded very Scottish as she pressed the lift buttons again.

  Beginning to wake up properly, Willow thought that something about the doctor seemed vaguely familiar, although she could not remember ever having seen her before. She looked reassuringly competent with her old-fashioned, permed grey hair and stocky figure and she smiled as she added: ‘But we need to make certain. I’m sure you can understand that.’

  ‘No, I don’t. I don’t understand any of this. Doctor Kimmeridge didn’t say anything about Lucinda having something wrong with her. He said we were both doing fine and that we could go home in the morning.’

  ‘That’s exactly why we’ve got to get these tests done tonight. The radiographers have stayed late especially,’ said the doctor impatiently. ‘Do try to keep calm. You’re only upsetting the baby.’

  It was true that Lucinda’s cries were sharpening again. Willow turned away to gaze down at her devastatingly vulnerable child.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ she said, even though she knew that Lucinda could not understand a word of what she was saying. She felt her eyes filling with tears and she tried to smile, leaning forwards so that Lucinda would be able to sense her familiar presence. ‘Whatever it is, they’ll deal with it.’

  The doctor pressed the lift button again, cursing under her breath. Surprised at the crudity of some of the words she was using, Willow stared at her in sudden suspicion. She still looked competent and she was dressed like all the other doctors in an unbuttoned white coat with a stethoscope hanging around her neck. But there was no name badge on the left breast of her coat.

  For a moment Willow stood absolutely still. All the terror she had been at such pains to rationalise away shot back through her body. Until then it had not even occurred to her that the doctor might be an imposter, but in that moment she was convinced of it. She opened her mouth to shout for help.

  A sharp memory of Sister Chesil’s theory stopped her before she had made any sound at all. The midwife had said that Alexander Ringstead’s murderer must have been a past patient of the long-stay psychiatric wing of the hospital who had been frightened into violence by something he did or said.

  The woman in front of Willow might be entirely sane and have had nothing to do with Mr Ringstead’s death, but if there were even the slightest possibility that she had already killed and might kill again, Willow could not take any risks at all.

  Whatever she did, she would have to avoid frightening the woman or showing her any kind of threat. If she was dangerously volatile, even a shout or a sudden movement might be enough to tip her over the edge into violence.

  Willow felt sick and very cold indeed. Her bones ached and she knew she had been wickedly stupid in not having insisted on seeing some identification or checking the woman’s bona fides with one of the nurses before she let her take Lucinda anywhere.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked as calmly as possible, edging closer towards Lucinda’s cot.

  ‘Doctor W-Wilson,’ said the woman with the first hint of a stammer. ‘Paediatrics.’

  She still sounded perfectly sane and looked it too. But her muttered swearing at the dilatory lift had been unlike anything Willow had heard from any other doctor. She did not know what to believe, but she could not risk making a mistake.

  As the lift arrived at last and the doors swished open, Willow looked around for help and then wished she had not as Doctor Wilson seized Lucinda’s cot and pushed it inside. There was no one else anywhere near them. The night nurses were well out of earshot. There were some public telephones only a few feet away, but Willow could not bear to leave Lucinda alone for a minute. She knew that there was no one but her to protect the child and that she must do something quickly.

  She caught sight of a fire-extinguisher in a stand bolted to the wall beside the lift, but it looked far too heavy for her to lift, and it would probably have made a dreadful noise, clanging against its iron stand.

  Willow, whose breathing was quickening as her fear grew, tried to keep herself calm, knowing that somehow she had to make the woman feel unthreatened for long enough to get Lucinda safely out of her clutches. Casually, as quickly as possible, Willow tried to find something else she might use as a wea
pon. The only possible object within reach was a tall ashtray that stood on a plastic pillar under a minatory no-smoking notice.

  ‘Mrs King, hurry up,’ said the doctor from inside the lift. ‘We’re wasting time and it’s essential that we get your baby to X-ray as soon as possible.’

  Without another thought, Willow pretended to stumble into the ashtray and in the legitimate clatter picked up the top part, realising with despair as she felt its insignificant weight that it must be made of aluminium. It would be a pathetic weapon, but it was all she had. She held it behind her back and tried to smile calmly as she walked between the lift doors, hoping that she could deal with whatever was to come and protect Lucinda from any kind of harm.

  The lift was about seven feet by five, big enough to take a full-sized bed and at least two porters. Willow stood with her back to Lucinda’s cot and pushed it unobtrusively towards the back of the lift. The woman who had called herself Doctor Wilson pressed one of the buttons on the control panel and the lift doors closed,

  X-ray, Willow repeated silently. Surely they don’t give babies X-rays. And why does she keep calling me Mrs King? Nobody calls me that. Who is she? Is she mad? Am I mad to be so afraid?

  She stood between Doctor Wilson and Lucinda and waited, gripping the edge of the aluminium ashtray behind her back.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked as quietly as possible.

  ‘The basement, of course.’

  ‘But the X-ray department is on the first floor,’ said Willow, who had been there several times during her pregnancy for ultrasound scans.

  The doctor pressed the red ‘stop’button on the lift wall. The whole closed room juddered to a halt. Ignoring subtlety, Willow pushed the wheeled cradle hard towards the back of the lift and heard it clatter against the metal wall. Lucinda started wailing at once and her cries soon rose to panic-stricken screams.

  Willow risked looking away from the doctor for a second to glance at Lucinda. It was bad mistake. Even though she was half-expecting it, the first blow shocked her as it landed hard in her stomach. She doubled up, gasping in pain. Terrified for Lucinda, she lashed out with her pathetic aluminium ashtray as she went down, and caught the woman’s shins.

  Grunting in surprise, the doctor pitched forwards against the cot as Willow twisted away from her. Panting, still clutching her stomach with her left arm, Willow straightened up. The cot itself was rocking from the impact of Doctor Wilson’s fall, but it had not tipped over. Lucinda was still screaming but Willow did not dare risk even looking at her.

  ‘Bitch,’ shouted Doctor Wilson, who was on her feet again. Her face was contorted with fury. Her hands were clenched into fists and she was shaking.

  Willow stood with the ashtray in her right hand and her left held out as a pathetic defence, trying to work out where the next blow would land. She knew that there was blood on the edge of the ashtray, but she did not care. All that mattered was keeping the woman away from Lucinda.

  The doctor was pouring out a stream of insults that Willow hardly heard. She did not even notice that the voice no longer sounded at all Scottish.

  ‘Bitch. Slut. Interfering cow. Someone’s got to stop you. Slut. Bitch.’

  Lurching forwards as she shouted more and more loudly, Doctor Wilson hit out at Willow, who dodged. The doctor fell heavily against the side of the cot again. Lucinda’s screams rose in a crescendo of terror.

  Desperate, without any doubts at all about what she was doing, Willow brought down the ashtray as hard as possible on the back of the woman’s grey head. The aluminium buckled but it had little effect on the doctor.

  Willow raised it again and whacked it down once more, fumbling with her free hand for soft, sensitive bits of the woman’s head, face and body. She pushed her away from the cot and felt only triumph when she heard the doctor scream in pain and shock and saw her trip over her own feet to fall heavily, banging her head against the side of the lift. Willow followed her to the edge of the lift, hitting out with her left hand again and again, as she banged down the ashtray with her right.

  After a while she noticed that there were no more insults, but she could not stop hitting out for some time. Then, when Doctor Wilson’s complete stillness forced itself on her notice, Willow held the ashtray still between her tightly clenched hands.

  Her enemy lay half propped up in the corner of the lift furthest from the cot. There seemed to be an extraordinarily large amount of blood about. It was spilling out of a cut under the doctor’s grey hair and dribbling down her face. There were smears on the stainless steel wall of the lift and on the floor. In half-dazed surprise, Willow realised that part of the edge of the ashtray must have been very sharp to have made such deep cuts. She looked away from the bloody face of her victim and saw that there were spreading blobs of blood in the yellow silk of her kimono, and a lot on her left hand, where she had broken her own skin as she got in the way of her own blows.

  Forcing herself towards the control panel of the lift, Willow pressed the alarm button and then, thinking that she saw a movement from Doctor Wilson, flung herself on top of the woman’s body, knocking her spectacles off her face. There seemed to be no other safe way of stopping her standing up again and perhaps getting to Lucinda after all.

  Lying against the softness of the woman’s body, smelling her cosmetics and a cloying, expensive scent, Willow wanted to be sick. Her only satisfaction was that Lucinda’s scream’s had dwindled to the usual painful, attention-seeking wail. There was no more panic in the sound. Willow tried to block out every thought as she waited for help.

  At last the lift began to move again. As Willow lay across Doctor Wilson’s body, an appalling thought drifted into her muddled, adrenaline-intoxicated brain. Perhaps she had lost her mind. Some women did after childbirth. It was called post-partum psychosis. It sent some mothers raving mad and turned them violent. Perhaps the woman she had battered unconscious had been a genuine doctor, after all, legitimately trying to take Lucinda for some crucial tests.

  Willow began to wonder what would happen to her, to Tom, and to Lucinda herself, if she had attacked a perfectly innocent woman, perhaps even killed her.

  The lift stopped and there was a rush of cooler air as the doors slid open. Willow heard appalled exclamations and then felt strong, capable hands beginning to pull her away from Doctor Wilson. She looked down and saw the blood on her clothes and hands again. It was already beginning to turn brown. At last she let the ashtray drop from the fingers of her right hand. The aluminium circle fell on to the body of the doctor and then rolled on to the floor, where it spun round and round and then gradually settled with a fluttering clatter. Willow put out her right hand as though to make the ashtray completely still.

  Suddenly finding it hard to see properly, she lifted her hand nearer her eyes. It was shaking and there was blood under the fingernails. The blood was already dark, as though it had begun to dry and granulate. She must have scratched the woman as well as hitting her. Beyond the bloody hand, Willow could dimly see the white, horrified faces of a group of nurses and an overalled porter. They began to move towards her.

  Her mouth sagged open and she shook her head. All doubts about what she had done disappeared. No one was going to get to Lucinda if she could help it. No one was safe. No one could be trusted. Willow’s eyebrows twitched together over her nose and she looked at the body at her feet and then over her shoulder. A man’s hands pulled her towards the lift doors.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ she shouted.

  ‘Come along now.’

  ‘No. I’m not going anywhere without my baby,’ she said, still looking back over her shoulder at the cot.

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ said the man in a strong cockney accent. ‘Come with me, love.’

  ‘No. Let me go. Leave me alone. Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me.’ As he pulled at her arm, Willow started to scream. ‘Someone get one of the obs and gynae staff quick,’ said an authoritative voice. ‘Hurry up. She’s got to be …’

 
‘I won’t go,’ Willow screamed at the man who was trying to drag her out of the lift. ‘I won’t leave her. Stop touching me. Leave me alone.’

  Her bare feet were sliding on the shiny floor of the lift and she could feel blood, still wet, under her toes. A familiar voice reached through her own screams.

  ‘Now, calm down, Mrs Worth.’

  ‘I won’t go. Leave me alone.’

  A slap across her face finally shocked Willow into silence. She looked at her attacker and saw the calm, kind face of Sister Lulworth.

  ‘That’s right, Mrs Worth. Now, come along like a good girl. You must try to stop screaming. It’s not good for Lucinda. That’s right. Well done. No one will hurt you. Good girl. Come along.’

  ‘It’s not safe. It’s not. I can’t leave Lucinda. Don’t touch me. Stop him. Stop him.’

  Willow wrenched herself out of the porter’s grip and hurried backwards away from Sister Lulworth. She looked quickly from right to left and back again to make sure no one was about to jump her. When she felt the hard edge of the perspex cot in-the small of her back, she stood still, looking from one to the other, breathing hard and fast. She wanted to pick Lucinda up and soothe her cries, but she could not. It was not safe to look away from them all. She began to feel dizzy and put both hands behind her to hold on to the cradle. They were probably all in league with Doctor Wilson. They were bending down over her, worrying about her, taking care of her. They were obviously in league with her. They would do anything to protect her and themselves.

  Willow’s knees began to sag and she clung even more tightly to the edge of the cot, telling herself she must not fall down or faint. She forced the dizziness back, biting her tongue hard, and stood her ground with her back pressed into the foot of Lucinda’s cot, the other end of which was jammed into the steel wall of the lift.

  Sister Lulworth had joined the nurses bending over Doctor Wilson’s inert body. One of them was checking her pulse. Willow did not care what happened to her, but she was not going to let them move either Lucinda or herself.