Clinical Judgements

by Claire Rayner

  She stood there thinking for a little longer and then moved over to the side of the room where she had seen a phone. There would be no harm in calling him; he had given her his phone number and she was sure he would want to tell her how he felt she had coped with her interlocutor. It had all worked out well, of course it had. There would be no more fuss over this issue of AIDS patients in Old East at present, but still it would be nice to hear directly from his own lips that he was pleased with her. His approval mattered a good deal to her, one way and another.

  He was at home and was as lavish with approval for her performance as she could have hoped. She felt as though she was being stroked as she listened to his agreeable voice on the phone and smiled to herself happily as he added in echo of her own thoughts, ‘And I think that will be the end of it, my dear. Even Goodman Lemon couldn’t go on batting on a wicket that has been so very thoroughly demolished. Now I hope we’ll have some peace from all this wretched publicity.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said then and her face straightened. ‘I’m afraid it won’t, Professor Levy. I rather think it might get worse for Old East, I mean. Not for me personally. And I’m not sure how we can get over it, either.’

  She heard the little sigh at the end of the phone. ‘Bless you for the “we”, my dear. It comforts me a great deal. Perhaps you’d better explain.’

  And she did, telling him all about the conversation with Jimmy and Oliver, pushing away the faint sense of disloyalty she felt in talking so. Of course she was loyal to Oliver; how could she be otherwise, loving him as she did? But she owed a loyalty to Old East as well. The place mattered a great deal more to her than even Oliver realised, and so did its patients. And as she told the Dean of what was being threatened by Jimmy, and to a lesser extent by Oliver with his radio programmes, she felt depression settle on her. And it wasn’t all the effects of the wine she knew she had drunk rather more recklessly than she usually did.

  ‘Well,’ he said when at last she stopped. ‘Thank you for telling me. I’ll have to give considerable thought to this. We’ve managed to sort things out well enough so far — but I’m not sure how, I’ll handle this one. Getting Lemon to issue that ridiculous press statement of his was child’s play compared to this —’

  She blinked. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Ah — perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned that —’ She could hear the glint of laughter in his voice at the other end of the phone.

  ‘You persuaded him to do that? But it could have been a disaster!’ She felt a wave of indignation fill her. ‘When I think how awful I felt when I saw that stuff in the Sunday papers! I really could —’

  ‘My dear Kate, I’m sorrier than I can say if I upset you — but it was a temporary upset, wasn’t it? And once my good friend Mr McSorley agreed to do the programme I knew all would be well. Even after I — um — warned Lemon he might do better not to take part directly himself — And you really have acquitted yourself extremely well — and will again, I have no doubt —’

  ‘Professor Levy!’ she said. ‘You really are a very slippery customer, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, you could say so,’ he said modestly, but clearly pleased with himself. ‘I wasn’t cut out to be a politician but once I was pushed into this chair, I had to learn to be one — c’est la guerre, you understand —’

  ‘Whatever it is, you do it damned well,’ Kate said and tried to sound shocked, but couldn’t. The more she thought about it, the more admiration she felt for him, however much she herself had been discommoded by what had happened. He really had handled the Lemon affair with great skill. But would he be able to do the same with someone as sharp as Jimmy Rhoda, and Oliver too?

  She said as much to him and he laughed softly. ‘Well, Kate, I don’t know whether I can. But I’ll tell you this much. I’m going to try! Good night my dear. And thank you. You did superbly well. I’m proud of you.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Mr Holliday saw the dapper man in the dark suit come in and go down to the end of the ward where the VIP was, and thought hard about him. He looked important but that could be just because he was wearing a suit without any white coat over it. He mightn’t even be a doctor, but Mr Holliday had a feeling he was. There was something about the way he’d talked to the sister when he’d come in, the way she’d been so easy with him. She wasn’t at all easy with the people who usually came to visit the VIP. He had to be a doctor, Mr Holliday ended his deduction. And an important one at that. Maybe he’d be able to help.

  Male Medical had been quiet for once this morning and Sister Sheward stretched gratefully. She finished the last chart and looked down the ward approvingly. The nurses had done well this morning after her spectacular if rather contrived loss of temper about tidiness. All the curtains were pulled well back from the glass dividers, and each bed was neatly made with its red blanket folded tidily over the foot rail and the lockers were well scrubbed and not too heavily laden with detritus. Leave it to the patients and they’d have nothing inside, everything out on the top, but now it looked almost as nice as the wards used to look when she had been in training fifteen years ago. And she sighed again, this time with agreeable nostalgia. Those had been the days, before all these chits made it such a struggle to keep a ward running smoothly.

  But she couldn’t complain today. It was sad about Joe Slater of course; but he shouldn’t have been occupying one of her beds anyway, so she’d been relieved really when he’d died at last. It was hell for him anyway, as well as for his wife, the way he’d lingered. Definitely a happy release. And really he shouldn’t have been in the ward at all; she’d only kept him to please Neville Carr, and, she had to admit, to spite that damned Saffron man. When he’d intervened after Audrey Slater had bearded him in his corner there it had given Sister Sheward considerable pleasure to look down her nose at him when he’d spoken to her about it and say that Joe Slater’s bed was assured and there had never been any intention of discharging him. Worth lying about really, for the way it had spiked the man’s guns.

  She could see Professor Levy’s back now, distorted like a hunchback’s through the three or four layers of glass which stood between herself and him, where he sat beside Edward Saffron’s bed, and wondered what they were talking about. This was the first time he’d come up to see him, and that had seemed odd at first to Sister Sheward; after all, Levy was the Dean, and Saffron was a particularly significant patient for Old East. But he had come now and maybe that meant that the man was to be discharged? He was a lot better than he had been, she knew, not that he was under her care, but she had her ways of finding out what was happening. It would be good to be rid of him in some ways, though tiresome in others. It would be agreeable to have her ward back in toto, looking as it should without the beds pushed too close together in the other cubicles to accommodate Saffron’s solitude in the far bay; but it would mean more battles with Agnew Byford and Neville Carr and Laurence Bulpitt; all of them fighting over the available beds. And again she sighed but this time with irritation, and got to her feet to go down the ward to harry the nurses some more. That boy David Engell, the first year, needed a good deal of chivvying: too fond by far of lingering by the beds of the better-looking younger patients and chatting to them. She had her doubts about that boy’s masculinity, though she’d die rather than admit it, because it was unfashionable to say the least ever to let on you felt like that about male nurses, but there it was; she didn’t like ’em and never would. Having a bit of a go at David would do the boy a lot of good and if he couldn’t take it, he shouldn’t be in nursing anyway. And she bustled down the ward, passing Professor Levy on his way out. But he seemed a little abstracted, and she settled for just a smile and nod as he hurried past her. He seems pleased with himself, she thought as he went by, really has got cream on his whiskers. Better have a word with Saffron’s private nurses. Maybe he is on his way out. Glory be.

  Mr Holliday pounced as the man in the black suit reached the door of the ward, pushing his wheelchair
in front of him so that he had to stop.

  ‘Er, sir,’ he said. ‘Sir?’

  Levy stopped at once and smiled at him, the soul of courtesy.

  ‘There was something I wanted to ask — are you a doctor, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ Levy said, still courteous, but watchful as well now.

  ‘I thought you was. You look like a doctor. An important one. Are you important?’

  Levy smiled, very urbane, and flicked his eyes swiftly at the clock on the wall above Holliday’s head. Two minutes. That was all he could manage. Just two minutes.

  ‘All the doctors at Old East are important,’ he said. ‘Who is the doctor who looks after you? You know his name?’

  Holliday nodded. ‘Mr Bulpitt,’ he said and there was a little animation in his voice now; he sounded less flat to Levy. He’s a Parkinson’s, he thought with a comer of his mind. One of Laurence’s old Parkinson’s —

  ‘Mr Laurence Bulpitt,’ Holliday repeated. ‘He did my brain operation you know, though he’s not a surgeon as a rule, so he told me. He’s a neurologist. Yes.’ He nodded slowly, pleased with himself at enunciating the word. ‘Neurologist.’

  ‘Ah,’ Levy said and smiled. ‘Well, I’m sure he is giving you excellent care. Now, if you’ll just —’

  ‘Oh, I’m not complaining about the care.’ Holliday sounded shocked, but also tired, the moment of animation quite gone. His voice, which had seemed strong, seemed weaker now and Levy cocked a sharp eye at him and said soothingly. ‘Well, I’m delighted to hear it. And now I really must —’

  ‘It’s just that I have to know, you see. I have to know about that woman. The mother. I saw the programme last night about Miss Buckland and all that, and I did agree, didn’t you? I’m sure you saw it. It’s all wrong, selling babies —’

  ‘Yes,’ Levy said. ‘A most interesting programme. And now if you don’t mind I’ll —’

  ‘But what’s the difference between selling and using, you tell me that?’ Holliday managed to sound triumphant, but his voice was failing rapidly now.

  ‘It’s hard for me to say,’ Levy said with his customary care and smiled charmingly at the man, and leaned down and patted his shoulder. ‘Now you really must let me go. I have an important meeting, I’m afraid, or I’d gladly stay and discuss the television with you. But there it is — do talk to Sister. I’m sure she’ll be delighted to talk to you. Good morning!’ And moving with a skill that hid his haste, he went, leaving Holliday staring dolefully after him.

  ‘Well, I’ll need more assurances than just your word, Professor Levy,’ Mrs Blundell said. ‘With all due respect, of course.’

  ‘Of course,’ Professor Levy said and smiled. ‘I quite understand. Some more tea? You must be chilled out there in the cold so long.’

  ‘Oh, I’m used to it,’ Mrs Blundell said, managing, just, not to sound like a martyr. ‘But I won’t say no. Ta —’

  There was a little silence and then she said suspiciously, ‘Why?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Why, all of a sudden? I mean, we’ve been on this demo for weeks. No one’s paid us a blind bit of notice. You’d ha’ thought we wasn’t there most of the time. Just one radio chap gets involved —’ She laughed appreciatively. ‘It did me good to see the way he popped that sergeant. He’s a right Hitler he is. We’ve been complaining about the way he’s been shoving us around all the time, laid an official complaint we have. But apart from the radio chap and a few bits in the Globe who gives a damn? The telly stopped covering us ages ago and it don’t seem to matter a tuppenny fart to that Saffron up there whether he can see us or not. He’s certainly paid us no attention, and no one’s come from the DHSS to talk to us. So why all of a sudden are they giving in?’

  He looked at her speculatively and then leaned forwards to prop his elbows on his desk and his chin on his fists.

  ‘Did you see the programme Probe last night?’

  ‘Me, watch telly? After a day out there freezing my arse off — if you’ll excuse me, and I think you will — I need a bit more entertainment than that. I went out for a drink with my old man. Why?’

  ‘They were investigating various Old East matters.’

  She lifted her chin sharply. ‘You mean they clobbered us? No one said anything to me this morning. Someone must have seen it, surely, if —’

  He shook his head. ‘No. It wasn’t your demo. It was — various other matters that have caused some fuss here in the last few weeks.’

  She grinned and nodded at him over the rim of her teacup. ‘I can imagine!’ she said and then laughed. ‘You’ve really been copping it one way and another.’

  ‘You could say that.’ Professor Levy smiled back at her. ‘Well, last night we won, if it can be described in that way since it wasn’t precisely a battle. But the issues that came up were developed nicely and at the end of it all it was clear to most of the audience, I’m sure, that there were no sins being committed here — or none that we were accused of anyway. Even the reviewers who covered it in this morning’s papers seem to accept that we at Old East do our best in difficult situations to behave — um — ethically and wisely —’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you do,’ she said, with a hint of irony in her voice but no real malice. ‘It’s only when it comes to cuts that the ethics wobble a bit, isn’t it?’

  ‘Cuts in services are hardly our fault,’ Professor Levy said. ‘As I’ve told you before and you actually know perfectly well, Mrs Blundell. That is a matter for the various bodies set in judgement over us — our masters in Whitehall, ultimately —’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean to — but that’s what worries me, you see. You call me here to tell me we can all go home, thanks very much, it’s all right, they won’t be closing any of Old East’s wards, they won’t be shoving us over to St Kitts or wherever, we’ll still keep our hospital, all right and tight, but what evidence are you giving me? And like I said, why?’

  ‘You’re a politician, Mrs Blundell,’ the Professor said. ‘And if anyone will understand you will. After last night’s programme, one of our doctors who took part discovered — um — became aware that rather than interest in Old East being slaked by the publicity we’d had, it had been increased. One of the journalists who has been active — the man who writes for the Globe? Yes, you know the one I mean — he’s been sniffing around a good deal, I imagine. He says he’s going to do more. And he says that he is going to investigate in particular Mr Saffron’s presence here. How much of an NHS patient he actually is, d’you see —’

  She was watching him with wide intelligent eyes, her long bony legs wrapped round each other, and he became aware, as he had before, of the sexuality she exuded. It made the task of explaining to her much more agreeable.

  ‘And it occurred to me, when I was told this, that Mr Saffron himself would find it deeply embarrassing to have such an investigation done and reported.’

  He chuckled then, a deep rich sound in his throat. ‘So I went and warned him about it this morning.’

  She laughed too and for a moment there was a closeness that seemed to tie them together in a web they both wanted to be in.

  ‘Did it work?’

  ‘Not at first, to tell you the truth —’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘He’s really rather slow on the uptake, you know. For a Minister of the Crown.’

  ‘Hmmph!’ she said. ‘That’s why they’re Ministers of the Crown. It makes ’em workable, you know. Their boss isn’t the sort to fancy clever people around.’

  ‘You could be right.’ He leaned back then. ‘Anyway, once I’d explained how uncomfortable things could get for him once the press really got going on him we agreed a strategy. He will be transferred home. His consultant, Mr Byford, tells me there is small risk to his health now, and he can and will make sure he has all the necessary home nursing and supervision. And Mr Saffron has agreed it would be — um — politic to keep the hands of the cost-cutters off Old East for the present.’

  ‘For t
he present?’ she said sharply, and the web of amiability broke into fine shreds and vanished into the dusty light from the window.

  ‘That’s the best I can offer,’ he said a little apologetically. ‘And I’m being as honest with you as I know how. I needn’t have mentioned it, after all! But I can tell you that he’s agreed to intervene personally and see to it that we here at Old East are left off the current round of economies in the present financial year. But after next April, they’ll start looking again. That should give you some time to get your support going, shouldn’t it? Time to involve more local people — MPs perhaps and so forth? It will certainly give me some time to bring in my own big guns.’

  He smiled again then. ‘I do have one or two. The odd Royal ear you know — this place has a long history of being involved with interesting people. And you must remember that though they’ll leave us alone, they still need to make their economies. It’ll be St Kitts that will lose beds this round of cuts, I imagine. And that may mean — indeed I’m sure it will mean — that when they come to look at the area’s bedding situation next time they might find that they can’t cut any of ours, because of the losses from St Kitts, you see.’

  She looked a little sulky now, and far from being willing to agree to what he was asking of her. But then he said softly, ‘It could be a considerable effort for you, of course, to organise a bigger and even more powerful opposition. But with extra time I suspect you could do a great deal. And I gather you have some ambitions in the political arena — local government, and so forth? Maybe a tactical retreat now could pay big dividends in attacking strength later. An old military simile, you know —’

  There was a long silence and then she nodded and set down her teacup and got to her feet.

  ‘All right. You win. I’ll tell them and we’ll let the demo go. But I claim the right to tell the papers that we’ve won —’

  ‘I don’t think Mr Saffron will object,’ he said. ‘Nor will he change his mind. He’s been ill long enough to start worrying about whether he’ll lose his portfolio, I suspect. He wants nothing that will draw the wrong sort of attention. If you make it clear you — um — appreciate his willingness to listen to you, the grass roots and so forth — I don’t have to tell you how he wants it, do I? — it’s my guess you’ll do rather well out of the whole thing.’