The nurse tutted. ‘He was here just a moment or so ago. He must have been called away. Will you wait?’
‘Yes.’ Sally stood looking round as the door closed behind her, shutting out the sharp clip of footsteps, the rattle of a trolley. She walked to the window. A huge plane tree stood between the window and the noisy road, mottled trunk gleaming, big dusty leaves bathed in sunshine, quivering at the movement of the squabbling sparrows that flitted busily amongst the branches. Sally laid her forehead tiredly against the smudged glass. She had been out of prison for two days, and still she felt oddly disorientated. Her stomach was unready to digest the quantities of food she was offered, however simple the fare. She found the constant company of people strangely stressful after those long solitary days of confinement. Even Toby’s happy chatter could tire her after a while. But to see the sky, to watch these silly, quarrelling birds, to know that she was free to sit, to stand, to come, go, speak or be still as she liked was a joy to be savoured as she had never savoured any other; or had been until she had seen Josie’s thin face against the pillows, understood that if her own incarceration were over Josie’s – harder, more terrifying, infinitely more unjust – was not and very possibly in this life never would be. For Josie the only release from her imprisonment in that failing body was likely to come through death. She sucked her bottom lip, hard, biting it, stopping tears. She would not believe it! Superstitiously she crossed her fingers – who knew but that believing things might make them happen?
She closed her eyes against the sunshine, against the noisy, careless birds, against the bright summer light and the sheer exuberant noise of the city streets that reached her through the shield of the window. How could the world go about its business so cruelly indifferent when Josie lay dying inch by inch for the sake of a careless moment, an inefficient guard upon a simple machine, a split-second mistake?
She did not hear the door open behind her, nor the slight click of its shutting.
‘Sally?’
She turned. Ben Patten dumped his battered bag on top of the papers on his desk. Balanced in his other hand was a tray upon which stood two steaming mugs. ‘Tea,’ he said.
She accepted a mug, thanking him. He looked gauntly tired. ‘Sorry I wasn’t here. I got called away. An emergency in the fever ward. There’s something of an epidemic on.’ He sat down behind the desk, gulped a mouthful of tea, rested his bowed head for a moment on the fingertips of his free hand. ‘It’s so damned overcrowded down there,’ he muttered quietly, almost to himself, ‘no wonder we can’t stop them dying like flies.’
Sally watched him in silence, sipping her tea, leashing her sympathy. The affairs of the fever ward were not at that moment her priority. There was one thing she wanted to know and one thing only. Yet something kept her still, allowing him a moment to emerge from whatever pain it was she sensed was gripping him, clenching his face and his big, capable hand, making the straight line of his mouth grim. And as she stood in silence and watched him she found herself to her own intense astonishment suppressing an absurd rise of compassion, a ridiculous urge to lay a hand upon the tensely hunched shoulder, to smooth the rough, untidy hair, to offer comfort, however slight, respite from the battle he fought normally so coolly and so well. Behind his back her mouth pursed in wry self-derision. The day that Doctor Ben Patten needed – or even noticed – Sally Smith’s sympathy would be a day indeed.
‘You wanted to talk to me?’ Her husky voice was cool.
‘Yes.’ He lifted his head, almost shaking it, like a dog emerging from water, freeing himself from the weight of his thoughts. He looked at the girl who stood with her back to the light watching him dispassionately. As always her sharp-featured face beneath its untidy crown of light brown hair was unnervingly collected, the slanting greenish eyes a little wary, giving away nothing.
‘About Josie?’
He paused for the briefest of moments. ‘Yes. And about her brother.’
She waited.
He stood up restlessly, prowled the room for a moment. Then with a sweep of his hand he cleared a spot on the desk and perched upon it, one leg dangling. He sipped his tea, eyed the mug pensively for a second, lifted his head. ‘Miss Dickson wants to go home. Her brother won’t allow it.’
Sally was staring at him. ‘Go home!’ she interrupted incredulously. ‘In that state? Of course she can’t go home!’
He looked back down at the mug in his hand. ‘It’s her wish,’ he said quietly.
She stood very, very still for what seemed a very long time. ‘To go home’, she said at last flatly, disbelievingly, accusingly, ‘to die?’
In the silence a clock ticked. ‘Yes.’
‘You’ve given up? You aren’t even going to try to save her?’
His glance was quick and edged with anger at that. ‘We have tried.’
‘And now you’re giving up?’ The words were bitter, more statement than question.
He moved a weary head. ‘Sally – believe me – there’s nothing we can do. Nothing. It’s gone too far. Her whole body is poisoned. We have nothing with which to fight it.’ He waited for a moment, studying her face. Then he spread his hands eloquently. ‘She hates it here. She’s unhappy. Sally – I’m sorry, but don’t you see – she doesn’t want to die here amongst strangers. She wants to go home. Her father understands. Her brother won’t listen. And she won’t go against him.’
She turned away from him, back to the window. ‘And that’s why you got me out of Holloway? To persuade Dan to let his sister go home to die? To release one of your precious beds?’ The tone was unforgivable; cruelly bitter. She did not care. The birds still fought their silly battles in the tree before her blurred eyes.
He came behind her quietly; she was taken entirely by surprise by the hand on her shoulder that swung her forcibly to face him, equally taken aback by the flaring anger in his eyes. For an odd, suspended moment they glared at each other, each wrapped in self-righteous fury. Then she saw the blaze in his face die. His hand dropped from her shoulder. ‘Is that truly what you think?’ he asked quietly.
She had spoken in haste and judged too harshly, and she knew it; but she would not answer.
Abruptly he turned from her, went back to the desk, stood for a moment, rock still and controlled, his back to her.
She watched him in silence. Then, ‘Is there truly no hope?’ she asked at last, bleakly and quietly.
He shook his head. ‘None.’
‘How long?’
‘A day. Perhaps two or three. She’s very weak.’
‘I see.’
He turned to face her, and he was calm again. ‘Sally, believe me. If a miracle is to occur it will as well occur at home as it will here. At least she’ll be happy. She truly hates it here.’ He shrugged, ‘And who can blame her? It’s a drear enough place, God knows. Will you speak to her brother?’ The square, strong face was intent.
She held him eye to eye for a moment, then, ‘Yes,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘Thank you. Hannah will find a nurse for her. She’ll be as well cared for there as here. And more comfortable.’
Sally said nothing.
He watched her for a long moment with flint-dark eyes. ‘Sally – have you any idea what we’re up against here?’ he asked suddenly, gesturing, the wave of his hand taking in not only the cluttered office but the hospital beyond. ‘Do you know how many people we treat and under what disadvantage? The ratio of doctors to patients in the better-off parts of London is one to less than five hundred. Do you know what it is here? One to more than five thousand. We haven’t the facilities, we haven’t the staff, and we haven’t the money to cope. Most of us work for next to nothing. We care about what we do. But we aren’t miracle workers! With that kind of injury Miss Dickson should never have been treated as an outpatient in the first place. And then, once the hand became septic she should never have left it as long as she did before coming to us. We could only do too little and too late. But we did our best.’ He ran a huge hand th
rough his untidy hair. ‘We did our best,’ he repeated quietly, but with force.
Sally was regarding him with narrowed, guarded eyes. She wanted to be angry. She did not want to feel sorry for him. She did not want to be moved by his words, nor by the tired lines in his face, the uncharacteristic note of weariness in his voice. She did not above all want to experience the strange pang of almost tender sympathy that unexpectedly struck her as he bent his head and absent-mindedly and tiredly rubbed the back of his neck; an odd and painful emotion of the kind she sometimes felt for Toby when he was hurt or disappointed.
‘I’ll go talk to Dan,’ she said brusquely, ‘though that isn’t to say he’ll listen.’
He smiled a little at that, drily. ‘Miss Dickson seemed to think that you’re the only one likely to influence him. She has every faith that he’ll listen to you.’
For some reason she found herself flushing. She shook her head. She felt quite ridiculously and inexplicably confused, just as ridiculously and even more inexplicably reluctant to leave him with the atmosphere between them still several shades less than friendly. Face set she marched to the door.
‘Sally – I’m sorry. Truly sorry.’
‘Yes,’ she said ungraciously, ‘so are we all, aren’t we? I don’t suppose that’s much consolation to Josie,’ and shut the door with a sharp click very firmly upon his silence.
* * *
Josie was taken home that afternoon. Two days later, her brothers and her father by her side, she died. Sally, arriving at the house half an hour later knew the moment she turned the corner of the street and saw the drawn curtains that the worst had happened. Dan opened the door to her and, with no word spoken she stepped straight and simply into his open arms and wept as if her heart were breaking, shedding the tears that in these last few awful days had built into a dam of grief behind the smiles that had made Josie’s last days bearable. As they stood so, Walter came to them, hugging an arm about each of them, tears coursing unashamedly down his weather-darkened face. Bill Dickson sat by his daughter’s bedside, unmoving and unspeaking, nodding to Sally as she entered the darkened room, his face drained and wooden with grief.
Silently Sally took his hand, stood beside him looking down at the lifeless shell that had been Josie. Memory flickered: Josie laughing, Josie talking, Josie smiling in pleasure at the gathering of those she loved about her. A simple, happy soul, the light of life snuffed out by the venom that had spread its wicked fingers through her blood. Unnecessarily? She could not bear to think so.
Dan had come to stand on the opposite side of the bed, his eyes not on his dead sister but upon Sally’s tear-drenched face.
A snippet of conversation from the day before drifted into Sally’s numbed brain; Hannah saying, ‘I truly think my brother must be taking leave of his senses altogether. He tells me he intends to make a particular study of the causes and treatment of septicaemia – not instead of everything else, of course, but as well as – whenever does the silly man think he’ll find time to sleep?’ So Ben Patten had been truly moved by the tragedy of Josie, and by her courage in facing it. Perhaps one day, because of her, a life would be saved that might have been lost. Not for nothing then, but poor consolation.
Sally became suddenly and uncomfortably aware of Dan’s fixed gaze upon her. Gently she disentangled her hand from the bereaved father’s, ‘Someone should go for the doctor.’
* * *
The funeral service was an ordeal. Josie had been a happy and popular girl, she had died in her twentieth year, full of joy and promise. There were many tears shed, many muffled sobs as the simple coffin was lowered. Afterwards at the Dickson home Sally helped with the obligatory funeral feast, and was astonished at the bizarre lift of spirits in the little house once the tea was brewed, the beer keg broached, the sandwiches and cakes spread upon the table. From a subdued and tearful beginning in half an hour voices were raised in a buzz of talk, there was the occasional lift of laughter as friends and relations, many of whom had not crossed each other’s path since the last wedding, christening or funeral exchanged gossip. Josie’s picture stood upon the mantelpiece, black-draped.
‘Oh, she was a lovely girl,’ with maudlin sentimentality an elderly woman in vast purple nodded her head to her companion, ‘a lovely girl. Like they say – the Lord takes them as ’e loves young.’
Sally passed through the throng, offering sandwiches, smiling and nodding, dexterously and determinedly avoiding conversation. In the narrow, well-trimmed garden Bill Dickson stood with his sons, a tot of sustaining rum in his hand, accepting stoically the murmured sympathy of friends and neighbours, ‘Such a lovely girl, our Josie.’ ‘Never ’eard a cross word from ’er, that I swear.’ ‘You’ll miss ’er, Bill lad. We all will.’
Sally turned to slip away; found her way blocked apologetically but firmly by a stretched arm the muscles of which showed clearly and strongly through the shirtsleeve. Dan’s broad, good-natured face was calm, his still reddened eyes steady. He had for her a small smile, affectionate and warm. ‘Thank you for your help.’
She smiled acknowledgement.
‘I – wondered—’ he hesitated.
‘Yes?’
‘Do they – do they let you have visitors at that children’s place of yours?’
Her hesitation was minimal. ‘Course they do. It isn’t a prison.’
‘I just thought – p’raps I could pop over and see you one day?’
She nibbled her lip. ‘Dan—’
‘Oh, don’t worry. I won’t push you, I promise. It’s just – with Josie gone – I’d hate us to lose touch.’
‘Yes. Me too.’
‘I can then? Come and see you?’
‘Of course you can.’ Her smile was genuine, but her heart was heavy. ‘Please don’t hurt him,’ Josie had said, and she had promised. But which hurt might be greater? To refuse him her friendship now, or to refuse him her love – as she knew she would have to – later? Whatever he might hope, Josie’s death had changed nothing. She smiled and excused herself, slipped with relief into the relative quiet of the kitchen. ‘Hello, Mrs Dobson – need a hand with the washing up?’
* * *
Hannah, nursing the small pleasure of a cheering secret, was waiting in the parlour for Sally to return when she heard the other girl’s footsteps in the yard and saw her light go on. Moving a little stiffly still because of her strapped ribs and shoulder she slipped quietly up the stairs, past the doors of the children’s dormitories, and tapped on the door. Sally opened it, surprise on her tired face. ‘Miss Hannah!’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake – I thought we’d dropped all that?’ Hannah smiled. ‘At least when we’re off duty. May I come in? I know you must be exhausted, but I promise I won’t stay. I just wanted a word with you.’
Sally opened the door wider, stepping back. The shapeless black hat she had borrowed from Hannah for the funeral lay upon the bed where she had tossed it a moment before. Her eyes were dark-shadowed.
‘Was it awful?’ Hannah asked with quick sympathy.
‘A bit, yes.’
‘I hate funerals. But then I suppose everyone does.’
Sally shook her head with the shadow of her wry smile. ‘Wrong. Everyone doesn’t. Some people can manage positively to enjoy them.’
‘Oh dear. Bad as that? Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘No thanks. I’m swimming in the stuff already.’ Politely Sally waited. She was dog tired and needed her bed.
Hannah took her cue. ‘Right. I just came to tell you that there’s a meeting tomorrow at the Caxton Hall, and we’ve been specially invited.’
‘I’m on duty tomorrow evening.’
Hannah shook her head briskly. ‘No you aren’t. I’ve arranged for Bron to swap with you. I’ll come for you at six. You will be ready?’
‘I—’ Sally moved her head a little helplessly. She could not think. The last thing she wanted to do was to organize tomorrow.
‘Of course you will. I won’t take “
no” for an answer. It will do you good.’
Sally gleamed a small smile. ‘If you say so, doctor.’
‘I do.’ With absent efficiency Hannah caught a capricious hairpin as it slid from the coils of her hair, pushed it firmly back. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Sally walked to the window, watched the brisk figure cross the courtyard. She rubbed her eyes tiredly. Strange. Death was such a momentous thing. Such a very terrible thing when it came to someone as young, as full of promise as Josie had been. And yet nothing really changed. Life went on, with just a small rent in its fabric to show where death had claimed his due, a rent that she knew, however miserably one might want to deny it at the time, would gradually heal, making the fabric whole again.
Sighing she threw off her clothes, leaving them in a scrambled heap on the floor as she turned down the lamp and crawled, bone-tired and aching, into bed.
Ben Patten, standing with his pipe in the deepest shadows of the yard saw the light flicker and dim. Sally was up later than usual this evening. Then he remembered. Of course. It had been the Dickson girl’s funeral today. He drew deeply on his pipe, determinedly ignoring the faint trembling of the hand that held it. Bloody shame that. Bloody waste. Interesting paper he’d found though, whilst studying the case – there had to be an answer, an antidote to the poisoning of the blood.
The obstinately logical workings of his mind jammed somewhere on the thought. Charlotte’s face, unhealthily plump and pale and fraught with tears and terror – as it had been moments before when he left her – hung accusingly in the darkness before him.
‘No!’ she had said, trembling and cowering from him, ‘I can’t! Don’t touch me! I won’t! It’s –it’s too soon – I can’t – please – don’t touch me!’ She had reeled away from him, her nightgown clutched across full breasts.
Tomorrow, Jerusalem Page 21