A Woman's Place (47 page)

The two chatted easily on the short journey to Elaine's flat past the windows of the Army and Navy store. It was a long time since she had walked home. With red boxes tucked beside her the official transport was justified, and security demanded it, but the shared conversation at the end of a long stretch was ever welcome. It took the place, Elaine realised, of the loving exchange which had once occurred between her husband Mike and herself, that pause before bed that put the day's work in perspective and used to prepare her for sleep.

‘Minister, you'll have to do without me for a few days. I'm on leave tomorrow,' Sheila announced as she pulled into Elaine's street. Something in her tone made her boss look up.

‘Everything all right?'

‘It is now.' Sheila sat quietly. ‘My old man died during the night. I heard this morning. I could have gone right away, but there was no point – the funeral isn't till Thursday and his mother is coping beautifully. I'll be back next week.'

Elaine put a hand on the uniformed shoulder, which sagged as she squeezed it. ‘I am so sorry, Sheila,' she said softly. ‘It wasn't a surprise, though, was it?'

‘Yes and no.' Sheila's voice was nearly inaudible. ‘Of course we'd been expecting it any minute. But still – when I get to his ma's, that'll be it. He's gone. Never see him again. I suppose
that's why I didn't fly there immediately wanted to get a bit used to the idea, like.'

With a brusque movement she got out and held Elaine's door open for her. Elaine slid over, her head bent. Boxes were lifted out and deposited at her side. Minister and driver found themselves face to face awkwardly on the pavement.

Sheila shrugged. ‘Well, I'm a widow lady now. On my own. You and me both.' She uttered a short laugh full of desolation. The lamplight showed tears glistening on her cheeks.

Elaine bit her lip. ‘It's not the same. Mine is still alive. I could bump into him any time. And I know he's well and happy. Without me.'

‘Maybe that's worse,' Sheila muttered. The women's eyes met. Elaine put out her hand. For an instant the two clung to each other as equals and friends.

A sense of unseemliness asserted itself and both were embarrassed. Clumsily they separated; empty words were murmured. Then Sheila climbed into the Rover and, staring rigidly forward, drove away.

‘I can't put it off any longer. I have to get this speech for the MIND conference rewritten and submitted for clearance, then sent out as a press release. So what exactly am I to say?'

In her office at the department Elaine faced a group of unhappy advisers. Several distinguished faces, familiar to readers of
Care Weekly
and
Social Work Today
but unknown to a wider audience, sat opposite, their expressions glum. At her side Private Secretary Fiona Murray took notes in a large ruled book, the idiosyncratic method favoured at the Civil Service College. Chadwick impassively occupied one end of the table. Directly facing the Minister was the formidable Miss Clarkson, short, dumpy, harassed and kind, a red scarf at her throat and earrings a-dangle, who led the mental health team.

‘But Minister – we're nowhere near agreement for a new line on these hospital closures.' Miss Clarkson leaned forward anxiously. The first, rejected draft speech lay on the table. She pushed away an empty coffee-cup. ‘The inter-departmental working group set up by the Prime Minister has met several times. However, we can make no progress against … er' – she sought for a suitably tactful term, and gave up –'complete obduracy by the Treasury.'

‘But the community care programme is costing us a ruddy fortune, and it doesn't work!' Elaine thumped the table in frustration. ‘People slip through the net every day. The wards are full to bursting. Seriously ill patients have to be turfed out early to make room for the next batch, who happen to be worse.' Officials dropped their eyes and shuffled papers. Some at least, she suspected, sympathised. That did not mean instant acquiescence. ‘Those are not just my views. They're the conclusions in inquiry after inquiry. Usually when somebody's been
murdered
.'

Miss Clarkson winced. ‘Minister, we have taken on board your private wish to halt the closure programme. As you know, we do not all agree with that view. Care in the community is helping a great many people to a more normal life. However, you do need to appreciate the way these budgets work.'

‘I'm listening. Tell me.' Elaine allowed herself to sound belligerent.

Patiently Miss Clarkson attempted to elucidate Health Service funding: ‘providers' and ‘purchasers', ‘health authorities', ‘boards', ‘trusts' and ‘fund-holding general practices' littered her sentences. Elaine felt her eyes glaze over.

‘All I know is that I'm tired of explaining away twenty thousand more well-paid managers in the NHS in the last five years when old ladies are sleeping on trolleys in corridors and mentally ill patients are roaming the streets.'

She glared around to see who would wilt under the onslaught. Most shrank from her gaze. A
reputation for fierceness in discussion did her no harm, she reckoned: like Margaret Thatcher, she sought only a solid basis of facts from those who would dispute with her, and was ready to be convinced. But not by the woolliness on offer this morning.

Miss Clarkson waffled gamely for a few minutes but refrained from comment. Whoever had dreamed up the complexities which baffled the Minister could answer for them, not her.

Elaine sighed. ‘Look, the MIND people are in favour of the closure of most of the old mental hospitals. Some of their supporters have had horrendous experiences in psychiatric hospitals and I don't blame them. But in truth they're not happy about
any
form of compulsory treatment outside either, which is our best alternative. They claim that strong medication carries risks too, and that's correct. I can see that patients are people first and have rights; but I can't see how leaving them untreated protects those rights. Or those of anybody else.'

Fiona nudged her elbow and pointed down the page.

‘And my secretary reminds me that I am obliged to take a decision before the end of the month on the closure of St Kitts. It's in the constituency next door to mine. I'm under pressure to pay a visit. I've been before, but years ago. Any guidance there, please?'

Chadwick cleared his throat. ‘The land has already been sold, I'm afraid, Minister. The developer is pressing for vacant possession.'

‘Bloody hell,' Elaine muttered. She raised her head. ‘Then I will go. At least I can take responsibility.' She resisted the temptation to ask why a ministerial signature was required if the matter had been sewn up. ‘We have, I assume, created superb new facilities to rehouse the patients? That is our policy.'

‘There are hardly any patients left there,' Chadwick sidestepped neatly. ‘We've been trying to close that place for ten years. It's had no money spent on it and much of the building is unusable. You remember the fuss about the new hostel? Well, that was part of the replacement.'

‘It houses only thirty men, all officially temporary residents. The hospital held … oh, I don't know why I bother.'

For a moment she felt close to tears. Miss Clarkson came to her rescue. ‘Minister, there is an opportunity in this speech to voice … shall we say … misgivings. We will prepare a fresh draft for you. The Secretary of State must see it, of course. Shall we put it in your box tomorrow night?'

With a heavy heart Elaine brought the discussion to an end. As the experts were shown out by Fiona, Chadwick returned to the room and sat down quickly beside her. He indicated the rejected draft.

‘Do you want it leaked? Might help establish your position.'

She recoiled, shocked. ‘I don't think I heard that. If I'm to get a shift in policy I'd rather do it properly. Open and above board. Preferably with the full approval of the Secretary of State and Prime Minister.' His face was expressionless. ‘Thank you for trying, though. I appreciate it.'

Chadwick rose and moved languidly to the door. ‘You know I have no views on policy – that's for Ministers to decide. I just don't want any more trouble in this department. You're an excellent Minister, if you don't mind my saying so. You'll weather this storm. Probably by saying less rather than more.'

With that he slid out of the room and shut the door.

Elaine sat for a while longer and brooded. Chadwick's hint was timely. It would be far better to make a bland speech. It would be sounder politics to shut the damned hospital at once without going anywhere near it. The best approach was as in warfare: heads down, not poking up over the parapet, not with lethal ballistics whistling around. She sensed how little she might know. The developer was probably a supporter of the party with a handsome donation in the pipeline. That wasn't corrupt – merely an indication that he knew which side his bread was buttered. A Labour government would close the hospital too, but the land would go for a car park or soulless municipal
flats. The patients, voiceless and usually voteless, counted for nothing.

Derek Harrison helped himself to a peach from the large fruit display and bit carefully into its yellow flesh. In January they must have come from somewhere exotic: Chile, or South Africa. The picture of dusty farms under a southern sun brought a wistful memory. What a pity the regime in Jo'burg no longer needed caring right-wingers like himself and John Carlisle. The years had long passed when a powerful speech against sanctions led to free palm-fringed holidays in the sun. These days it was pay your own fare to watch the rugby or nothing.

He was reduced to lunching with British businessmen with a line to spin. At least he could name his location: the linen-covered tables in the airy conservatory of the Lanesborough Hotel at Hyde Park, the most expensive in town. The tinkle of its central fountains covered all indiscretions. Lazier Members of the House did not get this far. He wiped his fingers on a napkin and pushed away his plate.

‘Now you didn't invite me here simply to tell me the gossip, Giles.' He smiled.

The substantial gentleman opposite in a well-cut suit twiddled with his coffee-spoon. ‘You're an important personage now, Derek. Oh, you were before, as a Minister. But you can roam a little more widely. Though, as it happens, my interest is in your former department. The health side. A piece of real estate. Used to be St Kitts Hospital. Know where I mean?'

Harrison screwed up his face. He could not remember any details at all, but he would be the first to admit that his perusal of departmental papers during his period in office had been at best skimpy. ‘Go on – I'm listening.'

A waiter hovered, offered coffee, cigars, brandy. Derek hesitated briefly – it was only lunchtime – then accepted a cigar. His host followed. For several moments both men puffed contentedly as the fragrant smoke hid their faces.

His companion bent the match and tossed it into a saucer. ‘It's empty now apart from a few gaga types who are due to move any minute. The problem is your friend Mrs Stalker. Got cold feet, it seems. Won't sign to close it.'

‘You're interested in the development?'

A shrug. ‘Not directly. As chairman of the health authority I have to be careful. But we need the funds released – the revenue. The bills won't wait on that lady's scruples.'

‘What are you going to use the money for? I mean, it helps if it's for more eye operations and the like.'

‘It is.' The chairman reached for a heavy glass ashtray and knocked his ash into it. ‘But I also have a new administrator at seventy-five grand, and fourteen board directors at ten each, and there's my honorarium – and we've around thirty more bods doing accounts and reports and the like we didn't need when that closure was planned. We're talking a million revenue shortfall this year, Derek, unless I can get a transfer of funds. Pronto.'

Derek Harrison examined the glowing butt of his cigar. ‘Interesting,' he murmured. Then he grinned at his friend. ‘Leave it to me.'

He wished he were taller. It was a huge effort to see what was happening over the crowded shoulders in front of him. The air was chill; breath hung on it like frost. The muddy ground beneath his feet slithered and he could get no foothold on the wet grass. A woman in a dirty green coat slipped and grabbed hold of his arm but he brushed her off. He was glad he had brought his protection. It might be needed.

The shouts were spasmodic at first – only the union organiser in front with his megaphone,
trying but failing to whip up a frenzy. Police in yellow Day-glo jackets looked bored but adjusted the straps of their helmets tighter under their chins, their gaze sweeping the crowd. A superintendent in a tight uniform larded with braid barked orders into a mobile phone. At a guess fewer than two hundred people were present, but their continual movement in the narrow entry road to the hospital made their numbers difficult to judge and tricky to control.

As the afternoon light faded, spotlights were switched on, blinding in their sudden intensity. Television cameramen milled around for editing shots. A presenter smoothed his pale hopsack jacket and grimaced with distaste at the dank edifice behind him, where weeds grew out of gutters and windows were cracked and boarded up. He had no desire to go any further and particularly not to meet any of the hospital's remaining occupants.

The union organiser pushed forward, was singled out, interviewed and encouraged to denounce the government. Young women in red plastic macs and impractical short skirts clutched microphones in cold hands and prodded demonstrators into articulation. Photographers arranged giggling groups with their placards in the doorway, ‘
SAVE ST KITTS
' was to be the message on the following morning's front pages.

The Minister was due at three. Tension rose and shouting began. At five minutes to the hour the main hospital doors opened. To loud cheers out came a phalanx of male psychiatric nurses in
off-white
tunics accompanied by workmen in boiler suits, dinner ladies in check aprons and cleaners swinging buckets and mops. Behind them, after a suitably pregnant pause, emerged the doctors, male and female, in white coats. The new groups swelled the massed ranks and started a ragged chant. The police superintendent stepped back, spoke rapidly into his phone and began to look alarmed.