Cruel Legacy

'H
eard
the latest?' the nurse coming on to the ward asked. Sally Bruton paused in her task of checking the charts at the end of the patient's bed, frowning a little as she saw that the specialist had increased the man's dosage of antibiotics.

Joseph O'Malley was sixty-eight and not recovering as well from his operation as he should have been doing. When Sally was on duty in Men's Surgical she tried to find extra time to sit and talk to him. She had noticed that he didn't appear to have any family, or any friends. She winced tiredly as she straightened up and turned round to answer the other nurse's question.

'What latest?' she asked her.

'A suicide,' the woman told her. 'Some man in a big, posh car. I heard about it on the way in. Wonder what made him do it... What time are you due off?' she asked Sally, changing the subject.

'Half an hour ago,' Sally told her drily. She had had to stay on because the nurse relieving her was late and there had been so many cutbacks recently that there had been no one to cover for her.

Not that, if she was honest with herself, she really minded working that extra couple of hours. It meant that when she got home Joel would have gone to work.

It had been a long week; they had had three emergency admissions and, although she was flattered by Sister's praise of her competence and ability to cope under pressure, there was no doubt that the work was very tiring.

She had hinted to her that the hospital would like her to consider working more hours...perhaps even full-time, and she already knew how Joel would react to that! It had been bad enough when she had told him that she was coming back to work part-time.

'We need the money,' she had told him, ignoring his set expression.

'No, we don't. I'll put in for extra overtime,' he had told her stubbornly.

But then Kilcoyne's had gone on short time and he had been forced to concede that she was right. The loan he had taken out for his new car and the garage they had had built to house it had meant that they couldn't possibly manage on his basic wage; not that he had been too pleased to hear her say it.

Yes, she was glad when she was asked to work some extra hours.

Normally, when she got back, Joel was still in bed. In bed, but awake... Her mind shied abruptly away from her thoughts. She was too tired, had too many other things to worry about to spend time dwelling on the sexual hostility that had developed between her and Joel.

Already she could feel her body tensing in rejection, the familiar despair and resentment sweeping over her.

Why couldn't Joel understand that... ?

The sound of a patient's bell from further down the ward interrupted her thoughts and sent her to find out what was wrong.

The ward doors opened and in the corridor she saw a small posse of men, two in police uniform and with them the hospital's pathologist... no doubt on their way to the morgue and the suicide Pat had mentioned.

Sally gave a small shiver. She was a nurse, trained to preserve and nurture life. The man who had killed himself— had he had a family... children... a wife, a woman who right now was lying alone in bed, wondering where her husband was... missing the warmth and intimacy of his body next to hers, or was she more like her... did she too... ?

Abruptly, Sally switched off her thoughts as she reached out to straighten her patient's bed and retrieve the glasses he had dropped.

Deborah Franklin stretched out her arm sleepily, moving luxuriously in the bed, a small smile curling her mouth. Last night had been so good. Her body still ached gently from their lovemaking; when she touched her skin, it felt sensually alive and femininely soft. She and Mark had always been good together in bed. Good together in every way. She was so lucky... she had worked hard to achieve her luck, though.

'And Ryan said that he was very pleased with what I'd done. He hinted that there could be mora in it for me than just an extra bonus, Mark... He didn't say so outright, but I'm almost sure I'm going to get a promotion out of it.'

'Good for you,' Mark had grunted.

She had laughed good-naturedly. Men never really wanted to talk after sex and she couldn't really blame Mark for being tired.

She'd been on a real high, buoyed up by her boss's praise and the tantalising hints he'd thrown about the possible consequences of her hard work. She'd never been coy about expressing her sexual needs; why should she be? Mark and she were equals in all respects. Admittedly, he was that little bit ahead of her up the career ladder, but then he had joined the partnership before her. In fact, he had been the one to suggest that she leave her previous firm and apply for her present post.

'Why don't
you
put in for it if it's so good?' she had asked him then. He had shaken his head.

'Receivership and insolvency work isn't in my field. I prefer creation, not destruction...'

'A good receiver can keep a company going...' she had protested.

'A receiver, yes... a liquidator, no.'

Deborah had smiled. They had met at university, both of them headed for the fast track. Even then she had set her sights ultimately on a partnership within a large firm of accountants while Mark had wanted a life out of London, finance director on the board of some prosperous Midlands company, perhaps.

As he walked back into the bedroom, she smiled invitingly up at him, patting the empty space next to her in bed.

'Oh, no... not again,' he protested.

Deborah laughed, but Mark wasn't laughing with her, she recognised. He was frowning, turning away from the bed and opening a drawer, extracting clean underwear.

'Mark...'

'I'm sorry, Deborah, but I promised Peter I'd be in early this morning...'

'Are you sure I can't persuade you to change your mind?' she teased him, flirting her fingertips against his stomach and then withdrawing slightly as she felt his body tense.

'What is it, what's wrong?' she asked him quietly.

'Nothing... Look, I'm sorry I have to go but...'

'I know, you promised Peter, but since when has your department been so busy that you need to go in early?' she asked him wryly. 'As I understand it, that side of the business has been hit pretty badly by the recession. You said yourself——'

'Look, Deborah, I know you're feeling pretty pleased with yourself, and I'm pleased for you, but just give the gloating a break for a little while, will you?'

Open-mouthed, Deborah stared after his retreating back.

What did he mean, gloating? She hadn't been gloating... she had simply wanted him to share her excitement, her pleasure.. .her pride in what she had achieved. Gloating... That was the kind of language men used to put women down, but Mark had never been like that. That was one of the reasons she loved him so much. He had always accepted her equality. He had always praised and encouraged her.

He came back into the bedroom, his thick fair hair neatly brushed into shape, and removed a clean shirt from the wardrobe. He then bent to switch on the radio, turning the sound up so that she would have had to raise her voice to speak to him above it.

What was wrong with him this morning?

As she watched him, the newsreader was announcing a suicide, a man found dead in his car. Deborah heard the

item without paying it too much attention. It was a depressingly common event these days, and besides, she was much more concerned about Mark's comment to her than she was about the death of an unknown man.

'Bad night?' Elizabeth Humphries asked her husband sympathetically as he let himself into the kitchen. He had been called out on an emergency at two o'clock, a bad accident on the bypass, a young boy on a motorbike with serious injuries.

'With luck he'll make it.. .just, although for a time it was touch and go... His left arm was severed and some ribs were broken, causing internal injuries. Luckily someone had had the forethought to pack the arm in ice. Twenty years ago, ten years ago even, it would have been impossible for us to reattach it. Surgery's come a hell of a long way since I first started practising. Not that there's any way I could have done an intricate operation like that.'

'Micro-surgery is not your speciality,' she reminded him. 'But without all the hard work you put in fund-raising, the hospital wouldn't have a micro-surgery unit.'

'I know, I know, but sometimes it makes me feel old, watching these youngsters.'

'You're not old,' she protested. He was three months away from his fifty-fifth birthday. She was five years younger.

They had been married for twenty-eight years and she still loved him as much now as she had done then, albeit in a different way.

'You should be in bed,' he told her. 'Isn't today one of your days at the Citizens Advice Bureau... ?'

'Yes.'

No matter how busy he was, how overworked, he always seemed to find time to remember what she was doing. He had been the one who'd encouraged her to do voluntary work when their daughter had first left home.

She had been afraid then, convinced that her services wouldn't be wanted. Now, with the problems caused by the

recession, they were busier than they had ever been, so busy, in fact...

She frowned as she heard him saying tiredly, 'We had another emergency tonight... not one we were able to do anything about, unfortunately. A suicide.'

'Oh, poor man!' she exclaimed, putting down the teapot.

'You spoil me, you know,' he told her as she poured him a second cup of tea.

She laughed at him. 'I enjoy doing it. Sara rang. She thinks Katie has chickenpox.'

'Oh, lord. Well, a few spots won't hurt her.'

'No, but Ian is already panicking. You know what doctors are like about their own families.'

'I should do... after all, I am one.'

They both laughed.

'Do you remember the time Sara fell off the swing and broke her arm? You were in a worse state than she was. "It's broken, Daddy," she said. "You'll have to set it.'"

'Yes, I remember... I was shaking so much I didn't dare touch her and you had to splint it in the end. Some surgeon. Some father.'

'The best,' she told him lovingly, rubbing her face against his head.

'I hope that young lad survives,' he told her more seriously. 'It's always such a damn waste when we lose a young life like that. Sometimes I think I'm getting too old for this job, too emotional. A surgeon shouldn't have emotions.'

'If you didn't care so much you wouldn't be such a good surgeon,' she told him fiercely. 'People trust you, Richard. And with good reason.'

'I wonder what made him do it?'

'What? Oh—speeding... the usual thing...'

'No, not him, the man who killed himself. Such a dreadful thing to do, to end one's life...'

'Mmm, it's ended for him, but for those closest to him... for his family it's just beginning, poor devils.'

Philippa opened her eyes warily. Andrew's side of the bed was empty and cold. She shivered slightly, although not because she missed his presence beside her; that side of their marriage had soured into dull habit ages ago, after Daniel was bora.

No, it wasn't his sexual presence in their bed that she missed.

He had been acting so oddly lately. He had never been easy to talk to at the best of times, hating any hint that she might be questioning his decisions... his dictates, as Rory had rebeliiously begun to call them. She had hated it when he had insisted on the boys going to boarding-school, but perhaps it had been for the best. When they were at home it was obvious that they were aware of the atmosphere in the house.. .the tension...Andrew's irritation.

At half-term he had really lost his temper with Rory. What the hell did he do with his clothes? he had demanded. Didn't he realise how much things cost? And what about her... ? Why didn't she see to it that the boys had a more responsible attitude towards their possessions, and why the hell couldn't she stop them from making so much damned noise? Wasn't it enough that he provided her and them with every luxury they could want, breaking his back, working damn near twenty-four hours a day? Ail he wanted when he came home, all he asked in return was a bit of peace and quiet, a home where he could bring his colleagues and clients without feeling ashamed.

Other wives, he had told her bitterly, managed far better than she did. She had stopped herself from pointing out that other wives probably also knew exactly when their husbands were due home... but over the years she had iearned the uselessness of trying to argue with him when he lost his temper.

Wasn't it enough, he had raged, that he worked his bollocks off to provide her with one of the most expensive and impressive houses in the area, a new car every year, and a lifestyle that all their friends envied?