Quicksand (30 page)

 

 

At the top, the present day, there were a score to deal with. Eventually,
however, each last one was marked with some appropriate symbol of disaster;
when his imagination ran dry, he fell back on conventions and drew a
gallows and a skull. Thoughtfully he traced back the line, looking for
any course he might have taken that promised better, not worse.

 

 

-- Here? Iris breaking our engagement? Yes, that's the only one as far
as I can tell. I'd have been upset, but then . . . then I'd have met
some sensible young nurse at the first or second hospital I worked at,
and we'd have got married and she'd have gone on working until I was
appointed to a fairly well-paid post and then we'd have started on our
family and maybe this very moment I'd be looking forward to taking my
wife and baby son out for tea in a little village somewhere, in a beat-up
old Austin, and we'd be laughing and making plans and . . .

 

 

"Dr Fidler, are you proposing to continue the meeting by yourself?"

 

 

Holinshed, with maximum sarcasm, shuffling his papers into a file-cover
while everyone else dispersed towards the door. Blushing, Paul made to
do the same, but Holinshed snapped his fingers and gestured for him to
wait. He complied nervously.

 

 

"You were scarcely paying attention, Dr Fidler," Holinshed reproached
him directly the others had gone out of earshot, apart from Miss Laxham
tidying up the table. "You might just as well not have attended the
meeting, I feel."

 

 

Without waiting for Paul's reply, he stood up, his expression severe.
"Indeed, your work in general has hardly been outstanding during the
past few weeks. I have been reluctant to comment, but so many people are
bound to notice if you display this casual attitude during our committee
meetings that I feel I must tell you to pull yourself together."

 

 

-- Smug bastard.

 

 

"Have you ever been married?" Paul demanded.

 

 

"I know about your wife's . . . ah . . . departure. That's why I've been
giving you the benefit of the doubt lately."

 

 

"Have you?"

 

 

"I don't see what that has to do with it."

 

 

"If you had, you'd understand a little better. Perhaps."

 

 

"If I follow your meaning correctly," Holinshed snapped, "then I should also
request you to consider the consequences of having yourself closeted daily
for long periods with a young and not unattractive female patient. And
before you -- as I believe the current phrase goes -- blow your top, let
me stress that while I would not for a moment credit you with improper
intentions, patients in a mental hospital do find malicious gossip a
favourite pastime. It would be advantageous to all concerned if Dr Rudge
were to relieve you of Urchin's case."

 

 

"To all concerned?" Paul echoed, shaking. "To all except the patient,
that's more like it. The patient comes first, to my way of thinking."

 

 

"Are you not aware," Holinshed murmured, "that the young woman is now
generally referred to throughout this hospital by a . . . well . . .
scandalous nickname? I don't mean a humorous name comparable with
'Soppy Al' for Dr Alsop or my own epithet of 'Holy Joe!'"

 

 

-- Good grief. I always thought he was sublimely ignorant of Mirza's
inventions.

 

 

Aloud, Paul said, "What nickname? I've never heard of any."

 

 

"They call her . . ." Holinshed hesitated. "They call her the fiddler's
bitch."

 

 

 

 

The appointment for the X-ray this morning was at half past eleven.
An ambulance was waiting before the hospital, not far from where his own
car was parked, to take Urchin into Blickham, but it would be another
few minutes before it had to leave.

 

 

Paul stood beside it in brilliant sunshine, grateful for the excuse to
slip dark glasses on and hide his eyes from the ambulance driver with
whom he had to exchange casual chat for the sake of appearances. Since
there was no need for him to return to Chent today, he intended to follow
the ambulance in the car and drive straight home afterwards.

 

 

"Beautiful day," he half heard. "Taking the wife and kiddy out this
afternoon. Go for a swim in the river, perhaps. If the weather holds."
A critical squint at the sky. "Just my luck if they make me hang around
in Blickham till the sun goes in."

 

 

-- Fidler's bitch. It couldn't be something Mirza coined. Please not.
I could strangle whoever . . .

 

 

"They ought to be here any moment," he said mechanically. "Yes, I think
that's Nurse Davis bringing her now."

 

 

-- None too pleased, though. Row with boy-friend? Saturday work when
the sun's out?

 

 

"Good morning, Urchin!"

 

 

"Good morning, Dr Paul."

 

 

-- Has she been called that? Wouldn't hurt her. Wouldn't know the English
overtones of "bitch."

 

 

There was a sense of pressure in his head, as though his skull were
fragmenting into a pattern like dried clay under the heat of the day and
would spill his secret thoughts naked for all the world to see when it
ultimately spilt.

 

 

"You're coming with us, Doctor?" Nurse Davis asked, her voice
uncharacteristically sharp. The driver was opening the rear doors to
let Urchin climb in, which she did with a wistful glance at the gardens
around.

 

 

"I'll join you there. I'm going in my car."

 

 

"I see." A bite on her lower lip, disappointed.

 

 

"What's the matter, Nurse?"

 

 

"Well . . . I just hope they don't keep us too long." She hesitated, then
burst out in a fit of frankness. "I'm supposed to be off at lunch-time,
see, so I arranged for a friend to meet me, and I thought maybe if you
were riding in the ambulance . . . But it doesn't matter."

 

 

She climbed up after Urchin and the driver shut the doors with a thud.
The sound made echoes in the emptiness of Paul's mind.

 

 

-- Eager for her date, the executive-type young man, maybe. And taking the
wife and kiddy for a swim in the river. Me? The summer sun on textbooks
making my head ache. This is the worst summer of my life. Mirza going
away, Iris gone, the child . . . probably gone. I have nothing left but
the vision of a non-existent world called Llanraw, and they will take
even that from me.

 

 

He was scarcely aware that he had covered the distance between Client
and Blickham General; his perceptions faded, and came back to him only
when he was helping Urchin from the ambulance on their arrival. Then
she looked up at the clear blue above and sighed.

 

 

"Something wrong, Urchin?" he demanded, nervous for fear his calming and
persuasion was about to collapse before the impact of her blind terror.

 

 

"I wish . . ."

 

 

"What?"

 

 

"I wish I could go out and see," she said, and responded to Nurse Davis's
impatience, walking quietly beside her into the building to keep the time
of the appointment: a pathetic sagging doll in a plain rather ugly cotton
dress and clumsy heavy shoes.

 

 

-- It's beginning to tell on her. To look through bars at the summer sky:
isn't that enough to wear down anyone?

 

 

The same young houseman was on duty as last time, and he was equally
harassed. He was no less apologetic, moreover. Today the schedule had
been shot to hell by a horse that had kicked two men, trampled another,
and had to be destroyed -- but the only weapon available had been a
shotgun, and an innocent bystander had been peppered in the leg.

 

 

It would mean a wait of at least half an hour.

 

 

For a long moment Paul thought about barred windows and Llanraw. His
eyes were on Nurse Davis's face, hating the way her ever-smiling mouth
now set in a disappointed line, and hearing in imagination the cry of
a child promised a trip in the country but growing fractious with delay.

 

 

He said, "Go and tell the driver to run you home, Nurse. I'll bring Urchin
back to Chent in my car."

 

 

-- I said it. I must have been preparing to say it while I was on the way
here. That was why my mind seemed to hold nothing at all. There's no law,
for heaven's sake! She's not certified, she isn't even legally a voluntary
patient, just someone stuck in Chent because it came handy. Watch the
brown face; does it look "ah-hah!"?

 

 

But all it did was smile dazzlingly.

 

 

"Are you sure, Doctor? I mean, is that all right?"

 

 

"Go on," he said gruffly. "Before I change my mind."

 

 

For a moment he thought she was going to hug him; instead, she poured
out thanks and spun on her heel.

 

 

The houseman was regarding Urchin dubiously. "Is it all right?"
he murmured to Paul. "Last time, you know, she -- "

 

 

"There's been all the improvement in the world," Paul snapped.

 

 

"I'll have a male nurse standing by anyway," the houseman said. "Just
in case. That is, if you don't mind!"

 

 

-- Don't let me down, girl. Don't let me down.

 

 

She didn't. Wary, they let her look the equipment over first, which she
did with something more than curiosity; then she shrugged and settled into
the correct position for the pictures to be taken. She seemed relaxed;
Paul thought that perhaps only he could detect the effort she was making
to appear so.

 

 

By the time everything was concluded and arrangements had been made for
the delivery of the plates to Chent, the hospital's morning routine was at
an end. Nurses going off duty crowded the corridor which they followed to
the exit, gaudy in fashionable summer dresses, wispy translucent garments
sleeveless and high above the knee, two or three of them accompanied by
boy-friends in open shirts and brilliant chokers. They crossed the yard
among the parked cars to join a flow of shoppers short-cutting down the
street towards the bus station a hundred yards away.

 

 

Urchin stopped in the doorway, and Paul, sensing her mood, halted
beside her.

 

 

After a while, having stared long and long at the passing crowd: "Paul,
I have been here months and all I have seen of your world is on the
television. I have not even seen one of your towns."

 

 

"I'm afraid . . ."

 

 

The words died.

 

 

-- No, whatever the consequences, it Isn't right that she should think
there's nothing better than squalid Chent and war and prison in this world
of mine. There are scraps of happiness. Other patients have relatives
to call and take them out at weekends. She has no one. I have no one.

 

 

He took her arm and led her past the car, feeling drunk with defiance.

 

 

-- If a patient can't safely go out in the charge of her doctor, it's
not worth being a doctor. The hell with you, Holy Joe. The fiddler is
taking his bitch for a walk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*35*

 

 

At first he was on guard, alert for any attempt she might make to dart away
from him. But very shortly he relaxed and began to enjoy himself. She was
so delighted that she almost skipped along the pavement, like a girl
on holiday from a detested school. It was the literal childishness of
her behaviour that touched him: staring without self-consciousness at
the passers-by, stopping every few yards to peer into a shop window and
demand explanations of what she saw there.

 

 

Blickham was never an attractive town, but today the weather made it
less than ugly. He took her down the most inoffensive streets, showing
her the Elizabethan town hall and two or three other special sights,
but after a while gave up wondering what else to head for. Her uncritical
fascination with everything in the town was giving her sufficient reward.

 

 

An hour or so later, he began to feel hungry. There was the problem of
her rigid vegetarianism to bear in mind, he realised, and thought about
that for a minute or two before recalling a Chinese restaurant where he
had occasionally lunched with Alsop prior to a Monday afternoon clinic.
It was not far from where they had come to now.

 

 

Turning to suggest they should eat, he became aware of Urchin at his side,
despondent in sharp contrast to her earlier elation.

 

 

"Something wrong?" he demanded, alarmed.

 

 

"No, no. You were going to say something?"

 

 

"I thought we should have some lunch. I know a place where you can have
a meal without meat."

 

 

Nodding, she walked where he led her, in silence. Eventually, when they
had passed several more people, she said, "Paul!"

 

 

"Yes?"

 

 

"The people look at me in such a strange way. Why?"

 

 

Startled, he looked at her himself. Abruptly he snapped his fingers.

 

 

-- Good lord! In that oversized bag of a dress, those clumping great
shoes, she must strike everyone as fresh out of jail or something.

 

 

He halted and stared around.

 

 

-- Mustn't let anything so ridiculous spoil the day for her. She won't
know what sizes she takes in anything. What do I do, buy a tape-measure?
No, the hell with it. I treat her like a kid. I feel like a father.
I feel . . . God damn it, I feel proud.