Seven Dials (35 page)

‘I’ll try,’ she said and then once again sat up more upright. ‘Please, don’t call me Mrs Lucas. It’s happened and I’ll do the best I can – but I don’t want to tell more lies than I must –’

‘I’m sorry. I was – perhaps anticipating the future a little. I’m sorry. Now shall I talk to Mr Croxley for you, quietly? You can trust him, you know.’

‘No thank you.’ She reached for the dressing-gown that was lying on the chair beside her bed. ‘I’ll make arrangements for myself. No, don’t worry. I’ll see someone. I know the sort of care I need, and I’ll see I get it–’

She stood up and he helped her get out of bed and she stood there, barefoot beside him, tying the girdle of her dressing-gown.

‘Then I’ll tell Sister Battleaxe that you can leave her prison, shall I? You’re feeling tolerably well, I take it?’

She laughed a little grimly. ‘As well as can be expected.’

‘Good, I’ll write up some blood tests for you, so that you can take the results to whichever consultant you choose, and – well, I’m always here if you need me.’ He held out his hand once more and this time she shook it with real gratitude.

‘You’ve been very kind,’ she said. ‘I’m – please accept my apologies if I was at all rude.’

‘You weren’t. Far from it. I’ve only one regret, actually.’

She lifted her brows at him, questioning.

‘I’d like to get my hands on that bloody man who left you like this. To knock some sense into him. He obviously has no idea what he’s letting slip through his half-witted fingers. Goodbye, my dear. And very good luck to you.’

And to her amazement he bent and kissed her cheek briefly and then went, quietly closing the door behind him.

Max had spent over two hours with Miss Curtis since lunchtime and was, to say the least, tired. It wasn’t the amount of work they’d done, though that had been considerable; it was the sheer effort of dealing with her enthusiasm for him and her fierce protectiveness of him. There were times he could shake her for being so solicitous, but of course he couldn’t do that. She was a hardworking and efficient woman, deeply concerned with his and the hospital’s welfare, and for that reason had to be tolerated. But it wasn’t easy.

His tiredness did make him irritable with other people, however, even though he was as always very controlled with Miss Curtis, and when Brocklesby put his head round the door of the small office and announced with an air of great portentousness that he would like to have a quick word with Dr Lackland, if he didn’t mind, sir, on a matter of importance, private like, he made no effort to stop Miss Curtis when she surged to her feet with great outrage and told Brocklesby shrilly that he had no right to disturb Dr Lackland in his private office when he was busy.

‘If you have any messages to give the doctor,’ she said firmly, ushering Brocklesby out of the office like a hen with an intrusive duckling to get rid of, ‘you can tell me’, and she closed the door firmly behind her so that Max could hear no more, but he didn’t care, glad to be rid of her for a few moments.

He leaned back in his chair and stretched. He’d be able to leave in another hour or so, God willing, and after going straight to Leinster Terrace to check on his father – whose high colour and over-bright eyes had worried him a good deal this morning – he’d be able to get home and to bed for an early night.

He certainly needed it; he’d been sleeping badly and though
that was something he ought to be used to by now, the nature of his sleeplessness was changing. He found himself thinking more and more about Charlotte Lucas, and less about Emilia, though thoughts of her still threaded their way through his days and nights.

The thoughts he was having about Charlotte upset him a good deal. He had always prided himself on his tact, his ability to enter into other people’s feelings, to empathize, help them to feel better; was not that the essential gift of the psychiatrist, after all? Yet with Charlotte Lucas all that failed. With her he was tactless, harsh, unfeeling; he must be, for why else would she always react to him with such hostility? He still could feel the sense of cold rejection that had filled him when she had so peremptorily refused his care the other evening even though she had been obviously ill. And his anxiety had sharpened as he thought of that illness, and wondered what it was that made her so pale and hollow-eyed.

He shook his head to rid himself of these obtrusive thoughts and turned back to the letters still remaining to be dealt with, irritably aware of the voices of Miss Curtis and Brocklesby locked in some sort of wrangle outside his door and he was about to get to his feet and go out to see for himself what was going on when she returned to the room, snapping the door behind her, with her colour high in her cheeks and obviously very put about by what the hall porter had said to her.

‘That man,’ she said in ringing tones that prodded into greater intensity the faint headache Max already had, ‘is extremely rude, extremely.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Max said wearily, not sure whether he was commiserating or apologizing. ‘You can make a complaint to the Secretary of course, if you feel that’s necessary. The portering staff are part of Mr Molloy’s department. I can’t intervene, of course. What did he want?’

‘That’s the thing – he flatly refused to tell me, said it was personal and none of my affair, and if I wouldn’t let him in then he’d keep his information to himself. I told him if he had any information you needed it was his duty to tell you, and that he could make an appointment if he wanted, but he was just thoroughly rude and still wouldn’t say what it was you had to be told and said if anything happened as a result it would all be my fault and –’

‘Well, I dare say it will all sort itself out,’ Max said vaguely, bored by her chatter and by all the fuss. ‘Now, if we can finish these letters, I’d be grateful. I want to get away as soon as I can –’

At once she was a whirlwind of busyness and he tried to relax and not let her get on his nerves so much, but it wasn’t easy; everything about her set his teeth on edge this afternoon, but he bent his head and began to dictate, and she sat there, her pencil whispering importantly on her notebook and her lips pursed with concentration, as he got the words out as quickly as he could.

One of the letters demanded a long case history to be outlined, and he was doing his best to concentrate, but it grew difficult as he became aware of distant sounds outside his door. There were calls from one voice to another and the loud rattle of the lift gate and the sound of rushing feet and at last his irritation boiled over and he threw back his chair in a temper and went to the door and flung it open.

‘What the blazes is going on out here?’ he called as he went out into the corridor. ‘I’m trying to work and I can barely hear myself think with all the racket that’s going on –’

‘Oh, you’re there!’ someone said in a surprised tone and he peered into the dim light of the corridor, which had windows only at the far end to illuminate it. ‘I understood that you’d left and no one could get a message to you –’

‘Who’s that?’ Max said sharply and then as the figure moved closer added, ‘Oh, Brodie! What
is
the matter? People shouting and running –’

‘I thought someone had told you,’ Brodie said again and he looked uncertain and confused, very unlike his usual self. ‘I’m afraid, it’s not good –’

‘What isn’t good? Damn it, man, what is going on?’

‘It’s your father, Dr Lackland. I got a message to say he had arrived and that he wanted to see me and Molloy at once and –’

Max stared at him. ‘My
father?
Here? But he can’t be! He’s not well enough! I told you that this morning – he’s ill, or he’d have been at the Board of Governors’ meeting.’

‘That’s the point, Dr Lackland. When I heard he was here, I didn’t believe it either, but then my secretary assured me he was, that he’d gone up to the boardroom and seemed very agitated, and that I was to see him – and when I got there –’

Max had come out into the corridor now and was walking quickly in the direction of the staircase and the boardroom and Brodie fell into step beside him.

‘When I got there I saw at once he wasn’t well and sent for the physician on duty tonight. Dr Forester’s out of London for the weekend, it seems, and so is Dr –’

‘Why wasn’t I told he was here?’ Max said savagely as he reached the stairs and ran up them two at a time. ‘What were you all thinking of not to let me know?’

‘I was told you weren’t here,’ Brodie said again. ‘Or at least I think that’s what he – Brocklesby –. When I said someone was to find you, he said he’d tried to get a message to you and he couldn’t, so there was nothing anyone could do –’

‘Brocklesby?’ Max said, and frowned, as he at last reached the boardroom door and pushed it open, and then stopped short on the threshold and stared at the tableau that met his shocked gaze.

His father was lying on his back on the floor and breathing heavily, making thick stertorous noises in his thoat. Kneeling beside him was Charlotte Lucas, leaning forwards as she listened with great concentration to her stethoscope. Grouped behind her were Molloy, his face quite flat and expressionless as he stared down, and Brocklesby, who had a look of avid excitement on his face. Another porter stood on the other side with an oxygen cylinder on a stand, and he was also leaning forwards in a state of excited interest, while beside him a nurse stood poised with a kidney dish in one hand and a dressing towel in the other.

It seemed to Max that the whole scene was imprinted on his vision in that split second of looking and indeed it was to be a long time before he would forget every detail of it. But then the stillness of it broke as Charlotte looked up and said to the porter, ‘Now – let me have the mask, and nurse, turn the oxygen on to about – yes, that will do – no more at the moment.’ And the nurse moved forwards and broke the pattern of immobility that had held Max in the doorway.

He started forwards and knelt at his father’s other side and looked down at him, taking in the flushed cheeks and the half-closed eyes and the thin lips drawn back and specked with shreds of spittle. His breathing was erratic and loud still and carefully Charlotte fitted the oxygen mask over his face and
held it in place.

‘What’s happened?’ Max said shortly and reached for his father’s bony wrist, seeking the pulse. It fluttered a little under his fingers, uneven and restless, and he said, ‘We’ll need some Coramine – have you sent for some?’

Charlie nodded and lifted her chin to indicate the nurse who at once leaned forwards and presented her kidney dish. ‘I’ve drawn it up, Miss Lucas,’ she said breathlessly. ‘It’s got an intravenous needle –’

‘Thank you,’ Charlie said and then looked briefly at Max. ‘Shall I? Or would you like to –’

He shook his head at once and she pushed back the sleeve on the old man’s jacket and with an expert twist used it as a tourniquet to tighten the upper arm, as she stroked the tissue of the forearm towards the elbow. Slowly a vein bulged in the crook of the elbow and she took the syringe from the nurse’s dish and moving with great deliberation slid the needle into the snake of blood vessel that meandered beneath the papery old skin. She drew back on the plunger and then, as blood made the translucent contents blush pink released the sleeve and slowly made her injection, as Max remained there, kneeling and watching.

‘I’ll try the amyl nitrite now, nurse,’ she said then, and the nurse reached the dish towards her again and she took from it the little bundle of gauze that held the ampoule ready. She snapped it beneath the old man’s nose and again they watched as he inhaled the fumes, and beneath Max’s fingers the pulse seemed to steady and thicken a little as the breathing deepened and became less noisy.

‘I think he’ll hold long enough to get him to a bed,’ Charlie said at length. ‘Dr Tillotson’s on his way from the Surbiton Branch, and the senior medical registrar will be here as soon as he can get out of Buttercup – he’s got someone there in a diabetic coma and –’

‘It’s all right,’ Max said and his voice was harsh in his own ears. ‘You’re coping well. No need to rush for anyone else. What happened?’

There was a little silence and then Molloy said uncertainly, ‘He – ah – he got here on his own. I was surprised – thought Victor would be with him but it seems that the Old – that Sir Lewis had managed on his own. He told me he’d sent Victor
away before he got up and came here – said he’d have stopped him and he was determined to get here no matter what –’

‘Why?’ Max never took his eyes from his father’s face. He was lying very still, but his colour had improved a little and his pulse seemed steadier. ‘What the hell was he doing here at all? I don’t understand –’

‘I knew he shouldn’t be here.’ Brocklesby could contain himself no longer. ‘As soon as I saw him come in, all shaky and on his own, I knew it was all wrong, and I said to him, “Oh, Sir Lewis,” I said, “what are you doing out of your bed when anyone can see with ’alf an eye ’ow poorly you are.” That’s what I said, and all ’e said was, “Get Molloy, tell him I’m here as he asked me to be, and I want Brodie and I’ll be in the boardroom and get on with it.” So of course I did, and I tried to come and tell you, sir, private like, as your father was here and looking poorly but that there Miss Curtis she wouldn’t let me in and it wasn’t my place to be giving the likes of ’er messages, was it?’ And he stopped to draw breath, clearly full of the importance of his role in the afternoon’s events.

‘I wasn’t sure it was up to me to be letting you know, anyway, sir,’ he added then with a sharp sideways look at Molloy who was still standing staring down at Sir Lewis on the floor, ‘I mean, I was told to fetch them, not you, but I thought it my bounden duty, sir, seeing the Old – that Sir Lewis looked so poorly and you being his son and all, but there, I couldn’t get to tell you, could I? And then I heard the noise as he passed out like and I knew I was right, but it was too late then, so –’

‘Molloy.’ Max looked up and stared at the thin man who was still watching Sir Lewis’s face with a sort of hungry anxiety. ‘What does Brocklesby mean? Why did my father tell him he was here as you had asked him to be?’