The Secret Anatomy of Candles

by Quentin Smith

  Billie made a face.

  “Gastroenteritis,” Lazlo said, nodding so that his large pewter ear ring wobbled.

  “Yes.”

  “But she killed Edward Burns, who was well on his way to a full recovery and should right now be walking amongst us.”

  Billie flushed slightly and turned towards Jasper.

  “That’s a bit strong, Mr Candle. She was a frail old lady who was very ill and needed a hospital bed.”

  “Imagine Edward Burns was your father. Would you have wanted an infected patient admitted to his ward, posing a genuine threat to his life?”

  “Had the old lady been your mother, Mr Candle, would you have been happy if we had denied her a hospital bed, leaving her to lie for hours on a hard gurney in casualty without proper nursing and medical care?”

  “Where do you draw the distinction?” Jasper said.

  “Exactly,” she said. “Where do you draw it? I work in a hospital that treats sick people. We aim to help everyone and in my world you cannot have it one way one day, and another the next.”

  Lazlo pulled his bulky frame into a standing position.

  “I’m getting another, anyone else?”

  Both Jasper and Billie nodded.

  The silence between them was broken by a sudden outburst of raucous laughter from a group of women in the corner.

  “You know, Mr Candle, every death in our care is treated as a failure, no matter the cause or circumstances. Some are old and have lived their lives, some are young and have not, some seem destined to recover and others look certain to die. With experience and hindsight one realises that we alone do not control the destiny of our patients, though we may try as hard as possible under testing conditions to do so.”

  “What is your point?” Jasper said, as his head twisted to one side and his eyelids fluttered erratically.

  He felt Billie’s eyes upon him, studying him.

  “This week one of our nurses died from a blood clot on her lung. She was recovering from spinal surgery for a back injury sustained when she helped a patient who had collapsed in the toilet. Who’s fault is that?”

  Jasper gratefully accepted another double Chivas from Lazlo, who creaked into his seat with a Black Sheep for both himself and Billie. Jasper surrendered without hesitation to the golden liquid as the muscles in his left thigh began to ripple and dance.

  “Was it the surgeon who did the surgery, the nursing care afterwards, was it the patient who collapsed and caused the injury in the first place, or was it her own fault for being a smoker on the contraceptive pill thereby increasing her risk of thrombosis?”

  Jasper was silent.

  “Is it anybody’s fault?” Billie said.

  “Yet tragedies do need to be prevented from recurring,” Jasper said sitting forward and wagging his index finger. “People must learn from their mistakes and sometimes to achieve that proportional culpability is appropriate,” Jasper said ponderously, to no-one in particular, his voice becoming thick as he slurred his way through the words.

  Billie drank from her beer, leaving a frothy moustache on her upper lip. Lazlo leaned forward with a smile and wiped it clean with a napkin.

  “Are you going to sue my staff, Mr Candle?” Billie said.

  Though his eyes were openly pleading for help, there was no reply from Jasper. He had slipped from his chair and was on the floor, his arms and legs jerking spasmodically, the empty whisky glass still clutched in his hand and three ice cubes spilt on the carpet beside him. Lazlo jumped to his feet and knocked his Black Sheep over, spilling beer all over the table and Billie’s legs.

  “Jesus! Ambulance! Somebody call an ambulance!” he shouted.

  SIXTY THREE

  Jasper opened his eyes and immediately recoiled from the smell that had terrified him since childhood – hospital antiseptics. The room was starkly white, almost too white, except for three blurry splashes of colour beyond the foot of his bed. As these slowly sharpened into focus, one turned out to be a large colourful bouquet of flowers and the second was Stacey, in muted shades of black that were lifted by the swirl of an ample purple scarf around her neck. The largest splash of colour turned out to be Lazlo.

  “Hello, guv. You OK?” he heard Lazlo say, as if he was speaking from the bottom of a barrel.

  Jasper tried to lick his lips, dry and crusted, but even his tongue was like a piece of sandpaper. He looked down at his arms with wide eyes and followed the narrow clear tubing from the cannula in his skin up to an infusion pump beside his neatly made bed.

  “You’re on a bit of medication, don’t worry guv,” Lazlo said.

  “What day is it?” Jasper said with a parched mouth.

  “Friday.”

  He managed to focus on Stacey’s worried face.

  “Thank you for the flowers, Stacey,” Jasper said slowly.

  “They’re actually from Mrs K. I brought you chocolates, Mr C.”

  She stepped forward and placed a box covered with a red bow on the table beside his bed. Neither she nor Lazlo could hide the concern etched on their drawn faces. Jasper’s skin had a sallow colour and his eyes were as yellow as Sicilian lemons.

  “What happened?” Jasper said, struggling to separate his tongue from his palate.

  Lazlo stepped closer, rubbing his chin as he usually did.

  “They don’t know yet, guv, but they’ve done lots of tests, scans, you know.”

  Jasper widened his eyes and tried to sit forward.

  “I need to get up, I’ve got work to do.”

  But as Lazlo moved quickly to calm him, Jasper faltered and fell back on the pillows, his body strangely weak and unresponsive.

  “You should rest, guv. There’s no need to go anywhere.”

  Jasper tried to make sense of his situation, but his mind was too foggy, perhaps it was the medication, he thought.

  “Billie sent these to you, guv. I told her that you like marzipan.”

  Jasper nodded as Lazlo placed a small foil bag beside the chocolates. The door opened and a thin, freckled nurse wearing a light blue tunic walked in.

  “I’m afraid visiting is over, Mr Candle needs his rest,” she said in a strong Glaswegian accent, presented with a business like smile.

  Stacey and Lazlo edged obediently towards the door, waving to Jasper like school children.

  “Oh, I’ve put your mail in the bedside table for when you feel up to it, Mr C,” Stacey said.

  But Jasper’s eyes were closed and it appeared that he was already nodding off into a medicated sleep.

  SIXTY FOUR

  Charlotte waited until she had dropped the boys off at school and the house was empty. She made a cup of red bush tea, which was all she ever drank. Her husband kept important documents and papers in a safe bolted to the utility room wall and Charlotte used it for her jewellery. Her slender fingers worked the rotary dial with practised smoothness and soon the door popped open. She sorted through the envelopes, plastic flip files and loose papers until she found what she was looking for, retrieved it, locked the door and went through to the sitting room with her cup of tea.

  In the background Mozart harmoniously soothed the airwaves with a flute and harp and Charlotte sat on the heavy cream fabric sofa, staring at the A4 envelope in her lap. It was simply marked in Jennifer’s neat, block-type script – “CONFIDENTIAL, PLEASE DO NOT OPEN – JENNIFER CANDLE, PERSONAL.”

  She wondered why her dear sister had never confided in her. Charlotte had always believed that they had shared everything, like the time when she confessed her brief and foolish adulterous interlude to Jennifer. The fact that such a mounting depth of deception was withheld not only from Jasper but also from her hurt Charlotte to the core.

  Charlotte sighed and then stood up, walked to the Bose Music Centre and turned off Mozart. She returned to the envelope and again stared at it impotently, this time in silence. Finally she slid a Fleur de Lys-styled letter opener down one side and pulled out several folded and some crumpled sheets of yellowed
paper. They smelled mouldy and stale.

  She could feel her heart beating and her inner voice instinctively cursed Jasper. But then, she thought to herself, was it really his fault after all? Was he not merely caught up in this peculiar business as was she?

  Charlotte began to read, taking the letters in chronological order, the first one dated over thirty years ago. Beside her the forgotten cup of red bush tea grew cold.

  SIXTY FIVE

  “You’re making good progress, Jasper,” said Dr Giordano as she sat beside his bed on a firm hospital chair.

  She had slipped into a white coat worn over her tailored olive green dress suit, on which a large, yellow lapel badge declared her as ‘Visiting Doctor’. In her lap she cradled a violet coloured folder and though she never used it she played with her Mont Blanc pen between her fingers.

  Jasper was sitting up straighter in bed, the intravenous line now discontinued, leaving only a small, white, square dressing on his forearm where it had been. Thankfully, due to her taste in expensive perfume, Dr Giordano was the only thing Jasper could smell in the usually blandly antiseptic room.

  “When can I go home?”

  Jasper stared at his arms, where the trembling was lessened but still visible.

  “Home?” Giordano smiled teasingly and raised an eyebrow. “Your associates tell me you’ve been living in your office.”

  Jasper made a false smile and opened his arms in a placatory gesture.

  “What’s the diagnosis, Doctor?” Jasper asked meekly, placing the fingertips of each hand together.

  “Acute alcohol intoxication: your liver was beginning to decompensate, but hopefully there is no permanent neurological damage.”

  Jasper nodded in a way that suggested acceptance of his self inflicted pathology.

  “Treatable?”

  “If you stop drinking, completely,” Giordano said firmly.

  “When can I leave hospital?”

  “Probably in the next day or two, but only on certain strict conditions.”

  “I can’t wait.” He rolled his yellowed eyes.

  “You have been signed up into Dr Montgolfier’s counselling sessions for alcoholics and you are being put on a daily dose of disulfiram, Antabuse, to discourage even your slightest urges.”

  Jasper nodded as he stared at the neatly ironed creases in the hospital bedding.

  “Did they do any other tests, Doctor?”

  “What other tests?”

  Giordano shuffled in her seat and adjusted her skirt self consciously.

  “I thought they might have done other tests?”

  She hesitated.

  “Did you ask them about tests?”

  “I can’t quite remember,” Jasper fumbled, though now he was beginning to feel that perhaps he should have chosen to continue in the blissful ignorance of denial.

  “Ah,” Giordano said softly, “I honestly don’t know, but I will find out for you.”

  A short silence ensued as Jasper sat, deep in thought. Suddenly the door creaked open after a gentle, tapping knock. It was Debra Kowalski.

  “Howdi, partner,” she said cheerfully in mock western style.

  Jasper was surprised and a little embarrassed to see her.

  “Clients are not supposed to see their solicitors in backless hospital garments,” Jasper said with simulated horror on his face.

  The two ladies’ eyes met and locked briefly.

  “Dr Giordano, my doctor, and Debra Kowalski, one of my clients,” Jasper said, gesturing with an outstretched arm which was trembling but no longer writhing.

  The two women exchanged pleasantries and Giordano rose to leave.

  “I will see you before you are discharged, Jasper, and I will find out about the tests for you,” Giordano said, smiling warmly and leaving discreetly.

  “My God, what happened to you?” Debra said with a look of deep concern written across her attractive face.

  She smelled like a meadow of spring flowers and looked nothing like the grieving widow he remembered previously. Jasper unclasped his hands, widened his eyes and made a face of exaggerated surprise, then clasped his hands together again.

  “Too much work, too much stress, and too much…” he paused, “Chivas. There, I said it.”

  Somehow his face did not convey the conviction of levity that his voice did, as though it knew the story was incomplete.

  “Nothing that can’t be fixed, I hope?” she said, shrugging her shoulders.

  “Look at you, you look fantastic, Debra. Thank you for the flowers, very thoughtful.”

  She smiled and blushed slightly, hiding her sparkling grey blue eyes.

  “I brought you some chocolates. Doctor’s orders,” she laughed.

  The bedside table was full up with books, boxes, glasses of water, and a charging iPhone.

  “Thank you, can you put it in the cabinet for me?”

  Debra bent forward and opened the small cabinet door, upon which several envelopes slid out on to the floor. She retrieved them.

  “You have unopened mail here, did you know?”

  Jasper frowned.

  “No, I didn’t. I’ll read them later.”

  She placed the small pile on the bed beside him and he gathered them together, glancing briefly over them.

  “I’m sorry I have not been able to do much about your case in the past week or so. There has been… er… a lot going on regarding Jennifer,” Jasper said, “even before I was admitted.”

  Debra shook her head.

  “I understand, please don’t worry yourself. It has given me opportunity to think things through as well.”

  “So much has happened to me recently.”

  “It’s OK, nothing has changed,” Debra said reassuringly, with a warm smile. “We can pick up the pieces when you’re better.”

  Deep down Jasper knew, however, that this was not true. He just did not yet know why, or how. But everything was about to change forever, of that he was certain.

  Suddenly he looked straight into her penetrating eyes.

  “Have you ever had a moment in your life when you begin to consider that things will never be the same again?”

  Debra nodded without taking her eyes off his, the smile gone from her face.

  “Oh yes,” she said, “More than once. It’s like being in a Minnesota blizzard, you never know how bad it’s going to be, how long it will last, or how much it might affect you.”

  SIXTY SIX

  Stacey looked up from her desk where she was puzzling over a Sudoku, gripping a pencil in a most unorthodox way in between the black painted nails of her third and fourth fingers.

  It was the corpulent figure of Merrill Bradshaw standing before her, wearing a camel cashmere great coat over his shoulders without his arms through the sleeves.

  “Oh God I hate those things,” he said pinching his face in disapproval as he glanced at the Sudoku.

  “Can I help?” Stacey said cautiously.

  “I am Merrill Bradshaw, here to see Jasper Candle.”

  She frowned, revealing the intensity of the deep purple eye shadow behind her upper eyelids.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Oh, we’re old friends, we go back years Jasper and I,” Merrill said with a dismissive sweep of his hand, before adjusting his red on white spotted bowtie.

  Stacey hesitated, trying to evaluate the strange rotund man with rosy cheeks standing before her. Merrill sensed her intransigence and produced a card from his breast pocket.

  “I’m from the Crown Prosecution Service, my dear. Jasper has been consulting me about a case and I have some news that he will find most interesting.”

  Stacey studied the card with her mouth slightly ajar.

  “Er, Mr C is in hospital, sir.”

  Merrill’s face fell.

  “Good God, child. What happened?”

  “Mmmmmh, he… er… collapsed,” she said warily. “He’s getting better now.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear, I must go an
d see him.”

  “He’s expecting to be discharged very soon, actually. Do you want to make an appointment and see him here rather?”

  Merrill hesitated.

  “Let’s do it properly then. I think he will be more than a little surprised by what I have to tell him.”

  Merrill could not hide his boyish ebullience, as though he had just been made captain of the rugby team.

  SIXTY SEVEN

  Jasper picked his way through the postal items, flicking most to one side on his hospital bed with disinterest. He singled out two envelopes, turning each over in turn to examine them front and back.

  One was from Dr Whitehouse at the mortuary, the second was postmarked in Walton on Thames without a return address. Jasper felt his heart skip a beat as he realised it might be from Charlotte. He froze momentarily, afraid to proceed, contemplating the potentially catapulting consequences that he might unleash by breaking the protective seal on Jennifer’s past. Jasper feared it might be like releasing a snowball down a steep slope, unable to control its gathering speed or check its increasing size and powerless to prevent its inevitable impact.

  Jasper decided on the less mysterious envelope first and with a sweep of his index finger opened the letter from Dr Whitehouse.

  Dr SP Whitehouse MB, PhD, FRCPath, LLM

  Home Office Pathologist

  Drury Lane

  Durham

  Dear Mr Candle,

  With reference to your enquiry about an exhumation order for the remains of Jennifer Candle, I wish to announce that I have given my support to this application which now rests with Mr Swinter, HM Coroner Durham.

  I believe there are compelling medical reasons for an exhumation in view of the likely history of Huntingtons disease in the family. Had we been privy to this information prior to burial, we would certainly have conducted these tests at post mortem examination.

  These applications can take time and I cannot give you a time scale for a Home Office decision at this early stage.

  Yours sincerely,

  SP Whitehouse

  Jasper was pleased with Dr Whitehouse’s letter and carefully reinserted it into the envelope. He hoped he had done enough to convince Charlotte not to object to the exhumation. Despite his excitement, intermingled with nauseating apprehension, he felt a sudden pang of guilt.