The Best Of Times

by Penny Vincenzi

  Barney wrenched his mind off Tamara and looked at his watch, which had advanced terrifyingly far, and drove very fast back to the hospital.

  ***

  He was in such a state of terror as he parked his car that he misjudged the size of the space available to him and hit the wing mirror of a horribly new-looking Audi TT in the next bay. Barney knew about those Audis; fixing it would cost several hundred pounds. Well, it hardly compared with a shattered leg. He scribbled a note and left it on the windscreen.

  He looked at his watch: one fifteen. Shit. Toby would probably be out of the theatre now. Conscious and needing him. Fine friend he’d turned out. He ran across the car park, and then, unable to contemplate hearing the bad news on his own, made for A &E and Emma. It was deserted, apart from a woman with a wailing baby and an elderly man with an arm in a sling. He looked over at the reception desk; there was only one woman on duty, and she was chatting to a nurse about some event in the department that had taken place earlier in the day. He walked over and waited politely for what felt like ten minutes; then, driven beyond endurance, said, “Excuse me…”

  “Yes?” said the woman coldly.

  “I wondered if I could see Dr. King. Dr. Emma King?”

  “What would it be concerning?”

  “A patient,” he said. “Toby Weston.”

  “Well, there’s no one of that name here.”

  “No,” said Barney, slightly desperately, “no, he’s on Men’s Surgical. He’s in-been to-the theatre this morning.”

  “Well, that’s nothing to do with Dr. King. Who told you to ask for her?”

  “She did,” said Barney firmly. “When I saw her earlier today.” As Toby was being taken down to the theatre…

  “Well, I can’t think why.”

  “I could explain,” said Barney, “but…” He looked at the clock. Shit. One twenty-five. “Look,” he said, “couldn’t you just page Dr. King or something, tell her I’m here? She is expecting me. Please. It really is very important.”

  The woman sighed and started tapping at her computer keys.

  “Barney! Hi!” It was Emma. Barney had never seen her without a lift of his heart; at that moment he felt he could have taken off through the hospital roof. “I wondered where you were. Come with me. It’s fine, Pat; he’s a friend.”

  Emma led him through the doors at the back of the waiting area, and then along a corridor into a small office.

  “I’ll ring up to the theatre now.”

  Emma dialled a number; waited. And waited. Hours seemed to pass. Barney felt he was about to throw up.

  “They’re obviously frantic,” she said, “just not answering. Look-let’s go up there. Come on.”

  She led the way on what seemed to Barney an endless journey: into lifts, along corridors, through doors, through more doors. Looking at his watch as she stopped in front of a door marked, Medical Personnel Only, he was amazed to see it was only five minutes since she’d appeared in A &E.

  “Wait there,” she said, and knocked on the door. A nurse dressed in scrubs appeared; she looked rather coldly at Emma.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Sorry,” said Emma, “Dr. King, from A and E. I’m… well, I wondered if you had any news of a patient. Toby Weston.”

  “Oh, him. Not yet, no,” said the nurse. “He’s only just out of the theatre. Still under. Shouldn’t be long. Wait out there.” She glared at Barney. “I’ll give you a shout.”

  That was it, then: nearly three hours in surgery. Emma had said that if the news was good he’d be back in an hour or so. It must have gone horribly wrong. There could be no other explanation. Toby had lost his leg. And his old life with it. And if Barney’d got him onto that road just a bit earlier, none of it would have happened; they’d never have got into that bloody accident; it was his fault. Tamara had been right in that, at least…

  He looked at Emma; she had blurred, and he realised he was crying. Stop it, Fraser, not for you to blub. Get a grip.

  He turned away; he felt a hand slide into his. A cool, small hand.

  “Barney. Don’t give up yet. They’ve been terribly busy; they might have had to delay it. Or-”

  “Or they didn’t. Or his leg’s gone. How could it take this long, Emma, how could it possibly…?”

  “I… don’t know. But… well, this isn’t an exact science; they’re not building a car.”

  They were both silent; he realised he was still holding her hand. He looked down at it, and then at her, smiled slightly awkwardly.

  “Thank you for doing all this, Emma. It’s very good of you.”

  “It’s my pleasure. Honestly. Well…” She smiled suddenly, that brilliant, light-the-day-up smile. “Well, I hope it is. I mean, I hope it will be.”

  “If… that is… if they do… you know-”

  “Amputate?” she said gently. It was somehow good hearing it spoken, confronted like that.

  “Yeah. If they do, who’ll tell him? The doctor, the nurses-”

  “They will tell him very carefully. They’re quite… gentle these days. The surgeon in charge is a friend of mine. He’s-”

  “What, you know the guy who’s doing this?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” For some reason this had made him angry. “Why the fuck won’t he tell you, at least? That is so arrogant. What sort of rules do you people live by?”

  She stared at him; she flushed.

  “Barney, you don’t quite understand. It’s-”

  “You’re too damn right I don’t. Here we are sweating our guts out, no one having the decency to come out of that door and tell us what’s happening, and you say the person doing this to Toby is a friend of yours. Rum sort of friend, that’s all I can say.”

  She shrugged, turned away; he had clearly upset her. Well, that was fine. She-The door opened suddenly, and the nurse came out.

  “Dr. King,” she said, “can you come in a minute?”

  Well, that was definitely it. He knew now. It was the worst. He felt sick, then as if he might cry again; he turned away from the door, stared down the corridor, wondering how… what-

  “Barney.”

  He turned. Emma was standing looking at him; she was flushed, looked close to tears herself.

  “Yeah?” he said, aware he sounded hostile still.

  And then he realised she was smiling and, yes, almost crying at the same time, and then she said, in a voice that was clearly struggling not to shake, “Barney, Toby’s fine. The leg’s good; it’s beginning to heal. He’s… well, he’s only just coming round properly now. Mark-that’s the surgeon-says you can see him, just for a moment. Want to come in?”

  “Oh, shit,” said Barney, “oh, for fuck’s sake. Oh, Emma. Emma, I’m so sorry; I didn’t mean anything I just said. Here…”

  And suddenly, he was hugging her, and she was smiling up at him and hugging him back, and then she took his hand again and led him through the door and into a small room where Toby lay on a high, hard bed, struggling to smile through the confusion of his anaesthetic.

  “Hello, you old fucker,” said Barney. “You really put us through it this morning, didn’t you?” And then he couldn’t say any more, because he really did start to cry, tears running down his face; and he realised both Emma and the nurse were smiling at him, and he pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose very hard and said, “Well done, mate. Bloody well done.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Freeman and Rowe had been to interview Mary Bristow that day; expecting a dotty old lady they had found themselves confronted by a razor-clear mind, and an extremely lucid account of what she had seen of the accident and, indeed, the road that day.

  “Some terrible driving. Two or three lorries cutting in and out of the slow lane, moving in front of people. I have to say they were all foreign number plates. I found that reassuring, in a way. At least our drivers seem to know how to behave.”

  “Any more particular cases of bad driving that you recall
?”

  “Well, I did notice several white vans; they’re supposed to be the worst, aren’t they? Anyway, one did particularly strike me; he’d been sitting very close behind us, and then shot past, and I noticed that he didn’t even have his back doors properly fastened. They were just held together with a bit of rope; it seemed very unwise.”

  “Indeed. Did you notice any writing or anything like that on his van?”

  “There were three letters on one of the back doors, obviously part of a name, but not in sequence. If you see what I mean. That is to say, not a complete word or name. The rest had come off. It wasn’t at all a well-looked-after vehicle.”

  “And can you remember what the letters were?”

  “I can, as a matter of fact.”

  These old parties: amazing, thought Freeman. He supposed it was surviving the blitz or something…

  “Yes,” she said, “they were W-D-T. In that order. I remember because we used to play a game with the children, making up words from car number plates. I’m sure you know the sort of thing. I mean B and T and W would obviously be Bristow. Although proper names were not allowed, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Freeman. He was beginning to feel rather confused himself.

  “So, yes, I still do it rather automatically. Ah, WDT, I thought-War Department. We used to get countless letters from them, or rather my husband did; they figured rather large in our lives at the time. I don’t suppose it’s much help, but-”

  “It could be a help, Mrs. Bristow. I don’t suppose you were playing the same game with the number plate?”

  “Oh-no. I’m so sorry. Not his. Some of the others, but-”

  “Well, never mind. And at what point in the journey did you see this van? Shortly before the crash, or-”

  “It was a good fifteen minutes before. And he was going very fast. He would have been well ahead-unless he stopped, of course, but it was after the service station; I do know that.”

  “So you stopped at the service station-that would have been what time?”

  “Oh, about three fifteen. We moved off in less than ten minutes. My driver-and I would like to stress that he drove quite beautifully, in the inside lane at my request, all the way-needed some chewing gum and I offered to buy it for him, as I needed to… well, to go to the ladies’. I…” She hesitated. “I feel a little guilty now. About something I did.”

  “Oh, yes? I’m sure it wasn’t too bad.”

  “Well, I hope not. A young man-who I now know was the poor bridegroom, and of course he was wearing the striped trousers and so on, although not his tailcoat-he was in a terrible hurry, and he asked if he could go ahead of everyone in the queue. I’m afraid I… well, I wouldn’t let him. I said he should wait his turn, that we were all in a hurry for various reasons. I do hope that didn’t affect the course of events at all. It must have delayed him, perhaps made him drive too fast. One is so aware of how tiny things can lead to greater ones. What is that called, something about butterflies…”

  “The butterfly effect,” said Rowe. “Apparently a butterfly can flap its wings in the jungle somewhere and cause a hurricane three days later…”

  “Perhaps we should move on,” said Sergeant Freeman. “Can you give us your account of what you saw of the collision?”

  “Well, this is where I really am going to disappoint you. I fell asleep, you see, and woke up as we stopped and the car behind drove into us. It was very shocking, and of course if we hadn’t been in the inside lane, it could have been very much more serious…”

  She was silent for a moment; her eyes filled with tears.

  “Take your time,” Freeman said gently. “Just tell us what you remember.”

  She proceeded to describe with great lucidity the position of her car related to all the others near her, and to the lorry, and what she had observed.

  ***

  “Pity all our witnesses aren’t that clear in their accounts,” said Rowe, as they drove away.

  “Indeed. Those letters might be a help. I’m certainly beginning to want to talk to that van driver. Maybe we could get him mentioned on the TV programme as well.”

  ***

  Oh, my God. Oh, my God…

  Just as well God hadn’t answered that particular prayer, then. The one about the read-through being cancelled. They still hadn’t finally cast the grandmother’s friend and wanted her to do a read-through with the two they were down to, and she’d tried to tell Linda she couldn’t do it. But Linda had told her to get a grip, and thank goodness she had or she’d never have set eyes on… on Him. Not God, but still worthy of a capital letter. The most unbelievably gorgeous bloke she’d seen for… well, she’d ever seen…

  Who was he; what was he doing here…?

  And he was actually-God-actually walking towards her, smiling at her, saying, “ Georgia?”

  “Yes,” she said, and her voice sounded odd, slightly squeaky.

  “Thought so. I’m Merlin. I’m the second assistant director on Moving Away. So we’ll be seeing quite a lot of each other, once shooting starts.”

  “Great!” Not the cleverest answer. But what could you say that was cool, but still friendly, in response to such a discovery? A discovery that you’d be working with someone who looked like a dollop of Orlando Bloom, a smidgeon of Johnny Depp, maybe even a sliver of Pete Doherty at his most savoury? Tall, he was, and very thin, with almost black spiky hair and dark, dark brown eyes and a rather narrow face, and really great clothes: tight black jeans and combat boots and a white collarless shirt…

  “Great,” she said again, rather feebly.

  “Yeah, it looks like it’ll be fun. Casting director’s been raving about you.”

  Hmm. Bit of a luvvie. But then… what was wrong with that? They were in the luvvie profession, weren’t they? Her included. In which case…

  “Thank you,” she said, and smiled. He smiled back. He had absolutely perfect teeth. “I’m pretty excited about it, I can tell you. Still pinching myself about getting it.”

  “Have you worked with Bryn before?”

  “No.”

  “I have. He’s a great director. And he makes it fun too. Anyway, come on over, Georgia; everyone’s here.”

  He steered her towards a group chatting together like lifelong friends. She recognised some of them-Tony, the casting director; Bryn Merrick, the director, of course; but not a rather scarily efficient-looking person called Trish, who was the producer-and smiled politely, moving round the group shaking hands, smiling nervously, saying how thrilled she was to be part of the production. She felt very shaky, partly because of being with all these brilliant people, partly because Merlin was… touching her. Even if it was only on her shoulder. Well, you had to start somewhere…

  “Right, Georgia. A word…” Tony, the casting director, drew her aside. “Now, we’ve got two actresses reading for Marje. Both very talented, both very suitable-it would be very helpful in our decision to see how you relate to each of them. I expect Linda’s explained.”

  “Yes, she has.”

  “So we want you to read the same scene, first with Barbara, who’s already here, and then do a bit of improvisation with her-and then Anna is coming in later. Same thing with her. Oh, and by the way, Davina-you know she’s playing your mum-is coming in around lunchtime; she’s got a meeting with the executive producer, and she specially wanted to meet you. So if you can hang around for a while-”

  “Yes, of course,” said Georgia. “No problem at all.”

  ***

  The first read-through was fine; she liked Barbara very much-she was funny and fun, and put her at her ease. But somehow when they did the improvisation it became more difficult. Barbara made Georgia feel rather insipid and too low-key for her own part. She did her best, but it was a struggle.

  “Marvellous,” said Tony as they finished, “thank you both. God, this is going to be difficult. Barbara, thank you so much for coming in. You like our Rose, then?”

  “Very much,” said Ba
rbara. “We’ll have fun, won’t we, Rose?”

  Georgia said she thought they would and Barbara left.

  “Right,” said Sue, “coffee, I think. Anna’s coming in at twelve-Merlin, could you get that organised, darling?”

  How wonderful, Georgia thought, to be old enough and sophisticated enough to be able to call everyone darling. Especially Merlin…

  ***

  Anna didn’t look so right, Georgia thought; she was rather beautiful in a hippie sort of way, with silvery blond wavy hair and intensely blue eyes, and was surely much too young for the part; but she was a marvellous actor. Georgia was amazed at the way she simply put on ten years with the first line she spoke. And she was surprised to find how she could relate to her in the improvisation, far better than with the overjolly Barbara.

  Tony said all the same things again: a lot of marvellouses and thank-yous and how difficult it was going to be making a choice. Anna left. The four of them went into another room and Merlin grinned at Georgia.

  “Well done. You were awfully good. Honestly.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “No, you were. Tough decision now, I’d say.”

  “Yes, I should think so.”

  Why couldn’t she say something witty and incisive, for God’s sake?

  ***

  They all emerged smiling; she was terrified they might ask her which of the two she had felt more comfortable with, but they just told her how well she’d done and thanked her again.

  “Now, Davina’s been held up for a couple of hours, Georgia. It’s up to you, of course, but if you’d like to meet her, she’ll be here about three. Can you find something to do till then?”