A Kiss From Mr Fitzgerald

by Natasha Lester

  ‘Of course you’d rather be injecting silver protein into gonorrhoeal patients than helping these people.’ Evie gestured to the row of people sleeping on the fire escape to get away from the stuffiness of their tiny room. A rat was nosing its way between bodies.

  As she replied to Francis, Evie felt a small piece of herself return. Perhaps her time on the ambulance service would prove to be a blessing. She had no time to think of anything other than the patient in trouble, no time for her mind to wander off to Thomas. And she was treating a range of medical conditions, most of which she would have to revise for her examinations. She was getting the best study preparation she possibly could.

  So she climbed into the ambulance when it was called out, she worked on each patient, she delivered the patient to the hospital if necessary, reported her treatment and diagnosis, and set off again. In the afternoon, she’d return to the Plaza and spend fifteen minutes with Lil, long enough to find out about Leo but too short to discuss Thomas. That would leave her with half an hour to wash and walk to the theatre, where she’d perform until late at night. Then she’d collapse – hopefully, she thought as she tipped her head from side to side, onto the bed this time rather than the floor.

  And she wouldn’t think about Thomas Whitman ever again.

  She wouldn’t be the one with the whiskey, Evie decided as she walked up the steps of the Plaza. She’d be the one with the strong hot black coffee to give her the energy to expend on a song and a dance and a smile at the Follies before falling into bed.

  William Dunning was waiting for her at the top of the steps.

  ‘How’d you like the show?’ she asked.

  ‘It was excellent, Miss Lockhart. You’re worth at least a week’s stay at the Plaza.’

  ‘I can see why you keep your job,’ she teased.

  ‘You might reconsider that if I tell you I’ve allowed a gentleman by the name of Mr Thomas Whitman to wait for you by the elevators all afternoon. I had no choice; he threatened to make a scene and I knew that would reflect badly on …’ He trailed off apologetically.

  Evie understood. ‘On a woman who’s been allowed to stay free of charge for a few nights after a hocus elevator entrapment.’

  ‘Well, it mightn’t be good to draw too much attention to yourself.’

  ‘It’s okay, William. He’s a consequence I have to face sooner or later. Might as well handle it now.’ And then it will be done, Evie added to herself.

  ‘Please indicate if you need any assistance.’

  ‘I’d better take this one on my own.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Evie walked across the foyer to the elevator, wishing she’d worn the wonderful white silk dress of the day before, rather than the sturdy tan skirt and navy blouse she’d chosen from her locker as least likely to show the stains of her work. She looked rumpled and in need of a good press, as if she’d fallen to pieces and been unable to care for her own laundry.

  God, it hurt when she saw Thomas.

  He was standing between the elevators, cheeks stubbled and with his hair falling across his forehead, divine in his beauty. Evie wanted nothing more than to walk right over to him, run a hand down his cheek and kiss his lips. She forced herself to stand still, several feet away, and get no closer.

  He watched her walk towards him and she could see that what Lil had said was true. He looked as if his heart was broken too. But she also knew what a master actor he was; after all, he’d had her convinced of his goodness for nearly three years.

  ‘Evie,’ he said, and he stepped towards her.

  She backed away. ‘Lil told you where I was.’

  ‘Don’t be mad at her. She was sick of me camping out on the doorstep.’

  ‘Let’s not do this here. Let’s sit down.’

  Thomas followed her to the overstuffed floral armchairs that were emptying of the afternoon tea crowd.

  ‘I have ten minutes,’ she said. ‘Which should be enough.’

  He reached out a hand towards her.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said as she sat down. She waved away the overzealous waiter who was approaching with menus, as if they were about to have a cosy cup of tea and a scone, like a lady and gentleman in an English novel. The song tooting its brass through the room was ‘I’ll See You in My Dreams’, which was all too true.

  She decided to start with the question to which she most wanted the answer. ‘Why did you tell me so many lies?’

  He frowned. ‘I’ve never lied to you, Evie.’

  ‘You’re lying now. I know you’re Mary’s father.’ She looked directly at him as she said it, wanting to see how he’d sweet-talk the truth away.

  Instead he shook his head, looking bewildered, as if of all the things he’d thought she might say, that was not even under consideration. ‘Who’s Mary?’ he asked.

  Evie laughed, a sharp and bitter sound. ‘Mary, as you well know, is the baby who was born in Concord by the river. I’ve been visiting her. And you’ve been busily trying to stop me from visiting her, because you’re her father.’

  Thomas stared at her in consternation, his eyes wide. ‘I thought you were mad about Winnie. I thought she must have told you that we kissed when I was in London. I was wondering how to make you believe the truth, which was that she kissed me one night when we were dancing and all I could think of, besides getting away from her, was you.’

  Evie breathed in sharply. ‘What about Mary?’

  ‘I don’t know why you think I’m her father. I’d never abandon a mother and child.’

  Oh, he was good. She almost believed him. ‘The hanky,’ she said. ‘The hanky you handed me to mop up the wine Charles spilled on me. I gave it to Mary. Why else would you have her hanky if you aren’t her father?’

  ‘Charles gave me that handkerchief,’ Thomas said slowly, as if he was trying to understand what had happened. ‘When I put on my jacket for the ball, the handkerchief I’d put in the pocket earlier wasn’t there. Charles said he had a spare and not to trouble Barnes with getting another.’

  ‘Charles gave it to you,’ Evie repeated. Charles. Her mind struggled to piece together what Thomas had said. She wanted so much to believe him, to see the situation as it might have unfolded. Charles taking the handkerchief from Mary, knowing he’d be able to use it for something diabolical if only he waited long enough. Then, on the night of the ball, Charles stealing Thomas’s handkerchief from his jacket, shadowing Thomas until he realised it was missing and then offering him Mary’s. Charles had spilled the wine on Evie deliberately, knowing that Thomas would leap to her rescue and pass her something to mop it up. He’d hoped that Evie would believe what the evidence suggested: that Thomas was Mary’s father.

  ‘If Charles had Mary’s handkerchief, then …’ Evie faltered on the words. She tried again. ‘Then he must be her father. He must have been the one visiting the Foundling, the one telling the sisters not to let me visit Mary.’

  ‘Charles is the father of the baby born in Concord?’ Thomas’s jaw tightened, and his bewilderment of a few moments before was replaced by cold hard anger.

  ‘He has to be.’ Evie shook her head. Although she’d seen first-hand what Charles was capable of, she was still horrified that he could be so cold-hearted as to watch the mother of his child die alone by a river.

  Neither Thomas nor Evie spoke for several moments as they tried to grasp not only what Charles had done to Rose and Mary, but what he’d done to them. Evie felt her shame at mistrusting Thomas grow and she could see that Thomas’s eyes were as black as flint. Was it from rage at Charles, or rage at her?

  ‘Evie, why didn’t you tell me you’d been visiting the child?’ Thomas asked at last.

  ‘Because …’ Because there are so many things I longed to tell you, Evie wanted to say, but we’ve had so little time together. How do you fit a lifetime of conversation into barely a dozen encounters? Encounters that Charles had tried to put an end to with a ruthlessness Evie could hardly believe he possessed. She felt as if she coul
dn’t breathe. ‘Charles tried to make me believe you were the father. That’s how much he hates me. I’m so sorry.’

  Thomas rubbed his jaw with his hand tiredly. ‘No, he hates me. I’m president of the bank. Not Charles. I graduated top of my class at Harvard. Charles never graduated at all. Last week he came to a meeting with one of our biggest clients drunk and they nearly walked out. I had to ask him to take some time off. The way Charles feels stretches back to childhood, to everything he thinks I did first – or better – just to spite him. Except you. You were always his domain.’

  ‘Until I was yours.’ Evie said it without thinking and then it was too late to unsay it. An admission of the sure and certain knowledge that while she could survive without Thomas Whitman, she was only truly alive with him.

  There were no words after that, just the two of them regarding each other across an elegant chinoiserie coffee table. All they wanted to say was caught in their eyes, a language that the other understood as instinctively as thought. It was a single perfect moment, full of what could happen, what was yet to happen, what they both hoped might happen.

  Then Evie caught sight of William Dunning, her guardian angel, in her peripheral vision, pointing at his watch, and she shot out of the chair. ‘Damn!’

  Tommy laughed. ‘That was unexpected.’

  ‘I’m late. Hopefully I can bat my lashes at Bob and be forgiven. But I have to go. I’ve still gotta pay the rent.’

  Tommy stood up too. Hang it, thought Evie. It was time to do something she’d been wanting to do for nearly three years.

  She stepped over to Tommy, slipped her arms around him and ran her hands up the length of his back. He cupped her face in his hands, sliding his thumbs over her cheekbones, and her whole body yearned for him to touch her, everywhere. She pressed her lips against his.

  Their mouths opened and they kissed, long and hard and without regard for anyone in the lounge, unaware that all eyes were turned their way, watching a man and a woman so clearly in love kiss for the very first time.

  When at last they drew apart, Evie saw William Dunning smiling at her. Everyone else in the lounge was watching and smiling too, as if the whole of New York was cheering them on, enlivened by the thought that perhaps, against all odds, Thomas Whitman and Evelyn Lockhart might belong together.

  It was impossible to do anything but smile. Bob didn’t stand a chance as an effusive Evie rushed in the stage door, kissed him twice on each cheek, then took his hand and sent him into a spin. That night on the moon she glowed, as if a star itself had come down from the heavens and was now twinkling for all the world to see on a Broadway stage. Because tomorrow night she’d be meeting Lil and Leo and Tommy at Chumley’s for a whole night of dancing and kissing, dancing and kissing. And when Chumley’s closed its doors in the early hours of the morning, who knew what she and Thomas Whitman might do then?

  When Evie jumped into the ambulance with Francis the next day, she was still full of the joy of the night before. She’d slept better than she had in a very long time. She felt rested, alert, ready for anything. Even hearing that they had to attend a woman giving birth couldn’t get her down. It was the first birth she’d seen since the disaster at the hospital, but Evie wasn’t nervous. Every successful doctor had at least one tragedy behind them. Maybe she’d had hers and she’d certainly learned from it.

  A woman with a worried look on her face let them into the apartment. ‘She’s through there.’ She pointed through an open doorway, and Francis pushed past Evie to go inside.

  ‘Are you a neighbour?’ Evie asked.

  ‘Yes. Her husband works on the ships. She’s been here by herself. I found one of the kids out on the landing with two days full in his nappy.’

  ‘How long has she been in labour?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘Judging by the look of the kids, it’s been a while.’

  ‘Evie!’ Francis called. ‘Hurry up!’

  ‘Coming!’ Evie replied. She stopped when she saw the woman on the bed. She was unconscious limp and bloodless. Two children sat on the floor, huddled together, silent. Evie hurried them out of the room and closed the door. If she and Francis didn’t act quickly, it looked as though the mother wouldn’t survive.

  ‘It’s a face presentation,’ Francis said grimly.

  The look that passed between them spoke all too clearly of the last time they’d been in a room with a baby presenting face first. ‘I’ll look after the mother,’ Francis was quick to add. ‘You take care of the baby.’

  ‘But you’re the intern,’ Evie protested. ‘That’s your job.’

  ‘You’re always asking for experience. Here’s your chance.’ Francis took the mother’s head and began to check her pulse. Which left Evie at the bottom of the bed with the baby.

  The examination proved that the baby was mentum posterior. Evie was certain, given the state of the mother, that the baby was impacted, and had been for some time. ‘She needs a caesarean,’ said Evie. ‘We have to get her to the hospital.’

  ‘She’s too weak to move,’ said Francis. ‘What about a foetal heartbeat?’

  ‘I can’t hear one.’

  ‘If the baby’s dead, it’s not worth risking the mother’s life to move her to a hospital and have her undergo an operation she’s unlikely to survive. You’ll have to do a craniotomy to get the baby out.’

  ‘A what?’ Evie couldn’t possibly have heard him properly.

  ‘A craniotomy.’

  She stared at him in horror. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘If you don’t, the mother will be dead in ten minutes. It’ll be another death on your hands.’ Francis spoke accusingly, as if the situation they were in was somehow all her fault.

  You do it, Evie wanted to say, but she knew that Francis was a coward and that he wouldn’t.

  She also knew he was right. The mother wouldn’t survive being moved down the stairs, into the ambulance and across town to the hospital. Which meant a craniotomy was the only option. But how could she extrude a baby’s brain when her whole purpose in becoming a doctor was to help mothers and their babies to live?

  ‘Do it now,’ Francis ordered.

  He was her superior. She was supposed to do what she was told. Even so, she checked for a heartbeat one last time. She placed her stethoscope all over the woman’s abdomen but could hear nothing. The baby was almost certainly dead, and a craniotomy would therefore do nothing other than remove the obstruction and hopefully save the mother’s life. ‘Shouldn’t you check too?’ Evie asked Francis, needing to be sure.

  ‘No. You should know how to check for a heartbeat.’

  And you don’t want blood on your hands. Evie understood all too well.

  She opened her instrument bag and took out a perforator and a basiotribe, two instruments she’d never used before and had hoped never to have to use. She remembered listening in horror in the lectures as the craniotomy procedure was described, wondering how, in the modern world, such gruesome procedures were still performed.

  As she stood there, about to do something barbaric, something that had to be done to save a woman’s life, Evie realised she no longer felt any need to prove herself as a doctor. Because it wasn’t about her. Nothing about Evie mattered right now. The point wasn’t to be the one who helped people live; it was about being compassionate always, and regardless of the outcome. If you were the woman lying on the bed, would you want Francis, with his condescension and complete indifference, to be the one pulverising your baby’s skull? Or would you rather someone like Evie did it, someone who had only ever wanted to help? Someone who would mourn for the baby because the mother was unable to.

  When she’d finished, Evie sat on the floor of the tenement, heedless of the blood, and cradled the baby in her arms. She knew she was sobbing in huge, loud, gasping gulps. Swallowing snot and tears. But she didn’t care what Francis or anyone else thought. She wasn’t crying because she was scared. It was because she’d felt in her heart and in her body every cut she made. And she also kn
ew she was, finally, a real doctor.

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘Come out with us anyway,’ Lil said that night in their room at the boarding house. ‘Come out and forget. You can’t stay here by yourself and relive it.’

  Evie let herself be talked into going out. She even put on the fabulous blue dress she’d worn the night she’d shared her first kiss with Leo. She let Lil make up her face so that she looked like a beautiful young woman without a care in the world. But every time she blinked, she saw herself piercing the baby’s skull, and she wondered if it was possible to have too many cares, to be so weighed down by them that to even put one foot in front of the other was impossible.

  Lil took her arm and walked her down the stairs from the attic room. ‘You’ll feel so much better when you see Tommy,’ she said, and Evie thought this might be true: that to see his face would be such a relief, to know that there were still beautiful things left in the world.

  But when they walked through the doors of Chumley’s, all Evie could hear was the singer, sultry and sad, crooning to the beat of a slow but insistent tango, her voice like the cry of a motherless child calling out in its dreams for comfort it knows will never come.

  How was it possible, Evie thought, looking at the singer, to sound so alone when the full glare of the spotlight was shining on you?

  She saw Tommy’s face, his smile turned to her with so much longing that she began to cry again, to cry as she had when the perforator first touched the baby’s head, and now that she’d started she knew she could never stop so she turned and ran out of Chumley’s, back to the boarding house, up the stairs, through the door and lay down on the bed, soaking the pillow with all that was left of her youth and her innocence.

  Evie didn’t know how long she’d lain there. She didn’t know how Tommy had made it past Mrs Lomsky into the boarding house, or whether he’d knocked on Evie’s door and she hadn’t heard him. But suddenly he was standing beside the bed, and then he sat down and pulled her into his arms, whispering her name. ‘Evie, my darling Evie.’