Nick whistled as he retraced his steps across the hospital car park. The interview had gone well. Nothing was certain, of course, and there would be further rounds, but it was a good solid start. The professor in charge of the task of interrogation had appeared genuinely impressed with his CV as well as pleasingly unfazed by his undisguisable, still somewhat limited physical strength. It wasn’t a marathon runner they were after but a dermatologist, he had joked, far keener to quiz Nick about interesting cases and the excellent reputation of Queen Elizabeth’s, a hospital with which it turned out he was well-acquainted thanks to a stint of working in Cape Town himself.
Crossing the entrance to Accident and Emergency, Nick came to a halt, leaning on his stick as an ambulance swept in. As the doors of the vehicle opened and the crew jumped out to go about their work, a frisson passed through him, but when the stretcher came into view, he began to move on, both out of respect and because the need to pee was growing. Then a wild thatch of dark curly hair caught his eye and he stopped again, staring hard, heedless of anything else. He was a good ten yards away, but from what he could make out, the face, half hidden by an oxygen mask, was severely distorted with bruising and swelling. Nick gripped his stick, trying to process what he was seeing dispassionately. It was certainly a woman. With hair like that it had to be a woman. Lots of women had long thick curly dark brown hair, he reasoned. Not many were that tall, however; from head to toe this one filled almost the entire stretcher. Even then, Nick might have persuaded himself to walk on, had his eyes not alighted upon a foot encased in a scuffed black leather pump.
Nick found himself running, quite effectively, for the first time in ten months. His full bladder seemed to have evaporated. Without thinking, he charged towards the A & E entrance, stopping bewildered, as the jaws of its automatic doors slid shut in front of him, snapping the stretcher and its bearers from view. He then loped back round the side of the building to the main entrance, where he had originally been heading. Once inside, he blinked gormlessly at the array of signs for departments and wards. All he could see was Eleanor flying off her bicycle. Head first, like a human rocket, her rangy limbs thrashing as she landed. It had to be a bike accident.
Nick slumped into one of the big square visitor seats. Eleanor’s face, from the snatched glimpse he had had of it, looked in a bad way. She wouldn’t have been wearing a helmet. Helmets wouldn’t be her style. He groaned quietly, closing his eyes.
‘All right, sir?’
‘Pardon?’
It was an elderly woman with a soft kind face sporting a large laminated badge saying, ‘Volunteer’.
‘Oh yes, thanks. Just… taking in some news.’
‘I see. If you need somewhere quieter…’ She pointed towards the main corridor. ‘The chapel is just a little way down there on your right.’ She touched his shoulder and moved on.
Nick got out his phone, scrolling to Peter Whycliffe, but then put it away. There was nothing the man could do. Nothing anyone could do that wasn’t being done. The ache in his bladder came back with a push of pain, so he got up and stumbled in the direction of the toilets, leaning heavily on his stick with each step. His knees and hip-joints felt shaky and peculiar, as if on the verge of dislocation. The running was to blame, he knew, a ridiculous adrenaline-charged burst well beyond his still cautious limits in the gym.
On the way back, he noticed the chapel, empty, the door open. It was just a room, with a grey carpet, some upright purple chairs and a gaudy gold crucifix on a table beside a vase of flowers. Nick shuffled inside and went to sit on one of the purple chairs. He tried to think about Eleanor but his thoughts kept straying back to her father instead. The Reverend Vincent Keating. Eleanor and Kat’s father had given Nick the creeps, but that hadn’t changed anything.
More pertinent, Nick decided savagely, was that God, to whom Vincent ostensibly devoted his life, could have been so hoodwinked. Humans could be forgiven for being blind, but not God. Some of the sentences Eleanor had used in her letter swam into his mind; such a bleak, brave attempt to understand what might have gone on that his heart had gone out to her.
Kat was so like Mum. I keep thinking that maybe, in some terrible way, he saw an echo in her of what he missed when Mum died. So maybe it was love that warped him; or what he thought was love.
And where were you today, God, when the bus hit the bike? Nick demanded, as the small square room and its gaudy centrepiece came back into focus. Were you looking the other way then too? And if you were, please could you make sure she pulls through.
31
Eleanor opened her eyes, which felt inordinately heavy. On seeing Nick Wharton sitting in a chair facing her, she allowed them to fall shut again. Presumably she was having another dream. He didn’t look anything like Mr Rochester this time. For one thing, his sight was definitely functioning, since he was scanning a newspaper, and though his face had the swarthy hint of evening shadow, he was also noticeably smart and up-to-date-looking, in blue suit trousers and a crisp light blue collared shirt open at the neck. Eleanor considered these details from behind her eyelids.
When the newspaper rustled, she ventured another look, only to find him staring right back at her. The moment seemed to last a long time and for her was not unlike the sensation of falling through space.
‘Why are you here?’ she said at last, the words coming out in a croak.
‘Ah.’ He folded the paper shut and dropped it onto the floor beside his chair. ‘Now that would be what one might call serendipity.’ He threw himself forwards, elbows onto his knees, grinning. ‘How are you feeling?’
Eleanor considered the question, taking in the hospital room, the drip in her arm, the aching stiffness in her body, the memory of the little girl with the lolly. ‘I think I may be allergic to wasps.’
Nick chuckled darkly. ‘Oh, I think that would be something of an understatement. Severe anaphylaxis, the crash team said. Luckily someone nearby was a doctor. He kept you going until the ambulance got there.’
Eleanor’s thoughts fluttered to the man in the headphones with the little girl. Saviours weren’t always obvious from the outside. Neither were monsters.
‘Since then,’ Nick went on, ‘you’ve been pumped with epinephrine, antihistamines, corticosteroids – the works – not to mention getting a fair bit of sleep.’ He grinned again. ‘You certainly look a lot better than you did. The swelling has started to go down, though there’s still quite a hefty bruise, from where you hit the pavement, they reckon.’
Eleanor tried to scowl but her face and throat hurt. It seemed odd, but also not odd, that he knew so much. ‘So, there’s swelling?’
‘Afraid so.’ Nick sat back, crossing his arms and chewing his lip in a show of thoughtfulness. ‘Er… think, Elephant Man.’
‘Elephant…? Oh great. Thanks.’
‘Like I said,’ he continued cheerfully, ‘it’s a lot better than it was, and a lot better than I had feared. In fact I thought you had been in a bike accident. Which shows what a rubbish doctor I am.’ He looked delighted at the notion. ‘Though, in my defence, it was a judgement made from quite some distance, and in a state of slight incredulity. Just don’t peek at yourself in a mirror for a while would be my advice,’ he teased, clearly not caring whether she was following a word he said or not, but then switching to a tone of sudden, urgent disbelief, to ask, ‘Didn’t you know you were allergic?’
Eleanor shook her head, aware both of the effort this took and the fact that she did not much like the notion of talking to Nick Wharton with a face that resembled the Elephant Man. The conversation also seemed to be requiring a concentration that she wasn’t quite able to give it. She felt light-headed, bruised, not just on her face but over her entire body. As if she had been in a fight. ‘Kat was the one who had to be careful,’ she murmured. ‘We all knew to watch out for Kat. Didn’t she ever tell you?’
‘Not that I remember.’ He frowned. ‘But then there was a lot your sister didn’t tell me, wasn’t there…’ Nic
k faltered, having no desire to lower Eleanor’s spirits. A wasp not a bus, he thought suddenly. Did that count as a prayer answered?
‘She got stung as a baby,’ Eleanor went on. ‘Though I was too young to…’ She let the sentence hang, arrested by the realisation that the slice of black between the curtains behind Nick’s chair was night sky. ‘What time is it exactly?’
‘Let me see now.’ He tugged up his shirt cuff and made a big show of studying his wristwatch. ‘Almost half past seven.’
There was a joviality to everything he did, Eleanor noted, everything he said, as if some great happiness or energy was bubbling to get out. It was puzzling, almost more so than the fact of seeing him on the chair. ‘But why are you here,’ she blurted stupidly. ‘I still don’t understand why you are here.’
Nick hesitated. Serendipity was indeed the explanation. Yet, during the course of the long afternoon, tracking her progress through A & E, eliciting Peter’s assistance, trying not to get in the way while satisfying his own need for answers, it had also dawned on him that in some ways his presence at Eleanor’s bedside in an Oxford hospital wasn’t chance at all. He was there because, a long time ago, he had known her and turned his back on her. He was there because he had once loved her little sister. He was there because, more recently, he had nearly drowned and got well again; because he had left his wife, left Cape Town, used an old contact to get an interview and then stopped to stare as an ambulance roared across his path. He was there for myriad reasons, all of them interconnected but invisible until one paused to look backwards. Life only made sense in reverse. Kierkegaard. Nick’s heart jumped. It was a truth they had agreed on together.
‘Like I said, it was partly luck,’ he began, ‘I happened to be here this afternoon for a job interview—’
‘A job?’ She tried to lever herself upright but fell back.
Nick started out of his chair, as if to catch her. ‘Hey, steady. I’m only here by special permission, so don’t go getting me into trouble. I wanted to see you wake up. Trevor came by earlier—’
‘Trevor?’
‘Yes, I called him. I’m afraid I used your phone. I thought someone should be here…’ Nick paused.
Trevor had arrived in little over an hour, having belted down the motorway from West London. They had sat side by side in a waiting room while Eleanor received treatment and then slept, sharing their anxiety mostly in silence. Once reports started to indicate that she was going to be all right and Nick had made it clear he was happy to stay, Trevor had withdrawn, accepting an invitation to have a bite of supper and stop over with some Oxford friends, instructing Nick to keep him apprised of developments and saying he would return.
‘Trevor is coming in the morning,’ Nick reported to Eleanor now, ‘hopefully to take you home.’ But she didn’t appear to be listening.
‘A job here?’ she repeated in a rasp. ‘How come?’
Nick couldn’t quite think how to start. ‘Yes, well… the thing is…’ He interlaced his fingers, watching the knuckles whiten. ‘I… I have decided to work in England again… for the foreseeable future…’
When the door burst open, he was almost relieved. A petite nurse appeared behind a small trolley.
‘Better leave you to it.’ Nick leapt to his feet, scrambling for his stick and using one finger to scoop his suit jacket from off the back of the chair and sling it over his shoulder. ‘I am well aware it’s not official visiting hours.’ He directed the comment at the nurse, beaming apologetically as he reached over to intercept the door. She gave him an uncertain nod, edging her trolley past.
Eleanor watched, suppressing the urge to ask when – if – he was coming back. He had already done so much, it didn’t seem fair to expect any more. He gave her a quick wave before disappearing into the corridor.
‘Apparently he’s a great pal of Professor Whycliffe’s,’ said the nurse, as if this explained everything.
‘Is he?’ echoed Eleanor faintly. She lay back against her pillows, dimly let down and perplexed, yet still fearing that her own thick-wittedness was to blame. Her head felt as if someone had taken out her brain and stuffed wads of cotton wool between her temples instead. ‘So I can go home tomorrow?’
‘As long as none of your symptoms flare up again. You were pretty bad, so the doctors wanted to keep an eye.’ The girl spoke in a voice that managed to be matter-of-fact as well as gentle. ‘You’ll be given some tablets to take for a few days – and an epi-pen, I should think, in case it happens again.’ She bustled round as she talked, checking Eleanor’s chart and pulse and then removing the drip. Eleanor flexed her arm, glad to have it back again. ‘Now just the blood pressure and we’re done.’
Eleanor held out the other arm to be wrapped, closing her eyes as the band inflated and tightened. She was deeply tired still. Inside the band her pulse bounced like a trapped insect. Her thoughts drifted back to the sting, and it reminded her of the bee buzzing on a warm windy day at her mother’s graveside, Kat lolling in the grass with her skirt rucked round her twiggy thighs, their father in his socks and sandals, showing his hairy calves. A jolt of revulsion brought her back to the present. What had he been thinking that day? On any day? When had it started? There was truth. It existed. But all one ever got was glimpses. And now he had died.
Eleanor caught her breath as the memory of this fact rushed back at her. Howard’s phone call. Her father was dead. Of a heart attack. She had forgotten. How had she forgotten?
The nurse was holding out some pills and a glass of water and saying something about a supper tray. As Eleanor forced the tablets down, the girl moved round the bed, straightening the sheets and punching air into the pillows, her short thin arms working like pistons. ‘Do you want me to stay while you use the toilet?’
‘No, I’ll be fine thanks.’ Eleanor tracked the progress of the trolley back to the door, not looking at the nurse’s face, longing for her to be gone.
‘The supper will be along soon. Press your button if you need anything.’
‘Yup. Thanks.’
The door fell shut with a swish. Eleanor swung her legs out of the bed and sat for a few moments, listening to the quietness. There were feelings now, but not the ones she had expected. Her father was gone. There was relief, but sadness too, like she had lost another piece of Kat.
Gingerly, Eleanor levered herself upright and groped her way across the room, using the edge of the bed and the wall for support. The toilet cubicle had a light switch on a string dangling by the door. Eleanor tugged on it, only to gasp as her face appeared in the small mirror above the washbasin. The bloating made her virtually unrecognisable. Elephant Man had not been wide of the mark. Elephant Man had been kind. She traced her fingers over the new lumpy contours in miserable disbelief. The bruise on her forehead was especially unsightly, a lump like an egg, of veiny blues and yellows, running into the puffy ledge of her eyebrows. She hurriedly finished her ablutions, before stumbling back into bed.
A few minutes later there was a light knock on her door, which she assumed would be her supper, but Nick’s face appeared round the edge of it, looking at once hopeful and apologetic.
She threw her hands over her face with an involuntary moan.
‘Hey, are you okay?’
‘No. Turn the light out.’ She spoke through her fingers
‘The light?’ he repeated, sounding concerned. ‘Do you have a headache?’ When she didn’t answer, he said sternly, ‘Eleanor. If you are experiencing severe head pain then—’
‘No, no… my head is fine,’ she mumbled, widening her fingers to speak through them. ‘I looked in the mirror, okay? I looked in the mirror like you told me not to. I am a gargoyle. Worse than a gargoyle. So I’d prefer the light off. Please.’
‘Right.’
He sounded bemused. Amused. It was hard to be sure without looking. He flicked the wall switch, and for a moment neither of them spoke.
‘It’s really not that bad,’ Nick ventured at length. ‘I mean, compared to
what it was…’ He approached the end of the bed, propping his stick against the frame. ‘By tomorrow…’ It took him a moment to realise she was crying. Feeling helpless, he gave one of her ankles a squeeze through the bedclothes. ‘The swelling is only temporary. By tomorrow you will be almost back to normal. Hey, Eleanor, please don’t be upset.’ He patted the ankle, the sense of helplessness worsening.
When still she wept, he limped to her side, racking his brain for some more solid reassurances. Donna had always said he was useless when she was upset, that all he did was spout obvious things that made no difference whatsoever. His track record with the girls was better. They always seemed to find his useless words soothing. And his hugs. Those tended to work well.
‘Eleanor, stop this at once,’ he instructed, trying a harsher tack and perching on the bed. ‘The swelling is just part of the anaphylaxis, the reason such an allergic reaction is so dangerous. Basically, a load of chemicals get released – histamines and so on – from cells in the blood and body tissues. These cause blood pressure to drop to unacceptable levels and also dilate the blood vessels, making them leak fluid. Hence the swelling, especially round the face and throat…’
She had turned on her side, away from him, so he ventured a pat on her back, very lightly.
‘Eleanor? I forbid you to be so upset. You are going to be right as rain in a matter of hours. Trust me I’m a…’ Nick faltered, partly because faith in his power to say anything helpful was dissolving and partly because his hand had made contact with some of the rivulets of her hair and they were slipping through his fingers, like silk. It took a monumental resolve to pull his hand free and pluck a tissue from her bedside box instead. ‘Here.’ He dangled the tissue near her face.
Good Girls Page 31
