Gemma's Journey

by Beryl Kingston

  Actually newspapers were the last thing on Gemma’s mind at that moment because morning rounds had just finished and most of her fellow patients were being allowed home. The girl called Patsy was the first to leave. Lucky thing!

  ‘I’m off then,’ she said, breezing across to Gemma’s bed when the doctor had gone. ‘Told you he’d sign me off, didn’t I? He’s a sweetie, our Dr Quennell.’

  Gemma kept her opinion of the doctor to herself. ‘I shall miss you,’ she said. ‘What about the others?’

  ‘Them an’ all,’ Patsy said happily. ‘We’re all signed off.’

  ‘The place’ll be quite empty.’

  ‘It’ll be full again by evening, I betcher,’ Patsy said. ‘You look after yourself. There’s the Sundays. Thought you’d like to see them. You’re on the front page again.’

  Gemma frowned. ‘I’m not, am I. What for?’

  ‘Says you’re going to sue for damages,’ Patsy said, spreading out the paper so that she could see it.

  ‘News to me,’ Gemma said.

  ‘You go for it, kid,’ Patsy advised. ‘Screw ’em for every penny you can get. Why not? If they give it to you, they might shell out for us an’ all. Here’s my old man come for me. I gotta go.’ And she bent to give Gemma a kiss.

  There was a bustle of leave-taking and then all four of them were gone. The ward was horribly quiet. The oldest inhabitant was fast asleep in her bed at the end, the woman with the heart bypass was concentrating on her knitting and the kid with crossed eyes had taken herself off to the day room to watch television with her one good eye. The two nurses on duty swished in as soon as the last patient had left but they’d come to make up the empty beds ready for their next occupants. So there was no one for Gemma to talk to and nothing to do except read the papers, even though she didn’t particularly want to. The headline was enough to put her off for a start with its ghastly pun, DAMAGES FOR DAMAGED GEMMA, and she had a nasty feeling she knew what they were going to say in the article. And there it was, sure enough: ‘Mrs Billie Goodeve, speaking at the hospital yesterday …’

  Oh Mother! she mourned, letting the paper slip out of her hand, why must you always interfere? Why can’t you just leave me alone? This is my business, not yours. I haven’t had a chance to think about it and you go to the press. You don’t let me breathe. The combination of anger and impotence was making her feel really down. And to make matters worse, her stump was hurting.

  One of the nurses smiled across the ward at her. ‘You all right?’ she called.

  ‘Bit down, that’s all.’

  The nurse walked across to her. ‘Do you need some pain-killers?’

  ‘What I need,’ Gemma told her, ‘is a pill to stop my mother living my life for me.’

  Susan Pengilly breezed into York station, glanced up at the clock on W. H. Smith’s and decided she just had time to pick up a paper before she caught the London train. The headlines caught her eye, the minute she stepped through the door. She wasn’t particularly surprised. It had to happen. There is always someone ready to make capital out of any misfortune and this girl had a good case, if the papers were to be believed.

  As soon as she was on the train and settled in her reserved seat, with coffee at her elbow, she scanned through all five papers so as to sort fact from speculation, and discovered that the information had come from the kid’s mother, which in her opinion made matters worse. Once families were involved things usually got sticky. Then she phoned the chairman of the inquiry to tell him she was on her way and to keep him informed.

  He was having a leisurely breakfast and, although he’d heard the news on the radio, he was determined not to be influenced by it. ‘Early days,’ he said. ‘It shouldn’t affect the inquiry. We’ll keep an eye on it.’

  ‘Maybe compensation should be on the agenda,’ Susan suggested. ‘Perhaps we should pre-empt them.’

  The chairman didn’t see the necessity. ‘It’s outside our remit, I’m glad to say. Let the accountants handle it. That’s what we pay ’em for.’

  ‘But it could have a bearing,’ Susan pressed. ‘We ought to consider it.’

  He was courteous. ‘There is that, of course.’

  ‘Maybe I’m being over-cautious but I think we need to cover all the angles.’ It was his favourite catch-phrase, so he had to hear it.

  There was a pause while he digested what she’d said and gazed at his waffles, wishing he could digest them instead. ‘I’ll give it thought,’ he temporised.

  Susan smiled with satisfaction as she put down the phone. She prided herself on her ability to handle executives and this one was going to be nicely malleable. It made for smooth running if secretary and chairman were in accord, particularly if he were more in accord than she was. Then she made a happy return to her notes.

  Although she wouldn’t have acknowledged the fact and certainly not to herself, she was only unquestionably happy when she was at work. It was the one environment in which she truly belonged and the only one in which she was in control. As a child she’d always had the uncomfortable feeling that she was on trial, watched for faults, supervised for unacceptable behaviour. She was honest enough to admit that there’d never been any justification for the feeling. She hadn’t been beaten or treated harshly. It was just something she’d picked up from her mother’s perpetual anxiety. In many ways she was fonder of her stepfather. He was a more open character and easier to understand. Like Rob, who was so laid back she sometimes forgot he was in the house at all.

  But, whatever the reason, work was her solace and she carried it with her wherever she went, travelling with a briefcase crammed full of papers and a laptop primed to receive her thoughts. In her neat business suits, large spectacles, discreet jewellery, with her dark hair sensibly bobbed and face and fingernails immaculately painted, she looked like the high-powered executive she was. Even her over-large spectacles were a status symbol. She’d chosen them four years ago in a moment of drunken bravado, declaring that since her eyesight was so poor she might as well make a virtue of necessity. And had then discovered that they suited her to perfection, giving her rather ordinary face a certain panache.

  She had her mother’s air force blue eyes. It was the one feature that she shared with her brothers, but few people outside the family realised it. For where Catherine’s eyes were hooded and slightly protuberant, and the boys’ were frank and tender, Susan’s were contained behind her glasses, their shape and colour defined by the latest fashion in eye shadow and mascara, their expression guarded. A flash of temper was so rare that her colleagues would remark on it but the warmth of her smile was an equally remarkable reward.

  Now she smiled at the guard as he came to inspect her travel pass, greeting him by name – having checked what it was from his name-tag.

  ‘Nice to have you aboard, Mrs Pengilly. King’s Cross, is it?’

  ‘That’s right, Bob,’ she said, returning her attention to her laptop. ‘All the way.’ Just time to write up yesterday’s report and then she’d have lunch. As a railway executive she had travel down to a fine art.

  By the time the train pulled into King’s Cross, the brakes filling her pressurised carriage with the smell of burning rubber, the inquiry team were organised down to the last name-tag. She gathered her belongings, feeling pleased with her morning’s work. There would be a hired car waiting for her on the forecourt. And it had better be an improvement on the one they provided last time, or there would be words to say. Slick, neat and ready for action, she stepped out into the capital.

  Andrew and Catherine always got up late on Sunday mornings so they didn’t read the news until it was nearly midday and they were having brunch.

  ‘I see the girl from the crash is suing the railway,’ Catherine observed, pouring herself a second cup of coffee.

  ‘Quite right too,’ Andrew said. ‘So she should. Good luck to her. Might make them realise you can’t play politics with people’s safety.’ He cut into his fried egg and let the yolk run over the bacon.r />
  ‘OK?’ she asked, as she always did.

  ‘Superb,’ he told her. As he always did. ‘I like Sunday. Best day of the week.’

  ‘When we retire it’ll be Sunday every day,’ she told him. ‘How about that?’

  He grinned with pleasure at the thought. ‘We’ve earned it,’ he said. ‘We’ve done our share of rushing about. Now it’s time to put our feet up and read the papers.’

  Nick Quennell was so hard at work in the surgical wards that day that he didn’t get a chance to look at a newspaper, let alone read one, and he certainly didn’t put his feet up. Lunch was a sandwich eaten standing up, at four o’clock he got himself a cup of tea but not the time to drink it, and by dinner time he was tired out and ravenously hungry.

  ‘Duodenal, here I come!’ he said to Abdul, as the three friends carried their trays to one of the window seats in the hospital restaurant.

  ‘Me too,’ Abdul said. ‘I could do with a nice long cruise to recuperate.’

  ‘Round the world,’ Rick suggested, unloading his tray.

  ‘Anywhere except A and E,’ Abdul said. ‘It’s been mayhem today.’

  On the other side of the Thames the Houses of Parliament blazed with yellow light and behind it the evening sky was indigo blue. ‘I wonder what they’re cooking up for us tonight,’ Rick said.

  ‘Read the papers tomorrow and you’ll find out,’ Abdul said.

  ‘I haven’t read today’s yet,’ Rick told him.

  There was a discarded collection heaped on a nearby seat. ‘There you are,’ Nick said, handing the bundle across to him. ‘Read it now. What d’you want? Review, news, colour supp, sport?’

  The various sections were distributed and for a few restful minutes they browsed and fed. They’d reached the lemon meringue pie before Abdul discovered the piece about Gemma Goodeve. ‘Your crash girl’s going to sue for compensation,’ he said to Nick. ‘What d’you think of that?’

  Nick was still feeling sore about Miss Goodeve. ‘It’s her business, not mine,’ he said shortly.

  His friends pulled a face at one another. But at that moment his bleeper sounded, so he didn’t have to continue the conversation, which was quite a relief because he could see they were going to tease.

  It was the staff nurse on Page Ward. Would he come and take a look at Gemma.

  ‘Back in a minute,’ he said to the others and strode off to the lift, white coat flapping.

  She was lying on her side in exactly the same position as she’d been in under the wreckage and was obviously ill, her cheeks flushed and her eyes swimmy with fever. He knew the wound was infected even before he looked at it. Damn, damn, damn.

  ‘She’ll have to go back to theatre,’ he said to Staff.

  Gemma took the news with the calm he’d come to expect. Whatever else he might think about her, she was certainly brave.

  ‘When?’ she asked.

  ‘Tonight,’ he told her. ‘As soon as I can arrange it.’

  She managed a smile, faint and lop-sided but a smile. ‘Will you let my mother know?’ she said. ‘You owe her that at least.’

  Was she daring him, or teasing him, or what? There was a lot about this young woman that he simply didn’t understand. ‘She’ll be told,’ he said, stiffly. ‘Of course. That goes without saying.’

  On Monday, the report of Billie’s interview with the tabloids reached the quality press in Cape Town.

  It was a fine spring morning and Tim Ledgerwood was sitting on his veranda, sipping orange juice and enjoying the sunshine. It gave him quite a shock to see Gemma’s name in his newspaper. Well, well, well, he thought, CRASH HEROINE SEEKING DAMAGES OF HALF A MILLION. Imagine that.

  He put the paper down on the table, amused to see that it completely covered all the hideous mail he’d received and hadn’t answered for the last awful month – the bills and the letters from creditors, the endless, idiotic demands.

  ‘I think,’ he told the sunshine, ‘the time has come for me to take a trip to England. This could be the answer.’

  Chapter 7

  Coming round from an anaesthetic for the second time in three days was a miserable experience for Gemma Goodeve. She felt so ill, weak and confused and nauseous, and the stump was paining her dreadfully. There was no doubt about it being a stump this time, nor that she’d undergone major surgery. She couldn’t see properly, there was a foul taste in her mouth and the sounds around her were jangled and confused like a badly tuned radio.

  Presently a shape loomed out of the muddle and leant towards her. She could see the blue of a uniform and the double outline of a face, which blurred and shifted as she struggled to focus her eyes. Her brain felt as though it was full of cotton wool and it took a long time to form the question she wanted to ask.

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘You’re in recovery,’ the shape said. ‘It’s all over. No problems.’

  A nurse, she thought. Of course. I should have known. The voice was vaguely familiar. ‘Are you from the ward? Do I know you?’

  ‘I’m Sally,’ the nurse said. ‘I was with you at the crash.’

  The crash, Gemma thought. Yes. I remember. But it was the vaguest of memories and without pain or distress. She knew there were things she wanted to say but the cotton wool was expanding into her mind, smothering her thoughts, and she had to sleep again.

  She was still sleeping when Nick arrived to check on her progress. It was an unnecessary visit because he knew the op had been a success and that she’d come through it well but he felt compelled to make it. He stood beside the trolley for a long time, looking down at her, gowned and still among the tubes and apparatus, her mouth and chin marked by the mask, her skin shock-pale from the anaesthetic, her bruises darkly obvious. Seeing her like this, at her lowest, he felt ashamed of the way he’d shouted at her on Saturday and the sight of her poor battered face made him ache with pity for her. He wanted to comfort her, to smooth her forehead or stroke her cheek and he actually stretched out his hand towards her, before he was fully aware of what he was doing. He checked himself at once, of course, and pretended he was adjusting the oxygen mask, but the impulse had been undeniable. It’s not fair, he thought, thwarted tenderness turning to anger. She doesn’t deserve this. She’s young and strong and brave and she ought to be out there, on the stage, enjoying her life, not lying here struck down like this.

  The porters arrived to trundle her out of the recovery room and he stood aside to make way for them. He was aware that he was still feeling uncomfortably emotional and that watching her being wheeled away was making him worse. It wasn’t like him to get so involved with a patient. He always felt sympathy for them, naturally, but never this protective responsibility, never this need to comfort, never this yearning to stay with them. It must be because I was at the accident, he told himself, shrugging the thoughts away as he went off to check his other patients. One was a complicated fracture. Old Barnaby had done a superb job with it but it would need careful post-op nursing. It had been quite a night.

  ‘What we want now is a nice straightforward recovery,’ he said to Sally, as he left.

  Which, to everybody’s delight and his relief was what they got. By the time he did the ward rounds later that evening, Gemma was awake; by the following morning she was alert and declaring she was on the mend.

  ‘This is excellent,’ he said to Gemma, thinking what a pleasure it was to praise her. ‘Much better than last time. We shall have you off the drip in no time at all.’ Then, feeling he ought to show some sort of interest to make amends for shouting at her, he added, ‘Has your mother been in?’

  ‘Yes,’ Gemma said, smiling at him and thinking how charming he could be when he liked. ‘Thanks. She came yesterday evening. She brought me some more fruit.’ She waved a hand at the carefully arranged bowl. ‘Look at it all. I haven’t eaten the first lot yet.’

  ‘It looks delicious,’ he said.

  She agreed that it did but added, ‘I’d rather she’d brought me some writing paper
.’

  They’d established a good contact this time so he let the conversation continue, although he was careful to hide behind his professional voice. ‘Why is that?’

  ‘I’ve had a letter from my flatmates,’ she explained, ‘and it needs answering.’ It was lying on her bedside cabinet and the sight of it rekindled her annoyance at what it said. ‘Hope you’re getting on all right. Cossie is moving in on Monday. We have put your things in the bathroom cupboard. Can you arrange to have them collected?’

  ‘I was their tenant on Thursday morning,’ she told him, ‘and now I’m out on my ear. Apparently my replacement’s already moved in. How’s that for friendship?’

  This time, her anger pleased him. It was directed at someone else, so he could see it as a sign of her recovery. She looked like a warrior scarred by battle but ready to fight again. ‘Not very nice,’ he said and was embarrassed because the words sounded feeble.

  But she was still cross about her letter and didn’t seem to notice. ‘I shall write and give them a piece of my mind,’ she said. ‘They’re treating me as though I don’t exist. Can’t wait to get rid of me. It’s bloody insulting. I may have lost a leg but I’ve still got my marbles.’

  He laughed at that. ‘So I gather you’re not going back there when we’ve finished with you?’

  ‘No, I am not.’

  He asked the next question casually because it was important. Her lack of accommodation might be a problem and, if it was, the hospital authority would have to solve it. ‘Have you any idea where you will go?’

  ‘No,’ she said, and she spoke lightly. ‘Not really. Not back to the flat anyway. And not to my mother’s either. I’ve been independent too long to want to “live with mummy”. I’ll work something out.’

  Nick didn’t doubt her intentions but, unlike her, he was aware that it would be hard to put them into practice. She would be wheelchair bound for at least five weeks because they wouldn’t fit the prosthesis until her remaining leg was out of plaster and fully functional. So she’d need somewhere pro tern, fairly sheltered, ground floor, no steps, maybe with a warden. I’ll get Social Services to visit her, he decided. See what they can come up with. And he gave her a smile to indicate that they’d finished their conversation and moved on to his next patient.