Gemma's Journey

by Beryl Kingston

  She told him everything she knew, in the most graphic detail, and was pleased when he winced and even more pleased when tears welled up in his eyes.

  ‘That’s horrendous!’ he said, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘What a good job she’s got you to look after her. It says here she’s coming back to live with you. Is that right?’

  ‘Well I hope so. We haven’t made any firm plans yet.’

  ‘And she’s going to sue the railway.’

  ‘Well, possibly. It’s early days.’

  ‘Very wise,’ he said and he stood up. For a moment she thought he was going to take her in his arms. But he walked across to the window instead and looked down at the street. ‘Would you like to come out for a meal?’ he asked. ‘A little celebration. It’s been far too long since we had a meal together. And yes, I know what you’re going to say. It was all my fault.’

  The invitation and the start of such a charming apology made her heart leap as if she was still a girl. ‘When?’

  ‘No time like the present. I ought to start making amends.’

  So they went to one of the local restaurants. ‘They’ll wonder who you are,’ she said, as they made an entrance.

  ‘Let them wonder,’ he said masterfully. ‘We’ve got other things to think about.’

  But oddly, what they talked about was money and how it could be invested. Afterwards she wasn’t quite sure how they’d got around to the subject but he was certainly knowledgeable about it.

  ‘There are all sorts of ways to beat the taxman,’ he explained. ‘Trust funds. PEPs. And you have to be careful where money’s concerned. You ought to look into it. For Gemma’s sake. She’ll need someone to advise her.’

  She supposed so.

  ‘I could get you a few leaflets if you’d like,’ he offered. ‘You need to be prepared.’

  She wasn’t sure about that. ‘I wouldn’t want her to think I was putting her under any pressure.’

  ‘The trouble is,’ he told her, ‘where money’s concerned this world is full of sharks. Absolute sharks, believe me. If we don’t look after her, they’ll get at her and before she knows where she is the money will be gone.’

  ‘That sounds awful.’

  He reached across the table and took her hand. ‘Not to worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll help you.’

  She held his hand tightly, thrilled by its pressure. ‘If you ask me, it’s a good job you’ve come back.’

  ‘I’m glad you think so,’ he said and his voice was full of emotion. ‘Now the next thing is for me to visit our Gemma. When are you going to see her next? Maybe I could come with you.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’ And she explained quickly in case she’d upset him. ‘It gave me enough of a shock to see you again and I’m fit and healthy. Let me warn her. Sort of prepare her for it.’

  He agreed at once, smiling at her in his most charming way. ‘Of course. Very sensible. So when’s your next visit?’

  ‘Tuesday,’ she said.

  ‘Not tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ve got the accounts to do tomorrow.’

  ‘Always the worker,’ he said, admiring her. ‘You’re a wonderful woman, there’s no doubt about that. One in a million. You see her and give her my love and see what she says.’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ Billie said, basking in his admiration.

  But when she reached the ward on Tuesday, Gemma wasn’t there – not in bed, not in the day room, not in the corridors. She even looked in the disabled toilet but there wasn’t a sign of her. After a while she began to get upset. What if she’s been taken ill again? she thought, drifting back to the ward. I shall have to find a nurse and ask what’s going on.

  But there didn’t seem to be any nurses around, and there weren’t many patients either except for two who were asleep and the oldest inhabitant, who was sitting beside her bed doing her knitting.

  The old lady looked up and beckoned to her.

  ‘You looking for Gemma?’ she asked. ‘Thought you was. She’s gone out.’

  Billie was relieved. And then cross. ‘Gone out? She can’t have.’

  ‘For the evening.’

  Billie looked down at the wrinkled face below her and decided the old lady didn’t know what she was talking about. ‘You don’t go out for the evening when you’re in hospital.’

  ‘You do nowadays,’ the old lady said. ‘It’s all changed now.’

  They must have taken her off for some treatment, Billie thought, sighing with annoyance. ‘Do you know when she’ll be back?’

  ‘Late, I should think. I reckon she’s gone out to dinner. Never ’ad no supper and then some woman came to collect her. I seen her bein’ wheeled out.’

  How very, very annoying, Billie thought. And how typical. Her father comes back to us and she goes out to dinner. ‘Well, will you tell her I came to see her,’ she asked the old lady, ‘and say I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ve got a surprise for her.’

  Chapter 11

  Despite his outward calm, Andrew Quennell was excited by being in a television studio. His first glimpse of the studio building had been rather a disappointment. It looked too ordinary, single-storeyed, not particularly well lit, right alongside the road, more like a factory than a centre of entertainment and damned difficult to find in the dark. But the studio itself was everything he expected and more. It made him feel important simply to step through the door, there was such an air of purpose and authority there, such a blaze of light, so many cameras. He could even see two being pushed into position on the gallery, right above the raked seats where the audience would sit. There was no doubt about the value of this programme. It was meant to be taken seriously.

  A friendly young man with a ponytail explained that Andrew would be one of the principal speakers and escorted him to his seat in the front row, warning him to watch out for the cables. An equally friendly young woman with a crew cut clipped a microphone to his tie and hid the leads under his shirt. The studio manager led in the audience, who all looked suitably serious and well-dressed. There was a gratifying and exciting sense that something important was about to happen.

  ‘Robert Carpenter will be with us in three minutes,’ the studio manager warned, ‘and he’ll have one or two things to tell you before we start. So if you’ll all make yourselves comfortable …’

  Robert Carpenter, the star of the show, was taller than Andrew had imagined. He wore an understated suit and very little makeup, was effortlessly handsome and entirely without side. He explained that the programme would begin with a short film about the Wandsworth crash and ‘one or two comments on the report.’

  ‘There are monitors all round the studio so that you can watch the film too,’ he said. ‘But once the discussion begins, don’t look at them. Not unless you want to look a prat. This is a live show and we can’t edit you out. Don’t look at the cameras. Similar reason. Look at the person who’s speaking. Or at me. If you have something to say, catch my eye. I shall be walking round all the time and I don’t miss much. You will feel nervous for thirty seconds, but that’s all. I promise.’ He smiled at them, the smile as charming and familiar as it was on screen. ‘Right. All set?’

  Very smooth, Andrew thought with admiration, as he settled to enjoy the film. He was pleased to realise that he didn’t feel nervous at all, not even when his own face spoke to him out of the screen. I suppose I’ve got used to the sight of it now, he thought, and remembered how anxious he’d been after that first interview, afraid that he’d gone too far or said the wrong thing. Well at least there was no fear of that now. He’d been well briefed. He knew what questions he was likely to be asked and, more importantly, he’d planned exactly what he was going to say. Now all he needed to do was to concentrate on the programme. He sat back in his chair, listening intently.

  A voice-over was asking, ‘Are you saying that this accident was due to poor maintenance?’ And there was his own voice speaking. ‘I’d lay money it was … We live in penny-pinching times. Brit
ish Rail is being privatised. So we don’t spend taxpayers’ money on rolling stock, or safety measures, as we ought to if we had any sense. We use it to bribe the buyers. We use it to ensure a good profit for the shareholders. Profit. That’s what this is about. If this accident turns out to be the result of poor maintenance, or the lack of proper investment, I hope no one will forget that the casualties will have paid the price for it.’

  ‘Dr Quennell,’ Robert Carpenter said, walking towards him. ‘You were very sure of your facts that night.’

  ‘Actually,’ Andrew admitted, ‘I wasn’t sure at all. I thought it likely. I was so angry at the waste of life, I spoke as I felt.’

  ‘And you were proved right. We know from the report that the casualties you tended that night did pay the price for inadequate maintenance.’

  ‘Sadly, yes.’

  ‘You stand by what you said?’

  ‘Absolutely. That was an accident waiting to happen.’

  ‘It would appear,’ Robert Carpenter said, moving on to his next speaker, ‘that no fewer than three companies owned these coaches after privatisation. As far as we can ascertain, none of them ran any safety checks before selling them on. We invited all three to send a representative to this debate but all three declined. However we do have with us Mr Graham Vaughan, a regional safety officer who used to work for British Rail. Mr Vaughan, can you tell us what checks you would consider necessary, given the age of the carriages?’

  The talk was led from safety standards to the ethics of privatisation. Andrew admired the professionalism of it. What I’ve got to say can wait, he thought. Let the others sound off first and then I’ll step in.

  The revelation that the accident had been caused by lack of maintenance had touched a public nerve. There were several impassioned speeches from the floor, deploring the lack of care and the general fall in standards. Robert Carpenter moved quietly about, keeping an eye on the studio manager, watching out for new contributors, edging the debate in the direction he wanted. Soon the audience began to take sides, some speaking out for privatisation and competition, others castigating the profit motive and corporate greed. It was a lively debate, as Andrew was pleased to see, but it wasn’t leading to the opening he was looking for and time was passing. He was just thinking he’d lost his opportunity and should have spoken up right at the beginning, when a woman in the back row began to praise ‘the wonderful job’ the medical teams had done on the day of the crash.

  ‘If it hadn’t been for them,’ she said, ‘it could all have been much worse. I think we should thank God we’ve still got a National Health Service.’

  This is it, Andrew thought, looking straight at Robert Carpenter. He realised that he suddenly felt very nervous indeed, his heart pounding and his palms wet with sweat. But he was given his invitation to speak. ‘Dr Quennell.’

  ‘If you’ll take my advice,’ he said, looking at the woman, ‘you’ll make the most of our NHS while you’ve still got it. I quite agree with you. It’s a wonderful institution but it’s in its death throes. I’m not supposed to say that, but it’s the truth and we all know it. There’s a desperate shortage of beds, especially in intensive care units. We could easily have lost patients that night for lack of beds. It was only by the grace of God that we managed to get them all into London hospitals. The problem we’ve been talking about here is the same problem we’re facing in the NHS. Ever since their inception, British Rail and the NHS have been offering a public service. Now we’re being required to run a business, which is an entirely different matter.’

  ‘But don’t you think competition makes for a better service?’ a man’s voice asked.

  ‘No,’ Andrew said, trenchantly, ‘I don’t and this programme has been evidence of it. We’ve been talking about how railway companies compete. They close lines and sack staff and cut back on essential services like safety checks. Hospital Trusts are in the same position. They have to save money too, so they close wards and sack staff and cut back on beds. Hardly a week goes by without news of a death that should have been avoided, or a helicopter chase for an intensive care bed. When the next rail crash comes we might not be able to deal with it.’

  ‘That’s alarmist,’ his opponent said.

  ‘That’s the truth. We’re running two health services now – one for people who can pay and one for the rest. In a good many hospitals, patients arriving at Accident and Emergency are asked whether they have private health insurance almost as soon as they get through the door. If they have, they can expect rapid, specialist treatment. If they haven’t, they wait. Imagine that system operating at a major accident.’

  There was a murmur of agreement and the hiss of breath drawn in outrage.

  The programme was into its last two minutes. ‘Are we likely to have another major accident?’ Robert Carpenter asked the health and safety expert.

  ‘I’m afraid we are,’ Mr Vaughan told him, ‘unless the new companies are prepared to spend more on maintenance and keeping up proper safety standards.’

  ‘Which is what you would like to see done?’

  ‘Of course. It’s a simple choice. We either spend more on passenger safety or we allow the new managing directors to earn bigger profits.’

  ‘And if we can have a last word from Dr Quennell,’ Robert Carpenter said. ‘What would you like to see done?’

  ‘I agree with Mr Vaughan,’ Andrew said. ‘But I would like a proper Health Service too, adequately funded and ready to cope with any emergency. It would cost money because it would mean reopening wards we’ve been forced to close, employing more doctors and nurses, enlarging our intensive care provision. But I think most people would vote for it.’

  ‘Well that’s it for tonight,’ Robert Carpenter said, speaking to camera. ‘Don’t forget to join us next week when we will be examining another moral issue of the day.’

  The credits were rolling, the programme’s theme tune being played. It was over.

  ‘That was great!’ the studio manager told Andrew as the microphone was being unhooked from his tie.

  ‘Good,’ Andrew said with satisfaction. ‘I hoped it would be.’ There was no false modesty with this man.

  Back in Putney, Catherine and Gemma had watched the programme with mixed emotions, Catherine proud of the stand he was taking but feeling protective in case the media exploited him, Gemma full of unqualified admiration. It didn’t occur to her that the doctor might be making difficulties for himself. She was still angry at the findings of the report and thought it was splendid that he was standing up for the victims and the medical teams who cared for them. Fancy having a man like that for a father.

  ‘Strictly speaking,’ Catherine explained, ‘doctors aren’t supposed to talk to the media.’

  ‘I don’t see why they shouldn’t,’ Gemma said. ‘It’s their Health Service. I think it’s great the way he’s speaking up for it.’ Seeing him like this had made her feel that this flat was a distinct possibility.

  ‘He’s furious about what they’re doing to the NHS,’ Catherine told her. ‘His father was in it from the beginning, you see, so he was brought up to it. He can’t bear to see it being run down.’

  ‘No. That’s obvious.’

  ‘Time to look at the flat,’ Catherine said as the programme was faded out. ‘There’s nothing else we want to watch, is there?’

  So the flat it was. They left the living room, Catherine pushing the wheelchair, opened a door to their right and entered the chill of an unused room. It was a bedroom and the biggest and most peculiar Gemma had ever seen. She didn’t like it at all.

  ‘Originally it used to be the dining room,’ Catherine explained. ‘Then it was Drew’s surgery. Then Gran had it as a bedroom. It’s been all sorts, this room.’

  Which is what it looked like. The remains of its original grandeur were still there, china finger plates above and below the brass handles on the door, an elaborate moulded ceiling, a fireplace still complete with Victorian tiles and a marble mantelpiece supporting a
Victorian looking-glass in its original gilded surround. There had been similar fittings in the room she’d just left, but there, as she now realised, they’d been matched by the furniture: the doctor’s bureau and leather chair, the comfortable armchairs and sofas, the general relaxed affluence of it all. Here, where the only items of furniture were two plain single beds shrinking against the far wall, a small modern chest of drawers and a diminutive wardrobe, they were totally out of place. And to make matters worse, there was a stainless steel sink in the alcove to one side of the fireplace. Drew used it as his surgery. She looked at the room rather bleakly, not at all sure that she wanted to live in it. But Catherine was already pushing her towards an archway on the other side of the fireplace, switching on more lights as she went.

  They were in a dark inner hall dominated by doors, three white ones giving out to right and left and a Victorian side entrance, stained glass and all, immediately facing her.

  ‘This is the bathroom!’ Catherine demonstrated, throwing open the first door to her left. ‘We had it specially built when Gran got arthritis, so it’s got a shower stool and a handrail and that sort of thing. And this is the kitchen.’

  It wasn’t a great deal bigger than the bathroom, but there was everything to hand, even a washing machine, which Gemma hadn’t expected, and although it was a tight fit, the wheelchair went in and out of the door and could just about be turned round inside the room. There would be problems here, she thought, but I could handle them.

  ‘Pièce de résistance now,’ Catherine said and manoeuvred her through the last door into the living room.

  This time she didn’t switch on the lights until they were both through the door and for a split second, as the room bloomed before her, grass green and corn gold, sage, pine, mustard and ginger, Gemma had the impression that she’d been pushed into the garden. It was such a pretty room it could have been designed for her. There wasn’t a straight line or a discordant colour anywhere she looked. Flowers curled about each other on cushions and curtains, a wing chair held out curved green arms, the occasional table was circular, the two chests of drawers elegantly bow-fronted; there were two spherical vases, an oval mirror, a clock like a golden orb. Even the three-seater settee was curvaceous, its cushions plumply buttoned. And down by the television set was a little round footstool, not much bigger than a dessert plate, but intricately carved and upholstered in soft brown velvet. It lifted her spirits simply to look at it all.