The Virus Man

by Claire Rayner

  And now, at last, she felt better. Whether she had done the right thing or not for Timmy, she had shared the risk. That was what had been so dreadful about it all, the possibility that she would be left out of what happened to him. If Timmy were to get better then she had to be part of that, but if he didn’t then she had to experience what he did, whatever it was. And if he was to be damaged by the treatment she had instigated – well, now she would be too, and she smiled gently down at the syringe in her hand and felt the pain in her leg as it increased and then slowly eased, and felt her eyelids droop. Now she’d be able to rest a little, perhaps get some sleep. Let the nurse stay awake for a while and give her a chance to rest her head on the side of the bed, so that Timmy’s hand could touch her hair, and sleep a little. To sleep would be lovely, and she reached forwards to set the syringe back neatly in the dish, and then, suddenly, the sweet drowsiness that had begun to fill her shot away and she was staring wide-eyed and terrified at the syringe in her hand and at the empty dish. An empty syringe and an empty dish, and she whimpered again, this time with fear at what she had done and what she would do when she was found out, and the nurse stirred and lifted her head and said thickly, ‘What’s the time?’

  June’s hand jerked guiltily as a great surge of adrenalin moved through her, and she involuntarily hit the dish on the locker top and sent it rattling across the Formica surface to go tumbling to the floor, and without stopping to think she opened her hand and let the syringe go too, and it followed the dish to the floor, and she moved one foot forwards and managed to stamp on it and felt the glass shatter beneath her heel.

  ‘Oh!’ she gasped. ‘You made me jump! Oh, heavens, look what I’ve done! Oh, this is dreadful … you’ll have to get another syringe, get some more of the stuff … oh, I’m so sorry, but you made me jump ….’

  The nurse was beside her now, crouching to pick up the pieces, and her face was red as she got to her feet again.

  ‘Well, there was no need to be quite so clumsy,’ she said sharply, her face blotched and angry, ‘I mean, I only asked the time – well, no need to fuss. There’s plenty in that bottle – I’ll get another dose drawn up and we’ll say no more about it. What no one knows about can’t make problems can it? If you say nothing, I’ll say nothing.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ June said gratefully. ‘Not a word. Anyone can have an accident, can’t they? Not a word – but do get it. It’s time for his next one, isn’t it?’ And she looked anxiously at Timmy and squeezed his hands and bent her head closer to see how he was.

  And this time he reacted to the pressure of her hand. She felt his fingers move under hers, and he rolled his head and made a small noise in his throat, and she stared at him and then up at the nurse and her face was blazing with excitement.

  ‘He’s getting better … he is, isn’t he? He’s getting better? Oh, it was right to use it, it was … it hasn’t hurt him! Oh, please get the next one, as fast as you can. He’s getting better. My Timmy’s getting better!’

  36

  ‘Younger child, you see,’ Lyall Davies said, beaming round at them all, but making sure his face was most directly presented to the men with the cameras. ‘Faster rate of recovery. It’s most gratifying, really most gratifying. It’s as remarkable a recovery as the Barnett child’s, only faster. He’s not asked for scrambled eggs, mind you. It’s rice crispies he’s tucking into! Day before yesterday damn near dead, and now chasing rice crispies round a plate. Remarkable, really remarkable ….’

  ‘Did Dr Pitman work with you in the use of the Contravert this time, doctor?’ one of the journalists asked. ‘Is there any chance he’ll come and give us a comment too, this afternoon?’

  ‘And what about the mother? Can we talk to the mother?’

  ‘Mother’s in America,’ Lyall Davies said, carefully avoiding looking at the first questioner. ‘It’s his aunt who’s in charge of him.’

  He stopped and gazed at the woman who had asked the second question with an oddly smooth look on his face, and then said with an air of great casualness, ‘She’s a Mrs June Pitman. I don’t know if she’ll want to talk to you. You’ll have to ask her yourselves.’

  ‘Pitman? Quite a coincidence.’ The man who’d asked whether Dr Pitman had been working with Lyall Davies pushed his head further forwards through the press of his fellows. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Not really,’ Lyall Davies said, and smiled widely. ‘She’s Dr Pitman’s wife.’

  He couldn’t have been more delighted with the effect of his words and his pleasure showed in every line of his body as he stood there smiling at them, enjoying the sudden silence that had fallen. As one of them said in a voice that was tinged with awe, ‘Are you telling us that this child is a relation of Dr Pitman’s? That he’s agreed to the use of his drug on this child when he’s refused it for all the others?’ his smile widened even more.

  ‘Now, don’t you go putting words into my mouth! I didn’t say and I do not say now that Dr Pitman agreed to the use of Contravert on this child, who does indeed happen to be his nephew. Wife’s sister’s child, as I understand the relationship. All I said was that it had been used, that the child is better, and that if you want to know more you’ll have to talk to Mrs Pitman. She can explain a good deal more than I can.’

  ‘It’s Dr Pitman I want to talk to,’ one of the journalists said grimly. ‘I’ve got three kids under fifteen, and I’ve been worried sick about ’em with all this going on. It’s Dr Pitman I’d like a word with.’

  ‘If you’ll take my advice it’s his wife you’ll talk to first,’ Lyall Davies said jovially, and began to move forwards, pushing his way through the crowd. ‘Now, I’ve got work to do, other patients to see, and I can’t stand here chatting with all of you all day, splendid chaps though you are! Good afternoon!’ And he was gone in a flurry of flashlight photographs, marching along the lower corridor towards the main ward block, leaving the journalists behind him talking among themselves with considerable energy.

  ‘And if that doesn’t persuade the man to part with his stuff for the rest of the people I’d like to use it for, nothing will!’ he told Sister on Ward Seven B ten minutes later when he recounted, with great gusto, his version of dealing with the Press men downstairs. ‘And don’t you look at me like that, Sister, so po-faced. You know as well as I do that the stuffs good, it’s a lifesaver, and Pitman’s got to be made to see he can’t go on sitting on it like a broody hen. If he doesn’t know the good of what he’s got there, there are others that do ….’

  ‘But what about the long-term side-effects he’s told you about?’ Sister said, tilting her chin at him stubbornly. ‘Why aren’t you worried about them? Doesn’t it concern you that you could be doing irreversible damage, using an untested drug like this? If those children grow up to be sterile, or to give birth to congenially damaged babies, what then? That’s what I want to know. Sir.’ Arguing with Lyall Davies was an essential part of her daily life, and had been ever since she’d taken this post, but now his new self-satisfied sleekness and his passion for talking to journalists was making argument even more necessary. ‘He’s the man who made the stuff and he should know. If he says it could be dangerous in that way, then he’s got to be right. I’m sure I wouldn’t let anyone use it on any child of mine.’

  ‘Well, that’s a dilemma you’ll never need to face, is it?’ Lyall Davies said spitefully. As her face flamed he added smoothly, ‘He’s just being over-cautious, Sister. You really ought to be able to judge the difference between these laboratory wallahs and their neurotic fussing and the demands of real clinical medicine. If you can’t, you oughtn’t to be working in an acute ward, certainly not one of mine. I’m made in the good old heroic mould of doctors, Sister, and I’m not ashamed to say so. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and you can’t deny that so far I’ve gained two young lives that would have been down the drain without me. As for what happens to them twenty years from now – the important thing is they can now look forward twenty years, isn’t
it? Better than being dead. Think of that if you want to ease your conscience. And remember – if you can’t stand the heat of the kitchen you’ll be better off playing in the garden. That’s what I say.’

  ‘And I say that heroism isn’t what good medical care is about,’ Sister snapped, and stared at him challengingly. ‘These children could have lived without the stuff, given the right nursing. You never gave us the opportunity to see the boy through – just gave him the drug. Well, if he finishes up with damaged testes because you’ve been pumping him full of stuff you don’t understand, I hope you’ll sleep sound of nights. I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to, in your shoes.’

  ‘Piffle!’ Lyall Davies said, even more pleased with himself now he’d managed to make her so angry. There was nothing that enlivened the day more than a fight with this boring old spinster. ‘I never go to bed with my shoes on!’ And he laughed and reached for the charts and wrote on Timmy’s treatment schedule in his usual sprawling hand instructions to continue using the Contravert for another twenty-four hours.

  ‘To be on the safe side, Sister!’ he said, and grinned. ‘It wouldn’t do to stop the treatment too soon, would it?’

  June sat and worried all day about it. She’d have to tell him, and the longer she left it the worse it would be, but the thought of his anger made her shiver. She knew she’d done the right thing of course; looking at Timmy sitting there in bed playing with his plasticine and listening to the music coming from the earphones he now refused to take off, who could doubt it? Two days ago he’d been unconscious, flaming with fever, struggling to breathe, and now he was Timmy again. But all the same the thought of telling Ben made her feel sick.

  She had in fact been feeling sick all day, and now, as the trolleys carrying the patients’ suppers came into her ward smelling powerfully of macaroni cheese and tomato soup she felt her gorge rise more insistently than ever, and got to her feet unsteadily and smiled at Timmy as cheerfully as she could and said loudly, ‘Just going to the bathroom, darling.’ And Timmy looked at her vaguely and returned to his plasticine, clearly unworried by her departure, and she almost ran to the sluice at the far end of the ward.

  One of the nurses came in behind her and found her bent over the basin retching miserably, and leaned over her with professional competence and took her forehead in a cool firm hand, holding her steady, and that helped; and after a little while she lifted her head and said shakily, ‘Thanks, nurse. I’m all right now, I think ….’

  ‘I think I’ll just check your temperature and pulse, Mrs Pitman,’ the nurse said briskly. ‘You’re the colour of old boots, but you’re a bit flushed over the cheeks as well. We can’t have you going down with the same infection, now, can we, and not notice it? That’d never do. Come and sit down in the treatment room and we’ll check things ….’

  ‘No, really, nurse, I’m fine. It’s just nervousness and worry about Timmy, I expect and ….’

  ‘Well, yes, that’s as may be,’ the nurse said, urging her along so firmly that June couldn’t resist her. ‘I know all about these psychological effects, but in my experience people who get sick and look flushed when they’ve been nursing children with infections are very likely to have a good physical reason for their symptoms. Now you just sit there, and we’ll pop a thermometer into your mouth and see what’s what. Can’t have one of our own consultants’ wives being neglected, now, can we? That’d never do. Especially one who’s getting so much attention at the moment ….’ And she pushed the thermometer into June’s mouth, filling it with the taste of chemicals and making her want to retch again, and seized her wrist to count her pulse.

  June leaned her head back against the tiled wall behind her and closed her eyes. No point in arguing with the girl; if she wanted to think she had an infection, let her. June knew she hadn’t for her throat wasn’t sore and her nose didn’t itch at the back the way it did when she caught a cold or the flu. This was just worry, worry about Timmy and worry about what Ben would say when he found out she’d taken the Contravert from the fridge and, deep inside her, the lingering fear about what she might have done to Timmy allowing the stuff to be used on him. But it was a very small fear, that one now, she told herself. It had to be, because wasn’t Timmy fine now, sitting playing with plasticine and listening to music on his earphones?

  ‘Well, your temperature’s normal!’ the nurse said, and sounded a little disappointed. ‘And though your pulse is a little fast, it’s nothing to worry about. That could be due to anxiety, I grant you. But the vomiting – have you been eating anything unusual this past few days?’

  ‘Eating?’ June opened her eyes and looked up at the girl’s round face a little hazily, and then managed a smile. ‘To tell you the truth, I’ve hardly eaten a thing for days. I was too worried. Tea and toast and so forth. No, it’s nothing I’ve eaten. Honestly, I’m sure it’s just worrying about Timmy and what Ben’ll say when he knows what I did ….’ And she shook her head and tried again to smile but all that happened was that she retched again and the nurse once more had to hold her head over a bowl.

  ‘What about your periods then?’ June leaned back again as the wave of nausea left her, and tried to relax, and the sound of the nurse’s voice seemed to come from a great distance.

  ‘Mmm?’ she said.

  ‘I was just wondering – some women get sick when they have painful periods. Do you have painful periods?’

  ‘No,’ June said and then, very slowly, opened her eyes and stared at the nurse. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said that some people get sick when they have dysmenorrhoea – painful periods ….’

  June moved then, made herself sit upright, and stared again at the nurse, her eyes very wide.

  ‘What’s the date?’

  ‘The date? My dear, I know you’ve been worried about your little nephew, but even so, you can’t have forgotten it’s nearly Christmas. December 21st today, that’s what it is. Christmas next Tuesday ….’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ June said. ‘Oh, my God!’ and she began to laugh, softly at first and then more and more shrilly until she was hiccupping with it, and that made her retch again, and yet she went on laughing.

  The nurse bent over her and took her shoulders in both strong hands and said loudly, ‘Now, Mrs Pitman, you must calm down! You really must relax and ….’

  ‘Oh, it’s all right.’ June managed to stop the laughter, managed to get the words out. ‘It’s really all right. It’s just that I … I can’t believe that I hadn’t noticed, you see. Me, not to notice! The last one was … let me work it out … it was November 13th. I remember that … November 13th. I knew I was in the fertile phase, and I called Ben and ….’ She stopped and reddened and then smiled at the nurse. ‘You know how it is when you’re trying … you sort of … my last period was October 30th, that was it, because my periods are dreadfully erratic and I do my best to remember all the dates and I worked out I was fertile on November 13th. It was a Tuesday and I remember thinking, maybe this’ll be a lucky date for me ….’

  ‘Then you’re coming up to missing your second period,’ the nurse said matter of factly. ‘I dare say that’s what it is then. Lots of women get sickness all day, and not just in the morning in early pregnancy. Presenting symptom, really. I did my midder last year, so I’m well up on it.’

  June was sitting very erect and gazing at her with the pupils of her eyes so dilated with excitement that they seemed to be black.

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought I could … I mean I’ve been trying for years. Years and years, and now when I miss a period, not to notice? It just doesn’t seem possible ….’

  The nurse laughed. ‘It’s possible. It’s amazing what women can forget, when it suits ’em. I had a friend who managed not to notice she was pregnant for almost three months, because she so badly didn’t want to be. Only faced up to it just in time to get herself aborted, but it was a near thing ….’

  ‘But I do want to be pregnant! I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anythin
g in all the world … and not to notice … it can’t be possible ….’

  ‘Well, if you’ve had a lot to worry you, it could be,’ the nurse said practically. ‘It certainly seems like you’ve managed it. Would you like me to check your breasts, just to see if they show anything?’

  ‘Yes … oh, yes, please … do anything you like … just tell me I’m not imagining it ….’

  ‘Why should you be? You’re almost two months overdue, you’re being sick … that’s real enough. Let’s have a look at those nipples then ….’

  June fumbled for the buttons on her blouse and sat there stiff and tense as the nurse prodded her breasts and peered at her nipples, and then sat very still when the girl straightened up and said almost casually, ‘Well, yes, no doubt about that I’d say. Nice big Montgomery’s tubercles, looks quite dark there – had any tingling or discomfort?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ June said, staring up at her, almost distracted with excitement. ‘I mean, I’ve been thinking about Timmy a lot, worrying about him in this epidemic and everything ….’

  ‘That’s what they told us when we did our clinic weeks – infertile women who adopt or foster get pregnant sooner than those who sit around worrying about it. I do congratulate you, Mrs Pitman. It’s nice for you – I’m sure Dr Pitman’ll be thrilled too,’ and the nurse beamed down at her with a proprietorial air, as though she had played a direct and personal part in creating the pregnancy. ‘Would you like me to sit with Timmy while you go over to the path. lab? Sister’s off this evening and we’re not so busy I can’t spend half an hour with the little lad!’