Air Ambulance

by Jean S. MacLeod

  A terrible sense of emptiness engulfed her as she washed her face and hands and ran the comb Kirsty had lent her that first morning through the thick tangle of her windblown hair. She had gone hatless to Monkdyke, as she loved to do, and the wind had deepened the colour in her cheeks and blown a soft halo of auburn curls across her head, but the eyes that gazed back at her from Kirsty’s mirror had lost their light.

  Walking towards Garrisdale up the mile-long drive, she supposed she was going there for the last time. This could be Fergus’ way of letting her say goodbye to Isobel and Ronald Gowrie without embarrassment.

  People like Margot, she thought, cause endless heartache. It wouldn’t have mattered if I had spent just a few more days on Heimra.

  But perhaps what Margot wanted would be the best way in the end. There would be heartache, too, in the thought of seeing her and Fergus together, knowing that they were to marry.

  I’m not jealous, she thought, not in the accepted meaning of the word. It’s just that loving Fergus makes me want to be with him, to help him, to give something to my love. Loving is giving, not taking all the time, as Margot does.

  And there was Andrew. What was Fergus going to do about Andrew? He would never allow Margot to send the boy away, even for her own peace of mind. Andrew belonged on Heimra. He was Heimra. Blair of Heimra, whatever Margot might feel about him.

  Her thoughts still in turmoil, she reached the house to find Fergus waiting for her alone in the hall.

  Vaguely, in the background, she was aware of tension, a suggestion of upheaval which manifested itself in a slammed door and Isobel’s voice raised sharply in reprimand. But even more than that the look on Fergus’ lean tanned face was enough to tell her that something had gone wrong and that she was about to be involved.

  “I went to Monkdyke in search of you,” he said. “I had some idea that you might still be there. Then I thought the best thing to do was to leave a message for you at the lodge.”

  “Mrs. Cameron gave it to me half an hour ago,” she said through suddenly dry lips. “I didn’t go straight back to the lodge from Monkdyke. I must have wandered for rather a long time on the Strand.”

  She felt as if she had to go on speaking to ward off some final disaster, to find words—any words—to fill up those empty, waiting moments before he told her that she must go.

  “I’m afraid this is going to be something of a shock for you,” he began, opening the door of his study and standing aside to let her precede him into the room. “It’s all been rather sudden and completely unexpected.”

  Alison turned in the centre of the room, facing him in the waning evening light. In that moment she thought that he looked harsh and without pity, a man who had already made a ruthless decision by which he intended to stand.

  “Tell me what it is,” she heard herself saying in quite a normal sort of voice. “We’re used to shocks in our profession.”

  “Since you left here early this afternoon Captain Gowrie has had a relapse,” he said. “I’m afraid,” he added sternly, “that he disobeyed quite a few orders, but that’s by the way. A relapse was possible even in the ordinary course of events.”

  “Oh!” Concern for Ronald erased everything else from her mind. “Is there anything I can do—any help I can give you?”

  “It would seem that you are the only person who might be able to reason with him,” he answered almost distantly. “He is at the stage of delirium where he insists on getting up immediately to follow you back to the mainland, where he believes you must have gone.”

  “This is dreadful!” Alison exclaimed. “Why did he run contrary to your authority?”

  He looked at her for a moment before he shrugged his broad shoulders, and said briefly,

  “That would appear to be the psychiatric department, nurse. It’s quite beyond my province.”

  “Can I go to him?” Alison asked, hurt by the unexpected cynicism which had sounded more like Ronald than Fergus.

  “Right away,” he agreed. “Isobel will be more than relieved to see you, I should think.”

  He stepped aside, leaving the way clear for her to go.

  She found her own way up the staircase, her heart beating wildly as she wondered what she was about to find in the room above, but Ronald Gowrie appeared to be quite placid by the time she reached his side.

  Isobel was with him, standing in the shadows beside the window looking out at the brilliant afterglow of the sunset staining the western sky.

  “Fergus has given him something to make him sleep,” she said without turning. “He has been asking for you, Alison. He seems so disturbed, so confused in his mind about so many things. Especially about the past,” she added gently. “The distant past.”

  “He’s had such a lot of unhappiness.” This was no time to tell Isobel about Ronald and Margot, Alison decided. “His mother died not so long ago, too, and I don’t think he has ever really settled down since. He has adopted a sort of ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude to life that hasn’t helped because, deep down, it isn’t genuine. He does care about living a full life, and putting down roots and all that sort of thing, and he isn’t going to be happy while he goes on denying it. He thinks it’s weakness, of course, and he won’t let anyone see.”

  “Except you?” Isobel queried.

  “I think he knows that I understand,” Alison said. “I told him once that I wasn’t going to be bluffed by a badly-fitting mask. Of course, he laughed at that,” she confessed. “He said that if the mask fits one ought to wear it, or something else equally foolish, and we never spoke about it again.”

  “And so it was quite natural for him to turn to you—even if he only did it subconsciously—when he needed help,” Isobel mused thoughtfully.

  “I suppose so.” Alison stood at the side of the bed, looking down at the thin, worn face on the pillows. “I always think a man looks terribly pathetic like this,” she said. “And Ronald especially. He was so sure of his infallibility.”

  Isobel came to stand beside her.

  “Fergus wants you to stay here,” she said. “It would be best if you didn’t go back to the lodge. One of my nighties will fit you just as well as Mrs. Cameron’s,” she added on a lighter note.

  “I sent word back to Glasgow for a change of clothing and a few other things,” Alison confessed, “but...”

  She broke off, remembering for the first time that she would not want the parcel that might even now be on its way to her. Not on Heimra.

  Yet Fergus had not mentioned Margot. He had said nothing about her leaving the island. Only that Ronald Gowrie needed her.

  “If you would sit with him for an hour,” Isobel suggested as she turned reluctantly towards the door, “I can see to the children’s supper and we can share the night watches.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  DURING the darker stretches of that interminable night Ronald had called for Alison incessantly, as if only her presence could give him the courage he needed to battle through, but now, in the first pale light of day, he seemed to have come into some strange harbour.

  He lay quite still, and Alison, who was alone with him in the room as Fergus went in search of Isobel, bent over the bed with a small flurry of fear in her heart. It was unnecessary. He was asleep. Isobel relieved her soon afterwards.

  “Fergus will be looking in soon,” she said as she reached the door. “And you must call me if you feel uncertain, Isobel.”

  “I will.” Isobel had already taken up her position at the far side of the bed, her face half in shadow and half revealed by the low-burning lamp. “But I feel he will get well now.”

  Alison closed the door gently behind her. Poor Isobel, she thought; she’s in love with him.

  Before she reached the bedroom which Isobel had put at her disposal a door opened half-way along the corridor and Fergus’ tall figure emerged. He still wore the long grey dressing-gown, but he had shaved and looked ready for the day’s work.

  “If you have a minute to spare, Alison
,” he said.

  She hesitated, and he led the way to the door of her room. “Isobel brought you up a flask,” he said, “and I’ve left something on your table to take when you get into bed.”

  A fire had been lit in the room, and she knew, somehow, that he had done that small service for her himself.

  “Thank you,” she said chokingly. “You’re being so very kind.” Why was it that she couldn’t bear his kindness now, the thought that he was sorry for her because Margot had insisted that she should go?

  “I thought you would like to know that last night’s events have made it easier for me to come to a decision about Captain Gowrie,” he said, pacing to the window where the light was rapidly strengthening and all the island was wakening into colourful life. “Although he took the law into his own hands far too quickly, it has proved that there is no permanent damage to his spine. The head injury was not so serious as I suspected.”

  “This is wonderful!” she whispered. “Thank you for telling me right away.”

  “I thought you had every right to know,” he answered. “He—depends on you a great deal.”

  For a moment she did not understand, and then she recalled the hours of delirium when Ronald had called for her incessantly, uttering her name in the confusion of his uncertainty.

  Did Fergus think they were in love? Her lips twisted into a small, wry smile. Well, even if he did believe that, what could it matter? It would not make any difference to the future.

  “Will you have some coffee?” she asked.

  “I think you ought to drink it all up,” he said, watching her closely. “And then hop into bed and I’ll bring you a glass of water to swallow your pills.”

  She could have cried when he left her. He was being so matter-of-fact and kind because she had helped him during the night, but that was all.

  Shivering, she crept to the fire, undressing hurriedly, and when Fergus came back she was already in bed.

  He handed her the half-filled glass which he had brought with him and put the two small tablets from her bedside table into her hand.

  “You’ll be asleep in a couple of minutes,” he promised.

  She took the glass from him, holding it between her hands, but she did not swallow the tablets.

  “When do you want me to go?” she asked.

  To her horror he was quick to notice it. The smile left his eyes and his mouth set.

  “You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you like,” he said. “I’ve already told you that. Gowrie won’t be properly on his feet for at least a month, and you have a month’s leave of absence from the hospital.”

  “But,” she protested, “if I’m making things difficult for you...”

  He turned on his heel, striding back to the window to draw the curtains over it so that the bright morning sunshine would not disturb her while she slept.

  “That is utterly beside the point,” he told her in a close, clipped tone which she had never heard him use before. “I shall not be on Heimra all the time. I have a series of consultations in Edinburgh and Glasgow which will keep me on the mainland almost to the end of the month.”

  And then, Alison thought bleakly, you will come home and marry Margot.

  Well, perhaps that was how it should be. Compensation for Margot and the love he had always wanted for himself!

  She tried to harden her heart against him, remembering what Margot had said, but she could not. She knew so well that this man would do nothing dishonourable.

  “Swallow your pills!” he commanded. “They will make you sleep.”

  How often, in the days which followed, she remembered that abrupt command, and how often she would have been grateful for the gift of sleep!

  It seemed that Fergus had been able to placate Margot in some way, because for the next two weeks there was no further summons to Monkdyke. Alison was left to nurse her patient in peace, to see him gaining in strength day by day, and finally, before Fergus returned from his sojourn in Edinburgh, to see him sitting up in a chair beside the window.

  He glanced across the room at her. “You do a lot of walking these days,” he observed. “Do you ever run into Mrs. Blair?”

  The question had been unexpected, and Alison gave herself away completely.

  “I see you didn’t expect me to ask that,” he commented when she did not reply at once. “All the same, you’re bound to have met her.”

  “I’ve been at Monkdyke twice—for tea,” Alison admitted guardedly. “But not since Fergus went to Edinburgh.”

  “What does she do all day long?” he asked tensely.

  “I don’t know,” she was forced to confess. “I think she reads and sews a great deal.”

  “Margot was never fond of reading. The glossy magazines, I dare say, but even they palled after a bit. It was life that interested her, life as lived by Margot Blair or Margot Holmes, as she was then. She was the heroine of her own story. That was all Margot cared about. That’s why,” he added, “I’m so curious about her life at Monkdyke. Does she take an interest in the children?”

  “I think they distress her too much,” she said.

  “I see.” His mouth was thinly compressed. “Not even that grand little chap, Andrew.”

  “We have to understand about Andrew, Ron—”

  His blue eyes snapped at her.

  “Understand, my foot! What ‘understanding’ do we need to expect a mother to look after her own child?”

  “I think perhaps Margot never experienced that kind of love.”

  “Don’t you believe it!” His aggressiveness was suddenly fierce. “She was brought up by a decent woman called Hannah Auld, but Margot didn’t like the working-class background much. What she wanted was something like Heimra,” he concluded bitterly. “And she got it.”

  “Ron,” Alison said, “Hannah Auld is here. She’s with Margot at Monkdyke.”

  His swift glance was incredulous.

  “In what capacity?” he demanded.

  Alison bit her lip.

  “She’s—sort of housekeeping.”

  He gave a short, harsh laugh.

  “How typical of Margot!” he said. “I bet she gives her hell at times, and Hannah would be the only person who would put up with it because, in her own strange, dogged inarticulate way, she loves Margot. She took her in as a baby, and nursed her and cared for her until she was seventeen.”

  “Don’t torture yourself,” she urged gently. “Hannah will look after Margot.”

  “Until Blair takes over in the fullest sense of the word, do you mean?”

  She turned to look out of the window so that he could not see her face.

  “I suppose that was what I meant,” she agreed.

  “When is he due back?”

  “Today, I think. There’s a plane coming in.”

  He drew a swift breath.

  “Is Blair bringing that other johnny with him—Sir James What’s-his-name?”

  Alison smiled at the sudden change of mood, although it could only be the cover for a fretting anxiety.

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  “The final verdict, eh?” He thrust his clenched fist into the pocket of the dressing-gown Fergus had lent him. “Ah, well, I suppose I’m ready for it. You’ll stand by, won’t you?”

  “I’ll be here,” she assured him.

  When Ronald fell asleep she went slowly downstairs to wait in the hall, and after an hour, which had seemed an eternity, she heard voices and footsteps approaching the front door.

  A fine rain had begun to fall and Andrew burst in, clothed in his amply-fitting yellow oilskins.

  “We had to land at Monkdyke,” he cried, “because of the wind. It was too strong to come round to the jetty.”

  They had walked from the bay, which meant, no doubt, that Fergus had already seen Margot.

  The two men came in together, Sir James tall and gaunt-looking in his long raincoat, with Fergus walking behind him. The light filtering through the long casement window on the stair
s showed her a man who appeared to have aged considerably in the past two weeks. He looked thin and drawn, as if he had been ill, and the healthy tan which he acquired on Heimra had faded. His eyes, too, were remote when he looked at her.

  “Sir James will be staying overnight,” he said. “Perhaps you could tell Mrs. Pollock?”

  He had not greeted her. There had been nothing personal about his approach, and she could not think that professional etiquette had restrained him.

  “I don’t think you’ve met Sir James,” he added as he relieved his guest of his coat. “He was here at the time of your accident, but he went off first thing the following morning.”

  “How about that arm?” Sir James asked with a smile as he turned to shake hands with her. “I see the bandages are off. The next thing we’ll have to do is get you out of Blair’s strait jacket!”

  “I’m beginning to be tired of it,” she admitted, liking this quiet, friendly man immensely. “I feel all right underneath.”

  “Good girl!” he smiled, his mind quite obviously on the graver issue of Fergus’ other patient. “I hear you’ve been doing your stint of nursing our pilot? How is he shaping, do you think?”

  Alison shot a glance at Fergus, knowing that he, too, would be waiting for her answer.

  “The only complication seems to be the arm,” she admitted. “It just isn’t answering to treatment any more.”

  “M-mm!” Sir James looked across at his host. “Shall we go up and take a look at him?” he suggested.

  It was late evening before she heard the truth. Sir James and Fergus had dined together and had obviously examined the position in the minutest detail.

  “With massage and the necessary therapy at the hospital when he returns to Glasgow, he should get back the use of his arm,” Fergus told her when Sir James had retired for the night. “But he will never be able to rely on it in an emergency. It will always be weak.”

  “This will be a terrible blow to him,” she said, her eyes tragic. “Flying was his life. I don’t know who is going to tell him,” she added desperately.