Clinical Judgements

by Claire Rayner

‘Well, I’m sure I don’t know —’ Prue said and then shrugged. ‘I mean, what can I do for her? I’m no bloody surgeon.’

  ‘I’ll have to explain from the beginning,’ Suba said and came and sat facing her at the table as Danny, at last happy, sat and smeared his face with the chewed mess he made of the biscuit. ‘If you can give me a minute.’

  ‘Well, I’m not doing anything much,’ Prue said ungraciously. ‘I can listen, I suppose.’

  ‘Have you seen in the papers all about the trouble at Old East? There’s been a lot there. And on the TV news.’

  ‘I don’t take papers,’ Prue said. ‘And I’ve not felt up to the telly. I sleep mostly. I’m pregnant, remember? Look at me!’

  And Suba looked but couldn’t see much evidence. And then smiled. ‘Well, I don’t have to look,’ she said. ‘I know. That’s why I’m here.’

  Again Prue’s shoulders tightened but this time the baby went on feeding happily enough. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Is that a fact?’

  ‘The thing is, the papers have been on about Miss Buckland doing abortions. She’s got them all on at her because —’

  ‘Abortions? There at Old East? Don’t make me laugh!’ Prue said and stared at her and her face now had a slight flush on it. ‘That lot there are all mouths and trousers. Full of talk and no bleedin’ help at all.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What I say. I went to them, didn’t I, when I got into this state again? Look at me — two of ’em, and this one only a few months — what do they expect me to do? But would they help me? Would they buggery! Sent me away, didn’t they, the lousy pigs. That’s why I’m in this state now —’

  ‘But —’ Suba said and shook her head. ‘I thought — I mean, Miss Buckland saved that baby. If she hadn’t done that operation when you were bleeding so badly you’d have lost it and —’

  ‘More’s the pity I didn’t,’ Prue said harshly and hauled the infant up to set it against her shoulder and began to pat its back. ‘It’d have sorted me out well enough, that would. But she had to go on and — oh, never mind. What can you understand? Kid like you.’

  ‘I wanted you to help me,’ Suba said and wanted to cry. ‘I did so much want you to come to court and tell them how good she was to you, saved your baby, and how —’

  ‘Did you know why I was bleeding?’ Prue demanded and, as the baby burped loudly, lifted it down to her lap again and started bottle-feeding once more.

  ‘I — no,’ Suba said. ‘I’ve only just started on that ward. I — I’m not all that up on gynae yet.’

  ‘I tried to get rid of it,’ she said. ‘Paid a bloody fortune and tried to get rid of it. And what happened? The sods made a botch of it. That was why I was bleeding. They made a botch and I landed up in Old East as an emergency. And still bloody pregnant.’

  ‘Oh!’ Suba said. There seemed nothing else she could say.

  ‘So don’t you go asking me to — oh, shit!’ And she lifted her head and stared over her shoulder at the kitchen door.

  Suba lifted her head too and listened. Someone was coming in. There was a rattle of a key in the lock and then steps coming along the hall.

  ‘Is that your husband?’ Suba said. ‘I don’t want to be in the way or anything — perhaps I’d better —’ and she got to her feet.

  ‘No,’ Prue said in a dreary flat voice. ‘Not my husband.’

  The door to the kitchen was pushed open and Suba stared at the newcomer and the name shot into her mind unbidden. Ida Malone, the woman who had been in the next bed to Prue, and she smiled widely at the sight of her.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Malone. How nice to see you!’

  Ida stood there, her arms full of packages, and stared at her and then flicked her gaze over her head to Prue Roberts. ‘What’s she doing here?’

  Prue shrugged. ‘Ask me! Turned up on the step, didn’t she? You ask her. Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘She’s not coming into that clinic, see?’ Ida said pugnaciously and plopped her packages down on the kitchen table. ‘And that’s the end of it. She doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to. She’s having her baby in a private hospital. Yes. She’s gone private.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ Suba said after a long pause. ‘Where?’

  ‘None of your bloody business,’ Ida Malone snapped and glared at her. ‘What do you want here anyway? No one wants you.’

  ‘I just wanted to ask Mrs Roberts to help me with something,’ Suba said. ‘That was all —’

  ‘Well she’s not helping no one with anything. So you just be off with you, all right?’

  Suba frowned and looked at Prue. ‘Well, really, I —’

  ‘You’d better do what she says,’ Prue said heavily and didn’t look at Suba. ‘It’s easier really when you do. So long then.’

  ‘You got a coat?’ Ida Malone stood at the door, her hands shoved deep into her own coat pockets.

  ‘In the bedroom,’ Suba said and Ida Malone went marching off and they could hear her banging about in the next room.

  ‘Please, Mrs Roberts,’ Suba said in an urgent low voice. ‘If you change your mind — it’s just that — she’s so good really and I know she’d help you if you needed her. If she knew you did. So if you can help her —’

  ‘This it?’ Ida stood at the door again, holding out Suba’s coat.

  ‘Yes.’ Suba took it and put it on, looking over her shoulder at Prue.

  ‘Well, on your way then,’ Ida said and marched up the corridor to open the front door. And Suba had to follow her. But as she went Prue said suddenly, in a low voice, ‘I go to the pub opposite the hospital sometimes. Evenings. Maybe I’ll see you there.’ And then very deliberately turned her back on her, and left her to go along the passageway and out, past the hard stare that Ida Malone fixed on her, but feeling rather less hopeless than she had expected she would.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  ‘On bail,’ Oliver said. ‘Who’d ever have thought it?’ And he laughed. But there wasn’t much humour in the sound.

  ‘Well, at least you’re here at home,’ Kate said. ‘It would have been a great deal worse if you’d had to stay locked up until — well, until.’

  ‘I suppose so. It’s so bloody — oh, I don’t know. Sleazy, I suppose. Cheap and nasty and — out on bail — it makes it sound as though I’m a criminal. And it’s not as though I’d ever been all that rebellious. When they marched and went on demos when I was at university, I stayed in hall and wrote polemics for the newspapers, for God’s sake. Half my year were arrested at sit-ins, but I never reckoned that. And now look at me —’

  ‘You’ll get over it,’ Kate said calmly. ‘If it’s only your pride that’s hurt.’

  ‘I hope that’s all it is. I haven’t talked to anyone at City yet. Maybe they’ll prefer not to have a presenter who gets himself in trouble with the police. Perhaps they’ll —’

  ‘Darling,’ Kate said and came round the lunch table to sit on the arm of his chair. ‘Listen to me. You’re a bit depressed. I don’t mean just low — I mean clinically depressed. It’s a normal response to a traumatic experience. You’ve every right to react this way. But please, in the middle of it all do try to hang on to your sense of proportion! The station get rid of you? Don’t be silly. They — and you — can turn the whole thing to advantage if you think about it. “Our intrepid reporter, seeking the news as it happens to bring it to you, in fracas with brutal police …” Can’t you just imagine it? Be kind to yourself, and stop digging away at it in your mind. It won’t help and it’ll just aggravate the depression.’

  ‘Ah! I see. That’s your considered medical advice, is it? Snap out of it? All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds? That sort of thing? Well, I hope it works for the rest of your patients. It doesn’t do a great deal for me.’

  She remained there beside him for a moment and then sighed softly and got to her feet and returned to her own chair and began to eat again. She’d made the best meal she could that would be full of taste but wouldn
’t demand a great deal of effort to eat, well aware of how painful his face was when he moved it; and it was good. But his plate sat untouched in front of him. She knew better than to urge him to eat of course, and also knew that making any response to his jibes now wouldn’t help; but for all her quiet exterior she was as tense as a spring inside.

  There was a long silence and then he leaned forwards and picked up his fork. ‘Sorry, Kate,’ he muttered and took a mouthful of the fish she had so carefully cooked and chewed it dispiritedly. ‘I’m a miserable sod. You should have left me in hospital.’

  ‘I saw no need once I found out you wouldn’t have any trouble getting bail,’ she said and smiled at him and he managed to make some sort of grimace back. ‘And they needed the bed. Look, darling, let’s spoil ourselves. I’ll open a bottle of something expensive and we’ll take it to bed. What say you?’

  ‘Sex as bandage?’ he said and went on eating, but with a little more interest now.

  ‘Why not? We’ve tried it every other way,’ she said lightly, and looked at him from under her lashes, shy suddenly. If he refused her, she suddenly realised, she’d take it very badly indeed.

  ‘Oh, not yet,’ he said and looked at her and now he grinned almost in his old way, though it made him wince a little as his scarred face moved over the bones. ‘I’ve got masses of ideas still. This fish isn’t half bad. Have you any more?’

  ‘Masses.’ She served him and then went and found the bottle of champagne someone had brought to a dinner party months ago and which they’d never got round to opening. ‘I’ll put this in the fridge,’ she called. ‘Could you manage some ice cream after that?’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Gladly.’ And she brought the ice cream from the fridge and served that too, and now they ate in a companionable silence.

  They shared a shower before getting into bed, and once they were there she massaged him with some of her most expensive body lotion till he complained he smelled like a brothel. But he enjoyed it and almost visibly relaxed under her touch. And then when they made love it was prolonged and satisfying for them both and they slept long into the afternoon until she was woken from a long complicated dream about aeroplanes and parachutes by the shrieking of the phone beside her bed.

  She lay there blinking into the dimness of the bedroom before answering, trying to get herself together; it took a conscious effort to remember that this was late Saturday afternoon and that she was on call for the hospital. And she reached for the phone resignedly, thinking — At least they didn’t ring before, when we were still —

  ‘Yes?’

  It wasn’t the hospital. ‘Miss Sayers? Is that Miss Kate Sayers?’

  She didn’t know why she was on the alert suddenly. ‘Who is that?’ she said guardedly as beside her Oliver turned over and reached across her body to bury his face in her back.

  ‘Who is it?’ he muttered. ‘Send ’em away.’

  ‘This is NTV — National Television. The Probe programme. Is Miss Sayers there, please?’

  She didn’t stop to think. ‘Wrong number,’ she muttered and slammed the phone down on its hook.

  He was fully awake now as she turned back to him and he lifted his head from the pillow and peered at her in the half-light thrown from the curtained windows.

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘A television company. Some programme — Probe, I think he said —’

  ‘I’ve seen that,’ he said slowly. ‘Rather good — National do it I think —’

  ‘Yes. He said it was National Television.’

  ‘Had they got the wrong number?’

  There was a long pause. Then she said, ‘No.’

  ‘I didn’t think so.’ He got out of bed and went padding over to draw the curtains and open the window. The room still smelled heavily of her scented body lotion, and he shivered slightly as the cool evening air hit his bare skin and came back to bed to slide under the duvet again.

  ‘Why did you say wrong number instead of telling me they wanted me? It’s a bit over the top to protect me that much, don’t you think?’

  She turned her head and looked at him and managed a smile. ‘Well, well, well. How’s that for self-centred? It wasn’t you they wanted.’

  He frowned. ‘It wasn’t?’

  ‘No, dear. It was Miss Kate Sayers they were after, believe it or not. The lady who lives here. The lady whose name is in the phone book at this address. In case you’d forgotten.’ She got out of bed and went to the bathroom to shower again, and when she came back he was sitting up with both hands linked behind his head.

  ‘Sorry, Kate, I deserved that. Christ, I seem to do nothing but apologise these days. Very comforting for the male ego, that is.’

  ‘Nice for me though. I’m sorry too. I needn’t have been quite so — I mean, I was startled as much as anything —’

  ‘What did they want?’

  ‘I didn’t give them time to say,’ she said and began to rub her hair with a towel because she’d washed it under the shower, needing to be cool. She always enjoyed letting her hair dry slowly, keeping her pleasantly damp while it did.

  ‘Why didn’t you ask?’

  ‘Kim Hynes,’ she said, towelling hard. ‘It’s sure to be about all that, isn’t it? I’ve stopped looking at newspapers since it all started. It’s the only way — but I suppose it’s still going on, the fuss. That Globe piece you showed me said something about there being more the next day —’

  ‘You realise that —’ he began and then the phone shrilled again and they both remained very still and stared at it. It was Oliver who leaned over and answered it.

  ‘Yes,’ he said and she shook her head violently at him, needing to remind him she didn’t want to talk to anyone from television and he looked back at her, seeming not to notice and said, ‘Who?’

  ‘I’m not here —’ she hissed.

  ‘BBC radio … Yes … Look, why do you want her?’

  He listened and then lifted his brows at her. ‘Me? Oh, I’m just one of the family. Quite entitled to ask why you want her. If you want me to pass on a message, you see, I’ll have to know. Otherwise —’

  He listened and then frowned sharply. ‘I see,’ he said at length. ‘No, I didn’t know about this. I doubt she does — Mm? … No, she isn’t here at present. No, I really don’t know. No I couldn’t say. I’ll let her know when she does get back though, that you called. Good evening.’

  He cradled the phone and leaned back on his pillows, frowning. ‘It isn’t Kim Hynes,’ he said. ‘Though they mentioned that in passing. That was a radio news programme — they wanted you for tomorrow morning. It seems there’s been a press release. All the Sundays have lead pieces, he said. Look, I’ll get dressed. We’ll go down to Fleet Street, see if the first editions are out yet — you can get the Sundays on Saturday night quite early —’

  ‘Press release about what?’ She followed him into the bath room.

  ‘Something to do with AIDS,’ he shouted. He was in the shower now and it was splashing loudly. ‘I didn’t ask too many questions — thought it best not to. We’ll get the papers, see what it’s all about —’

  She dressed slowly, pulling on jeans and a shirt, trying to think what sort of press release could involve her and what they might have got hold of, these Sunday papers. Had someone blurted out the tale of what had happened during Gerald Slattery’s operation? Surely not. She couldn’t bear the thought of that. But what else could it be?

  By the time he emerged from the shower to dress she was sitting on the edge of the freshly made-up bed and waiting for him. Her hair was curling damply around her ears and he stood in the bathroom door looking at her, his body rather absurdly streaked with talcum powder and his injured cheek looking like a layer of paint against the rest of him, and managed a smile.

  ‘You look about ten years old,’ he said lightly. ‘You make me feel like a child ravisher. Has anyone ever told you you’re good in bed, Lolita?’

  She made a face. ‘Disgus
ting phrase,’ she said lightly. ‘I’m good out of it, too —’

  He managed a grin. ‘Not bad in cars, either. Hey, this bloody thing hurts more when it’s wet. Stinging like the very devil —’

  ‘I’ll put some more cream on it,’ she said. ‘Get dressed and then I’ll do it. You’ll have it all over your collar otherwise —’

  ‘Try not to worry, love,’ he said as he stood dressed in jeans and shirt of his own so that they looked rather absurdly alike, and she applied the antibiotic cream to his cheek. ‘I dare say it’s all a drama out of nothing. Newspaper people — we’re a rotten lot. I say we because we do it in radio too. Make a molehill out of a pimple and call it a mountain —’

  ‘Try not to worry about being on bail,’ she retorted. ‘OK?’

  He hugged her briefly. ‘Touché,’ he said. ‘Come on. I’ll drive.’

  ‘You won’t. You’re not well enough.’

  ‘Bollocks. I’ve got a scraped face, that’s all. Perfectly fit to drive.’

  ‘Like hell you are —’

  Bickering amicably they went down to the car and she gave in and let him drive because it was clear he was determined. And he seemed so much happier now, so much more relaxed than he had over their lunch. And she thought — Was that the releasing effect of sex, or is it that he feels better and stronger now than I, the one with a problem, the one with something to be apprehensive about? And pushed the thought away as unjust. But it wouldn’t stay pushed away and remained there hovering, as he chattered easily at her to distract all the way up to Fleet Street.

  The papers were out, piled ready on a long stall at the foot of Bouverie Street, and he parked and went to get them.

  ‘Stay here,’ he said. ‘No need to get out —’ And she obeyed, scared now, wanting to run away, not wanting to see what the papers had to say after all. She nearly called after him to tell him to come back, but he was already there, one hand in jeans pocket for change, collecting all the papers with his other hand. And then after he had paid for them he came loping back to the car and threw them in on her lap and got in.