Clinical Judgements

by Claire Rayner

‘Let’s go over to Joe Allen’s,’ he said. ‘We can sit there and have a salad or something and go through them. Don’t try to read them in the light in here. You’ll get a headache —’

  He’s seen the headlines, she thought, and sat there and stared out at the swooping lights against the deep blue of the late summer sky and held the papers on her lap in both hands. And then, as the car turned and made its way along towards the Aldwych, with Oliver peering out for a parking space, she let her gaze drop so that she could see them.

  And the first one that screamed up at her was, ‘Sex-Change Doctor in new AIDS Scandal’, and a tide of cold began to rise from the pit of her belly towards her chest.

  ‘We’ll be all right here,’ Oliver said and switched off the engine and made a move to get out. But she sat still, staring ahead. ‘Are you coming?’ he said.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ She bent her head to look again at the huge black letters.

  ‘Yes,’ he said after a moment. ‘You can’t really miss it, can you?’

  ‘I don’t want to go in the restaurant,’ she said abruptly. ‘There might be people we know — there’s enough light here. Put on the inside light —’

  Obediently he switched on the overhead light and put out his hand and she lifted her own so that he could help himself to the papers, and he took half of them and began to go through them. She just sat staring out of the window in front at the traffic swooping on its way to the Strand, reading the sign over the Adelphi Theatre blinking on and off at her and letting the silly tune from the show there run through her head. ‘Me and my girl — meant for each other — meant for each other and liking it so — me and my girl —’

  ‘Who is Goodman Lemon?’ Oliver said at length.

  ‘Mm? Goodman Lemon? A surgeon at Old East. General surgeon. Is this —’ She turned her head, almost feeling it creak as she did so, for she had been holding it so rigidly. ‘Did he do this?’

  ‘Yes. He says —’ He bent his head and peered at the paper. ‘Shall I read it to you?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘“In a statement to the Press Agency Platt, Mr Goodman Lemon said, ‘A patient who was highly dangerous because of the risk of AIDS was admitted in need of a surgical procedure. I insisted naturally that he should have an AIDS test before I operated. He refused so I, of course, was forced to decline to operate. I could not put the staff of the operating theatre or his fellow patients at that sort of risk. Despite my concern and natural wish to protect the staff and patients of this hospital another of the surgeons did operate by interfering behind my back and without my consent and did so with so little skill that the man bled severely in the operating theatre and caused a major alarm. The surgeon in question was compelled to wash out the sheets and dressing towels, which were bloodsoaked, by herself, because the staff refused.’ Later enquiries have proven that the surgeon is Miss Kate Sayers —” There’s a picture here too. “Miss Sayers is at the heart of the sex-change operation scandal at the same hospital. She has been accused of blocking beds for essential surgery for other deserving patients with these sex-change operations that are so controversial —”’

  ‘The bastards!’ Kate said and sat there feeling the cold tide engulf not just her chest and belly, but her arms and legs as well. She was icy with fury. ‘The lying — it wasn’t like that! It was nothing like that! It was — Professor Levy asked me to operate because — the man was at risk, dammit! He could have strangulated. His name’s Slattery, nice man, lived with a homosexual partner for seventeen years, never slept around in all that time, very low risk for HIV. But Lemon is a prejudiced bastard as well as a liar and he wouldn’t operate and the man had a hernia that was threatening to strangulate. It can be a killer — so I said I’d do it — and the scrub nurse was nervous and there was that flap over Fay that day and his hand slipped and he pierced an artery with scissors. No real harm done — I found it and closed it and the man didn’t even need much in the way of post-op blood. But I decided to wash the sheets and towels myself because — well, to do a belt-and-braces thing. I was damned sure the man wasn’t HIV positive and I still am. But I wanted to take no chances with the staff — and they didn’t even know there was a risk. I didn’t tell them. Now, of course, they’ll know and there’ll be this crazy panic no doubt and all because of Lemon’s awful — Oh, Oliver! How could they? And then saying I blocked beds with Hynes — I didn’t. The waiting list has nothing to do with her case, nothing at all —’

  ‘Hush, darling, hush,’ he said and held her close and that was when she realised she was on the edge of hysteria, shouting it all at him and with tears in her eyes. And she took a deep breath and managed to control herself and said huskily, ‘Are they all the same?’

  ‘All the tabloids are, I think. Let me look at the heavies —’

  He let her go, and then began to leaf through the layers of the broadsheet papers, throwing the unwanted sections over his shoulder until the back seat of the car was adrift, and found what he was looking for.

  ‘They’re a little less excited in tone,’ he reported at last, but still reading. ‘But the essence is the same. Clearly they published the Lemon man’s statement in full, without querying it.’ He frowned. ‘Someone should have called you for a check, for God’s sake. This is lousy journalism! It’s all I expect of the cheap end of the trade, but these should have known better —’

  He read on, crouched over the papers like a predatory cat over a newly caught bird and she leaned back against the headrest of her seat and took a series of deep breaths to compose herself. There was no sense in getting so angry that she became incoherent. She had to decide what to do and how to do it —

  ‘We need a strategy here,’ Oliver said, and she opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him. ‘We can’t let this man get away with this.’

  ‘What can I do, then?’

  He was silent for a long moment, still looking down at the papers and then said, ‘You’ll have to talk to them yourself. Television wants you for Probe, which is — when? — tomorrow night? Then you agree. And you also talk to the radio people who called tonight and —’

  ‘But why should I play the game his way? Go crying to the press? What good will that do? Haven’t I put up with enough this past few weeks over Kim? I’ve had to refuse to talk to all sorts of people over that business, and I still won’t do it. If I go now to these TV and radio people and say I’ll talk about Lemon’s lies, won’t they start on about Kim? And the fact is I don’t want to talk about her — there’s nothing I have to say about her that’s relevant. Only she can talk to them because it’s her affair, not mine — but what will that matter? I can’t expect them to keep off Kim and let me talk only about Lemon, can I?’

  ‘I think you have to decide how to handle that when it happens,’ Oliver said firmly. ‘Right now, believe me, Kate, the best answer is to agree to talk. On your own terms if possible, but if not — well, talk. I’ll stay with you, advise you —’ He stopped then, suddenly rather embarrassed. ‘If you want me to, that is.’

  ‘Want you to? God, Oliver, I’m in such a state I don’t know what to do! Of course I want you to help — why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘I’ve not been behaving all that well this past few days —’ he mumbled. ‘Been a bit wrapped up in my own problems —’

  She touched his damaged cheek gently, just above the line of injury. ‘You’re entitled. Look, don’t go getting all sensitive on me now, for God’s sake. I couldn’t handle that. Help me please to do the best thing. You’re the expert on papers and so forth. I’ll do it your way — but I won’t talk about Kim —’

  ‘Well,’ he said pacifically. ‘We’ll see about that. But right now, come on.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ For he had turned the key in the ignition and was putting the car into gear.

  ‘City Radio,’ he said briefly. ‘We’ll start with my own station and then get in touch with the Probe programme and the rest of ’em from there. Fasten your seat belt, love.
One way and another you’re going to need it.’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The pub was warm and smoky and very noisy, and Suba sat in a corner seat trying to look as though she liked being there. It had been a brave and alarming expedition for her, she who had always been told by her father that decent girls never ever went into pubs; just walking through the engraved-glass embellished door had been terrifying. But then having to go up to the bar to buy lemonade — because she didn’t think they’d let her just sit down and wait in the corner unless she had something in a glass in front of her — and then carrying it over to her seat had been a tremendous effort; by the time she had got there her legs had been shaking. And it was silly really, because no one had paid her the least attention. The girl behind the bar had not looked at her as she sold her the lemonade and the people standing around and shouting cheerfully at each other through the fug barely moved when she had murmured, ‘Excuse me,’ at them as she wriggled her way through.

  Now, half an hour after arriving here and with only an inch or two of lemonade left at the bottom of her glass, she no longer felt shaky, but she did feel miserable. It had all been for nothing, after all. Clearly Prue’s murmured invitation to meet her here hadn’t been an invitation at all. She had imagined it; had allowed her hopefulness to overcome her common sense. And really, why should Prue help her? It was as she had said — and Suba saw no reason to doubt that it was — that she hadn’t wanted to keep the baby anyway; the last thing she’d want to do would be to help Miss Buckland. Suba would have to find another way to clear her conscience over what she had done, and she bent her head now and stared down into the flat lemonade and felt her eyes get hot as she tried to think of a way, and knew there wasn’t one. It hadn’t even been sure that Prue could have helped, even if she’d agreed to try. It was all a mess, a dreadful mess and the sooner Suba left Old East and got right away from all the trouble she’d made the better —

  ‘Look at you,’ a voice said above her head. ‘Lost a quid and found a farthing, did you? You’re supposed to have fun in here, not sit looking like the dead end of a wet bank holiday.’

  Suba lifted her head and tried to smile, but couldn’t. Sian Bevan, oh, not Sian, with her sharp face and her bitter tongue. She could cope with anyone but Sian tonight.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  ‘That’s right. Be glad to see me.’ Sian plumped herself down beside her and shoved at her with her hard little rump to move over. ‘Make me welcome. Or are you waiting for someone else?’

  ‘Sort of. Not really,’ Suba said and reddened.

  ‘Hey, get you! Miss Muffett with a date? Whatever next?’ Sian was staring at her with those hard round boot-button eyes that always made Suba feel so uncomfortable and then she grinned and didn’t look so fierce. ‘Don’t mind me, ducky. My bark’s a bloody sight worse than my bite, you know. I’ll go then, in case he comes —’

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ Suba said, mortified with the shame of seeming unfriendly. ‘And anyway it isn’t he, it’s she.’

  ‘Oh, well then!’ Sian said and plumped herself down again. ‘If it’s a bread-and-bread date, it might as well be bread and bread and a bready filling too. At least until my chap turns up.’ She grinned then. ‘I’ll have to see if he’s got a mate for you, Suba, eh?’ She glittered a little in the soft smoky light and, looking at her, Suba thought — she’s quite pretty really. I never thought so before. Looks excited and well, pretty —

  ‘No, I wouldn’t like that at all,’ she said earnestly. ‘I really wouldn’t. But it’s kind of you —’

  ‘You a dyke then?’ Sian said, conversationally. ‘That why you’re waiting for a she and not a he?’

  ‘A what?’ Suba looked at her blankly.

  Sian laughed and shook her head. ‘Never mind, ducks. If you don’t know, who am I to spoil your innocent young mind? Don’t you like chaps?’

  Suba made a little face. ‘I’ve no time at present. And anyway, my father …’ Her voice drifted away.

  ‘Oh. I suppose so!’ Sian peered at her interestedly. ‘You people have arranged marriages, don’t you?’

  ‘Not all of us,’ Suba said, pushing down the irritation that such questions always created in her. ‘And it isn’t that at all. It’s just that he says education comes first. I had enough trouble getting him to let me come here instead of college. If I start having boyfriends, that’ll really upset him — I’ve got time.’

  ‘Of course you have,’ Sian said, suddenly kind, and it was as though she was filled with so much contentment that it bubbled over to take in Suba too. ‘Don’t let me tease you, ducks. Here, what’s that you’ve got there? Have another.’

  ‘Lemonade,’ Suba said. ‘And really I’ve had enough — I’d better go, I suppose. There’s no sense in staying any longer. She’s not coming —’

  ‘Someone from the hospital?’ Sian said.

  Suba stared at her and for one mad moment thought of telling Sian all about it, explaining all that had happened, and about her plan with Prue, asking her to help salve her conscience over Fay Buckland and then, even as the thought came to her, pushed it away. That would be crazy; however nice Sian might be at the moment no one knew better than Suba how sharply she could change, become jeering and unkind again. She’d heard her do it to the other people in the canteen; she couldn’t risk it. And yet it would be such a comfort to share the whole wretched affair with someone, to unload it all on to another pair of shoulders, if only for a little while.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s not important really,’ and almost got to her feet. And then stopped, because Prue was there, suddenly, standing in front of her and staring down.

  ‘So you came then,’ she said and Suba continued to stare at her wordlessly.

  ‘Well, there you are then,’ Sian said cheerfully. ‘Here’s your friend all right and tight! You won’t mind if I stay a bit longer, though, will you? There’s nowhere else to sit down and my feet are killing me —’ And indeed the pub had filled up considerably now. ‘I’ll go as soon as my chap gets here — he won’t be long. Here, I’ll wriggle over —’

  And she did, and Prue sat down.

  There was an awkward silence and then Sian said brightly, ‘Well, shall I get them in, then? Here, what do you want?’

  ‘I’ll have an orange juice,’ Prue said.

  ‘Suba?’

  ‘Mm? Oh, nothing, thanks.’

  ‘Well, you’re a cheap round and no mistake. Suits me. I’ll be back — keep my seat safe from these marauders, mind —’ And she was away, pushing herself loudly but amiably through the crowd towards the bar.

  ‘Who’s she?’ Prue said.

  ‘One of the other nurses from the hospital,’ Suba said.

  ‘Is she in on this as well?’

  ‘Mm? Oh, no. She just happened to be here — waiting for her friend, you see. I couldn’t just tell her to go away, could I?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, you can’t —’ Suba said and then stopped, a little nonplussed.

  ‘I do,’ Prue said savagely. ‘If I want people to go away I tell ’em —’ She stopped then. ‘If I can. You can’t always though, can you?’

  ‘No,’ Suba said. ‘I couldn’t —’

  ‘But you could do it for someone else?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do it for someone else.’ Prue sounded impatient. ‘There’s no good me being here if you can’t.’

  ‘I — well, I suppose so,’ Suba said and then brightened. ‘I think I could always do things for patients I couldn’t do for myself.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right then,’ Prue said and looked across towards the bar to see if Sian was coming back. ‘Does she know about it all?’

  ‘About what?’ Suba was suddenly guarded. ‘You mean about you?’

  ‘About this business you said you wanted me to do — about this Miss Buckland and her trouble.’

  ‘Everyone does,’ Suba said. ‘It’s been in all the papers.’

>   ‘What? That she did abortions?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, there’s no news in that.’ Prue sounded tired, and looking at her drawn face and puffy eyes Suba thought — She’s not well. Not at all well. ‘Lots of people have ’em done. Only they wouldn’t do me when I asked ’em.’

  ‘I know,’ Suba said. ‘But it wasn’t Miss Buckland, was it? The doctor you saw — was it in Outpatients? Or Accident and Emergency? It wouldn’t have been Miss Buckland who said no?’

  ‘No,’ Prue admitted. ‘It wasn’t her. I went into A and E and saw this snotty kid, thought he was bloody God Almighty, he did. Sent me off like I was some sort of beggar —’

  ‘Miss Buckland wouldn’t have done that,’ Suba said and leaned earnestly towards her. ‘Honestly she wouldn’t. She’s ever so nice. She’d have helped you. She did. I mean when you were so ill, she helped you. Did she know when you came in you didn’t want the baby?’

  Prue shrugged. ‘How do I know? I never talked to her before she done me. I was too poorly. I’d have thought she could have worked it out, though. You don’t go and get into that sort of mess if you want to keep a baby, do you?’ And suddenly her face crumpled and tears began to run down her cheeks.

  Once again Suba was overcome with confusion and was dreadfully aware of all the other people standing around, afraid they would see Prue’s tears, afraid they would think she was to blame for them, afraid just to be there, and she leaned forward to pat Prue’s hand rather helplessly, not knowing what to do.

  ‘Oh, Gawd, leave you for a minute and what do you get up to?’ Sian’s voice above her filled her with a giddy sense of relief and she looked up at her eagerly.

  ‘She’s a bit upset,’ she murmured as Sian wriggled back into her seat. ‘I don’t know what to —’

  Prue was crying hard now, sitting there with her head down and making no effort to disguise her state, with the tears running down her face, her mouth drawn back into an ugly rictus, and her shoulders heaving. Sian leaned forwards and, using the scarf that Prue had round her neck, mopped at her face, and after a while she seemed to be a little less agitated and even accepted gratefully the glass of orange juice which Sian pushed into her hand, and began to sip it.