Second Opinion

by Claire Rayner

  ‘It’s not important,’ Vanny said peaceably. ‘I just thought … Don’t worry, I can wait.’

  Which of course made George feel deeply guilty for her thoughtlessness. She should have considered the possibility of hunger and offered them food at the airport, however late that would have made her; but there it was, she hadn’t. And, she thought gloomily, I might as well get used to feeling this way, guilty and angry and annoyed with Ma about it, and all the rest of it. It’s not going to go away.

  They were happy passengers, exclaiming over the dear little houses and how odd it felt to be on the wrong side of the road and displaying some surprise that the place looked so — well, like any US city really, apart from the billboards and the shopfronts and, of course, the dear little houses, and she encouraged the chatter and told them all she could to fill them in on local knowledge, even if she wasn’t sure of her facts, taking the road south of the river, once they got to town, by going over Westminster Bridge. That way she could point out some obvious sights, and they cooed happily over Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament and seemed to perk up a good deal.

  They were a bit dismayed by the flat though they assured her they were enchanted to be so near to Tower Bridge and to be able to see it from her kitchen window; they said they didn’t mind sharing a room one little bit, truly they didn’t; but she wasn’t fooled. She set about organizing a late breakfast for them while they unpacked, knowing the coming days were not going to be easy as they came to terms with living in such cramped quarters after the comfort of their own big houses. Maybe they wouldn’t stay over Christmas, she thought hopefully, and again the guilt welled up. How could she be so unkind when they’d come so far to visit with her? It was shocking.

  As a result of that feeling she gushed over them when she settled them to their breakfast, making a bit of a drama of squeezing oranges specially for the juice (quite forgetting how commonplace this was to them both) and chattering cheerfully of how much better English bagels were than New York ones, and they sat in increasing gloom as she burbled on, watching her over the rims of their coffee cups.

  ‘Look, honey,’ Bridget said at last. ‘I know I may be speaking out of turn and so forth, but I have to say, speaking for myself, that I don’t mind one bit if you want us to stay in a hotel or someplace else. It is tricky for you, seeing you have your job at the hospital and all …’

  George was appalled. She sat down hard and stared at Bridget. ‘Oh, but Bridget, the last thing I want to be is — is unwelcoming. I thought —’

  ‘You’re not being unwelcoming,’ Bridget said, smiling at her so that her eyes crinkled and disappeared into slits set in her pouchy toad-like cheeks. She looked so familiar, in a way George had quite forgotten, that George began to feel better. ‘It’s just that we know you, your ma and me, and we sorta got the idea you weren’t too sure this would work, this visit. I know we decided kinda fast to come, but you know me. I do everything in a rush.’

  ‘Ma?’ George looked at her mother for the first time since her arrival. So far she’d chattered and busied herself so much she’d been able to avoid eye contact ‘Ma, did you think —’

  ‘Oh, Bridget’s got it about right, I guess,’ her mother said and smiled her long slow smile. ‘She picks up these things when I don’t, you know. She’s my good right hand these days. And leg as well.’ She reached out, touched her friend’s hand with one gnarled and beautifully manicured finger and winked at her. ‘If she thinks it’s too much for you having us here, why, we’ll go to a nice hotel someplace and be very comfortable. Just as long as we’re in the same town for a while, I’ll be happy, George. You’re looking very well, a shade peaky, maybe, but your eyes are clear so I guess you’re happy enough.’

  ‘I’m very happy, Ma,’ George said. She reached out her own hand and Vanny took it and patted it with slow-moving fingers. ‘And I do want you here. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t suddenly realize how crowded we’re all going to be, but if you can manage, then —’

  Bridget had got up and slipped out and George had hardly noticed. She was looking at her mother, noting the way her mouth had sprung railway lines all round the lips into which her pink lipstick had bled a little, and the fine line round the irises of her eyes. Oh, God, she thought. Arcus Senilis. My mother is getting old. So I’m getting old; and a sudden wave of desolation swept over her. She hurled herself forwards and hugged her mother close. Vanny said nothing; she just held George and let her cling and then, when she sat up again, Vanny lifted both her rather shaky hands to pat her hair tidy.

  ‘Ma, I won’t hear another word about hotels,’ George said. Her voice was a little husky. ‘You’re staying here, crowded or not. We’ll manage fine.’

  Bridget came drifting back from the small room she was sharing with Vanny, her face wreathed in smiles. ‘That’s better,’ she said approvingly, as though she were talking to a backward child. ‘Now listen, hon. You just leave us be. You go to your work and me and Vanny, we’ll take a little nap to get over last night and then when you get home —’

  ‘I’ll cook us a great dinner and we’ll catch up on all the news,’ George said, getting to her feet. ‘Now, is there anything else you need? Towels in the bathroom and —’

  ‘We’re just fine,’ Bridget said. ‘Off you go. No, leave the dishes. We’ll do them. Go on now! We need a bit of space, you know?’

  And George laughed and went. It was all she could do under the circumstances. The next few weeks were not going to be at all easy, but she’d manage somehow. And maybe it would turn out that all was well with her mother after all and Bridget had just been fussing. Vanny had seemed tired this morning, of course, but then she would. She’d never been to Europe before, and a long flight across time zones made the youngest and most chipper feel lousy, she told herself as she ran for the bus that would take her over the river to Shadwell. It’ll all be OK, I’m sure it will.

  She had little time to think about her personal affairs once she got to the hospital. It was almost lunchtime before she reached her office, having had to go in the long way round via the rear entrance in order to avoid the group of protesters at the main entrance, who still bore their battered placards proclaiming ‘The NHS For The People Not The Market Place’, and ‘Down With Trusts — No Privatization’ in spite of the fact that no one in authority paid them any attention at all, and then found she was wanted urgently on a consult in Paediatrics. She muttered under her breath, looking at her cluttered desk, and then shrugged her shoulders and went They wouldn’t call her if it wasn’t important.

  And was that much angrier when she got there and was told what the problem was with a baby that Prudence Jennings, the Paediatric Registrar, had just admitted. ‘She wants some special blood work done,’ the nurse at the desk told her. ‘She’s down in the cubicle at the far end.’

  ‘Blood work?’ George frowned. ‘Couldn’t you have just sent the blood over to me?’

  The nurse shrugged. ‘I said that but she insisted she wanted you to take it yourself. She’ll explain, I imagine.’ She sniffed suddenly, showing her own irritation for the first time. ‘I’ve taken blood from younger babies than that one and had no problems. I could have done it easily. I can’t imagine why she had to drag you over here. Don’t blame me. I wouldn’t have bothered you, take it from me.’ And she looked as self-righteous as only nurses can in such circumstances.

  George found Dr Jennings in the last cubicle, sitting beside a cot in which a small fretful infant lay, rocking its head from side to side. She was staring down at him with a frown between her brows.

  ‘Oh, Dr Barnabas, it’s good of you to come over,’ she said, glancing at George briefly. ‘I’ve got a tricky one here.’

  ‘Oh?’ George said and looked from the baby to the blood-taking tray that was waiting beside the cot on a locker. ‘I understand you want some blood work done? Why not just send the blood?’

  ‘That’s right’ Prudence was still looking at the child and seemed not to have noticed t
he question. ‘I made sure they had everything ready. Listen, Dr Barnabas, how old do you think this child is?’

  ‘Eh?’ George, still annoyed and wanting an answer to the question why she’d been brought to the ward to do a job one of the nurses could have handled perfectly well, let alone one of the medical staff, was startled. ‘How old? I don’t know. Isn’t it on the notes?’

  Prudence shook her head. ‘No, that’s not what I mean! I mean, looking at him, how old would you say he is?’

  George looked at the child and then at the doctor, a woman around her own age, red-headed and a little untidy, but clearly good at her job. She’d never have lasted as Susan Kydd’s registrar if she weren’t Susan was a famous martinet, and had sent any number of young doctors away in a state almost of gibbering fear. Yet here she was, asking such a banal question.

  Prudence apparently followed George’s train of thought, and gave her a wintry smile. ‘Indulge me,’ she said, ‘then I’ll explain.’

  George shrugged and looked at the child. He was a small-framed infant, she thought, too thin for a baby, and with the deep-set eyes of fever set in large sockets. He had the shrunken look of dehydration also, and she said as much.

  ‘No, it’s not that At least, not entirely. He hasn’t been vomiting or purging,’ Prudence said, reaching over into the cot and pulling back the child’s cover and clothes. The belly was round and clearly tense and she set one finger on it and pressed gently. The baby’s face puckered and he began to cry thinly. Prudence made an odd little hissing sound through her teeth and covered him up. The baby seemed to find the sound soothing. He stopped crying and closed his eyes.

  ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘How old?’

  ‘I’m no expert in these things,’ George said and bit her lip, trying to remember the little time she’d spent in paediatrics. She knew well enough what dead children looked like at various ages; then she had the evidence of epiphyseal development to tell her, and the state of the sutures of the skull. Babies with wide-open soft spots at front and rear of their heads were still very young.

  She reached to touch the baby’s head but Prudence shook her head and held her hand back. ‘Just use your eyes,’ she said. ‘Please.’

  George threw a glance at her and then shrugged again. ‘Oh, well, all right,’ she said irritably. ‘Under a year, ten months maybe. And not at all well.’

  ‘Try eighteen months,’ Prudence said. She shook her head. ‘I’ve checked the skull sutures, measured the bones and checked the dimensions. If this boy is any younger than eighteen months then I’m a chimpanzee. Yet the mother says he’s eight months old! It makes no sense to me.’

  George had forgotten her irritation now and was fascinated. ‘That is weird!’

  ‘You could call it that. I’m wondering …’ She shook her head. ‘There’s no family history, though the mother swears he was breast fed till a few weeks ago, and if she was positive it would account for it — well, I was wondering about HIV. If she’s positive and he’s been breast fed by her, couldn’t he have AIDS? He looks ill enough.’

  ‘I suppose it’s possible,’ George said slowly. ‘What history do the parents give?’

  ‘A shaky one. Makes no sense to me. Born abroad, they say, no problems at birth. No suggestion of any premature closure of skull sutures. I asked them. Just a normal birth, they said. Anyway, they left him here, but only under protest. I said I’d have to do some tests and they could come back later — for two pins I thought she’d just walk out with him. But her husband persuaded her to leave him till the tests were done, so can you get on with them? You can see why I didn’t want anyone else taking the blood. I’d have to say what the tests were on the specimen-bottle labels and the way people gossip round here, we’d have a major panic on our hands in no time. AIDS baby in Old East — can’t you just see the headlines?’

  ‘Yes,’ George said and went across the cubicle to wash her hands in the corner basin, ‘I take your point. OK, you hold him for me, will you? Not that I expect the poor little devil to fight much. He looks too sick.’

  ‘Doesn’t he just,’ Prudence murmured, picking up the child who protested only weakly and, with expert fingers, holding him positioned for George’s syringe.

  They worked in silence though the baby whimpered from time to time, and again Prudence made that odd little sound that seemed to comfort him. When she’d finished George straightened her back and carefully marked the bottles and slipped them into her white coat pocket. ‘We’d better clean the gear ourselves,’ she said. ‘Just in case.’

  Prudence nodded. ‘You can leave that to me. I’ll be very careful. Urn — you’ll send the report to me as soon as possible? I’d like to sort it out before, well, before I go off duty tonight’

  George shook her head. ‘No can do. Some of the HIV work takes rather longer to do. A couple of days or so.’

  ‘Not all of it, though?’

  ‘No, not all of it. I can give you some answers tonight’ She was suddenly aware of what it was that was making Prudence so edgy, and she laughed. ‘I’ve just realized. You want an answer before Miss Kydd gets back. Where is she?’

  Prudence grimaced. ‘Lecturing somewhere. She’ll be here tomorrow maybe, the day after for certain. And I have to say — well — yes. You know how she can sneer at you if you get it wrong. I may be way out on this, so I don’t want to let Susan know that. If I’m right, of course, it’ll be different.’

  ‘She’ll pat your little head and you’ll grow, grow, grow, blossom,’ George said as she made for the door and Prudence laughed.

  ‘Something like that. Thanks for your help, Dr Barnabas.’

  ‘Call me George, for God’s sake,’ George said and went, hurrying past the nurse sitting at her desk, so that she couldn’t ask any awkward questions, though she was clearly poised to do so, and getting back to her lab as fast as she could. It would, as she had told Prudence, take some days before all the results could be collated, but the sooner she started the better.

  By the time she’d done the preliminary work and then sorted out the things she should have done that morning, it was well past seven-thirty. She stretched and reached for the phone. Her mother and Bridget must be bored out of their skulls waiting for her, she thought guiltily, dialling her own number. But it rang and rang interminably before she hung up, a thin line between her brows. Where on earth could they be? She’d have to hurry home to see what was happening, and she pulled on her coat and left, painfully aware, yet again, of how complicated it was to have the two of them as house guests. ‘Oh, God,’ she said to the yellowish glow in the night sky over the river. ‘Hurry on January. The sooner Christmas is over and done with and I’m on my own again, the better.’

  8

  They were out when she got home, having left a note in Bridget’s familiar back-sloping handwriting. ‘Back soon, honey, just wanted to check on the neighbourhood. Hope you had a good day. We slept like babies, feel much better. B.’

  That gave her time to make sure the flat was shining clean, and when she looked about at the bright scatter rugs against the crimson carpet and the vivid cushions on the new leather studio couch, on which she herself was having to sleep while they were with her, and the flames from the pretend-log gas fire she had indulged in, trying to see it through their eyes, she was content enough. It was, after all, only a flat in a crowded city — far more crowded than any they had lived in, and that being so, she had no need to feel ashamed. By the time they came back, pink about the nose and ears from the chill, she had supper ready; a rich daube of beef and plenty of vegetables; it was easy to do and had enough red wine in it to make it taste more effortful than it had been, and would, she thought, impress them both.

  It didn’t They ate little, professing it to be delicious, but too much for their capricious appetites, and she put the remainder in a plastic pot and wondered gloomily whether to dump it now or clutter up the fridge for a week and then put it in the garbage. Again guilt gave way to irritation. Oh, hell, she
thought, as she made coffee, this is going to be some lousy Christmas.

  They watched TV for a while, both of the old women clearly entranced by the BBC, and George preened a little in the reflected glory; it was as though she personally had contributed to the quality of TV here in her adopted country. Bridget looked at her sideways and laughed.

  ‘Being half Brit suits you,’ she said. ‘You even talk like them now, but it sounds cute.’

  ‘Cute?’ George was aghast. ‘Me, cute? Heaven forbid! And everyone here knows at once I’m an American. I don’t speak at all like they do here.’

  ‘You surely do,’ Bridget said. She yawned and stretched. ‘May I take a while in the bathroom, honey? I like a long slow tub, you know? But I don’t want to hog it.’

  ‘No problem,’ George said uneasily, glancing at her mother. ‘OK with you, Ma?’

  ‘Fine,’ her mother said equably. Bridget winked at George in a meaningful manner and went off to lock herself and a remarkable array of creams, powders, soaps and lotions into the bathroom, leaving the two of them to sit in silence as the TV murmured on.

  George stirred after a while and said carefully, ‘Ma?’

  Her mother looked at her with a smile. ‘Yes, honey?’

  ‘Are you enjoying this programme?’

  ‘I guess so,’ Vanny said and glanced back at the screen. ‘It seems very interesting.’

  ‘What is it you like about it?’ George said, watching her. There was no sense in ducking the issue any longer, Bridget knew that. That was why she’d gone off to hide in the bathroom. She’d brought Vanny here for a purpose, to show her daughter — to show her what? George had no idea: or tried to pretend to herself that she hadn’t …

  Vanny looked at her tranquilly. ‘Why, I’m not quite sure,’ she said. ‘You know how it is. You watch these plays and you can never be certain till they’re finished whether you liked them or not.’