by Davis Bunn
She was out of her chair almost before he had spoken. “Remove your . . . Why are you dressed in layers?”
“It’s all I have with me.”
She might have sniffed. “Take them off, please. I need to examine your abdomen. Come sit over here.”
Reluctantly he followed her to the corner bench. She examined his eyes, pricked his finger for blood, and inserted a thermometer before returning to her desk and filling out several forms. She returned to check his temperature and might have sniffed at the result, he wasn’t sure. She inspected his tongue, listened to his chest, prodded his abdomen, and finally announced, “Other than signs of dehydration and weight loss, I’d say you were in fairly good shape.”
“Would you.” Another wave of fatigue swept over him. Brian fumbled with the buttons to his shirt and willed himself to remain upright. “Well, given your fantastic three-minute examination, I can’t tell you how reassured that leaves me.”
She crossed her arms. “We do not like to overprescribe medication in this country, Mr. Blackstone. Particularly antibiotics. And especially not antibiotics as strong as the one you’ve been on.”
He started to explain how he had bribed the hospital pharmacy clerk in Colombo twenty dollars to give him a prescription for the antibiotic most recently arrived from overseas. How this was an old trick for seasoned travelers, since many third world pharmacies did not bother to store antibiotics in cool, dry places, meaning they rapidly lost their potency. But he decided it was not worth the bother. He had met doctors like this before, people who assumed they had nothing to learn from anyone, especially not the patient. “I need another round of treatment.”
“I’m sure you think you do.”
“Look, is there another doctor I can see around here?”
She bridled. “You’re welcome to check up front. I’m sure Dr. Riles can fit you in. Perhaps sometime next month will be convenient.”
“Great. Just great.” He rammed his shirttail into his trousers and hoped she did not notice his swaying. “Thanks for nothing.”
But she did not move back to her desk; she merely stood in the center of the room with her arms crossed. “I happen to be renting Rose Cottage.”
Bitterness rose like gall in his throat. “I guess that means you’ve heard about the sale of the property.”
The change came as fast as a lightning strike. Eyes flashed wide, arms cocked on hips, face flushed crimson, voice rose to high-pitched clamor. “So that’s it! You let this place fall into utter ruin, and then show up only to sell it!”
“I don’t—”
“I should have known it the instant you walked in here! You . . . you moneygrubbing weasel!” She cocked back an arm, and for an instant Brian thought she was going to strike him. But she merely flung it toward the door. “Get out of my office!”
Brian stalked down the hall, feeling wind batter his back as the doctor slammed her door at his departure. The receptionist greeted him with a cheery smile, one shared by several of the others in the waiting room, and asked, “Feeling all better now, are we?”
Three
THE MORNING CONTINUED PRETTY MUCH AS IT HAD BEGUN. A steady stream of patients’ sniffles and aches kept Cecilia’s thoughts partly at bay, but the sense of dread rose steadily. When Maureen finally called back to say Grant Riles was ready to see her, she found it hard to rise from her chair.
There had been quiet but fierce opposition to the idea of an American doctor being given a place in Knightsbridge. At first Cecilia had thought it was because she was viewed as too foreign, and at every opportunity she had repeated the fact that she had been born here and her mother was English. It was only several weeks into her position as locum, or temporary General Practitioner, that she learned the truth. The people did not doubt her ability as a doctor and had no objection to her American heritage. They simply did not think she was going to stay.
The only reason she had been granted a chance at all was because the white-haired senior doctor had vouched for her. Dr. Grant Riles was a man of remarkable energy. At sixty-three years of age, he remained pestered by his inability to speed up the world to a more acceptable pace. He tended to bark whereas others spoke, and flipped through medical journals with such impatient force that Cecilia normally received them with the pages torn halfway out. But he was a walking dictionary of medical treatments and a fierce advocate of preventive medicine. He had watched her closely through the six-month trial period, then asked Cecilia only one question:Would she give him five years? Cecilia had responded with an unequivocal yes.
As she passed through the waiting room, Cecilia gave Angeline Townsend and her son a vague smile. She then entered the clinic’s other front room, larger than her own office with frosted panes turning the street traffic into shadows. Dr. Riles was scribbling impatiently, bearing down so hard he seemed intent on drilling the pen through both page and desk. Without looking up he said, “I understand you proposed inflicting grievous bodily harm upon one of our local citizens.”
“It was completely out of line,” Cecilia said, panicky over what was to come.
“I agree.” He looked up. “Do you have the Townsend boy’s file there?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s have it, then.”
Only when he was deeply absorbed in the notes did Cecilia realize that was to be the extent of her dressing-down. Weak with relief, she sank into the chair across from him.
“What is your assessment of Tommy’s condition?”
“That’s just it. I don’t have one.” The day had robbed her of any ability to hide her confusion. “He complains of vague pains that track all over his body. He’s seriously underweight, less than two-thirds of the norm for his age.”
“Which is?”
“He’ll be five in two months.”
“Fever?”
“Off and on. Two bad spikes, the last, eight days ago, all the way to a hundred and four. Lasted ten hours and then disappeared without a trace. His mother is beside herself with worry.”
“Quite understandable, given the circumstances.” He flicked through the sheaf of lab reports. “I see you’ve given him all the normal tests.”
“Most of the blood work I had done twice, just to be sure.” She could not help but clench her hands in her lap. “Leukemia, hepatitis, encephalitis, meningitis, E. coli, everything I could think of. They all came back negative. Every time I do another test, the mother lives through nights of terror until she hears the results.”
“Then I suppose it’s time to have a look at the boy.” But when she started to rise, he halted her with, “May I ask you a question?”
Cecilia braced for further condemnation. “Of course.”
Grant Riles had the most unruly eyebrows she had ever seen. They arched across his forehead like silver-gray brushes. His eyes seemed to hunt for her through the undergrowth. “Have you ever lost a young patient?”
The question struck like a blow to her midsection. “No.”
“I have. Three times. And each one was a harrowing experience.” He turned his attention back to the open file and muttered quietly, “Most trying.”
She licked dry lips and found sufficient breath to ask, “Do you think that’s what we’re facing here?”
“The issue is not what I think at this point. I haven’t been watching the patient’s decline all these weeks. You have.” He slapped the file shut. “The question you need to be asking yourself is, Are you ready? Have you prepared yourself the best you can? Because sooner or later it is going to happen. You will come up against the unsolvable. We are only human, and death will one day win out.” His eyes were a light green in color, as mild as his tone, yet they pierced her very soul. “The hardest task most doctors ever face is accepting defeat with a young patient. Especially one they have become attached to. You care for this Tommy, I take it.”
“Very much.” The words were barely more than a whisper.
“Well, I can’t tell you not to care. But I can urge you t
o fortify yourself. Not that it will necessarily happen.” He leaned across the desk. “This time.”
Cecilia did not want to hear any more, and she could think of no other way to halt the discussion than to rise to her feet. “I’ll go—”
“Just one moment more, please.” He waited until she had turned back around. “I would advise you to have a word with the vicar. Trevor Parkes is a good sort, as you no doubt know. It may help you to establish a line in the sand, don’t you see. Between where your providence ends, and God’s begins.”
Brian sat in what before had probably been Castle Keep’s formal parlor. It was at the back of the second floor, with four tall windows overlooking the rubble-strewn grounds. At the garden’s far end ran the sparkling liquid ribbon of the river Thames. He had chosen this room to occupy because it was next to the kitchen. He had set one of the high-backed dining chairs directly beneath the window and pulled the smallest of the side tables up in front of him. His bedroll and sleeping bag were spread upon a threadbare Persian carpet. He knew all the bedrooms were upstairs. Although he had not ventured farther than the four rooms in this corner of the house, Brian had a vivid picture of the entire manor. He had no intention whatsoever of going upstairs. The one positive outcome of selling the house would be not having to enter the room his wife had once called her own.
He ate slowly, pausing between every second or third bite to ensure that his stomach was not rebelling. He had only been back on solid foods for about a week. He ate a poor man’s meal of beans and brown rice and dark bread, no seasoning except for a little salt, no butter, no grease of any kind. It tasted positively divine.
His attention was caught by a lone figure crossing the brown, unkempt lawn, heading down to the river. Brian ate and watched the dark-headed doctor move easily along the rocky path. Clearly this was a walk she knew well. She wore an almost shapeless man’s gray cardigan over a charcoal turtleneck. The sleeves of both layers were rolled up until they bunched like woolen balloons around her wrists. The bottom edge of the man’s sweater almost trailed in the dirt. It made her look even smaller than she already was.
His stomach knotted and then released, the spasm so familiar he paid it no conscious attention at all. He merely set down his fork and continued to stare out the window. He knew tomorrow he would be angry with her, but toward evening his energy flagged, and all he could feel right now was a mild annoyance. She had seemed so passionate about the place, so angry over losing it. A trace of breeze lifted the sweater’s trailing edge, and she wrapped her arms more tightly about her slender frame. She stood at the riverside, staring down at the flowing water, as darkness began to gather. Brian finished his meal and sat there still, watching her and wondering why she was so involved in a place that was not even hers. Only when she turned and wended her way back around the side of the manor did he himself rise and go into the kitchen.
Over and over a dual refrain played through his mind—first the promise he had made to his wife, and then the impossible sum. Six hundred and thirty thousand pounds. He had never had anything close to that much money in his entire life. They might as well be asking for the moon.
Brian was more awake tonight, and the house’s many flaws seemed etched upon the gathering dark. Many of the switches did not work, and those lights that did come on flickered and cast fitful glows over the high, shadowy ceilings. His wife had often spoken of her aunt as a mad and fanciful woman, and here in her old estate, Brian saw evidence of this everywhere. Only a true eccentric would feel comfortable in this half gloom, with neither television nor radio by the looks of things. The windows did not close properly, and damp drafts filled the long chamber even with the heaters on full. The floors creaked and sagged. The pipes and the steam-heating units rattled. There was no hot water to speak of. When he finally lay down on his bedroll, the sounds became even clearer. The entire house groaned with age and lack of proper care.
It seemed as though Brian had only been asleep for an instant when the pains began.
The agony was so savage, he could scarcely believe it was happening. In his foggy condition it felt like a nightmare had crept into his waking state. The more awake he became, the stronger his torment grew.
The pain was so feral he felt as though some invisible beast were gnawing bites from his side. He opened his mouth, gasping for air as he rolled about on the floor. Moonlight streamed through the chamber’s high windows, illuminating the ancient phone on the table by the door. Brian found he could not even rise to his feet. He crawled on three limbs, his left arm curled protectively about his side.
When he heard the dial tone, he sobbed with relief. He dialed for the operator, and as soon as the woman’s voice came on he croaked, “I think I’m dying.”
The phone’s ring crashed about the house like a battery of cymbals. Cecilia had once tried to muffle the telephone bell, but it did no good. No matter how soft the sound, being awakened in the middle of the night was hard on the nerves, and her shattered sleep amplified the sound. She fumbled for the receiver, pulled it to her head, and said, “Yes?”
“Dr. Lyons?”
“Yes.”
“This is the central exchange. Are you the doctor on call?”
“That is correct.” It was a telephone operator, one she did not recognize, which meant either a traffic accident or an emergency at the police station. Or perhaps a guest in the town’s only hotel. The locals knew to call the clinic, where the nurse on duty would try to make sure it was a case genuinely requiring that the doctor be awakened. If so, they were patched through, with the nurse giving the doctor on duty a moment to come awake. Cecilia swung her feet to the floor and rubbed her face. Hard. “What is it?”
“We have an emergency heart case.”
The worst possible scenario. She was already up and fumbling for her clothes. “What’s the address?”
“Castle Keep, Knightsbridge. Sorry, I don’t have a street—”
“Arthur!” She dropped the phone, slammed her feet into bedroom slippers, leapt down the stairs, grabbed the emergency bag she always left on the hall table, and raced out into the night.
The wind had quickened during the night. The trees rustled and shivered overhead, as though sharing her chilly fear. Arthur Wainwright was an anomaly, healthy as a horse and yet frail as anyone his age. She had never suspected him to have a weak heart, but anything could have set off an attack. Such as moving a heavy wall cupboard and hefting a bulky fire extinguisher and chasing a fire up a pantry wall. Cecilia bounded up the stairs and slammed open the front door with such force that it struck the sidewall with a sonic boom. The front hall light was a flickering glow somewhere far overhead, turning her shadow into a leaping fool. She pounded on the apartment door with one hand, pressed the buzzer with the other, and shrilled out, “Gladys!”
But it was a sleep-tousled Arthur who opened the door, his wife of fifty years cowering behind him. He gripped an industrial-strength flashlight like a mallet, stared down at her, and demanded sternly, “What on earth?”
She had to take a moment to catch her breath. “They said you had a heart attack.”
“Merciful heavens,” Gladys Wainwright said, gripping her chest. “He hasn’t yet, but give us time. We just might make the journey worth your while.”
But Cecilia was already turning away. “The operator distinctly said Castle Keep. It’s got to be him.”
The elderly couple demanded in unison, “Who?”
“Him. Our landlord. Mr. High Muckety-Muck himself.”
Arthur Wainwright stepped out into the drafty hallway. “The man’s had an attack?”
“For his sake,” Cecilia said, taking the stairs two at a time, “I certainly hope so.”
The three of them burst through the unlocked door to find the new arrival scrabbling down the hall on hands and knees. He halted midway and came up into a crouch. Leaning against the sidewall and gripping the base of his rib cage with both arms, he bared his teeth in a tight grimace and wheezed, “It’
s getting worse.”
“Is that so,” Cecilia snapped, surprising even herself. She was not known for her bedside manner, but she did not go out of her way to offend her patients. Yet this man was different. She had despised him long before they ever met.
Brian Blackstone seemed to find nothing untoward in her response. He merely gripped himself harder and panted, “It feels like a red-hot poker is being drilled through my side.”
She walked over and knelt in front of him. He was clad in a pair of ragged boxer shorts and a tan so dark it looked painted on. Even in the hall’s feeble light she could see the sheen of perspiration covering his body. “Unlock your arms and show me where it hurts.”
“I’m not sure.” His breath came in quick little gasps, as though breathing too deeply might cause something to unspring. “I think under my ribs, but it moves around.”
“Is it more to one side?”
“I think . . . Yes. My right.” Another spasm hit him and he groaned.
“Well, unless your heart has shifted under its load of guilt, I think we can rule out cardiac arrest.” She gripped his upper arm and tugged. “Let’s try to see if we can make it back to your bed.”
Gladys stepped forward, her voluminous nightdress billowing like a starched sail. She looked reprovingly at Cecilia, for clearly her tone did not sit well with the older woman. But all Gladys said was, “Shall I make us a pot of tea?”
“We won’t be here that long.” Cecilia could not help but glance around as she entered the front parlor. It was her first time on the manor’s upper floors. Not even the feeble lighting could mask the fact that this had once been a truly stupendous salon. Gilded cherubs reached across the domed ceiling to hold the crystal chandelier in place. Only two, of perhaps thirty, bulbs worked, however, and these gave off fitful illumination. What they revealed spoke of seedy opulence. The rumpled sleeping bag sprawled across the shabby Persian carpet only added to her ire. She eased her patient back down, knelt beside him, and declared flatly, “You’re not having a heart attack.”
