Sheer Abandon (21 page)

“A porter has to do it, she can’t be moved off that bed.”

“I could push it.”

“I expect you could,” said a nurse, pulling the curtains round her grandmother, “but you don’t know where to go.”

“You could tell me,” said Kate.

“I could,” she said wearily. “But I still couldn’t let you do it. I’m sorry. The porter shouldn’t be long.”

She looked exhausted; she seemed at least kinder than the others, said she would go and find Jilly another blanket.

She hadn’t.

Jilly was finally x-rayed at 1:00 a.m.; her pelvis was fractured, but her hip wasn’t broken.

“So there’s no need to operate,” said the doctor, summoned back to her cubicle. “The pelvis will heal itself, given time. Now then, I think as she has possible concussion, and in view of her age, we’ll get her up into a ward, settle her down for the night, sort out some pain relief.”

“She’s terribly cold,” said Kate, “she keeps shivering.”

“That’s shock,” he said. The nurse, standing beside him, nodded sagely. The minute a doctor appeared, there seemed to be plenty of nurses; the rest of the time there were none to be seen. They’d even managed to get her out of her wet clothes.

The doctor patted Jilly’s blanket condescendingly. “Poor old soul. What name is it—oh yes, Jillian. Soon have you nicely tucked up, Jillian.”

“My name,” said Jilly, and her voice was steadier suddenly, “is Mrs. Bradford. That is how I wish to be addressed.”

The doctor and the nurse exchanged glances.

When Helen and Jim arrived it was two in the morning; Kate had finally gone outside and called them, after the doctor had left.

“Where is she?” said Helen. “Is she in bed?”

“No,” said Kate, “she’s on a trolley. They’re totally useless. She was freezing to death until I made them get a blanket. She’s had nothing, except for the cup of tea I got her. No painkillers, nothing. Stupid tossers!” she added loudly.

“Kate, dear, don’t talk like that,” said Helen. “Er—do you think I could go and see my mother?” she asked the woman behind the desk rather tentatively.

“Of course you can,” said Kate. “Don’t ask anything, they only know how to say no.”

An old woman with no teeth cackled loudly.

“She’s a right one, isn’t she?” she said to Helen. “She’s put ’em all to rights round here. More guts than all the rest of us put together. You should be proud of her.”

Helen smiled rather nervously and followed Kate to Jilly’s cubicle.

Kate woke up with a start; her head was in her mother’s lap. She was asleep, too, her head on Jim’s shoulder. Daylight was coming in through the dingy net curtains. Kate looked at her watch; it was half past six.

She sat up, walked over to the cubicle; please, please let her be gone.

She wasn’t; she was still there, wide awake, feverish.

“Kate! Oh, how nice to see you. I thought you’d all gone.”

“Of course we haven’t gone. Oh Gran, I’m so sorry. How is it now?”

“Painful,” said Jilly, “terribly painful. Could you ask again for painkillers? I can’t stand it much longer. And Kate, darling, could you get me another cup of tea? Or even a glass of water?”

By ten o’clock, still no bed had been found. Kate slumped in Casualty, biting her nails. This was unbelievable. She was exhausted: How on earth did her grandmother feel? She walked round the room, her arms folded, trying not to scream. Her mother was standing anxiously by the cubicle; her father had gone for what he called a little walk. He hated hospitals.

Someone had left a newspaper behind; she picked it up idly. It was the
Sketch
. There was a big article on the inside page, about an old lady who’d been on a hospital trolley without food or water for twelve hours and had died. It was a disgrace, the
Sketch
said, that such things happened in a country that had pioneered the National Health Service; the old woman’s daughter was saying she would sue the hospital, the doctor, and the NHS.

At least they had some guts, Kate thought, they didn’t just sit around saying yes doctor, no doctor, three bags full doctor.

God, this was awful. What could she do? Who would help? And then she remembered her grandmother’s nice doctor. The one who’d come into the shop that day. Surely she would be able to do something. She went into the cubicle; Jilly was dozing restlessly.

“Granny?”

“Yes?” She woke up at once.

“Granny, what’s the name of your doctor? The lady who came into the shop that day?”

“Oh, Dr. Scott. Yes. Nice girl.”

“Do you have her number? I thought I’d ring her. See if she can help.”

“It’s in my address book. In my bag.” Her voice was slightly slurred. “But darling, she won’t come on a Sunday. And what could she do?”

Kate shrugged. “Dunno. But it’s worth a try.”

She went outside and rang the surgery number. A robot answered.

“The surgery is closed. You have a choice. If it is a real emergency, you should go to the Casualty Department at the Duke of Kent Hospital. If it is a minor problem, call the NHS direct help line. Or stay on the line to be connected to our duty doctor who can advise you further.”

Kate stayed on the line. Please, please God, let it be her. Let it be Dr. Scott.

Chapter 12

         Somewhere in the long wakeful hours (however could they be called small?) she had made the decision. She called Chad early and said she would do it. Well, begin to do it. Go along with them, just a little way at first, see what happened, try and judge whether it was even possible. Take a week’s leave—once the big presentation was over—and really give it her best shot.

Chad had been very surprised; delighted, excited even, but still surprised.

“All I’m saying,” she warned him, “is that I’ll go down there with you. Talk to the constituency people, to Norman Brampton. All right?”

“All right. Martha, that’s fantastic. I know we can make it work. Absolutely know it.”

“You don’t,” she said. “But at least this way you’ll know if you can’t.” She sounded odd. She could hear it herself.

Marcus was pleased and extremely surprised also. “Wonder what persuaded her?” he said when Chad called.

“God knows. Let’s just be thankful. And put some arrangements in place before she changes her mind.”

Chad had invited Jack Kirkland and Janet Frean for a working lunch at his London flat, to discuss policy. The next day, Chad said, they would—hopefully—stop being front-page celebrities and instead become working politicians again. The electorate was a bit tired of celebrities; it wanted the country in the hands of sensible, grown-up people.

The immediate challenge was persuading as many MPs as possible to join them; there was also the need to establish local councillors where humanly possible.

It was going to be tough, but a few gains would grab all the headlines and put them on a roll. The more success they had, the better the publicity; the better the publicity, the greater the chance of success. At the same time, they were embarking on a heavy programme of public round-the-country speeches. Jack would be taking on the home counties and London, Janet the Midlands, Chad the North. “But then on Saturday I’ll come down south, head for East Anglia, starting with Binsmow in Suffolk, with our lovely young putative candidate, and see what I can do there. Best I go personally, for several reasons, not least that I’ve had several conversations with Norman Brampton already.”

“Which lovely young putative candidate?” asked Kirkland. His voice was slightly edgy.

“Martha Hartley.”

“Good Lord!” He had wagered Chad that Martha would say no.

“Yes, indeed. So you owe me a hundred pounds, I think.”

“It’s extraordinary. Maybe she really is out of love with the law.”

“Maybe. Maybe she does think she’ll enjoy it,” said Chad.

“Maybe she’s just a bit starstruck,” said Janet. “It’s hard to imagine the slog of the thing until you’ve done it.”

They agreed it was probably a combination of all those things.

Clio arrived just after two. “I’m sorry I’ve been so long,” she said rushing into Casualty. “I was on endless calls this morning. It’s Kate, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Kate. She looked exhausted, Clio thought. Her wild hair was straggling round her white tear-stained face, her eyes were dark and heavy, and she also looked rather grubby.

“How is your grandmother? And where is she?”

“In something called HDU,” said Kate and burst into tears.

“Oh no! Look, I’ll go and find out—Oh, hello. You must be Kate’s mother.”

“That’s right. It’s very good of you to come, Dr. Scott.” Helen looked and sounded tired. “We need some help. My mother’s just been rushed off to HDU and then we had a bit of an upset. Kate started shouting at a nurse.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” said Clio, “they’re quite used to it. But why is she in HDU?”

“Something about a clot. She was having pains in her legs, said she didn’t like to complain and then suddenly had quite bad chest pains. Oh dear. It’s all such a nightmare.”

“I’ll go and see what I can find out,” said Clio patting her hand. “Try not to worry too much.”

Some insistent questioning of the duty doctor revealed that not only did Jilly have a deep-vein thrombosis—arguably caused by the long period on the trolley—but it had moved upwards and part of it had lodged in her pulmonary artery. Clio returned to Helen and Kate, and broke the news as gently as she could.

“I know it’s terribly worrying for you. But she’s getting the best possible care now. She’s on intravenous heparin which is a wonderful drug, and the doctor will keep you informed—he’s promised to come down as soon as he knows any more. I’m afraid they wouldn’t let me see her, but she’s basically fit, and she should be fine. She’s such a—such a splendid woman,” she added, flailing around rather wildly for things to say, cheerful, positive things. “So smart and attractive. I love her shop.”

When Clio left, Kate was talking to some young man who’d walked into Casualty who obviously wasn’t a patient. Maybe he’d come to collect someone. He was clearly taken with Kate—not surprisingly. She was very attractive, even with her dirty face. But who did she remind her of? Who, who?

Clio thought of herself at sixteen: tubby, plain, anxious, pushed about by her sisters, totally devoid of self-confidence. She could never have done what Kate had done, battled with bureaucracy, questioned authority. She could hardly do it now, for God’s sake; she couldn’t even stand up to her own husband.

“You remind me of my mother,” said Gideon Keeble. “She was the great love of my life,” he added, smiling, “although I don’t suppose you would quite regard that as a compliment. But you would have loved her. And she would have loved you.”

“When did she die?”

“Five and a half years ago. She did very well, she was eighty-five.”

“Eighty-five!”

That was quite old. Too old, she felt, to be Gideon’s mother. He read her thoughts.

“I was her last but one child. She was almost forty when I was born. Let me put you out of your misery. I’m fifty-one. Not quite Methuselah.”

“I told you, Gideon, you seem absolutely ageless to me.”

“Well, I should be thankful for that.”

It was true; sitting there, smiling, in the sunshine, his blue eyes boring into hers, he was no age at all, just a powerfully attractive man.

“And how am I like your mother?”

“Oh, well now, she was clever. And tough.”

“How do you know I’m either of those things?”

“You couldn’t do the job you do if you weren’t. And then you’re both charming. And loving.”

“And how do you know I’m loving?”

“I…sense it,” he said, and it was one of the most erotic things that had ever been said to her. “Now,” he added, “what would you like to talk about?”

“You,” she said. “Please. Tell me about you.”

She knew a lot of it, of course: the rise from a childhood spent in considerable poverty to a fortune that was now counted in billions rather than millions, from a first job as a messenger and a second as a salesman for a small Dublin menswear store, to the ownership of a worldwide retail organisation. There had been titanic struggles for the control of other companies, famous bidding wars, even more famous deals. He owned fashion chains in Europe, America, and Australia; and large furniture warehouses, operating largely in out-of-town shopping centres. He also had a chain of small exclusive stores selling what he called couture for the home. He had recently branched into hotels—“boutique hotels, you’ll have heard of them no doubt”—foodie shops, and delis cashing in on the fashion for what he called smart food, and a worldwide chain of coffee shops. A great deal of his wealth inevitably came from real estate, shop frontage on some of the world’s most famous streets.

Along the way were casualties, namely three marriages, and—on one famous occasion—almost himself. A massive heart attack, three years ago, had left him half dead, but absolutely opposed to doing what he was told and taking life more quietly.

“What would I do with a quiet life? I would get very noisy indeed, noisy and troublesome.”

He worked as hard as ever now, he said, but with the important difference that he took care of himself. “I don’t smoke, hardly drink. I swim two miles a day, which is excessively boring, but I do it.”

“Wherever do you do that?” she said.

“Oh, well now, in my house in London I have one of those very clever little pools that sets up a current against you and each length measures about half a mile; in the country I have a bigger one, rather vulgar but none the worse for that, and in Ireland, unless the weather is absolutely frightful, I swim in my lake.”

“Oh my God,” said Jocasta.

“Yes, I do call on Him quite often as I plunge in. But it is truly wonderful once you get going. I shall make you sample it.”

“Then I shan’t come!”

“In which case, I promise not to make you sample it. Anyway, for all those reasons I am now as fit as the proverbial flea. A rather large one, it has to be said. Look, shall we forget about the food, since you are so clearly not enjoying it, and take their very splendid boat trip instead? And after that I am afraid I shall have to start heading back to London. I have to catch a plane to Australia very early in the morning and I have a great deal of work to do first.”

She arrived home feeling drunk: not with wine, of which she’d had very little, but with him. He had hardly touched her, except to kiss her as he picked her up and again as they parted, to hand her into the boat and to help her into her jacket; but she felt disturbed by him nonetheless. Much of it, she knew very well, was the dizzy pleasure of being with someone so famous and powerful, of him finding her desirable and interesting. It made her feel soothed and comforted, made Nick’s rejection just a little less painful.

“It has been very lovely,” he said, smiling at her across the considerable width of the car. “I don’t know when I enjoyed a day so much. Would you like to do it again? Well, perhaps not an absolute repetition, but—well, I’m sure we can find something similar.”

“Yes,” she said, reckless with the excitement of it, “I would love that. I really would.”

“Then speak to Nick,” he said, “and when you have done that, let me know.”