The Parasite Person (19 page)

“Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?” the tired young Registrar suggested. “We’ll send for you immediately if—if there’s any news.”

Martin had heard the hesitation. “If we see she is dying,” he had been going to say, but had corrected himself just in time.

“Everything’s being done that can be done,” the young doctor continued, “Really, Mr Lockwood, it would be best if you were to go home now, it really would. We could arrange a car …”

But Martin just sat there. This small, bare waiting-room, where he had first been told the news, seemed, now, like the only home he had ever known. He could not bring himself to go elsewhere. Two or three people, in the course of the long night, came in to urge him to go and get some sleep, but still he sat on.

Helen might be dead. It was a long time, now, since anyone had come to tell him anything, and this time, the words
did
have meaning. The merciful anaesthesia of shock was wearing off, and he knew, now, exactly what it was that might be coming to him.

Grief. Bereavement. Love. He’d heard these words many a time, and had used them, too, of course. Had used them easily, confidently and in appropriate contexts, all his life long, as a blind man uses verbs of seeing. Now, for the first time, he knew what these words actually stood for.

“You may come now, Mr Lockwood,” said Sister, solid and foursquare in the doorway. “This way, please,” and she led the way along corridors, past closed doors, in and out of lifts.

She was taking him to Helen: and there were only two reasons why she would be doing such a thing in the deep dark before dawn. One, that the operation had been successful, and that Helen was recovering consciousness, perhaps asking for him; two, that she was dying, and he was to be allowed to say goodbye.

The cubicle at the far end of the ward was closely curtained: Sister stood, one hand on the edge of the curtain, waiting for him to catch up with her.

Which was it to be? Joy and comfort unspeakable, or grief beyond all comprehending?

But one thing was certain: whichever it was, he would be
experiencing it to its ultimate, overwhelming limit: for somehow, during these last hours, he had changed into a person who could feel things: just as other people had been all along.