The Winter Rose (44 page)

He cleared his throat. "Aye, luv. The things."

The penny finally dropped. "Oh, right! Yes. The things. Thank you.
It's awfully good of you to come all this way." She reached for the box.

"It's heavy. I'll carry it up for you. No worries, I'll behave myself."

She colored slightly. "Thank you."

"For behaving myself?"

"That, too."

Sid followed India up the stairs and into her flat. Besides the
bedroom, there was a tiny galley kitchen and a sitting room. Books
dominated the place. They covered the desktop, the mantel, and the
kitchen counter. They stood stacked on top of chairs and lay in heaps on
the floor. Thick medical periodicals were piled near her desk. A teapot
rested on top of them, along with the remains of a sandwich. On top of
the desk, balanced precariously on yet more books, was a tarnished
silver vase containing the room's only luxury--a dozen flawless
winter-white roses just beginning to open.

"Where should I put these?" Sid asked.

"Oh, anywhere."

He put the box by the hearth, then looked around. "Is this how you spend your Saturday nights?"

India looked at the mess as if seeing it for the first time. "I've a
sailor for a patient," she said. "It's malaria. At least, I think it's
malaria. Could be dengue fever. I haven't seen enough cases of either to
be positive so I have to read instead. A poor substitute for clinical
experience, but better than nothing."

There was a short silence, then Sid said, "Aye, well 'll be off, then."

"Won't you stay for a minute? Let me get you a cup of tea. It's the least I can do after you came all this way."

He hesitated, then said, "All right."

She fetched her teapot off a pile of books and took it to the kitchen, glancing at him on the way. "Won't you sit?" she asked.

"I'm trying to," he said, looking around for an empty place.

She laughed. "Sorry. Push the books off the settee."

He did so, settling himself while she heated some water. He held his
hands up while her back was turned. They were still shaking. He balled
them into fists to make them stop.

"I can't thank you enough for those devices," she called over her shoulder.

"It was nothing. Come to think of it, I should have brought them by Varden Street. Save you lugging them."

"Good God, no! I'm going to sneak them in bit by bit. If Gifford saw
the box, if he ever found out what I'm doing, I'd be finished."

India brought the teapot, cups and saucers, and a plate of ginger
biscuits and set them down on a low-legged table that Sid cleared for
her. She poured him a cup, added milk at his request, and handed it to
him.

"You never told me what you are doing up and about at this hour," she said. "Surely not swotting up on malaria."

"No."

"Don't you ever sleep?"

"Not if I can help it."

She was looking at him closely now, with a worried expression. He looked away.

"Sid, is something wrong?"

He laughed. "Aye. Everything," he said, passing a shaky hand over his face.

"Is it your side again?" she asked, alarmed. "Do you have any pain? Are you feverish?"

"It's not me bloody side, India," he said. "It's you. I wish I'd
never met you. You've wrecked everything. Wrecked me whole fucking
life."

She put her cup down, stricken.

"You make me hate what I do. What I am," he said. "Who are you to do
that to me? Everything I had--my family, my home, my future--was taken
from me. The only way I could survive was by taking something back."

She didn't answer, just looked at him, her gray eyes huge and wounded.

"When I'm with you, I think of things and remember things and want things I long ago stopped wanting."

"What things?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

"Mad things. I want to wake up in a room by the sea. With sunlight
streaming in the windows. The smell of salt on the wind. I don't even
know where that place is. But I want to wake up there. With you."

"Please, Sid. Please don't."

"Why?" he nearly shouted. "Because I'm no good? Because I don't--"

India cut him off angrily. "Because I'm engaged to be married!"

Sid nodded. He stood, as if to go, then instead he bent to her, took
her face in his hands, parted her lips with his tongue, and kissed her
deeply. "A wedding gift," he said, when he'd finished. "Give me best to
the groom."

"You are very cruel," she said softly.

He walked to the door.

"Please, I don't want to lose... to lose your friendship. It means a great deal to me," India said.

"Friendship? Is that what you call it?"

India looked down at her hands. "Perhaps we can talk again when you're not so angry."

"No, India, we can't. Because I don't want to see you again. Ever.
You'll be the end of me, do you know that? Do you know what I did
tonight? I left my girl all alone at a big do I'd thrown for her. Left
every villain in the East End there, too. Men I shouldn't turn my back
on for a second, never mind the whole night. I wrecked a whorehouse that
earns me a lot of money. Scared the punters away. Doubt some of them
will ever come back. I've made a right fucking mess of things, and it's
all because of you."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out her watch--the one she'd
given him to pay for the rubber johnnies. He tossed it across the room
to her. She caught it.

India looked at it, then at him. "Why?" she asked. "Why are you giving this back? It was part of our deal. Payment."

He didn't reply, just opened the door to leave.

"Sid, why?" she pressed.

He stopped and looked back at her. "Christ knows, India," he said. "I bloody well don't. I don't know anything anymore."

Fiona Bristow stood quietly inside a squat brick warehouse on
Whitechapel's Cheshire Street. She thought perhaps she should make her

presence known, but the two women she'd come to see were in the midst
of such a heated discussion with a third person, a man, that she was
hesitant to interrupt.

Dr. Jones was sketching a crude blueprint on the plank floor with a
piece of chalk. She was kneeling, oblivious to dust and dirt. Her nurse,
Ella Moskowitz, was kneeling beside her.

"We'd need two plumbing stacks," Fiona heard the doctor say, "one on
the north side of the building and one on the south in order to provide
sufficient hot water to all floors--"

"Wait. Stop," Ella said, scribbling furiously in a notebook. "Do you have any idea what that's going to cost?"

"No."

"A bloody fortune. In materials alone, never mind the labor."

"Why now? Why this building, Indy?" the man cut in, looking at the
rusted pipes snaking along the walls and the broken lights dangling from
the ceiling. "It's in bad shape and it's small."

"It's also cheap," the doctor replied. "Only five hundred pounds. We've enough money for a down payment, haven't we?"

"Yes, but a down payment is only part of the equation," the man said.
"You know that.You also need to make the mortgage payments every month,
refurbish the building, and fit it out with all sorts of medical
clobber."

"But we could make a start. At least we'd have a building. We could refurbish it as we got more donations."

"Yes, you could, but it's a totally muddled way of doing things," he said.

"But Wish--"

"India, what is going on with you? You drag me out of my flat and
hurry me down here, and all to see some totally unsuitable building. Why
are you suddenly in such a mad rush?"

India sat back on her heels. "I can't stay at Dr. Gifford's anymore. I just can't."

"But you're going to have to. You can't afford to leave. Not yet. What's going on there? What happened that has you so upset?"

"We lost another patient today," Ella said quietly. "A new mother. Susan Brindle was her name. She was only nineteen years old."

"I'm sorry to hear it, but I imagine that happens frequently in your line of work."

"This woman died from puerperal fever," India said.

"I don't know what that is," the man said.

"Childbed fever. She shouldn't have. Contamination is almost entirely
preventable--if the examining doctor washes his hands. She's the fifth
mother we've lost in a fortnight to the disease. We lost two of their
babies as well. It's a struggle for children without their mums. The
fathers don't know what to do," Ella said.

"Damn him," India suddenly said. "Damn him. Why can't he wash his
bloody hands? It's such a simple thing. Its effectiveness has been
proven again and again. By Semmelweiss. Pasteur. Lister. A few steps to a
sink, a few seconds to scrub his hands. That's all it takes. All it
takes to save a woman's life."

Fiona noticed that even in her anger, the doctor kept her voice
steady, her emotion controlled. She was intrigued by this woman, who
seemed to be boiling with passion, and yet contained it.

Ella smiled bitterly. "Well, Dr. Gifford did take the time to see
that I got Mrs. Brindle's bill made out. He handed it to her
husband--right after I'd handed him his daughter--then told him good
day. Good day. To a man newly widowed with a poorly baby in his arms.
Can you imagine?"

"He must be stopped," India said.

"Why can't you report him?" Wish asked.

"It would be professional suicide," Ella said. "His word against
India's. A doctor--a male doctor--with forty years' practice under his
belt, or a woman who graduated from medical school a little over a month
ago. Whose side will the BMA take?"

"The BMA?" Wish echoed.

"It's short for Boys, Men, and Arseholes," Ella said.

Fiona bit her lip to keep from laughing.

"It stands for the British Medical Association," India said.

"Doesn't matter what it stands for," Ella retorted. "There's nothing we can do. We can't stop Gifford."

"No, Ella, we can stop him," India said quietly.

"Oh, aye? How?"

"If we open the clinic, we can take his patients. You said his
business was up since I joined the surgery, didn't you? And that most of
the new patients are mine? If I go, they'll follow me."

"Doesn't sound entirely sporting, old girl," Wish said.

"What choice do I have? I can say nothing and watch more women die.
Or I can report him and probably have my own license revoked for my
trou-ble. What would you do, Wish?"

The doctor's voice shook now, ever so slightly. She rose to her feet
and Fiona saw the emotion in her face. Her courage touched Fiona deeply.
She was brave, this woman, brave in a way no man would ever understand.
But Fiona understood, for she well knew the price a woman paid for
admit-tance to a man's world.

"That's why you want this building," the man said. "To make a start. Anything is better than nothing."

India nodded. "It is cheap, Wish."

Stop her, a voice inside Fiona said. And help her.

"No, it isn't cheap, actually," she said, stepping forward. "The back
wall's buckling. Over there, can you see it? The roof's not sound. And
that's water damage, the white stain on the brick. It's highway robbery
at half the price. If your estate agent's been telling you otherwise,
sack him."

India turned around. She looked puzzled for a few seconds, then she smiled. "Mrs. Bristow! You're alive and well!"

"Only thanks to the both of you. And it's Fiona, please. I've been
searching all over for you ever since the rally. I wanted to tell you
how grateful I am for your help. You saved us." Her hand slid to her
belly. "Both of us."

Fiona told them that she'd stayed under the platform until the worst
was over, then crawled out and called up to her frantic husband, who
promptly took her home. "How did you fare?" she asked them. "Did you
make it out of the square?"

"Kicking and screaming," Ella said. "Well, that was me. India was out
cold thanks to a police horse. We both spent the night in the nick."

"You what?" Wish said, flabbergasted.

"Thank you, Ella. Thank you very much," India said.

"You spent a night in the nick... you!" Wish laughed out loud. "You
were at the Labour rally? India Selwyn Jones, what a checkered life you
lead. Does Freddie know all this?" Wish asked.

"No! And don't you tell him either. He has enough to worry about with the campaign."

"Freddie? Campaign?" Fiona echoed. "You don't mean Freddie Lytton?"

"I do. I'm his flanc�" India said.

Fiona smiled. "The incumbent's flanc�and the challenger's wife.
Together clandestinely in a tumbledown warehouse in the Whitechapel
slums. Oh, if only Mr. Devlin were here. I'm sure he'd find a story in
this."

India blanched. "I'm sure he would," she said nervously. "How did you
know to look for us here?" she asked, changing the subject.

"I finally thought to ask Dr. Hatcher, who told me to go to Varden
Street. I was just there, but the surgery was closed. A neighbor told me
to try the Moskowitzes' restaurant on Brick Lane, and a woman there
told me where you were. She also told me about your clinic and suggested
that I give you twenty pounds for it," Fiona said, laughing.

Ella groaned. "Gott in Himmel! I'm sorry. That was my mother."

"No, don't be sorry. Please. What she told me sounded interesting. I'd like to hear more."

India and Ella told her of their plans. Fiona listened intently,
nodding and frowning. When they finished, she peppered them with
questions.

"You shouldn't buy outright," she said. "Even if you have the money.
Take out a mortgage. Claim interest payments and depreciation against
income. You do plan to incorporate, don't you? You could also rent the
building. There might be greater tax benefits that way. Have you worked
up balance sheets both ways? What does your accountant advise?"

India and Ella traded glances. "We don't ...we don't have one," India said.

"Why not?" Fiona asked.

"They can't afford one. They don't have much to account for as yet," Wish said. "Only about four hundred pounds, I'm afraid."