Tomorrow Is Too Far (11 page)

It was only when Gordon began asking detailed personal questions about his medical history and parents that Carson felt impelled to react.

‘Take it easy, Gordon,’ he said, laughing. ‘I realise that you feel it necessary to check on your sister’s men friends--as a stand-in for your father, perhaps--and I also realise that in a medically oriented household questions regarding matters of health might tend to be, well, explicit. But aren’t you jumping the gun a little considering this is the first time I have taken her out?’

Gordon laughed, too, but uncomfortably. He said, ‘I didn’t think I was being so obvious, Joe. I’m sorry. And it isn’t me you have to worry about, it’s her. The third degree was simply to find out if we would sec you around again. Once has usually been enough for the others to decide that they didn’t measure up.

‘I hope I’m not scaring you off, Joe,’ he went on. ‘She isn’t nasty or very bad-tempered or anything like that. It’s just that she has this peculiar kink about not getting emotionally involved with a man who may turn out to be just another patient ... ‘

He broke off and looked past Carson towards the living-room door, his eyebrows going up. He murmured, ‘She doesn’t usually go to all this trouble. Maybe we will see you next Sunday after all...’

Carson turned as he rose to his feet. He had been expecting Jean Marshall to look different but not necessarily better. Any girl in a doctor’s or nurse’s whites had things going for her which transcended the purely physical attractions. The crisp whites symbolised the many admirable qualities demanded by her profession and gave her an attraction which was both real and invisible. But very often when she changed into street clothes, even though she was exactly the same person possessing the same qualities, she became just another plain girl in the street.

Jean Marshall was dressed plainly but she did not look plain. The sandals were little more than holes held together with thin straps revealing feet that Carson would probably have drooled over had he been a foot fetishist. Her dark blue slacks were not over tight and her white sweater was not sloppy enough to hide anything either. Her sleeves were pulled up to just below the elbows and she carried a swimsuit wrapped in a towel in one hand. Carson would not have minded betting that she had spent more time on her face and hair making it look unmade-up than he had on his car trying to make it look new, and to much better effect.

‘Oh, brother,’ he said softly.

‘In-law,’ said Gordon, laughing. ‘If you’re not careful, Joe, it will be in-law...’

When they were on the outskirts of town and with a few miles to go before the turn-off for the coast, unselfishness reared its beautiful head. Carson had been determined to take her for a drive along the coast, then to the club for a meal and finally to the clinic--just to prove to her that he was taking her out for reasons other than a means of gaining access to the hospital. She, on the other hand, insisted that they go to the clinic first because he was concerned about Pebbles and would probably be able to enjoy himself more if that particular worry was removed. Carson replied that he would not mind missing the hospital altogether and putting off their visit until next week--besides being the right thing to say it was almost true. But she became quite insistent and to avoid an argument he had to be selfish and go to the clinic first.

It was like offering cigarettes in a crowd---the one who was slowest on the draw won.

The MacNaughton Clinic had a large gate but very low walls. Generally speaking the patients had neither the ability nor the inclination to leave and the people of the outside world had no wish to go anywhere near the place. The gates were open, the drive-way clear and the grounds empty. All the activity was centred around three large coaches drawn up in front of the main building.

‘Take the next on the right, Joe,’ Jean said, ‘then second left. We’ll go in by the back door.’

The ‘back door’ opened into a network of bright, cool corridors smelling of the usual hospital combination of antiseptic and floor polish. There was nobody in sight. They were about to move to the next floor when they heard footsteps coming down the stairs three at a time.

‘Doctor Morris!‘ called Jean.

A small, wiry figure in a discordant sports shirt who was on the way down the stairs stumbled, took four and two instead of two threes, but still managed to land upright at the bottom.

‘Marshall!’ it said in a surprisingly resonant bass. ‘Jean, it’s nice to see you again. What are you doing here anyway? And who is your large friend?’

‘Joe Carson,’ said Carson, shaking hands, ‘from Hart-Ewing’s. I wanted some information about a one-time patient of yours. John Pebbles.’

‘Is he in trouble?’

Carson shook his head. ‘He is doing very well. But he has problems which, for some reason, he won’t let me help him with. I wanted to talk to someone who knew him when he first arrived here. That was before Jean’s time here but she offered to ... ‘

‘Of course, Doctor,’ said Morris. ‘But the one you should talk to is Nurse Sampson. Unfortunately, she left on the first coach. Unless you fancy a trip with us to the beach, and in the circumstances we would understand if you refused, you’ll have to come back later this evening.’

‘We were planning on going for a swim,’ said Carson, ‘so we might as well mix business with pleasure. But I should explain that I’m not...’

He did not get a chance to explain that he was not a doctor because Morris was already trotting towards the entrance, calling back that they should follow the last coach which would be leaving in ten minutes.

On the way to the coast they had the choice of being boiled alive in their own body juices or opening the car windows and eating the coach’s dust, so they alternated by doing both. By the time they arrived at the narrow and secluded stretch of beach Carson was looking forward to a swim. But there was work to do first, Jean told him, and suggested that he change in the car while she found out how best they could help.

It was rather like setting up butchers’ stalls in a marketplace.

First they unrolled the gaily coloured wind-breakers and pushed their supporting poles into the soft sand, then they unfolded and positioned the deck-chairs. The ... goods ... were carried out of the coaches then, carefully but awkwardly, and put on display in the deck-chairs like so many lumpy pink sacks with furiously talking heads on top. They seemed to talk all the time but that was probably because they were capable of doing nothing else.

During the first few minutes Carson thought he was going to be sick. The close, almost intimate contact with the bodies--they had been dressed for the beach before being loaded into the coaches--was bad. The horrible
lightness
of these people--arms and legs, it seemed, accounted for about half of a person’s body weight--was even worse. But worst of all was the way they talked and joked with him, especially the girls. But gradually the feeling passed as he worked until eventually he was able to arrange the pink bundles on their deck-chairs as if he had been doing it all his life, and even rub suntan lotion on some of them.

He wondered if he was an adaptable, sympathetic type or just insensitive.

During a pause for breath before starting to unload the last coach, Carson nodded towards the two muscular male nurses who were sitting back to back on the coach roof, looking through binoculars. He said, ‘We could use some help.’

Jean laughed. ‘Do I detect a note of criticism, Joe? But seriously, those two are our deterrent. We don’t often need them because most people know this section of the beach is reserved for us and they wouldn’t come within miles of us in any case. But there are others who would and sometimes they even carry cameras. When that kind turns up the boys go out to meet them and dissuade them from coming too close. Sometimes their telephoto lenses are heaved into the sea or they get sand in the works of their expensive cameras, and there are times when the action is even more direct. The boys feel very strongly about that particular type of peeping Tom ...’

Carson said, ‘My criticism is disarmed by your deterrents. Now let’s unload this bunch so’s we can cool off in the sea...’

But by the time they had unloaded the last coach the people on the deck-chairs wanted to cool off in the sea as well. This was the best part of the outing. Instead of the clinic’s tiny swimming-pool with its clutter of special floats and harnesses, here were real breakers, acres of hot sand and thousands of smooth, brightly-coloured pebbles. They did not have arms or legs so they had to be carried into the sea, and because they could not swim without them they had to be ducked and splashed and towed around the shallows. All except one, that was, who had fingerless hands growing out of her shoulders and who could swim like a tail-less fish.

She was enjoying herself so much, they were all enjoying themselves so much, that Carson wanted to curse horribly just to relieve his feelings. Normally he did not consider himself a particularly fortunate man, but right now he felt so lucky that it was almost a physical pain.

The pain remained with him for the succeeding two hours, during which patients were floated, towed, chased, returned to their chairs and dried. It made it impossible for him to think of anything else, so much so that it was Dr Morris who brought his mind back to the reason for his being here.

‘I expect you two had your own plans for the rest of the day,’ he said to Carson while his eyes wandered admiringly along Jean who lay between them on the sand. ‘We’re grateful for your help but we don’t want to work you to death. You can leave any time you feel like it, Doctors. But before you go you wanted to ask about John Pebbles, Joe... ‘

Carson pushed himself on to one elbow and looked down at Jean. She was smiling faintly, eyes closed and obviously waiting to see how, or if, he would extricate himself. He said awkwardly, ‘I’m not a doctor, Doctor. Not even a psychologist … ‘

Morris stared at him for an uncomfortable three seconds, then said, ‘You could have fooled me, Joe. But you wanted to know about Pebbles.’ He broke off for a moment to whistle, wave and beckon to someone farther along the beach. Carson turned to see a small girl in a yellow swimsuit wave back then move towards them. She was beautiful by any man’s standards, with skin like smooth dark chocolate. Morris went on, ‘He liked her more than any of us--thought she was different, for obvious reasons. She liked him, too, and took special care of him. It was she who found him, after all.’

‘Nurse Sampson,’ he said as she stopped above them, ‘will be able to tell you everything you want to know about John Pebbles...’

It had happened more than four years ago in the early spring. Because the weather was too cold for swimming the patients had been wrapped warmly in rugs, and needed little attention. Nurse Sampson had gone for a walk along the beach to the little bay about half a mile along the coast. It was an attractive spot but unsuitable for swimming because of the sharp rocks lying beneath the surface, the seaweed which clung to them and the carpet of stones covering the spaces between.

She had found him curled up completely naked on the sheltered side of a rocky outcrop. At the time she had thought only of the patient, assuming he was exhausted after swimming ashore from a sunken motorboat or yacht. When she remembered about the clothing which might have helped identify him, the tide must have washed it away. All she noticed at the time was a large, torn sheet of bright orange plastic material. She had thought that it was part of a rubber dinghy at first, but the material was different. There had been no lettering or serial numbers on the plastic so far as she had been able to see.

She had lifted him clear of the water, which had begun to wash over his legs, wrapped her coat around him and run for help.

The thing she remembered most clearly about the incident was the difficulty they had getting his right hand unclenched. It had contained five small, brightly coloured pebbles from the beach and he had cried like a baby when they tried to take them away. He still had them with him when he left the clinic eight months later.

On that first day his physical condition was all that concerned them. As well as suffering from exposure, incipient pneumonia and widespread lacerations and abrasions to his hands, arms, elbows, knees and shins caused by crawling--he did not know how to walk--over rocks, he had cried a lot. It had been the completely unashamed crying of someone who did not know or had never learned about stiff upper lips.

Gradually as the abrasions healed and his surroundings became more comfortable and familiar, he cried only when he was hungry or faced with a similar form of personal emergency. He had no more control over his motions than a baby, he did not understand a single word spoken to him and he replied to everything that was said with gurgles or other nonsense sounds. He had to be taught to do
everything
.

His physical co-ordination was very good, however. He learned how to stand and sit and walk about very quickly. In two months he could use the toilet unaided, in three he could eat without making too great a mess of the table-top and when he had been at the clinic six months, Nurse Sampson arranged a party for him at which he was able to make a very short speech and read five pages from a book intended for five-year-olds. During the whole of his stay he had displayed the intense, innocent curiosity of a small boy. He had no illnesses of any kind and the minor injuries he had sustained were usually caused by trying to climb trees, drainpipes and furniture.

He began to wander, disappearing from the hospital for hours at a time, but he always came back. He was always muddy and excited and quite incoherent about whatever it was he had been doing. His independent trips outside seemed to help his condition; he seemed to be avoiding trouble or injury, and so they were encouraged.

Then one afternoon he had returned with a friend in tow--literally pulling him up the clinic steps like a newly-discovered uncle he wanted to show off. The friend’s name had been Tillotson and from him they had discovered among other things what John Pebbles had been doing during his twice-daily disappearances. Tillotson was rather embarrassed at the raw hero-worship Pebbles displayed towards him, but this had not stopped him putting forward a strong case for the other’s discharge from the hospital. Tillotson had insisted that Pebbles was much brighter than he seemed, that he could almost certainly wangle him a job in surroundings which he would find pleasant and that it was wrong, anyway, to institutionalise people unnecessarily.