Paid and Loving Eyes

“I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

“You what?” Now pale as well as faint, her voice going.

“Don’t worry. I’ve made the arrangements through a travel agent near St Edmundsbury. Your husband will never trace it.”

“Oh, darling,” she said, frantic. “I couldn’t possibly come, not to…”

Not to France? I thought, but did not say. I watched her scrabble out of the pit I’d dug.

“It’s the… the competitions, Lovejoy,” she said with bright invention. “I’m training three showjumpers for the point-to-point. I’m so sorry, darling. You’re so sweet to think of it. I must recompense you for all the cost you have put into the idea, darling.”

“That’s kind, love.” I eyed her. I was really narked. What if I really had paid a holiday deposit? “Promise me you’ll come some other time. How about Greece?”

She reached across the table and squeezed my hand, eyes glowing with unbridled love or something. She almost collapsed from relief. “I promise, darling. Greece sounds lovely.” If I’d said Greece first we’d already be on the Great White Bird. “Anything you want, Lovejoy,” she offered, gay now the threat of France was all done.

“Doowerlink,” I said mistily.

Anything, but keep off Troude’s properties at Ladyham and Mentle where Baff got killed by louts, and book for anywhere but France? I was suddenly out of my depth. I told her to settle the bill because I was in a hurry. She obeyed with suppressed excitement, and we scurried from Barlfen with unseemly alacrity to make savage passionate smiles at my cottage.

She was sound asleep when I eventually rose and stole away with all the stealth of a fairground. I cranked the Ruby into life, and had it clattering resentfully through the drizzle towards London in minutes. I’d hidden the matches, so even if Almira heard me she’d have had a hell of a time lighting a candle to get dressed and catch me up.

Four o’clock in the morning, I was chugging down Highgate Hill when the Ruby croaked to a standstill next to the stone marking where young Dick Whittington had paused with his cat on his dispirited retreat from London and heard the bells chiming out promises of Lord Mayorality and fortune. I paused to listen. Only the tap of the rain on the wheezing Ruby’s bonnet. It looked fit for Casualty. I went in to find the nearest unvandalized phone box. Enquiries gave me Jan’s newspaper number. With a lot of shinannikins I got somebody on a night desk and explained I was Jan Fotheringay’s doctor with urgent news for the next of kin. They had a conference of some sort, reluctantly gave me a number in Tooting Bec. I rang.

“Hello,” I said sternly to the sleepy but harassed bird who answered. “This is the Whittington Hospital. I’m Dr, ah, Pasteur. Some confusion has arisen about Jan Fotheringay’s, ah, designation status.”

“Yes, Doctor. This is Lysette, his next of kin,” she said breathlessly. “I knew there would be trouble. It’s this dual nationality, isn’t it? He was born in Switzerland, but has lived here all his life. The tax returns are in such a mess from it.” A sudden switch as she realized the hour. “He’s still in a stable condition, isn’t he?”

“Well, his condition is…” I crackled and hissed like a failing phone. We in East Anglia know the sounds only too well.

Armed now, I entered the Whittington Hospital and asked to see the night sister. I was Jan Fotheringay’s long- lost estranged brother who’d just heard the bad news.

“Hello, Sister,” I said, going all desperation when they found her for me. “I can’t thank you enough for looking after my brother, Jan. Lysette in Tooting Bec says he’s had a terrible accident. Can I see him, please? Our poor old mother does pine so…”

“It’s just as well you came, Mr Fotheringay,” the night sister said sadly. “A terrible accident. You can see him. But you must fill in this form. Name and address, please,”

I complied, narked. I mean, I’m basically honest, so why all this malarkey? Women ought to realize they have an obligation to trust me, but they never do.

The ward was long and thin with dismal green walls. Patients snored, rumbled, twitched, groaned. Gruesome machines did their blinks, wheezes, clanks. The hospital reverberated to clicks and clashes, the whole nocturnal symphony of dins combining to make healthy innocents shudder. If they don’t use ether any more, why does its perfume linger?

Jan was unrecognizable. He lay on a bed that seemed a complex tangle of tubing in a plastic bubble. The bubble itself was tubed up like an astronaut. Jan was riddled. Even his tubes had tubes, fluid dripping in and fluids dripping out. Shiny metal cylinders squeezed and relaxed. Monitor screens bleeped and blooped. Dials showed numbers. Mad dots chased other mad dots across green glowing oscilloscopes, I felt ill.

The nurse caught my arm, helped me to a chair.

“I understand, Charles,” she said quietly. “Seeing your brother like this is bound to be a shock. Put your head between your knees. I’ll bring you a cup of tea.”

Silly bitch thought I was queasy. Ridiculous, because I’m not the sort to go giddy seeing somebody who’s poorly. My vision returned slowly. My clammy hands eventually stopped shaking. Sweat dripped down my chin on to the floor. God, but hospitals have a lot to answer for. It took me half an hour to feel myself again, and even then the sight of Jan was enough to make me emigrate.

“Can I speak to him, Nurse?”

“Yes. But you won’t go too near.”

She retired back to her illuminated desk, a pool of light in a sanctuary straight out of Goya, head bent beside the lamp, all else in darkness.

My head was bent too. “Jan?” I said to the plastic sheeting. My breath condensed on it. “It’s me. Lovejoy.”

The figure didn’t move. You could see bits of his features, mottled and scaly like a fish gone bad. Couldn’t they