possibly see him before four o’clock.
The day had already been full of omens. It had snowed heavily since lunchtime the previous day and he and Tory had had to dig out the car that morning. Two magpies had crossed his path as he was leaving Warwickshire. An odd number of traffic lights had been green on his way through Oxford. He’d taken fifty-one strides from the car park to the front door. There were eleven people in the lift. His horoscope said the aspects for Venus were good and this was a make-or-break day. He hoped to hell it wasn’t the latter. He’d had enough of breaks. He vowed that if Johnnie Buchannan told him he could ride again, he’d make the Olympic team. The individual event on September eighth was exactly six months away.
The nurses on the ward greeted him like a long-lost brother.
“My, we
It was very warm in the hospital. Outside, the snow was still falling thickly, blurring the outlines of the trees, laying a clean sheet over the lawn. Orange streetlights glowed out of the gathering whiteness. Feeling totally blanketed against reality, Jake asked after Sister Wutherspoon.
“She’s having two days’ leave,” said Joan, Sister Wutherspoon’s spotty, fat friend, “but she was absolutely furious to miss you. She left you her number in case you felt like ringing her at home,” she added, excited at the prospect of matchmaking.
Jake pocketed the number. He had five hours to kill. He might as well ask her out to lunch. On the way to the telephone he passed by some of the private rooms and heard an unearthly animal screaming like a rabbit caught in a snare. The screams increased, growing more terrible.
Anxious to disassociate himself, Jake walked on. Rounding the corner, he was sent flying by what seemed like a huge bear jumping out of a room at him.
“What the fuck?” he snapped.
Then he realized it was a woman in a huge blond fur coat, tears streaming down her face. She looked half crazy with terror.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I don’t know what to do. Marcus. Such terrible screaming. Something must have gone wrong.”
Jake realized it was Helen Campbell-Black.
“Where is he?” he said over the screaming.
“In there. He’s just had his tonsils out. They said not to visit till later, but I wanted to be here when he came back from the theater.”
Jake took her arm. “Let’s go and see him.”
Marcus was still screaming. He was as pale as his pillow; his white nightgown, like a shroud, was splattered with blood. Jake stroked the child’s red hair gently.
“He’ll go to sleep soon.”
“Can’t they give him something to stop the pain?”
“He’ll just have had a huge shot of morphine. Every time he swallows, it must be like an axe on his head.”
Gradually the screams subsided into great wracking sobs, until finally Marcus fell into an uneasy whimpering sleep.
“He’ll be okay now,” said Jake, straightening the sheet.
“Are you sure? W-why did he scream so much?”
“They have to wake them up immediately after the operation to make sure everything’s all right. We went through the same thing with Darklis and Isa. They were both perfectly okay when they came around later. Darklis was as cheerful as anything, eating ice cream and raspberry jelly by the evening. When she woke up, she asked, ‘When am I going to have my tonsils out?’ ”
Helen looked at him stunned, as though only half-listening to what he was saying.
“W-why it’s Jake, isn’t it? Jake Lovell?” she said slowly. “I didn’t recognize you.”
“You weren’t exactly in a recognizing mood.”
Suddenly she jumped out of her skin at the sound of more screaming coming down the corridor.
“Don’t worry,” he said soothingly. “It’s only another child coming back from the operating theater. They all sound like that.”
Woken, Marcus started crying again. Helen rushed to his side. “Oh, please don’t, angel.”
In a few seconds he’d fallen back to sleep again. They waited for quarter of an hour. Every noise seemed magnified a thousand times — a car horn outside, a nurse laughing in the passage, even the snow piling up on the window ledge outside, but Marcus didn’t wake. Jake looked at his watch: “Come on. I’ll buy you a drink.”
“I can’t leave him.”
“Yes, you can. I’ll have a word with my friend, Joanie. If he makes a squeak they’ll ring us at the pub and you can rush back.”
Outside, the snow was still falling — heavy flakes like goose feathers, bowing down the privets in the hospital garden, settling on the collar of Helen’s fur coat, forming points on the toes of her tan leather boots, clogging up her eyelashes. Jake walked slowly. It was treacherous underfoot. He couldn’t afford to fall over, today of all days. They had only got as far as the car park when she broke down again.
“I can’t go. I’m sorry.”
He led her to his Land Rover, sitting her down on a noseband and a copy of
Gradually the first wild intensity died down, subsiding into a succession of wrenching, despairing sobs.
“I’m so sorry,” she kept saying. “I’m such an idiot. Please, please forgive me.”
“If we don’t both want to die of hypothermia,” he said, “we ought to find that pub.”
She suddenly realized that he was only wearing a Barbour, his shoes were soaked, and his teeth chattering.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again in a trembling voice. “I can’t go to a pub looking like this.”
He handed her her bag. “Well, powder your nose, then.”
In the pub Jake found Helen a seat by the fire and went off to order treble brandies. Looking in the bar mirror he could see her vacantly gazing into space, twisting her fingers around and around. Christ, he thought, she’s the one who ought to be in hospital. He took the brandies back to the table, holding one out to her. It was a second before she took it.
“I’m a trusty St. Bernard struggling through the snow to bring you sustenance,” he said.
She didn’t answer.
“Come on, it’ll really help.”
He noticed how loose her expensive boots were around her legs, and that her skirt, which was held up only by a brown suede belt, was on an extra notch. She took a gulp, made a face, choked, and then took another gulp. She wished the taste didn’t remind her so much of that last night in Kenya.
“Where’s Rupert?”
“Gone skiing.”
“Needn’t have bothered. Plenty of snow here. When’s he coming back?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Five days — a week.”
“And you’re left to cope with all this?”
Helen held out thin, shaking hands to the fire.
“I ought to go back,” she said restlessly.
“No, you ought not. They’ll ring if he wakes.”
“Poor little guy, he’s been so ill,” she said. “He was so excited about coming into hospital. All the gifts and everyone for a change bothering about him rather than Tab — except Rupert, of course.”
“He ought to be in a ward. Other children’d take his mind off his sore throat. Darklis and Isa didn’t want to come home.”
People kept coming in, stamping the snow off their feet. On the other side of the fireplace a couple of undergraduates in college scarves were eking out Scotch eggs and pints of beer. Helen’s hair glowed in the firelight; it was the only bright thing about her. Suddenly there were tears trickling under her dark glasses again.
