Читать книгу Visting Nurse - Alice Brennan - Страница 6

MAY IN SALTBORO differed from April only in that it was hotter and drier. Litter from the city streets, swept by the occasional gusts of fierce wind, choked the nostrils and the throat with dust. The factories belched smoke and grime into the air until it seemed to rest like a heavy load across Arleen’s chest.

As her eyes stung and her throat ached from the smog-laden air, she would think, with a pang of homesickness, of the fresh green lawns and the clean air, scented with fresh-cut clover, that characterized her home.

Not the tiny apartment she shared with Evelyn Drew, a nurse at Saltboro’s General Hospital. The place was hot and uncomfortable, in spite of the window fan she and Evelyn had installed. Home to Arleen was still the big, airy, clean rooms in the house at the end of Main Street, back in Carson.

As Arleen drove the small black coupé into the ^Leland Street area this Wednesday morning in late May, she seemed more aware than ever before of the bleak ugliness of the place; the air of hopeless defeat and dismal unconcern that crowded the lungs like the choking smog.

She parked her car and walked toward the tenement building that was her destination this morning. She no longer feared to leave her car unlocked. Mark Wynter seemed to have an uncanny control over the children of the area. Since that first morning, when Mark had collared the young culprits, her car and possessions had been left strictly alone.

Evelyn, her roommate, tall and blonde, filled with the joy and excitement of being young, was wont to tease Arleen about Dr. Wynter.

“Aha, the knight in shining armor! Did he come on a white horse and swoop you up in his arms?”

She enjoyed Arleen’s blushing. “It isn’t a matter of modesty at all,” she’d tell her. “It’s a matter of pigmentation.” Her blue eyes would twinkle at Arleen’s increasing discomfiture.

Lately she had waxed serious on the subject of Mark Wynter. “Any girl is a complete fool if she lets herself become involved with a dedicated man, and Mark Wynter is the most dedicated man I’ve ever known. You fall in love with a man like that, and it’ll be just as if you had cut your own throat.”

Arleen would shrug if off. “Just because I have a few cups of coffee with Dr. Wynter, you’ve got me involved with him. For your information, Evelyn, I’m not going to get involved emotionally with any man. So stop worrying about me. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

Evelyn still was not convinced. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” she said. “You’re the stars-and-moon-light kind. They always fall hard. And Dr. Wynter is not, and I don’t think ever will be, husband material. Sometimes I wonder (and I’m not the only one, I can tell you) if Mark Wynter even knows women exist . . . as women.”

Arleen said quietly, “I was in love once. I’m not making that mistake again.”

Evelyn hooted. “Once? Honey, I’ve been in love a dozen times. When I stop falling in love, I’ll be old. But you, honey, you’re different. You take it seriously.”

Arleen’s heels clicked on the pavement as she walked with her usual briskness. “Yes,” she thought, “I do take love seriously. That’s why I’m never going to fall in love again.”

Once you’ve walked too close to a fire and got burned, there is no desire in you to walk so close again, Arleen thought grimly.

Even at this hour of the morning the sun beat down mercilessly. Arleen thought of the staggering heat that must already be filling Neelie Ryan’s top-floor room, and made almost unlivable the three dark, narrow rooms of the Luigui menage.

Anna Luigui’s baby had arrived seven days before, a dark-eyed, beautiful little girl with an incredible amount of soft, black hair.

She had arrived healthy and whole, in spite of the fact that Anna Luigui had not returned to the clinic after all. “Who wants a live baby?” she’d said sullenly. “A dead one will suit me just fine.”

Arleen sighed. Anna must love her baby by now. Who would not love such a beautiful little girl? Anna and the baby had been home from the hospital for four days. Charity patients were kept there only the bare minimum of three days, unless there were complications.

It seemed a pity to Arleen that such a tiny baby should have to endure such heat, and . . . yes, neglect. Still, the smaller Luigui children seemed quite attached to the infant.

Yesterday, when she’d gone to bathe the baby, the little girl to whom she’d given the candy bar that first day (she shuddered, the candy-bar episode being something she hated to remember) had come shyly to the door to meet her.

“Our baby’s name is Carmella, Miss Anderson,” she’d told Arleen, the dark eyes shining in the small, dirty face.

Arleen had smiled at her. “That’s a pretty name for a very pretty baby.”

Rose Luigui, tight skirt pulled above her knees as she slumped in a chair, said mockingly, “Ma got it from a comic book. Carmella was some super dame.”

Her mother’s voice screamed at her, “You lie. Always you lie about me. That was your grandmother’s name. Oh, my poor mama, it would kill her if she saw how her little Anna has to live.” Her voice grated. “And with such a bad daughter!”

“Ha!” Rose said, her voice even more mocking.

Anna Luigui began to cry, whiningly, tears rolling down her fat cheeks, making rivulets in the layers of rouge and dirt that caked her face.

She had thus far successfully fought off all of Arleen’s attempts to wash her face. “When I want my face washed, I can do it myself,” she’d tell Arleen fiercely. “You ain’t paid to come here and bully me, and I ain’t letting you do it. I know my rights!”

“You see what a bad daughter I got?” she’d hurled at Arleen. “You see?” She’d glared at Rose. “You get paid back one of these days for how mean you are to your mama. You get paid back!”

Rose had shrugged her way out of the chair. “You make me sick, old lady!” she’d flung viciously at Anna.

Now Arleen pushed open the door of the tenement building. “I think I’ll take care of Neelie first,” she thought. “My morale needs lifting before I tackle the Luiguis. And Neelie’s always so cheerful, although I don’t see how she can manage it.”

Arleen had a genuine liking for Neelie Ryan. She admired her courage and her determined cheerfulness in spite of all the odds against her.

She plodded up the hot, stuffy stairs to the even hotter, stuffier, upper-floor apartments. She carried with her a sack of candy for the Luigui children.

She knew candy wasn’t the answer; that the children needed eggs and meat and vegetables and milk. Lots of good, rich milk. She’d broached the subject to the welfare visitor and had come up against fierce antagonism.

“Would you prefer steak or chops for our welfare clients, Miss Anderson? Strawberries out of season? Perhaps caviar and avocado might appeal to their taste. Air-conditioning, perhaps? It gets quite unbearably hot in Saltboro in June and July.”

Arleen had flushed. “Miss Gibbons, I wasn’t meaning. . . .”

Her answer had been a cold, crisp, “You do your job, Miss Anderson, and let us at the Welfare Department take care of our own. We do the best we can on the funds we’re allotted.”

Arleen grimaced. The candy provided the children with a treat, at least. If it wasn’t enough, at least it was something.

She had never made the mistake of handing Anna Luigui any money, after that first time. She had discovered to her dismay that Anna had taken the money and used it for liquor rather than for the children.

Arleen had been amazed that a woman eight months pregnant could be in any condition to get drunk.

Rose Luigui, dark eyes mocking as always, had told her scornfully, “Ma’s always in condition to get drunk, if she’s got the money. And you gave her that!”

Al Ryan had the window open, but it did nothing to cool the stifling room. Neelie was propped up in bed, looking wan and tired, but her eyes turned toward Arleen when she walked into the room, and the old aliveness still showed in them.

“Why, it’s Miss Anderson. Al, it’s Miss Anderson come to do for me.”

Al, slumped in a rocking chair by the breezeless window, turned listless, bloodshot eyes toward Arleen. It was evident that he’d been drinking heavily. The sour-sweet odor of cheap wine filled the room.

Neelie didn’t let on. She said, affection in her voice, “Al’s been sponging my face and arms with cold water all morning. I tell you, it sure has felt good.”

Al got to his feet, swaying slightly. His eyes were angry, but behind the anger Arleen thought he looked ready to cry.

“Why don’t you tell her I made a few pennies and used them to get myself drunk with, instead of getting you some little thing you might like?” he roared at her.

Neelie said gently, her voice directed at Arleen, but her eyes on her husband, “Al had kind of a rough time this morning. He got up real early and walked clear over to this place on Tenth, thinking they were hiring, but they weren’t. He walked all the way back, too.”

There was savagery in Al Ryan’s voice. “They wasn’t hiring older men!” he said. “I’m too old to live, and I can’t die! I’m no good to anybody, not even myself. I ought to hang myself. That’s a cheap way to die!”

Neelie said quietly, “You’re all I’ve got, Al. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

He stared at her for a second, his lips quivering, then turned and slammed out of the room.

“I know Al drinks,” Neelie said slowly, “but he can’t help himself. He’s one of those people who, when they can’t see no way out of something, has just got to do something to try and make the awful feeling in them go away.” Her quiet gaze met Arleen’s. “My Al’s a good man,” she said. “And he’d never do something that would leave me alone. Al would never do a thing like that.”

Outside, on the fire escape, a bedraggled sparrow lit for a second and then flew off. Neelie’s eyes followed the bird. “Oh, my,” she said, “know what I’d like? I guess it’ll sound silly to you, but I’d sure like to see that place in California the swallows come back to every year. Capistrano, I guess they call it. Wouldn’t it be something to be there and see all them birds come back every year to that same place?”

Arleen, bathing the thin arms and shoulders, nodded. “Tourists come from all over just to see it.” Impulsively she added, “Maybe you’ll get to see Capistrano, Neelie. It could happen.”

Neelie nodded happily. “Sure, why not? There’s no law against it, is there? There’s no law saying a person can’t hope. That’s what I keep telling Al.”

Arleen’s upper lip and forehead were beaded with moisture, and breathing was like pulling furnace air into her lungs. If it was this hot in May, what was it going to be like in June and July?

Neelie Ryan, as if understanding Arleen’s thoughts, said, “It’s unseasonably hot for this time of year. It don’t get no hotter than this in full summer.” She smiled at Arleen, as if she were the one to be comforted. “A body gets used to things,” she said. “I expect the good Lord knows some things has got to be gotten used to, so He lets you get used to ‘em.”

Arleen said, with sudden bitterness, “You should have a fan in here. At least it would stir up the air a little. Anything would help.”

She massaged Neelie’s shoulders and the back of her neck. “My,” the woman said appreciatively, “that makes me feel a heap better.”

Arleen sponged her face again with cool water. It wasn’t sensible to put on powder, because she knew that within seconds Neelie would begin to perspire again.

As she put her things away into her bag, she said, “Know what, Neelie? I’m going to bring you a fan the next time I come. And if there’s any breeze blowing at all, you’ll get some of it.”

Neelie looked doubtful. “Oh, I don’t think you should go to all that fuss, Miss Anderson. I don’t think the landlord would like me to use that extra electricity.”

Arleen said fiercely, “I don’t care what he likes, Neelie! I’ll say I prescribed it for you. And if that doesn’t take care of it, I’ll pay for the extra electricity myself!”

She bent over Neelie, squeezing the woman’s hand in her strong, young grip.

Neelie smiled up at her. “You’re a fine girl,” she said. “A real fine girl, Miss Anderson.”

Arleen met Al Ryan in the hall. He flashed her an angry glance, but did not speak.

Arleen walked down to the second-floor landing. She thought, “I’m not a fine girl. It’s only that I feel guilty because I have that big window fan in my apartment, and if it gets too hot I can go out to an air-conditioned movie or a restaurant. Neelie can’t do that. And I can’t rest in my own comfort unless I try and do something for her!”

As she neared the Luigui apartment, she could hear the unhappy sound of a baby crying.