Читать книгу Peyton Place - Grace Metalious - Страница 22

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It was Dr. Matthew Swain who found Henry McCracken. The doctor was on his way home from a call in the country when he saw something in the ditch at the side of the road. Immediately, he braked his car to a stop and got out to investigate, and in the gleam of his car’s headlights, he saw a still figure, lying face down, in the dirt. It was Henry, unconscious, unbelievably dirty and bleeding from a nasty gash on his forehead but, as the doctor said later, it was Henry, still breathing and stinking to high heaven. Dr. Swain looked at him once and then picked him up, slung him over his shoulder and carried him to the car where he bundled him into the back seat. He drove straight to the Peyton Place hospital where Henry was entrusted to two nurses who stripped him, washed him and moaned their fate over every inch of Henry’s filthy body.

“Cheer up, girls,” said Dr. Swain, after he had stitched Henry’s head. “Give this boy a few hours’ sleep, and you’ll be falling all over yourselves trying to get a chance to wait on him.”

The two nurses gazed at Henry’s drooling mouth and still unshaven face, with its neat forehead bandage giving him a slightly rakish look, and shook their heads at one another.

“You’re the limit, Doc,” said Nurse Mary Kelley, who was not noted for the originality of her remarks.

“No, I’m not,” said the doctor. “He is.”

Mary made a face at the doctor’s retreating back.

“Go home and go to bed, Doc,” she called after him. “And don’t stop to pick up any more like this one on your way.”

“Don’t kid me, Mary,” said the doctor. “You love ’em all with a wicked lust. Good night!”

Mary Kelley shook her head. “That Doc,” she said to Nurse Lucy Ellsworth. “He never minds what he says. I’ve known him all my life, but I’m still not used to him. When I was in training here I almost got discouraged and quit before The Doc had got done with his teasing.”

“Was he teasing you about this same fellow?” asked Lucy Ellsworth.

Lucy was comparatively new to Peyton Place and had not yet had a chance to become acquainted with its legends and anecdotes. She had come to town only six months before when her husband had obtained a job in the Cumberland Mills. John Ellsworth was a job shifter, perpetually discontented with his lot and forever looking for a plot of greener grass. Lucy had been a registered nurse when she married John, and she always said that it was a good thing she was, for she had had to work ever since to support the two of them, and later, the daughter who was born to them. Very often, Lucy Ellsworth said that she would leave John if it weren’t for Kathy. But after all, a child needed her father, and John might have his faults but he was good to the little girl, and a woman couldn’t ask for much more than that now, could she? Kathy was thirteen and in the eighth grade, and sometimes Lucy said that when the child was older, old enough to realize what was happening, then the two of them would leave John and his restlessness.

“Doc teases everybody about everything,” said Mary Kelley. “He takes it easy with you because you’re new here, but just wait until he gets used to seeing you around, then you’ll see what I mean.”

“What happened to almost make you quit when you were in training?” asked Lucy.

“Oh, it had nothing to do with Henry, here,” said Mary, mournfully smoothing the sheet over Henry’s thin legs. “It was over this big, black Negro we had in here once. The man was in a terrible automobile accident, and they brought him here because it was the nearest place. He was the first nigger I ever saw, close to. Well, The Doc worked most all night patching that man up, and then we put him in the ward with the rest of the patients, except of course the others were all white people. Well, every morning The Doc would come out of the ward and whisper to me, ‘Mary, you watch that black feller,’ and every day I’d ask him why. I took my work very seriously then, and I was trying to learn everything at once. ‘Never mind,’ The Doc would say, ‘you just keep your eyes peeled. That feller there is different from any other man you ever saw.’ The Doc is a man who loves everybody. Black, white, green even, if there is such a thing, it doesn’t matter to him. ‘What do you mean, different?’ I asked the Doc. ‘Because his skin’s so black?’ ‘No,’ The Doc said, and I should have known right then that he was up to some devilment, but I’d just started in training and I had the idea that a hospital was no place for fooling around, besides, I never did get used to The Doc’s teasing.

“ ‘No, Mary,’ The Doc said. ‘It’s not his skin. I’m surprised at you, a smart girl like you.’ Well, I was almost crying I felt that bad to feel that maybe I’d missed something I was supposed to have learned in class. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked him, and The Doc leaned down and whispered in my ear. ‘Mary,’ he said, ‘don’t you know that niggers fart black?’ Well, I can tell you, I was fit to be tied. ‘That’s nice talk,’ I said, ‘from the man who brought me into the world.’ Oh, I knew that I was supposed to talk respectfully to all doctors at all times, even to The Doc, but I was so mad I just didn’t care. The Doc never cracked a smile, but just looked at me, surprised. ‘No kidding, Mary,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t spoof you, not a nice girl like you. I just wanted to put you wise, in case you ever have to take care of a black man again.’ Well, fool that I was, I believed him. That’s a trick of The Doc’s. He can tell out-and-out lies with the straightest face in the world, and he can make anybody believe anything. I can tell you, I watched that black man. He couldn’t even burp, much less anything else, without me right there by his side to see what I could see. I watched him for days, and finally one morning The Doc came out of the ward and walked up to me in the corridor. ‘There,’ he said, ‘what did I tell you?’ ‘What’re you talking about?’ I asked him, and he looked at me, surprised. ‘Why, Mary, didn’t you see it?’ ‘See what?’ I asked him. ‘Come on, quick,’ he said, and led me over to the ward by the hand. Of course, there was nothing there, and The Doc looked around, all innocent and puzzled, and he said, ‘Hm, that’s funny, it must have all gone out the window.’ ‘What?’ I asked him, all excited by this time. ‘The soot,’ he said, and right away I got mad, thinking he was making remarks about the way we kids in training kept the room. ‘What soot?’ I asked him. ‘From that black feller,’ he said. ‘So help me, I was in here a minute ago and that black feller farted and this whole room was black with soot!’ ”

Lucy Ellsworth laughed so loud that Henry stirred in his sleep, and Mary put a warning finger to her lips.

“Sh-h,” she said. “I don’t see anything so funny in that story anyway. I think it was a cruel thing to do to a young girl.”

She sighed impatiently and put out the light in Henry’s room when Lucy dashed for the hall, a handkerchief over her mouth to smother her laughter.