Читать книгу Touch and Go - Литагент HarperCollins USD, M. R. D. Meek - Страница 6

PROLOGUE

The woman had been beautiful. Now she was dying. The nurse had never seen the beauty nor would she have been greatly impressed if she had. To her this was simply another case of the kind she was supposed to specialize in because, it was said, she had the expertise.

‘I asked for someone trained in dealing with terminal cancers,’ the doctor had said when she arrived from the agency. ‘I understand you have that experience?’

‘Yes,’ she’d replied, adding no more.

They had been standing in the doorway of the bedroom, and he’d looked over to where the patient lay asleep.

‘She insisted she would not be hospitalized …’ He had sighed and shrugged his shoulders, but not casually. ‘They’d done all they could, anyway. That last tumour’s inoperable, and she wanted to die at home. She does know … if it’s any help to you.’

The nurse had nodded, making no comment.

‘You’ll only be required to stay a few days. I doubt if she’ll last the week.’ He had raised sad eyes to take in the luxury of the room as if the white and gold furniture, the peach-coloured velvet drapes at the big windows high above the muted roar of Fifth Avenue might in some measure mitigate the other misfortune. ‘Some of the staff have been kept on, and the housekeeper, Mrs Hermanos, has been with the lady for many years. I think you will find the place quite comfortable.’

Following his glance, the nurse had given a half-smile. ‘I’ve seen worse … Now I must attend to my duties.’

When he left the doctor was pleased by her attitude. With that blank face, those meek downcast eyes, the drab uniform worn without concession either to feminism or figure, he had had his doubts. But he trusted St Theresa’s Nursing Agency; there was nowhere else left to put your trust in with these cases.

I mustn’t get too used to this, the nurse thought as she unpacked her few personal belongings in one of the spare bedrooms, itself bigger than the whole of her walk-up flat in downtown Brooklyn.

Her duties proved not to be onerous but from habit she performed them well. The doctor called each day, staying no longer than half an hour to chat with the patient if she was awake, less if she was sleeping.

‘It’s only at night she’s restless,’ the nurse reported to him. ‘Seems it’s then she likes to talk. Night duty doesn’t bother me, I’m used to it. I get the hours off in the daytime when Mrs Hermanos sits with her but even then I prefer to think I’m still on call …’ If there had been in the nurse’s tone implicit criticism of a lay person by a professional, it was muted. The doctor was relieved; Mrs Hermanos seemed devoted to her mistress but the case needed someone with medical knowledge and expertise. The nurse had both.

‘So long as the patient is never allowed to be in pain,’ he said, anxiously.

The nurse shook her head. ‘The dosage you’ve prescribed has worked well so far, Doctor, and you can rely on me to see she doesn’t suffer unnecessarily. When she’s awake at night I’m always there and if she wants to talk, then I just let her go ahead. Lots of patients in her condition will ramble on to a stranger if they don’t have any family around. We learn not to listen overmuch.’

This was not strictly true. Although it was the nurse’s habit to take a book or a magazine into the sickroom to while away the long hours by the bedside, they remained largely unread. Establishing rapport by a sympathetic squeeze of the hand, murmured words of encouragement, and a proper attendance to the most trivial but essential matters of the patient’s comfort, these things came naturally to her and in this case had been very rewarding.

For the life that was too early drawing to a close—the patient being only in her forty-fifth year—had been an intriguing one, lived in many places, and as the memories came and went the thin voice would strengthen and take on vigour in their telling. To the nurse it was like trying to follow a film told in flashback, and much more fascinating than skimming the pages of any novel. She’d never been much of a reader, anyway, reality for her providing troubles enough without getting into fictional ones.

Some nights there were outbursts of vanity.

‘My make-up box … over there. Bring it, please.’

And the nurse would softly cream and powder the waxy skin, deftly touch with rose the hollowed cheeks and flick the little eyebrow pencil over the bony arches. Poor soul, she thought, that chemotherapy sure takes away the glamour …

She adroitly moved the table-lamp before handing over the mirror.

‘You look very nice, madam,’ she said, brushing the pale strands of fine hair across the high forehead, ‘your hair’s soft as a baby’s.’

‘Nonsense, Nurse. I look like a whited sepulchre, and you know it.’ The dying woman was no fool but she recognized a good effort when she saw it. ‘I’m sorry. You did your best …’

On the last night they had a fashion show.

‘In those wardrobes …’ The voice from the bed was breathless. ‘Open them up …’

The nurse did as she was told. ‘What will madam wear this evening?’ she asked, entering into the spirit, even as her eyes took in the tussore silk suits, the tweeds and worsteds, the riding habits with their satin stocks, the pretty day dresses and the avenue of formals, chiffons pale as streams of water, dark velvets starred with diamanté …

‘My Mandarin jacket … the scarlet one with the embroidered dragons. Put it round my shoulders.’

She was sitting up high on the pillows as the nurse slipped the red and gold garment across the bones standing out at the top of her arms.

‘I used to wear my rubies with this. They were specially set in gold for me … Get them for me. They’re in the jewel box.’

The nurse hesitated. ‘Madam will tire herself,’ she said, at her most soothing. ‘Perhaps another night …’

‘Not too many other nights …’ But the patient’s voice was faint, and her brow had puckered as it did before the onset of pain. The nurse took away the jacket, prepared and administered the relieving drug, and settled the sick woman gently down into fresh cool sheets, pulling away the soiled linen with no fuss as she had been trained to do. Such tasks were of no consequence to her, the incontinence of her patients simply a part of their illness and accepted by her as nature’s failure, not theirs.

She replaced the scarlet coat, and closed the wardrobe doors but not before letting her eyes wander once more across the richness stored inside.

She tidied the bedside table, washed up and replenished the water carafe in the adjoining bathroom, then settled herself in the big armchair near the bed with one of her magazines. She yawned. She had not had her usual sleep during the day because there had been some sort of crisis in the kitchen department.

Normally she never went downstairs, everything was found for her on this floor, even her meals being served to her in the room allocated for her stay. Sometimes they were brought to her by Leonie, the maid, a silent creature who the nurse had diagnosed as being subnormal, or by Mrs Hermanos herself. The nurse couldn’t make head or tail of Mrs Hermanos. On the surface she was friendly enough, though distant as if the nurse’s position was far inferior to her own in the household. As well it might be, for Mrs Hermanos was more than housekeeper to the dying lady, she was much too familiar with her for that, calling her by her first name and, in the nurse’s view, taking liberties.

Lunch that day had not arrived at one o’clock as it usually did, nor was there any sign of it an hour later so the nurse had gone down to investigate. She had found the kitchen in a state of chaos, and some sort of row going on between Mrs Hermanos and her husband, José. There was a broken cup on the table, and the remains of a plate on the floor by the sink where it had obviously been thrown at someone’s head. The nurse had heard it shatter as she came down the stairs, at the same time as she’d heard the yelling voices. Leonie was nowhere to be seen so the uproar was a private quarrel between the Hermanos but the nurse had witnessed all too many of such scenes in other houses to let it bother her, so she simply asked if she could please have her lunch, pronto, and left them to it. About half an hour later it did arrive at the hands of Mrs Hermanos who looked both chastened and defiant as if daring the nurse to comment. The nurse had heard enough to know what the row was about but saw no reason to pass any remark. It wasn’t her business anyhow.

José Hermanos’s position on the staff—if he had any at all—was uncertain. The doctor had said that Florence—Mrs Hermanos—had only married him recently and it was she who had introduced him into the household as an English butler. On this point the doctor was sceptical.

‘About as English as Hoboken,’ he growled, ‘and as for being a butler—a Spanish waiter more like! Florence now, well, she’s been around our lady for years … I don’t take to her myself but she keeps the place going, and she seems fond of her mistress.’

The nurse would not have put it in such terms. In her view Florence Hermanos had gotten herself a good job and was hanging in there, with expectations. However, she could be relied upon to run things smoothly enough, the invalid meals she served were both sensible and tasty even for a fast-declining appetite, and sometimes it was only through Florence’s coaxing that the patient could be persuaded to eat at all.

‘Madam tells me that she and Florence go back a long way,’ she remarked, ‘so she must have been in her service many years.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’ The doctor had only known his patient since she had arrived in New York for treatment, by which time the disease had manifested itself in a form both rapid and relentless.

‘She got no family of her own, then?’

‘Apparently not. Nor many friends either that I can see. A firm of lawyers manages her affairs … It’s none of my business, of course,’ he went on brusquely, for he was by nature averse to gossip, ‘I’m only responsible for what physical wellbeing she has left … and to see that she dies with dignity.’

‘That is my duty also, Doctor,’ said the nurse quietly as she showed him to the door.

This conversation had taken place late that afternoon but the nurse had not found it necessary to mention the scene she had witnessed in the kitchen earlier in the day. She felt it was not her place to do so.

Now she relaxed and stretched out her legs to rest on a little tapestried stool. Despite all the running around she’d done in the course of her work her ankles were still slim and she was proud of them. She yawned again, and let the magazine slip to the floor.

She was roused by a restless movement by her patient. She glanced at her watch. She must have been asleep for about three hours. She got up and went over to the bed, adjusted the dim night light and took hold of the hand, stroking the fingers that twitched like captive mice.

‘It’s all right, madam. I’m here. Are you in pain?’

The pale blue eyes showed no sign of distress. ‘No … I don’t think so … No pain. I feel a bit light … floating, somehow …’ The sweet voice articulated slowly but clearly. ‘What were we talking about earlier? I can’t quite remember …’

The nurse poured some water, held the glass to the dry lips.

‘Don’t you try,’ she said, ‘just take it easy … Are you quite comfortable?’

‘Yes, but I don’t want to sleep. We were playing a game, weren’t we, Nurse?’

‘We had a little fashion show with your lovely dresses. It was fun, wasn’t it?’ Placating, pleasing, the words came easily to her as she felt for the pulse. Reassured, she seated herself by the bed still holding the thin, transparent hand.

‘I remember now … I was going to show you my rubies …’

‘Yes. Yes. In the morning you can show me.’

‘Not in the morning. Now. Bring me the case.’ There was new vigour in the voice, and a peremptory tone, so the nurse rose and went over to the dressing-table. In a top drawer there was a box—my trinket box, the patient called it—containing a jumble of pieces of jewellery. Sometimes she liked to have it brought to her and she would spread them out around her on the counterpane, trying on necklaces and playing with the rings.

‘Not that box. These are only trinkets. I mean my real jewels …’

‘Madam? I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.’ The nurse had turned with the pretty little japanned box in her hands.

The other woman gave a gesture of irritation. ‘Everybody knows what’s in that box. Costume jewellery, cameo brooches, paste and pearls. I don’t mean them,’ she said scornfully. ‘They’re rubbish and I don’t care who has them.’

The nurse replaced the box and closed the drawer quietly and without fuss as she did everything else. The whims of the dying were nothing new to her. Now she crossed to the bed and laid a cool hand on the patient’s forehead. ‘Don’t upset yourself, madam. Rest now. Such things are of no importance.’

But the blue eyes were wide open and alert.

‘My jewels are to me. I want you to listen …’

‘I am listening.’

‘In the bottom of the wardrobe, right at the end, there is a small suitcase. Will you get it for me, please.’

It is in the patient’s best interests to accede to any request so long as it is feasible. The nurse went over and opened the wardrobe doors. The interior was large enough for her to walk into and this she did, brushing past the silks and velvets, feeling their softness against her face and hair as she passed. She saw the rows of shoes, neat in their wooden trees, strappy sandals and silver slippers, patent-leather pumps and high suede boots. In the farthest corner under a tartan travelling rug there was a small brown suitcase. She hauled it out, and put it down on the floor, for it was heavier than it looked.

She adjusted the starched cap knocked awry in her passage through the avenue of clothes, then took up the case and brought it over to the bed.

‘How very careful you are, Nurse, about your appearance!’ The woman had pulled herself up on the pillows and was watching with amused eyes.

‘Must be the way I’m made, madam.’ She smiled back. ‘Shall I open it for you? It’s too heavy to go on the bed.’

‘No. Not in this house.’ The words came sharply and the effort made the patient breathless. After taking a moment to recover, she went on: ‘It must not be opened in this house … and you’re not to tell anyone. Just do as I say.’

‘Yes, madam.’ She would only want to touch it, that was all she had done with the other possessions she was leaving. Touching was still important to a dying patient, perhaps a kind of reassurance. The nurse was not one to analyse such feelings, her job simply to obey within her limits, to soothe and make things easy. So now she held out the suitcase in her own strong hands so that the fluttering fingers could stray across the locks.

‘My rubies,’ the woman murmured. ‘The keys are in my purse …’

‘Yes, madam, but you say you don’t want it opened?’

‘Not here …’ As suddenly as the strength had come, so it waned. The voice faded to a whisper and the nurse had to bend down to hear the words. At one point she straightened up …

‘But that wouldn’t be right, madam …’

‘Right or wrong, who cares? Never mind the papers, they’re not your concern … And nothing matters to me any more …’

The patient lay back, exhausted. The blue-veined eyelids flickered, then closed. She gave a deep sigh.

Startled, the nurse threw the case on a chair, leaned over the bed and picked up the hand now at rest on the coverlet. The pulse was slow but it still throbbed, the breathing was even, there were not, as yet, any of the signs of approaching death she knew to respect. Thank God, she said to herself, for a moment there I thought she’d gone. That sudden clarity of speech, the momentary return of vigour, she’d seen them before, often they heralded the end. As she adjusted the pillows and slid the frail body into a more comfortable position, the patient said: ‘I’ll sleep now, Nurse. I’ll sleep easy in my mind …’

Of course you will, madam.’ She touched the white forehead gently, smoothed back the once-bright hair. Even though she stooped low the nurse could not quite catch the next words. Anyway, they seemed to be in a foreign language. All she heard was: ‘He told me once.… a long time ago …’

The woman who had been beautiful died the next morning at nine o’clock. She died peacefully in her sleep with her doctor by the bedside. Correct in all she did, the nurse had called him at seven when she saw how things might be.

‘Did she have a restless night?’ he asked.

‘Not more than usual. She talked with me for a time, then she slept. Her pulse had weakened but she wasn’t in any pain. I’d given her an injection earlier in the evening when she’d had some discomfort but when she woke in the night she didn’t complain. After she’d talked a little she went off to sleep again and she was still sleeping this morning when I called you. I thought she might just slip away, and that you should be here …’

‘Quite right, Nurse. An easier death than I’d feared. She looks at rest. I thought she might have struggled against it at the end … She wasn’t old, and she must have been lovely once.’

By midday the nurse was ready to leave. There was nothing to keep her. The doctor had been satisfied with her meticulous medical reports, and pleased at the manner of her attendance. He thanked her, said he would be commending her to the agency which had sent her.

She was scarcely noticed in the household that morning. The hushed bedroom with the drawn curtains was no longer her rightful place. The arrival of the undertakers, the comings and goings on the stairs, the incessant ringing of telephones and doorbells, the procession of long-faced men in business suits treading softly through the empty rooms, all these passed her by.

She had packed her toiletries, her nightwear, her spare caps and aprons, her nursing equipment, her books and magazines, in the holdall she’d brought with her when she came. It was a lot heavier now.

She stood in the bare room that had been her home for six days, and was suddenly in a fever to be gone. But she must not appear to hurry. Meeting the housekeeper in the hall, she paused and was careful to express thanks to the staff and her condolences.

‘A sad occasion for you all,’ she said, carrying the bag in one hand as if it was a light weight though the handles were straining her wrist. ‘But in these situations when there is little hope …’

Mrs Hermanos hardly looked at her. She had other things on her mind.

‘Goodbye, Nurse.’

Then the door was closed behind her, and she walked over to the elevator at her normal pace.

She drew a deep breath. She would get a cab at the corner. It was a long way to Brooklyn but by now she was frantic to get there. The holdall bumped roughly against her knees as if to remind her of what she must do. She had to run … and run fast.

She seemed to have spent her life running. In hospital training, running with bedpans, running alongside stretchers holding IVs, running for doctors, running to the telephones … As a girl she’d run away from school, and run away from a home racked by quarrels, then run back to nurse her dying mother. She’d not run to her father when he lay at the last, fighting death with curses, though he no longer had the strength to hit her. She’d walked in stoically and treated him as she would any other patient in her care. When he died he left her nothing, and she took nothing from the battered frame house she’d once called home.

She’d run back to Brooklyn, back to the crowded streets and the squalid apartment block outside which the cab had just halted. She paid off the driver. She’d have to get another one to take her away … How long had she got? They traced cabs all too easily …

She ran along the passage, the noise of crying children behind closed doors following her up the worn stairs. Once in her own apartment she didn’t stop. She threw the holdall on the settee which also served as her bed, took out the caps and aprons and chucked them into the cupboard. She wouldn’t be wanting them again, that was for sure. She packed a suitcase with the few clothes she had, sweaters, blouses and skirts, a couple of dowdy dresses, underwear and shoes.

Frantic now, she stripped herself of her uniform and bundled that too into the cupboard. She emptied out the magazine and books, leaving them scattered on the floor. It made the holdall lighter, but not by much. She saw the little case lying snug at the bottom but left it undisturbed. One quick look had been enough …

Just after she’d called the doctor—it would be ten minutes before he got there—she’d locked her bedroom door, put the case on a chair and sprung the old-fashioned catches, one on either side. When she raised the lid she had seen the little boxes and the names on them. With fumbling fingers she’d opened the ones on the top. The rubies had glowed at her, even in the pale early morning light, warm against their gold settings, rings, bracelets, brooches … There were larger boxes further down nestling on a bed of thick envelopes. She looked no further. She closed the suitcase, and put it carefully along the bottom of her holdall. Then she had straightened her cap, smoothed her apron and returned to the sickroom in readiness for the doctor.

Now she stuffed her washbag and a towel on the top along with clean nightclothes. Her other nightdresses she left on a chair. She dressed herself in the one good woollen suit she possessed, and stood still for a brief moment, quivering … Had she forgotten anything? Did it matter?

By now she was almost out of breath. No time to sit and take stock. She remembered to unpin the nurse’s watch from her discarded uniform. Nearly two hours gone already! How soon would they find out and come after her? That Mrs Hermanos, she would know … The quarrel in the kitchen, José had been shouting something about the ‘jools’ … They knew they were there, it was only a matter of time. The agency had her address, they’d soon be in touch with the precinct police … She must hurry, hurry. She should have called the cab first, then she could have been away quicker.

She dashed for the bathroom.

Keep your head, she told herself. Remember your training.

She began to feel calmer. She opened the door on to the landing, and stood for a moment listening. There was only the sound of squabbling infants. She went back inside, picked up the phone with a steady hand and made the call to a private cab service—not the one she normally used. She said it was urgent; they wouldn’t be long coming. She’d be better to wait in the apartment till she saw it in the street below. Although her neighbours on the other floors were used to her sudden departures when she was called out on cases, there was no need to call attention to herself this time.

She grabbed her short waterproof coat from the old wardrobe with the broken swinging door, put her suitcase and the holdall on the settee, and pushed her hair up under a knitted cap. Only then did she sit down to wait.

The minutes ticked on. She’d put the watch in her pocket but she could still hear it. Had she thought of everything? No need to check her handbag; when on resident duty she always carried all her personal papers in it, and sufficient money for emergencies. She could ignore her bank account, there was never much in it anyway.

In a fever of impatience she got up and went to the window. Now surely was the time to stop and think, time even to go back. She’d made a mistake … She’d never meant to … She could explain …

She’d said that to her father once when he’d yelled at her: ‘If I catch you stealing again, I’ll belt you black and blue …’ ‘I wasn’t stealing … she gave me the things …’ she’d blubbered then, but he’d belted her just the same.

Not this time, she told herself savagely, this time I’m not running away with nothing. This is my one chance. She thought of the red and gold treasures, snug in their little boxes … She saw the taxi-cab, heard the driver hoot. She gathered up her luggage, threw her coat over her arm and walked out of the apartment without a backward glance. No regrets. It was just a place she had been holed up in. By now she should have been able to afford better with all that money from her private nursing … Money down the drain, she thought with a sudden flash of resentment, for all the good it had done … Well, she would be rid of them too. There would be no going back.

As she was driven away she saw that the tree on the scrubby patch at the corner was budding green. Spring was coming; it must be a good omen.