Seven Dials Read online

  ‘That Board, sir-they’ve had to postpone for an hour. I told them they’d be ruining your entire day, that you had a great many appointments all carefully slotted in, but they were adamant, really adamant. They have to wait for this wretched man from the War Office, it seems, and he’s tied up, so there’s nothing they can do - I was very terse with them, I can tell you. Very terse. But there it is - ’

  ‘Have I got so many appointments?’ he asked and she pursed her mouth and smirked slightly. ‘Well, actually, sir, it’s not as bad as it might be. Your next is a call out to Friern for Dr Samuelson, who wants a second opinion on that schizophrenic child, so it could be worse. But still, it’s not right to mess you about that way -’

  ‘Then I could go back to the boardroom I suppose - ’ Max said, hesitating. To go and sit in his office and do his letters, as he would have to do some time in the next week, was possible, but suddenly the thought of being confined up there with Miss Curtis fussing round him was more than he could bear.

  ‘Well, one of the registrars wanted to talk to you,’ Miss Curtis said unwillingly, finding it going deeply against the grain to oblige Miss Lucas but knowing Max’s moods well enough to realize that there was no way she would get him to come and do his letters, as she wanted. ‘She’s in Spruce, I believe – said she wanted to talk to you about one of her patients -’

  ‘Miss Lucas?’ Max brightened. ‘Oh, well, that’s settled then. I won’t go back to the boardroom. I’ll be in Spruce till it’s time for the Board, Miss Curtis, and then there’ll be lunch and then I’ll be on my way to Friern and Dr Samuelson. You can leave as early as you like. I won’t be back here till Monday morning.’ And he went away towards Spruce leaving Miss Curtis alone and yearning at the top of the stairs.

  One of these days I’ll have to replace her, he was thinking. Poor soul sees my widowed state as altogether too interesting and I can’t cope with that for long. And again the guilt rose in him as he thought of Emilia and irritably he pushed the ward doors open and went in search of the surgical registrar.

  4

  ‘I see,’ Max said at length, and put down the chart, centring it neatly on Sister’s desk. ‘I see. A reactive depression following injury - not unusual. I’ve dealt with a great many similar cases this past few years, Miss Lucas.’ Including myself, he thought, looking down at the chart. Isn’t that my problem? A reactive depression after the appalling injury of losing Emilia? ‘I doubt you need worry unduly. He’ll recover in time. There’s little I or any other psychiatrist can do to hasten that recovery, I’m afraid. Patience has to be the only prescription.’

  ‘I haven’t given you the whole picture, I think, sir,’ Charlie said carefully, and reached for the notes. ‘Perhaps I didn’t write it as clearly as I might have done, and -’

  He put out his hand and stopped her before she could reach them. ‘Never mind the notes, Miss Lucas. You tell me, in your own words, why it is that you’re so worried about this young man. His case doesn’t seem to me to be so severe, nor is his injury sufficient to justify the significance you give it, unless that photograph is a particularly poor one. I thought it seemed clear enough. Of course I’ll look at the man myself in a moment, but meanwhile - is the injury so very disfiguring, do you believe?’

  ‘Perhaps not to you or to me, sir,’ Charlie said and pushed her hands into the pockets of her white coat, so that he wouldn’t notice how tightly she had them clenched. It was getting more and more difficult to get the importance of the situation across without telling him why she was so worried; yet she’d promised Brin she wouldn’t do that; it had been medically wrong to make such a promise, but it was understandable that he should demand it and - she took a deep breath and looked up at Max.

  ‘The thing is, sir, that he’s an actor. You must know quite a lot about him actually - after all, he is a relation of yours and -’

  Max laughed suddenly. ‘We’re a large clan, my dear, and I sometimes think that half London is related to us! Let me see, who is this chap? I know his name of course, but not all his links with the family - ’

  ‘I think he’s a distant cousin of yours, sir. His sister is Katy Lackland, the actress, you know? His home is in Yorkshire - I mean, that’s where his father lives, and he has another sister and brothers there, but now he lives in London, or has since he started on his career as an actor. That was just before the War. Well, he was in that flying bomb raid that did so much damage to the Regent Palace Hotel. Do you remember? It caused rather more fuss than usual because there was a direct hit and - ’

  ‘I remember,’ Max said, his voice expressionless. Emilia, he thought, his voice screaming inside his head. Emilia, buying me a shirt. ‘Well, he was in that raid. And then what?’

  ‘A piece of shrapnel of some kind, sir. Caught his cheek on the right. There was a good deal of contamination with brick dust and other debris and though the wound was carefully cleaned at the time - once they got him out, that is, and that took several hours - and it was tolerably well stitched, there is a degree of keloid about the scar. He’s got some shrinkage of the musculature so that his smile has been altered - the corner of the mouth on the right lifts slightly - ’

  And when it does, a little voice deep in her mind whispered, when it does, your belly turns over.

  ‘- and there’s a slight pull on the eye on that side. You may not think it all that bad, and it wouldn’t be perhaps if he were anything but what he is. Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief - their faces don’t matter so much. But an actor?’

  ‘I’ve seen some actors with less than perfect faces,’ Max said drily. ‘And I believe that there are some who make an excellent living mainly because they have rather odd faces, rather than because they have perfect ones.’

  ‘Perhaps they were born with such looks and learned to get used to them,’ Charlie said. ‘Brin - Mr Lackland - started out with considerable good looks and regarded them as a definite asset to his career. He’s now lost them because of this injury and the effect has been to make him very - to cause considerable disturbance.’

  Max looked at her shrewdly. ‘Tried to do some damage to himself, has he?’

  She went scarlet. ‘How did you - I mean, I really can’t -’

  Max shook his head, amused at her naivety. ‘My dear girl, you really must give me some credit for having experience in my own speciality! I’ve been called in by more surgeons and dermatologists and what-have-yous because their depressed patients have made a suicide bid and listened to them waffling around the issue in a state of sheer funk, terrified I’m going to call in the police and have them hauled off to court. But do be reasonable, my dear! I’m a psychiatrist, one who is concerned with the psychological well-being of my patients. I’m the last person to help the police uphold a law I consider appalling! I’ve kept the police at arms’ length in more attempted suicide cases than you’ve removed appendices. So let’s stop making silly evasions and get this story sorted out properly. What did he do?’

  ‘He swallowed a handful of Nembutal.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘I’m not sure. He was rather vague about it. I was on duty late one night and I went to do a ward round and - ’

  Went to do a ward round? jeered the little voice inside her mind. Went to see him, you mean. You’re besotted with him and that was why you were on duty late, just for the chance of seeing him.

  ‘I was doing a late round,’ she said more loudly, looking very directly at Max, aware of her still heightened colour and furious with herself because of it. ‘And I went to the ward to see him. I’d been trying to do a neatening of the mucous membrane inside the mouth and was going to see if we could reassess the possibility of excising the keloid to tidy his scar, and that was why he was in the ward. I found him very dozy and - ’ She swallowed. ‘He was flushed and agitated and I asked him why he was in such a state and he told me he’d been saving up his Nembutal because he was so unhappy and - ’ She stopped and stared down at the floor. How could she tell the hard-faced ma
n sitting there looking at her so coolly how she had felt when it had all happened? How there had been that lurch of sheer terror as she had looked down on that flushed face she loved so much and seen the tears in those dark eyes, and how her hands had shaken as she had pulled back the covers and unbuttoned his pyjama jacket so that she could set the bell of her stethoscope to his chest?

  His heart had been pounding strongly but dreadfully fast, and she had stood there listening, trying to remember all she had learned about how to treat people who swallowed overdoses, aware all the time of the trouble there would be if anyone knew what he had done. Attempted suicide was a crime. How often had she seen patients in Nellie’s wards with policemen sitting stolidly beside their beds, watching them in case they tried to commit their pathetic little crime again? How often had she heard of people being discharged from hospital to be taken to stand in the box at court to trot out their pathetic little tales of desolation and despair to a bored magistrate? Far too often, and she wasn’t going to let it happen to Brin.

  She had told the night nurse on duty - happily a rather foolish girl, not given to thinking much about what she was told to do - that she was taking Mr Lackland down to the theatre for some special dressings she wanted to do, and had demanded a wheelchair for him, and with the nurse’s help had got him out of bed and safely out of the ward. And then had spent the rest of the night walking him up and down to keep him awake, feeding him with stimulants and doing all she could to make him see how unnecessary it was to be so desperate. His face wasn’t so dreadful, really it wasn’t, she had told him over and over again till she was hoarse with saying it, as she dragged his weary drooping body from one side of the small operating theatre to the other, praying all the time that no one would come and see them, no one would push the door open and demand to know what she was doing there. ‘- really, your face is a splendid face. No need to be so despairing about it. No need at all -’

  And at last he had emerged from his dazed sleepiness and she had been able to take him back to his bed in Spruce Ward to sleep off his exhaustion, while she had had to spend the day walking through her usual work in a state of total confusion about her patient. What was she to do with and for him? She just didn’t know, and that had been when she had decided that the time had come to call in an expert - but not to tell him why. Brin had begged her, with tears in his eyes again, to keep his foolish behaviour a secret and she had of course promised - but now this man with the direct gaze had got it out of her and - it took every atom of control she had not to let her own eyes fill with tears.

  ‘I see,’ Max said. ‘A fairly florid but hardly life-threatening episode.’

  Her brows snapped together. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You say he’d swallowed a lot of barbiturate, but since he is still, I gather, with us, and you say nothing about having needed to wash out the stomach, the overdose must have been minimal.’

  ‘It took me several hours of walking him about and pouring coffee into him to make sure he had stayed awake,’ Charlie said stiffly. ‘So - ’

  ‘Oh, my dear, you’ve seen too many of these Hollywood films! The treatment of overdosage with noxious substances is rather less dramatic and a good deal more messy. If he survived the night of walking with you and then slept off the drug - as I imagine he did - ’

  ‘He slept for most of the next day and night - ’

  ‘I imagine he did. But for all that I doubt he took more than enough to alarm you, but certainly not enough to do any long-term harm. What is it he’s trying to persuade you to do?’

  Charlie was very angry now and she knew it showed and didn’t care. ‘I don’t think, Dr Lackland, that you can make quite so firm a judgement till you’ve at least talked to the patient. It seems to me rather to be jumping to conclusions to - however, I’m sorry I bothered you. I shall deal with him in my own way, and can only ask you now to - to honour my request for confidentiality,’ and she got to her feet.

  Max shook his head and lifted his brows at her. ‘Oh, come, my dear, no need to be so touchy! All right, I accept your rebuke. I should indeed see the patient before making any judgements. I was leaning a little more than I have any right to on my previous experience. Very well, lead me to him and we shall talk again. I’ll see him on my own, I think, after you introduce me -’

  ‘It’s really not necessary -’ Charlie began but he interrupted her, albeit gently.

  ‘Now, I have apologized, so please, let us not be absurd over this. Which bed is he in?’

  ‘Seventeen,’ Charlie said unwillingly. ‘But - ’

  ‘Then lead the way, Miss Lucas, and we shall consult over your patient’, and he moved towards the door of Sister’s office and held it invitingly open for her.

  She hadn’t felt so self-conscious walking down a ward since her very first day out of medical school when, resplendent in the shiny new short white coat of a first-year clinical student, she had joined the rest of her set on their first round. The men lay in their beds, neatly and quietly, as well schooled as any soldiers, for Sister Spruce was a martinet in matters of neatness - woe betide any patient who lay about in sloppy postures on her ward - but they watched with interest all that went on around them, unless they were too ill to care; and there weren’t many in that state, for this was a surgical ward and most of the inmates were lively enough, unlike those on medical wards. Charlie felt their eyes on her and her companion very keenly indeed. Did they realize that this stocky man with the still face and the square shoulders was a psychiatrist? It would be dreadful if they did make such a guess, for there could not be one among them who did not share the all-too-common belief that there was a stigma in having something wrong with your mind. Brin would never forgive her, she thought, if the other patients guessed and treated him differently in consequence.

  But none of the men seemed to pay her companion any attention at all. It was herself they were interested in, and she managed to relax a little as she went on down that interminably long ward beside Max Lackland. Of course she was being silly; these men cared only about their own health, and she, as the registrar who was responsible for this ward, was a person of consequence in their eyes. They wondered, each and every one of them, if she was coming to their bedside; once they realized she wasn’t, their interest switched back to their newspapers and magazines and library books. So by the time she reached Brin’s bed and reached for the curtains to pull them round to offer some semblance of privacy, she was once more in command of her own anxiety.

  ‘Good morning, Brin,’ she said. ‘This is - ’

  He was lying against a pile of pillows, a newspaper open on his lap in front of him but quite unheeded, his hair a little rumpled so that a loose lock of it lay on his forehead, and his pyjama jacket partially unbuttoned. His skin looked a pleasant brown against the white of his pillows, and his eyes glowed even more darkly. He looked in fact absurdly well to be occupying a hospital bed and her lips curved involuntarily at the sight of him because he looked so agreeable.

  ‘You don’t have to introduce us, Charlie,’ he said and his voice, as ever, sent a small tremor of pleasure into her; it was a rich deep baritone with a lift of laughter in it, and was one of his greatest assets, a fact she suspected he well knew. ‘We met on VE night, sir, do you remember? My sister Kate and I were invited to your sister’s house to dine and you were there as well and - ’

  ‘Yes, of course, I remember,’ Max said, his voice relaxed and friendly. ‘Not that I was feeling too festive, as I recall. Still, we had to mark the occasion in some way, I suppose. I’m sorry to see you here as a customer of the family hospital.’

  ‘I - I’m not all that thrilled about it myself, sir. But -’ And he lifted his right hand and touched his cheek and then let his hand fall on to his counterpane again, never taking his eyes from Max’s face. It was a relaxed and unexaggerated gesture, but a very effective one, for it said more than any words could have done. There was pain in that small movement of the arm, and anger and ruefulness a
nd tears and attempted bravery, all wrapped up together, and Charlie felt her lips tighten as she saw it. How could anyone doubt for a moment how much this man was torn apart by his disfigurement? Whatever it seemed like to others, to him it was a massive blow and he needed all the aid he could be given to deal with it.

  ‘You’re here for treatment of that scar?’ Max said, brutally breaking the small spell that Brin had managed to cast and leaned forwards to stare at the right cheek. The scar indeed looked startling there, a much lighter colour than the surrounding skin and rather thick and raised from the surface of the face. It ran from the corner of the eye which it dragged down slightly, giving his face on that side a rather comically lugubrious look, to the corner of the mouth which, while it seemed natural enough in repose, twisted a little incongruously when Brin spoke, and even more when he smiled.

  ‘I hope so,’ Brin said, still keeping his eyes fixed on Max’s face. ‘I hope the scar could be made less - bulky. Charlie thought it might be possible to remove the overgrowth and leave a finer, less raised, line. I - what do you think?’

  ‘I’m not a plastic surgeon,’ Max said. ‘My opinion is worthless on such a matter.’

  ‘But you must agree it needs doing?’ Brin’s voice had sharpened.

  ‘Nothing surgical needs doing, unless it’s life-threatening,’ Max said mildly. ‘You may want to have it done, but that is a different matter - ’

  ‘It’s essential that it should be done!’ Brin said and now he was speaking more loudly and Charlie shook her head at him in covert warning, very aware of the rest of the patients listening eagerly on the other side of the curtains. In a long dull hospital day, any activity was of interest. Brin caught the warning and spoke more quietly. ‘Of course it’s essential,’ he said, and the lowering of his voice made him sound a little sulky. ‘I would have thought anyone could see that. It’s the most essential thing in my life right now, I can tell you that.’