Seven Dials Read online

  ‘I know,’ Johanna said in a low voice as Lee faltered in what she had been saying about talking to Letty regarding the Benefit, as she watched Katy’s narrow hips go swinging away, with the eyes of every man in the place following her too. ‘It’s maddening. Women like that ought to be - to be locked away. But never let them see they’ve hurt you, because when you do they only set out to hurt you more.’

  Lee reddened. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, and Johanna shook her head at her.

  ‘I used to be just like you, blaming the women, blaming myself, blaming everyone but him. But it isn’t anyone else’s fault, you know. Even if you did lock them away, it’d all be the same. Some men are like that - like Jonty was -’

  She stopped talking and bent her head to look down at her hands and Lee looked at her and then leaned forwards and touched her wrist, impulsively.

  ‘I know, Jo darling. Please don’t let’s fret about it. Men are men and - well, there it is. Not much we can do about it. Let’s go to the restaurant instead of the Grill Room, and we’ll plan how we’re going to make money for dear old Nellie’s and to blazes with everything and everybody else. What do you say?’

  Johanna lifted her chin and smiled, a rather watery little grimace, but she nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Let’s do just that. We’ll go and raise some money for the hospital. That’s more important than anything - and it’ll be fun to do it.’ And together the two women went to eat a rather leathery dried egg omelette filled with a few rare mushrooms, cocooned and safe in the fragile protection of their friendship. Just for a little while.

  6

  ‘Well?’ Charlie jumped to her feet and then, realizing how unprofessional such excitement must seem, sat down again, perching on the edge of Sister’s desk, and said again in as cool a voice as she could muster, ‘Well?’

  ‘Very well,’ Max said, and went past her to sit in the chair behind the desk and reach for a report sheet from the rack in its corner. ‘Very well indeed, in a psychiatric sense. I made no effort to judge his physical condition, of course, but at a cursory glance I’d say that was pretty good too.’

  Charlie frowned and turned to look down at his greying head, bent over the report sheet which he was writing.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘Oh, I think you do,’ Max said equably, not looking up from his writing, his hand never stopping its steady movement of pen over paper. ‘You asked me to see your patient to assess his psychiatric condition, following a florid and, I am now certain, manipulative gesture. And I am happy to report that you need have no fear for his mental health. He is, in all the usual senses of the term, a sane man. Selfish, perhaps. Greedy and thoughtless of any needs other than his own, undoubtedly. But ill he is not -’

  Charlie took a sharp little breath in through her nose, hearing the faint hiss even in this rather noisy little room, filled as it was with the rattle of trolleys from the ward and the voices of the nurses bustling about out there and the whine of the distant lifts.

  ‘That’s a very facile judgement, surely, on the basis of a mere twenty minutes of discussion with the man?’

  ‘Ah, but there is more to my report than the mere twenty minutes spent with him, Miss Lucas.’ Max reached for the blotting paper and carefully pressed it down on his report sheet. ‘I am able to write here, as I have, NAD - nil abnormal discovered - because I have spent over a quarter of a century now in my speciality, and I rather think I know more than most people about it.’

  He lifted his eyes to her face and his lips quirked a little sardonically. ‘More, I’d venture to suggest, than a young registrar, however gifted, who has only been a member of our profession for a handful of years and is still, in a very real sense, learning her business.’

  The words were harsh, but his voice was gentle enough, but that made no difference to Charlie. She shot to her feet to stand, legs apart and knees braced, with her hands shoved deeply into her white coat pockets to glare at him.

  ‘And I venture to suggest that you approached this case with some prejudice.’ Her jaw tightened as she saw the look of amazement that spread over his face; a registrar to speak so to a consultant? It was unheard of: but she was too angry to care. ‘Sir,’ she added very deliberately, and stood her ground, staring at him as directly as he was looking at her.

  It was Max who broke first. He had clearly been about to lose his temper but now he bent his head and with thumb and forefinger massaged both his closed eyes. There was a little silence between them, enhanced by the sounds from outside, and Charlie found herself thinking absurdly - now I know it’s Friday! I can smell the patients’ lunch - fish - poor Brin. He does dislike it so - and then Max looked up.

  ‘I can see I must be careful,’ he said. ‘Come and sit down, Miss Lucas. No, don’t glare at me in that fashion. It won’t help either of us to understand each other better, and certainly won’t do anything for your patient. And I’m assuming it is his welfare that concerns you above all else.’

  She stood her ground for a moment or two longer and then nodded unwillingly. ‘Yes,’ she said, and her voice was a little gruff. And obediently she sat down in the chair on the other side of the desk and he leaned forwards, folding his arms on the cluttered surface to look at her.

  ‘Now, my dear, hear me out, and do please listen. I’ve been dealing with emotional illnesses and psychiatric health in general for a very long time. And I have to tell you that the study of personality is something in which I am very well grounded. Your patient is a man with a particularly distinctive type of personality which I have met several times. Such people are always of enormous charm. They are frequently, incidentally, good-looking as well, but that may not be relevant. The important thing about them is the way they beguile people. And the next important thing is the fact that they are very well aware of their effect on others, and use it. There’s nothing reprehensible in that. Let me make it very clear that I’m not trying to make unkind judgements. Each and every one of us has to use such talents as we are given as best we can. And a talent to beguile is no more to be despised than any other. Unless it is used badly.

  ‘But, unfortunately, he suffers from what often goes with this sort of personality. A rather, shall we say, childlike inability to brook any sort of frustration. The Brin Lacklands of this world want what they want when they want it.’ He lifted his brows at her comically. ‘They may not always know what it is they want, but they want it awful bad - did you ever read that poem when you were a child? No? Well, there’s no reason why you should, I dare say. It’s probably a very English poem and you grew up in America, I seem to recall. Anyway, to return to your patient. I have to tell you that his so-called self-destructive bid was a typical example of the sort of manipulative behaviour this sort of personality regards as reasonable. He wants something, and doesn’t give a damn what he does to get it - and will usually go for the most theatrical methods. As I understand it, he wants to be treated by a particular surgeon at another hospital and you are having difficulty in making an arrangement for him. Hence this performance of his. He thinks that if he makes enough drama you will be forced to try even harder to get him what he wants -’

  She sat silently, staring at him, trying to control the anger that still bubbled in her. How dare this dreary man talk so about Brin, her inner voice was raging, how dare he? He was being spiteful and stupid, not talking as a doctor should talk about a patient at all. He was just -

  ‘Do you understand what I am explaining, Miss Lucas?’ Max said gently. ‘Your patient is using you - rather skilfully, I do admit, but using you all the same - and it is not in his best interests for you to let him do so. He needs, I would suggest, rather firm handling. He also needs to be disabused of this notion that he has been made very ugly by his injury. I looked at that scar carefully and although it is by no means a thing of beauty and a joy for ever, it’s nothing like as hideous as he maintains that it is. I’ve seen much worse on many of the patients who have been adm
itted here after air raids -’ And then his voice seemed to dwindle and he stopped looking at her and looked down at the desk.

  And now she could contain her anger no longer. ‘Well, Dr Lackland, I must thank you for your opinion, no doubt, but I have to tell you that as a doctor in my own right - and however junior I may be and however ill-informed when compared to your own vast experience, the fact remains that I am an independent practitioner - I disagree with you very much indeed. I have looked after this man for some time now, so although my experience of medicine in general may not be as great as yours, my experience of this particular patient greatly exceeds yours. And I just don’t believe you are right. He is not being manipulative, he is not selfish and - and he isn’t what you said.’ And now her voice began to shake, and she had to stop for fear of losing control and he looked up at her and though his face was blank there was an expression of new understanding in his eyes.

  ‘You seem to have become more than usually interested in the man,’ he said. ‘Have you? It is possible for doctors to become rather more involved emotionally with an individual patient than perhaps they should.’

  ‘No,’ she said hotly and then as she felt her face redden got to her feet. ‘No,’ she repeated. ‘I am interested in all my patients. It’s why I came into medicine in the first place. I’m not like you - like so many British doctors, all ice and self-control. I care about my patients, all of them, and I don’t care who knows it -’

  ‘I stand rebuked,’ he said and got to his feet, matching his action to his words. ‘I’ve written my report, Miss Lucas, for his notes. Now I return your young patient to you. I know you haven’t asked for any direct advice on his management but I shall offer it all the same. I wouldn’t want to be in dereliction of my medical duty, however icy and self-controlled you might think me. I would strongly advise you to send him home to his family for a while to think about his situation and to face the fact that he does not need further surgery, and that however much he gets he is not going to end up with what he wants - which is a total restoration of his pre-injury looks. He has a scar, he’ll always have a scar and no matter how you or I or anyone else fiddles with it, he’ll never be happy with the result of any further treatment. Better to face this fact now than to go on as he is, trying to make people dance to his tune. If you don’t tell him to do this then you’ll be colluding in his fantasy of a totally restored face and doing him more harm than good.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Charlie said icily. ‘I doubt very much whether I’ll act on that advice but I must thank you for it all the same, I suppose.’

  He stopped at the door, not looking round. ‘Oh, Miss Lucas, do stop being so silly! You’re not the first doctor to develop an absurd fascination for a good-looking patient, and I don’t suppose you’ll be the last, but for heaven’s sake, do try to cover it up. It does neither you nor your profession any good at all to wear your heart on your sleeve in so obvious a fashion.’

  ‘How dare you!’ she cried and at once bit her lip. There was a limit to how far a member of the resident staff could go in dealing with even the most stupid of consultants, and she might well have overstepped it, but her anger overcame her native caution and she found her teeth lifting from her lip, heard her own voice and was aghast at what it was saying.

  ‘How dare you speak to me like that? Just because you’re a cold fish who never felt any hurt, who never had to face up to losing what mattered to you, you think you can tell other people how to cope with their sense of grief? That man is in a state of bereavement - if you can’t see that you’ve no right to call yourself a psychiatrist. His looks have been killed - he feels as though he’s inhabiting a dead body, and that’s why he’s so desperately unhappy! I’ve done all I can to get him transferred to the care of a plastic surgeon because this damned place doesn’t have such a modern facility, and I would have thought a little help for the man from you wouldn’t have hurt. But oh, no! You just preach about coming to terms with his loss - what do you know about such a loss? Who are you to -’

  Suddenly she stopped, her words hanging in the air like palpable things as she stared at his still turned back, her face blank with horror. She’d forgotten. Oh God, she’d forgotten. Wasn’t this the man whose wife had been killed in a flying bomb raid? She’d been away on attachment at the maternity unit over at Stoke Newington when it had happened, but she’d been told and she could remember the pang of sympathy she had felt for this man she didn’t really know but who had been left alone by a last stupid pointless flying bomb, sent on its way by an enemy thrashing around in defeat, could remember how very sorry she had felt for him - and how she had never thought about the matter again. And now here she was haranguing him about the effects of grief because she didn’t like what he had said about a patient and -

  ‘If you’ve quite finished, Miss Lucas, I must be on my way. You have my report and my advice. It is now up to you what you do. Good afternoon.’ And still without turning his head to look at her he opened the door of Sister’s office and walked out into the ward and she heard the sigh of the big double doors as they opened and closed behind him as she still stood there, frozen into immobility and hating herself and him in almost equal measure.

  ‘So there it is,’ Charlie said and couldn’t look at him. Standing there beside his bed, her hands jammed into her pockets as usual, she kept her head bent, looking only at his hands folded on the red blanket that covered him. ‘I had hoped that perhaps with his added support I might be able to overcome McIndoe’s objections, but -’

  ‘Miserable bastard,’ Brin said, and moving fretfully drew up his knees to sit with his arms round them, staring furiously across the ward. ‘What the hell do I have to do to get people to understand how important this is? Cut my damned throat and give them two scars to mend?’

  Now she did look at him, sharply, for one moment hearing Max’s words again at the back of her mind, but then, refusing to listen to them, shook her head. ‘Don’t be silly, Brin. You can’t force people to do what you want them to do just by -’

  ‘I’m not trying to force anybody anywhere,’ he said and looked at her and as she caught his glance he smiled, that crooked smile that could make her feel so stupid and giddy. ‘All I want is what any patient in this place wants - a cure for my ills. But no one seems about to give me one, or to care whether I get one or not -’

  ‘That’s hardly fair, Brin,’ she said after a moment and he reached out and patted her arm.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Charlie. You’re right, of course. You care and damned grateful I am for it. If I didn’t have you, I don’t know what I’d do. So, tell me, what else did the old devil say? Miserable sod that he is. I should have known what sort of help I’d get from him. You should have seen the way he was at the VE night dinner. As cheerful as the hangman, so help me, sitting there crumbling his bread into pellets and saying not a dicky bird, I swear to you, all evening - a right misery -’

  ‘I believe his wife was killed in a doodlebug raid,’ Charlie said unwillingly, as angry with Max as Brin was but needing to be fair. ‘I dare say it was a bad night for him. People remembered things that night - I know I did. I kept thinking about Cousin Mary, even though she didn’t actually get killed by a raid, but it happened during one and -’

  But he was paying no attention. ‘So where do we go from here? I’m going to get into that man’s hospital if it’s the last thing I do, one way or another. If money won’t help, then -’

  ‘He’s got all the patients he can handle,’ she said, feeling a moment of chill. ‘So it isn’t a matter of paying. Anyway, the patients at East Grinstead don’t pay, as far as I know. It’s like us here at Nellie’s - people in the open wards are treated free. They raise their money by voluntary contributions - and -’

  ‘And then they can be lordly about who they’ll treat and who they won’t,’ Brin said, furiously again, and he threw himself back against his pillows. ‘Why shouldn’t they take me on as well as any other patient? I need treatment, don’t I?
You said yourself that I did, so why refuse me the way he has?’

  ‘I told you. I sent him the photographs, spoke to his secretary on the phone, but he was adamant. He said he had too much other more severe injury to treat at the moment and couldn’t take you. In a year or two perhaps, when there’s less work for him to do, now the War’s over and there won’t be any more of the sort of injuries he’s been treating there -’

  ‘A year or two!’ Brin said with huge scorn. ‘I haven’t got a lifetime to waste! Damn it, I’m almost at my peak as it is! I’m thirty-five, not a baby of nineteen! I’d have thought on the grounds of my age and my occupation alone that ought to give me some priority over these kids he’s filled his hospital with -’

  ‘They were injured in the War, Brin. Airmen mostly and -’

  ‘Well, I was injured in the War too, wasn’t I? The fact that I had a bloody bomb dropped on me instead of going off to drop them on other people makes me less important, does it?’

  ‘No, but I can understand his point of view -’

  ‘Well, I’m damned if I can.’

  ‘You might feel better if you tried.’

  ‘Like hell I will. The only thing that’ll make me better is having the right sort of surgery to clean up this bloody mess that’s been made of my face. It’s my face, Charlie, for Christ’s sake! I’m an actor - what am I supposed to do with my life, looking like this?’ And he put up his hand and, with his fingers clawed, pulled at his scarred cheek and she reached forwards to take his wrist in her hand and gently pull it away.

  ‘Don’t do that. Hurting yourself won’t make it any better. You have to learn somehow to live with yourself as you are - you’ll drive yourself into a really severe depression if you go on like that, Brin. You really must learn to come to terms -’