A Time to Heal Read online

  “I didn’t think they’d both accept so quickly—and anyway I asked them for next weekend or the one after …” Harriet said, a little startled.

  “They can read,” Catherine growled. “Of course they’re rushing down to see you. What did you expect?”

  Harriet stared at her for a moment, and then laughed. “God, I’m a cretin. I’d completely forgotten that. The newspaper—of course. Thank God it’s Friday. If ever anyone needed a peaceful weekend away from work, it’s me.”

  “Well, enjoy it,” Catherine said. “I doubt there’ll be much peace for any of us once the Echo really gets going next week.”

  5

  SHE LOOKED at them both with deep pleasure, sitting there as they had been used to years ago, Cordon tidy as ever in the big armchair, Patty lying flat on her back on the rug, staring at the shapes of shadows on the ceiling as they moved with the firelight. There was a stab of guilt in her pleasure that enhanced it; fond as she was of Jean and much as she loved small Giles, it was delightful to have just her own two to herself.

  Then Patty turned her head and looked at Gordon, and Harriet sighed a little. They had always bickered, as brothers and sisters do, but the differences between them seemed more intense as they grew older. They had been on reasonably amiable terms so far this weekend, but she could see the look on Patty’s face, and knew she wouldn’t be able to avoid returning to the attack, even though she knew her mother disliked hearing them disagree.

  “Tell me something, Gordon,” Patty said abruptly. “Suppose this treatment turns out to have dangerous side effects. It could, you know! Is the press justified in publishing all this stuff before the possible risks are known?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Patty, do be practical! Of course there are risks. But that’s what life is all about. If you risk nothing, you gain nothing. Even in your ivory tower you must see that.”

  “Oh, I see it all right! Scientists are taking risks the whole time. But they’re calculated risks aimed at avoiding future ones. Above all, they’re not aimed at making money. That’s what makes me sick about your whole attitude. You only think in profit and loss terms. You don’t give a damn about the ethics of—”

  “And you make me sick! Who the hell do you think pays you, keeps you in your job where you can be so high-minded and ethical? People who take risks with money, that’s who. The people who own and run the firm you work for. All this socialist nonsense of yours—you should have grown out of it years ago, together with the braces on your teeth. Oh, I know what you want. You want to see all the research Establishments under Government control so that you can paddle about wasting taxpayers’ money while you polish your ethics to a high gloss. Well, because you’re working for a commercial setup, you’ve got all sorts of extra privileges—twice the sort of equipment and facilities Ma’s got, twice the staff, and a bloody sight better pay packet, too. If you want that, then you can’t expect the luxury of ignoring the rights of the people who pay for it all.”

  “It’s got nothing to do with politics, though it strikes me you’re pretty immature politically if you see a decent concern for the rights of other people as something you grow out of. But that isn’t the point at issue. Don’t try to drag this off into a left-right fight. The point is—”

  “The point is that Ma ought to be getting a better deal out of all this than she is. I still say Ferris had a right to get what he could out of the whole thing—but what really interests me is what Ma will get out of it. If anyone ought to be paid by that paper, it isn’t Ferris.”

  “Gordon, Patty, please. I really don’t see any point in all this. I—”

  “I know you don’t,” Gordon said forcefully. “That’s why it’s got to be talked about. With both of you white-hot idealists—though I must say, Patty, it’s remarkable you work for a commercial firm, and not a Government Establishment like Brookbank, with your attitudes.”

  “Because I agree with you. It’s the commercial firms that provide the best working conditions. The point on which we differ is that you think that’s as it ought to be, and I think it’s bloody immoral. But when you’ve got to make choices between two ethics the most important one must win—and the most important one for me is the quality of the work I can do, not where I do it.”

  “Well, that sounds very elegant, no doubt, and it pleases you, but from where I’m sitting it’s a pretty specious argument. However, I want to get to the point about Ma. I’ve said it before this weekend and I’ll go on saying it. You are seventeen kinds of a fool if you don’t leave Brookbank and take your work with you to a commercial firm where you’ll get some decent facilities and a decent return for your efforts. It’s all wrong that you should sit here in this pokey cottage, stuck with old George and not enough money to get some decent help to look after him.”

  “I don’t see you and Jean offering to take the old man off her back,” Patty murmured.

  “Why the hell you should expect Jean to cope with a small child and a senile grandfather-in-law, while you—”

  “Oh, do stop, both of you,” Harriet said. “You’re ruining the weekend with all this niggling! It’s time you both grew out of it. I am not complaining about looking after George, and I am not asking either of you to take him on. There’s no reason why you should. All I wanted of you both was an opinion on what I should do about publishing. That’s why I wrote to you. Well, as it happens the decision’s been made for me, so we can forget it. I do appreciate your concern for my future, Gordon, but really—”

  Patty sat up and stretched, and then gave Gordon an affectionate thrust with her foot.

  “She’s quite right, Gord. All this sibling rivalry bit—it must be very boring. I’ll forgive you for being an accountant if you’ll forgive me for having a conscience. Okay?”

  “Go to hell,” Gordon said, but without rancor. “You always were a half-witted narrow-minded idiot, considering the sort of I.Q. you’ve got. And you always will be. The sooner you marry one of those damp young men of yours and get yourself involved with kids and family responsibility, the sooner you’ll grow up a bit.”

  “Isn’t it marvelous!” Patty said, smiling wryly at Harriet. “According to paterfamilias here—all of two years in the parenthood business, and a full-time expert—every woman can be debrained with a basinful of sex and the bovine babymaking business that goes with it. Roll on liberation!”

  “But, Ma, there is at least one thing we both agree on, and I do wish you’d think about it! You ought to take a leaf out of Patty’s book and go to a commercial setup.”

  “He’s right, I’m afraid, Ma,” Patty said. “I bate him for it, and I hate the system for it, but he’s right. You need a hell of a lot better deal than you’re getting at Brookbank, if you’re to complete this work properly. You ought to be able to run great series of trials and you need five times the equipment and staff you’ve got to do it. You’ll never get that at Brookbank.”

  “And if you go to a commercial firm big enough to get the vaccine going in a proper way, think how quickly the treatment will be available for general use, once it’s proved! That ought to warm up your two ethical scientific hearts! I’m right, aren’t I? If you wait until after you’ve completed your work, it’ll be at least another year or even more before the stuff becomes freely available, because they’ll have to start from scratch? Whereas if you’re working with them from the start—”

  “Don’t ask me to look that far ahead! It’ll be years before we’re ready to consider applying the method to general use. To start thinking at this stage about mass production of the vaccine is like—like deciding which course at university a child should read on the day he’s born!”

  “That’s not necessarily a bad thing to do. We’ve put Giles down for his school.”

  “You would,” Patty jeered. “Which one? Eton?”

  “You have to think toward, Ma, if you’re ever to get anywhere! Surely you do it with your work? You don’t just charge off in umpteen different directions. You plan
a scheme and follow it. So I don’t see why you can’t apply the same methodology to your private affairs. Just as an example, if you’d have thought ahead years ago, you wouldn’t have the problem of old George now. You’d have made other arrangements for him long since. God knows, he was difficult enough to live with when we were kids and he was normal then. Now he’s senile, he’s impossible. You can’t pretend it’s affection that keeps you looking after him.”

  “No, I can’t pretend that. I never liked him, and I like him less now, and I’d be a rotten liar if I said otherwise. But he was your father’s father, so—” She shrugged.

  “Did he like him?” Patty asked. “Father, I mean?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, love. It’s all so long ago now, I can’t remember. That’s what depresses me most, sometimes. Not remembering. I know it happened, being married to David, and I’ve you two to prove it. But it’s all so remote now, as though it happened to someone else.”

  “So why the hell lumber yourself with George?” Gordon said. “No feeling for him, no reason to be so damned dutiful—”

  “I don’t know why. And do stop nagging. You sound as bad as Theo!”

  “Oh, darling old Theo! How is he? I should have asked. Will he be coming to lunch tomorrow?” Patty asked.

  “Of course! He always does. He’s a creature of habit, like you two. Still arguing, still nagging. Habit, all of it.” She looked at them affectionately. “Still, I like you as you are. That’s habit too, I suppose. Shall you go mushroom hunting tomorrow, Patty? The way you used to do? There should be a few left in the far field. With that splendid ham you brought with you and a few new mushrooms I could produce a very Sundayish breakfast—”

  “Jesus!” Patty said. “Have you seen the papers yet, Ma? No–you couldn’t have.”

  She stood beside the kitchen table, her scarlet woolen cap at the back of her head, her sheepskin coat hanging open, and her nose pink with the cold, and Harriet took the freshly picked mushrooms and began to wipe them on a paper towel, amused at the way Patty was already deep in the Sunday papers; from the day she had learned to read, she had swallowed print, any print, voraciously.

  “No,” she said. “I haven’t even looked at the headlines. I just brought them in. Young Peter must be going on another of his motorcycle scrambles today. It’s the only time we get the papers before lunch. How many slices of ham can you eat? And call Gordon and ask him, will you?”

  “Ma, listen to this.” Patty came and stood beside her. “‘It was announced yesterday that this year’s Nobel prize for medicine is to be awarded to William Ross-Craigie for his work on—’”

  “What’s that? Here, let me see.” Harriet dropped the mushrooms, and took the paper from Patty, to look at the picture of William Ross-Craigie simpering up at her, and read the couple of inches of newsprint swiftly.

  “Has the other paper got anything? Let me see—”

  Patty was already leafing through the other one, a more popular and vociferous sheet than the sober Sunday heavy Harriet was holding, and she nodded after a moment.

  “Mmm. Here it is. Much more, too. Look—”

  They read it together, and then Harriet said doubtfully, “Well, one thing ought to please Oscar, even though they don’t mention him. At least they say Ross-Craigie was a Brookbank man. I wish they hadn’t brought up my stuff as well, though.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake! It was inevitable! But, Ma, this’ll stir things up a bit, won’t it? Atheroma—this seems to suggest they’re already using the treatment quite a lot in the States.”

  “They are. Oscar told me—”

  The telephone shrilled sharply, and she heard Gordon thumping down the stairs to answer it. “That’ll be Theo, I imagine.”

  Theo sounded unusually strained, not a hint of his normal flippancy in his voice.

  “Hattie? Look, there’s a problem—”

  “I know. We’ve seen. Oscar will be pretty upset. He knew it was coming, I think, but a fait accompli is—”

  “Seen what? Oscar? What are you talking about?”

  “Ross-Craigie, of course! The newspapers. Isn’t that why you phoned?”

  “No. What about Ross-Craigie?”

  “He’s got the Nobel for his atheroma work. And the papers we’ve seen—well, one of them, at any rate—say he was at Brookbank, but Oscar isn’t mentioned. He’ll be—”

  “Yes, he’ll be—but never mind that now. This is something else. Look, Hattie, I’m at the hospital. Had to do an early morning round. And there was a man here looking for you. I’ve tried to head him off, but some bloody idiot’s told him where you live, and he’s on his way. I wanted to warn you—I’ll come at once, but he’ll be there before me. It won’t be easy—try not to talk to him till I come, will you? Maybe I can—”

  “Theo, what is all this? What man? What does he want? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “He wants to talk to you about—it’s going to be pretty nasty for you, Hattie. Look, I’m on my way. Just try to wait till I come.”

  She stared at the telephone buzzing in her hand after he had hung up, puzzled and with a chill of alarm spreading in her. It wasn’t at all like Theo to sound so agitated.

  “Hey, Ma, what about breakfast?” Gordon called from the kitchen. “I’m hollow.”

  “You’d better make some toast or something,” she said absently, and pulled her dressing gown around her and went to the stairs. “And make something for George, would you? There’s some sort of panic on, and I’ve got to get dressed.”

  They both came to the kitchen door to stare at her.

  “What is it? Wasn’t that Theo on the phone?” Patty asked.

  “Yes. He sounded—apparently there’s someone coming from Brookbank to see me, and Theo seems to think he means some sort of trouble. Theo sounded very odd. Told me to try not to talk much to the man till he got here. Look, I must get dressed. Can you cope with breakfast for yourselves and George? I’ll get him up and dressed first—come up and get him for me when I call, will you, Gordon? I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  George was, inevitably, in an obstructive mood as she tried to hurry him into his clothes, muttering at her malevolently as she stripped off his soaked pajamas and began to wash him. He smelled worse than ever this morning, and her gorge rose as she soaped the thin old legs and buttocks, and then dried him. The hell of Sundays, with no Mrs. Davies to turn to. She called Gordon with relief to come and take the old man downstairs to the kitchen, and as she washed herself and dressed, she tried to think about what Theo had said.

  Clearly, he was rattled, but why? Because a man wanted to talk to her? What man? Talk about what? Her bewilderment grew.

  As she was zipping her skirt, she heard a car stop outside, and went to the window to peer out. An elderly taxi was chugging in the road, and a man in a raincoat was paying the fare. He turned and looked at the cottage, and she stepped back a little, watching him.

  He looked very ordinary, his rather thin fair hair blowing a little in the early morning wind, his narrow shoulders hunched against the cold. Then, he opened the gate and walked purposefully up the path, and she heard the bell, heard Patty’s voice, muffled, and the slightly deeper tones of the man answering her.

  She finished dressing, and was brushing her hair when Patty came in.

  “Who is it, Ma? He says his name is Ryman, and he won’t say what he wants. Just that he has to talk to you.”

  “I’ve no idea. Just that Theo said it’d be nasty, whatever he meant by that. I’ll be down in a minute. Have you had breakfast?”

  “Mmm? Oh, I did some toast, and there’s some coffee for you when you come down—Gordon’s getting dressed. Look, Ma, I think I know—oh, hell, now what?”

  There was a sound of a raised voice outside, and she opened the door to find George climbing the stairs, his head poked forward, and his eyes narrowed with rage.

  “I know what you’re doing. I know, and I won’t go, d’you hear me? I won’t, and if you d
on’t stop it, I’ll get the police to you, d’you hear me? I’ll get the police to stop you, that’s what I’ll do—” he shouted, his voice cracked and shrill and a little breathless.

  “For heaven’s sake, what’s the matter?” Harriet said as soothingly as she could. “No one’s doing anything, so do stop shouting. Have you had your breakfast? Patty—”

  “I won’t go. I’ll kill myself first, that’s what I’ll do. Then you’ll be happy, won’t you, be rid of me then, won’t you?” His face twisted a little, and he slid his eyes sideways toward Gordon, who had come out of his room, and now there was a hint of pathos in his voice. “Then you’ll all be glad, won’t you? That’s what you want, isn’t it? You’ve tried all the other things, and I was too clever for you, and now you’re going to get rid of me this way.” His voice began to rise again. “Well, I won’t go, and I won’t kill myself, not to oblige you, I won’t—”

  “No one is trying to get rid of you, Grandfather,” Patty said loudly. “Now, come downstairs and finish your breakfast, there’s a dear. No one wants to get rid of you.”

  “What the hell’s got into him?” Gordon asked.

  “It’s the man who’s come to see Ma. Grandfather seems to think he’s come for him—he hasn’t, Grandfather, truly he hasn’t. He’s just come to see Ma, that’s all. Now do come on.”

  “I know what he’s come to see her about. I know—going to put me away, going to get rid of me, that’s what she’s doing. Well, I won’t go—” But he let Patty lead him away, and she grimaced over her shoulder at Harriet as she led him down the stairs.

  “God, Ma, you’ll have to do something soon about him! Is he always as bad as this?” Gordon asked.