Seven Dials Read online

  ‘Of course I can!’ he said, almost indignant. ‘Knows ’em all like the back of my hand, I do. Treated most of ’em in the bath unit, haven’t I? Course I can tell you -’

  And tell her he had, walking between the beds, introducing her to man after man, and she had somehow pinned a smile on her face and kept it there, not knowing how she did it. Because with all her experience of the disagreeable sights that parade each day in every hospital - and she had her fair share of them - she had never seen anything like this.

  Young men, all of them, some very young - there were boys of little more than twenty or so, as well as more settled ones in their thirties, but generally youthful - they sat there and showed her faces so appallingly damaged that it was all she could do not to show her horror. Faces twisted with fire, with eyelids vanished and lips lifted in perpetual snarls and skins that looked like scratched and torn fabric that had about as much similarity to normal human skin as the tough boarded wooden floor on which she was walking.

  And it wasn’t only that; there were men in the process of having special pedicle grafts made. She could remember reading articles in her Lancet and in other medical journals of the technique; or the way in which flaps of skin and soft tissue were raised from bellies to be sewn to chests and then, once the new circulation had established itself, as it usually eventually did, were severed from their original site and lifted to be sewn on to an upper arm. And then when the slow development of a new blood supply there was complete, lifted once again to be attached to areas of the face which had been burned away.

  So, there were men here with their arms raised in what seemed like absurd perpetual salutes, the weight of their limbs held in plaster cradles that stuck out at awkward angles yet which allowed the lumps of flesh attached to their faces to make an incongruous bridge between upper arms and cheeks. There were men for whom the pedicle end attached to the upper arm had been severed, so that the arm could be left to heal, leaving the pedicle dangling from the face like some obscene sausage, waiting to be removed in the operating theatres and tidied up once it was clear that a good union had formed. There were men with pedicles that had been grafted to noses which were still at the stage where the pedicle hung down like a human elephant’s trunk. There were men who were without noses at all, with just gaping holes where they had been, and men with no lower jaws, and tubes emerging, snakelike and hideous, from the vast gaping spaces which were their mouths. There were men in bandages, so all-enveloping that they looked like mummies, and men who stared from perpetually open watering lidless red eyes at the world which had treated them so appallingly.

  It smelled odd too, this ward. There was the usual scent of lysol and carbolic and ether but something more besides, a strange kitcheny sort of smell, and she realized after a while it was the scent of burned flesh; and still there was something more besides. Flowers, of course, and - she thought, trying to concentrate on the messages from her nose in an effort to keep her pity for these desperately damaged young men from boiling over into tears - and something else. And suddenly she was a child again, out at Tiger Point at home, smelling the sea. Salt water. A disconcerting smell to find so strongly represented in the cocktail of odours that was the Ward Three atmosphere of Queen Victoria Hospital at East Grinstead in the middle of green Sussex.

  And all the while as she and Davey walked along the long room he talked. He told her of how the men had suffered their injuries, and he told their stories in simple direct language that was more chilling than the most hyperbolic descriptions could have been.

  ‘Flying a Hurricane, this chap was. Over the Thames estuary. Got hit by a Messerschmitt 109, baled out, but before he could get out of the cockpit, petrol tank went. Blew up, like, ate him up with fire. He’d taken off his goggles, ‘cos he couldn’t see proper with ’em - lots of the boys did that - and his gloves, so’s he could hold the controls better, ’cos the gloves got in the way, so there wasn’t much of what you might call protection. He says he could see his own flesh floating away from him when he was in the water waiting to be picked up. And the place they took him - usual sort of army hospital, you know, all done by the bleedin’ book, shoved on tons of bloody tannic acid. Turned him into a right tortoise, that did. The Boss has been trying to clean him up ever since. Five years it’s been and he’s still in and out of here like the bishop’s in and out of the actress. Sorry miss, didn’t mean to be rude, but all the chaps talks easy here. You know how it is.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, and was proud of the steadiness of her voice. ‘No need to apologize.’

  ‘And this chap here - he got burned up inside his plane on the way down. Got out in his para eventually, and just as well he was in it. I mean, he was burned everywhere except where his harness covered him. Legs, arms, belly and all, skinned like a bloody rabbit. But his necessaries were all right, on account of the fit of the harness. When we got him here he was in a right state. They’d wrapped him in dressings at the first aid unit and they’d gone septic. He stank - my Gawd how he stank! We used to soak him for hours on end. The only way he felt good that was, having his bandages floated off. He’s been coming back for surgery for - oh, I forget how long. He’s had about thirty-five operations now. Not the record but it’s a respectable total.’

  ‘Soaked him?’ Charlie said, as much for something to talk about as for any real need to know.

  ‘That’s right. The saline baths. We pioneered that treatment here. Soak the chaps in running salt water we do. Hose ‘em down - they love it -’

  Which explains the smell of the sea, Charlie told herself as at last the circular tour ended and they were back at the door of the ward. ‘Thank you, Davey, for showing me round,’ she said. ‘I appreciate it.’

  ‘My pleasure, Miss Lucas. Hope you like it when you start work here properly like.’

  ‘What - I beg your pardon?’ She looked at him, her face blank and he gazed back, his smile fading.

  ‘Sorry, I’m sure, if I got it wrong, but I thought that must be why you was doing the round? Applying for the job, like. We’ve got a vacancy for a houseman, you see, and I thought - especially as it’s the Boss’s idea that we ought to have the best-looking women round the ward. It’s the least we can do for the lads, he says, and the nurses are handpicked for their legs and their - well, anyway, I thought, you see, that you must be up for the job -’

  ‘Me, work here?’ she said slowly and her eyes glazed as she grappled with the idea. ‘As a surgeon?’

  ‘There’s plenty of work to be done, that’s for sure,’ Davey said feelingly. ‘What with those chaps you’ve seen and the ones who keep coming back for follow-up. It’s not as bad as it was, of course, when the War was on. We were getting so many new patients in them days we didn’t know whether we were on this earth or Fuller’s. But, the War over or not, we’re still overworked as you can see. We’ve more beds in this ward than we’ve any right to have, but what can you do with so many chaps needing more surgery?’

  ‘Yes,’ she had said, her voice as flat as she could make it. ‘Yes, I can see the problems. I’ll have to think about it. Thank you, Davey -’

  And she had gone back to the station, walking all the way because she needed the air, needed to rid her nostrils of that heavy smell that seemed now to pervade her whole being, and to think. And she was still thinking all through the journey and after she had arrived at Victoria, and found a late bus to take her back to Nellie’s and her small room in the medical quarters.

  It was clear to her now, as obviously McIndoe had meant it to be, that there was no way she could demand that he take Brin as a patient. His disfigurement dwindled to a minor blemish, no more, when compared with the sort of injuries she had seen this afternoon. But if those patients were treatable, it surely meant that Brin was too? Perhaps if she applied for that job that Davey had spoken of and managed to get it - and how many applications could there be for work so desperately uncongenial? - maybe she could learn enough to help Brin herself? It might sound like a mad
scheme when he had been so adamant that he wanted only the great Archie McIndoe himself to operate on him, but perhaps he would accept her care, if she had been directly trained by the great man?

  It was that thought that kept her awake till the small hours, and that made her dream restlessly for the remainder of the night. The possibility that she could herself give Brin the one thing he most wanted. A new face.

  9

  ‘Now, Letty, my dear girl, what shall it be? I still have some pretty good port left - never thought it’d last the War, but there it is, several bottles still skulking down there in the dark, and as drinkable a tipple as you’ve had any time this past ten years. Or would you prefer some Madeira? Got some of that too!’

  And the Old Man is as jovial as he has been any time this past ten years, Max thought, watching him, and he caught Lee’s glance as she, sitting on the Old Man’s far side, saw him smiling at his father and he nodded at her, acknowledging her awareness of his thought and happy to share it with her. She too was watching Sir Lewis approvingly, glad to see him so happy.

  He’s almost too happy, she thought then as he leaned back in his chair at the head of his dinner table, at last leaving it to Victor to pour the precious Madeira which Letty had accepted. His eyes were glittering very brightly and there were smudges of hot colour high on his papery old cheeks as he looked round at them all, and it worried her. He shouldn’t be so elated, not at his age.

  Around her the old room glowed in the lamplight. Sir Lewis liked to use oil lamps to illuminate his dining-room on the rare occasions when he used it for guests, just as his beloved Miriam had so many years ago when they had first come to live in this big old house, and the faint smell of paraffin oil which pervaded the air merged with the smell of mutton and cabbage which had been the best dinner Jenny had been able to muster for them. But it wasn’t a disagreeable smell. It hung over them like a gentle mist, sending them all back in time, distancing them from the harsh austerity of these difficult post-war years, and that, Lee thought, was no bad thing.

  ‘I do wish Harry had been able to be here, Sir Lewis,’ she said impulsively. ‘It was so good of you to ask us, and I know he wanted to. But he had a case, and he just had to - well, you know how it is.’ Liar, she was thinking. He had no case, he just didn’t want to come here to dinner, and had said as much. God knows where he is tonight. Better I don’t either, I suppose.

  ‘If I don’t understand, who does?’ Sir Lewis said. ‘One of his private patients, I take it?’

  ‘I really don’t know.’ Lee was startled. ‘I didn’t ask -’

  ‘It can’t be one of Nellie’s,’ the Old Man said. ‘I still get a list of all the day’s work at Nellie’s sent up every evening, you know, and they include the emergency admissions on it. There were no emergencies in Harry’s wards tonight, so it must be a private patient. Probably gone to one of the clinics, I suppose. Ah, well, must make a living, mustn’t we? Yes?’

  And he looked at her sharply and becked his head and then looked back at Letty, and his eyes softened as he did so. His gratitude to her was so powerful that it almost exuded from him like a medium’s ectoplasm, visible and palpable.

  ‘It’s good news about what you’re doing to help old Nellie’s make a living, Letty. It’s much appreciated, and never you think otherwise. Why, without your efforts I can’t imagine how we’d -’

  ‘Come off it, Lewis,’ Letty said rudely, but she was smiling and there was no rancour in her voice. ‘You don’t have to flannel me. There’d be some way of getting the cash you need, I dare say, even if I didn’t do this Benefit. Anyway, it’s not just for Nellie’s that I’m doing it.’

  ‘I know,’ Sir Lewis said. ‘But it’s easier to say thank you for the plate than for the pudding on it. If you see what I mean.’

  ‘I see what you mean. And you don’t have to say thank you for either. I do what I do because I want to. And by God, I don’t want to see a good chap like Peter going down the pan for want of a bit of effort. Silly devil!’ And she glowered into her glass at its dark amber depths and scowled. But none of them were deceived for a moment; she was embarrassed and they all knew it.

  ‘He won’t now,’ Sir Lewis said with great satisfaction. ‘Not now he’s got a job of work to do, and you to make sure he does it. It’s what he’s needed this past year, and I can’t tell you how - well, let be. But all the feeling’s there. Now, Max, m’boy, where is he? Hey? Been gone long enough now, surely?’

  ‘My dear father, I don’t time people when they go to lavatories!’ Max said with mock severity. ‘He’ll be back in a moment, I dare say! Stop fussing!’ But he was a little anxious too. Peter was so unpredictable that being anxious about him had become second nature for all of them, and still was, in spite of the change in him that there had been over the past couple of weeks. It was now almost ten minutes since he had excused himself from the table with a murmur and left the room, and Max too had been watching the door for him.

  Almost as though he had been waiting in the wings for his cue the door opened and Peter came in after a perceptible pause; it was as though he had stood quietly on the far side of it for a moment to recruit his courage to come in, and when he did Max again felt the stab of pain and pity that Peter always drew from him now. He had at least dressed, putting on one of his pre-war dinner jackets, and he had brushed his hair so that it looked neat, despite its length, instead of hanging lankly over his forehead. His face looked even thinner over the blinding whiteness of his shirt and Max got to his feet and said easily, ‘Let me get you some Madeira, Peter, old man. Rather good it is. Letty’s guzzling it as though there’s no tomorrow, so take it while the getting’s good.’

  ‘Damned liar,’ Letty said equably, and pushed her chair back from the table and made an inviting gesture towards Peter. ‘Come over here, Peter, and talk to me. Ignore these others. We have to talk -’ And after a moment Peter obeyed, moving a little stiffly, as though he were out of practice.

  As soon as he sat down Letty leaned towards him and began to talk animatedly about the Benefit. They would need a framework, she said to Peter as he sat there and watched her face, seeming to listen to her, some sort of chain on which they could, as it were, hang the many acts she thought of asking to take part. Had he any ideas? She herself had wondered about a pantomime structure with good fairies and bad fairies - or had he a better idea?

  The others watched them both, while pretending to be immersed in their own desultory conversation about the weather, about the news in the day’s papers, about the latest political decision, but all three of them were far more interested in Peter’s and Letty’s discussion than their own, and after a while stopped even pretending to talk; they just sat and listened and thought their own thoughts as they watched the two heads close together in the lamplight. Letty’s square grey bob and Peter’s lacklustre mousy hair clinging to his skull as if to a child’s, and yet making him look so very old -

  She can do it if anyone can, Lee was thinking. Already the difference between the Peter they had talked to here, a couple of weeks ago, and the Peter who was sitting having dinner with them was a marked one. He looked cleaner, for a start, and in spite of his silence and his stiffness the blankness had gone from him. She had been actually frightened of him that afternoon when she and Letty had come to talk to him; frightened of his remoteness and of the odd look in his eyes. Now he looked only tired and ill and that was far from frightening. That just made her feel protective and caring towards him. She wanted to take him in her arms the way she did the children when they were tired and tearful, and rock him till he slept and then tuck him into bed, safe and warm, to wake the next day feeling himself again, feeling like the old dear Peter she had travelled with all those years ago -

  Max too was feeling happier about his brother. What alchemy it was that Letty had he didn’t know, but there it was. She had succeeded where he and his father and everyone else who had tried to prise Peter out of his bewildered misery had failed, and his gratitu
de, like his father’s, ran deep. And then, as at last Letty leaned back, seeming well satisfied with their talk, he got to his feet.

  ‘Far be it from me to be the one to spoil the fun, but I’m sending you to bed, Father. No, don’t glare at me like that. You’re tired and you’re a fool if you deny it.’

  The old man grunted but looked glad enough to do as he was bidden.

  ‘And Lee, my dear, as soon as I’ve handed Pa over to Victor - if I can dislodge him from the kitchen and Jenny’s no doubt lascivious attentions - I’ll see you home and -’

  ‘No need, Max,’ Lee said, and smiled at him, as grateful as Sir Lewis for the chance to go to bed. It was getting late and she’d been occupied with the children all day, for it was Stella’s birthday and that had meant a party, and she wanted her sleep. And wanted, too, to see if Harry was home yet. ‘I’ve a little petrol, so I cheated tonight - brought the car. It’s simply not worth the misery of trying to get taxis these days. Shall I give you a lift home, Letty?’

  Letty shook her head. ‘No, thanks, my dear. It’s not that far to walk, and I enjoy the exercise. I can do it in half an hour or so -’

  ‘Heavens!’ Lee said lightly. ‘The energy! My feet would never forgive me if I demanded such a trek of them. Still, if you’re sure -’

  ‘I’m sure,’ Letty said firmly and then as Peter spoke went a little pink with pleasure.

  ‘I’ll walk with you,’ he said. ‘I need some exercise too. I’ll walk back, too -’

  ‘Oh, no, Peter.’ Sir Lewis sounded alarmed. ‘It’s much too far for you! You haven’t been a bit well and you’re as thin as a -’

  ‘Pa, shut up,’ Max said firmly. ‘Peter, you walk. It’s an excellent idea. I’ll see you upstairs with Victor, Pa, and then I’m going. Goodnight, all of you. It’s been delightful -’ And moving purposefully, he removed his father from the room and Lee followed them too, stopping to linger for a moment at the door.