Second Opinion (11 page)

‘Eh?’ George, still annoyed and wanting an answer to the
question why she’d been brought to the ward to do a job one of the nurses could have handled perfectly well, let alone one of the medical staff, was startled. ‘How old? I don’t know. Isn’t it on the notes?’

Prudence shook her head. ‘No, that’s not what I mean! I mean, looking at him, how old would you say he is?’

George looked at the child and then at the doctor, a woman around her own age, red-headed and a little untidy, but clearly good at her job. She’d never have lasted as Susan Kydd’s registrar if she weren’t Susan was a famous martinet, and had sent any number of young doctors away in a state almost of gibbering fear. Yet here she was, asking such a banal question.

Prudence apparently followed George’s train of thought, and gave her a wintry smile. ‘Indulge me,’ she said, ‘then I’ll explain.’

George shrugged and looked at the child. He was a small-framed infant, she thought, too thin for a baby, and with the deep-set eyes of fever set in large sockets. He had the shrunken look of dehydration also, and she said as much.

‘No, it’s not that At least, not entirely. He hasn’t been vomiting or purging,’ Prudence said, reaching over into the cot and pulling back the child’s cover and clothes. The belly was round and clearly tense and she set one finger on it and pressed gently. The baby’s face puckered and he began to cry thinly. Prudence made an odd little hissing sound through her teeth and covered him up. The baby seemed to find the sound soothing. He stopped crying and closed his eyes.

‘Go on,’ she said. ‘How old?’

‘I’m no expert in these things,’ George said and bit her lip, trying to remember the little time she’d spent in paediatrics. She knew well enough what dead children looked like at various ages; then she had the evidence of epiphyseal development to tell her, and the state of the sutures of the
skull. Babies with wide-open soft spots at front and rear of their heads were still very young.

She reached to touch the baby’s head but Prudence shook her head and held her hand back. ‘Just use your eyes,’ she said. ‘Please.’

George threw a glance at her and then shrugged again. ‘Oh, well, all right,’ she said irritably. ‘Under a year, ten months maybe. And not at all well.’

‘Try eighteen months,’ Prudence said. She shook her head. ‘I’ve checked the skull sutures, measured the bones and checked the dimensions. If this boy is any younger than eighteen months then I’m a chimpanzee. Yet the mother says he’s
eight
months old! It makes no sense to me.’

George had forgotten her irritation now and was fascinated. ‘That is weird!’

‘You could call it that. I’m wondering …’ She shook her head. ‘There’s no family history, though the mother swears he was breast fed till a few weeks ago, and if she was positive it would account for it — well, I was wondering about HIV. If she’s positive and he’s been breast fed by her, couldn’t he have AIDS? He looks ill enough.’

‘I suppose it’s possible,’ George said slowly. ‘What history do the parents give?’

‘A shaky one. Makes no sense to me. Born abroad, they say, no problems at birth. No suggestion of any premature closure of skull sutures. I asked them. Just a normal birth, they said. Anyway, they left him here, but only under protest. I said I’d have to do some tests and they could come back later — for two pins I thought she’d just walk out with him. But her husband persuaded her to leave him till the tests were done, so can you get on with them? You can see why I didn’t want anyone else taking the blood. I’d have to say what the tests were on the specimen-bottle labels and the way people gossip round here, we’d have a major panic on our hands in no time. AIDS baby in Old East — can’t you just see the headlines?’

‘Yes,’ George said and went across the cubicle to wash her hands in the corner basin, ‘I take your point. OK, you hold him for me, will you? Not that I expect the poor little devil to fight much. He looks too sick.’

‘Doesn’t he just,’ Prudence murmured, picking up the child who protested only weakly and, with expert fingers, holding him positioned for George’s syringe.

They worked in silence though the baby whimpered from time to time, and again Prudence made that odd little sound that seemed to comfort him. When she’d finished George straightened her back and carefully marked the bottles and slipped them into her white coat pocket. ‘We’d better clean the gear ourselves,’ she said. ‘Just in case.’

Prudence nodded. ‘You can leave that to me. I’ll be very careful. Urn — you’ll send the report to me as soon as possible? I’d like to sort it out before, well, before I go off duty tonight’

George shook her head. ‘No can do. Some of the HIV work takes rather longer to do. A couple of days or so.’

‘Not all of it, though?’

‘No, not all of it. I can give you some answers tonight’ She was suddenly aware of what it was that was making Prudence so edgy, and she laughed. ‘I’ve just realized. You want an answer before Miss Kydd gets back. Where is she?’

Prudence grimaced. ‘Lecturing somewhere. She’ll be here tomorrow maybe, the day after for certain. And I have to say — well — yes. You know how she can sneer at you if you get it wrong. I may be way out on this, so I don’t want to let Susan know that. If I’m right, of course, it’ll be different.’

‘She’ll pat your little head and you’ll grow, grow, grow, blossom,’ George said as she made for the door and Prudence laughed.

‘Something like that. Thanks for your help, Dr Barnabas.’

‘Call me George, for God’s sake,’ George said and went, hurrying past the nurse sitting at her desk, so that she couldn’t ask any awkward questions, though she was clearly
poised to do so, and getting back to her lab as fast as she could. It would, as she had told Prudence, take some days before all the results could be collated, but the sooner she started the better.

By the time she’d done the preliminary work and then sorted out the things she should have done that morning, it was well past seven-thirty. She stretched and reached for the phone. Her mother and Bridget must be bored out of their skulls waiting for her, she thought guiltily, dialling her own number. But it rang and rang interminably before she hung up, a thin line between her brows. Where on earth could they be? She’d have to hurry home to see what was happening, and she pulled on her coat and left, painfully aware, yet again, of how complicated it was to have the two of them as house guests. ‘Oh, God,’ she said to the yellowish glow in the night sky over the river. ‘Hurry on January. The sooner Christmas is over and done with and I’m on my own again, the better.’

8
  
  

They were out when she got home, having left a note in Bridget’s familiar back-sloping handwriting. ‘Back soon, honey, just wanted to check on the neighbourhood. Hope you had a good day. We slept like babies, feel much better. B.’

That gave her time to make sure the flat was shining clean, and when she looked about at the bright scatter rugs against the crimson carpet and the vivid cushions on the new leather studio couch, on which she herself was having to sleep while they were with her, and the flames from the pretend-log gas fire she had indulged in, trying to see it through their eyes, she was content enough. It was, after all, only a flat in a crowded city — far more crowded than any they had lived in, and that being so, she had no need to feel ashamed. By the time they came back, pink about the nose and ears from the chill, she had supper ready; a rich daube of beef and plenty of vegetables; it was easy to do and had enough red wine in it to make it taste more effortful than it had been, and would, she thought, impress them both.

It didn’t They ate little, professing it to be delicious, but too much for their capricious appetites, and she put the remainder in a plastic pot and wondered gloomily whether to dump it now or clutter up the fridge for a week and then put it in the garbage. Again guilt gave way to irritation. Oh,
hell, she thought, as she made coffee, this is going to be some lousy Christmas.

They watched TV for a while, both of the old women clearly entranced by the BBC, and George preened a little in the reflected glory; it was as though she personally had contributed to the quality of TV here in her adopted country. Bridget looked at her sideways and laughed.

‘Being half Brit suits you,’ she said. ‘You even talk like them now, but it sounds cute.’

‘Cute?’ George was aghast. ‘Me, cute? Heaven forbid! And everyone here knows at once I’m an American. I don’t speak at all like they do here.’

‘You surely do,’ Bridget said. She yawned and stretched. ‘May I take a while in the bathroom, honey? I like a long slow tub, you know? But I don’t want to hog it.’

‘No problem,’ George said uneasily, glancing at her mother. ‘OK with you, Ma?’

‘Fine,’ her mother said equably. Bridget winked at George in a meaningful manner and went off to lock herself and a remarkable array of creams, powders, soaps and lotions into the bathroom, leaving the two of them to sit in silence as the TV murmured on.

George stirred after a while and said carefully, ‘Ma?’

Her mother looked at her with a smile. ‘Yes, honey?’

‘Are you enjoying this programme?’

‘I guess so,’ Vanny said and glanced back at the screen. ‘It seems very interesting.’

‘What is it you like about it?’ George said, watching her. There was no sense in ducking the issue any longer, Bridget knew that. That was why she’d gone off to hide in the bathroom. She’d brought Vanny here for a purpose, to show her daughter — to show her what? George had no idea: or tried to pretend to herself that she hadn’t …

Vanny looked at her tranquilly. ‘Why, I’m not quite sure,’ she said. ‘You know how it is. You watch these plays and
you can never be certain till they’re finished whether you liked them or not.’

George frowned. It wasn’t a play that was showing. It was a fairly commonplace Channel Four documentary of somewhat dour aspect about the history of women, with several of them talking about their past lives which had clearly been far from joyous. Did her mother really think she was watching a play, or was she just not paying attention to the screen? She must still be tired after all, despite the sleep she’d had during the day. Jet lag did strange things to people.

‘If you’re not all that interested, we could turn it off and just talk,’ George said and again Vanny produced that sweet peaceable smile.

‘If you like.’ She watched as George reached for the remote control and switched off. The room slipped into a silence broken only by the faint hiss of the gas flames leaping so prettily in the grate, and the distant sounds of traffic beyond the curtained windows.

‘How’s Uncle Nat, Ma?’ she said after a short silence, and her mother looked puzzled for a moment.

‘Uncle Nat,’ she said in a ruminative fashion. ‘Oh, yes, Uncle Nat,’ and smiled.

The silence stretched, and George said again, ‘How is he, Ma?’

‘Who, George?’

‘Uncle Nat’

‘Oh, my, yes, Uncle Nat.’ Vanny looked thoughtful. ‘Is he here?’

George began to feel cold. ‘No, darling, of course not. This is London. How could Uncle Nat be here in London?’

‘He lives in Boston,’ Vanny said with, once more, the ineffable smile.

This time George was suddenly angry. It was so inane a look and she leaned forwards and snapped at her mother:
‘Ma, what is it with you? Of course he lives in Boston. He aways has!’

‘That’s right,’ Vanny agreed. ‘He always has. He’s getting old, I guess. Me too. I’m almost seventy, George, isn’t that awful? Almost seventy. I feel seventeen inside, of course. Still, I’m not so bad as Nat. He’ll be seventy-seven soon.’ She laughed and this time it was like the old days, when Vanny would shoot out spiteful little barbs about her stuffy brother-in-law and make everyone laugh.

George relaxed a little. It was just jet lag, she told herself. That’s all. Or is it? Could it be more? She could bear the uncertainty no longer and decided to go in bald-headed.

‘Ma, Bridget wrote me that you weren’t entirely well. Said she was worried about you. What was she talking about? She didn’t say.’

Her mother was silent, staring at the flames, and then stirred and looked at George with a wide limpid gaze. ‘Oh, she’s just fussing. You know Bridget. Carries on like the world’s going to end on account of there’s a fly in the buttermilk.’

‘No, she doesn’t,’ George said. She leaned over and set her hand on her mother’s. It felt dry and cool, and she stroked it gently. ‘One of the things you like about Bridget is that she doesn’t fuss. You couldn’t have been friends for so long if she did.’

Vanny lifted her chin and glanced at George briefly and then away. And shrugged. ‘Well, I can’t say.’ Now she sounded a little sulky.

‘I think you can,’ George said, her anxiety fierce once more. ‘What is it, Ma? Are you having symptoms you haven’t told me about? Are you sick in some way?’

Vanny laughed, a sound that rippled with pleasure, and pulled her hand away from George’s so that she could clap. ‘Hey, hey, get my daughter the doctor!’ she crowed. ‘Ain’t she somethin’?’

George reddened and protested and then laughed too.
‘Oh, to hell with it, Ma. I’m not playing doctors with you! This is George, you’re Ma, and I want to know why it is that Bridget’s getting herself all fired up over you. She is, you know. You’d better tell me. I’ll not leave you in peace till you do.’