Someone to Watch Over Me (21 page)

It had been a difficult morning, and this was reflected in the atmosphere in the little duty room, where they were sitting dismayed and frustrated after hearing about the hospital’s latest cutback plans. In short, they meant more work and less pay at the end of the month – a deadly combination. ‘How come Bjarni in Room
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hasn’t been discharged? The x-rays show that he’s fine to go home, and we need the bed. I made that clear yesterday.’ The senior consultant was rarely happy, and always liberal with his criticism. He was due to retire soon and the recent organizational changes to the hospital and to his department had done nothing to improve his moods. ‘How could I have been misunderstood?’

Silence fell over the group as each hoped that one of the others would come up with an explanation. The senior consultant tried in vain to make eye contact with them, until a nurse finally spoke up. ‘His wife refuses to have him at home. A social worker is trying to find a solution, but until then we were told to leave him where he is.’

‘And nobody said anything? This isn’t our problem; the man is completely healthy. Healthy enough, anyway.’ Again no one said anything; the patient had barely recuperated and his wife had just undergone a hip operation herself, making it difficult for her to look after him at home. ‘We’re expecting two new admissions this afternoon; what do you recommend we do with those patients? Send them home to this man’s wife, perhaps?’

‘Bjarni still being here isn’t the problem – even if he’d gone, we could hardly put both the new patients in the same bed. Admissions have to be organized better. It doesn’t make any difference whether it’s one patient or two that end up in the corridor – it ought to be none.’ The doctor who answered was widely tipped to take over from the senior consultant when he retired. He was a quiet, unassuming man, although recently he’d done more to make his presence known.

The senior consultant didn’t look impressed. He crossed his arms, pushing his striped tie – which was noticeably too wide to be fashionable – to one side. ‘This isn’t the only thing that went wrong here yesterday. I see from the report on the paralysed girl in Room
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that she still hasn’t been seen by a therapist. May I remind you that this could provide an invaluable insight into her condition and therefore help us to diagnose her.’

‘She came yesterday.’ The nurse who said this flushed a little as she spoke, regretting having attracted the attention of her ill-tempered superior. ‘The therapist. Someone might have forgotten to record it, but she was here and she sat with the girl for at least half an hour.’

‘And? They could hardly have just been having a pleasant chat. Didn’t she tell anyone what conclusions she drew from the session? Did she simply disappear without speaking to anyone?’

The young nurse became even more embarrassed and fiddled distractedly with a pen in the breast pocket of her scrubs as she spoke. ‘She talked to me a bit on her way out. Said she was going to get in touch with us today about it.’

‘Why the delay?’ The senior consultant tightened his arms across his chest, pushing his crumpled tie to an even more ridiculous angle. ‘Doesn’t she know we’ve been waiting for this?’

‘I don’t know.’ The young woman blushed even harder and looked pleadingly out of the corner of her eye at the doctor who’d spoken up first, but to no avail. ‘She said she was going to write up her notes about what she got out of the patient and go over them. If I understood her correctly, she thought she might have misunderstood or misinterpreted what the patient was trying to say.’

‘Misunderstood? Misinterpreted?’ The sarcastic tone was completely unjustified but the senior consultant didn’t care; it felt good to have an outlet for his irritation. He’d had enough of not being able to do his job properly. The hospital’s quality controls were diminishing, but that wasn’t the staff’s fault; constant changes and lack of funding made things very difficult. ‘How is it possible to misunderstand? Have you seen the cards they use for communication? It’s not like there are many words to choose from.’

‘I don’t know exactly what she meant, but I imagine she’d be able to draw more conclusions from their conversation than we could.’ The nurse had stopped fiddling with her pen. Her mood was beginning to darken. ‘According to you she could, anyway.’

The senior consultant unfolded his arms. ‘Well, we can’t wait for this for another whole day, so I suggest you get in touch with the therapist immediately and figure something out.’ The nurse merely nodded. Inside, her anger grew, but now it was directed at her colleagues, who had kept silent and made no attempt to help her. Of course she’d often done the same, but this was the first time she’d found herself playing the role of sacrificial lamb. She hoped she had enough integrity to learn from this and come to others’ aid next time instead of keeping quiet. However, she knew deep down that she probably wouldn’t.

After the meeting, alone at the duty station, she reached for the hospital phone directory. Just as she had given up all hope of the therapist answering, she heard a breathless voice on the other end of the line.

‘Hi, sorry, I haven’t forgotten you – I was called unexpectedly to the children’s hospital and I’ve only just got back. I still have to go through my notes one more time, but I should be able to come over in half an hour or so.’

‘That would be great. We’re keen to know whether she has any complaints about anything, or if she’s in pain. We’re having a hard time determining the root cause of the symptoms she’s displaying.’

‘Oh, I doubt I’ll be able to help you with that. I actually need to ask her a few more questions; yesterday she didn’t want to say anything about how she felt physically. But it won’t hurt to try again.’

‘Really? What
did
she say, then?’ The nurse wanted to know as much as possible in case she ended up being questioned again.

‘If I understood her correctly, she’s unhappy – or frightened, to be more accurate. But I wasn’t able to clearly determine what of. That’s why I’m going to try and communicate with her again today. It’s an extremely primitive means of communication, although she’s much better equipped for it than many others are, since she’s literate and she can spell what she wants to say. It just takes an awfully long time, and on top of that it’s very easy to end up in the wrong square. She was tired and impatient, so it didn’t go very well. Hopefully it’ll be better when I see her today.’

‘What can she be afraid of? Us?’

‘I’m not sure. She spelled “oxygen” again and again when I asked, but I have no idea what she meant. Maybe she’s having trouble breathing, although I didn’t notice any signs of that. She also spelled the word “man” more than once, and “bad man” when I asked her to explain it better. I have no idea who she means, and by the time we reached that point I couldn’t get her to continue. Plus, there are other things I don’t quite understand, but I need a little more time to go over them and try to sort out the context.’

‘Can you go into any detail?’

‘I think the less I say right now, the safer we are. Let me just go over it a bit and speak to you properly after I meet up with her again. Maybe it’s all just nonsense – a bad dream she had, or some kind of delusion, but I still feel it’s worth checking to see whether I can get to the bottom of it, if possible. Her heart rate went through the roof when she mentioned this man, so it may be that her fear is causing symptoms that are confusing you guys.’

‘I see.’ The nurse tried to think of anything else she’d wanted to ask, but nothing came to mind. ‘See you later, then. My name’s Svava, I’ll be here until four.’ They said goodbye, and the nurse stared at her phone for a few moments before standing up. Maybe she should start by looking in on the poor girl; apparently she enjoyed listening to the radio, so maybe that would relax her and lessen her fear. Mind you, the girl’s heart rate had actually increased when she stuck the ear phone in her ear the other day, and for a second Svava wondered whether it was the country’s financial crisis, which was all they ever discussed on the radio now, that was scaring her. No, it couldn’t be. It must have been a coincidence.

Each storey would have housed a family of three quite comfortably. The house was so overwhelming that it was actually difficult to appreciate its architecture; its overall appearance made it look as if the blueprints had been done to the wrong scale and the building was now a distended version of the original idea. It was the same story with the next house. They were all crowded together, and none had windows at the sides because of the proximity of their neighbours. Either the residents were well off or they’d received a good discount from the builders’ merchants. Thóra had had considerable trouble navigating them to the northern part of the suburb of Grafarvogur, where she never normally had any need to go. Most of the driveways leading up to these enormous homes were empty of any cars, since maintaining these palaces required two breadwinners, but there were snowmobile trailers in many of the driveways, and the odd camper trailer here and there, covered with a tarpaulin. Einvarður and Fanndís’s driveway contained no trailers, however, and Matthew pulled up next to a newish family car that made it clear that the owner wasn’t rolling in money, but didn’t want it to look as if that were the case.

On a copper plate beneath the doorbell were the names of all the members of the family – Tryggvi included. She saw Matthew raise his eyebrows when he saw the son’s name, but he said nothing; his only experience with children was with Thóra’s son and daughter and her grandson, and he seemed to realize his limitations when it came to understanding parents. He rang the bell and after a few moments Fanndís opened the door. She was just as elegant as in the photograph at her husband’s office, although she’d aged since it was taken. Tiny wrinkles stretched from the corners of her eyes to her temples and a vertical lines lay at either side of her mouth. Otherwise her face was smooth and healthy-looking. The woman extended a slender hand adorned with rings and smiled warmly as they introduced themselves. The clothes she was wearing were not the kind that Thóra would have chosen if she worked at home; it looked as though Fanndís was going out to lunch at the golf club. But maybe she’d simply dressed up especially for her guests, and if that were the case, Thóra regretted having dressed according to the weather that morning.

They followed the woman through the beautiful foyer and into a large but tasteful living room that felt cosy despite its size. A small number of attractive paintings hung on the walls and family photos stood on shelves and on nests of tables. In all the photos showing the family dressed in their Sunday best, the daughter wore a long dress that looked Spanish to Thóra. ‘Your daughter’s clearly a strong character,’ she said, pointing at the same photo that Einvarður had shown them in his office. ‘Sometimes I think young people all dress alike, but that’s not the case with her, I see.’

Fanndís stopped and looked at the picture. She blushed slightly and rubbed her ear. ‘Yes. Lena has good taste and she always wants to look nice.’ She smiled sadly and looked away from the photo. ‘That was the last time we saw Tryggvi alive. My husband and I were on our way to the ministry’s annual ball, which was held in Selfoss, and we gave Lena permission to invite her friends to a party. I can’t begin to describe how we felt on the way home, knowing what had happened. I will never go to that ball again; I’m afraid it would stir up too many painful memories.’ She cleared her throat and let go of her ear, which was now slightly red. ‘But you don’t want to hear about that. I was brewing some coffee; it’ll be ready in a moment.’ Fanndís waited until Thóra and Matthew had taken a seat before she sat down herself. ‘Are you hungry, maybe? I can get you something to have with your coffee, if you haven’t eaten yet.’

‘No, thanks.’ Thóra was sure she was declining something delicious but the bacon was like a lead weight in her stomach and there was no way she could eat another bite. Matthew followed her lead and declined, although no doubt he could easily have eaten more.

They chatted for a few moments about the weather, then Iceland’s financial situation, but Fanndís’s comments about the situation seemed practised and carefully neutral. Thóra was impressed – she still had no idea of the woman’s real opinions by the time Fanndís decided to turn the conversation to her guests’ business. ‘I understand from Einvarður that you’re investigating the fire at the community residence. I don’t know how I can help you, but I’ll try my best.’

‘Thank you. Your husband was very generous to us and I should start by thanking you for agreeing to meet us. I understand that it’s painful to have to relive this tragic event, and the last thing we want is to cause you any distress. We’d just like your opinion on what went on at the home, in case you know something that doesn’t appear in the files.’

Fanndís pursed her lips before she spoke, but gave no other sign that she was uncomfortable with the topic. No doubt she disliked discussing private matters with strangers. ‘I don’t know what I can add to what I’ve already said. I was often at the centre and I didn’t notice anything other than that the staff did a badly paid job diligently and selflessly. I don’t really see the point in putting all my memories under a microscope in the hope of spotting some minor shortcoming.’

‘That’s not what I’m suggesting.’ It was going to be much harder to discuss things with this woman than it had been with her husband. Fanndís had immediately put up a wall, and they were unlikely to break through it without changing tactics. Getting straight to the point obviously wasn’t the way to go. ‘Your husband showed me a photo of your son this morning. He was an incredibly beautiful young man.’

‘Yes, he was.’ Fanndís glanced out of the corner of her eye at the family photograph nearest her. ‘As a newborn he really stood out from the other babies in the maternity ward. He had so much hair and he was so striking.’

‘It must have been a shock when you discovered he was autistic?’