A Whisper to the Living (28 page)

‘She knifed me! You’ve seen my arm,’ mumbled the cowering figure on the bed.

‘Yes, but she didn’t do a good enough job, did she? She should have stuck you through your filthy black heart – vermin like you should be put down. I’ll be back tomorrow to give you an injection and if you’re very lucky, I may leave out the strychnine. And don’t forget, Higson, you sustained your injuries in the loft while looking for a suitable location for a television aerial. That lie is for Anne’s sake, not yours. Understand?’

Higson nodded, then groaned as he rolled to face the wall.

The doctor turned on his heel and left the room, a cold sweat breaking out on his brow. He felt as if he had been in the presence of something truly unnatural, something evil almost. Before going downstairs, he ran as quickly and as quietly as he could up to Anne’s bedroom, picked up the bloody knife and shut it in his bag. He shivered as he passed Higson’s closed door on his way back to the ground floor. Nancy met him on the bottom step. ‘Is he alright, Doctor?’

‘He’ll survive. Give him rest and plenty of fluid.’

Annie had not moved from her seat by the fire. He walked over to her. ‘Remember – he did it in the loft, Anne. Fell over, cut himself, then came into your room for help.’

‘Thank you, Doctor. I owe you a lot.’

‘Yes, you do. And to pay me back, you will come to see me tomorrow. We have to make certain legal arrangements – take out an insurance if you like, to make sure that this never happens again.’

‘My mother won’t know?’

‘No. No, she won’t.’

He gave her a sleeping draught then stayed with her until she slipped into unconsciousness on the sofa. Gently, he brushed the hair from her face and sighed as he noticed dark shadows under her eyes.

On his way out, he stopped at the bottom of the stairs and called, ‘Nancy? Fetch a blanket, will you? She’s on the couch and I shouldn’t move her if I were you – just let her sleep it off.’

He picked up his bag and left the house, noticing for the first time that he was still wearing carpet slippers. Oh dear, whatever would Edna say about that, he wondered irrelevantly as he entered his house. Suddenly exhausted, he leaned against the front door feeling as if he had aged ten years in this one night. He shook his head wearily. Had he done the right thing?

He sat up well into the night, his mind in turmoil. By two o’clock in the morning he had reached no conclusion. But he knew, as he had always known, that right and wrong were hard to define, sometimes impossible to separate. The child would be protected and that was all that mattered.

On a cold February afternoon in 1956, Nancy Higson sat in the doctor’s waiting room, hands clasped tightly on her lap. The last few months had been hard and no mistake, what with Eddie coming off work for a while over his arm and Annie mithering off and on to leave school and get a job to help out. Now this. She let out a deep shuddering sigh. It couldn’t be true, dear God no, not lung cancer. She’d watched her Dad die of that a couple of years back and it wasn’t an easy death, not by a long chalk. And it had started the same way too, with a bad cough and then, later on, the spitting of blood into handkerchiefs and towels. Her fingers began to tremble again and she gripped her hands together more tightly until knuckles showed white through work-worn flesh. If only the doctor would hurry up. She had to get it over with now, while Annie was at school, she didn’t want Annie worrying over illness in the house, not with her exams coming up this year.

Anyroad, it might not be cancer. Surely you could spit up a bit of blood without it being cancer? She tried to look on the bright side, but no, it had been going on for too long – it must be something serious.

The bell rang for her to go through and for a moment she remained riveted to the spot. This might be her last minute of near-sanity. If it was cancer or something like that, she felt she’d go straight out of her mind, they’d have to lock her up in a loony ward.

She dragged herself to her feet and knocked timidly on the surgery door before entering.

‘Hello, Nancy – how are you?’ Christ, he was so bloody cheerful she could have hit him. She sank into the chair at the side of his desk.

‘It’s him,’ she finally managed.

‘Your husband?’

‘Yes.’

He tapped a pencil on the desk. ‘Come on, Nancy. Out with it.’

‘He’s . . . not right.’

David looked kindly at the poor tired soul beside him. Eddie Higson wasn’t right? That was the understatement of the century. But what had happened now? Did Nancy know, had she found out? And had that bad bugger touched Anne again? He trod carefully. ‘In what way is he not right?’

Nancy tugged at the top button of her coat and cleared her throat before going on, ‘He’s spitting blood, specially in the morning and sometimes of a night. He’s got a bad cough, you see.’

Moments passed, the silence broken only by the tapping of his pencil and the rumble of a 45 as it clattered its way towards town.

‘How long has he been seeing blood?’

‘I’m not sure, Doctor – a good few weeks at least. He’s one as keeps himself to himself, not a great talker. I haven’t asked him. He likely thinks I know nothing about it.’

David nodded. Oh yes, Eddie Higson kept himself to himself alright. Too much to hide to ever open up to anybody. Perhaps he’d be answering to his Maker soon enough.

‘What do you want me to do, Nancy?’

She shrugged thin shoulders. ‘I don’t know. He’ll not come here to see you. If he thought I’d been across he’d blow his top, tell me off for interfering and mithering again. Oh, I don’t know what we must do.’

‘Well, I can’t make a diagnosis without seeing him. Even then, I’d have to refer him to a specialist at the hospital.’

She suddenly brightened. ‘If he’s got anything serious, then it’s not started overnight, has it? And he was in the Infirmary a couple of years back over his accident – they’d have noticed then, wouldn’t they?’

‘Not necessarily. Things take time to flare up and anyway, they might not find something they weren’t looking for.’ He rose and walked to the window, hands deep in his pockets, brow furrowed as he wondered what the hell to do.

‘He was in a prison camp, wasn’t he?’ he asked without turning.

‘Yes, he was.’

‘For how long?’

‘About three years, I think. They put him in hospital when he got home.’

‘Was he very thin?’ He looked at Nancy now, noticing for the first time that her hair was slightly streaked with silver although she was not yet forty.

‘He weighed about seven stone. They couldn’t keep anything down him except milk and suchlike. Even now, he doesn’t like food with lumps in, rather have soup and rice pudding.’

Or alcohol, thought David, remembering the times he’d watched Eddie Higson struggling home from the Star using garden walls and lamp posts as guidelines.

‘Nancy, I can’t be sure, but I rather think it’s tuberculosis of the lungs.’

‘TB?’ She was horrified. Only the poorest and dirtiest of people got TB. ‘There’s none of that in my house, Doctor.’

He sat down and patted her hand. ‘It’s everywhere – especially in a big town like this,’ he said. ‘And his resistance was probably lowered because of poor diet during the war – it’s no reflection on you if your husband has tuberculosis.’

Mollified slightly, Nancy relaxed a little. At least there was a chance of it not being cancer. ‘What are we going to do then, Doctor?’

‘You’ll have to talk to him, won’t you?’

‘Talk to him? He’d go straight through the bloody roof if I mentioned this. He won’t come near you, I do know that. He reckons as you treated him bad over that arm of his, says you’re a butcher – I think he’s terrified of doctors and hospitals.’

David drew in a sharp breath. Here he was, getting enmeshed in a second conspiracy involving the Higson family. ‘Then you’ll just have to do your best. It’s a notifiable disease, but I can’t inform the Department until I’m sure. And I can’t be sure till we’ve had it confirmed.’ He paused. ‘And we can’t confirm what we can’t examine. Look. Go home and boil the towels – keep yours and Anne’s separate from his. It might be a good idea to give him his own set of crockery and cutlery, though boiling water should keep your utensils sterilized. Meanwhile, I’ll try to work out a way around this, but it will take time and frankly, I don’t know how much time we’ve got. After all, I’m just assuming that it’s TB – but I’ll do my best to find a way of getting him looked at. Alright?’

A sudden thought struck Nancy and, with her hand to her collar she said, ‘What about my daughter? What if she’s caught it?’

‘Even if it is TB, I’m very sure that Anne doesn’t have it. She’s a fine strong girl – a credit to you, Nancy – she’d make a full recovery anyway.’

Nancy reached into her bag and brought out a greaseproof package which she unwrapped carefully. Inside was a man’s handkerchief stained brown with dried blood. ‘That’s from this morning – he hid it in the dustbin. But I fetched it with me to give you an idea of how much he’s bringing up.’ Her face brightened once more. ‘Hey – can’t you send this to one of them laboratory places? Happen they can work out what he’s got.’

David smiled grimly. This little woman was not behind the door, was she? With a bit of education, she might have gone far. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘We need X-rays, fresh blood and sputum tests – not to mention a little cooperation from your husband.’

‘I doubt you’ll get that.’ So did he, though he couldn’t tell Nancy the real reason why.

‘Come on,’ he said now. ‘Cheer up – things are seldom as bad as they seem.’

‘You’re a good man, Doctor. You’ve been a right comfort to me today and I’ll not forget it. Ta.’ She rose to leave.

‘Send Anne to surgery tomorrow evening, will you?’

‘What have I to tell her?’

‘Tell her she’s a guinea-pig – she’ll like that. Say I’m running Mantoux tests for TB on a cross-section of the population and that she is to be my example of a typical sixteen-year-old female. And you’ll need a test too, Nancy.’ The plot, he thought, was thickening by the minute.

‘Right. I’ll send her in then.’

‘Goodbye, Nancy.’

She left the surgery looking, David thought, a sight happier than when she had come in. Now, all he had to do was to persuade a man he hated and who hated him to come and seek treatment. He suddenly knew that he would not, could not do this. As long as the rest of the family was protected, then Eddie Higson could go to hell his own way. He shook his head slowly. Anne’s ‘insurance policy’ was now in the hands of a lawyer, the child was safe at last. But was there a caring God after all? And was this His way of making Higson pay? Unless the man got immediate treatment, his death certificate was virtually signed – nobody who brought up that amount of blood each morning could survive for long without help. But he, David Pritchard, would not interfere in God’s plan. Even a doctor could not intrude on divine retribution.

He walked to the window and watched Nancy scuttling across the road to boil her towels. Sighing deeply, he took his watch from the pocket of his waistcoat. Half past four – time for tea. Ah well, it was all part of a day’s work, all part of life’s complicated tapestry. He walked towards the living quarters, his mind occupied by just one thought. That girl had better be alright. If the brute had given her TB on top of everything else . . . He stood still in the hall for a few seconds. There should be no place in a doctor’s heart for such murderous thoughts.

In the dining room, Edna was fussing with the tea as usual, arranging her china in exactly the correct order, milk, sugar and lemon to the left of her, teapot and hot water jug to the right. It was like watching a general planning a military campaign, everything present, in order and accounted for. Simon was sitting bolt-upright in a straight-backed chair, waiting for his mother to pour.

‘Was that Nancy Higson?’ asked Edna as she passed buttered scones first to her husband, then to her son, in accordance with her concept of doing things right.

‘Yes,’ David replied curtly, wondering how much longer he would be able to tolerate Edna without resorting to drink – or worse.

‘Is she ill?’ She stirred her tea slowly, delicately and, as always, in an anti-clockwise direction.

With exaggerated patience, David placed his cup in the centre of his saucer and unfolded a snow-white stiffly starched napkin, spreading it carefully on his lap. ‘Could I have some jam please, Edna?’

Pouting in a way that might have been attractive in a woman half her age, she passed the crystal and silver jam pot to Simon, who handed it down the table to his father.

‘I was only taking an interest,’ she whined in that silly girlish voice.

‘Edna.’ David spoke with all the forbearance he could muster. ‘Most of the people who visit my surgery suffer from some ailment or other. I cannot discuss the condition of patients – I should have thought you would understand that by now.’

Simon shifted miserably in his chair. He could feel the tension in the room and it made him prickly and uncomfortable.

‘Stop wriggling at the table,’ snapped Edna. ‘And remember your manners – use the napkin.’

David looked at his unhappy son and was filled with pity for him. ‘Had a good day, Simon?’

‘Not bad. I’m getting somewhere with the biology, but the French is a bit much, I’m afraid.’

‘He still studies with that Anne Byrne in the evenings.’ There was strong disapproval in Edna’s tone.

‘Good. Glad to hear it – she’ll make a good teacher one day,’ said David.

‘She may not become a teacher, Dad.’ Simon glanced quickly at his mother.

‘Oh really? What is she going to be then?’ asked Edna with unconcealed sarcasm.

‘She thinks she might be a doctor, Dad.’

‘Really?’ David’s face beamed a wide smile.

‘She’ll be lucky,’ muttered Edna almost under her breath.

‘Then if she’s lucky, it won’t be before time,’ said David, still grinning. ‘And if and when she does make up her mind to be a doctor, then she’ll be one, just mark my words.’

‘What makes you so sure?’ Edna’s question was fired across the table like a bullet from a gun.