Drowned Sprat and Other Stories (12 page)

‘But that’s Mr Kitchener!’ the voice came down to him: older, cigarette-roughened. ‘Mr Kitchener!’

He turned reluctantly as Nurse Sims hurried up. ‘Mr Kitchener! What a surprise! What brings you here?’

‘Oh, I, um …’ He told himself that under no circumstances must he appear hesitant or unsure.

‘It must be nearly a year,’ Nurse Sims went on. ‘Is it? How are you finding retirement? It must be …’ She was searching for a word. Kitchener observed her. Nurse Sims had never been one of his favourite nurses by any means — she was gushy, talked too much. Though she had always followed his instructions to the letter, unlike some of the more opinionated ones.

‘It must be different for you, after such a busy life,’ she finished.

Kitchener realised he was scowling at her. He made an attempt — not very successful — to rearrange his face to a more impassive state.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘nice to see you, Nurse Sims. I must be getting on.’

‘No, I’m not —’ began Nurse Sims, uncertain. ‘I’m not Nurse Sims. I’m Roberts. Remember?’

Kitchener didn’t. He shook his head.

‘Nurse Sims retired a year ago, and I’ll retire myself in two. That is, if I don’t take early retirement.’ Nurse Roberts gave him a wide smile. Of course, now he remembered — Sims and Roberts: he was always getting them muddled up. They both wore glasses thick as bottle bottoms, they both had curly grey hair, they both smelled of cigarette smoke, they both had large, starched bosoms and broad sterns, they both held surgeons in high esteem. Perhaps he should have been kinder to them. One of them — he couldn’t remember which — had had a terrible tragedy in her life, a car accident that took out her entire family. Perhaps it was Roberts — there was something defeated about her. He made an effort now.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘there are not many senior nurses left, not many of your age.’

Roberts was smiling at him, as if she wanted him to go on. He couldn’t think of anything more to say.

‘Well —’ he said again, turning on his heel.

‘We have to make room for the young though, don’t we, Mr Kitchener?’ said the nurse suddenly. She’d laid a hand on his arm! ‘It took me such a long time to get used to it. All the changes, you know — not getting the patients ready for Doctors’ Rounds, with hair brushed and clean faces; not having proper visiting hours; all the machines. Sometimes I still miss the old ways, but change is
usually for the best. Now, that Mr Vittachi — he’s a gifted man, isn’t he?’

Kitchener met her eyes through the thick glass of her spectacles and felt a sudden rush of anger. They always said ‘gifted’ when what they meant was ‘nice’. Vittachi didn’t ruffle feathers or step on toes, that’s what it was. He wasn’t gifted; he was proficient. Kitchener looked away from her just as Vittachi himself emerged from the accident victim’s room, his hands in his pockets, head down. He looked worried. He looked up and saw the broad back of Nurse Roberts and came towards them. Kitchener took a little step to the side, as if he would vanish into one of the side rooms, but Vittachi had seen him.

‘Mr Kitchener!’ he said, offering his hand. ‘What a surprise.’

Kitchener wondered if the man had washed his hands after his prodding and poking. He’d noticed a degree of carelessness among the younger doctors when it came to personal hygiene. Who knew what his hand had grazed against in the patient’s pyjamas? Fecal matter?

The nurses were rushed off their feet. Kitchener hadn’t spotted any other than Roberts and the young one since he’d been standing there. He could hear their voices though, and the squeaking of their busy feet on the polished floors in the rooms on either side of the corridor. The voices that responded were uniformly youthful — accident victims, pub brawlers. Where were all the hip replacements, the elective surgery? The babies in their frog plasters, the querulous old ladies striving to be brave?

He realised with a start that Vittachi had lowered his hand, that a few moments must have passed while he gazed at him, that he’d no doubt offended the younger doctor.

‘Are you visiting a friend?’ asked Vittachi.

‘No, no.’ Kitchener felt a rising panic. Two nurses, pushing
a bed and attendant drip stands, came out of the room at their left. Roberts and Vittachi stepped back and Kitchener was separated from them. He took his opportunity, lifted a farewelling hand and turned on his heel, marching off down the corridor to the swing doors at the other end, as he had done so many times before, before his retirement. On this occasion only the ghost of white coat-tails flew behind him and the bevy of earnest house surgeons, fleet in his wake, was spectral. He pushed through the double doors and made his exit.

On this side of the ward there were no lifts, save the service one. Kitchener took the stairs, his heart pounding less with exertion than shame. What had possessed him to come to the hospital in the first place? He pulled his car keys from his pocket and held them, hot, in his hand. It occurred to him on the landing of the third floor that perhaps he should go back and put things to rights — talk normally, say he just wanted to see the ward again. There was a danger of incurring sympathy, though — more than he’d already received from Roberts. The warm keys propelled him on.

Minutes later his foot rested lightly on the accelerator of his shiny red two-seater as he whizzed past the Domain duck ponds. It was warm in the car. The brilliant sun outside lit up the marble of the statue to his left and to his right, above the waving swords of the red canna lilies, the roof of the bandstand glittered. Behind the bandstand, beyond the gleaming cars parked before the cannons, high on its ridge, sat the museum. Like the hospital, it reigned over the city, holding towers of commerce and dwellings of the wealthy in its gaze. Kitchener used to like the way he could look up from certain streets, or from the deck of friends’ yachts on the harbour, and see the hospital, the setting of so much of his working life. Now he felt the weight of it behind
him, a behemoth hand of stone pushing him away home, home to Rhonda.

It was the middle daughter, the one who’d had Nigger, who was to come to dinner. Rhonda had put their differences aside in favour of an anguished alliance. This had had to do with Kitchener, whom they both openly believed to be difficult but worth the effort, and biological clocks. It appeared that Susan was unable to have children the normal way. She was thirty-two, and she and Alistair had been through the in-vitro fertilisation programme four times with no success. Whereas Susan previously had wanted to discuss only her mother’s despair at her husband’s betrayal and his second marriage, she now engaged Rhonda in private, esoteric discussions on the female urge to reproduce.

When he had heard they were coming Kitchener had endeavoured to persuade Rhonda to cancel.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she’d said, not looking at him, ‘Susan and Alistair are very busy, you know that. We mightn’t get another chance for weeks.’

‘Invite one of the other girls another night, then,’ he’d said. ‘They’ll come.’

‘With all their frightful kids,’ Rhonda responded. ‘I’ve told you before: I’m not going to play Grandma when you’ve never given me a chance to play Mother.’

Kitchener went out for a dip in the pool where, briefly, he considered submersion of several minutes, long enough to end it all. In the end he forced himself out and lay on the warm tiles staring up at the blue Remuera sky, flecked with gold. Two clouds: one approaching from the east, pure white but for blue-grey fluid borders; and the other gleaming orange, lit by the sunset. The
second was the larger, hanging in the apex of the heavens, burning with light and streaming towards the west. The odd thing was that both clouds were shaped like hands: the white one lumpy, thick-fingered; the gold one lithe, slender. He counted its five fingers, admired its narrow surgeon’s wrist, then realised it was dissolving, losing its shape. The white cloud earnestly prodded and buffeted its golden counterpart and they began to merge.

‘Didn’t you hear me calling you?’ Rhonda had come out of the house, across the terrace and down the steps.

‘What’s the matter?’ she said. ‘Are you ill? Clem?’

‘Not particularly,’ he said.

‘What?’ Rhonda tapped her foot behind his prone head. ‘Speak clearly.’

‘No.’

‘They’ll be here in half an hour. Maybe you could choose some wine.’

After a moment he heard her turn, heard the shift of fabric on fabric as her tight skirt rustled on her underwear, her step. She stopped.

‘Have you been drinking?’ she asked.

‘What a preposterous question.’ Kitchener closed his eyes and wished she’d go away.

She didn’t straight away. He could hear her breathing, as if she was thinking of something else to say. Fortunately she failed in the quest, sighed heavily and turned back to the kitchen. Kitchener waited until he heard her distant heels on the hard, polished floors of the house, beyond the astro-turf of the terrace, before he hauled himself up. One of his legs had gone numb from lying too long on the tiles. He gave it a hearty slap, which his dull synapses hardly registered, before going to collect his clothes from the pagoda.

Susan had too much perfume on. Though they were on the terrace it stung his nostrils, offended his keen sense of smell. He may never have had narrow wrists — not as narrow as Vittachi’s, at least not since he was ten years old — but by Christ he could smell the threat of post-operative infection through a plaster cast before it even took hold. Many times he’d smelt heat and pressure, seconds before a patient haemorrhaged. He could tell the difference between the blood of the anaesthetised old and that of the anaesthetised young; he could smell fear and satisfaction. Susan felt his eyes on her and lifted her glass.

‘Dad. What have you been up to?’

‘Not much,’ he said.

‘Pardon?’

Had he spoken too quietly? Susan gave him a strange, querying look and answered her husband. Alistair was saying, ‘You should go and get Rhonda out of the kitchen. Tell her to come and have a drink. We haven’t even said hello yet.’

Susan stood. ‘Yeah. Dinner can wait. We’re all grown-ups here tonight! If the ankle-biters were here we’d have to rush.’ She flashed a look of cold, wounded betrayal at her husband and departed. A wave of scent broke over Kitchener’s head. He took a sip of wine to quell rising nausea.

‘Um … Clem … I hope you don’t think I’m out of order, but …’

Kitchener examined his son-in-law curiously. He was leaning forward, legs apart, twiddling the stem of his wine glass, thumb and forefinger rolling it back and forth. He was embarrassed — was he blushing? Having not really looked at Alistair since he arrived, Kitchener wasn’t sure. Perhaps the man was windburnt. What on earth was he going to say? The atmosphere was leaden, as it had been when two other sons-in-law had told Kitchener
they were leaving his daughters. At least this time there were no children and Susan had a well-paid job. The schnauzer would be a problem, though. They both doted on it.

Alistair cleared his throat. ‘I … um …’ he continued, ‘… think you’ve had enough of that.’ He inclined his head towards Kitchener’s glass.

Kitchener was baffled. Enough of what? He took a sip and thought on it. Enough of sitting in this particular chair, on this particular terrace, in this house, this suburb, this city, this life? True enough. Tonight, that was true enough.

Alistair was staring at him. Kitchener met his eyes and smiled. The women’s voices were coming closer.

‘You know, I’ve never seen you …’ Alistair spoke in a rush, pausing in peculiar places, ‘like this something. Must’ve happened to make you. Do it you could have rung and put. Us off can I get you a glass of water?’

‘Alistair!’ Rhonda came through, smelling of garlic and roses. Behind her, Susan brought a second wave of opposing scent. Alistair stood and kissed Rhonda on the cheek.

‘Let’s go through,’ said Rhonda, gesturing towards the dining room. ‘It’s all ready.’

‘Have another drink, Dad,’ said Susan sarcastically. ‘Alistair will pour you one.’

Kitchener caught her withering glance broadside and was wounded by it. It shot into the corner of his eye with a sudden pain. What the devil was going on?

‘No, no — I insist! The dinner will spoil.’ Rhonda was using her gay voice, the one she usually reserved for the telephone. ‘Right now!’

‘Yes, Mum,’ joked Alistair.

The three of them stood looking down at Kitchener, who sat
cradling his wine glass against his chest. He felt oddly paralysed. Three shadows fell across him. Rhonda’s one extended an arm.

‘Clem. Will you join us?’

With a lurch, Kitchener propelled himself up out of his rattan chair. His feet were numb, he failed them, he fell over, flat on his face, knocking over the flimsy table with its two bottles of wine: one red, one white. The two liquids coursed around him, merging, red and white to pink. He felt his shirt soak it up to his skin and knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he’d had a stroke.

At least it was a different ward, though he kept his eye out for Vittachi.

‘Medical insurance?’ he’d said to Rhonda five years ago. ‘Who needs it? You get just as good care in the public system as you do in the private. You’re panicking, believing the media.’

And here he was being assessed by bug-eyed, exhausted house surgeons six months out of medical school.

He gave up trying to talk to Rhonda on her daily visits. She talked to him, though, of how she’d arranged for a live-in nurse to look after him when he came home. She obviously had no knowledge of the many cases of stroke where the sufferer had recovered. He would recover. And there wouldn’t be a nurse. If he couldn’t make his feelings clear verbally, he’d spit on her as soon as he met her. Here came one now, to take his temperature. She shoved the thing in his ear, some electronic contrivance that looked like a gun. At least it spared him the embarrassment the conventional type would afford him — it wouldn’t fall out of his slack mouth. Which was full of saliva. Kitchener decided against spitting on this nurse. She would no doubt take it personally.