The Citadel (11 page)

Fifteen minutes passed. Sweat was now running into Andrew’s eyes, blinding him. One of his sleeves hung down, dripping. His breath came pantingly. But no breath came from the lax body of the child.

A desperate sense of defeat pressed on him, a raging hopelessness. He felt the midwife watching him in stark consternation while there, pressed back against the wall, where she had all the time remained, her hand pressed to her throat, uttering no sound, her eyes burning upon him, was the old woman. He remembered her longing for a grandchild, as great as had been her daughter’s longing for this child. All dashed away, futile, beyond remedy.

The floor was now a draggled mess. Stumbling over a sopping towel, Andrew almost dropped the child which was now wet and slippery in his hands, like a strange white fish.

‘For mercy’s sake, doctor,’ whimpered the midwife. ‘It’s stillborn.’

Andrew did not heed her. Beaten, despairing, having laboured in vain for half an hour, he still persisted in one last effort, rubbing the child with a rough towel, crushing and releasing the little chest with both his hands, trying to get breath into that limp body.

And then, as by a miracle the pigmy chest, which his hands enclosed, gave a short convulsive heave. Another. And another. Andrew turned giddy. The sense of life, springing beneath his fingers after all that unavailing striving was so exquisite, it almost made him faint. He redoubled his efforts feverishly. The child was gasping now, deeper and deeper. A bubble of mucus came from one tiny nostril, a joyful iridescent bubble. The limbs were no longer boneless. The head no longer lay back spinelessly. The blanched skin was slowly turning pink. Then, exquisitely, came the child’s cry.

‘Dear Father in Heaven,’ the nurse sobbed hysterically. ‘ It’s come … it’s come alive.’

Andrew handed her the child. He felt weak and dazed. About him the room lay in a shuddering litter: blankets, towels, basins, soiled instruments, the hypodermic syringe impaled by its point in the linoleum, the ewer knocked over, the kettle on its side in a puddle of water. Upon the huddled bed the mother still dreamed her way quietly through the anaesthetic. The old woman still stood against the wall. But her hands were together, her lips moved without sound. She was praying.

Mechanically Andrew wrung out his sleeve, pulled on his jacket.

‘I’ll fetch my bag later, nurse.’

He went downstairs, through the kitchen into the scullery. His lips were dry. At the scullery he took a long drink of water. He reached for his hat and coat.

Outside he found Joe standing on the pavement with a tense, expectant face.

‘All right, Joe,’ he said thickly. ‘ Both all right.’

It was quite light. Nearly five o’clock. A few miners were already in the streets; the first of the night shift moving out. As Andrew walked with the others under the morning sky he kept thinking blindly, oblivious to all other work he had accomplished in Drineffy: ‘I’ve done something, oh, God, I’ve done something real at last.’

After a shave and a bath – thanks to Annie there was always plenty of boiling water in the tap – he felt less tired. But Miss Page, finding his bed unslept in, was dryly ironic at the breakfast table, the more so as he received her shafts in silence.

‘Hah! You seem a bit of a wreck this mornin’, doctor. Bit dark under the eyes like! Didn’t get back from Cardiff till this mornin’, eh? And forgot my pastries from Parry’s too, like. Been out on the tiles, my boy? Yes! You can’t deceive
me!
I thought you were too good to be true. You’re all the same, you assistants. I never found one yet that didn’t drink or go wrong somehow!’

After morning surgery and his forenoon round Andrew dropped in to see his case. It had just gone half past twelve as he turned up Blaina Terrace. There were little knots of women talking at their open doorways and as he passed they stopped talking to smile and give him a friendly, ‘Good morning.’ Approaching No 12 he fancied he saw a face at the window. And it was so. They had been waiting on him. The instant he placed his foot on the newly pipe-clayed doorstep the door was swung open and the old woman, beaming unbelievably all over her wrinkled face, made him welcome to the house.

Indeed, she was so eager to make much of him she could barely frame the words. She asked him to come first for some refreshment to the parlour. When he refused she fluttered:

‘All right, all right, doctor,
bach.
It’s as
you
say. Maybe you’ll have time, though, on your way down for a drop of elderberry wine and a morsel of cake.’ She patted him upstairs with tremulous old hands.

He entered the bedroom. The little room, lately a shambles, had been scoured and polished until it shone. All his instruments, beautifully arranged, gleamed upon the varnished deal dresser. His bag had been carefully rubbed with goose-grease, the snib catches cleaned with metal polish, so that they were as silver. The bed had been changed, spread with fresh linen and there, upon it, was the mother, her plain middle-aged face gazing in dumb happiness towards him, the babe sucking quiet and warm at her full breast.

‘Ay!’ The stout midwife rose from her seat by the bedside, unmasking a battery of smiles. ‘They do look all right now, don’t they, doctor,
bach?
They don’t know the trouble they gave us. They don’t
care
either, do they!’

Moistening her lips, her soft eyes warmly inarticulate, Susan Morgan tried to stammer out her gratitude.

‘Ay, you may well say,’ nodded the midwife, extracting the last ounce of credit from the situation. ‘An’ don’t you forget, my gal, you wouldn’t never have another at your age. It was this time or
never
so far as you were concerned!’

‘We know that, Mrs Jones,’ interrupted the old woman meaningly, from the door. ‘ We know we do owe everything here to
doctor.’

‘Has my Joe been to see you yet, doctor?’ asked the mother timidly. ‘No? Well he’s comin’, you may be sure. He’s fair overjoyed. He was only sayin’ though, doctor, that’s the thing we will miss when we’re in South Africa, not havin’ you to ’tend to us.’

Leaving the house, duly fortified with seed cake and home-made elderberry wine – it would have broken the old woman’s heart had he refused to drink her grandson’s health – Andrew continued on his round with a queer warmth round his heart. They couldn’t have made more of me, he thought self-consciously, if I’d been the King of England. This case became somehow the antidote to that scene he had witnessed upon Cardiff platform. There was something to be said for marriage and the family life when it brought such happiness as filled the Morgan home.

A fortnight later when Andrew had paid his last visit at No 12 Joe Morgan came round to see him. Joe’s manner was solemnly portentous. And, having laboured long with words, he said explosively:

‘Dang it all, doctor,
bach,
I’m no hand at talkin’. Money can’t repay what you done for us. But all the same the missus and I want to make you this little present.’

Impulsively, he handed over a slip to Andrew. It was an order on the Building Society made out for five guineas.

Andrew stared at the cheque. The Morgans were, in the local idiom, tidy folk, but they were far from being well-off. This amount, on the eve of their departure, with expenses of transit to be faced, must represent a great sacrifice, a noble generosity. Touched, Andrew said:

‘I can’t take this, Joe, lad.’

‘You
must
take it,’ Joe said with grave insistence, his hand closing over Andrew’s, ‘or missus and me’ll be mortal offended. It’s a present for yourself. It’s not for Doctor Page. He’s had my money now for years and years and we’ve never troubled him but this once. He’s
well
paid. This is a present – for
yourself
– doctor,
bach.
You understand.’

‘Yes, I understand, Joe,’ Andrew nodded, smiling.

He folded the order, placed it in his waistcoat pocket and for a few days forgot about it. Then, the following Tuesday, passing the Western Counties Bank he paused, reflected a moment and went in. As Miss Page always paid him in notes, which he forwarded by registered letter to the Endowment offices, he had never had occasion to deal through the bank. But now, with a comfortable recollection of his own substance, he decided to open a deposit account with Joe’s gift.

At the grating he endorsed the order, filled in some forms and handed them to the young cashier, remarking with a smile:

‘It’s not much, but it’s a start anyhow.’

Meanwhile he had been conscious of Aneurin Rees hovering in the background, watching him. And, as he turned to go, the long-headed manager came forward to the counter. In his hands he held the order. Smoothing it gently, he glanced sideways across his spectacles.

‘Afternoon, Doctor Manson. How are you?’ Pause. Sucking his breath in over his yellow teeth. ‘ Eh – you want this paid into your new account?’

‘Yes.’ Manson spoke in some surprise. ‘Is it too small an amount to open with?’

‘Oh, no, no, doctor. ’Tisn’t the amount, like. We’re very glad to have the business.’ Rees hesitated, scrutinising the order then raising his small suspicious eyes to Andrew’s face. ‘Eh – you want it in your
own
name?’

‘Why – certainly.’

‘All right, all right, doctor.’ His expression broke suddenly into a watery smile. ‘I only wondered, like. Wanted to make sure. What lovely weather we’re havin’ for the time of year. Good day to you, Doctor Manson. Good day!’

Manson came out of the bank puzzled, asking himself what that bald, buttoned-up devil meant. It was some days before he found an answer to the question.

Christine had left on her vacation more than a week before. He had been so occupied by the Morgan case that he had not succeeded in seeing her for more than a few moments, on the day of her departure. He had not spoken to her. But now that she was gone he longed for her with all his heart.

The summer was exceptionally trying in the town. The green vestiges of spring had long been withered to a dirty yellow. The mountains wore a febrile air and when the daily shotfiring from the mines or quarries re-echoed on the still spent air they seemed to enclose the valley in a dome of burnished sound. The men came out from the mine with the ore dust smeared upon their faces like rust. Children played listlessly. Old Thomas, the groom, had been taken with jaundice and Andrew was compelled to make his rounds on foot. As he slogged through the baking streets he thought of Christine. What was she doing? Was she thinking of him, perhaps, a little? And what of the future, her prospects, their chance of happiness together?

And then, quite unexpectedly, he received a message from Watkins asking him to call at the Company Offices.

The mine manager received him in agreeable fashion, invited him to sit down, pushed over the packet of cigarettes on his desk.

‘Look here, doctor,’ he said in a friendly tone, ‘I’ve been wantin’ to talk to you for some time – and we better get it over afore I make up my annual return.’ He paused to pick a yellow shred of tobacco off his tongue. ‘There’s been a number of the lads at me, Emlyn Hughes and Ed Williams are the leadin’ spirits, askin’ me to put you up for the Company’s list.’

Andrew straightened in his chair, pervaded by a swift glow of satisfaction, of excitement.

‘You mean – arrange for me to take over Dr Page’s practice?’

‘Why no, not exactly, doctor,’ Watkins said slowly. ‘You see the position is difficult. I’ve got to watch how I handle my labour question ’ ere. I can’t put Doctor Page off the list, there’s a number of the men wouldn’t have
that.
What I was meanin’, in the best interests of yourself, was to squeeze you, quiet like, on to the Company’s list; then them that wanted to slip away from Doctor Page to yourself could easily manage it.’

The eagerness faded from Andrew’s expression. He frowned, his figure still braced.

‘But surely you see I couldn’t do that. I came here as Page’s assistant. If I set up in opposition – no decent doctor could do a thing like that!’

‘There isn’t any other way.’

‘Why don’t you let me take over the practice,’ Andrew said urgently. ‘I’d willingly pay something for it, out of receipts – that’s another way.’

Watkins shook his head bluntly.

‘Blodwen won’t have it. I’ve put it up to her afore. She knows she’s in a strong position. Nearly all the older men here, like Enoch Davies for instance, are on Page’s side. They believe he’ll come back. I’d have a strike on my hands if I even tried to shift him.’ He paused. ‘Take till tomorrow to think it over, doctor. I send the new list to Swansea head office then. Once it’s gone in we can’t do anything for another twelve months.’

Andrew stared at the floor a moment, then slowly made a gesture of negation. His hopes, so high a minute ago, were now dashed completely to the ground.

‘What’s the use. I couldn’t do it. If I thought it over for weeks.’

It cost him a bitter pang to reach this decision and to maintain it in the face of Watkins’s partiality towards him. Yet there was no escaping the fact that he had gained his introduction to Drineffy as Doctor Page’s assistant. To set up against his principal, even in the exceptional circumstances of the case, was quite unthinkable. Suppose Page did, by some chance, resume active practice – how well he would look fighting the old man for patients! No, no. He could not, and would not accept.

Nevertheless, for the rest of the day he was sadly cast down, resentful of Blodwen’s calm persistence, aware that he was caught in an impossible position, wishing the offer had not been made to him at all. In the evening, about eight o’clock, he went dejectedly to call on Denny. He had not seen him for some time and he felt that a talk with Philip, perhaps some reassurance that he had acted correctly, would do him good. He reached Philip’s lodging about half past eight and, as was now his custom, walked into the house without knocking. He entered the sitting-room.

Philip lay on the sofa. At first, in the fading light, Manson thought that he was resting after a hard day’s work. But Philip had done no work that day. He sprawled there on his back, breathing heavily, his arm flung across his face. He was dead drunk.