REGRET TO TELL YOU JOSHUA VERY SICK. COME AT ONCE TO TWO MERRIDEW VILLAS, BROOKHAM WAY, CORSTER. LILY CLAIR.
She put down the pen and folded the paper. First thing in the morning, she would ask Millie to take it round to the post office.
Her sleep came in the briefest spells that night. Not only could she find no comfort in the hard, ungiving armchair, but every thought in her head and every emotion in her heart was bound up with the child. If her eyes were open they were fixed upon him in the pale glow from the
nightlight, just as her ears were attuned to every sound he made. When dawn came, the first cold light found her sitting stiff and aching, her eyes scratchy and sore from lack of sleep and her head pounding.
He too was awake. He lay there, looking up at her through half-closed eyes, his dry lips apart, his breaths short and shallow, and in the growing light she could see the rash that was sprouting on his neck, creeping up to his jaw. When he moved to push back the blanket from his chin, she saw it too on his arms.
Millie came to the door just after nine, bringing a basin of potato soup. Standing beside the sofa she gazed in horror at the sight of the rash on the child’s flesh. Lily, who had watched it constantly, had seen it spread and become darker with the passing hours. Not only that, but the lesions were growing larger.
When Millie asked if there was anything she could do, Lily took up the message that she had written the night before, and a second sheet on which she had written the Soamesons’ Edinburgh address. She gave the papers to the girl with a sum of money. ‘It must go off as a telegraph,’ she said. ‘Please, take it to the post office, and see that it goes off at once.’
Millie was back in less than an hour to give Lily her change and say that the telegraph had gone.
Left alone again with the boy, Lily watched, and waited. When he cried out with pain she gave him a little of the opium, after which he lapsed once more into his quiet, stuporous state. From time to time he whispered for his mama, and muttered other words that Lily could not understand. The rash was growing. Now it had spread up from his neck onto his jaw and lower cheek, while on his arms it was creeping lower onto his wrists and hands. At the same time his flesh had begun to take on a reddish hue,
and whereas before it had had the texture of the finest silk, now it had begun to take on the appearance of a strange kind of crêpe-rubber.
Doctor Trinshaw came to the house just after three. He came striding through the hall into the kitchen. ‘How is he?’ he asked. ‘Is he any better? D’you see any change?’
In reply, Lily said haltingly that he seemed to be worse, much worse, and that a rash had appeared, and was spreading. Acknowledgement of the boy’s deteriorating state was something she had avoided, but now she had to do it, though her words almost froze in her throat.
The doctor nodded. ‘It’s as I expected.’
Lily stood by in silence then as he pulled back the blankets and lifted the boy’s shirt. Not only was the rash still spreading, but the lesions were growing larger yet. After a moment he pulled down the boy’s shirt and drew the blankets up over him again. Throughout it all the child had remained with his eyes closed, breathing harshly through his mouth.
‘Yes,’ the doctor said, ‘it’s the malignant type, as I thought. The lesions are not producing pus – not as in the common strain – and as you can see, they’re under the skin, and quite flat-looking.’ He looked back down at the boy. ‘Are you managing to keep him comfortable?’
‘I’ve tried to, sir.’ She could barely get the words out. ‘He hasn’t spoken for a good while now. He was crying out in pain with his back, and I – I gave him a little more of the opium. It – it seemed to soothe him.’ Her eyes were stinging from her unshed tears. ‘I didn’t know what else to do.’
The doctor nodded. ‘Unfortunately there’s nothing you
can
do.’ His tone was both sympathetic and practical. ‘The lesions will start to join up soon.’ He paused. ‘I’m afraid then – the end will be near. Did you send for his parents?’
‘Yes,’ she heard herself say. ‘I sent off the telegraph – this morning.’ She was trying to take in the implication of the man’s words.
The end will be near
. It could not be possible. Everything had been leading up to this, but it could not be. There must be something to be done.
She stood there, hands clasped before her. The doctor was watching her intently. ‘You must have realised by now,’ he said.
‘Realised,’ she said dully.
He shook his head. ‘I wish I could give you hope,’ he said sadly, ‘but I cannot. It won’t be long now. You have to accept that.’
She nodded, trying to take in his words.
‘We’ve got to think about
you
now,’ he said.
She frowned. ‘
Me
?’
‘Yes, you. You’ve got your life in front of you, and we’ve got to look after you. As he spoke he stepped to his bag and undid the clasp. ‘I’ve got your vaccine here. I’d hoped to have it earlier, but there’s such a demand for it – as you can imagine. Anyway, we’ve got it now.’ He pulled wider the jaws of his bag and then turned to look at her again. ‘You must try not to take this too much to heart,’ he said. ‘D’you understand what I’m saying?’
‘Sir?’ She was in a daze.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I know how it is. Nursemaids – they get fond of their charges, their little boys and girls. They get so close to them. They’re bound to. And you’re no different. I can understand how hard this is for you. Have you got family of your own?’
‘What?’ She frowned. ‘Family? No. No family.’
‘Ah, well . . .’ He did not wish to dwell on the subject. ‘Anyway, we’ve got to make sure you’re all right.’
From his bag he had brought out a little linen packet, which he now opened up and from it extracted a slim glass phial. He held it up to the light. ‘This is the vaccine,’
he said. ‘Though I have to tell you that we’re late already. By rights, this should be administered within four days of exposure to the disease – and it’s obviously been much longer where you’re concerned. But better late than never, yes? We must do everything we can.’ He gave her the trace of an encouraging smile. ‘As I said, you’re a strong, healthy-looking young woman, so you should have a good chance of fighting this off – and it’s not as if you’re related to the boy, so his weaknesses won’t necessarily be yours.’ Carefully he laid on the table the small linen bag, and set the phial on it. ‘All I need to do is give a tiny scratch in your upper arm.’ From his bag he now brought out a small hard-leather case, opened it up and drew out a fine metal scalpel. ‘I do it with this,’ he said. ‘It won’t hurt, I promise you. No more than a scratch anyway.’ He set the scalpel down and looked over towards the sink. ‘While you roll up your sleeve, I’ll wash my hands. Are you right-handed?’
‘Sir?’ she said dully. Her mind was spinning.
‘Are you right-handed or left-handed? This will have quite a nasty effect. You’ll be a bit incapacitated for a week or two, so you’d best not have it on the arm that you use.’
‘Oh. Oh, yes. Right-handed. I’m right-handed.’
‘Fine. You pull up your left sleeve, then, or pull it down from your shoulder.’
He moved away to the sink, took up the large jug from the draining board and poured a little into the bowl. Carefully, thoroughly, he washed his hands and then dried them on a towel that hung on a rail nearby. ‘There, now . . .’
As he replaced the towel a little gasp from Lily drew his head round, and he turned towards her. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ He took a step forward, coming to a halt with a groan. ‘Oh, no! How did that happen?’
Lily was standing with her hands spread on her breast,
looking down at the broken vaccine phial on the floor at her feet.
‘What happened?’ the doctor said.
‘I – I’m sorry,’ she said, her head lowered. ‘I – I picked it up. I shouldn’t have done, I know. I’m sorry. I dropped it.’
The phial was shattered into several pieces, its contents making a tiny wet stain on the floor. The doctor frowned, shaking his head. ‘Well, there’s no saving it now,’ he said. There was an unmistakable note of anger in his voice at her clumsiness. ‘It’s done for, and I shan’t be able to get any more until tomorrow at the very earliest.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Lily said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yes, well – it’s done now. We’d better get something to clear it up.’
She got a piece of newspaper and an old cloth. Carefully she picked up the fragments of glass, put them in the newspaper and then wiped up the residue of the mess. The doctor watched her for a moment and then put his things back in his bag.
‘I’ll try to get some more vaccine and bring it tomorrow,’ he said. He shook his head. ‘It’s a great shame that that’s happened. Every hour is important in a situation like this.’ He turned from her and looked back at the boy. ‘I’ll call to see him again this evening.’
Millie came round later on, asking if there were any errands to be run, and also bringing good wishes from her grandmother. The old lady would come round in person, she said, but she was afraid to. Millie had no such fears.
Later, when the girl had gone, Lily sat alone watching over the boy. Pulling his nightshirt up around his upper chest she sponged his small form with a soft flannel wrung out in tepid water. He watched her through half-closed eyes, suffering her ministrations without a word. His limbs as she lifted them were like those of a rag doll, without life.
In the late afternoon light she knelt on the mat before the sofa looking down at his exposed little body. The rash now was everywhere. With tender fingers she touched some of the lesions on his thigh. They felt soft and velvety, and they were growing larger all the time. On the inside of his nightshirt, beneath his buttocks, she saw a stain, and realised that it was blood. He had bled from the rectum. Her eyes started from their sockets as she gasped out in horror, the tears springing up and coursing down her cheeks.
What have I done? What have I done?
She lowered his shirt to cover up the dreadful sight, then pulled the blanket back over him. Softly, lightly, she touched at his cheek where the dark lesions were creeping up inexorably from his jaw. The little crescent moon by his ear had been swallowed up, but they had not yet reached his eyes, those blue eyes, now dull, that seemed to watch her every movement through their dark and heavy lids. She leant down and kissed his cheek, kissed the lesions there, feeling their softness beneath her mouth.
You must try to avoid direct contact with him
, the doctor had said.
Try to avoid breathing in his breath
. She could hear the man’s words like some distant echo as she kissed the boy again, her parted lips lingering on the lesions, the monstrous disfigurements of his perfection. Her slightly open mouth moved onto his own lips, and she kissed them too and drew in his warm, foul breath.
He became delirious within the hour, thrashing his arms and legs, and groaning and gasping and crying out, his eyes wide and full of fear. Lily, her well of tears having run dry, tried to comfort him and bring him ease. She got him to take a little more of the opium in water, and it calmed him after a while and he fell again into a stupor. The lesions on his throat and face had continued to grow, and, like those on his torso and legs, had now joined together, making one blackened mass beneath the skin.
Late into the evening, in the light of a single candle, she knelt on the hard floor beside the sofa, watching every twitch, every tremor of his face and body, listening to every nuance of every harsh breath.
He died just before seven o’clock.
Lily sat in the old grandfather chair. She had not moved in a long time. Her head was aching, her tear-swollen eyes were sore, and tiredness drenched her body. She had poured water into a glass, and she sipped at it, trying to quench her thirst. Looking at her watch, she saw that it was close on four o’clock. Just before noon two men had come, driving a mortuary wagon, to take Joshua’s body away. It would not go to the old town mortuary, they had told her, but to the special, temporary one that had been opened in the district of Hillcot on the outskirts of the city. Everything had been arranged by Dr Trinshaw, who had arrived at the house less than an hour after the child’s death.
He had not been surprised, of course, to find that the child’s life had ended. He had been expecting it, the inevitable. After making a cursory examination of the body, he had covered the boy’s face. Then, sitting down at the table, he had said to Lily, ‘The child’s parents will want to see me when they come, I have no doubt. Give them my card, will you?’
‘Yes, sir – of course.’
After placing his calling card on the table he had glanced back at the covered body and said, ‘Those blankets will have to be burnt, of course, and anything else he used. Toys, everything.’ He had closed his bag then and got up from the table. ‘I’ll be back later on with your vaccine, if I can get it.’ Frowning a little, he studied her. ‘Have you eaten today?’
‘Yes,’ she had said, the lie coming easily.
‘Good.’ Then, having taken in her dull, red-rimmed eyes: ‘How are you feeling?’
‘All right, sir. Thank you, yes. I’m fine.’
‘No headache, no ache in your back? No nausea?’
‘No, really, I’m fine, thank you.’
‘Good. You’ve got to look after yourself.’
Millie had come in soon after his departure, and hearing of Joshua’s death had wept. She had stood before the sofa looking down at the little shape covered by the blankets, the tears running down her face. She had not lingered long.
When the men came to take the child, Lily had turned her head away, not wanting to see them touch him. But even that had not been enough, and she had gone out into the yard. Without a coat in the cold, bitter wind she had stood hunched up in the lee of the old garden shed. Her head was pounding now, her brain seeming to throb against the inside of her skull. Eventually she had taken her courage and gone back indoors. The men’s errand had taken little time, and they had long since left. The little blanket-covered form was gone from the sofa. The blankets themselves had gone, too, and so had Bunny and Mr Charlie Dobbin.