Second Opinion (10 page)

‘Bring ‘em with you,’ Gus said after a moment. ‘Glad to meet your mum, I’d be. Maybe she’ll help me make some sense out of you.’

She ignored that. ‘They’ll be jetlagged. Some other time, Gus.’

‘Well, all right. If you insist on being such a misery. How about Sunday night?’

‘Gus, I’ll let you know,’ she said firmly and almost hung up and then snatched the telephone back. ‘Hey, Gus?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Let me know anything interesting about that cot death, will you? Like the PM report. Can you do that?’

He was silent for a moment. ‘I might. For a consideration.’

‘What sort of consideration?’

He chuckled and there was a leer in it ‘I’ll let you know.’ And it was he who hung up first

7
  
  

Heathrow, as usual, made her feel restless. The ebb and flow of totally self-absorbed people all screwed up into a state of excitement over impending or just completed travel filled the air with the reek of anxiety and she caught it.

She had once thought it might be interesting to set up some research into pheromone levels in airports; was there more fear about or more sexual signallers? Certainly watching people greeting each other and saying goodbye revealed a good deal of high-level sexual tension, she thought now as she pushed her way through the hubbub, past Sock Shops and Knickerboxes and Menzies Bookstalls filled with people eager to spend money on something, anything, with which to assuage their unease, towards the exits out of which the passengers on the overnight plane from Kennedy, New York, would appear.

Please let the plane be on time, she prayed inside her head to a deity in which she did not believe; please let them be reasonably relaxed and not miserable when they get off; please help me keep a control on my tongue if Ma starts saying things that make me mad …

The plane was only fifteen minutes late touching down and by some miracle the passengers cleared the customs hall and began to come out within half an hour. ‘They’re shovin’ ‘em through immigration and customs fast today,’
confided the cab driver standing at the barrier next to her with his slate marked ‘Mr Jabowalski, United and Combined Services Ltd’ in large letters. ‘I’m always glad when people come on this flight. It’s never that much of a wait, but today’s magic.’

He was right; she saw them only a few minutes later, pushing their trolley of luggage, looking a little dazed and uncertain, two white-haired women in the neat clothes and sensible shoes that she remembered so well; she pushed her way forwards to wave furiously and Aunt Bridget’s face lit up — her mother still looked rather vague — as she reached them.

The next twenty minutes were a flurry of hugs and chatter and sweating as they got the luggage — rather a lot of it, George noted with a slightly sinking sensation — to the car park. She’d borrowed Hattie Clements’s car this morning, since she had no car of her own and had to explain all this to an incredulous Aunt Bridget as she manoeuvred her way out of the airport and on to the route that would take her to the M4 and the middle of London.

‘No car of your own?’ Bridget said, shocked to the core. ‘How can you possibly not have a car, honey? How do you -?’

‘I really don’t need one,’ George said, trying to concentrate on the unfamiliar stick gearbox. She’d only driven the car a couple of times in the past, apart from this morning on the way here. ‘It’s easier to use buses between the hospital and my flat, or walk, and parking’s hell in London. Public transport’s terrific though. Hattie — the woman who owns this car — hardly uses it for the same reason. Listen, are you OK back there, Ma? Are you comfortable?’

‘I’m fine, thank you, sweetheart,’ Vanny said and smiled at George in the rearview mirror. ‘Just a bit weary, I guess. It was kind of noisy on the plane, what with the babies and all’

‘Tell me about it’ Bridget said with great feeling. ‘Jesus,
the way that kid bawled! I thought it’d never stop. I told the mother I had some Valium tablets in my bag and a half of one wouldn’t do any harm, give the poor little scrap a bit of peace — as well as the rest of us, though I didn’t say that, of course — and you’d have thought I was trying to poison the child! But kids do fine on small doses of the stuff. My niece Mary has to fly her three over to Hawaii all the time and she always knocks them out. That way it’s no hassle and the kids don’t act cranky for days after they arrive.’

‘The food on the plane was not good,’ Vanny announced suddenly. ‘I have to tell you, George, I am famished, famished and tired. Could we stop for breakfast, please?’

The car was now on the motorway at last, locked in the usual morning rush hour, and George swore under her breath.

‘I wish you’d said at the airport I could have got you something there easily. Now, it’s not so good. It’s a fair way into town and I didn’t see any clean eating places on this road.’ She peered out at the heavy traffic and shook her head. ‘And I do have to go into the hospital some time today, so I have to … Look, hold on in there and I’ll do the best I can to get us home fast. Then I can fix you some breakfast and see you settled before I have to go to work.’

‘It’s not important,’ Vanny said peaceably. ‘I just thought … Don’t worry, I can wait.’

Which of course made George feel deeply guilty for her thoughtlessness. She should have considered the possibility of hunger and offered them food at the airport, however late that would have made her; but there it was, she hadn’t. And, she thought gloomily, I might as well get used to feeling this way, guilty and angry and annoyed with Ma about it, and all the rest of it. It’s not going to go away.

They were happy passengers, exclaiming over the dear little houses and how odd it felt to be on the wrong side of the road and displaying some surprise that the place looked so — well, like any US city really, apart from the billboards
and the shopfronts and, of course, the dear little houses, and she encouraged the chatter and told them all she could to fill them in on local knowledge, even if she wasn’t sure of her facts, taking the road south of the river, once they got to town, by going over Westminster Bridge. That way she could point out some obvious sights, and they cooed happily over Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament and seemed to perk up a good deal.

They were a bit dismayed by the flat though they assured her they were enchanted to be so near to Tower Bridge and to be able to see it from her kitchen window; they said they didn’t mind sharing a room one little bit, truly they didn’t; but she wasn’t fooled. She set about organizing a late breakfast for them while they unpacked, knowing the coming days were not going to be easy as they came to terms with living in such cramped quarters after the comfort of their own big houses. Maybe they wouldn’t stay over Christmas, she thought hopefully, and again the guilt welled up. How could she be so unkind when they’d come so far to visit with her? It was shocking.

As a result of that feeling she gushed over them when she settled them to their breakfast, making a bit of a drama of squeezing oranges specially for the juice (quite forgetting how commonplace this was to them both) and chattering cheerfully of how much better English bagels were than New York ones, and they sat in increasing gloom as she burbled on, watching her over the rims of their coffee cups.

‘Look, honey,’ Bridget said at last. ‘I know I may be speaking out of turn and so forth, but I have to say, speaking for myself, that I don’t mind one bit if you want us to stay in a hotel or someplace else. It is tricky for you, seeing you have your job at the hospital and all …’

George was appalled. She sat down hard and stared at Bridget. ‘Oh, but Bridget, the last thing I want to be is — is unwelcoming. I thought —’

‘You’re not being unwelcoming,’ Bridget said, smiling at
her so that her eyes crinkled and disappeared into slits set in her pouchy toad-like cheeks. She looked so familiar, in a way George had quite forgotten, that George began to feel better. ‘It’s just that we know you, your ma and me, and we sorta got the idea you weren’t too sure this would work, this visit. I know we decided kinda fast to come, but you know me. I do everything in a rush.’

‘Ma?’ George looked at her mother for the first time since her arrival. So far she’d chattered and busied herself so much she’d been able to avoid eye contact ‘Ma, did you think —’

‘Oh, Bridget’s got it about right, I guess,’ her mother said and smiled her long slow smile. ‘She picks up these things when I don’t, you know. She’s my good right hand these days. And leg as well.’ She reached out, touched her friend’s hand with one gnarled and beautifully manicured finger and winked at her. ‘If she thinks it’s too much for you having us here, why, we’ll go to a nice hotel someplace and be very comfortable. Just as long as we’re in the same town for a while, I’ll be happy, George. You’re looking very well, a shade peaky, maybe, but your eyes are clear so I guess you’re happy enough.’

‘I’m very happy, Ma,’ George said. She reached out her own hand and Vanny took it and patted it with slow-moving fingers. ‘And I do want you here. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t suddenly realize how crowded we’re all going to be, but if you can manage, then —’

Bridget had got up and slipped out and George had hardly noticed. She was looking at her mother, noting the way her mouth had sprung railway lines all round the lips into which her pink lipstick had bled a little, and the fine line round the irises of her eyes. Oh, God, she thought. Arcus Senilis. My mother is getting old. So I’m getting old; and a sudden wave of desolation swept over her. She hurled herself forwards and hugged her mother close. Vanny said nothing; she just held George and let her cling and then,
when she sat up again, Vanny lifted both her rather shaky hands to pat her hair tidy.

‘Ma, I won’t hear another word about hotels,’ George said. Her voice was a little husky. ‘You’re staying here, crowded or not. We’ll manage fine.’

Bridget came drifting back from the small room she was sharing with Vanny, her face wreathed in smiles. ‘That’s better,’ she said approvingly, as though she were talking to a backward child. ‘Now listen, hon. You just leave us be. You go to your work and me and Vanny, we’ll take a little nap to get over last night and then when you get home —’

‘I’ll cook us a great dinner and we’ll catch up on all the news,’ George said, getting to her feet. ‘Now, is there anything else you need? Towels in the bathroom and —’

‘We’re just fine,’ Bridget said. ‘Off you go. No, leave the dishes. We’ll do them. Go on now! We need a bit of space, you know?’

And George laughed and went. It was all she could do under the circumstances. The next few weeks were not going to be at all easy, but she’d manage somehow. And maybe it would turn out that all was well with her mother after all and Bridget had just been fussing. Vanny had seemed tired this morning, of course, but then she would. She’d never been to Europe before, and a long flight across time zones made the youngest and most chipper feel lousy, she told herself as she ran for the bus that would take her over the river to Shadwell. It’ll all be OK, I’m sure it will.

She had little time to think about her personal affairs once she got to the hospital. It was almost lunchtime before she reached her office, having had to go in the long way round via the rear entrance in order to avoid the group of protesters at the main entrance, who still bore their battered placards proclaiming ‘The NHS For The People Not The Market Place’, and ‘Down With Trusts — No Privatization’ in spite of the fact that no one in authority paid them any
attention at all, and then found she was wanted urgently on a consult in Paediatrics. She muttered under her breath, looking at her cluttered desk, and then shrugged her shoulders and went They wouldn’t call her if it wasn’t important.

And was that much angrier when she got there and was told what the problem was with a baby that Prudence Jennings, the Paediatric Registrar, had just admitted. ‘She wants some special blood work done,’ the nurse at the desk told her. ‘She’s down in the cubicle at the far end.’

‘Blood work?’ George frowned. ‘Couldn’t you have just sent the blood over to me?’

The nurse shrugged. ‘I said that but she insisted she wanted you to take it yourself. She’ll explain, I imagine.’ She sniffed suddenly, showing her own irritation for the first time. ‘I’ve taken blood from younger babies than that one and had no problems. I could have done it easily. I can’t imagine why she had to drag you over here. Don’t blame me. I wouldn’t have bothered you, take it from me.’ And she looked as self-righteous as only nurses can in such circumstances.

George found Dr Jennings in the last cubicle, sitting beside a cot in which a small fretful infant lay, rocking its head from side to side. She was staring down at him with a frown between her brows.

‘Oh, Dr Barnabas, it’s good of you to come over,’ she said, glancing at George briefly. ‘I’ve got a tricky one here.’

‘Oh?’ George said and looked from the baby to the blood-taking tray that was waiting beside the cot on a locker. ‘I understand you want some blood work done? Why not just send the blood?’

‘That’s right’ Prudence was still looking at the child and seemed not to have noticed the question. ‘I made sure they had everything ready. Listen, Dr Barnabas, how old do you think this child is?’