The Daughter (5 page)

“Hi. I'm looking for number 14?”

The tallest boy jerked his head up.

“Jeff Price? What for?”

A smaller boy stepped forward, shifting his weight from side to side, a hand-­rolled cigarette gripped in his teeth, bare white arms tightly folded. He jerked his head silently at a house with a yellow door.

“Thanks for your help.” I smiled quickly at them all.

“Up herself, isn't she?” someone said as I turned away, and one of them threw his can into the road.

There were rows of bottles outside the yellow door, some had fallen over. My feet tapped a pile on the step sending them crashing to the path and a small wave of laughter hit against my back.

The door was slightly ajar, and the smell of urine and beer reached outside. The bell didn't work, so I knocked; there was no answer. I pushed the door wider, stepped inside the narrow, dark hall and called, “Hello? Mrs. Price? It's the doctor, from yesterday.”

“Who's this, then?”

A huge man emerged from the darkness down the narrow hall. His stained dressing gown fell open, revealing a mat of graying chest hair. As he came barreling down the corridor toward me, my hands tightened on my bag.

“The doctor. I'm . . . the doctor.”

“Oh yeah? What might you be after?”

“Your wife brought Jade to see me yesterday.”

The change was sudden and complete. His mouth opened in a wide smile and his eyes widened.

“Bless you, love. I'm dead worried about her and all. Come in, meet Mother.”

I would tell him soon. After I had met his mother I would warn him I was worried about his daughter being abused, though I might not use that word. I would tell him that I had referred her, for safety's sake. He gestured me down the hall and through a narrow door at the end. “Say hello to the doctor, Ma. She's come about our Jadie.”

The smell of ammonia made my eyes water. An old lady sat close to the fire where a thin bar of red glowed. An ancient parrot of a woman, with eyes sunk in folds of dry skin and thin claws gripping the arms of the chair. Her limbs writhed and her cheeks bulged rhythmically in constant chewing. Under her seat the carpet looked dark and wet.

“She can't help it. I'll make us a nice cup of tea. Make yourself comfy, love.”

I looked for somewhere to sit but every surface was crowded: blister packs of medication, balls of tissues rolled up together with dark green deposits gummed in the creases. Plastic toys littered the floor and were shoved under the television. There was a child's painting of a house stuck to the wall. The heat and the smell were intense. I went into the hall and listened. I could hear the kettle whistling, rattling crockery, the sound of something smashing and curses from Mr. Price. I looked up the narrow stairs that twisted into darkness. I was listening for a child, but I didn't have time to hear anything.

“Looking for me, love?” Mr. Price appeared, steaming mugs in each hand. He followed me back into the sitting room, his hard stomach pushing me ahead. “Here we are, Ma.”

He balanced a mug for me on a pile of newspapers, blew noisily into another, then tilted his mother's chin and spooned tea into her mouth; brown dribbles ran down her chin and onto her pink nylon nightdress. Next to her chair there was a family photo; from where I was sitting, I could make out the small shape of a child dwarfed by her parents on either side.

“About Jade . . .”

“Yeah?”

“I'm worried about . . . her bruises.”

“Tracey told me. This cough. She feels hot sometimes. You know, properly sweaty. And she's off her food, getting thinner. All the bruises.”

“I wondered how she got them.” I watched him intently as I said this.

“That's just it. We haven't got a clue. Not a dicky bird.”

“That's part of the reason I want to send her to the hospital for a checkup—­the bruises.”

“Hospital. Fuck me. You think it's serious, then?” His forehead wrinkled, he sounded genuinely worried, and I saw what Frank meant. This man could run rings around me.

“Anything we don't understand is important.” I kept my voice level. “I want her checked out by a pediatrician.”

“Oh yeah? And who's that when he's at home?”

“A children's doctor. Someone to look into the problems that happen when children have injuries we don't understand. Like Jade. To be honest, we are worried in case she's been hurt by someone.”

“Those bloody little blighters at school.”

I'd tried. I'd tried hard enough. If I forced a confrontation, he might take her and vanish.

“They'll send her an appointment or they may call if they see a space coming up in the next day or two. Could even be this afternoon.”

“Thanks, Doc.” His face creased in a smile that looked convincing. “I'll tell the wife.”

I stood up, ignoring the tea. His mother jerked and writhed silently in her seat.

“It's okay, she's going.” Mr. Price leaned toward his mother, shouting in her ear. “Say good-­bye to the doctor.”

The parrot eyes flicked in my direction. She knew. You couldn't live in a house with a child who was being hurt and not know. She probably guessed exactly why I was here.

The gang of boys was still there. One of them held a bag to his face; another was lolling against the lamppost, swaying slightly, eyes closed. Two were squatting, heads low, hands dangling. They didn't see me pass. The narrow street was darker, the strip of sky looked gray green, and it had begun to rain lightly. I checked my watch as I hurried: four
P.M.
Theo would be in the art studio, arranging his photos for the exhibition. Ed would be rowing for school team practice, serious-­eyed, muscles straining. They were about the same age as this group of boys. But I didn't feel lucky, I felt afraid.

It was cold in the car, and I turned the heater and the radio on. The local news was being read. Rapist attacks inner Bristol. Flooding. Chocolate factory closing down.

Suddenly I wanted to speak to Ted; I wanted to hear his voice. I turned the radio off, pulled out my cell, and tapped his number. His voice told me he was unavailable, to leave a message after the tone. This was different from the last answering message, one he had recorded at home when there had been a faint backwash of music, a pan crashing, and children's voices. This was just his voice, clear and confident. He sounded very sure of himself and very far away.

 

Chapter 6

DORSET, 2010

ONE YEAR LATER

I
enclose the old lady's thin wrist with my fingers. Hers is an image I have gathered in without knowing, like a tree by the road that I often drive past. She has until now been no more than a bent shape in a bulky coat. I'd known she was old by her stiff, dipping gait. Sometimes, in the long slow hours of night, I'd look out of my window and see a comforting point of light from her bedroom window. Now she is lying at an awkward angle: her neck is wedged against the doorpost, her arms have fallen across her body, hands bunched.

“Hello? Can you hear me?”

No answer.

“Does it hurt anywhere?”

Nothing.

“I'm going to lift you up, hold on.”

I slide one arm under her shoulders and the other under her splayed knees. Close up, her white skin is finely wrinkled; there are brown blotches on her cheeks. Her thin lips are pale and her white hair drawn back so tightly the bones of her forehead are outlined. She has the look of a sleeping cat and she weighs no more than a little girl. As I push her door wider open with my shoulders, I am back to doing what I used to do every day, when looking after ­people was a routine part of life.

BRISTOL, 2009

FIFTEEN TO TEN DAYS BEFORE

The days passed quickly. Ordinary days.

Were they ordinary? It seemed so at the time. In my memory they remain just that: gray-­blue days of routine and little dramas. Ordinary, even though they were the last days of family life, ordinary, though it turned out that almost everyone was lying.

I worked in the practice, routine prenatal clinics and daily office patients. At home Ted and I talked, argued, made love when we weren't too exhausted. Ed had a ­couple of days off with a bad cold, and I left him undisturbed and sleeping on those mornings, drinks and acetaminophen on his bedside table. Theo got a commendation for his woodland photo series, and Naomi's rehearsals were more frequent and lasted longer. Ted spent more time at work. His paper was accepted by the
Lancet
. We celebrated late at night with a bottle of wine.

If the days felt ungraspable, as one slid into the next, at least life was running smoothly onward. The trick was simply to balance it all. Family. Marriage. Career. Painting. If the balance tipped in one direction and work took up more time, no one complained. It sometimes felt as if I was rehearsing for real life, so if it went wrong it didn't matter. One day I would have it all organized. I would be the perfect mother, wife, doctor, artist. It was just a question of practice. If I made mistakes, I could simply try again.

At work there was always a fresh sense of starting over. Every morning the basin was clean, new blue paper lay on the examination table, the toys tidied away into the box underneath it.

Jade was admitted to hospital on Thursday, November 5. In her letter, the pediatrician's secretary had mentioned Mr. Price. He'd thrown chairs in the waiting room and broken a window. The police were called and he'd been arrested. I had handed the load on, so I tried to put it from my mind, but I couldn't shake off the image of his face when I had told him I had come about Jade's referral. He had seemed so pleased. I decided it was simply that he knew he had been out of control and was relieved that someone was going to stop him.

The following Monday I got to the office early for the quiet space before the patients arrived. I checked the results while I was sipping my first mug of coffee, and Mrs. Blacking's liver-­function tests were still on the screen when the phone rang.

“Dr. Malcolm?”

“Yes?”

I wedged the phone under my chin as I scrolled down. There were red dots by all the liver enzymes on the screen. My hunch had been right. The thin hair, red palms, and the spidery veins on her cheeks had given her away; the forgetfulness wasn't just the menopause. She hadn't told me about the bottle of sherry at the back of the cupboard, the one she probably bought with the milk from Tesco's every day. I sent an e-­mail to Jo to ask her to make Mrs. Blacking an appointment.

“. . . from the Children's Hospital.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch—­”

“Dr. Chisholm. Pediatric consultant from the Children's Hospital. You referred Jade Price.”

I put the mug down and held the phone properly.

“Yes, I did. Thank you for—­”

“I would like to talk about the case with you, Dr. Malcolm.”

I was glad he was taking this seriously but there wasn't time now. “Perhaps I could phone you back later this morning? My office hours begin in three minutes.”

“I'd prefer to talk to you in person. I'm free at one—­I've canceled a meeting.”

I told myself I needed him, so I had to be polite. “One today? I'll have to see if that's possible.”

“Please. It would be helpful. My office is on the fifth floor of the Children's Hospital.”

“I'll ask Frank, Dr. Draycott, my partner. Perhaps he can—­”

“Good. See you later.”

I could see this consultant very clearly. He had wings of gray hair, perfectly brushed. He'd be holding the X-­rays in a large, freckled hand, looking at them through silver-­rimmed glasses, nodding at the old spiral fractures, the footprint of child abuse. He wouldn't be thinking about my day, the phone calls, and the visits to hidden flats down roads where parking was impossible. He wouldn't know about the referrals, the scripts to sign, the feeling of lateness, and the struggle to fit it all in before the end of the day. He wanted to talk to me about Jade, and I knew I had to go.

AT ONE PRECISELY,
I tapped the door with “Dr. Chisholm” spelled out in neat gold lettering in a little black frame. He stood up as I went in. He was thin and dark, with intense brown eyes that watched mine closely so that he caught the flicker of surprise.

“It's okay. Everyone is fooled. Sadly, I lost my Ghanaian accent at Oxford.” His handshake was tight and brief. “Thank you for coming. Sit, please.”

I sat down on a gray plastic chair and he took his place behind the desk. It felt like an interview somehow. I spoke quickly: “Thank you for asking me to meet you. It's a difficult situation . . .”

“Jade is ill, Dr. Malcolm.”

“Yes. Her father didn't give anything away, but I think it's been going on for a while. She's obviously very depressed.”

“Very ill.” He looked at me without expression.

“The social workers—­”

“She has leukemia.” His voice cut smoothly across mine.

“Leukemia?” I was confused, or perhaps he was. He must be talking about another child.

His voice was continuing: “. . . so we are certain no one abused her. Unwashed maybe, lice and so on. Unwitting neglect from inadequate parents, though I suspect she is loved. No, she has acute lymphoblastic leukemia.”

Jesus.

“Blood tests show atypical lymphocytes, blast cells. No clotting capacity. She is dangerously anemic.”

How the hell had I missed that? Everything was suddenly, shatteringly, obvious. She had been passive with exhaustion, not because she was depressed but because she was anemic. The chest infection was secondary to nonfunctioning white cells. The bruises were due to poor clotting, not abuse. She had come back four times and I hadn't listened, hadn't believed her mother. A hot wave of guilt was breaking over me.

Dr. Chisholm kept pace with my thoughts and outstripped them.

“We have her on intravenous antibiotics. The MRI scan is booked for tomorrow and then we start the chemotherapy.”

“Do her parents know?”

“Not yet. That's why I wanted to see you. It's a delicate situation. In the clinic I told them we needed to admit her to investigate the possibility of nonaccidental injury. They asked if that's what you had thought.”

“I went to their house specially to inform them.” But that was a mistake, I knew that now. I had judged them partly by their house, by the street it was on. “I tried to tell her father.”

­“People choose to hear what they want to.” His eyes flashed before he looked away. “I have no doubt you tried your best, Dr. Malcolm, but I'm afraid they had no idea at all. Mr. Price felt accused; he was angry.”

Angry? He would want to kill. He had blamed “those bloody little blighters at school,” but the suspicion had fallen on him because of me. I could see that bull-­like figure hurling the chair through the window in helpless rage.

“The tests came back this morning. From here on we take over. I knew this would be a surprise, so I thought I would tell you myself. I also wondered if you wanted to inform her parents. It might be best in the long run for you to discuss the diagnosis with them at this point. Build trust.”

Discuss? What was there to say? That I had made a terrible mistake because I hadn't believed what they were saying? That I had stereotyped them in the worst possible way?

His eyes looked hard into mine. I couldn't tell if he was sympathetic or contemptuous.

“What's the prognosis?”

“Between twenty percent and seventy-­five percent five-­year survival. We have to wait for the scan results. Jade has an unusually large number of abnormal white cells in her bloodstream, which worsens her prognosis, as you know.” He was still watching me closely. “So, as her first point of contact, what do you want to do?”

I wanted to run away from the guilt that could drown me. I had referred Jade in the end but for the wrong reasons, and too late, months too late.

“I'll go and see her parents, of course.” I thought for a moment and added, “I'd like to see Jade. At least I can tell them how she is.”

“Follow me.”

He moved smoothly from his desk, through the door, and out into the corridor. I almost had to run to keep up. She looked all right, I'd say to her parents later. She looked better. It wouldn't be long, I'd tell them. It's lucky she's in hospital now. She was laughing—­no, perhaps not laughing. She was smiling. I said . . . then she said . . . then she laughed . . .

I wasn't sure at first why we had stopped at the second bed. There was a little boy in it. Very thin, with closed eyes and spiky fair hair. He looked about six. There was a drip in the arm that lay outside the sheet. Then I saw the giraffe, dirty against the crisp white linen. Some of the bruises were green now, but there were new red and mauve ones too.

“We cut her hair to make it easier to get rid of the lice.” He spoke very quietly. “But it will also help her adjust to the hair loss. We had her permission and the permission of her parents, though, as I say, they don't know the diagnosis.”

I wondered how long before she would go completely bald with the chemotherapy.

Dr. Chisholm was talking softly; it was as if he'd read my thoughts. “We don't yet know what combination of drugs we will use. That will depend on the scan.”

“Jade?” I whispered. “Hello, there. It's the doctor.”

Dr. Chisholm looked at me. His eyes said: Doctor? The doctor?

“Jade has met lots of doctors now.” He sounded dismissive. “She's asleep.”

I ignored him. “Jade? I'm going to see your mum and dad now. I'll tell them—­I mean, I'll give them . . .” What? What would I tell them? Was there anything to give them?

Her eyelids flickered open.

Maybe it was because she had heard my voice before or maybe it was because she heard me say Mum and Dad, but for a second, less than a second, she looked at me and she smiled.

It was only as I turned the car on the oily concrete of the hospital underground parking garage that it came to me. Of course, she couldn't have known it was my fault or that she could have been helped so much earlier if only I had listened.