Ken McClure: Past Lives

‘Town?’

‘To get me a new dress. Daddy’s coming home soon and she wants me to look pretty for him.’

‘Where has your father been Emma?’

‘Fighting the enemies of the King. He’s very brave.’

‘The king, Emma?’ asked Macandrew. ‘What king?’

‘There’s only one king, silly,’ said Emma. ‘He’s...’ The words froze on Jane Francini’s lips and for a moment she appeared to have gone into a trance then slowly she opened her eyes and recoiled when she saw Macandrew leaning over her. She behaved as if she’d never seen him before. Her tone of voice had completely changed too as she let out a torrent of meaningless words.

Macandrew backed away from the bed and a nurse murmured, ‘That lady has a problem...’

Jane Francini had now surfaced from the sedation she had been under and was clearly a seriously disturbed woman. Macandrew became aware that the nurse was waiting for him to say something. ‘I’m going to have a psychiatrist take a look at her.’

‘Yes Doctor,’ replied the nurse.

‘For the record,’ said Macandrew without turning round, ‘Mrs Francini’s tumour was both malignant and aggressive.’

‘Tough break,’ said the nurse.

Macandrew returned to his office and picked up some coffee from the machine on the way. He sipped it while he waited for Tony Francini to arrive, half hoping that Saul Klinsman might arrive first but recognising that this wasn’t likely. The head of surgery usually arrived late and left early: this was written in the stars. The phone rang.

‘I came up with some stuff on Hartman’s tumours,’ said Carl Lessing. ‘Not that it’s very encouraging, I’m afraid. From the few recorded cases I managed to find, the prognosis is bad. None of them ever recovered.’

‘Secondary invasion?’

‘Strangely enough, no. Removal of the primary tumour seemed to stop the cancer in its tracks. It was more a case of being left with residual brain dysfunction.’

‘What level of dysfunction are we talking about here?’

‘Euphemism level,’ said Lessing. ‘They were out of their trees: they were all committed.’

Macandrew closed his eyes and screwed up his face. It sounded as if the clinical picture in Jane Francini’s case was matching up to Lessing’s information.

Francini arrived in the Med Centre a little after seven fifteen to find that his wife had been put under sedation again — Macandrew had written her up for this before leaving her to come upstairs. The nursing staff relayed the message to Francini that he should go straight on up to Macandrew’s office.

‘How come she’s still out?’ demanded Francini without any preamble.

‘She came round a short time ago,’ said Macandrew softly. ‘She was very disturbed. I put her under again.’

Francini looked at Macandrew in silence for a moment. At first his expression was questioning, and then it changed to accusation. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’

‘Sit down Mr Francini.’

‘I don’t want to fucking sit down,’ retorted Francini. ‘I want to know what’s wrong with my wife!’

‘Your wife is a very sick lady, Mr Francini. Her tumour was malignant and it’s a very aggressive kind of cancer. The pathology lab made the diagnosis last night.’

‘But you removed the damn thing. You said everything went well.’

‘It did from a surgical point of view,’ said Macandrew. ‘But it so happens that this particular kind of tumour tends to leave patients brain-damaged. We’re not sure why. There may be hidden secondaries or damage we can’t see on the scan. There hasn’t been enough research done on it. It’s a very rare type.’

‘Damaged?’ whispered Francini as if he was scared of the word. ‘What the fuck do you mean, damaged?’

‘The few similar cases we’ve been able to trace were left very severely confused with regard to cerebral function.’

‘You mean Janey is nuts?’ asked Francini, suddenly wide-eyed and vulnerable.

‘I’d like one of our psychiatrists to see her before we make any kind of formal assessment.’

Francini suddenly buried his head in his hands and started to sob. ‘Oh Christ,’ he wept. ‘What the hell am I gonna do?’

‘I’m very sorry,’ said Macandrew, suddenly feeling for the man. ‘I assure you, we’ll do our very best for her.’

Francini suddenly jerked his head up and spat out, ‘No you won’t! You assholes have done enough to Janey. I’m calling in a real doctor.’

‘I’m sorry you feel that way, Mr Francini,’ said Macandrew. ‘But I don’t think you’ll find any comfort in a second opinion.’

Francini stifled his reply as the door opened and Saul Klinsman came in. ‘I was just telling this guy here that I don’t want any of you hicks touching Janey any more. I’m calling in some brains.’

Klinsman shot Macandrew a questioning glance and Macandrew said, ‘Mrs Francini’s tumour was malignant and aggressive — a Hartman’s tumour. I’ve told Mr Francini that it wouldn’t be right for us to reach any firm conclusions on her condition without his wife being seen by a psychiatrist,’ said Macandrew.

‘That would be sensible,’ agreed Klinsman.

‘And I was saying, I don’t want you guys touching Janey,’ interrupted Francini. ‘I’m calling in my own people.’

‘That is your prerogative of course,’ replied Klinsman, ‘but that will probably take a few days if you’re going to bring in someone from out of town. Surely it would be in your wife’s best interests if we were to continue caring for her?’

‘No!’ insisted Francini. ‘I don’t want you bastards causing any more damage. She’s not to be given anything, especially not the knock-out drops this guy’s been using to shut her up.’

Macandrew bit his tongue and said, ‘It’s important that your wife should not be allowed to get over excited, because of her heart condition. That’s why I sedated her.’

‘I want her conscious and alert when a real doctor gets here, not acting like some spaced-out zombie!’

‘I’ll need you to sign something to that effect Mr Francini,’ said Klinsman. ‘You could be putting your wife’s life in danger.’

Francini snorted and said, ‘Danger? After what you assholes did to her? That’s fucking rich!’

Macandrew knew he was in danger of losing his temper. He appreciated that Francini was very upset but the man was pushing things too far. His wife’s condition had been fully diagnosed. The tumour had done the damage to her, nothing else. There had been no mistakes, no overlooked secondaries, no incompetence and he was not keeping her sedated to cover up his own blunders. He was doing his level best to keep her stress levels within reasonable bounds. He looked away so that Francini would not see the anger he felt. He was going to keep his temper if it killed him.

‘When will she come round?’ asked Francini.

Macandrew took a deep breath. ‘Without any more sedation, she should be fully alert in four hours,’ he said.

‘See that she is,’ said Francini, getting to his feet and leaving the room without another word.

Macandrew thumped his right fist into the open palm of his other hand. ‘Christ, that guy is crossing the line!’ he exclaimed.

Klinsman nodded. ‘Mr Francini does lack a certain basic charm.’

‘I really think that Jane might be in danger if we withdraw sedation completely,’ said Macandrew.

‘It’s Francini’s call. We can’t risk him taking us to court,’ replied Klinsman. ‘He may not be the brightest guy in the world but he’s rich and that’s all you need to be to hire the legal brains who’ll crucify us in court whatever the rightness of our cause.’

Macandrew sighed and said, ‘Maybe just 50mg Valium? Who’d know?’