Литагент HarperCollins - Touch and Go

Some nights there were outbursts of vanity.

‘My make-up box … over there. Bring it, please.’

And the nurse would softly cream and powder the waxy skin, deftly touch with rose the hollowed cheeks and flick the little eyebrow pencil over the bony arches. Poor soul, she thought, that chemotherapy sure takes away the glamour …

She adroitly moved the table-lamp before handing over the mirror.

‘You look very nice, madam,’ she said, brushing the pale strands of fine hair across the high forehead, ‘your hair’s soft as a baby’s.’

‘Nonsense, Nurse. I look like a whited sepulchre, and you know it.’ The dying woman was no fool but she recognized a good effort when she saw it. ‘I’m sorry. You did your best …’

On the last night they had a fashion show.

‘In those wardrobes …’ The voice from the bed was breathless. ‘Open them up …’

The nurse did as she was told. ‘What will madam wear this evening?’ she asked, entering into the spirit, even as her eyes took in the tussore silk suits, the tweeds and worsteds, the riding habits with their satin stocks, the pretty day dresses and the avenue of formals, chiffons pale as streams of water, dark velvets starred with diamanté …

‘My Mandarin jacket … the scarlet one with the embroidered dragons. Put it round my shoulders.’

She was sitting up high on the pillows as the nurse slipped the red and gold garment across the bones standing out at the top of her arms.

‘I used to wear my rubies with this. They were specially set in gold for me … Get them for me. They’re in the jewel box.’

The nurse hesitated. ‘Madam will tire herself,’ she said, at her most soothing. ‘Perhaps another night …’

‘Not too many other nights …’ But the patient’s voice was faint, and her brow had puckered as it did before the onset of pain. The nurse took away the jacket, prepared and administered the relieving drug, and settled the sick woman gently down into fresh cool sheets, pulling away the soiled linen with no fuss as she had been trained to do. Such tasks were of no consequence to her, the incontinence of her patients simply a part of their illness and accepted by her as nature’s failure, not theirs.

She replaced the scarlet coat, and closed the wardrobe doors but not before letting her eyes wander once more across the richness stored inside.

She tidied the bedside table, washed up and replenished the water carafe in the adjoining bathroom, then settled herself in the big armchair near the bed with one of her magazines. She yawned. She had not had her usual sleep during the day because there had been some sort of crisis in the kitchen department.

Normally she never went downstairs, everything was found for her on this floor, even her meals being served to her in the room allocated for her stay. Sometimes they were brought to her by Leonie, the maid, a silent creature who the nurse had diagnosed as being subnormal, or by Mrs Hermanos herself. The nurse couldn’t make head or tail of Mrs Hermanos. On the surface she was friendly enough, though distant as if the nurse’s position was far inferior to her own in the household. As well it might be, for Mrs Hermanos was more than housekeeper to the dying lady, she was much too familiar with her for that, calling her by her first name and, in the nurse’s view, taking liberties.

Lunch that day had not arrived at one o’clock as it usually did, nor was there any sign of it an hour later so the nurse had gone down to investigate. She had found the kitchen in a state of chaos, and some sort of row going on between Mrs Hermanos and her husband, José. There was a broken cup on the table, and the remains of a plate on the floor by the sink where it had obviously been thrown at someone’s head. The nurse had heard it shatter as she came down the stairs, at the same time as she’d heard the yelling voices. Leonie was nowhere to be seen so the uproar was a private quarrel between the Hermanos but the nurse had witnessed all too many of such scenes in other houses to let it bother her, so she simply asked if she could please have her lunch, pronto, and left them to it. About half an hour later it did arrive at the hands of Mrs Hermanos who looked both chastened and defiant as if daring the nurse to comment. The nurse had heard enough to know what the row was about but saw no reason to pass any remark. It wasn’t her business anyhow.

José Hermanos’s position on the staff—if he had any at all—was uncertain. The doctor had said that Florence—Mrs Hermanos—had only married him recently and it was she who had introduced him into the household as an English butler. On this point the doctor was sceptical.

‘About as English as Hoboken,’ he growled, ‘and as for being a butler—a Spanish waiter more like! Florence now, well, she’s been around our lady for years … I don’t take to her myself but she keeps the place going, and she seems fond of her mistress.’

The nurse would not have put it in such terms. In her view Florence Hermanos had gotten herself a good job and was hanging in there, with expectations. However, she could be relied upon to run things smoothly enough, the invalid meals she served were both sensible and tasty even for a fast-declining appetite, and sometimes it was only through Florence’s coaxing that the patient could be persuaded to eat at all.

‘Madam tells me that she and Florence go back a long way,’ she remarked, ‘so she must have been in her service many years.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’ The doctor had only known his patient since she had arrived in New York for treatment, by which time the disease had manifested itself in a form both rapid and relentless.

‘She got no family of her own, then?’

‘Apparently not. Nor many friends either that I can see. A firm of lawyers manages her affairs … It’s none of my business, of course,’ he went on brusquely, for he was by nature averse to gossip, ‘I’m only responsible for what physical wellbeing she has left … and to see that she dies with dignity.’

‘That is my duty also, Doctor,’ said the nurse quietly as she showed him to the door.

This conversation had taken place late that afternoon but the nurse had not found it necessary to mention the scene she had witnessed in the kitchen earlier in the day. She felt it was not her place to do so.

Now she relaxed and stretched out her legs to rest on a little tapestried stool. Despite all the running around she’d done in the course of her work her ankles were still slim and she was proud of them. She yawned again, and let the magazine slip to the floor.

She was roused by a restless movement by her patient. She glanced at her watch. She must have been asleep for about three hours. She got up and went over to the bed, adjusted the dim night light and took hold of the hand, stroking the fingers that twitched like captive mice.

‘It’s all right, madam. I’m here. Are you in pain?’

The pale blue eyes showed no sign of distress. ‘No … I don’t think so … No pain. I feel a bit light … floating, somehow …’ The sweet voice articulated slowly but clearly. ‘What were we talking about earlier? I can’t quite remember …’

The nurse poured some water, held the glass to the dry lips.

‘Don’t you try,’ she said, ‘just take it easy … Are you quite comfortable?’

‘Yes, but I don’t want to sleep. We were playing a game, weren’t we, Nurse?’

‘We had a little fashion show with your lovely dresses. It was fun, wasn’t it?’ Placating, pleasing, the words came easily to her as she felt for the pulse. Reassured, she seated herself by the bed still holding the thin, transparent hand.

‘I remember now … I was going to show you my rubies …’