‘Hello. Yes, this is she. Oh, Mr Bennett. How kind of you to make time to call me. This is a very – personal – story. You can’t manage a drink, I suppose? No. No, sweet of you but I can’t make dinner either. How about lunch tomorrow? Where? Oh, that’s very nice of you. I think I’d like to go to the Berkeley, if you’re really letting me choose. I have to be at the air terminal at three. I’m working in New York for a few days. It’s a political story. Well, about politicians. One politician to be precise. I don’t want to give you a name. I will tomorrow, though. Good afternoon, Mr Bennett. So sweet of you to call.’
Pity, in a way, that it had to wait another day. But then it was a day nearer the election. Which meant it would probably damage him that bit more.
Chapter 51
‘Mr Welles! Yes, do come in.’
The tone wasn’t just icy, it was deep frozen.
‘Thank you,’ said Ned. He smiled warmly at Sir Neil, hoping to effect even the mildest thaw. It was not successful. He sat down in spite of not being invited to do so, which was clearly a mistake.
‘I thought we had seen an end to this nonsense,’ Sir Neil said.
‘Nonsense, Sir Neil?’
‘Yes, bloody nonsense, mothers being allowed on the wards. I hear there was an appalling scene on Bates. Screaming, children out of their beds, discourtesy to Sister.’
‘There was indeed, until I said the mother might stay with her child and – settle him. After that, everybody settled.’
Ned used the word deliberately, it being bandied about so much on the paediatric wards. ‘I admit I was rather short with Sister Bates. But I was trying to improve the situation and she wasn’t cooperating. I did apologise to her in the morning.’
‘What she described was hardly shortness, Mr Welles. It was considerable rudeness.’
‘Well – I’m sorry.’
‘This can’t go on. I will not have the hospital disrupted in this way. The staff don’t know how to cope with it, the mothers who are not allowed on the ward resent the fact that others appear to be –’
‘Both those things could be immediately rectified,’ said Ned, ‘if we could just establish the fact that mothers are permitted to be with their children.’
‘No!’ It was a roar. ‘No, no, no.’ He had turned an interesting shade of near-purple. Ned wondered idly if he would be up for manslaughter if a fatal heart attack ensued. It didn’t.
‘While you are working here, Mr Welles, you will abide by the rules of this hospital. Good surgeon you may be – outstanding, I hear from some sources – but no one is irreplaceable. The board of governors and I are agreed that if you do not abide by the hospital rules you will be asked to leave.’
There was a long silence; finally, Ned stood up and walked to the door. His hand was on the doorknob when Sir Neil spoke again; his tone lower, full of menace.
‘Mr Welles?’
‘Yes?’
‘I think I should tell you there are rumours about certain aspects of your – what shall I call it – private life that I dislike intensely. I would like to think that they are, like most rumours, unfounded, but I would like your solemn assurance that this is absolutely the case.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,’ said Ned. He felt now that he was lost, no longer bravely standing up for the rights of the mothers and children in his care, but flailing helplessly in a rip tide of terror.
‘I think you do, Mr Welles. I refer to the kind of disgusting conduct that belongs in the sewer; that no normal, decent man would even consider. I don’t intend to spell it out further. Now, I would like that assurance within the next few days, or your future might look a little different.’
Another day, safely got through. Tom wondered if he was going to have to spend the rest of his life like this, terrified of the story getting out. Surely, in time, she’d find another victim, start playing with him, poor bugger: only of course, if he was entirely honest with himself, she was hardly the only one to blame. He had not exactly been dragged kicking and screaming into her bed.
He paused in his present task, preparing a speech for a rallying meeting in Purbridge the next day, not that it required much preparation; he could have recited all his speeches without a pause, so frequently did he deliver them.
He was seeing Donald Herbert tonight; Donald had not exactly forgiven him for his refusal to do the right thing, as he saw it, but he seemed to have decided to help Tom anyway.
Their meeting was to be at Donald’s house in South Kensington, a huge pile just off the Old Brompton Road. The unfortunate Christine had been responsible for the decor. It was rather dull, like Christine herself: a great deal of beige carpeting, chintz curtains and covers, not a proper picture in sight, the walls and surfaces of the reproduction furniture adorned with countless framed photographs of the Herbert family, with one vast painting of the entire clan – fifteen of them, three generations – hanging over the fake fireplace in the drawing room. This evening they were to spend in what Donald called the snug, the home of the television, shelves of political books (he didn’t seem to read anything else) and a very flashy radiogram. Donald had invited Tom round to watch the very first TV debate, chaired by Anthony Eden, with four other senior politicians, including ‘Rab’ Butler and Iain Macleod, all questioned by members of the press, one of whom was the legendary Hugh Cudlipp. The questions were spontaneous and had not required approval. Tom wished only that the Labour Party, with Nye Bevan and Gaitskell among them, had envisaged something similar; but then he thought that Attlee would have had to chair it, and changed his mind. Eden was suave, good-looking and relaxed. Attlee, while unarguably clever, probably more so than his counterpart, had the charisma of a bowl of cold porridge.
Donald had invited Alice too and Tom had begged her to come, but she said that short of bringing Charlie with her it was impossible. He disliked all strangers, and reduced the few available babysitters to tears, and the one occasion Alice had tried giving him a bottle, acting on a suggestion from the district nurse, had been a resounding failure. She had offered Charlie a few ounces of Cow & Gate; he took a tentative suck while she held her breath. His face screwed up in disgust, and he clamped his mouth firmly shut and turned his small head away from her. Alice wearily put the bottle down and unbuttoned her dress. Charlie clamped his mouth round her nipple, with a look that very clearly said, ‘Don’t you try that again’. He didn’t even gaze up at her adoringly while she fed him, as the others had. It seemed a very long time since anyone had gazed at her adoringly. Certainly not Tom.
He agreed that taking Charlie was not an option, and set off alone. Christine, who clearly liked him, greeted him with a large vodka tonic.
‘I’ve got some sausage rolls here,’ she said, putting a dish of about fifty down on the coffee table. ‘And some of my fruit cake to follow. You look as if you need feeding up.’
Tom accepted the drink and ate his way manfully through about five sausage rolls before giving up. ‘I’m sorry – more in a while, maybe.’
‘How about a piece of cake then?’ Christine said. ‘Or I’ve got some shortbread.’
‘Christine, he’s had enough,’ said Donald, his voice tinged with exasperation. ‘Why don’t you go and tidy up the kitchen while Tom and I talk business. I’ll call you when the debate begins.’