Free A Kind Man by Susan Hill

see the end of the town lights and the beginning of the darkness and the track that led to The Cottages and her dying husband.

13
     
    D R M C E LVEY stood at the window of his study looking out at the same darkness, and thinking also of Tommy Carr, and as he did so, he heard the voice of the first physician he had worked with after qualifying, the man who had taught him more than anyone about sickness and health and the men, women and children whose lives they tended. He could hear his fine voice speaking into his own quiet room, speaking of the illnesses they all dreaded, the end they prayed not to come to and how they should be helped.
    ‘Remember one thing – they dinnae want to ken, Ian. Nearly all of them, you can be sure, and it’s your duty to spare them. They dinnae want to ken .’
    And so he had discovered for himself. He wondered now if Tommy Carr had wanted to know or if he, like so many, had guessed for himself and yet, with a strangeexcess of fellow feeling, wanted to spare the doctor from understanding that. There had been a look in his eyes.
    The growth had been large and growing, everything pointed to the tumour below the man’s jaw as having seeded from it and there would be others eating away what was left of his body. There was no point in knowing how many or where.
    Tommy Carr.
    Dr McElvey went out of his study to find his wife.
    Ten minutes later, he was driving to 6 The Cottages, obeying the inner voice he had been trained to listen to. It told him when someone needed him and why.
    Tommy Carr.
    It was some moments after he had knocked before Eve came to the door. He heard her footsteps on the stairs first. When she saw him her face, already pinched and grey with anxiety, flashed up a look of fear.
    Dr McElvey took off his hat. ‘I think perhaps you may need me to have a look at Tommy.’
    She held the door, uncertain, and he knew well that it was the question of cost running through her mind, as it did through them all.
    ‘Don’t worry, Eve,’ he said. ‘It’s all in with the same bill, you know, it’s not an extra call.’
    Though he knew full well that he had not yet sentany bill, nor would until he was sure of Tommy, one way or the other.
    ‘He’s very ill, Doctor. He seems to have gone down just in the last hour or so. I don’t know what’s wrong.’
    They dinnae want to ken . But did the wives and families?
    ‘Let me take a look then,’ he said.
    She led the way, up the narrow stairs. ‘Can I get you anything, Doctor?’
    ‘No, no … I just need to make sure Tommy’s comfortable. I’ve had him on my mind.’
    As he looked at the man, lying with his knees up, as if it helped with the pain in his belly, he thought there was very little time and knew again that he had been right to obey the voice that prompted him.
    ‘Tommy,’ he said, putting his hand on the man’s brow. It was cold and clammy. He touched his arm and his chest. Tommy shuddered.
    ‘Cold.’
    ‘I know. Shall I just take a look at your stomach?’
    Tommy looked at him out of eyes that had sunk deep down but whose irises were a brilliant, vivid blue. McElvey had seen that sometimes too.
    He touched the swelling on Tommy’s neck. It was harder but not larger. He pulled the bedclothes down gently. The swelling in his stomach was huge,as if the man were with child. He gave a slight whimper.
    ‘I can give you something to help now.’
    ‘There’s only a spoonful left of the medicine he brought back,’ Eve said. ‘It seemed as if it helped him just a little.’
    ‘He needs something stronger to ease him now.’
    ‘It won’t harm him?’
    He turned to look at her anxious face in the dimly lit room and looking, remembered the death of Jeannie Eliza. So this was the next blow she had to bear.
    ‘No, Eve. It will ease him and help him sleep. Nothing more.’ He set his bag on the dressing table and hesitated, wondering whether he should draw up a syringe or simply give a greater strength by tablet.
    Tommy