Free A Kind Man by Susan Hill Page A

made a sound and started trying to sit up but could not. Eve wiped his brow with a clean folded handkerchief.
    ‘Try and keep him covered. He’ll feel cold.’
    He counted a dozen tablets into the box. ‘He should have two of these soon, when he can drink them down. He should sleep then.’
    He looked at Eve and saw the unspoken question on her face.
    ‘You try to rest yourself now.’
    She led him down the stairs but at the door she turned. ‘Is there nothing you can do for him? Can nobody?’
    ‘Ah, Eve. You can do the most, you know that. Being with him, making sure he’s comfortable. That’ll be all he wants, to have you with him.’
    ‘It’s hard.’
    ‘It is.’
    ‘And harder knowing …’
    He waited, but she shook her head and lifted the latch to open the door. It was raining a little on the breeze.
    ‘I’ll come by tomorrow.’ Dr McElvey touched her arm.
    He would, but whether to see Tommy Carr alive again was another matter.

14
     
    NIGHT CAME . Tommy lay quietly except that he groaned once or twice and once cried out suddenly when he tried to turn over. Eve got a second blanket and laid it over him, but his hands and face felt cold to the touch and now and again he shivered violently.
    He took the tablets, sipping the water from the cup she held close to his mouth. His skin was dry and thin as tissue.
    But a little while afterwards he slept and then she lay down beside him, though still dressed, and reached out to touch his hand for comfort. Cold. There was no moon and she had left the window a little open so that the curtain moved occasionally and she could smell the damp earth and the rain on the wind.
    What would she do? Would she stay here? She couldnot think of herself being anywhere else, could not bear it, but it was Tommy’s wage that paid the rent. Well then, she would have to work, though where or at what she had no idea. There were few jobs and she had no skills or none that anyone would pay much for.
    She caught herself. ‘I am thinking as if he were dead. He is not dead.’
    But it would not be long. It could not be.
    And then she slept, lightly, but it helped her and she did not dream, but was just aware of the curtain blowing and of Tommy’s cold hand.
    She woke because he had said something, and when she turned, she realised that he was sitting up.
    ‘Tommy?’
    ‘Oh, Eve, would you open the window?’
    ‘It is open.’
    ‘I’m so hot. Can you open it a little more? I feel I’m burning. I woke with it. It’s as if you’d opened the lid of the range and set me beside it.’
    She reached out to him and felt his skin, but even before she touched it she could feel the warmth coming off him.
    She switched on the lamp, got out of bed and drew one curtain back, but she was afraid to let in more cool air in case he took a chill and pneumonia.
    Now he had pushed back the bedclothes and unbuttoned his pyjama jacket.
    ‘Tommy, try not to do that, you could catch a bad cold. Are you thirsty?’
    ‘Maybe some water would help cool me? I was so cold before. I slept well, the pain was better.’
    ‘Those tablets the doctor brought … he said they were stronger. That’s good you slept so peacefully.’
    ‘I was peaceful. That’s the right word. I feel peaceful now. As if this warmth were going right through to my bones, right through my body – it’s like sitting in the sun.’
    Eve looked at him. There was something in his face, something about him that had changed. His face looked less ghostly, his eyes less sunken into his head and pain-filled.
    She went down into the quiet kitchen and opened the back door and the soft sound of the rain on the grass was like a balm. She ran her hands under the cold water.
    Perhaps this was what happened sometimes, nearer to death? The cold and then the sudden feeling of heat, the last alertness before the mind clouded again? She did not know. Death seemed to take so many forms. But if he had a little while of calm and ease she would be thankful