Free Seven Dials by Claire Rayner Page A

feet, matching his action to his words. ‘I’ve written my report, Miss Lucas, for his notes. Now I return your young patient to you. I know you haven’t asked for any direct advice on his management but I shall offer it all the same. I wouldn’t want to be in dereliction of my medical duty, however icy and self-controlled you might think me. I would strongly advise you to send him home to his family for a while to think about his situation and to face the fact that he does not need further surgery, and that however much he gets he is not going to endup with what he wants - which is a total restoration of his pre-injury looks. He has a scar, he’ll always have a scar and no matter how you or I or anyone else fiddles with it, he’ll never be happy with the result of any further treatment. Better to face this fact now than to go on as he is, trying to make people dance to his tune. If you don’t tell him to do this then you’ll be colluding in his fantasy of a totally restored face and doing him more harm than good.’
    ‘Thank you,’ Charlie said icily. ‘I doubt very much whether I’ll act on that advice but I must thank you for it all the same, I suppose.’
    He stopped at the door, not looking round. ‘Oh, Miss Lucas, do stop being so silly! You’re not the first doctor to develop an absurd fascination for a good-looking patient, and I don’t suppose you’ll be the last, but for heaven’s sake, do try to cover it up. It does neither you nor your profession any good at all to wear your heart on your sleeve in so obvious a fashion.’
    ‘How dare you!’ she cried and at once bit her lip. There was a limit to how far a member of the resident staff could go in dealing with even the most stupid of consultants, and she might well have overstepped it, but her anger overcame her native caution and she found her teeth lifting from her lip, heard her own voice and was aghast at what it was saying.
    ‘How dare you speak to me like that? Just because you’re a cold fish who never felt any hurt, who never had to face up to losing what mattered to you, you think you can tell other people how to cope with their sense of grief? That man is in a state of bereavement - if you can’t see that you’ve no right to call yourself a psychiatrist. His looks have been killed - he feels as though he’s inhabiting a dead body, and that’s why he’s so desperately unhappy! I’ve done all I can to get him transferred to the care of a plastic surgeon because this damned place doesn’t have such a modern facility, and I would have thought a little help for the man from you wouldn’t have hurt. But oh, no! You just preach about coming to terms with his loss - what do you know about such a loss? Who are you to -’
    Suddenly she stopped, her words hanging in the air like palpable things as she stared at his still turned back, her face blank with horror. She’d forgotten. Oh God, she’d forgotten. Wasn’t this the man whose wife had been killed in a flyingbomb raid? She’d been away on attachment at the maternity unit over at Stoke Newington when it had happened, but she’d been told and she could remember the pang of sympathy she had felt for this man she didn’t really know but who had been left alone by a last stupid pointless flying bomb, sent on its way by an enemy thrashing around in defeat, could remember how very sorry she had felt for him - and how she had never thought about the matter again. And now here she was haranguing him about the effects of grief because she didn’t like what he had said about a patient and -
    ‘If you’ve quite finished, Miss Lucas, I must be on my way. You have my report and my advice. It is now up to you what you do. Good afternoon.’ And still without turning his head to look at her he opened the door of Sister’s office and walked out into the ward and she heard the sigh of the big double doors as they opened and closed behind him as she still stood there, frozen into immobility