Free Billie's Kiss by Elizabeth Knox

fluid-filled blisters. The doctor explained that he had injected peppermint water. ‘To help him revive.’ Billie watched the doctor warm his hands and sit on the edge of the couch. He spilled some spirits into his warmed hands and began to rub Henry’s sides, so vigorously that the flesh made a whooping, flapping sound. Henry gasped and moaned.
    â€˜He did revive after an hour or two,’ the doctor said, above the sound his hands made chafing Henry’s skin. ‘But now fever has set in.’ He finished his massage and closed the blankets around Henry’s slight form. ‘Now he must be kept quiet and warm. When he wakes perhaps he might drink a little broth.’ He was addressing Mrs Mulberry now. He shook his head. ‘It’s too close and crowded here.’
    â€˜Can he be moved, Doctor?’ inquired a woman.
    Billie looked up at the tall figure. The woman removed her veiled hat, looked about, and balanced it on the horned top of a big case clock.
    â€˜We’ll see, Lady Hallowhulme. I don’t have room to run a hospital. It makes more sense for me to move between my patients. I anticipate five to ten serious chest cases followingon from the accident. The rest – I don’t know. Any man who has not come back to himself by now I can’t hold out much hope for. I’ve a woman over here already starting to swell up – her kidneys having had a mortal shock.’
    â€˜Doctor – this poor man is Henry Maslen, whom my husband has employed to catalogue the castle library. And this young lady is – I think – Mr Maslen’s sister.’
    â€˜His wife’s sister,’ Billie said. ‘Miss Paxton.’
    The woman gave Billie her bony, gloved hand. She was Clara Hallow. ‘We must find out what you need, Miss Paxton, and what can be done for Mr Maslen.’
    Billie said she’d stay with Henry. She had been looking for her sister, Edith, but hadn’t found her.
    Lady Hallowhulmes’s thin, shapely face, trying to hide sadness, looked as if she had just encountered a bad smell. She glanced at the doctor, then at Mrs Mulberry. ‘Hannah?’
    â€˜Mrs Maslen hasn’t been found, I’m afraid.’
    Billie was thinking about a boat ride she’d had in San Remo, with some Italian boys. Edith had scolded and begged and tried to drag her back on the beach, but Billie took off her shoes and socks, climbed into the boat and went out with them. She was eight. The boys had wanted to touch her hair, and check the speckles on her legs. Billie sat on the seat in the bow and let them lift and drop her curls, look into her eyes, or at her ears, ‘ Piccolo !’She let them unbutton a cuff to caress her wrist, and lift her skirt to touch her ankles. But when they wanted to do more than touch, to move her about ,she capsized their boat and came up underneath it to press hands and feet on its sides, her head up in the trapped air. She listened to them call and search. She watched them clumsily trying to dive down – their buoyancy a kind of leadenness – their legs’ ineffectual soft scissoring, shoes shedding bubbles, and suits ballooning. She breathed compressed air, listened to the little waves slap the wood. After a minute one of the boys finally thought to look underneath the boat, and seized her aroundher waist, tearing her out of her anchorage. Between them they got her ashore. She let them struggle – stayed limp, as she’d been schooled to. They put her down on the shingle and dripped on her, sobbed and prayed. It was a chilly day in May, and the shore was empty. Only Edith came – kicked the boys and cursed at them. They ran off. Edith understood that her sister was acting. She wouldn’t speak to Billie, but went off to sit on the terrace near the casino and wait for their father to come out.
    There had been light in the upturned boat, aqua light from beneath, light in the shape of a church