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‘Don’t lie, O’Callaghan!’
‘Look here—’
‘I know the facts.’
‘What sort of tale have you listened to?’
‘One that brought me here tonight angrier than I ever remember myself before. I know the precise history of your—your friendship with her. You amused yourself, evidently. I dislike overstatement but I believe it would be no overstatement if I said, as I do say, that you’ve ruined Jane’s life for her.’
‘Damn’ sentimental twaddle!’ said O’Callaghan breathlessly. ‘She’s a modern young woman and she knows how to enjoy herself.’
‘That’s a complete misrepresentation.’ Phillips had turned exceedingly white, but he spoke evenly. ‘If, by the phrase “a modern young woman”, you mean a “loose woman” you must know yourself it’s a lie. This is the only episode of the sort in her life. She loved you and you let her suppose she was loved in return.’
‘Nothing of the sort. She gave me no reason to suppose she attached more importance to the thing than I did myself. You say she’s in love with me. If it’s true I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s true. What does she want? It’s not—’ O’Callaghan stopped short and looked frightened. ‘It’s not that she’s going to have a child?’
‘Oh, no. She has no actual claim on you. No legal claim. Evidently you don’t recognize moral obligations.’
‘I’ve sent her £300. What more will she want?’
‘I’m so near hitting you, O’Callaghan, I think I’d better go.’
‘You can go to hell if you like. What’s the matter with you? If you don’t want to marry her there’s an alternative. It ought to be quite simple—I had no difficulty.’
‘You swine!’ shouted Phillips. ‘My God—’ He stopped short. His lips moved tremblingly. When he spoke again it was more quietly. ‘You’d do well to keep clear of me,’ he said. ‘I assure you that if the opportunity presented itself I should have no hesitation—none—in putting you out of the way.’
Something in O’Callaghan’s face made him pause. The Home Secretary was looking beyond him, towards the door.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Nash quietly. He crossed the room with a tray holding glasses and a decanter. He put the tray down noiselessly and returned to the door.
‘Is there anything further, sir?’ asked Nash.
‘Sir John Phillips is leaving. Will you show him out?’
‘Certainly, sir.’
Without another word Phillips turned on his heel and left the room.
‘Good night, Nash,’ said O’Callaghan.
‘Good night, sir,’ said Nash softly. He followed Sir John Phillips out and closed the door.
O’Callaghan gave a sharp cry of pain. He stumbled towards his chair and bent over it, leaning on the arm. For a minute or two he hung on, doubled up with pain. Then he managed to get into the chair, and in a little while poured out half a tumbler of whisky. He noticed Ruth’s patent medicine lying on the table beside him. With a tremulous hand he shook one of the powders into the glass and gulped it down with the whisky.
CHAPTER 3 Sequel to a Scene in the House (#ulink_56e9773c-72fa-5214-95ca-fcc15388365f)
Thursday, the eleventh. Afternoon.
The Home Secretary paused and looked round the House. The sea of faces was blurred and nightmarish. They were playing that trick on him that he had noticed before. They would swim together like cells under a microscope and then one face would come out clearly and stare at him. He thought: ‘I may just manage it—only one more paragraph’, and raised the paper. The type swirled and eddied, and then settled down. He heard his own voice. He must speak up.
‘In view of the extraordinary propaganda—’
They were making too much noise.
‘Mr Speaker—’
A disgusting feeling of nausea, a kind of vapourish tightness behind his nose.
‘Mr Speaker—’
He looked up again. A mistake. The sea of faces jerked up and revolved very quickly. A tiny voice, somewhere up in the attic, was calling: ‘He’s fainted.’
He did not feel himself pitch forward across the desk. Nor did he hear a voice from the back benches that called out: ‘You’ll be worse than that before you’ve finished with your bloody Bill.’
‘Who’s his doctor—anyone know?’
‘Yes—I do. It’s bound to be Sir John Phillips—they’re old friends.’
‘Phillips? He runs that nursing-home in Brook Street, doesn’t he?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Somebody must ring Lady O’Callaghan.’
‘I will if you like. I know her.’
‘Is he coming round?’
‘Doesn’t look like it. Tillotley went to see about the ambulance.’
‘Here he is. Did you fix up for an ambulance, Tillotley?’
‘It’s coming. Where are you sending him?’
‘Cuthbert’s gone to ring up his wife.’
‘God, he looks bad!’
‘Did you hear that fellow yell out from the back benches?’
‘Yes. Who was it?’
‘I don’t know. I say, do you think there’s anything fishy about this?’
‘Oh, rot!’
‘Here’s Dr Wendover—I didn’t know he was in the House.’
They stood back from O’Callaghan. A little tubby man, Communist member for a North Country constituency, came through the group of men and knelt down.
‘Open those windows, will you?’ he said.
He loosened O’Callaghan’s clothes. The others eyed him respectfully. After a minute or two he looked round.
‘Who’s his medical man?’ he asked.
‘Cuthbert thinks it’s Sir John Phillips. He’s ringing his wife now.’
‘Phillips is a surgeon. It’s a surgical case.’
‘What’s the trouble, Dr Wendover?’
‘Looks like an acute appendix. There’s no time to be lost. You’d better ring the Brook Street Private Hospital. Is the ambulance there? Can’t wait for his wife.’
From the doorway somebody said: ‘The men from the ambulance.’
‘Good. Here’s your patient.’
Two men came in carrying a stretcher. O’Callaghan was got on to it, covered up, and carried out. Cuthbert hurried in.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s Phillips. She wants him taken to Phillips’s nursing-home.’
‘He’s going there,’ said little Dr Wendover, and walked out after the ambulance men.
O’Callaghan climbed up, sickeningly, from nowhere into semiconsciousness. Grandiloquent images slid rapidly downwards. His wife’s face came near and then receded. Somebody groaned close to him. Somebody was in bed beside him, groaning.
‘Is the pain very bad?’ said a voice.
He himself was in pain.
‘Bad,’ he said solemnly.
‘The doctor will be here soon. He’ll give you something to take it away.’
He now knew it was he who had groaned.
Cicely’s face came close.
‘The doctor’s coming, Derek.’
He closed his eyes to show he had understood.
‘Poor old Derry, poor old boy.’
‘I’ll just leave you with him for a minute, Lady O’Callaghan. If you want me, will you ring? I think I hear Sir John.’ A door closed.
‘This pain’s very bad,’ said O’Callaghan clearly.
The two women exchanged glances. Lady O’Callaghan drew up a chair to the bed and sat down.
‘It won’t be for long, Derek,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s your appendix, you know.’
‘Oh.’
Ruth had begun to whisper.
‘What’s Ruth say?’
‘Never mind me, Derry-boy. It’s just silly old Ruthie.’ He muttered something, shut his eyes, and seemed to fall asleep.
‘Cicely darling, I know you laugh at my ideas, but listen. As soon as I heard about Derry I went and saw Harold Sage. He’s the brilliant young chemist I told you about. I explained exactly what was the matter and he gave me something that he says will relieve the pain at once and can do no harm at all. It’s an invention of his own. In a few months all the hospitals will use it.’
She began a search in her handbag.
‘Suggest it to Sir John if you like, Ruth. Of course nothing can be done without his knowledge.’
‘Doctors are so bigoted. I know, my dear. The things Harold has told me—!’
‘You seem to be very friendly with this young man.’
‘He interests me enormously, Cicely.’
‘Really?’
The nurse came back.
‘Sir John would like to see you for a moment, Lady O’Callaghan.’
‘Thank you. I’ll come.’
Left alone with her brother, Ruth dabbed at his hand. He opened his eyes.
‘Oh, God, Ruth,’ he said, ‘I’m in such pain.’
‘Just hold on for one moment, Derry. I’ll make it better.’
She had found the little package. There was a tumbler of water by the bedside.
In a few minutes Phillips came back with the nurse.
‘Sir John is going to make an examination,’ said Nurse Graham quietly to Ruth. ‘If you wouldn’t mind joining Lady O’Callaghan for a moment.’
‘I shan’t keep you long,’ said Phillips and opened the door.
Ruth, with a distracted and guilty look at her brother, gathered herself up and blundered out of the room.
O’Callaghan had relapsed into unconsciousness. Nurse Graham uncovered the abdomen and Phillips with his long inquisitive fingers pressed it there—and there—and there. His eyes were closed and his brain seemed to be in his hands.
‘That will do,’ he said suddenly. ‘It looks like peritonitis. He’s in a bad way. I’ve warned them we may need the theatre.’ The nurse covered the patient and in answer to a nod from Phillips fetched the two women. As soon as they came in, Phillips turned to Lady O’Callaghan but did not look at her. ‘The operation should be performed immediately,’ he said. ‘Will you allow me to try to get hold of Somerset Black?’
