From Higher Places Page 4

  ‘Classics student.’

  ‘And not very well heeled? Well then, there’s no choice. And you can’t afford an emotional crisis, not just now.’

  Sarah had failed to disguise a concern that was a shade too intense.

  ‘Sa-rah!’

  ‘Alice?’

  ‘I’m getting the feeling that this conversation is leading somewhere.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Definitely. Now let me guess. Last night, remember, at the Travellers Bar. Your life was a blank sheet waiting to be written upon.’

  ‘I don’t remember. Perhaps I was a little merry.’

  ‘You’d only had three Merrydowns at that stage. The merriment came later.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what, one might ask, has happened since, if last night’s stand wasn’t up to much? New admirer on the way to the hospital – at 8.00 a.m.?’

  ‘Two building labourers, actually. Would need both, though, to satisfy me.’

  ‘Be serious!’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to be.’ Sarah suddenly felt disconsolate. ‘You might just be on the right track.’

  It was a long time since their usual roles had been reversed. Alice was going to make the most of it.

  ‘Then let me guess. Brian Davison. Now I begin to see where Jeff Ellis fits into all this. Ha ha ha, so you want us all as go-betweens.’

  ‘Don’t you think he’s interesting?’

  ‘Interesting certainly, but hardly glamorous.’

  ‘That depends on your level of sophistication.’

  ‘Come on, Sarah, he’s not your type.’

  ‘Maybe not, but we shall see. At worst he could be useful.’

  The final exams, when they came, presented no great problems for Sarah or Alice. Sarah approached the board on which the results had been pinned content to stand back while others in her year jostled themselves into elation or despair. She waited for them to allow her space, and quietly noted the expected. Alice, wide-eyed at her own success, was puzzled.

  ‘You don’t look very pleased.’

  ‘Oh, I am. Really.’

  ‘You’re a deep one sometimes, Sarah.’

  Back in her bedroom, Sarah reflected on Alice’s words. Yes, she told herself, you were expecting more, but it never happened. Why? Flat on her back now, she let the thoughts tumble in her head, ridiculing her for a choice of career that could not, at least at that moment, inspire. The answer, in spite of its simplicity, took a long time coming. She never really, deep down, wanted to do it. Why, then, did she? Her father? No, surely he only went along. The pointing finger of her dead sister then, for whom medicine was an unquestioned aspiration, not doubted by anyone? Well, possibly. Rather, it was the way things seemed to have been smoothed for her – mediocre A-level results that turned out to be no barrier, a grant from the council in spite of her application arriving late, and so on. On the other hand, during the course she regularly gained satisfaction from whatever she was doing at the time, and from time to time she achieved ahead of her peers. And towards the end, increasingly so.

  The phone rang – Alice reminding her about the evening celebrations in the Travellers Bar. Of course she was going, she agreed brightly, knowing inwardly that at some point during the evening her well-intentioned restraint would weaken, that she would turn a blind eye to the topping up of her glass by over-attentive males and regret it bitterly the following morning. Funny how alcohol, in its aftermath, unlocked a door to a chaotic inner world of twisted memories, through which things that repulsed her could be glimpsed but not grasped. The waking moments were always the most difficult. But that was too far ahead, and – what the hell – she deserved to celebrate. ‘Elizabeth, stay with me,’ she said to herself in front of the hall mirror, before opening the door to descend the stairs.

  The idea to celebrate Alice’s engagement with a dinner at Brian and Jeff’s was wholly Sarah’s. Having made the suggestion she withdrew from all responsibility, save that of being a guest. ‘It must be your show,’ she had said to Alice. It happened a week later.

  She walked from Bermondsey station and threaded her way through the complex of streets and decaying alleys flanking the river. The gaunt edifice of Lightermen’s Mansions stood out as one of the few ailing repositories that had not been replaced by modern apartment blocks. The dilapidation explained why the two men found the rent affordable.

  The balcony of the living room hung like a pulpit over the dozen or so boats drawn to the river by the promise of fine weather. From it, in the distance to the west, the square aperture of Tower Bridge was slowly capturing the setting sun as if it were the sighting mechanism of an enormous cannon that was the steel-blue river.

  Sarah was one of the last to arrive and exploited the mêlée in the living room to examine the items on the walls. There seemed to be two distinct themes. An automotive one, clearly Jeff’s, linking the dog-eared copy of Performance Cars on the coffee table with a comic porcelain replica of a popemobile on the top of the bookcase which made her think, rightly, that Jeff was a lapsed but repentant catholic. What she supposed was Brian’s theme was altogether darker and occupied her thoughts for longer. There was a print of Dali’s Metamorphosis of Narcissus which she liked for its repetitive geometry. But then – wow! – there was a series of five small but exquisite portraits in acrylic. One was of Stricker, another of a medic she had seen in casualty. The others she didn’t know.

  ‘Good, aren’t they?’ Jeff said at her shoulder. ‘Have you deciphered the signatures?’

  She peered more closely. ‘Brian’s? I didn’t know he was that gifted.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. They’re not my cup of tea. Which is why he won’t do one of me. Takes him ages to do them though. Uses photographs, the lot, but not to copy. Can’t see what the object is myself. Why not just frame a photo?’

  ‘You don’t paint yourself?’

  ‘Only when I’m decorating. But I’ve got an original Rolf Harris in my bedroom. Want to see it?’

  ‘No thanks. Not interested and in any case don’t trust you.’

  ‘It’s my engagement party, for Christ’s sake!’

  Had he misunderstood her well-meaning sarcasm or was he responding in kind? It was difficult to tell with Jeff.

  She resumed her scrutiny of the portraits, then murmured quietly to herself, ‘Achieving perfection, I would think.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, you might be right. That just about sums him up.’

  Sarah turned to face him, now serious. ‘Is he like that with other things?’

  ‘Come to think of it he’s pretty meticulous in most of what he does.’

  ‘Like his surgery?’

  ‘Yeah, that especially.’

  There were too many people crowding around the dinner table and Sarah wished she had suggested a seating arrangement to Alice. She found herself next to Stricker. The steady pressure of his leg against hers set her thinking. Well, let him if it gives him pleasure. It had the makings of a debt to be repaid.

  ‘Would you pass the wine, Dr Potter.’ The right hand which wafted in front of her face gave cover for the other to grasp her wrist. The touch was dry. Was he used to doing this sort of thing?

  ‘Has Brian spoken to you yet, Dr Potter?’

  ‘No. Should he have done?’

  ‘Well, I thought he might have. Perhaps you ought to speak to him. One of the first things you must learn is to cultivate your colleagues.’

  ‘I do, Sir Edwin, but so surreptitiously they never notice.’

  He swivelled in his seat to look at her face-on, eyes staring, rubicund cheeks puffed with approval. ‘I’m almost inclined to believe you, young lady. But we digress. The art of the surgeon is so open to inspection, often far too open, that… in short, Surgical Unit needs to be more… progressive. We’re rather
short of people equipped for that at the moment. You understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘I think so. So what might my credentials be?’

  ‘Take yourself back, Dr Potter, to your preclinical days. The Anatomy Prize for dissection, for example.’

  ‘I’m surprised you know about that?’

  ‘Why are you blushing? You don’t believe that we had our scouts out, even then?’

  ‘I’m beginning to believe anything.’

  ‘That’s grand. Now listen. This is not the place for detail. I’ll leave that to Brian. Suffice it to say that we need new blood in the Unit. New approaches, new techniques, publications – lots of them. Will mean weeding out dead wood, of course. Attract young blood. Hear what I’m saying?’

  ‘I think so. I’m flattered you think of me in that light.’

  ‘Ha, think of you in all sorts of lights, Dr Potter.’

  Sarah became aware of the circle of eyes converging upon them. Alice would tell her later that Edwin had reminded her of a dog that had gained possession of a choice bone. Jeff saw only a colleague sinking condescendingly to the level of the gathering. Only Brian, more sober and with greater insight, saw in him an ageing lion at bay, his only defence the protection of younger and abler men raised in a more competitive world than he had known.

  He grasped Sarah’s wrist for the second time. ‘Take what is offered, Dr Potter, and see where it leads.’ Then he rose from his seat, congratulated Jeff and Alice, and left the room.

  Alice was cringing into the cushions of the sofa, pretending to be mesmerised by a tall, flaxen-haired young man swaying above her, dangling some sort of medallion before her eyes. The shining disc was connected to a chain around his neck and its short excursions were so rapid as to be unfit for purpose. Some in the group gathered around were laughing, but one – Jeff – was clutching the sleeve of his jacket, trying to pull him away. Sarah, seeing the threadbare cloth over the elbow, felt fleeting pity, in spite of knowing that Alan Murphy’s background was one of wealth and privilege.

  Alan had begun his medical studies in the same year as Alice and Sarah but went ahead when they did their intercalated science course. Seldom seen in lectures, he failed his preclinical exams and had to repeat a year; in the end they all graduated together. While qualification as a doctor had erased the worst student tendencies in almost everyone else, Alan, true to himself, had remained a loose cannon, needing little provocation – and usually not very much alcohol – to descend into unruly and objectionable behaviour. Sarah wondered how he had made it this far but, like his teachers, she knew him to be one of the more intelligent and potentially able in her year; and that had got him through. Most of his female peers saw him as a charmer and a minor Lothario, but for Sarah there was something about his attitude to women that had repulsed her from the start. She had never succumbed and had an uneasy feeling – and in this she would be proved right – that in Alan’s thinking she still remained a target.

  Sarah, deliberately, had kept herself sober. She made for the balcony, slipped off her shoes and stretched out on a chaise longue with Tower Bridge trapped between her big toes. There was a gentle lapping of water far below. Her eyes lazily traced the wake of a pleasure cruiser full of tourists who had waved at her a minute before when the boat had turned in mid-stream.

  The city lights began to twinkle. For a minute or so they seemed in perfect harmony with the embers of sunlight in the glinting water. For the first time in many weeks – it could even be months or years – her mind was able to discharge itself. She felt at peace, with the delicious privilege of time to think her life out and build it as she wished, as yet untroubled by the burgeoning pressures of hospital life.

  So although she had anticipated it, Brian’s appearance on the balcony was an annoyance as well as an objective partly attained. Looking back in later times she would see this opportunity to be alone with him as the key for what was to follow.

  ‘Dr Potter, I’ve not yet had the opportunity to congratulate you, in private at least. Yours was a very creditable performance. More so than you may realise.’ He offered his hand and grinned. ‘Welcome to the profession.’

  She squeezed his hand and returned the smile. ‘Hello Brian, I’m Sarah.’

  ‘Yes, of course you are. How silly. Old habits are difficult to break.’

  He sat on a chair beside her and gazed into the distance. ‘I well remember this time. Perhaps the greatest crossroads we come to.’ He paused. ‘Which leads me to ask. I saw you two talking earnestly back in there.’

  ‘He’s hinted that I might like to join Surgical Unit for my first house job, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘And would you?’

  ‘I said I’d consider. I was just doing that when you appeared.’

  ‘Mercury, the bringer of fortune?’

  ‘And an artist, I see, as well as a winged messenger.’

  ‘I’d hardly say that.’ He looked flustered. ‘Changing the subject, how are you getting home? Alice is in no fit state to drive and Jeff… well, let’s say Jeff is poised to take advantage.’

  ‘Then yes, I’d be grateful for a lift.’

  He rose and made to go, shyness overcoming his better judgement. ‘Be ready in twenty minutes?’

  Sarah nodded and smiled at him quizzically. You fool, she thought, to waste what is left of this magical evening on the balcony. She sighed and looked along the river to where, against the fading sunset, the twin bascules of Tower Bridge were beginning to open for a three-masted schooner whose forward motion alone seemed to determine their stately rise. I must be like that ship, she told herself, and went inside.

  Brian’s VW Beetle sped eastwards along Jamaica Road and round the black void that was the northern end of Southwark Park. For a moment, the light of the street lamps gave way to moonlight thick and bright through the windscreen. She caught him dragging his eyes from the road to search her face. They seemed not just to light up, but to burn, whatever they touched. It occurred to her that this was not an active, positive thing, but a defence, a barrier through which gentler but unseen communications might come and go. She thought of doves emerging from the recesses of an ancient brick dovecote in her village. ‘I wonder if they can be caught,’ she said to herself.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Your thoughts. I was trying to get behind the facade.’

  ‘And probably succeeding, I imagine,’ he said, looking fixedly ahead. ‘But why would you want to do that, even assuming there is such a structure.’

  ‘Some things fascinate, others don’t. Difficult to explain.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather I told you what you want to know?’

  ‘And spoil the fun?’

  There was a long silence. Then he said, ‘I was keen on astronomy once. It was an alternative – but medicine won.’

  ‘That’s because you can’t get your hands on the stars.’

  ‘That’s right. Exactly right. I’m impressed.’

  ‘So where’s the point?’

  ‘In those days we lived in a basement flat near Greenwich. One summer evening, out cycling after exams, I discovered the observatory in the park and the astronomer Flamsteed’s old house. From the hill you get a wonderful view of the city. What you saw from our balcony is a magnified image, but the feeling’s the same.’

  ‘You want to take me there? To see the stars?’

  ‘Or the city. If… if you’d like to come.’

  She felt he had transcended a self-imposed barrier of propriety. He had always seemed to her – though admittedly without evidence – a chaste man, different from the usual run of medics she had known. Did that make him more or less interesting to explore? Was it that which was driving her first shimmers of arousal? She did not know, and not knowing was a powerful incentive.

  They passed an amorphous block r
ising above a row of dingy shops selling goods and services one could not imagine anyone wanting – grimy electronic components, car parts, insurance advice, a newsagent with sodden evening papers left on a rack outside; some were boarded up. Midway along their length was a once grandiose entrance, with graffiti on its sandstone columns, its windows papered with advertisements for long-defunct musical productions and plays. There was something familiar about the monogram in stone above the door, but it was too far to decipher and Sarah could not place it. Only when they had driven far beyond the building and she looked back could she appreciate its great height. She saw that Brian had noted her interest.

  ‘Have you heard of the Massingham Tower?’ he asked tentatively.

  ‘No, should I?’

  ‘Oh, no reason. I’ll tell you sometime.’

  They drove up the avenue of Greenwich Park and left the car beyond the buildings so that they could walk up to the observatory, now dark against the lights of the city. She grasped his hand, but even when they reached the balustrade there was no hint of the expected arm around her shoulders.

  But it was Brian who spoke first.

  ‘What were you thinking about earlier on the balcony?’

  ‘Oh, I suppose the future. Where the balance lies between taking charge of one’s life and being manipulated.’

  ‘That’s radical thinking when you’re just starting out.’

  ‘You weren’t sitting next to Stricker.’

  ‘Did he frighten you?’ He chuckled. ‘The whole room was watching.’

  ‘No. It’s a question of how much one has to give to get something worthwhile in return.’

  She felt his body stiffen, as if he were deeply troubled. But it was medicine itself she had offended, and he was its proud guardian.

  ‘For a houseman to do anything other than immerse herself in her subject is a travesty of six year’s effort.’

  ‘I accept that, Brian. But, you see, some of us can divide ourselves in that way.’ She linked her arm through his. There was no response.