‘Quite right, Nurse. An easier death than I’d feared. She looks at rest. I thought she might have struggled against it at the end … She wasn’t old, and she must have been lovely once.’
By midday the nurse was ready to leave. There was nothing to keep her. The doctor had been satisfied with her meticulous medical reports, and pleased at the manner of her attendance. He thanked her, said he would be commending her to the agency which had sent her.
She was scarcely noticed in the household that morning. The hushed bedroom with the drawn curtains was no longer her rightful place. The arrival of the undertakers, the comings and goings on the stairs, the incessant ringing of telephones and doorbells, the procession of long-faced men in business suits treading softly through the empty rooms, all these passed her by.
She had packed her toiletries, her nightwear, her spare caps and aprons, her nursing equipment, her books and magazines, in the holdall she’d brought with her when she came. It was a lot heavier now.
She stood in the bare room that had been her home for six days, and was suddenly in a fever to be gone. But she must not appear to hurry. Meeting the housekeeper in the hall, she paused and was careful to express thanks to the staff and her condolences.
‘A sad occasion for you all,’ she said, carrying the bag in one hand as if it was a light weight though the handles were straining her wrist. ‘But in these situations when there is little hope …’
Mrs Hermanos hardly looked at her. She had other things on her mind.
‘Goodbye, Nurse.’
Then the door was closed behind her, and she walked over to the elevator at her normal pace.
She drew a deep breath. She would get a cab at the corner. It was a long way to Brooklyn but by now she was frantic to get there. The holdall bumped roughly against her knees as if to remind her of what she must do. She had to run … and run fast.
She seemed to have spent her life running. In hospital training, running with bedpans, running alongside stretchers holding IVs, running for doctors, running to the telephones … As a girl she’d run away from school, and run away from a home racked by quarrels, then run back to nurse her dying mother. She’d not run to her father when he lay at the last, fighting death with curses, though he no longer had the strength to hit her. She’d walked in stoically and treated him as she would any other patient in her care. When he died he left her nothing, and she took nothing from the battered frame house she’d once called home.
She’d run back to Brooklyn, back to the crowded streets and the squalid apartment block outside which the cab had just halted. She paid off the driver. She’d have to get another one to take her away … How long had she got? They traced cabs all too easily …
She ran along the passage, the noise of crying children behind closed doors following her up the worn stairs. Once in her own apartment she didn’t stop. She threw the holdall on the settee which also served as her bed, took out the caps and aprons and chucked them into the cupboard. She wouldn’t be wanting them again, that was for sure. She packed a suitcase with the few clothes she had, sweaters, blouses and skirts, a couple of dowdy dresses, underwear and shoes.
Frantic now, she stripped herself of her uniform and bundled that too into the cupboard. She emptied out the magazine and books, leaving them scattered on the floor. It made the holdall lighter, but not by much. She saw the little case lying snug at the bottom but left it undisturbed. One quick look had been enough …
Just after she’d called the doctor—it would be ten minutes before he got there—she’d locked her bedroom door, put the case on a chair and sprung the old-fashioned catches, one on either side. When she raised the lid she had seen the little boxes and the names on them. With fumbling fingers she’d opened the ones on the top. The rubies had glowed at her, even in the pale early morning light, warm against their gold settings, rings, bracelets, brooches … There were larger boxes further down nestling on a bed of thick envelopes. She looked no further. She closed the suitcase, and put it carefully along the bottom of her holdall. Then she had straightened her cap, smoothed her apron and returned to the sickroom in readiness for the doctor.
Now she stuffed her washbag and a towel on the top along with clean nightclothes. Her other nightdresses she left on a chair. She dressed herself in the one good woollen suit she possessed, and stood still for a brief moment, quivering … Had she forgotten anything? Did it matter?
By now she was almost out of breath. No time to sit and take stock. She remembered to unpin the nurse’s watch from her discarded uniform. Nearly two hours gone already! How soon would they find out and come after her? That Mrs Hermanos, she would know … The quarrel in the kitchen, José had been shouting something about the ‘jools’ … They knew they were there, it was only a matter of time. The agency had her address, they’d soon be in touch with the precinct police … She must hurry, hurry. She should have called the cab first, then she could have been away quicker.
She dashed for the bathroom.
Keep your head, she told herself. Remember your training.
She began to feel calmer. She opened the door on to the landing, and stood for a moment listening. There was only the sound of squabbling infants. She went back inside, picked up the phone with a steady hand and made the call to a private cab service—not the one she normally used. She said it was urgent; they wouldn’t be long coming. She’d be better to wait in the apartment till she saw it in the street below. Although her neighbours on the other floors were used to her sudden departures when she was called out on cases, there was no need to call attention to herself this time.
She grabbed her short waterproof coat from the old wardrobe with the broken swinging door, put her suitcase and the holdall on the settee, and pushed her hair up under a knitted cap. Only then did she sit down to wait.
The minutes ticked on. She’d put the watch in her pocket but she could still hear it. Had she thought of everything? No need to check her handbag; when on resident duty she always carried all her personal papers in it, and sufficient money for emergencies. She could ignore her bank account, there was never much in it anyway.
In a fever of impatience she got up and went to the window. Now surely was the time to stop and think, time even to go back. She’d made a mistake … She’d never meant to … She could explain …
She’d said that to her father once when he’d yelled at her: ‘If I catch you stealing again, I’ll belt you black and blue …’ ‘I wasn’t stealing … she gave me the things …’ she’d blubbered then, but he’d belted her just the same.
Not this time, she told herself savagely, this time I’m not running away with nothing. This is my one chance. She thought of the red and gold treasures, snug in their little boxes … She saw the taxi-cab, heard the driver hoot. She gathered up her luggage, threw her coat over her arm and walked out of the apartment without a backward glance. No regrets. It was just a place she had been holed up in. By now she should have been able to afford better with all that money from her private nursing … Money down the drain, she thought with a sudden flash of resentment, for all the good it had done … Well, she would be rid of them too. There would be no going back.
As she was driven away she saw that the tree on the scrubby patch at the corner was budding green. Spring was coming; it must be a good omen.
It was spring too, in another town, another country. Lennox Kemp looked out of his office window through the gold lettering that said Gillorns, Solicitors, and saw that the darling buds of May were having a hard time of it. He sympathized; he too had just been shaken by a rough wind, presaging change.
‘That’s wonderful news,’ he lied to his secretary.
Elvira beamed at him. She looked in splendid health. He should have noticed.