Sue For Mercy

Sue for Mercy.

Veronica Heley.

One.

It wasn"t safe to go on driving. I was crying so hard I could hardly see the road through the sleet of the January storm. I turned off the main road, looking for a quiet place in which to park while I blew my nose and cleaned my gla.s.ses. I told myself that I was tired, that it was late, and that it wasn"t my fault that I was short-sighted and had to wear gla.s.ses. Even if I was a trifle overweight, there had been no need for that horrible man at the party to make jokes at my expense. One day I would meet someone who didn"t mind that my bust was slightly too big for current fashions; my skin was clear and my eyes a reasonable size. "That Cow!" the man had said.

A sports car came up behind me, its headlights dazzling my already blurred eyesight. I slowed, refusing to panic. We were travelling along a winding, spa.r.s.ely-lit road of detached houses. The driver of the sports car leant on his horn, which was not only bad manners, but also illegal after midnight. He closed up on me, which showed poor road sense on a winding road. No doubt he and his pa.s.senger were swearing at me for being an over-cautious woman driver. A second car came up behind the first, also with its headlights full on. It lit up the interior of the sports car, throwing the figures of the driver and pa.s.senger into silhouette.

I signalled, slowed and turned left into someone"s private driveway so as to allow them to pa.s.s. At the same time I hoped, uncharitably, that one or other of the road hogs might come to grief on the sharp bend in the road which lay just ahead.

By the time I had blown my nose, cleaned my gla.s.ses and resumed my journey, the road ahead ought to have been dark, but it wasn"t. I could see the lights of the cars even before I rounded the corner, and I guessed what I should see even though I hadn"t heard the crash. Sure enough, the sports car had mounted the opposite pavement and come to rest with one wing crumpled against someone"s garden wall. The lights were on inside the car, and from the driver"s seat, a rag doll of a body spilled head down on to the wet pavement. The second car had pulled up some twenty-five yards further on, and at first I thought the situation was under control - until I realised that both the man and the woman running away from, and not towards the scene of the accident. Even as I watched, they climbed into the back of the second car and it drove away, rear lights winking.

I braked, slushily. Sleet drummed against the windscreen. I was used to dealing with emergencies, being in charge of the typing pool at Murchison"s Chemical Works, a position usually held by a much older woman, but I wasn"t used to dealing with dead bodies, and I a.s.sumed that the victim of the car accident was dead, or the people from the second car wouldn"t have left him lying there, half in and half out of his car. And what about the woman who had been his pa.s.senger? She must have abandoned him, too. Cowards! I thought. They might at least have pushed him back into the car out of the rain, and surely one of them could have stayed with him while the others went for help. Then something about the body caught my attention; dead men don"t bleed, and the young man"s hand was turning from white to dark red as I looked at it.

I fished out my headscarf and tied it on, b.u.t.toning my raincoat high before stepping out into the storm. The car which had crashed was a dark blue, almost new MGB. It had been well cared for, and recently cleaned. It looked as if the wing was only slightly dented, but the driver must have tried to jump clear at the moment of impact to explain his injuries. If he"d stayed put, he"d probably have got away with a b.u.mped forehead, and if he"d been wearing his seat belt, he"d not have been hurt at all. As it was...

Drunk! I thought.

He was wearing a white shirt, unb.u.t.toned at the neck, no tie, grey slacks, black shoes and socks. His eyes were closed and there was blood on his bright hair. Blood was also trickling down from one corner of his mouth. His legs were twisted; maybe he"d caught a foot under a pedal in his leap for safety. He looked about twenty-five years old and was exceedingly handsome.

I could feel his heart beat draggingly against my fingers through the soaked rag of his shirt. His hair was losing its brightness and beginning to curl in tendrils close to his head. The handkerchief which had been wound round his left hand fell away as I tried to lift him back into the car, revealing fingers covered with blood. Also, his thumb looked out of joint. I sniffed and recoiled, for he stank of whisky.

Sleet chilled my face and legs. I hesitated. The fool deserved all he got, driving round these badly-lit roads in an inconsiderate manner, drunk...

Stop - hold everything! This wasn"t the man who had been driving the sports car. In my mind"s eye I could recall the silhouettes of the man and woman who had been in the sports car as it drove up behind me. The driver had been wearing a hat and had an overcoat or scarf high up round his ears. I rather thought he had been wearing gla.s.ses. His pa.s.senger had not been wearing a hat, but she had been wearing some dark coat or jacket, and had a scarf tied over her hair. I checked the injured man and his car; no jacket, no overcoat, no gla.s.ses. And there was a trace of fresh blood on the back seat.

Once more I tried to lift him back into the car, but he was a big-boned man, and although I was no midget, I didn"t succeed. I could, however, pull him out into the road so that he lay in a more comfortable position, and this I did. All the time I was trying to remember what it was that had struck me as odd about the second car. I thought it was probably a 1300, with a yellow number plate. Newish. Then I got it; the man and the woman I had seen running away from the crash were the people I had previously seen as driver and pa.s.senger of the sports car. I had seen the woman quite clearly as she ducked into the waiting car. She had been wearing a dark trouser suit and her headscarf was a brilliant red. Both the man and the woman had got into the back seats of the second car, which had shot off immediately. This meant that there must be at least one, and possibly two more people who knew of the accident and had decided to do nothing about it. It was getting complicated.

In the meantime, the injured man was getting wet, and needed medical attention. Not a single car had pa.s.sed.

I dithered. Should I leave him and go for help? It seemed I must do so. I started to run down the road towards the nearest drive, thinking how very unfair life was. There was I, condemned to wear gla.s.ses, despairingly conscious that I was not pretty, and there was this young man as handsome as the day was long, who had probably got perfect sight and perfect teeth, and a dozen girlfriends, and didn"t care for any of them. The first house I came to was in darkness, and I couldn"t get anyone to come to the door; of course it was well after midnight by that time, and I didn"t really blame them, but...

I ran back down the drive and almost under the wheels of a car being driven slowly along the middle of the road. It was an ancient family car, containing a middle-aged man and his wife with two fretful little girls. They had been away for the weekend, and broken down on the motorway on their way back. The driver was kind enough to help me load the injured man into the back of my Mini before going on his way. By that time I was as wet as my pa.s.senger.

The drive to the hospital was a nightmare. Several times I thought the injured man had stopped breathing.

A nurse took one look at him and ordered up a stretcher, a doctor and a trolley full of instruments. I hovered, uncertain whether to stay or go. It was nearly one o"clock, and I was worn out. When the nurse came out of the cubicle into which she had taken my pa.s.senger, I asked how he was, and whether I could go. She said I"d better ask the doctor, who wanted to have a word with me, anyway. So I waited, wet and uncomfortable. I found a radiator, and leaned against it, steaming.

"This man!" said a voice. I snapped to attention. I must have dozed off. The man I had picked off the pavement was being wheeled past me into the interior of the hospital, his eyes still closed, looking as cla.s.sically handsome as before. "What"s his name?" asked the doctor.

I told him what I knew, which wasn"t much. It didn"t satisfy me as a story, and it didn"t satisfy the doctor, either. I wound up by saying I supposed the injured man had been at a party which had got a bit rough, and had been dumped in the street after the car crash, as a joke.

"I don"t think so," said the doctor. "Broken collarbone, a dislocated thumb, slashed fingers, extensive bruising to thighs, possible fracture of the skull... that"s what I"ve found so far, and I"ve hardly begun. You say you smelled whisky on him? But that he definitely wasn"t driving?"

"No, he wasn"t driving, I"m sure of that."

We looked each other in the eye. He said the matter would have to be reported to the police, and took my name and address. I could see he didn"t think such injuries had been caused by a frolic at a party, or by a car crash. It left a nasty taste in my mouth as I went home to bed.

I don"t suppose I"d have taken the matter any further if Bessie hadn"t interfered. She was secretary to the Managing Director at work, and also my best friend. She was a fuzzy-headed blonde whose fashionable image overlaid exceptional secretarial skills and lots of common sense. She was keeping the a.s.sistant Production Manager on a string until he promised to give up smoking, and had already picked out the ring and the house which she wanted him to buy.

Bessie and I spent much of our free time together. She thought I under-rated myself, urged me to diet, and took me to parties with her. She knew all about my abortive romance with Rob, one of the hous.e.m.e.n at the hospital, which had cost me my virginity and my confidence a couple of years back, and although she quite approved of my leaving home to live in a flat by myself afterwards, she did not approve of my spending more money on my new home than on my wardrobe. She would tell me that if I only stopped being self-conscious about my appearance, I would find plenty of men anxious to go out with me. She said I was p.r.i.c.kly, and self-centred, and that if I could only remember that others might be as shy as I, all my social problems would be solved. When Bessie said these things, I listened, and told her I wished very much that I could follow her advice, as I was sure that she was right.

"Sue Stephens, you"re only twenty-five," she would wail. "You act as if you were forty-five!"

"I feel it sometimes," I would say, and help myself to another Chelsea Bun. I always turned to food when I was feeling miserable, as I did on the day following that disastrous party.

"Well, how did it go?" asked Bessie, who had fixed the invitation for me.

"All right," I said cautiously, helping myself to a double ration of chips. "But they served both wine and beer, and the mixture gave me a headache." Then before she could show her exasperation, I told her what had happened on the way home, concluding, "So I left him at the hospital, looking just as beautiful as that chap in Ben Hur - almost Grecian, or do I mean Roman? All laid out under a clean sheet."

"He might have died of exposure if you hadn"t come along."

"Possible fracture of the skull... what a pity. I hope they didn"t have to cut his hair away - it"s sort of blond with a bit of ginger in it, longish and brushed back, but trying to curl." I helped myself to treacle tart and custard.

"Has he snuffed it yet?"

"How should I know?"

"Ring up, poppet. He"s your find, isn"t he? You acted the Good Samaritan, and you"re ent.i.tled to know how your man"s getting on."

She swept me back to the empty office and stood over me while I dialled. I giggled a little, feeling daring. I tracked my quarry down to the Men"s General Ward. The Sister"s voice on the other end of the line was distant and tinny.

"Mr. Ashton, you mean? As comfortable as can be expected, what with concussion and his hand... This is Mrs. Ashton speaking?"

"No, I just found him and brought him to the hospital."

"I"m afraid we"re not allowed to give information to anybody but his family. Visiting hours are from seven to eight. Prompt." She was a busy woman, and I was wasting her time.

"Oh well, if I could phone his family, perhaps?"

"I have no idea where they might be. He says they are away. They certainly haven"t been enquiring for him."

"What no one? No one"s been to see him?"

"His employer phoned, and his landlady, but no one has been to see him. Seven to eight sharp, mind." She put the phone down.

I relayed the information to Bessie, adding that the Sister had seemed to think I would visit him, since no one else had. Bessie seemed to take it for granted that I would, too.

"He"s your very own patient, isn"t he? But for you, he"d be dead. At least give him the opportunity to thank you for saving his life."

"Don"t exaggerate! But I could drop in for five minutes on the way to evening cla.s.ses, I suppose."

I had to admit to some curiosity. I took along a box of After Eight mints. If I didn"t think it necessary to give them to him, I could always eat them myself.

"Mr. Ashton?" repeated a nurse in mid-flight. "Far end on the left."

He was staring up at the ceiling, not expecting visitors. His hair had been brushed back and away from his forehead; bright and halo-like against the white of the hospital pillow, almost like a Burne-Jones saint. His face was greenish-white, there were heavy shadows under his eyes and the deep line of a frown divided eyebrows which were many shades darker than his hair. His left arm lay across his chest, the hand heavily bandaged. He looked barely conscious and as if he had a cracking headache. I was standing over him before he realised anyone had come to see him, and his eyes focused on me slowly and with difficulty.

"I"m Sue Stephens," I said, helpfully. "I found you after the car crash, and brought you here."

His eyes were the true light grey not often seen without some adulteration of green or brown flecks. His brows were levelled with pain.

"Sue!" he repeated. I thought I could detect pleasure in his voice. "That"s nice," he said, and I felt myself relax into a smile. I sat down and put the box of chocolates on the bed near his right hand.

"Do you like them?" I asked. "Because if not..." He moved his head, and then wished he hadn"t, judging by the way his eyelids contracted against pain.

"Shall I fetch someone for you?" I asked, looking round for a nurse. The ward was filling up with visitors carrying sheaves of chrysanthemums and potted plants, women with heavy overcoats m.u.f.fling their shapes, carrying shopping baskets filled with goodies for their menfolk. Mr. Ashton"s locker was bare except for a huge basket of fruit; a professionally arranged job. I tried to see if I could read the card with it, but it was turned away from me.

"No - better in a moment" he said. "I don"t like dope, anyway. Makes it difficult to concentrate." He moved his head again, this time to see my face. Helpfully I pulled my chair forward, closer to the bed. "You found me?"

"Half in and half out of the car, soaking wet and reeking of whisky." I couldn"t help sounding censorious; I didn"t admire people who lost self-control enough to get drunk. Mind you, this lad didn"t look a weakling. It had probably been a rare event with him.

"Drunk, was I?" He seemed to have some difficulty in taking in the sense of what I had said.

"Very drunk. Don"t you remember?"

"Nothing. I remember locking up on Friday night at Whitestones, and I think I can remember driving away, but..." His eyes flickered and drooped.

"It was late on Monday night that I found you. No, after midnight on Monday, so it was really Tuesday morning. This is Tuesday now, you know."

"So they tell me," he said, still dreamily. "It"s a side effect of concussion, apparently. Sometimes you don"t remember what happened just before you got hit on the head. Sometimes you forget just a few minutes, sometimes a few hours. They say the memory usually returns after a while. I seem to have forgotten three days. Tell me, though - is the car badly damaged?"

"The MGB is yours? One wing crumpled against a wall. It"s not bad. I suppose the police will have towed it away and you"ll have to ask them to let you have it back."

His mouth and eyes contracted. "Drunk in charge. Of course."

"But you weren"t..."

"Technically, I was."

He"d slipped up, there. If he knew he hadn"t been driving, then he wasn"t suffering from amnesia, and he did know what he"d been doing since last Friday night. I hesitated, and then decided he wasn"t well enough for me to press the matter.

His eyelids were shut. I sat back in my chair and looked around. There was a pleasant hum of voices in the ward, men and women chatting and arguing and ribbing each other. A huge television set was precariously perched on a shelf across the far corner of the ward, and there were stiff vases of flowers set on tables s.p.a.ced at intervals down the middle of the room. I looked at my watch and wondered if I had time for a cup of coffee and a couple of doughnuts at the Inst.i.tute if I left straight away. On the other hand, it was pleasant to sit beside such a very good-looking man as his sole visitor. Anyone glancing down the ward casually - just scanning the beds - would think that I had a right to be there, and that we knew each other. The idea didn"t displease me.

I studied him. He was older than I had thought at first, maybe twenty-eight or nine. His eyes flickered open and remained at half mast. I indicated the basket of fruit, still in its red cellophane wrapping.

"Did your landlady bring that in for you?"

Vivacity returned to his face and voice for a moment. "Mrs. Burroughs"s nickname is The Adding Machine. She believes in three references, a month"s rent in advance, no smoking, drinking or visitors of the opposite s.e.x, and that Charity Begins at Home. I"ll probably have to clear out and find somewhere else to live after this."

"But you"ll need one or two things while you"re in here." Someone had shaved him, but he wore hospital pyjamas. "What about pyjamas, shaving things... surely she must...?"

"I doubt it. My boss, Mr. Brenner, would get them for me, but he left today for the Aegean. He couldn"t delay his departure, and he"ll be away a minimum of two weeks, maybe longer."

"I"ll get them for you," I said, and then flushed, realising how I"d risked a snub.

"Would you?" He wasn"t going to snub me; he was surprised, but delighted. "No - why should you?"

"I don"t mind. That is - if it"s not too far away, and your landlady wouldn"t mind?"

"Egerton Gardens, Number 10. Just off the Common. She"s always there in the evenings, but if you were to phone first..."

"All right, then. I"ll do it!" What a pleasure it was to do something for someone else! He was smiling, too, as his eyelids quivered shut again.

"You did say your name was Sue, didn"t you? Mine"s Charles - Charles Ashton. Remind me to thank you properly some time for saving my life twice over."

"Oh, that!" I don"t think he heard me. His eyelids were fast shut. There was a slight mark at the corner of his mouth, but otherwise his face hadn"t been touched. I wondered why. I shifted in my seat, and at once his eyelids jumped. It was only half past seven, and it would take me just five minutes to get to the Inst.i.tute for my evening cla.s.s. I made myself comfortable in my chair.

A young woman across the ward leaned over and embraced a patient; he held her tightly and returned her kiss. She straightened up, laughing and pushed her hair back into place, glancing around with a half-guilty, half-satisfied expression to see if anyone had noticed. She caught my eye on her. I looked down, thinking how embarra.s.sed I would have felt if I had been caught kissing someone in public like that, and then remembered that two years ago I had thought nothing of greeting Rob in just such a way. Why not? We"d spoken of marriage, we"d made love... and then I"d missed a period and he feared I was pregnant. By the time the trouble had been traced to some pills I"d been taking for slimming purposes, he"d turned his eyes elsewhere. I didn"t particularly want to think about him. I wished I hadn"t come.

Automatically my hand moved to the box of chocolates on the bed, and in pa.s.sing touched Charles" hand. It was almost accidental, but not quite. I think I"d wanted to show the girl across the ward that she was not the only one to be able to lay claim to a man. I took my hand away, and was amazed to see Charles open his own hand, and leave it there, palm uppermost on the coverlet. I stared at it, wondering if he meant some insult by the gesture, and then placed my hand squarely on his, feeling that it served me right if he did. His fingers folded firmly over mine. His hand was too warm; he would be running a temperature, no doubt. Probably didn"t even know what he was doing. Nevertheless, I didn"t attempt to remove my hand.

My eyes went to the basket of fruit once more, and I wondered if his girlfriend had sent it to him. He was accepting me as a subst.i.tute for her, no doubt. I started on a sigh, and then controlled it so as not to disturb him. The odd thing was that now everyone could see that I, plain Sue was holding the hand of an exceedingly good-looking man, I didn"t feel the need to look around and check that they had registered the fact. I was quite content to sit there and look at Charles and at our linked hands, and just occasionally, at my watch.

"We used to call her Black-eyed Susan," he said conversationally, without warning. His eyes were still closed, but he was talking to me and not to himself. "And then, when she"d lost most of her paint we used to call her just Sue. She was David"s doll, really, that he bought in a jumble sale, but he didn"t mind us joining in his games. She was the Princess who had to be rescued from the Dragon, and the Lady of Shalott when we played down by the river, and Maid Marian and even Peter Pan when David made a harness for her so that she could fly. Ronald said she was better than a girl to play with, because she didn"t answer back."

"All boys?" I prompted. "No girls?"

"Three boys - David"s the eldest, then Ronald and me. No girls. Poor Dad - he did so want a girl. But Mother wouldn"t have liked girls, not really."

I made a note of that fact that he called his mother "Mother", and his father "Dad". Interesting. There was a reddened band of skin round his wrist that was interesting, too. He fell silent, and I thought he"d gone to sleep. The hands of my watch crept round far too fast. At five to eight I stood up with some reluctance, and withdrew my hand. His head had slanted towards me on the pillow. I thought he"d dozed off, but when I moved, he jerked his eyelids open again.

"I must go," I said. "But I"ll come back and bring those things for you tomorrow."

He nodded fractionally and I left, quite forgetting my box of chocolates. I stopped on the way out to check on the visiting hours for the following day. I was going to be late for my evening cla.s.s, but who cared?

Bessie could hardly wait for the lunch hour to receive my report, and was annoyed that I said I had to rush my food.

"Got to dash to collect my winter coat," I explained, refusing a pudding. "So that I can go to his landlady"s before I go to see him again." I told her the story he"d given me, and was amused to see that she accepted his explanation of temporary amnesia.

"It must have been one h.e.l.luva party," she mused. "I expect they all got tight, tried to do something silly, this lad of yours got hurt, they panicked, and were taking him home when the car crashed and they left him for someone else to pick up."

"He"s not that young," I said, sc.r.a.ping my plate. "Late twenties? A bit late for that sort of wild party. And he"s got red marks round his wrists as if he"d been tied up at some point. I didn"t notice them when I found him, but I looked specially last night."

"You"re imagining things. I expect there"s a perfectly good explanation for his injuries."

"He"s well-educated," I said thoughtfully, "intelligent, quick-witted... a bit on the thin side, but not dissipated. I don"t think it"s drugs..."