The Levant Trilogy (70 page)

'That, madam, I do not know.' Shafik had
reverted to the ironical formality that was his professional manner. 'We must
make tests. May I ask: are you his wife? No? I understand. Well, it is
necessary that he remain here and when his malady is known, we will do what we
can.'

'May I stay with him?'

'No, no. Impossible. He must be alone. He needs
rest and quiet.'

Castlebar, languishing in his chair, showed no
awareness of what was being said. He did not open his eyes or move as Angela
clung to him for some moments before he was wheeled away. The chair was put
into a lift. Angela stood so long, staring as the lift rose up out of sight,
that Harriet put an arm round her shoulder: 'Angela dear, I think we should
go.'

'Go? Go where?'

'We could have tea at Groppi's and then come
back and ask if there's any news!'

'No, I can't leave here. I must stay until I
know what is wrong with him.' She looked round for Shafik but Shafik had left
them.

'Stay with me,' she said to Harriet.

At the farther end of the hall there was a
waiting area where french windows opened on to the hospital grounds. The
grounds joined up with the Gezira polo fields and they sat and stared out at
the great vista of grassland that floated and wavered in the haze of heat.
Angela, by nature a restless woman, was so still that no creak came from the
basket chair in which she sat.

Harriet, remembering how long she had had to
wait for the result of her own tests, said: 'You probably won't hear anything
until tomorrow or even the day after.'

Angela turned her head slowly and looked at
Harriet, her eyes glazed and uncomprehending. So they sat on. Sister Metrebian,
who had nursed Harriet through amoebic dysentery, came down to speak with her:
'But you are looking very well!'

Harriet, rising and leading the nurse away from
Angela, whispered: 'The new patient - is he as ill as he looks?'

'Yes, he is ill, but it is for Dr Shafik to say.
He must first make the diagnosis.'

'What do you think yourself?'

Sister Metrebian shook her head and was soon
gone, unwilling to talk. Angela and Harriet sat in silence until six o'clock
when the porter told Angela she might go to Castlebar's room. While she was
away, Shafik came and spoke to Harriet in a subdued voice: 'Mrs Pringle, you
must look after your friend. She is, I think, of an hysterical temperament and
will need support. I have allowed her to see the patient but I cannot let you
go up. You have been ill too recently. You must not risk an infection.'

'What infection? What is wrong with him?'

'I cannot say yet. He has what is called the
"typhoid" state. That is: he has a fever, rapid pulse, low blood
pressure and other symptoms we will not speak of.'

Harriet could guess that the other symptoms
were, in Shafik's opinion, either too distasteful or too profound for the
female mind. Cutting through his constraint, she said: 'So he has typhoid?'

'I did not say so. He has been ill only ten
days. It is the second week which is critical.'

'Poor Angela, what can I do for her? She will be
beside herself.'

'I will prescribe sedatives. I have told her
nothing but if she suspects, you can say that typhoid is endemic here and we
know how to treat it. Tell me, do you know, has Mr Castlebar been injected
against typhoid?'

'He probably was when he first came out. We're
supposed to have a booster each year but I'm afraid most of us forget.'

'So I feared. Mrs Pringle, you and your friend
must go today to the Out Patients' Department and be given an anti-typhoid
injection. You, please, go now and I will send your friend to join you.'

*

Angela, sedated, remained as though benumbed
until the end of the second week when she telephoned Harriet and begged her in
a frantic whisper: 'Come, Harriet, come at once.'

It was nine in the morning and Harriet asked:
'Come where?'

'To the hospital.'

'What has happened?'

'You will see when you come.'

Harriet, her taxi delayed again and again by the
early morning traffic, was taut with apprehension. Shafik had said the second
week was critical but typhoid, notorious for its long fever, was not
necessarily fatal. In spite of Angela's entreating tone, she could not believe
that Castlebar was dead. As she entered the main hospital door, Angela rushed
at her and said hoarsely: 'That woman! That terrible woman!' She pointed to the
waiting area where a woman was sitting, upright and purposeful, her massive, tubular
legs planted so she could rise in an instant.

Harriet recognized the red hair that accentuated
the clammy pallor of the face: 'Mona Castlebar! How long has she been here?'

'She was here when I came this morning. As soon
as she saw me, she bawled: "Clear out, you bitch, you're nothing better
than a whore." She tried to push me out through the door but I fought back
and the porter went to fetch Shafik. Shafik ordered us both out. She said she'd
fetch the consul to prove that she's Bill's legal wife and Shafik said he
didn't care what she was, she must go. But she wouldn't go and I wouldn't go,
either. Bill needs me. He's mine. I can't be kept from him. Harriet, Shafik's
your friend. He'll listen to you. Please, Harriet,
please
go and explain that Bill left that woman months ago.
She has no right to claim him. He never wants to see her again.'

'But is he well enough to see anyone?'

'The sister says he's a bit better today. I know
if that woman forces her way in on him, he'll have a relapse. Oh, Harriet, please
go-'

Harriet found Shafik still indignant at the
uproar caused by the two women. Before she could speak, he shouted at her: 'So
Mr Castlebar has two wives! That is nothing to me. He can have three. If he is
rich enough, he can have all the prophet allows, but he is a sick man. I will
not allow these ladies to come and disturb him.'

'Is he very sick?'

'Yes, he is very sick. He is now entering the
third week and any day there will come the crisis. There could be perforation,
peritonitis, pneumonia, cardiac failure - all such things are brought on by
shock. These ladies must be kept from him.'

'But his wife! Can she be kept out - legally, I
mean? She has threatened to call the British Consul to establish her rights.'

Dr Shafik, angry that the consul or anyone else
might try to broach his authority, brought his hand down on his desk: 'In a
case of life or death, the doctor's decision is final.'

'Dr Shafik, I'd be grateful if you'd let Lady
Hooper just look in on him. She will be quiet, I promise you. They love one
another. The sight of her will help him.'

Shafik, placated as Arabs usually were by a
suggestion of romance, reflected for a moment then said: 'Very well. If you
take her to the back entrance, I will send the porter to show her to his room.
She will have five minutes, no more.'

Returning to the hall, Harriet said: 'Come,
Angela, there is no point in staying here.' Angela, realizing that this summons
meant more than was said, followed Harriet out to the porch and gazed hopefully
at her.

'Back entrance. He's letting you see Bill for
five minutes.'

Angela held on to Harriet's hand as they went up
the staff staircase and were led to the door of Castlebar's room. As the door
opened, Harriet had a glimpse of the patient propped up with pillows, ice bags
on his head and brow, his eyes shut, his skin yellow, his face drawn. A low
muttering was coming from his lips that hung open, swollen, cracked and dark
with fever.

The door was shut behind Angela and Sister
Metrebian stood guard before it.

Harriet said: 'Lady Hooper told me he is a
little better today.'

'Not much better. His temperature will not come
down. That is bad.'

'Is he in pain?'

Sister Metrebian put her thin little hand on to
her abdomen: 'He is
...
pouf!' She
moved her hand out to show how Castlebar's middle was distended: 'Here is
discomfort.'

'Poor Bill!' Harriet said, thinking of his
gentle compliance with Angela's demands, his kindness and his sympathy: 'Will
he recover?'

'I cannot say.'

Angela came out, too perturbed to weep, and
Harriet led her down to the taxi. Put to bed in the Royal Suite, she lay so
long silent that Harriet thought she was asleep and began to leave. Alert at
once, she said: 'Don't go, Harriet, don't go.' She rang down for smoked salmon
and a bottle of white wine. When it was brought up, she refused to eat.

'No, Harriet, it is for you.'

She lay as before until late in the afternoon
when the telephone rang. The hospital porter had promised to keep in touch with
her. After a few words, she replaced the receiver with a sigh.

'How is he, Angela?'

'No change.' After another period of silence,
she raised herself on her elbow and said in a firm, clear voice: 'He will get
better. I have faith. They say if you have faith, you can move mountains. I
have profound faith.'

Angela was not allowed in to see Castlebar
again. The porter, who rang two or three times a day, told her that Mrs
Castlebar was always at the hospital but excluded from the sick room. Three
days after Angela's profession of faith, it seemed that faith had prevailed.
The porter told Angela that the patient's temperature had fallen at last. It
was under 100°.

Angela, in a state of euphoria, telephoned
Harriet, who was at breakfast, and told her to come at once to the hotel. She
was to bring a taxi and together they would enter the hospital by the back door
and, unknown to Shafik and unseen by Mona, make their way to Castlebar's room.

As soon as she saw Harriet, Angela began to talk
at manic speed, and went on talking all the way to the hospital, planning
Castlebar's convalescence. They would go back to Cyprus and stay at Kyrenia in
the Dome, or perhaps he would prefer to remain in Famagusta where the sands
were perfect and white lilies grew on the dunes. Or they might go to Paphos
where Venus rose from the sea.

When they reached the corridor that led to
Castlebar's room, Angela came to a stop. Mona Castlebar was stationed outside
the door. Angela, pulling Harriet round a corner, out of sight, said: 'Get her
away somehow. Tell her Shafik wants her in his office.'

'Wouldn't she wonder what I was doing here?'

'You can tell her you were a patient here once.
You've come in for a check-up. Go on,
do!'

'She wouldn't believe me.'

'She would. Oh, Harriet, get rid of her. Flatter
her, charm her, fool her for my sake.'

'For your sake, then
...'

Harriet approached Mona with a smiling attempt
at friendliness: 'I hear Bill is improving. I'm so glad.'

'I don't know who told you that.' There was cold
aggression in Mona's tone but before anything more could be said, Sister
Metrebian came from the room.

Harriet asked her: 'How is Mr Castlebar?'

Sister Metrebian answered gravely: 'He is in the
operating theatre. The bowel perforated. He was in much pain. I heard him cry
out and went at once to Dr Shafik. Now they perform the laparotomy.'

'So he has a chance?'

'A chance, yes. There was no delay.'

Mona, asserting her position as Castlebar's
wife, said: 'I was allowed in for a minute but he did not recognize me.'

Which was as well, Harriet thought. Aloud she
said for the sake of saying something: 'Do you think he'll get better?'

'Your guess is as good as mine.' Mona's manner
was suitably serious but she could not suppress a hint of triumph, a twitch of
satisfaction that Angela should lose out in this way.

Harriet returned to Angela who was avid for news
of her lover: 'He's not in his room.'

'Why? Where is he? He's not dead, is he?'

'No. We can't talk here. Mona is full of
suspicion. I'll tell you outside.'

Standing under the gum trees that shivered and
glistened in the early sunlight, Harriet said: 'They're having to operate.
There was no delay - Sister Metrebian says he stands a chance
...'
As Angela's lips trembled, Harriet
added: 'A
good
chance.'

'What shall I do? What
can
I do?'

'Angela dear, you can't do anything. Only wait.'

'Stay with me, Harriet.'

'Of course I will stay,' Harriet said.

Castlebar died just after three a.m. the
following morning.

The porter, when he telephoned Angela the
previous evening, said: 'Mis' Castlebar not so well,' and Angela, going at once
to the hospital, was told that Mona had been admitted to the sick room. Angela
herself was refused entry. Prepared for any contingency, Mona had obtained
from the consul written confirmation that she was Castlebar's legal wife. She
must be permitted to visit him and in the event of his death, she alone had the
right to dispose of his remains. Angela, having no rights at all, walked back
to her hotel.