Fruiting Bodies Read online

  ‘Yes.’ Nurse O’Mara gulped and tears welled over her swollen eyelids.

  ‘What are the Funny Feminists here for?’ Willow asked, partly out of genuine curiosity but more as a way of helping Nurse O’Mara overcome her distress.

  ‘They want to change the way the hospital manages births,’ she said, sniffing as she pulled out another paper handkerchief and shredded the edge. She breathed carefully and then managed to smile.

  ‘Why? Everything seems to me to be very well managed.’

  ‘I’m glad you think so. But they think that doctors sometimes interfere too much and make it harder for women to give birth naturally. They claim that sometimes means they need more pain relief, which in turn can lead to a need for forceps at the end, and that does carry more risk than a natural birth.’

  ‘Nobody interfered with me,’ said Willow just as a snuffling sound from the baby made her forget about the demonstrators and Nurse O’Mara and even Mr Ringstead. As her daughter looked up at her, Willow stroked her face and decided that Tom was right: they would have to find a name for her quickly. She was a person, not a thing, and she needed a name. Willow did not notice Nurse O’Mara backing quietly away.

  When Tom looked in briefly on his way to a lunchtime meeting, Willow told him some of the names she had been considering. He laughed and told her with all the old, easy, friendly teasing in his voice that no daughter of his was going to prance about London with a name like Tullia or Laetitia.

  ‘On the other hand,’ he added, gazing down at the dark-haired baby nestling against Willow’s shoulder, ‘I can see her as Lucinda.’

  ‘Can you?’ Willow moved so that she could see the baby’s face. Her eyelids fluttered upwards and once again the huge, black-looking eyes gazed up into Willow’s green ones.

  ‘Lucinda,’ said Tom again. ‘Yes, I can. I’ve never known anyone called that. It’s pretty and it suits her. Lucinda Wilhelmina.’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Willow with more energy than usual. ‘My name is much more idiotic even than Tullia. I’ve been trying to imagine what my parents could have been thinking of to saddle me with it.’

  ‘But Will is all right, and it suits you.’ Tom bent down to kiss her: ‘I’m …’

  ‘Going to have to go. Yes, I know you are. Don’t worry about it. We’ll both still be here when you’re free again.’

  Tom looked at her. ‘You know, I wish you had let me book you into a private wing somewhere. I could have afforded it – and even the interest on your latest royalty cheque would have paid for it twice over.’

  ‘We’re fine here. Don’t worry. Obstetrics is one of the things the NHS does particularly well, not least because it can’t be rationed. I know you wanted me to be in carpeted, hushed and private splendour with nurses who look as though they’ve just had a makeover and colour counselling, but this is fine. And if we don’t all fight for the National Health …’

  ‘We’ll lose it. Okay, my love, you win. No soapboxes. They’ll bore Lucinda.’

  ‘And you, too, probably. I’ll save it for when you think I’m strong enough to hear that sort of insult directly.’ Willow laughed at his surprise. ‘I’m still me, Tom, even though I’ve just given birth. Go on, off with you. And don’t let them get you down too badly at the meeting. I hope it doesn’t go on for half the night again.’

  He shuddered and turned away, looking back to say over his shoulder: ‘I quite forgot: Mrs Rusham is anxious to come and see you this afternoon, but she’s worried that it might be too much for you. I said I thought it would be fine but that you’d ring if you were too tired to see people.’

  ‘No. I’d like to see her.’

  ‘Good. She’s longing to bring you a hamper of delicacies. She doesn’t seem to trust anyone else to feed you adequately, although I must say you look perfectly healthy to me.’

  They were both laughing as Tom eventually forced himself to go. His place was soon taken by an unknown nurse with Willow’s lunch. She looked down at the sandwich and small bowl of tinned fruit salad, and teased herself with thoughts of what might be in her housekeeper’s hamper.

  Chapter Three

  Day Two

  Willow and Lucinda both had a nap after lunch but Willow’s was much shorter than the baby’s. By three o’clock she was awake and bored. All the other women in the bay had visitors sitting by their beds, and Willow lay against her pillows unashamedly listening to their conversations. Everyone seemed to be talking about Mr Ringstead and what might have happened to him.

  Willow soon learned that he had been a man of considerable power. Until then she had not known that his full title had been Clinical Director of the Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Paediatrics Directorate or that he had been in charge of ten other consultants, twenty junior doctors and about a hundred nurses.

  Nearly everyone seemed to have liked him and no one had a bad word to say for him, even though one or two of the older nurses who came into the bay were reluctant to answer questions. Willow could not work out whether that was because they disapproved of gossip or had some reservations about Mr Ringstead. The students and junior nurses, on the other hand, had obviously all adored him and were more than happy to talk.

  The liveliest of them was a brown-eyed young woman with very smooth dark hair called Susan Worbarrow. Like Nurse O’Mara she had been crying, but she was dry-eyed by then and she answered a whole series of questions from the husband of the woman in the bed directly opposite Willow’s. Willow listened in growing frustration until the man eventually asked the question in which she herself was most interested.

  ‘Did he have any enemies?’

  ‘Only the managers,’ said Susan Worbarrow lightly. ‘They don’t like anyone on the clinical side, of course, but they specially loathed Mr Ringstead because he stood up to them every time they tried to make him cut his budgets, and he tended to make frivolous jokes whenever they were being particularly serious.’

  She turned as she spoke and saw that Willow was alone and eavesdropping.

  ‘Hello,’ she said brightly as she crossed the floor. ‘No visitors yet? You look rather glum. I’m sure your husband will be in later.’

  ‘I’m not at all glum,’ Willow assured her. ‘But I couldn’t help hearing what you were saying just now. Is it really true that the managers are trying to cut the obstetrics budget?’

  ‘Yes, but you needn’t worry about it. You and your baby will be long gone by the time any cuts are actually introduced – even if they ever are.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Willow with some fervour. ‘But why are cuts being made at all?’

  ‘Because of the fruiting bodies in the basement.’

  ‘Fruiting bodies?’ Willow’s overactive imagination was providing her with some quite horrible pictures of what must have been happening in the basement.

  ‘Yes. It’s a fungus. Dry rot. Not the white thready kind that creeps under floors, but great orange blobs that emerge on the surface. They’re all over the basement.’

  Willow knew that at any other time she would have been amused by her own misunderstanding, but no jokes about bodies – fruiting or otherwise – could have made her laugh just then.

  ‘Are you saying that because they’re going to have to spend money on the building they’re going to ration obstetric care?’ she said in outrage.

  Susan Worbarrow relaxed against the edge of the bed as though she were settling down for a long chat.

  ‘They’ll have to. The hospital is run by an NHS trust now and the trust is running out of money. All the directorates have got to do their bit and Obs and Gynae is no exception.’

  ‘But how? If women have babies, they have babies. It’s the one speciality for which you can’t operate a waiting list.’

  Susan Worbarrow’s face broke into the widest smile Willow had yet seen from her. It looked out of place with her swollen eyelids.

  ‘That’s just what he said. Mr Ringstead, I mean. When they told him how much money he was going to have to sav
e, he asked them point blank if they were expecting him to start rationing care here.’

  Willow noticed that three of the other women and their husbands were all listening. One of the men, who was holding his baby and looking most uncomfortable with it, said: ‘And what did they say to that?’

  ‘Well,’ said Nurse Worbarrow, turning to flash a dazzling smile at him, ‘a friend of mine overheard a couple of consultants saying that the business manager of the directorate looked all sort of superior and pleased and he said he was glad that Mr Ringstead had got the point at last. He also said that he’d drafted a long list of the various savings that could be made, and he passed a copy of it over the table.’

  ‘And then?’ said Willow.

  ‘Well,’ Susan said, turning back to Willow again, ‘Mr Ringstead laughed and said he didn’t think he’d bother to read the list since all he would need to know was how many babies the hospital could afford in each twenty-four hours. Everyone looked surprised then, especially Mark Durdle, the business manager, but Mr Ringstead kindly explained that once the quota was full, he’d just tell any other mothers who went into labour to cross their legs and hold on until the following day.’

  One of the women was looking outraged, but all the others were giggling.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Willow when she could speak. ‘And I suppose the meeting collapsed as they all burst out laughing.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Susan Worbarrow, twisting her face into a clownlike mask. ‘Lots of them did think it was quite funny, even though they tried to pretend they didn’t, but Mark Durdle went white and started shaking with fury.’

  ‘But why? Anyone could have seen that Mr Ringstead was just teasing him.’

  ‘I know. But that’s why he was in such a bate. Life is deadly earnest for him and he thought he was being mocked and humiliated.’

  ‘Well, he had a point there, didn’t he?’ said Willow.

  ‘Maybe. Anyway, it didn’t end there. Mr Ringstead was enjoying it all too much to stop and so he said: “I’Il just make a note of how many babies it should be in every twenty-four hours. Would six do you, Durdle, or should it be only four? Tell us and we’ll fix it. Whatever you want. It won’t be any trouble to us and I’m sure the women will cooperate”.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Willow again, laughing still. ‘And I suppose it was all round the hospital in no time at all.’

  ‘Well, you know what hospitals are like, and the managers aren’t very popular at the moment. As soon as we heard about it we started crossing our legs whenever we saw Durdle. He hates us.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Willow at her driest.

  Everyone in the ward was laughing by then, but they all sobered up as the senior midwife on duty that morning appeared in the doorway. Comfortable-looking though she was with her plump figure, round face and greying hair, Sister Lulworth managed to express icy disdain as she glanced from one bed to the next.

  ‘Nurse Worbarrow,’ she said a moment later in a voice that made several inhabitants of the ward flinch and look as guilty as rule-breaking fourth-formers. ‘I should like to see you in the nurse manager’s office at once.’

  She swept out. Susan Worbarrow did not look much chastened, but she did as she was told.

  ‘Poor girl,’ said the curious husband when the swing doors had closed behind her. ‘She’s in for it now.’

  ‘Oh, I should think she’ll survive. She seems pretty tough,’ said Willow, feeling a little guilty for having encouraged the story but glad to have heard it.

  Her housekeeper appeared in the doorway just then, with a heavy-looking insulated picnic box in her right hand. Willow waved.

  Mrs Rusham smiled and came over to the bed, where she looked carefully at her employer’s face.

  ‘You look better than I expected,’ she said before adding with more warmth than she usually showed: ‘Was it very bad?’

  Willow hardly knew how to answer the most personal question Mrs Rusham had asked during the ten years they had known each other.

  ‘No,’ she said, not wanting to embarrass either of them with too much detail. ‘Aspects of the process were a trifle grim, but it’s done now.’

  ‘I’m glad.’ Mrs Rusham let her eyes slide sideways so that she could look at Lucinda. ‘And how is she?’

  ‘She seems pretty well. Would you like to hold her?’

  Without waiting for anything more, Mrs Rusham put down the picnic box and efficiently picked Lucinda up. Having tidied the Shetland-lace shawl that she herself had knitted, she settled in a chair beside the bed and gazed down at the baby’s face. Willow watched in surprise as tears gathered in Mrs Rusham’s fierce dark eyes. They did not fall.

  ‘Have you decided what to call her?’ she said after a long silence.

  ‘Lucinda.’

  ‘That’s pretty.’ Mrs Rusham looked up with an infinitesimal smile on her thin lips. ‘You’re right. She does look well. And no jaundice.’

  ‘No. Amazing really, considering how old I am.’

  ‘I’ve brought you a picnic,’ said Mrs Rusham sedately. ‘I thought you might like some food that was a little more interesting than the hospital’s likely to provide.’

  ‘You are wonderful. The meals here are adequate, but that’s all. They’ve been making me long for your cooking. It is really kind of you to have taken the trouble.’

  Mrs Rusham’s face flushed slightly and she shook her head.

  ‘It was no trouble,’ she said gruffly, adding almost at random: ‘It will be pleasant to have a baby in the house.’

  Willow’s face softened in amusement and affection at the typically Rushamian understatement.

  ‘It’ll certainly be a change. Noise, nappies and broken nights.’

  ‘I can always help babysit for you or take over night duty if you get too tired.’ Mrs Rusham looked surprised as she spoke, as though taken aback by her own forwardness, and Willow hurried to reassure her.

  ‘What a wonderful offer,’ she said lightly. ‘I shall certainly take you up on it.’

  Mrs Rusham pushed her left wrist out from under Lucinda’s back so that she could see her watch over the baby’s head. ‘I’d better be getting back now. There’s a lot to do to get the house ready for your return. Shall I put her back in the cot?’

  ‘I’ll take her,’ said Willow holding out her arms.

  ‘I am glad that everything’s turned out satisfactorily,’ Mrs Rusham said when she had handed Lucinda over. ‘I had thought it was a rather risky thing for you to be doing.’

  ‘At my age,’ said Willow, nodding. ‘I know you did. I did too. It probably was mad, but we wanted to, and all is well.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Rusham, still looking at her and apparently not knowing what else to say.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ said Willow.

  Mrs Rusham nodded abruptly and then turned and hurried out of the ward. As she pushed open the swing doors at the far end of the long room, a tall, broad-shouldered, grey-haired man in a long white coat was revealed, talking to one of the nurses.

  For a moment Willow thought that he was Alexander Ringstead. Then he turned and she saw that his face was completely different. Surprised by her own irrationality, she got painfully out of bed and, holding Lucinda in her left arm, pulled her curtains shut with her other hand. But she found that she could not shut out her memories or stop her imagination building pictures of the way Ringstead had died. She had once read an article about drowning that suggested it took about six minutes for a healthy adult to drown, and she detested the thought of what those minutes would have been like for him if he had known what was happening when his head was forced into the water. She tried to make herself believe that he must have been dead or at least unconscious before it happened.

  He had been a big man, several inches over six foot and with broad shoulders and a solid-looking chest. He must have weighed a good fourteen or fifteen stone; perhaps even more. If he had been conscious, he would not have submitted to six minutes of such
torture without a struggle that would have made a great deal of noise.

  Willow thought back to Lucinda’s birth. Her own sensations, the emotional as well as the physical, had been so colossal that it was possible that she might not have heard anything, but there had been plenty of other people around who were not in the process of giving birth and would surely have investigated any unusual sounds.

  Lucinda moved then, snuffling and sticking her flat, wet, very pink tongue in and out between her anxious, questing lips. Willow smiled, tried to force out of her mind all thoughts of death and made herself concentrate on feeding her daughter.

  They both did fairly well and Lucinda eventually lay back, sucking her lower lip in obvious satisfaction. Willow wanted to get out of bed and run down the ward, crying out: ‘We can do it; we can do it. It works.’

  ‘Hello?’ said a tentative, young, male voice from outside her curtains. ‘Er, Willow, is that you?’

  ‘Come in,’ she called and smiled at the sight of her latest visitor, a thin, lanky seventeen-year-old boy, who was blushing at the sight of her unbuttoned nightgown.

  ‘Rob!’ she said, doing it up as quickly as possible with only one hand. ‘How wonderful of you to come! Mrs Rusham has only just gone, but she brought a picnic box full of goodies. Why don’t you open it and see what you can find while I tidy myself up? I expect you’re hungry, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m always hungry,’ he said more cheerfully, dropped his heavy nylon bag of school books loudly on the floor and bent to unlatch the insulated box.

  Willow smiled at the top of his untidy head. They had met two years earlier, soon after his mother had killed herself. He was much more at ease with himself than he had been then, but there was a wariness at the back of his casual attitude to life that was far too old for his age. Like Tom, Willow had grown extremely fond of him, and he had come to depend on them both for a lot of things his guardian seemed unable to provide. Willow told herself that they must not let the birth of their own child change anything for Rob.