‘My rubies,’ the woman murmured. ‘The keys are in my purse …’
‘Yes, madam, but you say you don’t want it opened?’
‘Not here …’ As suddenly as the strength had come, so it waned. The voice faded to a whisper and the nurse had to bend down to hear the words. At one point she straightened up …
‘But that wouldn’t be right, madam …’
‘Right or wrong, who cares? Never mind the papers, they’re not your concern … And nothing matters to me any more …’
The patient lay back, exhausted. The blue-veined eyelids flickered, then closed. She gave a deep sigh.
Startled, the nurse threw the case on a chair, leaned over the bed and picked up the hand now at rest on the coverlet. The pulse was slow but it still throbbed, the breathing was even, there were not, as yet, any of the signs of approaching death she knew to respect. Thank God, she said to herself, for a moment there I thought she’d gone. That sudden clarity of speech, the momentary return of vigour, she’d seen them before, often they heralded the end. As she adjusted the pillows and slid the frail body into a more comfortable position, the patient said: ‘I’ll sleep now, Nurse. I’ll sleep easy in my mind …’
Of course you will, madam.’ She touched the white forehead gently, smoothed back the once-bright hair. Even though she stooped low the nurse could not quite catch the next words. Anyway, they seemed to be in a foreign language. All she heard was: ‘He told me once.… a long time ago …’
The woman who had been beautiful died the next morning at nine o’clock. She died peacefully in her sleep with her doctor by the bedside. Correct in all she did, the nurse had called him at seven when she saw how things might be.
‘Did she have a restless night?’ he asked.
‘Not more than usual. She talked with me for a time, then she slept. Her pulse had weakened but she wasn’t in any pain. I’d given her an injection earlier in the evening when she’d had some discomfort but when she woke in the night she didn’t complain. After she’d talked a little she went off to sleep again and she was still sleeping this morning when I called you. I thought she might just slip away, and that you should be here …’
‘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
