Change of Heart, page 55
Freddie stared at Richard, who realizing that he was no match either physically or mentally, finally stepped aside and let Freddie out of the room.
‘Where was I?’ he asked Fleur when he got back to her room and found her awake once more.
‘You’d just sung “Funny Valentine”,’ Fleur smiled back at him, ‘and you were about to sing “A Foggy Day”.’
‘With the gestures?’ Freddie teased. ‘Because it’s more expensive with the gestures.’
‘With the gestures,’ Fleur grinned back at him. ‘What the hell, I’m on BUPA.’
This time Freddie went in search of Richard. He caught him as he arrived at the clinic, and taking him by the arm marched him past his secretary and into the sanctum of his office.
‘I think it’s safe to say Fleur’s out of the woods now, don’t you? It is a fortnight now since I arrived here, and according to your partners your daughter’s improvement continues to astonish everyone.’
‘Even you, Mr Jourdan?’ Richard asked, looking at him over his gold-rimmed half-moons. ‘Surely miracle-makers become somewhat inured to their own miracles?’
‘What I think is that you should know what is going on,’ Freddie continued, ignoring the sarcasm.
‘How very thoughtful of you, Mr Jourdan, seeing that this is my clinic.’
‘And a rose is a rose is a rose. Just as your daughter is no longer just your daughter, Fisher-Dilke. Because the moment she is pronounced one hundred per cent recovered – by an independent third party – Fleur is going to become my wife.’
Richard put down his file of letters on the desk and took off his spectacles.
‘On the understanding, Mr Jourdan,’ he said slowly, ‘that you have my consent.’
‘Not so,’ Freddie corrected him. ‘We’re going to get married and you can stick your consent.’
‘Then what exactly is the purpose of this visit, Mr Jourdan? I do have my rounds to do, you know.’
‘It’s to put a deal to you, sport. Fleur has been hurt quite enough in her life, more than enough I’d say, and I don’t want to see her hurt any more. So what I propose is this. I don’t know whether or not Fleur still loves you, but you are still her father, and whether we love them or loathe them parents rank in our lives. But I wonder how she’d feel about you were she to know the whole truth? Somehow, even given the remarkable person she is, somehow I think even Fleur might in the end find it impossible to forgive you, to forgive somebody who deliberately tried to wreck her life at every given opportunity, killed her wonderful career, and finally by his lies, deceptions and criminal activities almost ended up killing her. No, no somehow I don’t think even your wonderful and loving daughter would be able to see you in quite the same untarnished light again. The man who frightened his daughter sick out of playing the piano, who let the fox kill her rabbit so that she’d have to go hunting, who despatched her old nanny off unannounced and without explanation, off to die in some far distant old people’s home—’
‘My word,’ Richard cut in, ‘we have been doing our detective work.’
‘It wasn’t very difficult,’ Freddie returned. ‘You obviously worked on the principle of blatancy. The more obvious the move, the less it’s noticed. Would you like to hear some more?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Richard said. ‘Memory Lane’s never been one of my favourite venues. So. So what precisely do you have in mind, Mr Jourdan? Or as you would probably prefer, what’s the game plan? It surely can’t be money.’
‘First of all I want your approval. Not for me, but for Fleur. You can start making amends that way, because despite all that’s happened to her, Fleur would really like it if you gave her your blessing. Because that way she’ll be free, do you understand? No guilt, no hang ups, not if you could for once sanction something that she does, in this case the most important thing in her life so far. Then she won’t have to spend the rest of her life looking to you to make sure everything’s all right. She needs your approval for once, something you’ve always deliberately held back from her. I don’t think that’s asking too much, do you? Not given the circumstances.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘For starters she finds out what a bastard you really are.’
‘For starters? You mean there’s more?’
‘You bet your life there is. You don’t think you’re going to be left loose on the streets, do you? No, pal, no what you’re going to do once you’ve given your daughter your blessing is you’re going to hand in your badge. And for good.’
‘Oh I don’t think so, Mr Jourdan,’ Richard replied. ‘For a start I’m doing rather well in this job, and secondly my wife wouldn’t like it. She has rather high expectations of me, particularly following as I am in her own beloved father’s footsteps. A knighthood, for instance. Which I have to say I find rather attractive too. Maybe one day even a life peerage, so no. No no, I’ve come too far now, and after far too much graft I’m not going to throw in the towel at this stage. Sorry, but there it is.’
Freddie looked at his adversary and saw at once the bluff in his eyes.
‘I bet you’re the sort of poker player who always draws to a straight,’ he said.
‘I’m afraid I don’t play poker, Mr Jourdan,’ Richard replied.
‘And I’m afraid that’s your loss not mine, because I do,’ Freddie said. ‘So let me tell you what I have in my hand, because I’m not bluffing. You do as I say when I say, or else I report the case chapter and verse to the General Medical Council.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Richard said, but without any real assurance. ‘I don’t think you’d go as far as that. Think what it might do to Fleur.’
‘Think what you’ve already done to Fleur,’ Freddie replied. ‘So you’d better believe it, believe me.’
Richard thought for a moment, going to his window again to look out across the lake, before turning back to Freddie and smiling.
‘Allow me to think about it, Mr Jourdan,’ he said. ‘Not that I can foresee any difficulty with your proposal, but whereas you have had the time to consider it, I now would like time to do the same. Could you give me until say after the weekend?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Freddie agreed. ‘Although you know as well as I do that there really is only one answer.’
For the whole of the past week and for longer each day, Fleur had been allowed up and about. She was also allowed out for short walks with Freddie so since it was such a fine warm October day that afternoon, they strolled around the grounds of the clinic discussing their future together. They got as far away from the building as possible, because a team of workmen were busy erecting scaffolding around the house prior to repainting it.
‘You want the good news or the good news?’ Freddie asked as they crossed a lawn in the direction of a large ornamental pond. ‘We found Deanie.’
‘You’re joking?’ Fleur stopped and turned to Freddie in delight. ‘Where? Where did you find her? I mean how? And how is she?’
‘One thing at a time, please, Miss Fisher-Dilke,’ Freddie laughed. ‘And remember, not too much excitement in one day.’
‘Fat chance of that when I’m with you,’ Fleur retorted. ‘I only have to hear your voice, or your footsteps coming down the corridor. Now tell me about Deanie.’
Freddie did so, explaining how using his contacts Stephen had easily been able to trace the home to which Fleur’s old nanny had been summarily despatched up in North Yorkshire. And how he had learned that although she was in good health how much she hated the home, as much as she hated being away from everyone she knew and loved who were all down south now, most of all a certain young lady she’d help raise since she was one minute old.
‘So I thought what we’d do, all things being equal,’ Freddie explained, ‘was when you and I are organized we’d bring her down here and put her in some sheltered housing. That’s what Stephen suggested. Apparently she’s still perfectly able to look after herself and should never have been shut up in a home in the first place.’
‘Freddie,’ Fleur said seriously. ‘Do you know something? I thought it simply wasn’t possible to love you any more than I do already. But you want to know something else? I was wrong.’
Taking his arm again Fleur walked on across the lawn until they came to the edge of the pond.
‘Now there’s something I have to ask you, something I’ve been meaning to ask you for ages in fact,’ she said as they stood at the water’s edge looking for the fish. ‘How do you spell your name? The abbreviation, that is.’
Freddie looked round at her.
‘Why do you want to know that now?’ he asked. ‘Anyway, you know how I spell it. I told you.’
‘I just want to make sure, do you mind?’ Fleur said with a frown. ‘It is F–R–E–D–D–I–E, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right,’ Freddie said. ‘And you didn’t forget, did you?’
‘No.’
‘I didn’t think you had.’
‘How could I? Freddie with an “I.E.”? You made such a song and dance about it.’
‘Essentially I’m a very trivial person, Fleur.’
‘No you’re not, Freddie, I.E. I think you’re an utterly wonderful person, and I love you.’
‘I love you too, Fleur Fisher hyphen Dilke.’
‘I know. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, would I? I wouldn’t still be alive.’
‘If it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t have been nearly dead in the first place,’ Freddie countered. ‘If you hadn’t fallen in love with me, you wouldn’t have had your heart broken.’
‘I think we’re already agreed, aren’t we? That there aren’t any ifs and buts in our relationship. Just the plain fact of it. It was inevitable.’
‘Agreed,’ Freddie said. ‘But just tell me why you wanted to check up on how I spell my name.’
‘Because I knew you hadn’t written that letter.’
‘What letter?’
‘The letter you wrote me saying why you thought we had to stop seeing each other.’
‘The letter I wrote you? What about the letter you wrote me?’
‘What letter?’
‘The letter you wrote me saying why we had to stop seeing each other.’
‘I never wrote you a letter, Freddie.’
‘I never wrote you a letter either, Fleur.’
‘Then who did, Freddie? Who wrote the letters?’
‘I think that’s pretty obvious,’ Freddie replied. ‘Don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Fleur agreed. ‘Not that it matters now. And look – there’s a fish.’
As they were going back into the clinic, the girl on duty on the main reception desk advised Freddie to move his car because the scaffolders were about to start work round the front of the house. Freddie saw Fleur up to her floor and then, kissing her quickly, told her he’d be back up as soon as he’d done what he’d been asked before hurrying back downstairs, not bothering to wait for the elevator.
Perhaps because he was still turning over the matter of the phoney letters in his mind or perhaps because Freddie simply was not the most diligent of drivers, he was paying even less attention to what he was doing than usual when he got into his car to repark it. Not that what happened was in any way his fault, but even so had he parked in the space marked Visitors rather than in a clearing in the car park which had been marked out of bounds with traffic cones by the scaffolders, he most certainly would have avoided the calamity. As it was, with a long look over his shoulder to make sure the park was clear behind him he reversed his hired car away from the front of the clinic to the side of the parking lot without seeing the line of cones, his head turned away from the building but his chest fully exposed to it, so that the twenty-foot-long scaffolding pole which then slipped from the grasp of the men who were working above him fell at an angle of forty-five degrees straight through the car windscreen, crushing Freddie so hard that the driver’s seat was torn off its mountings by the impact.
He was barely conscious as they struggled to free him, but he was aware of what was going on and of the terrible pain. He heard voices far away thank the Almighty that the car had been travelling backwards at the time of impact. Had it not been, another voice said, to judge from the look of his injuries the poor man would undoubtedly have been killed outright. But I wasn’t, he heard himself whisper, I’m alive, aren’t I? Look, listen can you hear me? I’m not dead and I’m not dying, am I? But whatever happens, don’t tell Fleur. For Chrissake don’t tell Fleur. Don’t worry, someone was saying, someone he could see, pretty green eyes and dark hair. Don’t worry Freddie, this voice was saying, we won’t say a thing to Fleur. Don’t worry don’t worry you really don’t have to worry now . . .
Then it is another voice and another nurse someone who is asking what his chances are but he can see her as well which he can’t understand because that is him on the table there below although it’s difficult to see at first because there is this shimmering haze in front of his eyes.
‘The chances are not good,’ someone says, the man at the head of the table, the anaesthetist. ‘We have only a very weak pulse and his blood pressure is falling all the time.’
That is certainly him down there yet he feels very calm no sense of panic just peace as he sees himself beneath the green gowns his face under the oxygen mask as the anaesthetist watches a green line on what looks like a television screen hardly moving up or down while everyone gathers round the table past which a nurse hurries with a tray of instruments and another man a doctor another surgeon perhaps? He’s also wearing green too and a mask so how can Freddie tell but this man speaks he says
‘Who’s operating?’ he asks.
‘The man himself,’ the anaesthetist says back. ‘He insisted.’
‘Then good luck, Mr Jourdan,’ the surgeon says, the man Freddie now realizes is Dr Alderman, ‘because you’re certainly going to need it.’
‘Not only that, the sooner we get him on a heart-lung machine the better,’ the anaesthetist continues, checking his gauges. ‘Although I doubt if soon will be soon enough.’
Through the swing doors Freddie can see the robed but as yet unmasked figure of Fleur’s father scrubbing up and he wonders without any sense of fear what sort of job he’s going to make of trying to save the life of the man who can ruin his this will be interesting he thinks from his corner of the ceiling high above the table what a god-given opportunity for Fisher-Dilke with no suspicion whatsoever of foul play he can just fail to save his life a life that is hanging in the balance and then walk away scot-free without the slightest suspicion and here he is now masked up by the table sawing open Freddie’s chest what is that he is saying?
‘Damage to the superior vena cava and to the right atrium,’ Richard says as he examines Freddie’s heart. ‘Apparently no rupture of the main organ as such. Another half an inch and it would have been a different story.’
‘It would have been an end of story,’ Dr Alderman says as he also examines the damage. ‘As it stands, is it repairable?’
‘Possibly. Outside chance. If I can stitch the vena cava and relieve the pressure on the atrium—’ Fisher-Dilke glances at the anaesthetist. ‘A lot depends on you, John.’
‘We’re stable,’ the anaesthetist replies, checking the digital readout on the heart-lung machine. ‘But you’re going to have to extract the old digit.’
‘At least we can see what we’re doing now,’ Fisher-Dilke says. ‘The great thing about these machines is they keep the site clean. So we’ve got a much better view of what exactly the damage is. If we can just get the rest of that rib out of the way—’
Even though he hangs high over the table Freddie can see everything clearly he can see the two surgeons working in silence as they ease back one of Freddie’s three broken ribs in an effort not only to give a clear sight of the heart but also to reduce any further pressure on it
‘Good,’ Fisher-Dilke says, turning to Dr Alderman once that phase is completed. ‘The area around the right atrium appears to be unpunctured, if actually damaged at all.’
‘Suppose we ease that side of the heart back into shape?’ Dr Alderman suggests.
‘Hmmm. Worth a try,’ Fisher-Dilke grunts.
This time when he falls to silence Freddie sees with interest that he is using one of his hands to massage and remould the right side of Freddie’s heart
‘From the look of things now,’ he begins, ‘perhaps all we have to repair is the vena cava, before taking a look round the rest of his bits and bobs. To make sure everything’s still functioning. Except—’
Now he stops and looks closely again at the apparent damage.
‘Except, looking at the entry wound, or rather where the maximum compression was, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there weren’t one or two nasties actually inside the heart. So I’m going to cut the heart open and go in. It’s a big risk, of course it’s a risk, because any invasion of the heart itself is always fraught with all sorts of dangers but we have no choice.’
Everyone round the table agrees.
‘The patient’s pre-operative condition was critical enough to lead one to expect to find a rupture of the heart. And since we haven’t, I have more than the faintest feeling that with the blood pressure running so low and the faintness of the heart beat, there has to be serious damage somewhere or other. So I’m going in.’
Everyone round the table bends forward as Fisher-Dilke goes to make the incision and for a moment Freddie thinks he is going to miss it going to miss the moment when his heart is cut open but by moving round the ceiling slightly he manages to see and there it is there is his heart cut open inside him which doesn’t disturb his tranquillity in the least particularly since Fisher-Dilke is now calling loudly as he examines his work
‘It seems that due to the impact, the mitral valve is all but closed – which would explain the rapidly failing heart function. Looking at the damage and given the circumstances, I really don’t think this is repairable. Not with the shock the system has suffered and the amount of physical damage here.’
