House of Doors by Chaz Brenchley Page B

her fork.

THREE
    I n the end, because she wouldn’t – wouldn’t – catch his eye again, Aesculapius came to her.
    â€˜Well, Sister Taylor? Settling in?’
    â€˜Yes, sir. Thank you.’
    â€˜Well. Take your time, don’t rush things. It’ll all be a little strange for a while.’
    The sharpness of her answer surprised herself, perhaps, more than it did him. ‘I’m here to work, sir, not to take things easy.’ I’m not a convalescent. Not one of your patients. No.
    â€˜Of course. Nevertheless. Tompkins, if you’re done with that chair  . . .?’
    The orderly sitting at her other hand had conspicuously not finished his tea, but the major’s word had him draining his cup in one throat-aching swallow and running off with a wedge of cake still clenched in one hand, trailing apologies as he went.
    Major Dorian chuckled, and annexed the vacated chair. ‘You’re thinking that wasn’t kind,’ he observed, uncannily accurate. ‘Tompkins is a lingerer. If he’s late on duty one more time, he’ll go down in his sergeant’s report as a malingerer. He needs chivvying. It’s kinder in the long run, to be a little unkind now and then.’
    â€˜He’s afraid of you.’
    â€˜Yes. Yes, he probably is. Most people here are, a little.’ He considered this, as though it were simply another datum; and added, ‘You’re not.’
    â€˜No.’ In honesty, she was afraid of very little now. Except her dreams, some nights, perhaps. There might have been a reason why she didn’t stretch out on a bench at Darlington station and try to sleep.
    Here she seemed to have waking dreams; Peter was everywhere.
    Well, but what did she expect, coming to a hospital full of pilots?
    They didn’t tell me  . . .
    No, because something here was top secret, something more than a hospital full of pilots. Aesculapius must have known, she thought, how Peter died, he must have seen her file. He must have known how she would feel coming here, or what else was a psychiatrist for, what use was he?
    He must, surely, have known; and yet he had approved her anyway.
    Ruthless. It had been her first impression, and she saw no cause to change it now.
    Ruthless, but  . . .
    Ruthless but careful, that would do for now. He would use whatever came to hand, use it and use it but not – she thought – damage what he might need later. A man who looked after his tools. He said, ‘They tell me that you fainted on the doorstep.’
    As I stepped across your threshold, Aesculapius. Make of that what you will. She herself wanted to make nothing of it, she wanted it to mean nothing that she had seen Peter in the door’s wood, falling.
    Of course they had told him, though. She had been carried to his own office, laid out on his couch. Perhaps he thought that she belonged there. One more patient to be analysed, one more skull to examine from the inside.
    She said, ‘Yes. I’m sorry, it was stupid of me. No food in far too long, and a wakeful night. Not even nurses can run forever without refuelling. As Matron has been reminding me,’ with a firm turn of her head to draw in that redoubtable woman, and a forkful of cake to busy herself with.
    â€˜Hmm,’ he said, utterly unfooled. Unpersuaded. ‘Well, if it happens again – despite Cook’s generosity, which is unbounded, and Matron’s watchfulness, which is legendary – come to see me. Don’t try to carry on regardless. The work here will take it out of you in any case, as much as you have to give. If you start with something missing, you’ll end up taking harm, and I won’t have that.’
    â€˜I’m perfectly all right,’ she said. And then, a little belatedly, ‘Sir.’
    â€˜To be sure,’ he said. And then, after a wicked pause that just matched hers, ‘Oh, to be so sure