A Lovely Way to Burn

Ten

St Thomas’s Hospital was grey and dirty against the blue sky. The filth of the city clung to its once white façade as if drawn there by the sickness within. Stevie felt a familiar sense of dread, but she walked through the automatic doors and into the foyer.

Inside, St Thomas’s looked more like a small mall than a hospital. A queue ran all the way from the tills in the Marks & Spencer’s concession to the bunches of two-for-five-pounds roses and serviceable carnations stationed in buckets at its door. The entrance hall was busy with workers on their lunch breaks but Stevie caught glimpses of the building’s real purpose amongst the crowd.

A thin man with a stethoscope draped around his neck stood by the lifts, talking on his mobile phone. Two women in green scrubs chatted as they walked towards the exit. A policeman shook his head and laughed at something an ambulance driver had just told him. Stevie thought she could spot some relatives of patients too. Tired-looking low-wattage ghosts of themselves, hoarding their energy for those moments when they needed to dredge up a healing smile or their heart’s blood.

Stevie went to the reception desk and explained that she was looking for Mr Reah. ‘I think he’ll be in one of the children’s wards.’

The receptionist consulted her computer. Stevie stared at a poster on the wall behind the desk.

COUGHING

VOMITING

DIARRHOEA

RASH

SWOLLEN GLANDS

If you experience a combination of three

or more of these symptoms, avoid sharing

them with your friends and family.

OBSERVE GOOD HYGIENE

CATCH COUGHS IN A DISPOSABLE TISSUE

DO NOT PREPARE FOOD FOR OTHERS

WASH YOUR HANDS FREQUENTLY

STAY AT HOME

CALL 0800 669 9961

The receptionist looked up at her.

‘You’re in the wrong building. You want the private part of the hospital.’

Stevie thought she sensed disapproval in the other woman’s voice, but perhaps she was just hearing an echo of her own surprise. Simon had never mentioned that he did private work. Stevie had imagined him tending sick children regardless of their parents’ means. She covered her disappointment with a smile and asked if it would be possible to visit Joan Caniparoli.

‘I was told she was in intensive care.’ Stevie’s voice was salesgirl-bright. ‘But I think there’s a good chance she’ll be out of there by now.’

The receptionist asked her to spell Joanie’s second name and rattled it into the computer keyboard.

Her eyes met Stevie’s. ‘Are you a relative?’

‘A friend.’

‘I’m afraid Mrs Caniparoli is still in intensive care.’ This time there was sympathy in the woman’s voice. ‘That means only close relatives are allowed to visit.’

Stevie wanted to tell the woman that she saw more of Joanie than any of her relatives did, but the reception telephone buzzed. The receptionist answered it and returned her attention to her computer screen, looking for whatever the person on the other end of the line needed to know.

Stevie followed the directions to the private wing. There was a flutter of apprehension in her stomach, a quickening of the feeling she still got just before the studio clock hit the hour and they went on air. She glanced at her mobile phone and then switched it off. It was 2.45 p.m. so she should be in good time for the end of Mr Reah’s rounds. Stevie straightened her back, trying to assume the air of someone who had a right to prowl hospital corridors. If anyone asked her what she was up to, she would tell them the truth. She was delivering a laptop from the recently deceased Dr Simon Sharkey to Mr Reah. What could be more reasonable? After that she would go to intensive care and tell whatever lies she needed to, the same way Joanie would if Stevie was lying alone in a hospital bed.

She shifted her bag, transferring the weight of the computer to her other shoulder, and wondered how Joanie would look. The thought conjured a memory of Julia Sharkey’s gaunt cheekbones, the wry smile in the skull face.

‘We doctors have a way with death.’

Stevie hoped, for Joanie’s sake, that they had a way with life too.