“Have you ever been to Simpson’s on the Strand?” Margaret asked.
“No, I never have,” Jean admitted. Eating out was something other people did. Over the years she had trained herself not to mind.
“I had roast beef and sherry trifle. I didn’t get drunk, though.”
“When all this is over I’ll take you there to celebrate,” said Jean impulsively and then regretted it.
Who knew how soon and in what way “all this” would be over, or whether there would be anything in the end to celebrate. And it was reckless to make promises to a child that might have to be broken. They never forgot.
“We’re not far from Daddy’s shop now,” said Mrs. Tilbury, coming to her rescue. She gestured vaguely off to their left. “Perhaps we can pop in and surprise him afterward if there’s time.”
“Can we?” pleaded Margaret. “Have you seen my daddy’s shop?” she asked Jean.
“Yes, I have, actually.”
“There’s a ring in the window that costs four hundred pounds.”
“Goodness. I hope he keeps it locked away.”
They had reached Agar Street now and Jean steered them toward a short flight of stone steps leading up to an anonymous wooden door. From the outside, the building looked more like a foreign embassy or a publishing house, but inside the marble lobby was that unmistakable smell, pungent and antiseptic, common to every hospital Jean had ever visited.
A signboard directed visitors to phlebotomy, pathology, X-rays, waiting rooms. A cleaner was working her way slowly down the wide staircase, plunging her string mop into a tin pail of disinfectant and twirling it into the corners before giving each tread a double sweep. There was something almost hypnotic in her rhythmical movements and the clang, slap, swish of mop and bucket. On either side of the corridor swing doors opened and shut with a faint “whump” of compressed air as nurses and orderlies came and went, moving silently on soft-soled shoes but with a tremendous sense of purpose and urgency. The patients, Jean’s party included, tended to walk with less certainty.
At the reception desk two women sat, chatting in low tones and filing a stack of index cards. They continued their conversation until it reached a natural break—a perfectly judged interval designed to signal that they served the public on their own terms—before acknowledging the visitors.
“We’re here to see Dr. Sidney Lloyd-Jones,” Jean said, bridling.
At the mention of his name the two gatekeepers became instantly deferential.
“Oh yes, Miss Swinney, is it? He said you were to go straight through to his consulting room at the end of the corridor.”
“We’re expected,” Jean whispered to Mrs. Tilbury. “That’s a good start.”
Dr. Lloyd-Jones was a tall, donnish man in his late fifties, with wild hair and smudged glasses over which he peered, blinking, as though dazzled by the manifestation of parthenogenesis-in-the-human-female before him. He shook hands with them all, even Margaret, before summoning his colleague from next door to appraise the resemblance between mother and daughter.
“This is Dr. Bamber from the department of pathology,” said Dr. Lloyd-Jones as the five of them stood awkwardly in his consulting room like guests at a sherry party. “He will be doing the analysis of the blood tests. He is a great authority on blood types, so you can have absolute confidence in his findings.” He turned to Dr. Bamber. “A good start, wouldn’t you say?”
“It could hardly be better.”
They beamed at each other and then at Mrs. Tilbury. Jean had the feeling that they were already sharpening their scalpels, ready to slice her up for microscope slides.
“I suppose it must be a nice change not to have to go to the trouble of curing someone,” she observed.
“This is much more fun,” Dr. Bamber agreed. He was the younger, shorter and more personable of the two men. “Obviously we’re very excited. An opportunity like this doesn’t come along very often in one’s career. It’s very good of you to place yourselves in our hands.”
Jean glanced at his hands, which were unblemished by physical labor and almost unmanly in their smoothness.
“Perhaps,” Dr. Lloyd-Jones said, “you might take mother and daughter over to phlebotomy for the blood tests and you can answer any questions they may have, while I talk to Miss Swinney.”
As soon as the door had closed on them, Jean said, “How many other people are going to be involved in these tests? I’m only thinking of the story leaking out.”