“No, no, nothing’s happened. I’m just tired of being poked and prodded and not believed. It’s all taking so long.”
Jean felt a rising impatience. She bit down on a number of sharp retorts. There was nothing to be gained by growing irritable and everything to be lost. She needed Gretchen’s cooperation far more than Gretchen needed her.
“Look, I know this is difficult for you,” she said, mastering the temptation to expound upon her own frustrations. “If there is any way I can make things easier for you, please tell me. You know I believe in you, Gretchen. And for what it’s worth I think Dr. Bamber does, too. But science has no business with beliefs. There are only two more stages left now—this serum test and a skin graft. And then it’s done.”
“All right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be an awkward patient. I’m grateful for all the trouble you’ve gone to.”
“There’s no need for gratitude,” Jean replied crisply. “We’re all on the same side.”
Low, rolling clouds were gathering and a few fat drops of rain hit the pavement between them. Jean wondered if Gretchen would invite her back to the house so that they could conclude their discussion inside, but she showed no sign of it.
“Phone Howard and tell him when the next appointment is and we’ll be there,” she promised, lifting the back of her cardigan up over her head to protect her hair.
“I can tell you now,” said Jean, bridling at the high-handed way Gretchen treated Howard as her secretary. “This Friday morning. I’ll meet you at Charing Cross at nine. Don’t eat or drink anything except water overnight.”
The matter settled, they parted, the rain coming down in earnest now. Gretchen ran back up the road with her arms over her head, while Jean trudged to the bus stop with a vague sense of dissatisfaction that had almost nothing to do with her having set off that morning without an umbrella.
Now, as they embraced in the ticket hall and made their way out onto the Strand with Margaret between them, the irritable mood of their previous meeting seemed to have been forgotten. By way of experiment, Jean was wearing the emerald and opal brooch pinned perhaps incongruously to the lapel of her shabby raincoat. She was curious to know whether or not Howard had made a secret of this gift of jewelry; its symbolic value seemed to depend on this factor. However, as soon as the two women had greeted each other, Gretchen had peered at it and said, “Is that Edie’s old brooch? Howard’s done a jolly good job. It looks as good as new now.”
“Yes,” said Jean, both disappointed and relieved. If the gift’s romantic significance was somewhat diminished, Howard’s integrity at least was not. “It was so kind of her—and him.”
“Aunt Edie’s an absolute menace with her so-called presents,” Gretchen retorted. “They’re always broken or incomplete, so you end up spending money you can’t spare on something you never wanted in the first place. I sent those awful old shoes straight to the rummage sale.”
“What about the fur coat?”
“I’m keeping that,” Gretchen conceded. “It smells of camphor but you never know.”
This time when they reached the annex in Agar Street the receptionist had evidently been briefed to look out for them, as they had hardly crossed the threshold when Dr. Bamber himself appeared and swept them away to his office. A coal fire was burning in the grate and his desk was covered with open books and papers. It was more like the study of a busy academic than a medical practitioner.
“It’s very good of you to come all this way again,” he said smoothly, stirring the coals and sending an avalanche of ash through the grate. He aimed his smile at mother and daughter. “How are you?”
“Hungry,” whispered Margaret, who had been introduced only that morning to the concept of a fast and was not impressed.
“Then let’s not waste any time—as soon as we have taken the blood there will be tea and toast.”
A spark flew out of the fire and landed, smoldering, on the hearthrug. Dr. Bamber stamped on it with his shiny brogues.
“I’m sorry we missed our appointment,” said Gretchen, tugging off her white gloves one finger at a time and tucking them into her handbag. “I hope it didn’t put you out.”
Dr. Bamber batted her apology away. Jean was aware of a subtle shift in the balance of power in Gretchen’s favor. At their first encounter the men of science had treated her with a certain polite loftiness, the presumption being that she was at best a curiosity and at worst a charlatan. Gretchen had been diffident and grateful for their expertise. With the evidence of each successive test, however, their interest and her status had grown. Now, apparently on the brink of being proved a phenomenon to rival a unicorn or a mermaid, she seemed to have developed a queenly indifference to the whole process. It was most odd.