Read A Kind Man for Free Online Page B

seven, Tommy went next door for Mary.
    ‘Jeannie?’ she said. But Jeannie cried out and pushed her head further into the cushion.
    ‘She loves you,’ Eve said, ‘she doesn’t mean it. She loves you, Mary.’
    ‘Maybe get the doctor?’
    Tommy stayed only long enough to put on his boots and waterproof. The rushing sound of the rain came into the house as he opened the door. Mary waited with Eve. They said nothing, only listened to the rain on the roof and the child’s laboured breathing.
    It was an hour, a hundred hours, a lifetime, of the rain drumming and the wind howling and the waiting, nothing said. Mary made tea. Jeannie turned her head restlessly and once or twice her limbs jerked in a sudden spasm, before she went limp and still again.
    Eve sat looking at her. Jeannie was dark-haired and not very big for her age but she had never been ill other than having the usual infant teething problems. She was like Tommy, quiet but alert, and had a natural kindness about her that was his own mark. Now, the silken skin of her face seemed parchment-thin, although she was still flushed, and her eyes were sunken down. When she opened them it was as if she were confused, not knowing where she was butclutching at Eve’s hand and for a second gripping it, before she lost strength again. Her eyebrows were fair, hardly there against the skin but her nose was already defined and her mouth wide. It had been possible from the day of her birth to see what she would look like later.
    They had had joy of her from that first day and the joy had increased with every small change and growth, her look, her quietness, the way she watched them, the smile on the wide mouth, her laughter, which came only sometimes but when it did, pealed out so that Mary said she could hear it next door and that it made her laugh too.
    Never since the day of her birth had Eve looked at her daughter in the way she did now, in a new amazement that she should exist at all and that she should have such miraculous beauty and be theirs, made of flesh and blood, skin and bone, and so infinitely precious. She did not know if the child was in pain but certainly she was in distress and if she could have taken that on herself she would have done so in an instant. What could be eased for her by the doctor or, if she was sent there, by the hospital, she had no idea, but that it would be done she did not doubt. It was the waiting that ate into her, the waiting, the helplessness, the lack of knowledge or skill to do more than touch and speak softly.
    They came in the doctor’s car, Tommy running into the house first, his face full of fear.
    The doctor was gentle, careful, touching and listening, murmuring to Jeannie but otherwise offering no word.
    The Westminster clock chimed the hour.
    He got up at last and stood looking down at the child. ‘She should be in hospital, but I don’t like to move her. She’s very ill.’
    ‘What’s wrong? Has she caught something? What’s to happen to her? Can you …?’
    Eve’s words came out anyhow and left her breathless.
    He shook his head. ‘She has no rash on her skin. She could have a brain fever or it may be measles, and if that is the case the rash will come out.’
    ‘Doesn’t that help? I heard it brings about a crisis and then the fever goes down, isn’t that true?’
    He shook his head, not as if disagreeing with her but as if he did not know.
    ‘You should take her to bed and shade the light. It plainly hurts her eyes. And have a sponge with tepid water and wipe her down, let her cool. I’ll give you some powders to put on her tongue with a dab of sugar. And if she worsens, you come back for me.’ He looked at Tommy.
    ‘You mean if the fever doesn’t ease?’
    ‘If she seems in pain – if she has a fit, if her head seems to be aching, if she goes limp, or loses consciousness, if her eyes roll back into her head. And if she’s still burning hot after the sponging and the powders. Then we will have to take her.