I took the corner too fast; I was right over his side of the road... But that was nothing to do with you. I was in a temper—I’d had a row with Noelle—and... Oh, well, never mind. But it was my fault, Luisa! You mustn’t blame yourself at all.’
But she did, of course, and she was still edgy and tense as she walked into the ward that evening. It was difficult to force a smile for her colleague, Mary Baker, who was Day Sister.
‘Anything wrong? You don’t look well,’ Mary said, frowning in concern. She was a married woman with two grown-up children and had been working at the hospital for fifteen years. Easy-going and cheerful, she had been very kind during Luisa’s probationary period when she worked on this ward as a very raw, anxious newcomer who had difficulty coping with what she had to do each day.
‘I’m fine,’ Luisa hurriedly said now, and tried to look as if it was true. Pleasant though Mary always was, Luisa still felt like a nervous probationer at times when they were talking, and she couldn’t bring herself to confide in Mary. ‘Just a little headache...’
‘Are you sleeping properly?’ Mary promptly asked, frowning. ‘I don’t have to remind you how vital it is to get enough sleep when you’re on nights, do I?’
‘No,’ Luisa grimaced. ‘I usually do, don’t worry. So what sort of day have you had? Any new arrivals? Anyone depart?’
Mary gave her a wry look, but obligingly began to go through the ward list, putting Luisa in the picture with each patient until they came to Zachary West’s name. ‘He’ll be going soon,’ she then said, and Luisa’s dark blue eyes opened wide.
‘Going? What do you mean?’
‘He’s being whisked up to London to have specialist private nursing. It seems we’ve a celebrity on the ward!’ Mary grinned, looking amused. ‘I’ve been getting phone calls from Fleet Street all day, asking how he is! Would you believe some of them wanted to come up and take photos of him? He’s unconscious, I said, and he doesn’t look very pretty at the moment, either, so if he was conscious he wouldn’t want you taking pictures of him looking like that, I told them. One or two of them turned up in person and I had to get George from the front hall to come and turf them out! Nice behaviour on a ward like this!’
‘But...why is he leaving us?’ pressed Luisa, not very interested in Fleet Street.
Mary bridled, sniffing crossly. ‘Well, apparently his agent...or his manager, or whatever...doesn’t think this hospital is good enough to treat such a famous man, so he wants him transferred to this London place where they specialise in skin grafts and plastic surgery. They would have taken him today, but our Mr Hallows put his foot down, told them he was in no condition to make that journey yet. It will be decided tomorrow when he’ll be ready to travel, when Mr Hallows makes his round.’
Luisa was appalled. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for him to bear that trip to London! It would be so painful for him.’
He was being fed intravenously and kept on continuous medication in order to get him over these first few days with as little pain as possible. Luisa stood beside him, staring at the grim mask he would show the world for many months to come, until he was fit enough for plastic surgery. From the photo she had seen of him, in the newspaper, he must have been an attractive man. It was terrible to see him the way he was now.
As Mary had said earlier, thank heavens he was physically strong. Otherwise he could never have survived that crash, or already begun to show the first faint signs of a recovery.
As it was, you could see that he was a powerfully built, lean man with slim hips and long legs and the muscles of someone used to exercise—or, perhaps, to constant work. His lower body had escaped the worst of the fire; his legs were almost unscathed, their skin tanned and dusted with dark hairs.
Suddenly his lids flicked up and she found herself looking into his eyes, pale eyes like polished silver, his enlarged black pupils dominating his gaze, a sure sign to her of the drugs they were having to give him to damp down his pain.
Luisa’s professionalism took over and she bent hurriedly towards him, smiling reassurance.
‘Hello, how are you feeling now?’
Zachary West didn’t even try to answer. He vaguely remembered her and his scorched brows drew together painfully. This was the pale, cold woman he had seen standing beside his bed before, although he couldn’t quite be sure how long ago that was.
But then time had become a labyrinth through which he endlessly searched for a way out. He didn’t know how long he had been like this; he only knew that he kept waking up and going back to sleep and the moments in between were brief and painful, almost surreal. Each time he couldn’t think where he was or what had happened to him, and each time the pain was lurking to spring out at him. He always escaped from consciousness with a sense of relief because when he was awake everything hurt, although he couldn’t quite recall why. All he knew was that his life had simply stopped suddenly one day when he was driving along a road, and ever since he had been in pain.
‘I’m Sister Gilbey,’ the woman said. ‘I’m looking after you, Mr West. How do you feel?’
She had a soft, low voice that should have soothed. Instead, he was irritated by it. Did she think he was a child?
Zachary swallowed and became aware of a raging thirst. ‘Drink...’ he tried to say through his dry lips, and she must have understood because she gently inserted a straw between his teeth. He sucked weakly, and cool water came into his mouth. He stopped sucking when he had quenched his thirst, and his eyes closed in weariness.
‘Are you in much pain?’ the woman asked stupidly.
Zachary opened his eyes to look at her with contempt. What did she think? his gaze asked her.
He closed his eyes again and very soon he was slipping back into his dream. The girl was waiting with her windblown black hair and glimmering oval face, the smile that made his blood sing. Zachary floated towards her, smiling, his heart beating faster.
When his surgeon saw him again the following day Zachary was awake for the first time and David Hallows was able to talk to him.
‘Your agent, Mr Curtney, wants you to be moved up to London to another hospital which specialises in skin conditions, but I’m afraid...although you are already much improved and I have every faith that you will go on improving very fast...for the moment I’m afraid I cannot really permit you to make such a long journey.’
Zachary West gazed incuriously at him, his body slack. ‘I see.’
He did not seem too disturbed by the news and David Hallows gave him a friendly, encouraging smile.
‘We’ll take the best possible care of you, Mr West. We’re trying to make you comfortable.’
‘I’ve been too drugged to notice,’ Zachary said suddenly, his voice clearer than it had been since his accident.
David Hallows laughed. ‘Well, yes, that was necessary for the first few days, to protect you against too much movement, and to counter the effects of shock. From now on we will be cutting back on the dosage; we don’t want you getting hooked, do we?’
He laughed again. Zachary didn’t. Bleakly he said, ‘There’s no chance of that. I hate being out of my mind.’
‘Quite,’ David Hallows said. ‘Well, I’m happy to see you recovering so rapidly. I’ll be in to see you again tomorrow, a little earlier as it’s Saturday. Keep your fingers crossed that I get a quiet weekend for once!’
Again he laughed, and this time Zachary showed a spark of amusement in his grey eyes.
‘That might be a little difficult for me at present.’
David did a double take, then grinned in some surprise. ‘Yes, I’m afraid you’re right.’ Zachary’s hands had been very badly burned and must be intensely painful.
Talking to Luisa that evening, David said,