Page 217 of Feathers in the Wind
As I began to probe for the musket ball, Nat fainted and did not come around until after I had finished at which point the whisky took its toll and he was violently ill into a basin. I administered a good shot of penicillin and kissed his clammy forehead.
‘I knew the whisky was a bad idea,’ I whispered to him.
Nat took a deep breath. ‘I think I want to sleep.’ His eyelashes flickered against his cheeks.
‘Oh no, you don’t. We’ve got to get you to bed.’ The doctor in me was in full flight now and I would make no allowance for human frailty.
With Christian in the spare bed, Alan and I managed to manoeuvre the semi- conscious cavalier up the stairs and into my bed. I settled him as best I could, and despite Alan’s protests, I sent him home, telling him I needed the sofa to sleep on.
After a stiff gin and tonic and a catch-up on the evening news, I looked at the sofa and decided I would rather be in my bed. I slipped into bed beside my lover, placing extra pillows around his leg so I didn’t accidentally kick him during the night. Entwining my fingers in his, I lay on my side watching him sleep for a long time while I tried to make sense of the events of the day and tried to think rationally about what we could about tomorrow.
I had brought a man to twentieth century England from a culture as foreign to my own as if he had come from Mars. He could not read or write modern English, he had no useful skills, no concept of working for a living. A civilized man in his own time, in this time he would be little better than a savage. On the other hand he had already proved himself adaptable. He was intelligent with a thirst for knowledge. Nat would survive, even if it meant I had to go in search of that mythical Northamptonshire forger to provide him with an identity.
Christian presented a much greater problem. I had a seriously ill child with no birth certificate and no National Health Service number. He needed to see a pediatric cardiac specialist as soon as possible and the best, and only, specialist in Northampton was Mark Westmacott.
The problems ahead of me whirled around in my head until the stress of the last few days caught up with me, and I fell into an exhausted sleep.
Chapter 10 - FOR THE LOVE OF A CHILD
‘Alice?’
I have tried to reach her but I only hear the echoing void of time that lies between us now. Whatever our connection, it is severed now. I am dead to my own time.
I stare at the ceiling as the lights from a passing motor vehicle light up the room. Jessica, poor Jessica, has not shut the curtains. I turn my head and look at the sleeping woman beside me. A lock of hair has fallen across her face. I push it back behind her and she stirs and murmurs but does not wake. She does not hear Christian crying but his distress reaches me in the dark still hours before the dawn. I close my eyes and feel the weight of the task ahead of me on my heart.
He is my son, my responsibility.
I had accepted the inevitability of my death. I never envisaged that Jessica would bring me back with her and now the future frightens me. The child and I only have each other and we must learn to make our way in this new world.
* * *
Iwoke to an empty bed. For a horrible moment I thought I had dreamed it all and that the events of the last few weeks were just figments of my imagination--except for the pillows in the bed and the sound of the television drifting up the stairs.
I found Nat asleep on the sofa with Christian curled in his arms, also sound asleep. How Nat had managed to get up without waking me, dress and carry the child downstairs given the state of his leg, I had no idea.
I didn’t wake him, just tiptoed into the kitchen and began making coffee. The smell of eggs and bacon and coffee had the desired effect, and he straightened and twisted on the sofa to look into the kitchen.
He ran a hand through his hair so that it stood on end as he regarded me with bleary eyes.
‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘How long have you been there?’
He shook his head. ‘The child cried out in the night.’ He managed a crooked smile. ‘I have no talent as a nursery maid, I fear.’ He pulled a face. ‘He is somewhat damp.’
Our voices woke Christian, who sat bolt upright and began to cry. I extricated him from Nat’s arms and dealt with the sodden nappy.
I brought breakfast into the living room on trays. I had no idea what small boys in the seventeenth century ate for breakfast but Christian seemed quite happy to share his father’s eggs and bacon and toast.
Christian sat beside his father chewing happily on some toast. I handed Nat a mug of coffee with his customary three sugars and cast a professional eye over my patient. Beneath the stubble, he still looked pale and when he moved I noticed the grimace of pain.
‘You had enough whisky and pain killer to knock you out for months. I can’t believe you heard the child cry and I didn’t.’ I gave him a rueful smile. ‘I obviously need some training in motherhood.’
He shrugged and took my hand, turning it over before kissing the palm. ‘You were exhausted. A troop of parliamentary horse riding through the bedchamber would not have woken you.’
After breakfast, I changed the dressing on Nat’s leg. It looked painful but seemed quite clean and there did not appear to be any signs of infection and fever. Then I gave Christian what was, apparently, his first ever bath. After some earsplitting screams, once he was in the water he quickly got used to the idea and I had more screaming as I attempted to get him out of the bathtub.
Before I dressed the child in the borrowed clothes, I checked him over, listening to his heart with my stethoscope. The obvious murmur confirmed my diagnosis. The worst would not be imminent but from the blue tinge to the boy’s lips, the sooner we acted the better.
‘I’m taking him in to the hospital to see the specialist this morning,’ I told his father. I didn’t tell Nat the specialist’s name. Only Mark could do the necessary operation.
