Janette Turner Hospital Collected Stories by Janette Turner Hospital Page A

pleaded. “Don’t you think I could just stay home until …” She turned to the wall. “If anything is going to happen. I’d rather be home. I would like to see my tomatoes ripen. I’m frightened here. Couldn’t I go home? Nothing has happened, except the knowing. Couldn’t I go home, please? Just knowing can’t make any difference.”
    â€œIt always does make a difference. For everyone.”
    â€œI want to un-know! I only came as a favour to Mr Bernstein. Now I want to go away again. Couldn’t I, please? Please … ?”
    After a while Angela gently freed herself from the fingers closed tightly on sleep and hope.
    It was well known to the friends of Dr Angela Carson that she did not like to be paged for personal calls while she was at the hospital. Although she did not explain it in so many words, it seemed to her as obscene as surreptitiously reading a paperback (neatly hidden inside the prayer book) at a funeral service. Consequently, when she was summoned to the phone she knew it would be Brendan. No one else, at the moment anyway, would be so rash and desperate. Jacob would have done the same thing once. And then Charles. But there it was again. Birds of a feather.
    â€œAngela, we have to talk. I can’t believe you meant what you said yesterday. I’ll pick you up at the hospital this evening and we’ll go out for dinner. You’ve been overreacting because you’re overworked.”
    â€œBrendan, you know I hate to be called here. Anything you might have to say is irrelevant to me while I am working.”
    He said wearily: “Angela, I fail to see how some sort of semi-human robot can help the dying.”
    â€œGoodbye, Brendan.”
    â€œAngela! For god’s sake! I don’t even understand what happened. What are you afraid of?”
    â€œI’m not afraid of anything. I have responsibilities.”
    â€œBut a visit, for heaven’s sake! Do you want me to surrender the right ever to see my children?”
    â€œOf course not. But you can’t expect me to get involved in that sort of draining familial situation.”
    â€œWhat’s draining about a visit that’s already over ? You’re being so irrational …”
    She replaced the receiver delicately on its hook.
    In all honesty, she thought, I cannot blame myself for this fiasco. She had not, after all, been anticipating overnight visits from his children. Infrequent or otherwise.
    Angela’s profession placed her under a heavy moral obligation. The dying cannot postpone the gathering up of loose ends and the settling of accounts. She owed it to her cases to lead an uncluttered life, to be capable of undivided attention, compassion, total commitment.
    When Angela reached the door of Beatrice Grossetti’s room, a young intern was moving a stethoscope about her body, pausing and listening, his face creased with solemn inner deliberation. As though he were sounding an old hull for seaworthiness, Angela thought.
    â€œDoctor?” asked Mrs Grossetti in a small, apologetic voice. “What can you tell me?”
    As she spoke she reached out tentatively, supplicatingly, and touched his arm. The young intern flinched, moving aside to put his equipment back in its case.
    â€œYou’re in good hands, Mrs Grossetti.” He smiled paternally. “We’ll take expert care of you here.”
    He nodded at Angela as he left the room, flushing slightly before the direct baleful impact of her eyes. It was curious, she thought with anger, the way so many people cringed from contact with death. As though it were catching. As though the patient were already a leper, an outcast, no longer one of us. She had seen it in doctors, relatives, visitors.
    The familiar look of shame suffused Mrs Grossetti’s face, the embarrassment of imposing on the living. Angela saw the tears and instinctively leaned over and kissed her gently on the