The Glass Wall by Clare Curzon Page A

why your husband works himself into the ground, because there are so many sick people depending on him just
now. Believe me, we understand how it is for you, and we’ll do everything we can for your comfort.’
    â€˜You can’t understand. It isn’t happening to you! You don’t have the pain and the terror!’
    Alyson sat beside her and reached to take her in her arms, but the woman screamed and tore with her nails at the nurse’s face. She recoiled, feeling blood well out under one eye and roll down her cheek.
    â€˜Right,’ said Dr Ashton crisply, entering on cue. ‘It looks like a case for sectioning. I’ll get someone else along for the paperwork.’
    It had been a bad day in her department. In clinic an outpatient had viciously attacked a nurse with a chair, so they were one staff member down and the patient, a fourteen-stone diabetic, had needed to be admitted until his medication was regulated. Now they would have to take on this virago with suicidal tendencies. Which put paid to her hopes of getting home in time to read Jeremy his bedtime story.
    She’d be in shit to the nth. She should have known better than to promise they’d finish the story together. Desmond would take on the reading and miss the whole point. Jeremy had identified heavily with Pirate Percy and would need the bloody ending skilfully edited. Why did the writers of children’s books have to work out their repressed aggression on young, impressionable minds? It was her fault for having chosen that story, but it had been a good romp up to that point.
    While her mind churned over her own misfortunes she felt the patient’s forehead, took her pulse reading and decided that the temporary lull in violence was just the prelude to a second outburst. She would certainly resist an injection. Better give the sedative in something bland and syrupy. Slower, but safer.
    â€˜There, my dear,’ she said emolliently, ‘it only seems to help, getting het-up like that. But it changes nothing in the end except to give you a sore throat and use up your energy. Tell you what I’ll do. Nurse here shall arrange for a porter to swish you off to another ward where I’m nearby, and we can give you our undivided attention.’

    Codswallop, Alyson thought, gently dabbing at her cheek. She’ll never get away with that. And as for undivided attention, that’s exactly what we’re about in ITU.
    But get away with it she did. Audrey appeared to hang on every word, her eyes fixed on the psychiatrist’s own. She put out a pathetic little hand which Dr Ashton briefly squeezed then dropped like a hot potato. ‘Be seeing you,’ she said breezily, and left.
    At the door she grimaced at Alyson. ‘Sorry about the implied slight. I’m the greatest admirer of what you get up to in here. Give a mild sedative by mouth and I’ll send along a magic potion to cover the move. Then we’ll see how she is after twelve hours’ solid sleep.’
    She tapped Alyson on the wrist and lowered her voice further. ‘When Keith drops by suggest he keeps on walking. I don’t think we want sight of him to fire her up again just yet.’
    Â 
    It was an hour and a half later that Dr Stanford appeared and he looked shattered. Alyson stopped him at the door. ‘Keith, what’s happened?’
    â€˜I’ve arranged to take indefinite sabbatical leave. It’s deuced difficult because the practice is one down already with this flu outbreak. But anything else is unthinkable, the way things are.’
    She nodded. ‘I’m sure you’re doing the right thing. If there’s anything I can do to help …anything at all?’
    He closed his eyes. ‘What a mad thing to ask. Of course there is.’ He fell silent, then picked up in a more controlled voice. ‘When Audrey comes home there’ll be no room in my life for anything else, but until then I have