Ward Z Read online

  "But your -"

  "It's none of your business!" I say firmly. "Please, leave!"

  Taking a step back, he stares at me for a moment. "I'll bring her back on Monday," he says eventually, clearly unhappy with the situation. "You have to tell her then. If you don't, I will. I think she should hear it from you, but..." He pauses, and there are tears in his eyes. "If you think you can hide from it by not telling her, you're wrong. You need to put her first."

  "Don't lecture me on looking after other people," I reply, trying and failing to hide my anger. "How's Helen, by the way?"

  He opens his mouth to reply, but the words catch in his throat.

  "Still perky as ever?" I ask with a sarcastic smile.

  "I'll go and get Emma so she can say bye," he says, turning and heading to the door. He always fucks off when I mention Helen by name. It's my secret weapon.

  "Emma!" he calls out. "Emma, where are you?"

  "Don't bother," I say, rolling uncomfortably onto my side. "Tell her... Tell her I'll see her on Monday. Let her play. She's a kid. It's what kids do. Take her out tomorrow or something. Distract her. I want her to have a good time before she comes back on Monday and..." My voice trails off as I realize that, although I'm relieved to be avoiding the conversation today, I'm only delaying the inevitable. "Tell her I love her," I continue, as a single tear rolls down my cheek. "Tell her I'll have a gift for her next time she comes."

  I wait as Kieran leaves the room. Once he's gone, I reach under the bedsheets and run my hand across the side of my torso. That pain is still there, still throbbing. It only started a couple of hours ago, and despite what I said to Kieran, the truth is that I haven't told anyone about it. Not yet. Still, I don't see that there's any rush. After all, I'm dying anyway, so what difference does some new little problem make? Even if it's something serious, it's not like I can die twice. Closing my eyes, I tell myself that I should try to get some sleep, although I know deep down that it's impossible. All I can think about is Emma, and the fact that when she comes back on Monday, I'm going to have to finally tell her the truth about my condition; I'm going to have to tell her that I don't have long left.

  Dr. Andrew Page

  "Dominique... Ribery?" I say, reading the name from her chart. "Is that the correct pronunciation? Rib-e-ry?"

  "It's not bad," she says quietly, speaking with a thick French accent. "For an Englishman, anyway."

  "I was never very good at French at school," I reply, flipping to the second page as I take a quick look at her medical history. Most of it looks like gobbledygook; either Ribery has a very unusual physiology, or those French quacks didn't have a clue what they were doing. "I could always remember the words," I add, "but I was terrible at the accent."

  "Is it that bad?" she asks.

  I turn and look at her.

  "You're making small-talk," she continues with a faint half-smile, as if she's expecting the worst. "You must be trying to avoid talking about something else. Very English."

  "It's a little early to be making any kind of judgment," I reply, hanging the chart on the end of her bed. "Now, I don't mean to sound big-headed, but my understanding is that you insisted on a transfer from Paris specifically because you wanted to be put in my care. Is that correct?"

  She nods. It's clear that she doesn't have much energy, but there still seems to be a little fight in her eyes. She's not ready to die just yet, and that's the most important thing: when patients accept that they're going to die, they tend to start fading away, but Dominique Ribery wants to live, and I can use that determination to keep pushing her forward. Determination can be worth a few extra weeks of life at the very end.

  "Do you mind if I ask why you sought me out?" I ask. "It doesn't happen very often."

  "I did some research," she says quietly, "and I found that you're widely considered to be the best in your field. Your background also made me think that perhaps you're more willing to explore... alternative diagnoses. You have quite a reputation, Dr. Page."

  "I wish my boss agreed with you," I say, as Nurse Aubry comes in with some sampling kits. "The pay around this place is almost as lousy as the food."

  "And yet you stay," she whispers.

  "I have my reasons."

  "This hospital saved your career."

  "You really have done your research," I mutter bitterly.

  "It's true," she continues. "I admire a man who stands by his principles."

  "That's a rather melodramatic interpretation," I tell her, "but yes, I have a certain degree of loyalty to this place."

  "I want you to save my life," she says abruptly, with tears in her eyes. "All the other doctors, back in Paris, treated me as if I was already on the way out. I was starting to believe them, which is why I decided to come to you. I knew a woman who was in your care last year. Her name was Amanda Fields. She said you refused to give up, even when things seemed hopeless. She said you were a brave and honest man, and that she trusted you more than she trusted anyone else in the world. She trusted you more than she trusted God, and she was a very religious woman."

  "Amanda was a good woman," I reply. "She -"

  "I know she died," Ribery continues, "but her cancer was more advanced than mine. Much more advanced. I figure that if you can have the same effect on me that you had on her, maybe you can get me back on my feet. She'd already passed the point of no return when she got to you, and she knew it deep down. I haven't reached that point yet, and I refuse to believe that my situation is hopeless. While there's still blood in my veins, I'm not going to give up. Maybe I'm desperate or afraid, but I don't care. I have more to offer the world."

  I glance at Nurse Aubry, and I can see that there's a faint smile on her lips.

  "I understand you were in Haiti a few years ago," I continue, trying to get Ribery onto a more positive topic while Nurse Aubry prepares to collect the blood samples. "That must have been a great experience. I've always wanted to go and work abroad."

  "Why don't you?"

  I pause for a moment. "I honestly don't know, to be honest."

  "Haiti was devastating," Ribery replies. "The people there were good, but desperate. There was so much disease, so much squalor. Children were dying in the streets, and when they were done, no-one even bothered to move them. I saw the body of a heavily-pregnant woman who had been beheaded by a falling road sign. Her belly was still moving, as if her unborn child was in there, still alive. I..." She pauses, her eyes filled with the memory of true horror. "My colleague and I, we tried to help them, but there was nothing we could do. Most of the tragedy could have been prevented by proper planning, but by the time we reached the country, there was very little we could achieve other than -" She suddenly starts coughing for a moment, bringing up a small amount of blood. Nurse Aubry quickly helps her to clean up. "It was a hopeless situation," Ribery continues after a few seconds. "Typhoid, cholera... There were new variations emerging all the time. It was like a smorgasbord of different diseases. You can't even begin to imagine the stench."

  "How long were you there for?" I ask.

  "Long enough." She pauses. "We were grossly under-funded, resources were scarce... It was a nightmare, to be honest. And then, when I finally got away, I spent two years in a quarantine facility in Puerto Rico."

  "Two years?" I reply, shocked by the idea of someone being isolated for so long. "That seems a little excessive. Who the hell did you piss off?"

  "It was my own idea," she continues. "They wanted me in there for three months, but I said it had to be longer. Even two years seemed like it was too soon to come out, but they refused to let me stay. Eventually they started dismantling the place around me. They were probably right. To be honest, I was going crazy in there, and I'd probably still be there now if they'd let me stay. I needed to get back into the world, so I went back to Paris and tried to resume my old work at the university." She reaches down and places a hand on the side of her belly. "About a year ago, I started to get sick, and pretty soon after that I got th
e diagnosis. By then, it was too late."

  "It's not too late," I point out.

  She smiles. "At first I was worried that it was something I'd picked up in Haiti. When the doctor told me it was plain old boring pancreatic cancer, I was actually a little relieved. I saw what happened to the people back in Haiti, and I didn't want to go through that. I didn't want to risk..." She pauses. "At least pancreatic cancer is something that everyone knows about. There are textbooks and agreed treatment regimens. You can read about it and see what will happen."

  "Isn't that the case for everything?" I ask, as Nurse Aubry starts to take the first blood sample from Ribery's arm.

  "Maybe a few things have slipped through the net over the years," Ribery replies. "Maybe new dangers emerge from time to time. Either way, I'm glad to be on solid ground, even if the prognosis isn't necessarily very good. I need certainty." She winces as the blood sample is completed. "You've seen my records, right?" she asks after a moment. "It's just cancer, isn't it? That's all I've got. There's nothing else wrong with me?"

  "Like what?" I ask.

  "Just checking," she continues, clearly on edge. "I saw things in Haiti that I really don't want to see again. Sometimes, no matter how rational I want to be, these paranoid ideas creep into my head."

  "You have pancreatic cancer," I say, watching as Nurse Aubry takes the second blood sample. "The prognosis isn't good, but we're going to do everything we can to at least prolong your life for as many years as possible. I can't promise you any miracles, Ms. Ribery, but I can promise you that I'll do everything in my power to help you." I glance over at Nurse Aubry. "We're going to start with a fresh biopsy of the secondary tumor on Ms. Ribery's right flank. I know they already performed a full check in Paris, but I want to see it with my own eyes. That way, we've got a better chance of knowing what we're dealing with and -"

  Before I can finish, there's the sound of someone running into the room and I turn to find a young girl standing by the door, staring with childish awe at the bed where Ribery is being treated.

  "Hi, Emma," says Nurse Aubry, smiling at the child.

  "You can't be in here," I say, hurrying over to the girl and ushering her back out into the corridor. "Where are your parents?"

  "What's wrong with that woman?" the girl asks, trying to peer back into the room.

  "Emma!" a man calls from the other end of the corridor, hurrying toward us. I recognize him immediately as the husband of one of my other patients, Cally Briggs. "I'm sorry," he says as he puts an arm on the girl's shoulder, "this is my daughter. I told her not to run off, but sometimes -"

  "This is a hospital," I point out sharply, "not an amusement park. If you have to bring children onto the premises, I'd appreciate it if you'd at least have the grace to keep an eye on them. We have strict rules in place for visitors, and one of them is that you keep your child under control. If you can't do that, maybe you should tie her up outside while you visit."

  "It won't happen again," the man says with a frown, before looking down at the girl. "Emma, tell Dr. Page that you're sorry for interrupting him."

  "I'm sorry for interrupting you," the girl says, without a hint of sincerity in her voice. "What's wrong with the woman in there?"

  "Come on," the man says, leading the child along the corridor. "Let's head home. I'll buy you an ice-cream on the way."

  "It's so sad," says Nurse Aubry, joining me at the door and watching as the young girl and her father disappear around the corner. "I don't think she knows yet."

  "Knows what?" I ask.

  "About her mother. She knows she's ill, but she doesn't know that she's dying."

  "Why not?"

  "I think they're finding it difficult to tell her."

  "Why?"

  She smiles, with a hint of sadness in her eyes. "You'll understand when you have children of your own."

  "Have you got the samples?" I reply, keen to steer us back onto a more appropriate subject.

  "Three, as requested."

  "Then prepare Ms. Ribery for her biopsy. I want to get moving on her case as quickly as possible. Even a day's delay could make a huge difference."

  "You know we've already got the biopsy results from Paris," she replies. "Can't you just use those?"

  "I've already taken a look at everything they sent," I reply. "Either Ms. Ribery has the most unusual form of cancer I've ever seen, or those incompetent assholes couldn't biopsy a whale with a meat cleaver." I pause for a moment. "I need fresh results. I need results I can trust. Prioritize Ms. Ribery. I'll make it worth your while later."

  As Nurse Aubry heads to the storage room to log the samples and prepare for the biopsy, I head back in to check on Dominique Ribery. To my surprise, I quickly find that she's fallen asleep; I guess she's tired after being airlifted from Paris all the way over to London. Glancing down at her bare flank, I can't help wondering how much she really knows about her condition. Does she truly believe that she's suffering from no more than a case of pancreatic cancer? After all, it's not uncommon for patients from all over the world to request my care, but it's not often that I accede to such requests. Unfortunately for Ms. Ribery, something about her case has caught my attention, and I've got a feeling that a proper biopsy of her tumor might start to reveal the truth about what's really happening in her body.

  Cally Briggs

  "There's a new arrival," June whispers conspiratorially as she sidles up to me. "Some French woman arrived this morning. Donald and I overheard them talking. Direct from Paris, apparently. Thick French accent, like a real frog. What do you think it means?"

  As I pour a cup of malignant ready-made coffee from the machine in the patients' lounge, I pause to consider her question. "Call me crazy," I say eventually, "but I think it means someone cut a large enough check to make Dr. Page take her on as a patient."

  "That's what I thought at first," June replies, filled with her characteristic mix of suspicion and paranoia, "but then I did some digging. This new woman, her name's Dominique Ribery. Does that ring any bells?"

  "Sorry," I reply, pulling my drip-bag and trolley over to the sofa and carefully lowering myself down onto the cushions. "All my bells seem to be totally unrung."

  "Have you been crying?" she asks as she shuffles over to join me.

  "Not in the past twenty minutes," I reply, reaching between the cushions as I search for the remote control. I swear to God, you'd think cancer patients would be a little more considerate and might actually take care of stuff in the lounge, but no, everything ends up getting lost. I spend half my time these days looking for things that other people have misplaced, and time isn't exactly something I can spare right now.

  "Dominique Ribery's a big-shot from one of those huge international aid organizations," June continues, leaning closer to give me the benefit of her chemo breath and, I guess, to ensure that no-one else in the empty room overhears us. "Or at least, she was, until a few years ago. Then she got drummed out of the organization due to some kind of kerfuffle in Haiti. I found a whole range of websites devoted to her case. There's a big conspiracy theory about it -"

  "Is that right?" I ask, starting to get frustrated that my search for the remote control has so far only turned up some fluff, a chocolate wrapper and a few coins. After a moment, however, I realize that the chocolate wrapper might actually have been mine. Damn it, these drugs make it hard to remember everything that happens, although the upside is that hopefully this whole conversation with June will be forgotten by dinnertime.

  "You know what went down in Haiti, right?" she continues. "That place went to shit after the storms hit! There was disease everywhere! You must have seen it on the news. There was raw sewage in the streets, there were people dying in the open air, and no-one knew what to do to fix it. People died unnecessarily."

  "And this was all Dominique Ribery's fault, was it?" I ask, finally finding the remote control and blowing on it to get rid of as much fluff as possible. "Sorry," I add, "but I'm not in the mood today. I had Emma
in earlier, and..." I pause for a moment. The weird thing is, even though I find June to be annoying and horribly repetitive, I always feel as if I can actually tell her what's on my mind. "She's just a kid, you know? She shouldn't have to deal with all this."

  "Did you tell her that you're dying?"

  I smile. "No, June," I say after a moment, "I didn't tell her that I'm dying."

  "You got piles yet?"

  I frown.

  "My arse is like a minefield," she continues. "It bleeds every time I -"

  "Do I need to know this?" I ask, interrupting her. "Think about all the scenarios in which you and I are likely to find ourselves together in the next few weeks, and try to work out if any of them might require me to know about your arse in any detail whatsoever."

  She pauses for a moment. "This Dominique Ribery woman," she continues eventually, having evidently accepted my plea, "is not good news. She was not good news for the people of Haiti, and she is most certainly not good news for the people of Ward C." She pauses, as if she's waiting for me to join in with her condemnation of a woman I've never even met. Finally, she sighs, as if she's annoyed that I might take a little more convincing. "Some people just have bad vibes," she continues. "Do you know what they called her in Port-au-Prince? That's the capital of Haiti, by the way. Do you know what they called her? They called her the Angel of Death."

  "How original," I mutter, trying and failing to get the remote control to work. Turning it over, I find that the batteries have been removed. "Why would anyone do that?" I ask out loud. "As if people on this ward don't have enough problems without..." Pausing, I realize how ridiculous it is to get upset over something so trivial. Dropping the remote control back down between the sofa cushions, I decide there's probably nothing worth watching anyway. "This place is going to drive me crazy," I say eventually. "If the cancer wasn't going to kill me, the boredom damn well would."