Field of Thirteen - Dick Francis [24]
The old nagsman felt too shy and embarrassed to enter Mona’s little apartment, as her bed – in its bed-sitting room- was barely six feet from the outer door. He opened the door and spoke with her morning and evening though, through a slender crack, and when she seemed no livelier after three days he cycled to see the doctor himself.
‘Mrs Watkins? Flu takes time, you know.’ He turned pages in a meagre file. ‘I see she has a daughter, down here as ‘next of kin’, Mrs Peregrine Vine. Let’s enlist her help.’
Kind man that he was, he phoned Joanie himself to save the old nagsman’s pocket.
‘Flu!’ Joanie exclaimed. ‘I’m sure Mona’s perfectly all right, if you are looking after her.’
The doctor frowned. ‘She could do with some simple nursing. Change her sheets. Make her cups of tea. Give her orange drinks, or even beer. Things like that. It’s very important she drinks a lot. If you can –’
‘I can’t,’ Joanie interrupted. ‘I have committee meetings all day. I can’t put them off.’
‘But your mother –’
‘It’s too inconvenient,’ Joanie said positively. ‘Sorry.’
The doctor, shaking his head over his abruptly disconnected receiver, wrote Joanie’s phone number on one of his business cards and gave it to the nagsman.
On the following day the nagsman telephoned Joanie himself and told her that Mona was neither better nor worse, but needed her daughter’s company, he thought.
‘Why doesn’t Cassidy Bolingbroke look after her?’ Joanie asked. ‘She likes her well enough.’
The nagsman explained that Mrs Bolingbroke was on her way home from America, but wasn’t expected back for two more days.
‘Two days? That’s all right then,’ Joanie said, and put the phone down. She felt, in fact, relieved. The thought of nursing her mother, of having to make physical intimate contact with that old flesh, revolted her to nausea.
Mona, not unhappy, lay like a log in bed without any appetite for food or drink. She supposed vaguely that she would soon be better: meanwhile she’d sleep.
When the Bolingbrokes returned, Cassidy went into Mona’s room, which she found hot, fetid and airless, with Mona herself bloated and drifting in and out of consciousness on the bed. Cassidy did what she could for her, but in great alarm she and Oliver sent for the doctor. Anxiously he came at once and, having spent time with Mona, summoned an ambulance and repeated over and over to Cassidy and Oliver, ‘But I told her, I insisted she should drink fluids. She says she hasn’t drunk anything for a week. She hasn’t had the energy to make a cup of tea.’ There was despair in his voice. ‘I will have to alert Mrs Vine that we have a serious situation here… may I use your phone?’
Joanie, predictably, saw no reason for panic and said she was sure her mother was in good hands. The doctor raised his eyes to heaven and, despite everything that could be done, despite dialysis and drip and Cassidy’s prayers, Mona drifted quietly away altogether and died late that night in hospital from total kidney failure.
The hospital informed Joanie Vine of the death, not the Bolingbrokes. It was the doctor who told Oliver.
‘So unnecessary, poor lady. If only she’d drunk fluids. People don’t understand or realise the danger of dehydration…’
He was excusing himself, Oliver thought, but Mona had undoubtedly ignored his advice.
Oliver and Cassidy sat in the kitchen and grieved for their vital missing friend.
It was when the old nagsman told them about the doctor and himself phoning Joanie without results that the Bolingbrokes’ grief turned to fury.
‘Joanie killed her.’ Cassidy clenched her fists in outrage. ‘She literally killed her.’
Oliver more objectively thought Joanie hadn’t meant to: hadn’t known how her neglect would turn out. No court would convict her, even of involuntary manslaughter, let alone murder. No case would ever be brought.
Oliver, suddenly remembering Mona