Danger Zone (11 page)

“Is he,” she began, then stopped. “What’s his condition?” she amended quietly, as they walked down the white tiled hall.

“Rallying, I should think,” Miss Mandeville said. “It was a bit dicey at first, I must say. I was on duty when he arrived and he’d lost so much blood that surgery had to be postponed until he could be transfused. But his color’s good now, and his blood pressure’s back up, with a nice strong pulse.” She turned to Karen as she opened the door of a private room, isolated at a bend in the corridor. “I’ve an idea he’s a tough Yank.”

“Not as tough as he thinks,” Karen replied. “No one is.”

Miss Mandeville stepped aside and let Karen precede her into the room.

Karen halted at the foot of the wrought iron bed and tried not to show what she was feeling. But Miss Mandeville had been around hospital visitors far too long.

“Not given to fainting, are you?” she asked Karen sharply.

“I have never fainted in my life,” Karen replied calmly, thinking that she hoped she wasn’t about to break that tradition now.

Colter was hooked up to so many tubes and machines that he looked like a large, tanned, severely damaged android under repair. A heart monitor beeped on one side of the bed while intravenous fluids, blood and saline and glucose, dripped into his arm from a stand on the other. He was naked to the waist, his brown skin contrasting sharply with the white sheets. A large gauze dressing covered the left side of his torso, extending to his midsection, just below the electrodes taped to his chest. The nurse had said his color was good, but his skin had a sallow cast beneath the tan that Karen found alarming. He was so still that he seemed strapped to the bed, immobilized by all the equipment. His bright hair, usually so shiny and smooth, was matted and dull, spread on the pillow like dirty straw. His long sandy lashes lay lifelessly on his cheeks, and his lips were parted slightly, dry and pale. But even the injury and all the indignities modern medical science had inflicted on him couldn’t make him ugly. He was still beautiful.

“He isn’t in a coma, is he?” Karen asked fearfully.

“No, no, don’t fret yourself about that,” Miss Mandeville replied. “He’s just sedated, it’s the drugs keeping him under. He should come out of it within a day or so.” 

“Will he be in a lot of pain?” Karen murmured.

Miss Mandeville didn’t answer and Karen wished she hadn’t asked.

“Can I stay in here with him for a while?”

The nurse shook her head firmly. “I’m afraid not. This has to be it for tonight.”

“What about tomorrow?” Karen asked anxiously.

Miss Mandeville thought about it for a moment. “I’ll leave word that you can see him for a brief bit.”

“You won’t get into trouble, will you?” Karen said, for the first time remembering that the woman had broken the rules to help her.

Miss Mandeville drew herself up to her full five feet two inches and announced, “I’m the nursing supervisor on this floor, miss. Only doctor can change my orders, and he’ll permit it if I will.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” Karen said, effusively grateful. “I’m sure you’re taking very good care of him, of course, but I imagined all sorts of things and it means so much to be able to see him.”

“You’re very fond of him, aren’t you?” Miss Mandeville asked.

Karen met her eyes, then looked away. “It’s crazy,” she answered. “The truth of it is I hardly know him.”

“Well, that’s the way of it sometimes,” Miss Mandeville answered softly, and Karen glanced at her sharply. The other woman’s expression was wise, and Karen realized that her sober, no nonsense appearance now did not preclude a youth that had been far different.

“Come away, now,” Miss Mandeville said, and they left the room together, pausing outside in the corridor.

“I’ll be back in the morning,” Karen said.

“I’ll leave the orders,” Miss Mandeville replied.

“I appreciate what you’re doing, Miss Mandeville,” Karen said.

“Not at all, not at all. Good night to you, and don’t fret. He’s on his way back. You can rest easy about that.”

Karen left the hospital feeling better than she had since before Mrs. Schanley’s phone call. She fled past Mrs. Dunphy at the reception desk and emerged into a chill, light rain, glancing down the street for the sign indicating the Ulster Arms.

She found it half a block away and walked into the lobby just before nine in the evening. The place looked slightly threadbare but very clean, and the desk clerk showed her to a room on the third floor overlooking the street.

“Can I get anything to eat?” she asked him as he put her bag on the floor next to the bed.

“Dining room’s closed, miss. Would you be wanting a snack?”

“That’ll be fine. What’s available?”

“Biscuits and tea, toasted cheese sandwich?” he suggested.

“Great, send that up to the room, please.” Since she’d seen Colter alive and apparently on the mend her appetite had returned.

“Just as you say.” He bowed out, and Karen went to the window to look down at the rainy thoroughfare below.

Maybe tomorrow she could talk to him, tell him that she’d come as he’d requested, that everything would soon be all right.

Karen turned back to the bed and took off the spread, exposing a woolen blanket and thick, ribbed sheets. She undressed and put on her robe and was washing her face in the bathroom when the clerk knocked with her tray.

The same man delivered it; she had the eerie feeling he was the only staff member in the place. She ate lightly and then climbed into the bed, turning out the light.

In the morning she would see Colter again.

* * * *

When Karen awoke the rain had stopped, but the sky was still overcast and the weather damp and blustery, a typical autumn day in the British Isles. She had breakfast—a thick porridge called “stirabout” for obvious reasons, in the paneled, red carpeted hotel dining room—and presented herself at the third floor desk of the hospital before 9 a.m. The nurse who listened to her request to see Colter unpinned a note from his chart and said, “Oh, yes, Miss Walsh, we’ve instructions to let you visit Mr. Colter. He’s been a bit restless, coming out of his sleep, but I think you ought to see our Mrs. Schanley first. She left word she’d like to talk to you.”

When Karen hesitated the nurse said gently, “It won’t take but a moment. He’ll be fine until then.”

“Mrs. Schanley is on the first floor, by the admissions office?”

“She is. You’ll see her name on the door.”

Karen took the elevator downstairs and found Mrs. Schanley without any trouble. She looked up from her desk as Karen walked through her open door.

“Mrs. Schanley, I’m Karen Walsh,” Karen greeted her. “You called me about Steven Colter, and when I went up to visit him just now the nurse said you wanted to see me.”

Mrs. Schanley, who was a slim woman in her forties with short stylish hair the color of orange Nehi, got up and took Karen’s hands in both of hers.

“I’m so very glad to see you,” she said. “It was good of you to come all this way. We were quite worried about your friend just a short while ago.”

“Yes, I understand that,” Karen said impatiently. “I don’t mean to be rude, Mrs. Schanley, but the nurse said he was waking up and I’m anxious to talk to him. Can you tell me why you sent for me?”

Mrs. Schanley suddenly looked abashed and Karen wondered what was coming.

“Mr. Colter is not a U.K. citizen, Miss Walsh. He’s not on the National Health.”

Karen gazed at her, stymied, until she realized they were talking about Colter’s hospital fees.

“I’ll pay his bill,” she said recklessly, terrified that they would refuse him further treatment because he was uninsured. She hoped that she had a bank balance sufficient to follow through on the boast.

“Oh, is that so?” Mrs. Schanley said, obviously doubtful about the nature of Karen’s relationship with Colter.

“He’s my... fiancé,” Karen lied boldly.

“I thought you said you were friends.”

“Well, we are. I mean, we were about to get engaged when all of this happened, and we will. Very shortly. So you have nothing to worry about, Mrs. Schanley, everything will be taken care of, I assure you.”

Mrs. Schanley, who had heard all sorts of tall tales from better liars than Karen, still looked dubious, but mercifully decided to let the issue pass for the moment.

“I’ll go up with you, then,” she said to Karen, picking up her notes and following Karen out into the hall. Karen had no choice but to let the woman accompany her back to the third floor. The nurse Karen had spoken to earlier took them to Colter’s room.

“He’s drifting in and out just now,” she confided to Karen. “You can only stay a moment, so call him if he seems asleep—he should respond.”

Karen nodded and opened the door, with Mrs. Schanley on her heels.

Colter looked almost the same as he had the last time she saw him. His eyes were closed and his limbs still, but even in repose he seemed less out of it, more alert.

“He’s looking better,” Karen murmured.

“That he is,” Mrs. Schanley confirmed. “What a beautiful man. The nurses must be fighting over him.”      

Karen walked to the side of the bed and leaned over the railing.

“Steven,” she said. “Steven, wake up.”

His lashes fluttered, and then his lids lifted and the blue eyes looked into hers. He seemed to gaze for a moment, register her presence, and then his eyes closed.

“Steven,” she called again.

His eyes opened once more, and this time they held hers.

“Karen,” he murmured. His voice sounded hoarse, unused.

“Yes, it’s me.”

He licked his lips and blinked.

“What are you doing here?”

Chapter 4

Karen and Mrs. Schanley exchanged glances. 

“You sent for me,” Karen said. 

Colter moved his head back and forth on the pillow. “No,” he muttered. “No.”

Karen could see that Mrs. Schanley didn’t want to agitate a man in his condition, yet felt duty bound to clear up the matter.

“But Mr. Colter,” she said gently, “you told me to contact Miss Walsh....”

“If I died,” he rasped, raising his head with an effort. “Am I dead?” 

Mrs. Schanley fell silent.

“Go home, Karen,” Colter said. He turned his face to the wall.

The two women were so shocked that they stood staring at the still figure on the bed, unable to think of anything to say.

The duty nurse came into the room and announced, “Time’s up. Come away, now. He needs his rest.”

Karen and Mrs. Schanley moved into the hall, and the hospital administrator put a comforting hand on Karen’s arm.

“He’s just upset to have you seeing him so weak and ill, is all,” Mrs. Schanley said soothingly. “You know how men are. They always want us to think they’re as indestructible as the Rock of Cashel.”

Karen, who hadn’t yet recovered, said nothing.

“Maybe we should go into the cafe for a bit, fix you up with a nice cup of tea,” the other woman suggested.

Karen nodded, too numb to protest.

They descended to the first floor. Mrs. Schanley led the way to a small cafeteria around a bend in the corridor near her office. Karen waited until they were seated alone at one of the refectory tables before saying, “I haven’t been honest with you, Mrs. Schanley. Mr. Colter isn’t my fiance´.”

Mrs. Schanley nodded. “I thought not.”

“But I can pay his bill,” Karen added hastily. “I have some money that my father left me.”

“Not to worry,” Mrs. Schanley said. “We’ll work something out. But don’t you think you’d better tell me what’s going on with you and Mr. Colter? It’s an unusual situation, you must admit.”

Karen filled the woman in on the background of her relationship, or lack of it, with Colter. When she finished Mrs. Schanley nodded slowly.

“I see. Well, that puts another gloss on it, I’d say.”

“What?” Karen said.

“I mean, maybe you should just do as he said and go back home.”

“I can’t do that. I can’t leave him when he’s like this.”

“It seems he wants you to.”

Karen sighed. “Can I come back and see him tonight?”

Mrs. Schanley shrugged. “Surely. If he’ll have you in the room.”

“Is Miss Mandeville on this evening?”

“I believe so.”

Karen stood up. “Then I’ll be back.” She crumpled her paper cup and threw it into the trash. “Thank you for all your help. I’ll handle this from here.”

Mrs. Schanley eyed Karen doubtfully as she left the cafeteria.

Young love, she thought. It was enough to shorten your life by a year.

Then she rose herself and headed back to her office.

* * * *

Karen spent the day killing time with a long walk, and what she saw convinced her that she should remain in the hotel.

Belfast was like an armed camp. British soldiers in camouflage uniforms, wearing jackboots and flak vests, patrolled with their weapons at the ready, alert to every sound. Teenagers and even small children shouted at them constantly, hurling insults and tossing stones and bottles, stirring up enough mischief to make their presence keenly felt, but stopping just short of conduct that would demand retaliation.

The city itself looked like photographs Karen had seen of bombed out Berlin after the war: shells of buildings surrounded by rubble, abandoned warehouses with the windows blown out, glass and broken bricks littering the streets. Armored cars and tanks glided slowly through the narrow thoroughfares. Graffiti covered all available surfaces— storefronts, walls, even the playbills and advertisements plastered on the city signs. “Up the IRA,” “Bobby Fallon Lives,” “Brits Out of Eire,” “Remember the Hunger Strikers.” The slogans were scrawled with white paint, chalk, even what looked like—and might have been—lipstick. Like everyone else, Karen had seen the magazine photos and the newsreels, but the reality was unnerving, a glimpse into another country’s nightmare. She returned to the Arms in the late afternoon and took a hot shower, warming herself from the chilled air and the even chillier scenery. Then she ate and went across to the hospital, checking in with Miss Mandeville and entering Colter’s room quietly.