Heart and Soul Page 3

  She had seen money scrimped here, money wasted there. She had observed no planning, excessive planning, making do with what was already there. Nothing to inspire her. Some idiotic decisions like placing a heart clinic on a third floor in a place without proper elevator access. Like the casual attendance of staff on no regular basis. She had seen duplication of files and reports. She had seen trust and hope among patients who felt that they were learning to manage their disease. But surely you could get that in any good GP's office or an outpatient department.

  Clara had taken notes on what she had liked and hated in two different colors. It would be easy to summarize her findings. Then she saw a file called PERSONNEL. The pool on which she was allowed to draw for assistance. She would need the services of a dietitian and a physiotherapist. She would need at least two trained cardiology nurses, and a phlebotomist for taking blood. They would have to have a houseman or -woman working there for six-month periods, a system of referral from doctors and the general hospital. They would have to get a campaign of public awareness going, arrange interviews in the national press and on radio.

  She had done it all before. When she had been at the forefront, and that was when she was going somewhere. Or thought she was. Still, it had to be done, and she would do it right. What else was she in this for if not that?

  She started to look through the files.

  Lavender. What a name for a dietitian. But she had a good CV, and she said she wanted to specialize in healthy eating for the heart. She sounded lively, young, dedicated. Clara put a tick beside her name and reached for the phone. Might as well start now. Okay, so it was nine o'clock at night, but this was the girl's mobile phone. She would no doubt be surgically attached to it.

  “Clara Casey here, Lavender. I hope it's not too late …”

  “No, of course not, Dr. Casey. I'm delighted to hear from you.”

  “Perhaps we could have a chat tomorrow if you could come to the center. There's a sort of conference room there. When is best for you?”

  “I'm working from home tomorrow, Doctor, so anytime is fine.”

  They fixed a ten o'clock appointment.

  Now she needed a physio but she didn't know how many hours a week. She went through the applications to see who was available for part-time work. A big, bluff face came through the photographs. Square, reliable, not handsome, looked like an ex-boxer, but there was something about his story that she liked. He did a lot of work in inner-city clubs, he had been a late student; the word mature didn't really apply to him. He had a lopsided grin. Great, she thought, I'm choosing staff on their pictures now.

  He answered his mobile on the first ring. “Johnny,” he said.

  Clara Casey explained and, yes, he could make eleven o'clock, no sweat. It was going well. She lined up two nurses and got the name of a security man as well. Tim. She rang his mobile phone. A slightly American accent told her that he would get back to her. If she was going to start to tear this place apart tomorrow she would need someone to keep the building safe.

  To her surprise she heard the key in the door and the sound of her two discontented daughters returning. They came into her room without knocking. That was something else that annoyed her these days.

  “What did he want?” Linda asked.

  “Who?”

  “Dad.”

  “A divorce. He wants to get married again.”

  The girls looked at each other. “And?”

  “And I told him to get out.” Clara seemed unconcerned.

  “And he went?”

  “Well, obviously. And did you have a nice night? No? Well, he left you some wine downstairs. You could kill that, I suppose.”

  Linda and Adi looked at each other, confused. Their mother's phone rang, and she waved them away.

  “Oh, Tim, thank you for getting back to me. No, of course it's not too late. Could you come in tomorrow to discuss a small security job? I am going to knock down a lot of walls and leave a place wide open for a few days, so that will be full-time. After that it will just be on regular routine patrol. Fine. Fine. See you then.” She smiled vaguely at her daughters.

  They were uneasy. It had not been a hugely successful dinner at Quentins, their father was going to marry a girl of their own age, and now it appeared that their mother had gone raving mad.

  The next morning flew by. The interviews went remarkably well. Lavender turned out to be trim and businesslike. She was realistic about the number of hours needed to give dietary advice. She suggested a weekly cookery class, and said it had worked well when she had been in a clinic in London. A lot of the patients had no idea how to cook vegetables properly or make a healthy soup and were astounded at the possibilities. Lavender was a no-nonsense person, a single woman in her forties. She took two months off in January and February every year and went to Australia but would arrange a substitute herself. She would help Clara to set up the kitchen and could start work in two weeks’ time.

  Clara found it very reassuring.

  Johnny the physio was indeed big and bluff but seemed to have huge reserves of patience. He said that heart patients had seen too many movies where people clutched at their chests and died in seconds on the floor. This made them terrified of taking any exercise in case they overexerted themselves and brought on the heart attack that would kill them. Instead they allowed their muscles to waste away. He inquired whether Clara would be able to wire the patients up to an EKG so that their progress could be monitored.

  “Doubt if they'll give me the equipment,” Clara said.

  “We could make a case for it,” Johnny said and joined the team.

  Tim, the security man, had lived in New York for a couple of years. He had done a lot of hospital work there, so he knew just what was needed. He could give it his full time for the next couple of weeks, as he was hoping to go into business on his own and needed a couple of major satisfied clients. But he didn't want to tread on any toes.

  “Why aren't you using the existing hospital security?” he asked.

  “Because I want to run my own show.” Clara was equally direct.

  “And will they pay for it?”

  “Yes, if you give us what those guys in the offices might consider a fair quote. They love to think they're saving money. It's all they care about.”

  “Same everywhere,” Tim said pragmatically.

  “You came back from America?”

  “Yeah. Everyone I knew out there worked fourteen hours a day. All the people I knew here were wearing designer suits and buying property in Spain. Thought I'd come back and get a bit of that for me.”

  “Glad to be back?”

  “Not totally sure,” he said.

  “Early days yet.” Clara was practical. She felt at ease with this quiet man.

  The first nurse she interviewed, Barbara, was exactly the kind of person she would have handpicked. Outgoing, direct and very much on top of the subject. She answered the routine questions about heart medication, blood pressure and stroke.

  The second woman was older but not at all wiser. Her name was Jacqui and she spelled it twice in case there should be any misunderstanding. She said that she was applying for the job so that she would have no evening or shift work. She said that existing holiday arrangements would have to be honored. She said she would need an hour and a half for lunch to walk her dog, who would sleep peacefully in her car once he knew that an extended “walkies” was included in the day. She said that her present job was like working in the Third World. Most of the time was spent making yourself understood to foreigners. Clara knew in moments that this woman would not be part of the team.

  “When shall I hear from you?” Jacqui asked confidently.

  “Many many more people to interview. I'll let you know in a week.” Clara was clipped.

  Jacqui looked around her without much pleasure. “You'll have your work cut out for you here.” She sniffed.

  “Indeed. But isn't that where the challenge lies?” Clara felt the smile nailed to h
er face.

  What Clara really needed, she discovered the next morning, was an extra pair of legs. Someone who could run and find this form, leave in the other form, get the hospital building team and the electricians to gather for discussions. But nowhere had this pair of legs materialized. She would have to find her own. By chance she found them in the car park. A thin girl with long, straggly hair, carrying a chamois cloth, offered to clean her windshield.

  “No, thanks.” Clara was pleasant but firm. “This isn't really a good place to get business. Mainly it's staff who don't care what their cars look like or patients who are too worried about themselves to notice.”

  The girl didn't seem to understand her properly. She was straining to get the meaning of the words.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Polski,” the girl said.

  “Ah, Poland. Do you like it here?”

  “I think yes.”

  “Do you have a job?”

  “No. No job. I do some things.” She indicated her cleaning cloth.

  “What else? What other work?”

  “I go to houses to wash the cups and to clean the floors. I put the leaves from the trees into big bags. I see little boys clean car windows. I think maybe …” Her face was pale and peaky.

  “Do you get enough to eat?” Clara asked.

  “Yes, I live up the stairs in a restaurant, so I get one meal a day”

  “Do you have friends here?”

  “Some friends. Yes.”

  “But you need work?”

  “Yes, madam, I need work.”

  “What's your name?”

  “Ania.”

  “Come with me, Ania,” Clara said.

  There were lengthy and wearying conversations with builders. The foreman told Clara that she'd never get all these changes past administration. They hated change, administration did. They feared open spaces, loved small individual rooms where people could talk in private. Clara chose fabrics for the curtains that would divide the cubicles, as well as blinds for the windows. She looked through office furniture catalogs marking desks and cabinets. The time flew by.

  She sent the little Polish girl scampering all over the place as she dealt with officialdom. Clara had typed out a letter explaining that Ania Prasky was the temporary assistant to Dr. Clara Casey and put in every initial and qualification that she possessed. They weren't going to get in the way of this battery of achievement.

  It was four o'clock in the afternoon and she hadn't even thought about lunch. Ania must have had no lunch either. She came running at Clara's command.

  “Lunch, Ania,” she said briskly. Across Ania's face went a shadow of anxiety.

  “No, madam, thank you, but I work,” she said.

  “A nice bite of lunch and good strong coffee and we will work even better.”

  The anxiety left Ania's face. Clara was going to pay for lunch. A day's wages wouldn't be broken into. She looked just like a happy child.

  Clara knew when Adi and Linda had been traveling the world when they were eighteen that kind people had often put them up for the night or given them a good hot meal when they needed one. It was a kind of currency: you were kind to other people's young, they were kind to yours.

  “Come on, Ania. This will put hair on our chests.”

  “It will?” Ania was startled.

  “No, not real hair. It's a figure of speech. Do you know what that is?”

  “Not really, madam.”

  “Well, I'll try to explain it to you over lunch,” Clara said, reaching for her jacket.

  Frank couldn't believe that this woman had taken on so much and so quickly. His desk was filled with forms, requisitioning this, that and the other. It was a day's work to get through his in-basket. Now he had an additional problem. He had heard that a small Polish girl with large, worried eyes had been seen running around at least half a dozen times, carrying more information. This Clara Casey seemed to be taking her new premises apart brick by brick. Each request or explanation was accompanied by a personal note from her on her own headed notepaper, which she must have had printed practically overnight. She always referred back to “our conversation” or “our agreement.” She was effectively making him part of her expansionist plan. He would have to stop her now before he was dragged down with her. Or else he could let her go ahead. Not the kind of woman he liked, but as a hospital colleague intent on getting things done, she was unbeatable.

  Frank decided to give her a day or two before stepping in. Surely in the next forty-eight hours she would exceed her brief so spectacularly it would be a case of self-destruct. In the meantime he would write her a cautious, meaningless letter covering his back, saying that all the plans would of course have to be sanctioned by the board.

  Barbara sank her teeth into the big hamburger. She had been on a diet for six weeks and had lost only six pounds. She had promised herself a treat if she got the new job in the heart clinic. She hadbeen thinking of new shoes or a big classy handbag. But it had been a long day and she hadn't the energy to go to the shops. She was meeting her friend Fiona for a celebration.

  Fiona was envious. It sounded like just the kind of job she would have loved.

  “But you didn't apply” Barbara was furious with Fiona. “You'd have got the job and we could have worked together, but no, you wouldn't fill out any forms.”

  “I didn't know she was going to be nice, that it would be open plan, that you'd have so much power. I thought it would be a ‘Come here, do that’ sort of job.”

  “Well, it's too late now. She's probably hired some awful battle-ax that I'll have to work with just because you wouldn't fill in a form.”

  “What's she like?” Fiona asked.

  “Dark-haired, groomed, sort of good-looking in an oldish way. A bit like that woman at the table over there. Hey, wait a minute— that is her.” Barbara's hamburger remained poised in the air.

  “She's eating here?” Fiona was openmouthed.

  “Yes, and that's a girl from the center, a foreign girl called Ania, with her. How extraordinary!” Barbara shook her head in disbelief. “The woman has to eat somewhere, I suppose …”

  But Fiona was already heading toward Clara.

  “Come back,” Barbara hissed, but it was too late. Fiona was already talking.

  “Dr. Casey, please forgive me interrupting your meal, but I am Fiona Ryan. I work with Barbara over there, who is going to start working with you next week. I meant to apply for a job there, but I thought it would be a bit routine. Barbara has been telling me all about it and it sounds brilliant. I was just wondering was it too late to send you my CV. I could leave it in tonight if you haven't picked anyone else yet.”

  Clara looked up and saw a pretty girl in her twenties with a broad smile. She radiated confidence and encouragement. Exactly the kind of person she wanted working with her. In the background she saw Barbara trying desperately to discourage her friend, but Fiona was having none of it.

  “Barbara is embarrassed, but I thought if I didn't ask you now I'd never know.”

  She looked bright and alert. It wouldn't hurt to read her CV.

  “Sure,” said Clara. “Leave it in as soon as you can and a phone number where we can get you. This is Ania, by the way.”

  “Hi, Ania. I'll leave you both to your food. Thank you very much.” And she was gone, back at the table with Barbara, who was babbling abuse at her.

  “Nice, isn't she?” Clara seemed to be treating Ania as an equal.

  Very flattered, Ania agreed. “She has a big smile. Will you employ her, madam?”

  “Definitely,” Clara said. “Now, Ania, will we have an ice cream, do you think? Or should we get back and get our clinic up and running?”

  “We go back now, madam,” Ania said. Lunch was good, but they must know where to draw the line.

  At seven o'clock Clara paid Ania her day's wages. “See you tomorrow at eight-thirty,” she said.

  Ania's face was split in half by her smile. “I work ag
ain tomorrow?” she said, clasping her hands.

  “Sure, if you'd like to. I mean, you're trained now. But you may have to do some cleaning and hauling furniture about. I'll help you, of course.”

  “Thank you, madam, with all of my heart,” Ania said. “And for my beautiful dinner too. You are a very kind lady doctor.”

  “That's not what they say about me at home.” Clara sighed. “They say I am barking mad.”

  Adi had brought her boyfriend, Gerry, home for supper. They were eating soup and a salad at the kitchen table when Clara came in. Adi got up to get some for her mother, but Clara waved it away.

  “Just a coffee, love. I had a huge meal in the middle of the afternoon. Burger and chips.”

  Gerry sent out waves of disapproval. “Meat! Very bad. Very bad indeed.”

  Adi was surprised. “That's not your normal speed, Mam.”

  “No, but things are far from normal these days,” Clara said, taking her coffee upstairs. She knocked on Lindas door.

  “Come in.” Linda was in bed and wearing a face mask. She looked like a mime artist or a child dressed up as a ghost for a fancy-dress party.

  “Sorry. I didn't think you'd be in bed this early,” Clara said.

  “No, this is just getting ready to go out. I'm off clubbing around eleven. There's a new place opening tonight, and I want to be in the whole of my health for it.”

  Linda looked at Clara as if expecting some rebuke or mention of keeping antisocial hours. Surely her mother would say something about the lack of books and study. But you could never second-guess Clara.