Part 27 (1/2)

'Don't concern yourself with it.'

'It matters to me. Anyway, I was going to see Munro. Munro needs to be told what we found.'

'Not yet. You're not to be ”agitated” - Bernat's orders.'

'Janet, good G.o.d-'

'Shut up.'

He sighed. 'I feel ashamed.'

'Because somebody shot you in the back? You could hardly have prevented it.'

'I should have. I should have seen it coming.'

'How?'

'I need to talk to Munro.'

'Not yet.' She opened her magazine. 'Soon.'

'You sound like Bernat. ”Soon.”'

Next day, they got him out of bed. Two nursing sisters and the doctor helped him to try to stand; he swayed for a few seconds, and they put him back down.

'You must make an effort, Mr Denton. Doctor's orders.'

'Go away, sister.'

'Get up.'

'Leave me alone.'

'Mr Denton, get up! Oh, why are you so stubborn?'

'Because I can't move my leg! Because I'm a cripple, you stupid b.i.t.c.h!'

CHAPTER TWENTY.

The surgeon who had removed the piece of bullet from near his spine was named Gallichan, a black-bearded, handsome man in his forties with the sort of good belly that announced success and appet.i.te. Presumably Irish, he was in fact as English as the new king, whom he slightly resembled. He wore fawn trousers, a broadcloth morning coat in blue-black, a waistcoat that was daring in that it didn't match and was silk, not wool - in fact an anachronism, pale grey with embroidered floral designs.

'I'm told you had trouble standing,' he said genially.

'I'd have collapsed if they hadn't held me up.'

'Of course you would.' Gallichan smiled as if this was the best news in the world. 'Let's have a look at this leg of yours.' The sister pulled back the sheet. Denton didn't want to look at it, forced himself to: the leg looked pasty-white, inert, like something made from dough. Gallichan said 'Mmm-hmmm' several times, very low, and hummed something unidentifiable. 'Does that hurt?'

'What?'

'Mmm.' He pushed the leg this way and that. 'Raise your foot, please.'

'I can't.'

'Raise your knee.'

He couldn't do that, either.

Gallichan took a tool from his bag and drew it up the sole of Denton's foot. Denton felt something like the weakest of electric currents.

'Feel that?'

'A little.'

'Aha!'

Gallichan sent the sister away and then moved the sheet aside to reveal Denton's groin. 'Feel that?'

'Yes.'

'What did I do?'

'You felt my, you know - parts.'

'We say t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es; I'd understand ”nuts” or ”b.a.l.l.s”, too, if Latin bothers you. Feel that? And that? Mmm-hmm.' He pulled the sheet back and arranged it over the leg.

'Well? I want to know the worst.'

Gallichan pulled a white metal chair away from a wall and placed it near the foot of the bed. He sat, crossed his legs and leaned back with one arm over the back of the chair. He looked like a man about to light up a cigar, perhaps order a small brandy. He hooked his left thumb into the armhole of his waistcoat. 'I was called in again because I am what is called a nerve specialist. Some think me a nervy specialist.' He laughed. Denton didn't. 'I did the surgery to remove the bit of lead that had given up the ghost near your spine. It's a tricky place. Rather like Piccadilly Circus - traffic coming in from all directions and rus.h.i.+ng about and going out all over the shop.' He looked into his satchel, found a piece of paper and a patent fountain pen and put the paper down on the bedsheet. After a moment, he cleared the tray on the bedside table of its water pitcher and gla.s.s and put the paper on it and began to draw. 'The lower vertebrae look like something with wings, in profile - not important; I'm not Michelangelo - at any rate, there are holes along the side through which blood vessels and the nerves pa.s.s. Your bit of bullet lodged like so - close to the nerves and vessels but not in in them, do you see? If it had gone into them, we'd have had the devil of a time, but as it was, we were able to get in and out - seventeen minutes, quickly done - and not have to do any cutting in nerve tissue. So the problem is bruising, not cutting. You follow me?' them, do you see? If it had gone into them, we'd have had the devil of a time, but as it was, we were able to get in and out - seventeen minutes, quickly done - and not have to do any cutting in nerve tissue. So the problem is bruising, not cutting. You follow me?'

Denton nodded. The drawing nauseated him.

'Bruising, not cutting. Tissue is elastic, you see. The piece of bullet struck, as it were, a net of India rubber, which absorbed its velocity by stretching and yielding to it, then returning to its shape. But the yielding bruised the nearby tissues, eh? The nerves and vessels coming out on the right side of the vertebrae.' He blacked in the nerves and vessels on the drawing. He looked at Denton for a response and, getting none, put the pen down and sat back again and resumed his old position. 'The nerves there go to the right leg and to areas of the groin.'

'Get to it. Is it permanent?'

Gallichan frowned, the kind of man who despite his jollity was vain and didn't like to be denied his accustomed veneration. 'I don't give snap judgements.'

'How bad is it?'

'You can't stand; you can't move the leg. You have feeling in the sole of the foot, the testes and the glans p.e.n.i.s. With time, I think, the leg can be made to function.'

'Function? ' '

'I believe it will bear weight again. Some degree of movement, we might hope.'

Denton stared at him.