“Would you like me to stay and read to you?” Sister Carmody asked.
“No, I want to work on my crossword.”
She nodded and took a bell from her pocket and set it on the table with only a slight ringing, but the newspaper rattled irritably again.
“Matron’s just outside the door,” she whispered. “Ring if you need anything. If your pencil falls to the floor, you’re not to try to pick it up. You’re to ring for Matron. You’re not to get out of that chair. I’ll be back for you in time for lunch,” she said and tiptoed out.
It would take Red Face at least till lunch to read the Guardian. Mike would have to hurry him along. He opened the Herald, folded it noisily in half and then in quarters so the crossword was on top. “One across,” he said loudly. “‘Likely to make waves.’” He tapped his pencil on the table. “Make waves… betides?… no, it’s eight letters. Hurricane?”
Throat clearing and ominous rattlings.
“Sorry,” Mike called to him. “You wouldn’t know what ‘likely to make waves’ is, would you? Or ‘serving task with no end in sight’? Seven letters?”
Red Face snapped his Guardian shut, stood up, and stalked out. Mike bent intently over the crossword again for a few minutes, in case the matron came in, then rolled his wheelchair over closer to a potted palm and grabbed the trunk with one hand, testing to see if it was as sturdy as it looked.
It was. When he put his other hand around the trunk and raised himself slowly to standing, the fronds didn’t even move. He cautiously transferred some of his weight to his bad foot. So far, so good. The pain wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d thought it might be. He reached for the nearest bookcase, still holding on to the palm tree, and took a careful step toward it.
Oh, Christ. His nails dug into the wood of the bookcase. He balanced there, breathing out in hisses through his clenched teeth, trying to get the courage to take another step, praying the matron didn’t choose this moment to come in.
All right, next step. It’ll never get any better if you don’t do this, he told himself. He repositioned his hand on the bookcase, unclenched his teeth, and took another step. Jesus.
It took him half an hour to get two chairs’, another bookcase’s, and a curio cabinet’s length from his wheelchair, by which time he was drenched in sweat.
I shouldn’t have come this far, he thought. If he heard the matron coming, there’d be no way he could make it back to his wheelchair in time.
He began working his way back, incredibly grateful for the Victorians’ penchant for teeter-proof furniture. Bookcase, potted palm, wheelchair. He sank gratefully into it and sat there, panting for several minutes, then tackled the crossword, looking for something, anything, he could fill in quickly. “Island creature Peter Pan author shot”? What the hell could that be? “Doctor’s warning Hitler would ignore”?
He gave up and scrawled in some words. Just in time. Sister Carmody came in smiling. “Did you make progress?” she asked.
“Yes.” He tried to fold the puzzle to the inside before she could look at it, but she’d already snatched it from him. “Actually, no. I fell asleep. The fresh air made me drowsy.”
“And it’s given you a good color,” she said, pleased. “If it’s fine tomorrow, I’ll bring you up here again.” She handed him back the newspaper. “You’ve got eighteen down wrong, by the way. It’s not ‘deception.’”
That’s what you think, he said silently, but if he was going to pull this off, he couldn’t afford to have her get suspicious, so he spent the rest of the day figuring out crossword clues for the next time she took him up.
Saturday the Blitz began with the bombing of the docks and the East End, and for the next two days everyone was too busy with incoming casualties to take him up. But on Tuesday, Sister Carmody wheeled him up again, and he immediately filled in the answers he’d prepared in advance and then got out of his chair. This time he made it farther, though he still couldn’t walk more than a few steps without the furniture’s support, and every step hurt like hell.
Wednesday a foursome was playing bridge, and Thursday he was taken down for X-rays, but on Friday the sunroom was deserted. It had turned cold and threatened rain. “Are you positive you’ll be warm enough in