Doomsday Book (Oxford Time Travel, #1) - Connie Willis Page 0,237
walk me home from the Infirmary last night, and I said, ‘I won’t have you risking your health for me!’ ”
She sat down next to the bed and opened her Bible. “It’s pure negligence, allowing that boy to visit you. But I suppose it’s no more than what I should have expected from the way you run your college. Mr. Finch has become a complete tyrant in your absence. He simply flew at me in a rage yesterday when I requested an extra roll of lavatory paper—”
“I want to see William,” Dunworthy said.
“Here!” she sputtered. “In hospital?!” She shut her Bible with a snap. “I simply won’t allow it. There are still a great many infectious cases and poor Willy—”
Is in the linen room with my nurse, he thought. “Tell him I wish to see him as soon as possible,” he said.
She brandished the Bible at him like Moses bringing down the plagues on Egypt. “I intend to report your callous indifference to your students’ well-being to the Head of the History Faculty,” she said and stormed out.
He could hear her complaining loudly in the corridor to someone, presumably the nurse, because William appeared almost immediately, smoothing down his hair.
“I need injections of streptomycin and gamma globulin,” Dunworthy said. “I also need to be discharged from hospital, as does Badri Chaudhuri.”
He nodded. “I know. Colin told me you’re going to try to retrieve your historian.” He looked thoughtful. “I know this nurse …”
“A nurse can’t give an injection without authorization by a doctor, and the discharges will require authorization as well.”
“I know a girl up in Records. When do you want this by?”
“As soon as possible.”
“I’ll get right on it. It might take two or three days,” he said, and started out. “I met Kivrin once. She was at Balliol to see you. She’s very pretty, isn’t she?”
I must remember to warn her about him, Dunworthy thought, and realized he had actually begun to believe he might be able to rescue her in spite of everything. Hold on, he thought, I’m coming. Two or three days.
He spent the afternoon walking up and down the corridor, trying to build his strength up. Badri’s ward had an “Absolutely No Visitors Allowed” placard on each of the doors, and the sister fixed him with a watery blue eye each time he approached them.
Colin came in, wet and breathless, with a pair of boots for Dunworthy. “She has guards everywhere,” he said. “Mr. Finch says to tell you the net’s ready except he can’t find anyone to do med support.”
“Tell William to arrange it,” he said. “He’s taking care of the discharges and the streptomycin injection.”
“I know. I’ve got to deliver a message to Badri from him. I’ll be back.”
He did not come back, and neither did William. When Dunworthy walked to the phone to ring Balliol, the sister caught him halfway and escorted him back to his room. Either her tightened defenses included Mrs. Gaddson as well, or Mrs. Gaddson was still angry over William. She did not come all afternoon.
Just after tea a pretty nurse he hadn’t seen before came in with a syringe. “Sister’s been called away on an emergency,” she said.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the syringe.
She tapped the console keyboard with one finger of her free hand. She looked at the screen, tapped in a few more characters, and came around to inject him. “Streptomycin,” she said.
She did not seem nervous or furtive, which meant William must have managed the authorization somehow. She injected the largish syringe into the cannula, smiled at him, and went out. She had left the console on. He got out of bed and went round to read what was on the screen.
It was his chart. He recognized it because it looked like Badri’s and was as unreadable. The last entry read “ICU 15802691 14-1-55 1805 150/RPT 1800CRS IMSTMC 4ML/q6h NHS40-211-7 M AHRENS.”
He sat down on the bed. Oh, Mary.
William must have obtained her access code, perhaps from his friend in Records, and fed it into the computer. Records was no doubt far behind, swamped by the paperwork of the epidemic, and had not yet got to Mary’s death. They would catch the error someday, though the resourceful William had no doubt already arranged for its erasure.
He scrolled the screen back through his chart. There were m. ahrens entries up through 8-1-55, the day she had died. She must have nursed him until she could no longer stand. No wonder her heart had stopped.