Cruel Legacy

It had amused Elizabeth to see David’s almost fawning attitude towards him, and it had hurt her at the same time when she compared it with the manner he adopted towards Richard.

In contrast, Blake had almost made a point of not just drawing Richard into the conversation, but of talking to him rather than to David.

‘Your husband is a first-rate surgeon,’ he commented now as they ate their first c

ourse.

‘Yes,’ Elizabeth agreed, knowing that it was the truth.

On her other side David, who had heard his comment, had started to frown, quite obviously disliking it.

‘And a very innovative one as well,’ Blake continued. ‘I was speaking with one of his patients this morning, a woman on whom he had had to perform rather radical breast surgery. She was telling me that Richard had deliberately timed her operation in order to get the maximum benefit from her monthly cycle.’

To her left Elizabeth could hear David’s derisory snort, but she didn’t turn her head or betray in any way that she had heard him, simply concentrating instead on Blake.

‘Richard had read a report which suggested that female patients had a better chance of recovery during certain phases of their menstrual cycle and he wanted to give her the optimum chance of recovery, especially in view of the serious nature of her operation. For a woman to lose her breast can’t be anything but traumatic, no matter how well she is prepared for it…’

‘No, I agree…’

‘Organising operations by the phases of the menstrual cycle… Now I’ve heard everything,’ David commented acidly. ‘My God, no wonder the General’s having so many problems… Perhaps it’s the staff you ought to be counselling, Blake, not the patients,’ he added with false jocularity.

Elizabeth knew that Richard must have heard his comment, but she stifled her own anger. In her view it simply confirmed what she had always thought of David, that he should use a semi-social occasion to try to humiliate Richard and score points off him was uncalled for.

‘On the contrary,’ she heard Blake contradicting coolly. ‘In my view Richard is to be commended for his farsightedness. Far too many people on the surgical side overlook the fact that a human being is not merely a physical body. And I was very interested to see that Richard’s patient is making a far better and mentally healthier recovery from her operation than a woman at the Northern who had much less radical surgery.

‘After all, what are we about if we are not about helping people not merely to survive, but to live well and happily? Curing a patient isn’t simply a matter of cutting away a piece of diseased flesh, and the more far-sighted surgeons, the ones who have the best overall success-rates, are the ones who recognise that fact.’

On her right David sat silently, but Elizabeth could feel his irritation and she wondered, a little dismayed, how much inadvertent harm Blake’s unexpected championing of Richard might have done.

Anxious to steer the conversation into less controversial channels, she asked Blake quietly, ‘Have you found anywhere to live yet or…?’

‘Yes,’ he told her. ‘But finding a house is the least of my problems. The reason I’ve come back to this country is because I’ve suddenly and totally unexpectedly become the sole guardian of my late cousin’s only child, a girl. I’m afraid to say that until I received the news of my cousin’s and her husband’s deaths I’d virtually forgotten that Anya existed.

‘My cousin was always something of a rebel,’ he explained. ‘She dropped out of university when she became involved with a group of South American refugees who had been granted political asylum here. She went out to South America to work for the cause and it was there that she met her husband; in actual fact she helped to break him out of gaol. Luckily for them they managed to get out of the country before anyone caught up with them.

‘At first when Lisa married Miguel I worried that he was using her, but in fact they were very much in love with one another. Both of them were inclined to be impetuous… take risks. Both of them thrived on danger and excitement.

‘There’s a small enclave of fellow refugees based in Leeds and they went to live there. They are a very tight-knit, wholly politically motivated community whose entire existence is devoted to freeing their homeland. An idealistic and impossible goal, I’m afraid, but one to which Lisa devoted herself whole-heartedly. Luckily Anya was born in this country and has British citizenship.

‘Lisa was always a very dramatic character, and when she asked me if she could name me as Anya’s legal guardian she dropped a lot of dark hints about political assassinations and so forth, and to be honest I agreed because it seemed the easiest thing to do; she was always very passionate about any cause she adopted, passionate and persistent… I must admit, though, that then I never expected their lives to end so suddenly…’

‘Oh, no… how awful,’ Elizabeth began. ‘One reads about such things, but…’

‘No, no,’ Blake assured her. ‘The cause of their deaths was not politically connected in any way; it was far more mundane. A car accident. None of the group had two pennies to rub together, and the police said after the accident that it was a wonder the car Lisa was driving had got them on to the motorway in the first place. They had no tax, of course, no insurance—such conventional bureaucratic necessities were anathema to Lisa, even if they had been able to afford them. Needless to say there was no provision for Anya… their flat was rented…’

Blake was frowning now.

‘I suspect that, like me, Lisa had long ago forgotten asking me to be Anya’s guardian and godfather, but in law that is exactly what I am, even if I am virtually a complete stranger to her.

‘But if she’s part of such a tight-knit community, surely they…’

‘No,’ Blake told her, guessing what she was about to say. ‘As I said, the lives of the whole community revolve around overthrowing the government at home, and their children, while I am sure they are loved and wanted, are left very much to their own devices, and that includes in some cases not even speaking English properly, never mind attending school.

‘There’s no way the Social Services people would allow Anya to remain in that kind of environment. That’s why I came home…’

‘But you’re not sure you’ve done the right thing,’ Elizabeth guessed.

He gave her a wry smile. ‘Does it show that much? I reacted impulsively, I have to admit—not always a good or wise thing to do. Legally I am responsible for Anya, nothing can change that, but the authorities, Social Services, have made it clear that they aren’t too happy with the situation. For a child, any child to lose his or her parents has to be a very traumatic experience, and to add to that trauma by uprooting her from all that’s familiar to her and take her to a completely unfamiliar, unknown environment, an unknown country, which is what I’d have been doing if I’d taken her back to America with me…’ He shook his head.