“I hope to Christ you’re right,” said Janet. How many more disappointments could there possibly be?
At Akrotiri, Hart actually had to get from the car to complete the necessary formalities: an armed escort entered the limousine next to the driver to take them through the military complex. The soldier pointed out the infirmary buildings when they were still some way off and Hart came forward eagerly in his seat: his leg began pumping up and down, a nervous mannerism.
There must have been the sort of warning of their approach that there had been when Janet had made her entry into the American embassy (a week, a month, an eon ago?) because Professor Robards emerged immediately from the hospital entrance when the car stopped. Janet had expected the psychologist to be wearing a white coat and maybe carrying some tool of his trade, whatever a tool of his trade was; instead he had on the same crumpled jacket and check shirt of their previous encounter. Janet wondered if the man bathed.
“How is he?” Janet demanded.
Robards smiled. “Better than I expected. I want a day or two to be sure-the damned press conference can wait-but he’s better than I expected him to be.”
Janet was conscious of a stir within her which she put down as relief. Was it enough? she asked herself. She said: “That’s good. I’m very glad,” disappointed in herself as she spoke. From the emptiness of her voice she could have been speaking about a casual acquaintance.
Robards didn’t notice. He said: “It’s more than good: it’s astonishing. Your fiance is one hell of a tough guy, mentally as well as physically.”
My fiance, thought Janet. Why didn’t she feel any longer that John Sheridan was her fiance? She said: “I can see him right away?”
“He’s insisting on it,” said Robards, smiling again.
“Is there anything I should say? Shouldn’t say?”
Robards made a sharp, dismissive gesture with his head. “Don’t hold back on anything. If you feel like saying something, say it. He’s quite tense, coiled-up. He’d recognize in a moment any sort of hesitation: be unsettled by it.”
Janet walked with the psychologist through gleaming, polished corridors, conscious of the man’s crepe-soled shoes squeaking over the tiles. She expected the hospital smell of disinfectant and formaldehyde but it wasn’t present and then she remembered it was not physical injury that was treated in this wing. Having posed the question she was unsure what she was going to say.
John Sheridan was in a single-bedded side ward, an all-glass cubicle where he was always visible to the nurses from their central control desk area. There were three nurses at the desk and another was leaving Sheridan’s room as they approached. Through the glass Janet could see Sheridan staring directly ahead, eyes unfocused. His hair remained as thick as it had always been but it was almost completely white now. His cheeks were sunken and emaciated and his eyes were blinking. Both thin hands were outstretched, without movement, on top of the sheet, and the veins were corded black across their backs.
“Are you coming in with me?” asked Janet, suddenly needing support.
“Do you want me to?”
“I don’t… No… perhaps not…” she stumbled, awkwardly.
“It would probably be better, just the two of you.”
“Yes.”
“But if you want…?”
“No.”
“I’ll be at the desk: all you need to do is call.”
“Yes,” Janet accepted. So what the hell was she going to say?
“Good luck,” encouraged Robards. Janet wished he hadn’t said it.
She stopped in the frame of the doorway, looking in. For a few brief moments he did not appear to see her and then recognition came into his eyes and his face filled with happiness.
“Hello,” he said. “Hello, my darling.” His voice was thin and uneven.
“Hello,” said Janet. It sounded vacuous and inadequate. Which it was. Go on in! she urged herself; go in! go in! She did at last, hesitantly, her feet sliding one after the other over the polished floor. Janet got to the bedside and smiled down, and when he smiled back she was shocked to see that some of his teeth were missing. She didn’t know if she’d kept her reaction from showing. She reached tentatively out and he stretched his hand up to hers: his skin felt strange, like paper. An old person’s hand, she thought. Kiss him! She had to kiss him!
Janet started to lean forward but Sheridan twitched back, turning his head away. “No!” he said.
“Why not?”
“Not clean,” he mumbled. “Not clean yet.”
“What do you mean, not clean?”
“Haven’t washed, not properly, for a long time,” said Sheridan. “They bathed me this morning but there’s some skin infection, from the dirt. I hate dirt!”
He always had, thought Janet, remembering the fastidious apartment. Concentrating, she saw there was filth ingrained in the creases on his hands and beneath his fingernails: his chalk-white face was patched with pink and there were occasional grazes where the shaver had snagged. She said: “I want to kiss you!”
“No!” The voice was tremulous, tears close. Sheridan said: “It’s nothing serious, the infection. They say it’ll clear up in days.”
Still with her hand in his Janet managed to pull a chair closer to the bed, to sit down. As close as this she could smell at last the disinfectant or whatever they were treating him with. She said: “It’s good to see you, my darling.” Vacuous and inadequate, she thought again.
“The doctor, Robards, he told me what you’ve done.”
If only you knew what I’d done, my darling, Janet thought. She said: “I had to get you out.”
“I never thought it would happen,” said Sheridan. “Not really. I refused to give in, wouldn’t give in because if I had the bastards would have won, but deep down I never thought I was going to get out alive.”
“Did they hurt you badly?” asked Janet. At once she regretted the question: don’t hold back on anything, she recalled.
Sheridan nodded. “In the beginning. They wanted to break me: make me beg…” He pulled his lips back, an ugly expression. “Lost some teeth. I think they bruised my kidneys, too. Peed a lot of blood, but it’s stopped now. Robards said they’d check for permanent damage. They didn’t maim me: threatened to cut fingers off but they didn“t.”
“Poor darling: my poor darling!” Janet covered the bony, fragile hand with both of hers, frightened against hurting him if she squeezed too hard.
“It was you,” said Sheridan, confusingly. “That’s how I resisted them: thinking of you. Although, as time went on, I began to believe I’d never get out, I still kept thinking of you, knowing that you’d be waiting. That’s why I begged, in the end. Didn’t mean anything and it stopped me being beaten: reduced the risk of my not getting back to you.”
“Don’t, my love! Please don’t!” said Janet, begging herself. Sheridan was a blurred outline through her tears. It was exactly how Robards had predicted he would hang on, she remembered.
“It’s all right,” assured Sheridan, their roles reversed. “It doesn’t upset me to talk about it: they didn’t really win. Just thought they did. So I’m not ashamed or anything silly like that.”
“I don’t think you’ve got anything at all to be ashamed of, my darling,” said Janet, with feeling.
“We should have been married by now: I thought about that, too.”
Janet swallowed. “So did I.”
“Have we got the house?”
She nodded. “All waiting.”
“I planned things,” disclosed Sheridan. “That’s how I kept my sanity, thinking about all the pictures and plans you sent and imagining how we’d fix it up…” The man smiled, almost embarrassed. “Every room: carpets, drapes, stuff in the kitchen, things like that. But it was only a game for me, a way of staying sane. We needn’t do any of it, of course.”
“We’ll fix it up however you want,” said Janet. How could she make a promise like that?
“I want so much to get back,” he said. His lips began to tremble and momentarily he had to stop talking, clamping them shut against a collapse. “To get back where things are familiar: where I’m sure. Don’t want to be unsure again,” he picked up. Sheridan moved one of his hands, to cover hers. “Remember what I said a long time ago about never going away again?”