Tunnels 02, Deeper
to what was inside or, indeed, if there was anyone inside.
Essentially a shiny metal coffin on wheels.
As she watched, the matron and two porters emerged from the doorway to fetch the cart. The porters wheeled it into Old Mrs. L's room as the matron remained outside. Spotting Mrs. Burrows, she walked slowly down the corridor toward her.
"No. That's not what I think--?" Mrs. Burrows began.
With a slow shake of her head, the matron told her all she needed to know.
"But Old Mrs. L was so... young ," Mrs. Burrows gasped, forgetting herself in her distress and using her nickname for the patient. "What happened?"
The matron shook her head again.
"What happened?" Mrs. Burrows repeated.
The matron's voice was hushed, as if she didn't want any of the other patients to hear. "The virus," she said.
"Not this thing?" Mrs. Burrows asked, indicating her eyes, which, just like the matron's, were still red and puffy.
"I'm afraid so. Got into her optic nerve, and then spread through her brain. The doctor said it's doing that in a number of cases." She took a long breath. "Especially those with defective immune systems."
"I can't believe it. My goodness, poor Mrs. L," Mrs. Burrows gasped, genuinely meaning it. It was a rare moment: She was feeling compassion for someone who really existed, not just for some actor playing a part on one of her soaps.
"At least it was quick," the matron said.
"Quick?" mumbled Mrs. Burrows, frowning with bewilderment.
"Yes, very. She complained she was feeling sick just before lunch, then became quite disoriented and went into a coma. There was nothing we could do to resuscitate her." The matron pressed her lips together and lowered her gaze to the floor. Taking out a handkerchief, she dabbed first one eye, then the other. Mrs. Burrows couldn't tell if this was from the continuing effects of the eye infection or because she was upset. "This epidemic is serious, you know. And if the virus mutates..." the matron started to confide in a low voice.
Just then the porters pushed the paradise cart back out into the corridor, and the matron hurried off to join them.
"So quick," Mrs. Burrows said again, trying to come to terms with the death.
* * * * *
Later that afternoon in the dayroom, Mrs. Burrows was so preoccupied by Old Mrs. L's untimely demise that she wasn't paying much attention to the television. She'd been restless in her bedroom, so decided to seek solace in her favorite chair -- the one place that usually brought her a measure of contentment. But when she arrived, she found that there were already quite a few patients lounging in front of the television. Their daily schedule of activities was still disrupted from the lack of staff, so they were mostly left to their own devices.
Mrs. Burrows had been unusually subdued, allowing the other patients to dictate the choice of program, but when an item came on the news, she suddenly spoke out.
"Hey!" she exclaimed, pointing at the screen. "It's him! I know him!"
"Who is he, then?" a woman inquired, looking up from a jigsaw puzzle.
"Don't you recognize him? He was in here!" Mrs. Burrows said, her excited eyes riveted to the report.
"What's his name?" the jigsaw lady asked, holding a piece of the puzzle in her hand.
Mrs. Burrows hadn't a clue what his name was, so she pretended she was so intent on the television that she hadn't heard.
"And Professor Eastwood had been assigned to work on the virus?" came the question from the interviewer offscreen.
The man on screen nodded -- the same man with the distinguished voice who had spoken to Mrs. Burrows in a rather disparaging way at breakfast only days ago. He even had on the same tweed jacket he'd been wearing then.
"He's an important doctor, you know," Mrs. Burrows told the handful of people in the row behind her in a self-important way, as if she was confiding in them about a close friend. "He likes boiled eggs for breakfast."
Someone in the room repeated "boiled eggs," as though she was thoroughly impressed by the information.
"That's right," Mrs. Burrows confirmed.
"Shhh! Listen!" a woman in a lemon-yellow bathrobe hissed from the back row.
Mrs. Burrows tipped her head back to glare at the woman, but was too intrigued by the news report to take it any further.
"Yes," boiled-egg-man answered the interviewer. "Professor Eastwood and his research team at St. Edmund's were working round the clock to identify the strain. By all accounts, they were making good progress, although
Weitere Kostenlose Bücher