Chapter Twenty Three

It had been arranged that Poppy and Amy would visit Helena and Simeon at Pallister Hall the following day, partly for a break from the factory and partly to allow Poppy to visit her father at the Worcestershire clinic; her visits had dropped off somewhat as she spent more and more time with the business in London, resulting in yet more guilt in Poppy’s mind. In the event, a new argument intervened as Amy’s sullen fury exploded as they were packing their suitcases at Brook House.

‘I suppose you had fun with Simeon last night?’ she muttered, despite the previous topic of conversation being focussed on purely domestic matters.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ demanded Poppy, pausing as she folded a dress into her case.

‘I hardly saw you at the after race party,’ whined Amy. ‘You kept disappearing from the room. Where did you go? Was it with him? Was it? I’ve seen how he looks at you...’

‘It’s none of your damn business who I see, or when,’ snarled Poppy. ‘For your information, I spoke to numerous people who are now interested in buying a Thunderbolt after yesterday’s race.’ She angrily pulled a small black book from her suitcase and waved it in Amy’s face. ‘Fourteen orders! All in the book, with names, contact details and potential delivery dates!’

‘And was Simeon there when you were taking these orders?’ insisted Amy.

‘It wouldn’t matter if King Edward was there,’ snapped Poppy. ‘But at least King Edward wouldn’t be constantly sniping and moaning at me about every little bloody thing!’

‘Well I highly doubt you’d treat King Edward in the same disrespectful way you’ve been treating me.’ Amy scrunched up a fistful of socks and stuffed them into her carpet bag. ‘I knew you before you were famous!’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘I loved you when you only had one arm; who else would have even looked at you back then? You should be grateful – I’ve always been here for you! The least I can expect is the same. Hey, where are you going?’ she added in shock as Poppy strode from the room, hauling her suitcase after her. ‘Worcester, as arranged. I’ll see you when I get back.’

‘But, but...’ floundered Amy in angry despair. ‘We were going together!’

Poppy turned, her eyes glowing malignantly. ‘Not anymore,’ she rasped before leaving the house, leaving Amy to angrily pour out the scene in her diary.

Poppy stamped out to the garage, hurled her luggage into Thunderbus, started the car and swung out onto the driveway. She forced herself to drive slowly as she passed through the village but opened up on the main trunk road, the distance, speed and power cooling her temper. Such was her joy at being fast, free and alone, she decided to pay a surprise visit on her father when she reached Worcester. Parking at the bottom of the long driveway of the clinic, Poppy enjoyed the crisp autumn day and the crunch of the gravel under her boots as she strolled to the front doors.

‘Oh, er, Miss Orpington,’ stuttered the receptionist as Poppy entered. ‘We weren’t expecting you today.’

‘Change of plans,’ replied Poppy as she walked by. ‘I’ll just go and sit with my father for a while, and then I’ll see Doctor Baxter afterward.’ She ignored the strange bleating from the receptionist and made her way down the corridors until she reached her father’s room. She knocked and walked in, stopping in astonishment at what she saw.

Her father was lying on his bed, completely enveloped by huge towels wrapped tightly around his body, effectively swaddling him. His lack of freedom was emphasised by the strange manner in which he undulated from side to side like a bloated slug, feebly trying to free his arms and legs from their confinement, sweat pouring from his semi-conscious face as he struggled and groaned. Poppy moved forward, hardly believing the scene. The bed underneath was soaking wet from the towels, all of which were steaming slightly in the air. She laid her hand on her father’s shoulder and gasped at the heat enveloping him.

‘Ah, Miss Orpington,’ exclaimed a voice behind her, trying to act surprised. ‘You are here unexpectedly.’

Poppy blinked back angry tears as she turned to see Doctor Baxter outside the door. Like her father, he was sweating profusely, though clearly for different reasons. He was also panting, and Poppy guessed he had run down after being informed she had arrived. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ she demanded, hardly able to get the words out.

‘The latest in medical research,’ exclaimed Baxter, moving forward as though to take custody of Mr Orpington.

‘Wrapping someone in boiling hot towels is the latest in medical research?’

‘The towels are warm only, not hot,’ replied Baxter, quickly stretching out and touching the towels as he spoke. His face betrayed his relief at finding he was correct.

‘Given the sopping wet linen underneath, the towels must have been there for some considerable time,’ snarled Poppy, pushing Baxter’s hand away from her father. ‘If they are this hot now, they must have been boiling when applied.’

‘No, no, warm only, to help the circulation,’ insisted Baxter.

Poppy pulled the topmost towel from around her father’s shoulders, exposing the lobster-red skin underneath. ‘Light skin burns,’ she hissed in fury, well acquainted with scalds from motor racing.

‘It’s medically proven to help the circulation,’ stuttered Baxter. ‘We will apply soothing creams as soon as the treatment is over.’

‘The treatment is over now,’ snarled Poppy, backing the doctor up to the wall. ‘For months you have done nothing to improve my father’s health and now you’re restraining and damn-near torturing him! You will get him ready to be moved to my house outside London and you will deliver him there tonight.’

‘I can’t recommend at this delicate stage of treatment...’ began Baxter before being cut off.

‘Tonight! And if you don’t, I will bring a medical negligence and assault suit against you and your hospice so fast you’ll be bankrupt and exposed by the end of the week. Do I make myself clear?’

‘I will start the necessary procedures,’ muttered Baxter, trying to save as much face as possible.

Poppy spun on her heel and stormed down the corridor to the reception area, where she grabbed the phone on the desk. ‘Worcester 5567,’ she snapped into the receiver, giving the number for Helena’s private boudoir rather than any other number within Pallister Hall, which ran the risk of Simeon answering. She glared at the receptionist as she tried to protest that the phone was for staff only. ‘Hello, Helena? I’m not going to be able to join you this weekend after all.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Helena’s voice in concern. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I’m taking my father from this hospice and I’m going to sue them for negligence and torture of the patients.’

‘Torture?’

‘I’ve just found him confined in burning hot towels, in pain and unable to escape from the heat, so I’m taking him away.’

‘Confined? You mean he was strapped in?’

‘There was no need for a strap; the towels were so tight around him he couldn’t move.’

‘What on earth was the medical reason for that?’

‘According to that fraud Baxter, it’s the latest medical procedure. We’ll see what the medical council have to say about it.’

‘What are your immediate plans with your father?’

‘He’ll have to be taken to Brook House. I’ll find private nurses from somewhere to look after him there.’

‘I know a doctor in London who can probably arrange the cover; shall I give him a call?’

‘That would be very kind,’ whispered Poppy, suddenly feeling she was going to cry at hearing someone being helpful and sympathetic. Her guilt took the opportunity of asking if she deserved a friend like Helena, increasing Poppy’s misery.

‘Not a problem; I’ll give him your address and he can send the nurses over, ready to meet you’

‘Thank you, Helena,’ replied Poppy, making a determined effort to speak clearly and normally. ‘I do apologise I can’t see you this weekend.’

‘Don’t you worry about it,’ soothed Helena. ‘Call me when you get to Brook House and let me know how things stand.’

‘I will. Thank you again.’ Poppy dropped the phone back into its cradle and turned as she heard footsteps behind her; Baxter was striding up the corridor, trying to look official by hiding behind a clip board.

‘Your father is being prepared now,’ he said, staring intently at the paperwork on the clipboard rather than at Poppy. ‘He should be ready to go in the ambulance in just a few minutes. Here are the final bills, including the costs of moving him out of business hours.’ He thrust the board at Poppy, who snatched it from him.

‘Business hours?’ she demanded. ‘I’ll remember you said that, Baxter; you clearly have no sympathy for the people here. You just view them as a way of making money.’

‘We are at the forefront of psychiatric care,’ sniffed Baxter, ‘as any medical council will attest.’⁸⁴

‘You’ll be attesting it in court when you try to sue me for non-payment of these bills,’ replied Poppy. She squeezed her mechanical hand around the clipboard, splintering the cheap wood and crushing the bills.

‘Then you leave us no choice and we will be taking legal action,’ blustered Baxter, suddenly looking rather nervous.

‘I look forward to it,’ snapped Poppy, looking past him to where her father was being wheeled along the corridor toward the rear exit. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, one of us has to care for my father and it quite clearly isn’t you.’

Having seen her father safely conveyed into the back of the wooden ambulance, Poppy followed in Thunderbus at frustratingly low speeds all the way back to Brook House. There, she found two nurses waiting for her, as well as a confused and petulant Amy.

‘Poppy, what is going on?’ she demanded as the ambulance reversed toward the front door. ‘Why are there two nurses here saying they’re going to look after your father? I’ve told them he’s in Worcester but they won’t believe me – oh!’ Amy stuttered to a halt as the back of the ambulance opened to reveal Poppy’s father on a wheeled stretcher.

‘I’ve brought him home,’ said Poppy, her voice suddenly tired. She felt drained by the confrontation with Baxter and the long, slow drive back to Greenford Parva.

‘But why?’ exclaimed Amy. ‘We can’t have him here with us!’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘We can’t look after him, can we?’ mumbled Amy, suddenly aware her reaction looked rather selfish.

‘That’s why I’m going to be employing nurses,’ replied Poppy, coldly.

‘But where will he stay?’

‘He can have the main bedroom; it’s the biggest and the nurses will have room to sleep in there also.’

‘But where will we go?’

‘I don’t know; choose another room,’ snapped Poppy. ‘Any you want. I’ll be taking the blue room at the front of the house.’

‘Don’t you want...’ Amy’s voice dropped, even though the nurses and attendants had now gone inside and were busy unstrapping Poppy’s father from the trolley.

‘Don’t I what?’ asked Poppy, pausing on the threshold of her house.

‘Don’t you want to share a room anymore?’

‘It’s not really going to be possible now, is it? Not now we have my father and strangers staying with us,’ said Poppy, flatly. Another sliver of self-disgust pierced her soul; was she using her father’s presence as an excuse to shift the parameters of her unhappy relationship with Amy? To effectively begin the process of breaking up with her? ‘You know we have to be discreet.’

‘Did you even consider me when you decided on this?’ demanded Amy, anger rising in her face.

‘No. I was thinking about my father being abused at the hospice. Sorry, was I supposed to be considering something else?’

‘Oh, so my feelings don’t matter? My position isn’t important? Is that what you’re saying?’ demanded Amy, hoping to force some kind of admission from Poppy that she, Amy, did matter in her life, for this would give Amy some power in the relationship.

‘For God’s sake,’ Poppy rubbed her face so Amy couldn’t see her eyes were watering. ‘The doctor’s burned my father – do you understand that? And now you want to make it into something about you, and you alone,’ Poppy could barely keep her voice down. ‘I’ve had enough of your selfishness and narcissism, do you hear me? I’ve had enough of it!’

‘Then I’ll go,’ screeched Amy. ‘I’ll leave you and then we’ll see how you get on without me!’

‘Fine. Then go.’

‘And what about the TT at the weekend?’ demanded Amy, a wheedling tone in her voice as she realised Poppy was not rising to the threat.

‘What about it?’

‘Are you still going?’

‘If Dad has settled by then.’

‘And do you want me to come with you?’

Poppy looked at Amy’s sullen face. ‘As I’m not using Thunderbus, no.’

‘So, you’re running off instead of staying here to look after your own flesh and blood?’

Poppy turned away, the truth of Amy’s words hitting her before speaking carefully over her shoulder. ‘As I’ve signed a contract with Victor I don’t have much choice, but given I have professional help here, I know he will be cared for, so it’s the best I can do right now.’

Poppy strode into the house before Amy could say anything else and approached her father. ‘Come on, Dad, you’re home, now,’ she said encouragingly as she knelt down by the stretcher. Mr Orpington was now sitting up and looking weakly around him.

‘Poppy?’ he said, doubtfully, sounding as though he were half asleep. ‘Where are we?’

‘Our new home,’ explained Poppy, giving him a gentle hug. ‘Come on; let me show you to your room.’ She helped him up with her mechanical arm, much to the relief of the ambulance crew who had been getting worried about the durability of the wheeled stretcher underneath the immense frame of Mr Orpington.

‘Workshop?’ asked Mr Orpington, causing the nurses to glance at Poppy in puzzlement.

‘Er; no, not here,’ began Poppy, ready to explain once again they no longer lived over the old workshop in Stourbridge.

‘But, I must, I must get to the workshop,’ mumbled Mr Orpington.

Poppy gazed at him in puzzlement; she knew his fractured mind insisted he had to prepare for Thunderbus’ debut at Purley, but his uncoordinated speech and movements were worrying her intensely. Why did he appear so helpless?⁸⁵

‘You will, Dad, you will,’ said Poppy, ‘but not until you’ve rested and had some food. Food, rest, then workshop.’ She watched as her father slowly assimilated this before his vacant expression returned. ‘Food?’

‘Food,’ mumbled Mr Orpington.

‘Good,’ smiled Poppy, fooling herself that this would be the first sign of some sort of breakthrough. ‘This way to your room; you settle yourself down and we’ll see what’s in the pantry.’

⁸⁴ Unlikely, as there was a sharp distinction between the medical and psychiatric professions back then, with the former looking down at the latter as being little more than a collection of charlatans. Only when psychiatry became a huge money-making machine from the 1960s onward did its reputation improve in the UK, though even today it lags far behind continental health care and practices.

⁸⁵ Mr Orpington was, of course, heavily sedated. That Poppy did not realise is scarcely her fault; the invoices from Baxter’s hospice did not list the tranquilisers used to keep the patient docile. Instead, they charged over the retail price for the drugs and hid the charges under the heading “general care.”